The Incendiary: A Story of Mystery

by William Augustine Leahy

"Nobody but the oaf I described."

"Wade out, Turkey," the Whistler was calling to his barefoot companions. He seemed shy of putting his boat ashore. Since the arrival of the officer all three urchins had become singularly distant and distressed. Was this only the natural awe which slum children feel in the presence of the police? Or was it conscience that made cowards of them all?

"Come ashore, young feller. The gentleman wants to thank you," said Chandler.

"We must look for the fishing-pole under the pier," answered the Whistler. It was true that he had thrown his rod away when they heard the loud splash of Shagarach's body in the water. But his manner indicated that while what he said might be true, it was not the fact. Turkey and Toot also had shown unseemly haste in wading out to the dory with the Whistler's outer raiment. The Whistler was digging the blade in for his first stroke when Shagarach addressed him in a tone that made him pause.

"My young friends, I am too weak to thank you to-night. To-morrow is Saturday. Could you call at my office in the morning, 31 Putnam street? Mr. Shagarach. Can you come?"

"Yes, sir," answered the boys, with more submission than gladness in their voices. All the gamin's impudence melts at a touch of true kindness. The boys waited a moment, then disappeared into the night, while Shagarach, with the policeman's assistance, made his way through the gathering crowd to the refectory.

It was the misfortune of Jacob, Shagarach's office boy, to be the owner of a most preposterous nose, the consciousness of which led him to fear society and shun the mannerless multitude. Boys of his own age in particular he dreaded, as a tame crow is said to fear nothing so much as a wild one. So when our three mischiefmakers entered the office the next morning and seated themselves till Mr. Shagarach should return, the poor lad began squirming by anticipation in his chair as if its seat were a pin cushion with the points of the pins protruding. As a matter of defensive tactics, this was the worst possible attitude to take, as it courted assault. But Jacob was not a strategist.

Before long his torture began, first by side comments and giggles, suppressed in deference to the decorum of the surroundings. Then he was subjected to a running fire of personal questions, the tone of which speedily began to mimic the muffled nasals of his own richly accented responses. This would have been acute torment to a sensitive lad and a spirited one would have ended the comedy by an appeal to arms. But poor Jacob was stolid and peaceable. So his tormenters had things their own way. The Whistler especially seemed to have neither conscience nor reason in his make-up, but an enormous funny-bone which usurped the functions of both. It was not until Aronson came in that Jacob was able to make his escape.

Saul Aronson was not a musical young man. If he yawned down the major chord twice or thrice at bedtime this was the nearest he ever got to singing. But when the Whistler raised his flexible pipe, at first softly, then loudly, with wonderful trills, breaking into still more wonderful tremolos, with staccato volleys, and ascending arpeggios that would have put a mocking-bird to shame, it is no wonder that he gave up the attempt to insert the metes and bounds correctly in a quit-claim deed and contented himself with furtively watching the o-shaped orifice from which this flood of melody issued. This was his occupation when Shagarach's form, crossing the threshold, sent him back to his copying and checked the Whistler in the full ecstasy of an improvised cadenza.

"You have saved my life," said Shagarach to the boys when they had followed him into the inner room. He used the plural number, but his gaze seemed to be attracted to the Whistler, whose neatly brushed hair told of a mother's hand, and whose restless blue eyes, fringed with heavy dark lashes, centered a face oval, high-born and sweet, which gave out in every contour the glad emanation of a youth which was natural and pure. There was less in the others to make them distinctive. Turkey seemed to be a hulking clod and Toot was wizened and shrill-voiced and sharp.