A Humorous Short Story by Edgar Allan Poe

DURING the autumn of 18–, while on a tour through the extreme southern provinces of France, my route led me within a few miles of a certain Maison de Sante or private mad-house, about which I had heard much in Paris from my medical friends. As I had never visited a place of the kind, I thought the opportunity too good to be lost; and so proposed to my travelling companion (a gentleman with whom I had made casual acquaintance a few days before) that we should turn aside, for an hour or so, and look through the establishment. To this he objected — pleading haste in the first place, and, in the second, a very usual horror at the sight of a lunatic. He begged me, however, not to let any mere courtesy towards himself interfere with the gratification of my curiosity, and said that he would ride on leisurely, so that I might overtake him during the day, or, at all events, during the next. As he bade me good-bye, I bethought me that there might be some difficulty in obtaining access to the premises, and mentioned my fears on this point. He replied that, in fact, unless I had personal knowledge of the superintendent, Monsieur Maillard, or some credential in the way of a letter, a difficulty might be found to exist, as the regulations of these private mad-houses were more rigid than the public hospital laws. For himself, he added, he had, some years since, made the acquaintance of Maillard, and would so far assist me as to ride up to the door and introduce me; although his feelings on the subject of lunacy would not permit of his entering the house.

I thanked him, and, turning from the main road, we entered a grass-grown by-path, which, in half an hour, nearly lost itself in a dense forest, clothing the base of a mountain. Through this dank and gloomy wood we rode some two miles, when the Maison de Sante came in view. It was a fantastic chateau, much dilapidated, and indeed scarcely tenantable through age and neglect. Its aspect inspired me with absolute dread, and, checking my horse, I half resolved to turn back. I soon, however, grew ashamed of my weakness, and proceeded.

As we rode up to the gate-way, I perceived it slightly open, and the visage of a man peering through. In an instant afterward, this man came forth, accosted my companion by name, shook him cordially by the hand, and begged him to alight. It was Monsieur Maillard himself. He was a portly, fine-looking gentleman of the old school, with a polished manner, and a certain air of gravity, dignity, and authority which was very impressive.

My friend, having presented me, mentioned my desire to inspect the establishment, and received Monsieur Maillard’s assurance that he would show me all attention, now took leave, and I saw him no more.

When he had gone, the superintendent ushered me into a small and exceedingly neat parlor, containing, among other indications of refined taste, many books, drawings, pots of flowers, and musical instruments. A cheerful fire blazed upon the hearth. At a piano, singing an aria from Bellini, sat a young and very beautiful woman, who, at my entrance, paused in her song, and received me with graceful courtesy. Her voice was low, and her whole manner subdued. I thought, too, that I perceived the traces of sorrow in her countenance, which was excessively, although to my taste, not unpleasingly, pale. She was attired in deep mourning, and excited in my bosom a feeling of mingled respect, interest, and admiration.

I had heard, at Paris, that the institution of Monsieur Maillard was managed upon what is vulgarly termed the “system of soothing” — that all punishments were avoided — that even confinement was seldom resorted to — that the patients, while secretly watched, were left much apparent liberty, and that most of them were permitted to roam about the house and grounds in the ordinary apparel of persons in right mind.

Keeping these impressions in view, I was cautious in what I said before the young lady; for I could not be sure that she was sane; and, in fact, there was a certain restless brilliancy about her eyes which half led me to imagine she was not. I confined my remarks, therefore, to general topics, and to such as I thought would not be displeasing or exciting even to a lunatic. She replied in a perfectly rational manner to all that I said; and even her original observations were marked with the soundest good sense, but a long acquaintance with the metaphysics of mania, had taught me to put no faith in such evidence of sanity, and I continued to practise, throughout the interview, the caution with which I commenced it.

Presently a smart footman in livery brought in a tray with fruit, wine, and other refreshments, of which I partook, the lady soon afterward leaving the room. As she departed I turned my eyes in an inquiring manner toward my host.

“No,” he said, “oh, no — a member of my family — my niece, and a most accomplished woman.”

“I beg a thousand pardons for the suspicion,” I replied, “but of course you will know how to excuse me. The excellent administration of your affairs here is well understood in Paris, and I thought it just possible, you know-

“Yes, yes — say no more — or rather it is myself who should thank you for the commendable prudence you have displayed. We seldom find so much of forethought in young men; and, more than once, some unhappy contre-temps has occurred in consequence of thoughtlessness on the part of our visitors. While my former system was in operation, and my patients were permitted the privilege of roaming to and fro at will, they were often aroused to a dangerous frenzy by injudicious persons who called to inspect the house. Hence I was obliged to enforce a rigid system of exclusion; and none obtained access to the premises upon whose discretion I could not rely.”

“While your former system was in operation!” I said, repeating his words — “do I understand you, then, to say that the ‘soothing system’ of which I have heard so much is no longer in force?”

“It is now,” he replied, “several weeks since we have concluded to renounce it forever.”

“Indeed! you astonish me!”

“We found it, sir,” he said, with a sigh, “absolutely necessary to return to the old usages. The danger of the soothing system was, at all times, appalling; and its advantages have been much overrated. I believe, sir, that in this house it has been given a fair trial, if ever in any. We did every thing that rational humanity could suggest. I am sorry that you could not have paid us a visit at an earlier period, that you might have judged for yourself. But I presume you are conversant with the soothing practice — with its details.”

“Not altogether. What I have heard has been at third or fourth hand.”

“I may state the system, then, in general terms, as one in which the patients were menages-humored. We contradicted no fancies which entered the brains of the mad. On the contrary, we not only indulged but encouraged them; and many of our most permanent cures have been thus effected. There is no argument which so touches the feeble reason of the madman as the argumentum ad absurdum. We have had men, for example, who fancied themselves chickens. The cure was, to insist upon the thing as a fact — to accuse the patient of stupidity in not sufficiently perceiving it to be a fact — and thus to refuse him any other diet for a week than that which properly appertains to a chicken. In this manner a little corn and gravel were made to perform wonders.”

“But was this species of acquiescence all?”

“By no means. We put much faith in amusements of a simple kind, such as music, dancing, gymnastic exercises generally, cards, certain classes of books, and so forth. We affected to treat each individual as if for some ordinary physical disorder, and the word ‘lunacy’ was never employed. A great point was to set each lunatic to guard the actions of all the others. To repose confidence in the understanding or discretion of a madman, is to gain him body and soul. In this way we were enabled to dispense with an expensive body of keepers.”

“And you had no punishments of any kind?”

“None.”

“And you never confined your patients?”

“Very rarely. Now and then, the malady of some individual growing to a crisis, or taking a sudden turn of fury, we conveyed him to a secret cell, lest his disorder should infect the rest, and there kept him until we could dismiss him to his friends — for with the raging maniac we have nothing to do. He is usually removed to the public hospitals.”

“And you have now changed all this — and you think for the better?”

“Decidedly. The system had its disadvantages, and even its dangers. It is now, happily, exploded throughout all the Maisons de Sante of France.”

“I am very much surprised,” I said, “at what you tell me; for I made sure that, at this moment, no other method of treatment for mania existed in any portion of the country.”

“You are young yet, my friend,” replied my host, “but the time will arrive when you will learn to judge for yourself of what is going on in the world, without trusting to the gossip of others. Believe nothing you hear, and only one-half that you see. Now about our Maisons de Sante, it is clear that some ignoramus has misled you. After dinner, however, when you have sufficiently recovered from the fatigue of your ride, I will be happy to take you over the house, and introduce to you a system which, in my opinion, and in that of every one who has witnessed its operation, is incomparably the most effectual as yet devised.”

“Your own?” I inquired — “one of your own invention?”

“I am proud,” he replied, “to acknowledge that it is — at least in some measure.”

In this manner I conversed with Monsieur Maillard for an hour or two, during which he showed me the gardens and conservatories of the place.

“I cannot let you see my patients,” he said, “just at present. To a sensitive mind there is always more or less of the shocking in such exhibitions; and I do not wish to spoil your appetite for dinner. We will dine. I can give you some veal a la Menehoult, with cauliflowers in veloute sauce — after that a glass of Clos de Vougeot — then your nerves will be sufficiently steadied.”

At six, dinner was announced; and my host conducted me into a large salle a manger, where a very numerous company were assembled — twenty-five or thirty in all. They were, apparently, people of rank-certainly of high breeding — although their habiliments, I thought, were extravagantly rich, partaking somewhat too much of the ostentatious finery of the vielle cour. I noticed that at least two-thirds of these guests were ladies; and some of the latter were by no means accoutred in what a Parisian would consider good taste at the present day. Many females, for example, whose age could not have been less than seventy were bedecked with a profusion of jewelry, such as rings, bracelets, and earrings, and wore their bosoms and arms shamefully bare. I observed, too, that very few of the dresses were well made — or, at least, that very few of them fitted the wearers. In looking about, I discovered the interesting girl to whom Monsieur Maillard had presented me in the little parlor; but my surprise was great to see her wearing a hoop and farthingale, with high-heeled shoes, and a dirty cap of Brussels lace, so much too large for her that it gave her face a ridiculously diminutive expression. When I had first seen her, she was attired, most becomingly, in deep mourning. There was an air of oddity, in short, about the dress of the whole party, which, at first, caused me to recur to my original idea of the “soothing system,” and to fancy that Monsieur Maillard had been willing to deceive me until after dinner, that I might experience no uncomfortable feelings during the repast, at finding myself dining with lunatics; but I remembered having been informed, in Paris, that the southern provincialists were a peculiarly eccentric people, with a vast number of antiquated notions; and then, too, upon conversing with several members of the company, my apprehensions were immediately and fully dispelled.

The dining-room itself, although perhaps sufficiently comfortable and of good dimensions, had nothing too much of elegance about it. For example, the floor was uncarpeted; in France, however, a carpet is frequently dispensed with. The windows, too, were without curtains; the shutters, being shut, were securely fastened with iron bars, applied diagonally, after the fashion of our ordinary shop-shutters. The apartment, I observed, formed, in itself, a wing of the chateau, and thus the windows were on three sides of the parallelogram, the door being at the other. There were no less than ten windows in all.

The table was superbly set out. It was loaded with plate, and more than loaded with delicacies. The profusion was absolutely barbaric. There were meats enough to have feasted the Anakim. Never, in all my life, had I witnessed so lavish, so wasteful an expenditure of the good things of life. There seemed very little taste, however, in the arrangements; and my eyes, accustomed to quiet lights, were sadly offended by the prodigious glare of a multitude of wax candles, which, in silver candelabra, were deposited upon the table, and all about the room, wherever it was possible to find a place. There were several active servants in attendance; and, upon a large table, at the farther end of the apartment, were seated seven or eight people with fiddles, fifes, trombones, and a drum. These fellows annoyed me very much, at intervals, during the repast, by an infinite variety of noises, which were intended for music, and which appeared to afford much entertainment to all present, with the exception of myself.

Upon the whole, I could not help thinking that there was much of the bizarre about every thing I saw — but then the world is made up of all kinds of persons, with all modes of thought, and all sorts of conventional customs. I had travelled, too, so much, as to be quite an adept at the nil admirari; so I took my seat very coolly at the right hand of my host, and, having an excellent appetite, did justice to the good cheer set before me.

The conversation, in the meantime, was spirited and general. The ladies, as usual, talked a great deal. I soon found that nearly all the company were well educated; and my host was a world of good-humored anecdote in himself. He seemed quite willing to speak of his position as superintendent of a Maison de Sante; and, indeed, the topic of lunacy was, much to my surprise, a favorite one with all present. A great many amusing stories were told, having reference to the whims of the patients.

“We had a fellow here once,” said a fat little gentleman, who sat at my right, — “a fellow that fancied himself a tea-pot; and by the way, is it not especially singular how often this particular crotchet has entered the brain of the lunatic? There is scarcely an insane asylum in France which cannot supply a human tea-pot. Our gentleman was a Britannia — ware tea-pot, and was careful to polish himself every morning with buckskin and whiting.”

“And then,” said a tall man just opposite, “we had here, not long ago, a person who had taken it into his head that he was a donkey — which allegorically speaking, you will say, was quite true. He was a troublesome patient; and we had much ado to keep him within bounds. For a long time he would eat nothing but thistles; but of this idea we soon cured him by insisting upon his eating nothing else. Then he was perpetually kicking out his heels-so-so-“

“Mr. De Kock! I will thank you to behave yourself!” here interrupted an old lady, who sat next to the speaker. “Please keep your feet to yourself! You have spoiled my brocade! Is it necessary, pray, to illustrate a remark in so practical a style? Our friend here can surely comprehend you without all this. Upon my word, you are nearly as great a donkey as the poor unfortunate imagined himself. Your acting is very natural, as I live.”

“Mille pardons! Ma’m’selle!” replied Monsieur De Kock, thus addressed — “a thousand pardons! I had no intention of offending. Ma’m’selle Laplace — Monsieur De Kock will do himself the honor of taking wine with you.”

Here Monsieur De Kock bowed low, kissed his hand with much ceremony, and took wine with Ma’m’selle Laplace.

“Allow me, mon ami,” now said Monsieur Maillard, addressing myself, “allow me to send you a morsel of this veal a la St. Menhoult — you will find it particularly fine.”

At this instant three sturdy waiters had just succeeded in depositing safely upon the table an enormous dish, or trencher, containing what I supposed to be the “monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens, cui lumen ademptum.” A closer scrutiny assured me, however, that it was only a small calf roasted whole, and set upon its knees, with an apple in its mouth, as is the English fashion of dressing a hare.

“Thank you, no,” I replied; “to say the truth, I am not particularly partial to veal a la St. — what is it? — for I do not find that it altogether agrees with me. I will change my plate, however, and try some of the rabbit.”

There were several side-dishes on the table, containing what appeared to be the ordinary French rabbit — a very delicious morceau, which I can recommend.

“Pierre,” cried the host, “change this gentleman’s plate, and give him a side-piece of this rabbit au-chat.”

“This what?” said I.

“This rabbit au-chat.”

“Why, thank you — upon second thoughts, no. I will just help myself to some of the ham.”

There is no knowing what one eats, thought I to myself, at the tables of these people of the province. I will have none of their rabbit au-chat — and, for the matter of that, none of their cat-au-rabbit either.

“And then,” said a cadaverous looking personage, near the foot of the table, taking up the thread of the conversation where it had been broken off, — “and then, among other oddities, we had a patient, once upon a time, who very pertinaciously maintained himself to be a Cordova cheese, and went about, with a knife in his hand, soliciting his friends to try a small slice from the middle of his leg.”

“He was a great fool, beyond doubt,” interposed some one, “but not to be compared with a certain individual whom we all know, with the exception of this strange gentleman. I mean the man who took himself for a bottle of champagne, and always went off with a pop and a fizz, in this fashion.”

Here the speaker, very rudely, as I thought, put his right thumb in his left cheek, withdrew it with a sound resembling the popping of a cork, and then, by a dexterous movement of the tongue upon the teeth, created a sharp hissing and fizzing, which lasted for several minutes, in imitation of the frothing of champagne. This behavior, I saw plainly, was not very pleasing to Monsieur Maillard; but that gentleman said nothing, and the conversation was resumed by a very lean little man in a big wig.

“And then there was an ignoramus,” said he, “who mistook himself for a frog, which, by the way, he resembled in no little degree. I wish you could have seen him, sir,” — here the speaker addressed myself — “it would have done your heart good to see the natural airs that he put on. Sir, if that man was not a frog, I can only observe that it is a pity he was not. His croak thus — o-o-o-o-gh — o-o-o-o-gh! was the finest note in the world — B flat; and when he put his elbows upon the table thus — after taking a glass or two of wine — and distended his mouth, thus, and rolled up his eyes, thus, and winked them with excessive rapidity, thus, why then, sir, I take it upon myself to say, positively, that you would have been lost in admiration of the genius of the man.”

“I have no doubt of it,” I said.

“And then,” said somebody else, “then there was Petit Gaillard, who thought himself a pinch of snuff, and was truly distressed because he could not take himself between his own finger and thumb.”

“And then there was Jules Desoulieres, who was a very singular genius, indeed, and went mad with the idea that he was a pumpkin. He persecuted the cook to make him up into pies — a thing which the cook indignantly refused to do. For my part, I am by no means sure that a pumpkin pie a la Desoulieres would not have been very capital eating indeed!”

“You astonish me!” said I; and I looked inquisitively at Monsieur Maillard.

“Ha! ha! ha!” said that gentleman — “he! he! he! — hi! hi! hi! — ho! ho! ho! — hu! hu! hu! hu! — very good indeed! You must not be astonished, mon ami; our friend here is a wit — a drole — you must not understand him to the letter.”

“And then,” said some other one of the party, — “then there was Bouffon Le Grand — another extraordinary personage in his way. He grew deranged through love, and fancied himself possessed of two heads. One of these he maintained to be the head of Cicero; the other he imagined a composite one, being Demosthenes’ from the top of the forehead to the mouth, and Lord Brougham’s from the mouth to the chin. It is not impossible that he was wrong; but he would have convinced you of his being in the right; for he was a man of great eloquence. He had an absolute passion for oratory, and could not refrain from display. For example, he used to leap upon the dinner-table thus, and — and-“

Here a friend, at the side of the speaker, put a hand upon his shoulder and whispered a few words in his ear, upon which he ceased talking with great suddenness, and sank back within his chair.

“And then,” said the friend who had whispered, “there was Boullard, the tee-totum. I call him the tee-totum because, in fact, he was seized with the droll but not altogether irrational crotchet, that he had been converted into a tee-totum. You would have roared with laughter to see him spin. He would turn round upon one heel by the hour, in this manner — so-

Here the friend whom he had just interrupted by a whisper, performed an exactly similar office for himself.

“But then,” cried the old lady, at the top of her voice, “your Monsieur Boullard was a madman, and a very silly madman at best; for who, allow me to ask you, ever heard of a human tee-totum? The thing is absurd. Madame Joyeuse was a more sensible person, as you know. She had a crotchet, but it was instinct with common sense, and gave pleasure to all who had the honor of her acquaintance. She found, upon mature deliberation, that, by some accident, she had been turned into a chicken-cock; but, as such, she behaved with propriety. She flapped her wings with prodigious effect — so — so — and, as for her crow, it was delicious! Cock-a-doodle-doo! — cock-a-doodle-doo! — cock-a-doodle-de-doo-dooo-do-o-o-o-o-o-o!”

“Madame Joyeuse, I will thank you to behave yourself!” here interrupted our host, very angrily. “You can either conduct yourself as a lady should do, or you can quit the table forthwith-take your choice.”

The lady (whom I was much astonished to hear addressed as Madame Joyeuse, after the description of Madame Joyeuse she had just given) blushed up to the eyebrows, and seemed exceedingly abashed at the reproof. She hung down her head, and said not a syllable in reply. But another and younger lady resumed the theme. It was my beautiful girl of the little parlor.

“Oh, Madame Joyeuse was a fool!” she exclaimed, “but there was really much sound sense, after all, in the opinion of Eugenie Salsafette. She was a very beautiful and painfully modest young lady, who thought the ordinary mode of habiliment indecent, and wished to dress herself, always, by getting outside instead of inside of her clothes. It is a thing very easily done, after all. You have only to do so — and then so — so — so — and then so — so — so — and then so — so — and then-

“Mon dieu! Ma’m’selle Salsafette!” here cried a dozen voices at once. “What are you about? — forbear! — that is sufficient! — we see, very plainly, how it is done! — hold! hold!” and several persons were already leaping from their seats to withhold Ma’m’selle Salsafette from putting herself upon a par with the Medicean Venus, when the point was very effectually and suddenly accomplished by a series of loud screams, or yells, from some portion of the main body of the chateau.

My nerves were very much affected, indeed, by these yells; but the rest of the company I really pitied. I never saw any set of reasonable people so thoroughly frightened in my life. They all grew as pale as so many corpses, and, shrinking within their seats, sat quivering and gibbering with terror, and listening for a repetition of the sound. It came again — louder and seemingly nearer — and then a third time very loud, and then a fourth time with a vigor evidently diminished. At this apparent dying away of the noise, the spirits of the company were immediately regained, and all was life and anecdote as before. I now ventured to inquire the cause of the disturbance.

“A mere bagtelle,” said Monsieur Maillard. “We are used to these things, and care really very little about them. The lunatics, every now and then, get up a howl in concert; one starting another, as is sometimes the case with a bevy of dogs at night. It occasionally happens, however, that the concerto yells are succeeded by a simultaneous effort at breaking loose, when, of course, some little danger is to be apprehended.”

“And how many have you in charge?”

“At present we have not more than ten, altogether.”

“Principally females, I presume?”

“Oh, no — every one of them men, and stout fellows, too, I can tell you.”

“Indeed! I have always understood that the majority of lunatics were of the gentler sex.”

“It is generally so, but not always. Some time ago, there were about twenty-seven patients here; and, of that number, no less than eighteen were women; but, lately, matters have changed very much, as you see.”

“Yes — have changed very much, as you see,” here interrupted the gentleman who had broken the shins of Ma’m’selle Laplace.

“Yes — have changed very much, as you see!” chimed in the whole company at once.

“Hold your tongues, every one of you!” said my host, in a great rage. Whereupon the whole company maintained a dead silence for nearly a minute. As for one lady, she obeyed Monsieur Maillard to the letter, and thrusting out her tongue, which was an excessively long one, held it very resignedly, with both hands, until the end of the entertainment.

“And this gentlewoman,” said I, to Monsieur Maillard, bending over and addressing him in a whisper — “this good lady who has just spoken, and who gives us the cock-a-doodle-de-doo — she, I presume, is harmless — quite harmless, eh?”

“Harmless!” ejaculated he, in unfeigned surprise, “why — why, what can you mean?”

“Only slightly touched?” said I, touching my head. “I take it for granted that she is not particularly not dangerously affected, eh?”

“Mon dieu! what is it you imagine? This lady, my particular old friend Madame Joyeuse, is as absolutely sane as myself. She has her little eccentricities, to be sure — but then, you know, all old women — all very old women — are more or less eccentric!”

“To be sure,” said I, — “to be sure — and then the rest of these ladies and gentlemen-“

“Are my friends and keepers,” interupted Monsieur Maillard, drawing himself up with hauteur, — “my very good friends and assistants.”

“What! all of them?” I asked, — “the women and all?”

“Assuredly,” he said, — “we could not do at all without the women; they are the best lunatic nurses in the world; they have a way of their own, you know; their bright eyes have a marvellous effect; — something like the fascination of the snake, you know.”

“To be sure,” said I, — “to be sure! They behave a little odd, eh? — they are a little queer, eh? — don’t you think so?”

“Odd! — queer! — why, do you really think so? We are not very prudish, to be sure, here in the South — do pretty much as we please — enjoy life, and all that sort of thing, you know-“

“To be sure,” said I, — “to be sure.”

And then, perhaps, this Clos de Vougeot is a little heady, you know — a little strong — you understand, eh?”

“To be sure,” said I, — “to be sure. By the bye, Monsieur, did I understand you to say that the system you have adopted, in place of the celebrated soothing system, was one of very rigorous severity?”

“By no means. Our confinement is necessarily close; but the treatment — the medical treatment, I mean — is rather agreeable to the patients than otherwise.”

“And the new system is one of your own invention?”

“Not altogether. Some portions of it are referable to Professor Tarr, of whom you have, necessarily, heard; and, again, there are modifications in my plan which I am happy to acknowledge as belonging of right to the celebrated Fether, with whom, if I mistake not, you have the honor of an intimate acquaintance.”

“I am quite ashamed to confess,” I replied, “that I have never even heard the names of either gentleman before.”

“Good heavens!” ejaculated my host, drawing back his chair abruptly, and uplifting his hands. “I surely do not hear you aright! You did not intend to say, eh? that you had never heard either of the learned Doctor Tarr, or of the celebrated Professor Fether?”

“I am forced to acknowledge my ignorance,” I replied; “but the truth should be held inviolate above all things. Nevertheless, I feel humbled to the dust, not to be acquainted with the works of these, no doubt, extraordinary men. I will seek out their writings forthwith, and peruse them with deliberate care. Monsieur Maillard, you have really — I must confess it — you have really — made me ashamed of myself!”

And this was the fact.

“Say no more, my good young friend,” he said kindly, pressing my hand, — “join me now in a glass of Sauterne.”

We drank. The company followed our example without stint. They chatted — they jested — they laughed — they perpetrated a thousand absurdities — the fiddles shrieked — the drum row-de-dowed — the trombones bellowed like so many brazen bulls of Phalaris — and the whole scene, growing gradually worse and worse, as the wines gained the ascendancy, became at length a sort of pandemonium in petto. In the meantime, Monsieur Maillard and myself, with some bottles of Sauterne and Vougeot between us, continued our conversation at the top of the voice. A word spoken in an ordinary key stood no more chance of being heard than the voice of a fish from the bottom of Niagra Falls.

“And, sir,” said I, screaming in his ear, “you mentioned something before dinner about the danger incurred in the old system of soothing. How is that?”

“Yes,” he replied, “there was, occasionally, very great danger indeed. There is no accounting for the caprices of madmen; and, in my opinion as well as in that of Dr. Tarr and Professor Fether, it is never safe to permit them to run at large unattended. A lunatic may be ‘soothed,’ as it is called, for a time, but, in the end, he is very apt to become obstreperous. His cunning, too, is proverbial and great. If he has a project in view, he conceals his design with a marvellous wisdom; and the dexterity with which he counterfeits sanity, presents, to the metaphysician, one of the most singular problems in the study of mind. When a madman appears thoroughly sane, indeed, it is high time to put him in a straitjacket.”

“But the danger, my dear sir, of which you were speaking, in your own experience — during your control of this house — have you had practical reason to think liberty hazardous in the case of a lunatic?”

“Here? — in my own experience? — why, I may say, yes. For example: — no very long while ago, a singular circumstance occurred in this very house. The ‘soothing system,’ you know, was then in operation, and the patients were at large. They behaved remarkably well-especially so, any one of sense might have known that some devilish scheme was brewing from that particular fact, that the fellows behaved so remarkably well. And, sure enough, one fine morning the keepers found themselves pinioned hand and foot, and thrown into the cells, where they were attended, as if they were the lunatics, by the lunatics themselves, who had usurped the offices of the keepers.”

“You don’t tell me so! I never heard of any thing so absurd in my life!”

“Fact — it all came to pass by means of a stupid fellow — a lunatic — who, by some means, had taken it into his head that he had invented a better system of government than any ever heard of before — of lunatic government, I mean. He wished to give his invention a trial, I suppose, and so he persuaded the rest of the patients to join him in a conspiracy for the overthrow of the reigning powers.”

“And he really succeeded?”

“No doubt of it. The keepers and kept were soon made to exchange places. Not that exactly either — for the madmen had been free, but the keepers were shut up in cells forthwith, and treated, I am sorry to say, in a very cavalier manner.”

“But I presume a counter-revolution was soon effected. This condition of things could not have long existed. The country people in the neighborhood-visitors coming to see the establishment — would have given the alarm.”

“There you are out. The head rebel was too cunning for that. He admitted no visitors at all — with the exception, one day, of a very stupid-looking young gentleman of whom he had no reason to be afraid. He let him in to see the place — just by way of variety, — to have a little fun with him. As soon as he had gammoned him sufficiently, he let him out, and sent him about his business.”

“And how long, then, did the madmen reign?”

“Oh, a very long time, indeed — a month certainly — how much longer I can’t precisely say. In the meantime, the lunatics had a jolly season of it — that you may swear. They doffed their own shabby clothes, and made free with the family wardrobe and jewels. The cellars of the chateau were well stocked with wine; and these madmen are just the devils that know how to drink it. They lived well, I can tell you.”

“And the treatment — what was the particular species of treatment which the leader of the rebels put into operation?”

“Why, as for that, a madman is not necessarily a fool, as I have already observed; and it is my honest opinion that his treatment was a much better treatment than that which it superseded. It was a very capital system indeed — simple — neat — no trouble at all — in fact it was delicious it was

Here my host’s observations were cut short by another series of yells, of the same character as those which had previously disconcerted us. This time, however, they seemed to proceed from persons rapidly approaching.

“Gracious heavens!” I ejaculated — “the lunatics have most undoubtedly broken loose.”

“I very much fear it is so,” replied Monsieur Maillard, now becoming excessively pale. He had scarcely finished the sentence, before loud shouts and imprecations were heard beneath the windows; and, immediately afterward, it became evident that some persons outside were endeavoring to gain entrance into the room. The door was beaten with what appeared to be a sledge-hammer, and the shutters were wrenched and shaken with prodigious violence.

A scene of the most terrible confusion ensued. Monsieur Maillard, to my excessive astonishment threw himself under the side-board. I had expected more resolution at his hands. The members of the orchestra, who, for the last fifteen minutes, had been seemingly too much intoxicated to do duty, now sprang all at once to their feet and to their instruments, and, scrambling upon their table, broke out, with one accord, into, “Yankee Doodle,” which they performed, if not exactly in tune, at least with an energy superhuman, during the whole of the uproar.

Meantime, upon the main dining-table, among the bottles and glasses, leaped the gentleman who, with such difficulty, had been restrained from leaping there before. As soon as he fairly settled himself, he commenced an oration, which, no doubt, was a very capital one, if it could only have been heard. At the same moment, the man with the teetotum predilection, set himself to spinning around the apartment, with immense energy, and with arms outstretched at right angles with his body; so that he had all the air of a tee-totum in fact, and knocked everybody down that happened to get in his way. And now, too, hearing an incredible popping and fizzing of champagne, I discovered at length, that it proceeded from the person who performed the bottle of that delicate drink during dinner. And then, again, the frog-man croaked away as if the salvation of his soul depended upon every note that he uttered. And, in the midst of all this, the continuous braying of a donkey arose over all. As for my old friend, Madame Joyeuse, I really could have wept for the poor lady, she appeared so terribly perplexed. All she did, however, was to stand up in a corner, by the fireplace, and sing out incessantly at the top of her voice, “Cock-a-doodle-de-dooooooh!”

And now came the climax — the catastrophe of the drama. As no resistance, beyond whooping and yelling and cock-a-doodling, was offered to the encroachments of the party without, the ten windows were very speedily, and almost simultaneously, broken in. But I shall never forget the emotions of wonder and horror with which I gazed, when, leaping through these windows, and down among us pele-mele, fighting, stamping, scratching, and howling, there rushed a perfect army of what I took to be Chimpanzees, Ourang-Outangs, or big black baboons of the Cape of Good Hope.

I received a terrible beating — after which I rolled under a sofa and lay still. After lying there some fifteen minutes, during which time I listened with all my ears to what was going on in the room, I came to same satisfactory denouement of this tragedy. Monsieur Maillard, it appeared, in giving me the account of the lunatic who had excited his fellows to rebellion, had been merely relating his own exploits. This gentleman had, indeed, some two or three years before, been the superintendent of the establishment, but grew crazy himself, and so became a patient. This fact was unknown to the travelling companion who introduced me. The keepers, ten in number, having been suddenly overpowered, were first well tarred, then — carefully feathered, and then shut up in underground cells. They had been so imprisoned for more than a month, during which period Monsieur Maillard had generously allowed them not only the tar and feathers (which constituted his “system”), but some bread and abundance of water. The latter was pumped on them daily. At length, one escaping through a sewer, gave freedom to all the rest.

The “soothing system,” with important modifications, has been resumed at the chateau; yet I cannot help agreeing with Monsieur Maillard, that his own “treatment” was a very capital one of its kind. As he justly observed, it was “simple — neat — and gave no trouble at all — not the least.”

I have only to add that, although I have searched every library in Europe for the works of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether, I have, up to the present day, utterly failed in my endeavors at procuring an edition.

[Background and Analysis of The System of Dr. Tarr and Prof. Fether]

A Humorous Short Story by Wells Hastings (Born: Jun 24, 1878 New Haven, CT – Died: May 09, 1923 Los Angeles, CA)

“An’ de next’ frawg dat houn’ pup seen, he pass him by wide.”

The house, which had hung upon every word, roared with laughter, and shook with a storming volley of applause. Gideon bowed to right and to left, low, grinning, assured comedy obeisances; but as the laughter and applause grew he shook his head, and signaled quietly for the drop. He had answered many encores, and he was an instinctive artist. It was part of the fuel of his vanity that his audience had never yet had enough of him. Dramatic judgment, as well as dramatic sense of delivery, was native to him, qualities which the shrewd Felix Stuhk, his manager and exultant discoverer, recognized and wisely trusted in. Off stage Gideon was watched over like a child and a delicate investment, but once behind the footlights he was allowed to go his own triumphant gait.

It was small wonder that Stuhk deemed himself one of the cleverest managers in the business; that his narrow, blue-shaven face was continually chiseled in smiles of complacent self-congratulation. He was rapidly becoming rich, and there were bright prospects of even greater triumphs, with proportionately greater reward. He had made Gideon a national character, a headliner, a star of the first magnitude in the firmament of the vaudeville theater, and all in six short months. Or, at any rate, he had helped to make him all this; he had booked him well and given him his opportunity. To be sure, Gideon had done the rest; Stuhk was as ready as any one to do credit to Gideon’s ability. Still, after all, he, Stuhk, was the discoverer, the theatrical Columbus who had had the courage and the vision.

A now-hallowed attack of tonsilitis had driven him to Florida, where presently Gideon had been employed to beguile his convalescence, and guide him over the intricate shallows of that long lagoon known as the Indian River in search of various fish. On days when fish had been reluctant Gideon had been lured into conversation, and gradually into narrative and the relation of what had appeared to Gideon as humorous and entertaining; and finally Felix, the vague idea growing big within him, had one day persuaded his boatman to dance upon the boards of a long pier where they had made fast for lunch. There, with all the sudden glory of crystallization, the vague idea took definite form and became the great inspiration of Stuhk’s career.

Gideon had grown to be to vaudeville much what Uncle Remus is to literature: there was virtue in his very simplicity. His artistry itself was native and natural. He loved a good story, and he told it from his own sense of the gleeful morsel upon his tongue as no training could have made him. He always enjoyed his story and himself in the telling. Tales never lost their savor, no matter how often repeated; age was powerless to dim the humor of the thing, and as he had shouted and gurgled and laughed over the fun of things when all alone, or holding forth among the men and women and little children of his color, so he shouted and gurgled and broke from sonorous chuckles to musical, falsetto mirth when he fronted the sweeping tiers of faces across the intoxicating glare of the footlights. He had that rare power of transmitting something of his own enjoyments. When Gideon was on the stage, Stuhk used to enjoy peeping out at the intent, smiling faces of the audience, where men and women and children, hardened theater-goers and folk fresh from the country, sat with moving lips and faces lit with an eager interest and sympathy for the black man strutting in loose-footed vivacity before them.

“He’s simply unique,” he boasted to wondering local managers–“unique, and it took me to find him. There he was, a little black gold-mine, and all of ’em passed him by until I came. Some eye? What? I guess you’ll admit you have to hand it some to your Uncle Felix. If that coon’s health holds out, we’ll have all the money there is in the mint.”

That was Felix’s real anxiety–“If his health holds out.” Gideon’s health was watched over as if he had been an ailing prince. His bubbling vivacity was the foundation upon which his charm and his success were built. Stuhk became a sort of vicarious neurotic, eternally searching for symptoms in his protégé; Gideon’s tongue, Gideon’s liver, Gideon’s heart were matters to him of an unfailing and anxious interest. And of late–of course it might be imagination –Gideon had shown a little physical falling off. He ate a bit less, he had begun to move in a restless way, and, worst of all, he laughed less frequently.

As a matter of fact, there was ground for Stuhk’s apprehension. It was not all a matter of managerial imagination: Gideon was less himself. Physically there was nothing the matter with him; he could have passed his rigid insurance scrutiny as easily as he had done months before, when his life and health had been insured for a sum that made good copy for his press-agent. He was sound in every organ, but there was something lacking in general tone. Gideon felt it himself, and was certain that a “misery,” that embracing indisposition of his race, was creeping upon him. He had been fed well, too well; he was growing rich, too rich; he had all the praise, all the flattery that his enormous appetite for approval desired, and too much of it. White men sought him out and made much of him; white women talked to him about his career; and wherever he went, women of color–black girls, brown girls, yellow girls–wrote him of their admiration, whispered, when he would listen, of their passion and hero-worship. “City niggers” bowed down before him; the high gallery was always packed with them. Musk-scented notes scrawled upon barbaric, “high-toned” stationery poured in upon him. Even a few white women, to his horror and embarrassment, had written him of love, letters which he straightway destroyed. His sense of his position was strong in him; he was proud of it. There might be “folks outer their haids,” but he had the sense to remember. For months he had lived in a heaven of gratified vanity, but at last his appetite had begun to falter. He was sated; his soul longed to wipe a spiritual mouth on the back of a spiritual hand, and have done. His face, now that the curtain was down and he was leaving the stage, was doleful, almost sullen.

Stuhk met him anxiously in the wings, and walked with him to his dressing-room. He felt suddenly very weary of Stuhk.

“Nothing the matter, Gideon, is there? Not feeling sick or anything?”

“No, Misteh Stuhk; no, seh. Jes don’ feel extry pert, that’s all.”

“But what is it–anything bothering you?”

Gideon sat gloomily before his mirror.

“Misteh Stuhk,” he said at last, “I been steddyin’ it oveh, and I about come to the delusion that I needs a good po’k-chop. Seems foolish, I know, but it do’ seem as if a good po’k-chop, fried jes right, would he’p consid’able to disumpate this misery feelin’ that’s crawlin’ and creepin’ round my sperit.”

Stuhk laughed.

“Pork-chop, eh? Is that the best you can think of? I know what you mean, though. I’ve thought for some time that you were getting a little overtrained. What you need is–let me see–yes, a nice bottle of wine. That’s the ticket; it will ease things up and won’t do you any harm. I’ll go, with you. Ever had any champagne, Gideon?”

Gideon struggled for politeness.

“Yes, seh, I’s had champagne, and it’s a nice kind of lickeh sho enough; but, Misteh Stuhk, seh, I don’ want any of them high-tone drinks to-night, an’ ef yo’ don’ mind, I’d rather amble off ’lone, or mebbe eat that po’k-chop with some otheh cullud man, ef I kin fin’ one that ain’ one of them no-’count Carolina niggers. Do you s’pose yo’ could let me have a little money to-night, Misteh Stuhk?”

Stuhk thought rapidly. Gideon had certainly worked hard, and he was not dissipated. If he wanted to roam the town by himself, there was no harm in it. The sullenness still showed in the black face; Heaven knew what he might do if he suddenly began to balk. Stuhk thought it wise to consent gracefully.

“Good!” he said. “Fly to it. How much do you want? A hundred?”

“How much is coming to me?”

“About a thousand, Gideon.”

“Well, I’d moughty like five hun’red of it, ef that’s ’greeable to yo’.”

Felix whistled.

“Five hundred? Pork-chops must be coming high. You don’t want to carry all that money around, do you?”

Gideon did not answer; he looked very gloomy.

Stuhk hastened to cheer him.

“Of course you can have anything you want. Wait a minute, and I will get it for you.

“I’ll bet that coon’s going to buy himself a ring or something,” he reflected as he went in search of the local manager and Gideon’s money.

But Stuhk was wrong. Gideon had no intention of buying himself a ring. For the matter of that, he had several that were amply satisfactory. They had size and sparkle and luster, all the diamond brilliance that rings need to have; and for none of them had he paid much over five dollars. He was amply supplied with jewelry in which he felt perfect satisfaction. His present want was positive, if nebulous; he desired a fortune in his pocket, bulky, tangible evidence of his miraculous success. Ever since Stuhk had found him, life had had an unreal quality for him. His Monte Cristo wealth was too much like a fabulous, dream-found treasure, money that could not be spent without danger of awakening. And he had dropped into the habit of storing it about him, so that in any pocket into which he plunged his hand he might find a roll of crisp evidence of reality. He liked his bills to be of all denominations, and some so large as exquisitely to stagger imagination, others charming by their number and crispness–the dignified, orange paper of a man of assured position and wealth-crackling greenbacks the design of which tinged the whole with actuality. He was specially partial to engravings of President Lincoln, the particular savior and patron of his race. This five hundred dollars he was adding to an unreckoned sum of about two thousand, merely as extra fortification against a growing sense of gloom. He wished to brace his flagging spirits with the gay wine of possession, and he was glad, when the money came, that it was in an elastic-bound roll, so bulky that it was pleasantly uncomfortable in his pocket as he left his manager.

As he turned into the brilliantly lighted street from the somber alleyway of the stage entrance, he paused for a moment to glance at his own name, in three-foot letters of red, before the doors of the theater. He could read, and the large block type always pleased him. “THIS WEEK: GIDEON.” That was all. None of the fulsome praise, the superlative, necessary definition given to lesser performers. He had been, he remembered, “GIDEON, America’s Foremost Native Comedian,” a title that was at once boast and challenge. That necessity was now past, for he was a national character; any explanatory qualification would have been an insult to the public intelligence. To the world he was just “Gideon”; that was enough. It gave him pleasure, as he sauntered along, to see the announcement repeated on window cards and hoardings.

Presently he came to a window before which he paused in delighted wonder. It was not a large window; to the casual eye of the passer-by there was little to draw attention. By day it lighted the fractional floor space of a little stationer, who supplemented a slim business by a sub-agency for railroad and steamship lines; but to-night this window seemed the framework of a marvel of coincidence. On the broad, dusty sill inside were propped two cards: the one on the left was his own red-lettered announcement for the week; the one at the right–oh, world of wonders!–was a photogravure of that exact stretch of the inner coast of Florida which Gideon knew best, which was home.

There it was, the Indian River, rippling idly in full sunlight, palmettos leaning over the water, palmettos standing as irregular sentries along the low, reeflike island which stretched away out of the picture. There was the gigantic, lonely pine he knew well, and, yes–he could just make it out–there was his own ramshackle little pier, which stretched in undulating fashion, like a long-legged, wading caterpillar, from the abrupt shore-line of eroded coquina into deep water.

He thought at first that this picture of his home was some new and delicate device put forth by his press-agent. His name on one side of a window, his birthplace upon the other–what could be more tastefully appropriate? Therefore, as he spelled out the reading-matter beneath the photogravure, he was sharply disappointed. It read:

  Spend this winter in balmy Florida.
  Come to the Land of Perpetual Sunshine.
  Golf, tennis, driving, shooting, boating, fishing, all of the best.

There was more, but he had no heart for it; he was disappointed and puzzled. This picture had, after all, nothing to do with him. It was a chance, and yet, what a strange chance! It troubled and upset him. His black, round-featured face took on deep wrinkles of perplexity. The “misery” which had hung darkly on his horizon for weeks engulfed him without warning. But in the very bitterness of his melancholy he knew at last his disease. It was not champagne or recreation that he needed, not even a “po’k-chop,” although his desire for it had been a symptom, a groping for a too homeopathic remedy: he was homesick.

Easy, childish tears came into his eyes, and ran over his shining cheeks. He shivered forlornly with a sudden sense of cold, and absently clutched at the lapels of his gorgeous, fur-lined ulster.

Then in abrupt reaction he laughed aloud, so that the shrill, musical falsetto startled the passers-by, and in another moment a little semicircle of the curious watched spellbound as a black man, exquisitely appareled, danced in wild, loose grace before the dull background of a somewhat grimy and apparently vacant window. A newsboy recognized him.

He heard his name being passed from mouth to mouth, and came partly to his senses. He stopped dancing, and grinned at them.

“Say, you are Gideon, ain’t you?” his discoverer demanded, with a sort of reverent audacity.

“Yaas, seh,” said Gideon; “that’s me. Yo’ shu got it right.” He broke into a joyous peal of laughter–the laughter that had made him famous, and bowed deeply before him. “Gideon–posi-tive-ly his las’ puffawmunce.” Turning, he dashed for a passing trolley, and, still laughing, swung aboard.

He was naturally honest. In a land of easy morality his friends had accounted him something of a paragon; nor had Stuhk ever had anything but praise for him. But now he crushed aside the ethics of his intent without a single troubled thought. Running away has always been inherent in the negro. He gave one regretful thought to the gorgeous wardrobe he was leaving behind him; but he dared not return for it. Stuhk might have taken it into his head to go back to their rooms. He must content himself with the reflection that he was at that moment wearing his best.

The trolley seemed too slow for him, and, as always happened nowadays, he was recognized; he heard his name whispered, and was aware of the admiring glances of the curious. Even popularity had its drawbacks. He got down in front of a big hotel and chose a taxicab from the waiting rank, exhorting the driver to make his best speed to the station. Leaning back in the soft depths of the cab, he savored his independence, cheered already by the swaying, lurching speed. At the station he tipped the driver in lordly fashion, very much pleased with himself and anxious to give pleasure. Only the sternest prudence and an unconquerable awe of uniform had kept him from tossing bills to the various traffic policemen who had seemed to smile upon his hurry.

No through train left for hours; but after the first disappointment of momentary check, he decided that he was more pleased than otherwise. It would save embarrassment. He was going South, where his color would be more considered than his reputation, and on the little local he chose there was a “Jim Crow” car–one, that is, specially set aside for those of his race. That it proved crowded and full of smoke did not trouble him at all, nor did the admiring pleasantries which the splendor of his apparel immediately called forth. No one knew him; indeed, he was naturally enough mistaken for a prosperous gambler, a not unflattering supposition. In the yard, after the train pulled out, he saw his private car under a glaring arc light, and grinned to see it left behind.

He spent the night pleasantly in a noisy game of high-low-jack, and the next morning slept more soundly than he had slept for weeks, hunched upon a wooden bench in the boxlike station of a North Carolina junction. The express would have brought him to Jacksonville in twenty-four hours; the journey, as he took it, boarding any local that happened to be going south, and leaving it for meals or sometimes for sleep or often as the whim possessed him, filled five happy days. There he took a night train, and dozed from Jacksonville until a little north of New Smyrna.

He awoke to find it broad daylight, and the car half empty. The train was on a siding, with news of a freight wreck ahead. Gideon stretched himself, and looked out of the window, and emotion seized him. For all his journey the South had seemed to welcome him, but here at last was the country he knew. He went out upon the platform and threw back his head, sniffing the soft breeze, heavy with the mysterious thrill of unplowed acres, the wondrous existence of primordial jungle, where life has rioted unceasingly above unceasing decay. It was dry with the fine dust of waste places, and wet with the warm mists of slumbering swamps; it seemed to Gideon to tremble with the songs of birds, the dry murmur of palm leaves, and the almost inaudible whisper of the gray moss that festooned the live-oaks.

“Um-m-m,” he murmured, apostrophizing it, “yo’ ’s the right kind o’ breeze, yo’ is. Yo’-all’s healthy.” Still sniffing, he climbed down to the dusty road-bed.

The negroes who had ridden with him were sprawled about him on the ground; one of them lay sleeping, face up, in the sunlight. The train had evidently been there for some time, and there were no signs of an immediate departure. He bought some oranges of a little, bowlegged black boy, and sat down on a log to eat them and to give up his mind to enjoyment. The sun was hot upon him, and his thoughts were vague and drowsy. He was glad that he was alive, glad to be back once more among familiar scenes. Down the length of the train he saw white passengers from the Pullmans restlessly pacing up and down, getting into their cars and out of them, consulting watches, attaching themselves with gesticulatory expostulation to various officials; but their impatience found no echo in his thought. What was the hurry? There was plenty of time. It was sufficient to have come to his own land; the actual walls of home could wait. The delay was pleasant, with its opportunity for drowsy sunning, its relief from the grimy monotony of travel. He glanced at the orange-colored “Jim Crow” with distaste, and inspiration, dawning slowly upon him, swept all other thought before it in its great and growing glory.

A brakeman passed, and Gideon leaped to his feet and pursued him.

“Misteh, how long yo’-all reckon this train goin’ to be?”

“About an hour.”

The question had been a mere matter of form. Gideon had made up his mind, and if he had been told that they started in five minutes he would not have changed it. He climbed back into the car for his coat and his hat, and then almost furtively stole down the steps again and slipped quietly into the palmetto scrub.

“’Most made the mistake of ma life,” he chuckled, “stickin’ to that ol’ train foheveh. ’T isn’t the right way at, all foh Gideon to come home.”

The river was not far away. He could catch the dancing blue of it from time to time in ragged vista, and for this beacon he steered directly. His coat was heavy on his arm, his thin patent-leather ties pinched and burned and demanded detours around swampy places, but he was happy.

As he went along, his plan perfected itself. He would get into loose shoes again, old ones, if money could buy them, and old clothes, too. The bull-briers snatching at his tailored splendor suggested that.

He laughed when the Florida partridge, a small quail, whirred up from under his feet; he paused to exchange affectionate mockery with red squirrels; and once, even when he was brought up suddenly to a familiar and ominous, dry reverberation, the small, crisp sound of the rolling drums of death, he did not look about him for some instrument of destruction, as at any other time he would have done, but instead peered cautiously over the log before him, and spoke in tolerant admonition:

“Now, Misteh Rattlesnake, yo’ jes min’ yo’ own business. Nobody’s goin’ step on yo’, ner go triflin’ roun’ yo’ in no way whatsomeveh. Yo’ jes lay there in the sun an’ git ’s fat ’s yo’ please. Don’ yo’ tu’n yo’ weeked li’l’ eyes on Gideon. He’s jes goin’ ’long home, an’ ain’ lookin’ foh no muss.”

He came presently to the water, and, as luck would have it, to a little group of negro cabins, where he was able to buy old clothes and, after much dickering, a long and somewhat leaky rowboat rigged out with a tattered leg-of-mutton sail. This he provisioned with a jug of water, a starch box full of white corn-meal, and a wide strip of lean razorback bacon.

As he pushed out from shore and set his sail to the small breeze that blew down from the north, an absolute contentment possessed him. The idle waters of the lagoon, lying without tide or current in eternal indolence, rippled and sparkled in breeze and sunlight with a merry surface activity, and seemed to lap the leaky little boat more swiftly on its way. Mosquito Inlet opened broadly before him, and skirting the end of Merritt’s Island he came at last into that longest lagoon, with which he was most familiar, the Indian River. Here the wind died down to a mere breath, which barely kept his boat in motion; but he made no attempt to row. As long as he moved at all, he was satisfied. He was living the fulfilment of his dreams in exile, lounging in the stern in the ancient clothes he had purchased, his feet stretched comfortably before him in their broken shoes, one foot upon a thwart, the other hanging overside so laxly that occasional ripples lapped the run-over heel. From time to time he scanned shore and river for familiar points of interest–some remembered snag that showed the tip of one gnarled branch. Or he marked a newly fallen palmetto, already rotting in the water, which must be added to that map of vast detail that he carried in his head. But for the most part his broad black face was turned up to the blue brilliance above him in unblinking contemplation; his keen eyes, brilliant despite their sun-muddied whites, reveled in the heights above him, swinging from horizon to horizon in the wake of an orderly file of little bluebill ducks, winging their way across the river, or brightening with interest at the rarer sight of a pair of mallards or redheads, lifting with the soaring circles of the great bald-headed eagle, or following the scattered squadron of heron–white heron, blue heron, young and old, trailing, sunlit, brilliant patches, clear even against the bright white and blue of the sky above them.

Often he laughed aloud, sending a great shout of mirth across the water in fresh relish of those comedies best known and best enjoyed. It was as excruciatingly funny as it had ever been, when his boat nosed its way into a great flock of ducks idling upon the water, to see the mad paddling haste of those nearest him, the reproachful turn of their heads, or, if he came too near, their spattering run out of water, feet and wings pumping together as they rose from the surface, looking for all the world like fat little women, scurrying with clutched skirts across city streets. The pelicans, too, delighted him as they perched with pedantic solemnity upon wharf-piles, or sailed in hunched and huddled gravity twenty feet above the river’s surface in swift, dignified flight, which always ended suddenly in an abrupt, up-ended plunge that threw dignity to the winds in its greedy haste, and dropped them crashing into the water.

When darkness came suddenly at last, he made in toward shore, mooring to the warm-fretted end of a fallen and forgotten landing. A straggling orange-grove was here, broken lines of vanquished cultivation, struggling little trees swathed and choked in the festooning gray moss, still showing here and there the valiant golden gleam of fruit. Gideon had seen many such places, had seen settlers come and clear themselves a space in the jungle, plant their groves, and live for a while in lazy independence; and then for some reason or other they would go, and before they had scarcely turned their backs, the jungle had crept in again, patiently restoring its ancient sovereignty. The place was eery with the ghost of dead effort; but it pleased him.

He made a fire and cooked supper, eating enormously and with relish. His conscience did not trouble him at all. Stuhk and his own career seemed already distant; they took small place in his thoughts, and served merely as a background for his present absolute content. He picked some oranges, and ate them in meditative enjoyment. For a while he nodded, half asleep, beside his fire, watching the darkened river, where the mullet, shimmering with phosphorescence, still leaped starkly above the surface, and fell in spattering brilliance. Midnight found him sprawled asleep beside his fire.

Once he awoke. The moon had risen, and a little breeze waved the hanging moss, and whispered in the glossy foliage of orange and palmetto with a sound like falling rain. Gideon sat up and peered about him, rolling his eyes hither and thither at the menacing leap and dance of the jet shadows. His heart was beating thickly, his muscles twitched, and the awful terrors of night pulsed and shuddered over him. Nameless specters peered at him from every shadow, ingenerate familiars of his wild, forgotten blood. He groaned aloud in a delicious terror; and presently, still twitching and shivering, fell asleep again. It was as if something magical had happened; his fear remembered the fear of centuries, and yet with the warm daylight was absolutely forgotten.

He got up a little after sunrise, and went down to the river to bathe, diving deep with a joyful sense of freeing himself from the last alien dust of travel. Once ashore again, however, he began to prepare his breakfast with some haste. For the first time in his journey he was feeling a sense of loneliness and a longing for his kind. He was still happy, but his laughter began to seem strange to him in the solitude. He tried the defiant experiment of laughing for the effect of it, an experiment which brought him to his feet in startled terror; for his laughter was echoed. As he stood peering about him, the sound came again, not laughter this time, but a suppressed giggle. It was human beyond a doubt. Gideon’s face shone with relief and sympathetic amusement; he listened for a moment, and then strode surely forward toward a clump of low palms. There he paused, every sense alert. His ear caught a soft rustle, a little gasp of fear; the sound of a foot moved cautiously.

“Missy,” he said tentatively, “I reckon yo’-all’s come jes ’bout ’n time foh breakfus. Yo’ betteh have some. Ef yo’ ain’ too white to sit down with a black man.”

The leaves parted, and a smiling face as black as Gideon’s own regarded him in shy amusement.

“Who is yo’, man?”

“I mought be king of Kongo,” he laughed, “but I ain’t. Yo’ see befo’ yo’ jes Gideon–at yo’r ’steemed sehvice.” He bowed elaborately in the mock humility of assured importance, watching her face in pleasant anticipation.

But neither awe nor rapture dawned there. She repeated the name, inclining her head coquettishly; but it evidently meant nothing to her. She was merely trying its sound. “Gideon, Gideon. I don’ call to min’ any sech name ez that. Yo’-all’s f’om up No’th likely.” He was beyond the reaches of fame.

“No,” said Gideon, hardly knowing whether he was glad or sorry–“no, I live south of heah. What-all’s yo’ name?”

The girl giggled deliciously.

“Man,” she said, “I shu got the mos’ reediculoustest name you eveh did heah. They call me Vashti–yo’ bacon’s bu’nin’.” She stepped out, and ran past him to snatch his skillet deftly from the fire.

“Vashti”–a strange and delightful name. Gideon followed her slowly. Her romantic coming and her romantic name pleased him; and, too, he thought her beautiful. She was scarcely more than a girl, slim and strong and almost of his own height. She was barefooted, but her blue-checked gingham was clean and belted smartly about a small waist. He remembered only one woman who ran as lithely as she did, one of the numerous “diving beauties” of the vaudeville stage.

She cooked their breakfast, but he served her with an elaborate gallantry, putting forward all his new and foreign graces, garnishing his speech with imposing polysyllables, casting about their picnic breakfast a radiant aura of grandeur borrowed from the recent days of his fame. And he saw that he pleased her, and with her open admiration essayed still greater flights of polished manner.

He made vague plans for delaying his journey as they sat smoking in pleasant conversational ease; and when an interruption came it vexed him.

“Vashty! Vashty!” a woman’s voice sounded thin and far away. “Vashty-y! Yo’ heah me, chile?”

Vashti rose to her feet with a sigh.

“That’s my ma,” she said regretfully.

“What do yo’ care?” asked Gideon. “Let her yell awhile.”

The girl shook her head.

“Ma’s a moughty pow’ful ’oman, and she done got a club ’bout the size o’ my wrist.” She moved off a step or so, and glanced back at him.

Gideon leaped to his feet.

“When yo’ comin’ back? Yo’–yo’ ain’ goin’ without—-” He held out his arms to her, but she only giggled and began to walk slowly away. With a bound he was after her, one hand catching her lightly by the shoulder. He felt suddenly that he must not lose sight of her.

“Let me go! Tu’n me loose, yo’!” The girl was still laughing, but evidently troubled. She wrenched herself away with an effort, only to be caught again a moment later. She screamed and struck at him as he kissed her; for now she was really in terror.

The blow caught Gideon squarely in the mouth, and with such force that he staggered back, astonished, while the girl took wildly to her heels. He stood for a moment irresolute, for something was happening to him. For months he had evaded love with a gentle embarrassment; now, with the savage crash of that blow, he knew unreasoningly that he had found his woman.

He leaped after her again, running as he had not run in years, in savage, determined pursuit, tearing through brier and scrub, tripping, falling, rising, never losing sight of the blue-clad figure before him until at last she tripped and fell, and he stood panting above her.

He took a great breath or so, and leaned over and picked her up in his arms, where she screamed and struck and scratched at him. He laughed, for he felt no longer sensible to pain, and, still chuckling, picked his way carefully back to the shore, wading deep into the water to unmoor his boat. Then with a swift movement he dropped the girl into the bow, pushed free, and clambered actively aboard.

The light, early morning breeze had freshened, and he made out well toward the middle of the river, never even glancing around at the sound of the hallooing he now heard from shore. His exertions had quickened his breathing, but he felt strong and joyful. Vashti lay a huddle of blue in the bow, crouched in fear and desolation, shaken and torn with sobbing; but he made no effort to comfort her. He was untroubled by any sense of wrong; he was simply and unreasoningly satisfied with what he had done. Despite all his gentle, easygoing, laughter-loving existence, he found nothing incongruous or unnatural in this sudden act of violence. He was aglow with happiness; he was taking home a wife. The blind tumult of capture had passed; a great tenderness possessed him.

The leaky little boat was plunging and dancing in swift ecstasy of movement; all about them the little waves ran glittering in the sunlight, plashing and slapping against the boat’s low side, tossing tiny crests to the following wind, showing rifts of white here and there, blowing handfuls of foam and spray. Gideon went softly about the business of shortening his small sail, and came quietly back to his steering-seat again. Soon he would have to be making for what lea the western shore offered; but he was holding to the middle of the river as long as he could, because with every mile the shores were growing more familiar, calling to him to make what speed he could. Vashti’s sobbing had grown small and ceased; he wondered if she had fallen asleep.

Presently, however, he saw her face raised–a face still shining with tears. She saw that he was watching her, and crouched low again. A dash of spray spattered over her, and she looked up frightened, glancing fearfully overside; then once more her eyes came back to him, and this time she got up, still small and crouching, and made her way slowly and painfully down the length of the boat, until at last Gideon moved aside for her, and she sank in the bottom beside him, hiding her eyes in her gingham sleeve.

Gideon stretched out a broad hand and touched her head lightly; and with a tiny gasp her fingers stole up to his.

“Honey,” said Gideon–“Honey, yo’ ain’ mad, is yo’?”

She shook her head, not looking at him.

“Yo’ ain’ grievin’ foh yo’ ma?”

Again she shook her head.

“Because,” said Gideon, smiling down at her, “I ain’ got no beeg club like she has.”

A soft and smothered giggle answered him, and this time Vashti looked up and laid her head against him with a small sigh of contentment.

Gideon felt very tender, very important, at peace with himself and all the world. He rounded a jutting point, and stretched out a black hand, pointing.

[From The Century Magazine, April, 1914; copyright, 1914, by The Century Co.; republished by the author’s permission.]

A Humorous Short Story by William James Lampton

Of course the Widow Stimson never tried to win Deacon Hawkins, nor any other man, for that matter. A widow doesn’t have to try to win a man; she wins without trying. Still, the Widow Stimson sometimes wondered why the deacon was so blind as not to see how her fine farm adjoining his equally fine place on the outskirts of the town might not be brought under one management with mutual benefit to both parties at interest. Which one that management might become was a matter of future detail. The widow knew how to run a farm successfully, and a large farm is not much more difficult to run than one of half the size. She had also had one husband, and knew something more than running a farm successfully. Of all of which the deacon was perfectly well aware, and still he had not been moved by the merging spirit of the age to propose consolidation.

This interesting situation was up for discussion at the Wednesday afternoon meeting of the Sisters’ Sewing Society.

“For my part,” Sister Susan Spicer, wife of the Methodist minister, remarked as she took another tuck in a fourteen-year-old girl’s skirt for a ten-year-old–“for my part, I can’t see why Deacon Hawkins and Kate Stimson don’t see the error of their ways and depart from them.”

“I rather guess she has,” smiled Sister Poteet, the grocer’s better half, who had taken an afternoon off from the store in order to be present.

“Or is willing to,” added Sister Maria Cartridge, a spinster still possessing faith, hope, and charity, notwithstanding she had been on the waiting list a long time.

“Really, now,” exclaimed little Sister Green, the doctor’s wife, “do you think it is the deacon who needs urging?”

“It looks that way to me,” Sister Poteet did not hesitate to affirm.

“Well, I heard Sister Clark say that she had heard him call her ’Kitty’ one night when they were eating ice-cream at the Mite Society,” Sister Candish, the druggist’s wife, added to the fund of reliable information on hand.

“’Kitty,’ indeed!” protested Sister Spicer. “The idea of anybody calling Kate Stimson ’Kitty’! The deacon will talk that way to ’most any woman, but if she let him say it to her more than once, she must be getting mighty anxious, I think.”

“Oh,” Sister Candish hastened to explain, “Sister Clark didn’t say she had heard him say it twice.’”

“Well, I don’t think she heard him say it once,” Sister Spicer asserted with confidence.

“I don’t know about that,” Sister Poteet argued. “From all I can see and hear I think Kate Stimson wouldn’t object to ’most anything the deacon would say to her, knowing as she does that he ain’t going to say anything he shouldn’t say.”

“And isn’t saying what he should,” added Sister Green, with a sly snicker, which went around the room softly.

“But as I was saying–” Sister Spicer began, when Sister Poteet, whose rocker, near the window, commanded a view of the front gate, interrupted with a warning, “’Sh-’sh.”

“Why shouldn’t I say what I wanted to when–” Sister Spicer began.

“There she comes now,” explained Sister Poteet, “and as I live the deacon drove her here in his sleigh, and he’s waiting while she comes in. I wonder what next,” and Sister Poteet, in conjunction with the entire society, gasped and held their eager breaths, awaiting the entrance of the subject of conversation.

Sister Spicer went to the front door to let her in, and she was greeted with the greatest cordiality by everybody.

“We were just talking about you and wondering why you were so late coming,” cried Sister Poteet. “Now take off your things and make up for lost time. There’s a pair of pants over there to be cut down to fit that poor little Snithers boy.”

The excitement and curiosity of the society were almost more than could be borne, but never a sister let on that she knew the deacon was at the gate waiting. Indeed, as far as the widow could discover, there was not the slightest indication that anybody had ever heard there was such a person as the deacon in existence.

“Oh,” she chirruped, in the liveliest of humors, “you will have to excuse me for today. Deacon Hawkins overtook me on the way here, and here said I had simply got to go sleigh-riding with him. He’s waiting out at the gate now.”

“Is that so?” exclaimed the society unanimously, and rushed to the window to see if it were really true.

“Well, did you ever?” commented Sister Poteet, generally.

“Hardly ever,” laughed the widow, good-naturedly, “and I don’t want to lose the chance. You know Deacon Hawkins isn’t asking somebody every day to go sleighing with him. I told him I’d go if he would bring me around here to let you know what had become of me, and so he did. Now, good-by, and I’ll be sure to be present at the next meeting. I have to hurry because he’ll get fidgety.”

The widow ran away like a lively schoolgirl. All the sisters watched her get into the sleigh with the deacon, and resumed the previous discussion with greatly increased interest.

But little recked the widow and less recked the deacon. He had bought a new horse and he wanted the widow’s opinion of it, for the Widow Stimson was a competent judge of fine horseflesh. If Deacon Hawkins had one insatiable ambition it was to own a horse which could fling its heels in the face of the best that Squire Hopkins drove. In his early manhood the deacon was no deacon by a great deal. But as the years gathered in behind him he put off most of the frivolities of youth and held now only to the one of driving a fast horse. No other man in the county drove anything faster except Squire Hopkins, and him the deacon had not been able to throw the dust over. The deacon would get good ones, but somehow never could he find one that the squire didn’t get a better. The squire had also in the early days beaten the deacon in the race for a certain pretty girl he dreamed about. But the girl and the squire had lived happily ever after and the deacon, being a philosopher, might have forgotten the squire’s superiority had it been manifested in this one regard only. But in horses, too–that graveled the deacon.

“How much did you give for him?” was the widow’s first query, after they had reached a stretch of road that was good going and the deacon had let him out for a length or two.

“Well, what do you suppose? You’re a judge.”

“More than I would give, I’ll bet a cookie.”

“Not if you was as anxious as I am to show Hopkins that he can’t drive by everything on the pike.”

“I thought you loved a good horse because he was a good horse,” said the widow, rather disapprovingly.

“I do, but I could love him a good deal harder if he would stay in front of Hopkins’s best.”

“Does he know you’ve got this one?”

“Yes, and he’s been blowing round town that he is waiting to pick me up on the road some day and make my five hundred dollars look like a pewter quarter.”

“So you gave five hundred dollars for him, did you?” laughed the widow.

“Is it too much?”

“Um-er,” hesitated the widow, glancing along the graceful lines of the powerful trotter, “I suppose not if you can beat the squire.”

“Right you are,” crowed the deacon, “and I’ll show him a thing or two in getting over the ground,” he added with swelling pride.

“Well, I hope he won’t be out looking for you today, with me in your sleigh,” said the widow, almost apprehensively, “because, you know, deacon, I have always wanted you to beat Squire Hopkins.”

The deacon looked at her sharply. There was a softness in her tones that appealed to him, even if she had not expressed such agreeable sentiments. Just what the deacon might have said or done after the impulse had been set going must remain unknown, for at the crucial moment a sound of militant bells, bells of defiance, jangled up behind them, disturbing their personal absorption, and they looked around simultaneously. Behind the bells was the squire in his sleigh drawn by his fastest stepper, and he was alone, as the deacon was not. The widow weighed one hundred and sixty pounds, net–which is weighting a horse in a race rather more than the law allows.

But the deacon never thought of that. Forgetting everything except his cherished ambition, he braced himself for the contest, took a twist hold on the lines, sent a sharp, quick call to his horse, and let him out for all that was in him. The squire followed suit and the deacon. The road was wide and the snow was worn down smooth. The track couldn’t have been in better condition. The Hopkins colors were not five rods behind the Hawkins colors as they got away. For half a mile it was nip and tuck, the deacon encouraging his horse and the widow encouraging the deacon, and then the squire began creeping up. The deacon’s horse was a good one, but he was not accustomed to hauling freight in a race. A half-mile of it was as much as he could stand, and he weakened under the strain.

Not handicapped, the squire’s horse forged ahead, and as his nose pushed up to the dashboard of the deacon’s sleigh, that good man groaned in agonized disappointment and bitterness of spirit. The widow was mad all over that Squire Hopkins should take such a mean advantage of his rival. Why didn’t he wait till another time when the deacon was alone, as he was? If she had her way she never would, speak to Squire Hopkins again, nor to his wife, either. But her resentment was not helping the deacon’s horse to win.

Slowly the squire pulled closer to the front; the deacon’s horse, realizing what it meant to his master and to him, spurted bravely, but, struggle as gamely as he might, the odds were too many for him, and he dropped to the rear. The squire shouted in triumph as he drew past the deacon, and the dejected Hawkins shrivelled into a heap on the seat, with only his hands sufficiently alive to hold the lines. He had been beaten again, humiliated before a woman, and that, too, with the best horse that he could hope to put against the ever-conquering squire. Here sank his fondest hopes, here ended his ambition. From this on he would drive a mule or an automobile. The fruit of his desire had turned to ashes in his mouth.

But no. What of the widow? She realized, if the deacon did not, that she, not the squire’s horse, had beaten the deacon’s, and she was ready to make what atonement she could. As the squire passed ahead of the deacon she was stirred by a noble resolve. A deep bed of drifted snow lay close by the side of the road not far in front. It was soft and safe and she smiled as she looked at it as though waiting for her. Without a hint of her purpose, or a sign to disturb the deacon in his final throes, she rose as the sleigh ran near its edge, and with a spring which had many a time sent her lightly from the ground to the bare back of a horse in the meadow, she cleared the robes and lit plump in the drift. The deacon’s horse knew before the deacon did that something had happened in his favor, and was quick to respond. With his first jump of relief the deacon suddenly revived, his hopes came fast again, his blood retingled, he gathered himself, and, cracking his lines, he shot forward, and three minutes later he had passed the squire as though he were hitched to the fence. For a quarter of a mile the squire made heroic efforts to recover his vanished prestige, but effort was useless, and finally concluding that he was practically left standing, he veered off from the main road down a farm lane to find some spot in which to hide the humiliation of his defeat. The deacon, still going at a clipping gait, had one eye over his shoulder as wary drivers always have on such occasions, and when he saw the squire was off the track he slowed down and jogged along with the apparent intention of continuing indefinitely. Presently an idea struck him, and he looked around for the widow. She was not where he had seen her last. Where was she? In the enthusiasm of victory he had forgotten her. He was so dejected at the moment she had leaped that he did not realize what she had done, and two minutes later he was so elated that, shame on him! he did not care. With her, all was lost; without her, all was won, and the deacon’s greatest ambition was to win. But now, with victory perched on his horse-collar, success his at last, he thought of the widow, and he did care. He cared so much that he almost threw his horse off his feet by the abrupt turn he gave him, and back down the pike he flew as if a legion of squires were after him.

He did not know what injury she might have sustained; She might have been seriously hurt, if not actually killed. And why? Simply to make it possible for him to win. The deacon shivered as he thought of it, and urged his horse to greater speed. The squire, down the lane, saw him whizzing along and accepted it profanely as an exhibition for his especial benefit. The deacon now had forgotten the squire as he had only so shortly before forgotten the widow. Two hundred yards from the drift into which she had jumped there was a turn in the road, where some trees shut off the sight, and the deacon’s anxiety increased momentarily until he reached this point. From here he could see ahead, and down there in the middle of the road stood the widow waving her shawl as a banner of triumph, though she could only guess at results. The deacon came on with a rush, and pulled up alongside of her in a condition of nervousness he didn’t think possible to him.

“Hooray! hooray!” shouted the widow, tossing her shawl into the air. “You beat him. I know you did. Didn’t you? I saw you pulling ahead at the turn yonder. Where is he and his old plug?”

“Oh, bother take him and his horse and the race and everything. Are you hurt?” gasped the deacon, jumping out, but mindful to keep the lines in his hand. “Are you hurt?” he repeated, anxiously, though she looked anything but a hurt woman.

“If I am,” she chirped, cheerily, “I’m not hurt half as bad as I would have been if the squire had beat you, deacon. Now don’t you worry about me. Let’s hurry back to town so the squire won’t get another chance, with no place for me to jump.”

And the deacon? Well, well, with the lines in the crook of his elbow the deacon held out his arms to the widow and—-. The sisters at the next meeting of the Sewing Society were unanimously of the opinion that any woman who would risk her life like that for a husband was mighty anxious.

A Humorous Short Story by Grace MacGowan Cooke

A boy in an unnaturally clean, country-laundered collar walked down a long white road. He scuffed the dust up wantonly, for he wished to veil the all-too-brilliant polish of his cowhide shoes. Also the memory of the whiteness and slipperiness of his collar oppressed him. He was fain to look like one accustomed to social diversions, a man hurried from hall to hall of pleasure, without time between to change collar or polish boot. He stooped and rubbed a crumb of earth on his overfresh neck-linen.

This did not long sustain his drooping spirit. He was mentally adrift upon the Hints and Helps to Young Men in Business and Social Relations, which had suggested to him his present enterprise, when the appearance of a second youth, taller and broader than himself, with a shock of light curling hair and a crop of freckles that advertised a rich soil threw him a lifeline. He put his thumbs to his lips and whistled in a peculiarly ear-splitting way. The two boys had sat on the same bench at Sunday-school not three hours before; yet what a change had come over the world for one of them since then!

“Hello! Where you goin’, Ab?” asked the newcomer, gruffly.

“Callin’,” replied the boy in the collar, laconically, but with carefully averted gaze.

“On the girls?” inquired the other, awestruck. In Mount Pisgah you saw the girls home from night church, socials, or parties; you could hang over the gate; and you might walk with a girl in the cemetery of a Sunday afternoon; but to ring a front-door bell and ask for Miss Heart’s Desire one must have been in long trousers at least three years–and the two boys confronted in the dusty road had worn these dignifying garments barely six months.

“Girls,” said Abner, loftily; “I don’t know about girls–I’m just going to call on one girl–Champe Claiborne.” He marched on as though the conversation was at an end; but Ross hung upon his flank. Ross and Champe were neighbors, comrades in all sorts of mischief; he was in doubt whether to halt Abner and pummel him, or propose to enlist under his banner.

“Do you reckon you could?” he debated, trotting along by the irresponsive Jilton boy.

“Run home to your mother,” growled the originator of the plan, savagely. “You ain’t old enough to call on girls; anybody can see that; but I am, and I’m going to call on Champe Claiborne.”

Again the name acted as a spur on Ross. “With your collar and boots all dirty?” he jeered. “They won’t know you’re callin’.”

The boy in the road stopped short in his dusty tracks. He was an intense creature, and he whitened at the tragic insinuation, longing for the wholesome stay and companionship of freckle-faced Ross. “I put the dirt on o’ purpose so’s to look kind of careless,” he half whispered, in an agony of doubt. “S’pose I’d better go into your house and try to wash it off? Reckon your mother would let me?”

“I’ve got two clean collars,” announced the other boy, proudly generous. “I’ll lend you one. You can put it on while I’m getting ready. I’ll tell mother that we’re just stepping out to do a little calling on the girls.”

Here was an ally worthy of the cause. Abner welcomed him, in spite of certain jealous twinges. He reflected with satisfaction that there were two Claiborne girls, and though Alicia was so stiff and prim that no boy would ever think of calling on her, there was still the hope that she might draw Ross’s fire, and leave him, Abner, to make the numerous remarks he had stored up in his mind from Hints and Helps to Young Men in Social and Business Relations to Champe alone.

Mrs. Pryor received them with the easy-going kindness of the mother of one son. She followed them into the dining-room to kiss and feed him, with an absent “Howdy, Abner; how’s your mother?”

Abner, big with the importance of their mutual intention, inclined his head stiffly and looked toward Ross for explanation. He trembled a little, but it was with delight, as he anticipated the effect of the speech Ross had outlined. But it did not come.

“I’m not hungry, mother,” was the revised edition which the freckle-faced boy offered to the maternal ear. “I–we are going over to Mr. Claiborne’s–on–er–on an errand for Abner’s father.”

The black-eyed boy looked reproach as they clattered up the stairs to Ross’s room, where the clean collar was produced and a small stock of ties.

“You’d wear a necktie–wouldn’t you?” Ross asked, spreading them upon the bureau-top.

“Yes. But make it fall carelessly over your shirt-front,” advised the student of Hints and Helps. “Your collar is miles too big for me. Say! I’ve got a wad of white chewing-gum; would you flat it out and stick it over the collar button? Maybe that would fill up some. You kick my foot if you see me turning my head so’s to knock it off.”

“Better button up your vest,” cautioned Ross, laboring with the “careless” fall of his tie.

“Huh-uh! I want ’that easy air which presupposes familiarity with society’–that’s what it says in my book,” objected Abner.

“Sure!” Ross returned to his more familiar jeering attitude. “Loosen up all your clothes, then. Why don’t you untie your shoes? Flop a sock down over one of ’em–that looks ’easy’ all right.”

Abner buttoned his vest. “It gives a man lots of confidence to know he’s good-looking,” he remarked, taking all the room in front of the mirror.

Ross, at the wash-stand soaking his hair to get the curl out of it, grumbled some unintelligible response. The two boys went down the stairs with tremulous hearts.

“Why, you’ve put on another clean shirt, Rossie!” Mrs. Pryor called from her chair–mothers’ eyes can see so far! “Well–don’t get into any dirty play and soil it.” The boys walked in silence–but it was a pregnant silence; for as the roof of the Claiborne house began to peer above the crest of the hill, Ross plumped down on a stone and announced, “I ain’t goin’.”

“Come on,” urged the black-eyed boy. “It’ll be fun–and everybody will respect us more. Champe won’t throw rocks at us in recess-time, after we’ve called on her. She couldn’t.”

“Called!” grunted Ross. “I couldn’t make a call any more than a cow. What’d I say? What’d I do? I can behave all right when you just go to people’s houses–but a call!”

Abner hesitated. Should he give away his brilliant inside information, drawn from the Hints and Helps book, and be rivalled in the glory of his manners and bearing? Why should he not pass on alone, perfectly composed, and reap the field of glory unsupported? His knees gave way and he sat down without intending it.

“Don’t you tell anybody and I’ll put you on to exactly what grown-up gentlemen say and do when they go calling on the girls,” he began.

“Fire away,” retorted Ross, gloomily. “Nobody will find out from me. Dead men tell no tales. If I’m fool enough to go, I don’t expect to come out of it alive.”

Abner rose, white and shaking, and thrusting three fingers into the buttoning of his vest, extending the other hand like an orator, proceeded to instruct the freckled, perspiring disciple at his feet.

“’Hang your hat on the rack, or give it to a servant.’” Ross nodded intelligently. He could do that.

“’Let your legs be gracefully disposed, one hand on the knee, the other–’”

Abner came to an unhappy pause. “I forget what a fellow does with the other hand. Might stick it in your pocket, loudly, or expectorate on the carpet. Indulge in little frivolity. Let a rich stream of conversation flow.’”

Ross mentally dug within himself for sources of rich streams of conversation. He found a dry soil. “What you goin’ to talk about?” he demanded, fretfully. “I won’t go a step farther till I know what I’m goin’ to say when I get there.”

Abner began to repeat paragraphs from Hints and Helps. “’It is best to remark,’” he opened, in an unnatural voice, “’How well you are looking!’ although fulsome compliments should be avoided. When seated ask the young lady who her favorite composer is.’”

“What’s a composer?” inquired Ross, with visions of soothing-syrup in his mind.

“A man that makes up music. Don’t butt in that way; you put me all out–’composer is. Name yours. Ask her what piece of music she likes best. Name yours. If the lady is musical, here ask her to play or sing.’”

This chanted recitation seemed to have a hypnotic effect on the freckled boy; his big pupils contracted each time Abner came to the repetend, “Name yours.”

“I’m tired already,” he grumbled; but some spell made him rise and fare farther.

When they had entered the Claiborne gate, they leaned toward each other like young saplings weakened at the root and locking branches to keep what shallow foothold on earth remained.

“You’re goin’ in first,” asserted Ross, but without conviction. It was his custom to tear up to this house a dozen times a week, on his father’s old horse or afoot; he was wont to yell for Champe as he approached, and quarrel joyously with her while he performed such errand as he had come upon; but he was gagged and hamstrung now by the hypnotism of Abner’s scheme.

“’Walk quietly up the steps; ring the bell and lay your card on the servant,’” quoted Abner, who had never heard of a server.

“’Lay your card on the servant!’” echoed Ross. “Cady’d dodge. There’s a porch to cross after you go up the steps–does it say anything about that?”

“It says that the card should be placed on the servant,” Abner reiterated, doggedly. “If Cady dodges, it ain’t any business of mine. There are no porches in my book. Just walk across it like anybody. We’ll ask for Miss Champe Claiborne.”

“We haven’t got any cards,” discovered Ross, with hope.

“I have,” announced Abner, pompously. “I had some struck off in Chicago. I ordered ’em by mail. They got my name Pillow, but there’s a scalloped gilt border around it. You can write your name on my card. Got a pencil?”

He produced the bit of cardboard; Ross fished up a chewed stump of lead pencil, took it in cold, stiff fingers, and disfigured the square with eccentric scribblings.

“They’ll know who it’s meant for,” he said, apologetically, “because I’m here. What’s likely to happen after we get rid of the card?”

“I told you about hanging your hat on the rack and disposing your legs.”

“I remember now,” sighed Ross. They had been going slower and slower. The angle of inclination toward each other became more and more pronounced.

“We must stand by each other,” whispered Abner.

“I will–if I can stand at all,” murmured the other boy, huskily.

“Oh, Lord!” They had rounded the big clump of evergreens and found Aunt Missouri Claiborne placidly rocking on the front porch! Directed to mount steps and ring bell, to lay cards upon the servant, how should one deal with a rosy-faced, plump lady of uncertain years in a rocking-chair. What should a caller lay upon her? A lion in the way could not have been more terrifying. Even retreat was cut off. Aunt Missouri had seen them. “Howdy, boys; how are you?” she said, rocking peacefully. The two stood before her like detected criminals.

Then, to Ross’s dismay, Abner sank down on the lowest step of the porch, the westering sun full in his hopeless eyes. He sat on his cap. It was characteristic that the freckled boy remained standing. He would walk up those steps according to plan and agreement, if at all. He accepted no compromise. Folding his straw hat into a battered cone, he watched anxiously for the delivery of the card. He was not sure what Aunt Missouri’s attitude might be if it were laid on her. He bent down to his companion. “Go ahead,” he whispered. “Lay the card.”

Abner raised appealing eyes. “In a minute. Give me time,” he pleaded.

“Mars’ Ross–Mars’ Ross! Head ’em off!” sounded a yell, and Babe, the house-boy, came around the porch in pursuit of two half-grown chickens.

“Help him, Rossie,” prompted Aunt Missouri, sharply. “You boys can stay to supper and have some of the chicken if you help catch them.”

Had Ross taken time to think, he might have reflected that gentlemen making formal calls seldom join in a chase after the main dish of the family supper. But the needs of Babe were instant. The lad flung himself sidewise, caught one chicken in his hat, while Babe fell upon the other in the manner of a football player. Ross handed the pullet to the house-boy, fearing that he had done something very much out of character, then pulled the reluctant negro toward to the steps.

“Babe’s a servant,” he whispered to Abner, who had sat rigid through the entire performance. “I helped him with the chickens, and he’s got to stand gentle while you lay the card on.”

Confronted by the act itself, Abner was suddenly aware that he knew not how to begin. He took refuge in dissimulation.

“Hush!” he whispered back. “Don’t you see Mr. Claiborne’s come out?–He’s going to read something to us.”

Ross plumped down beside him. “Never mind the card; tell ’em,” he urged.

“Tell ’em yourself.”

“No–let’s cut and run.”

“I–I think the worst of it is over. When Champe sees us she’ll–“

Mention of Champe stiffened Ross’s spine. If it had been glorious to call upon her, how very terrible she would make it should they attempt calling, fail, and the failure come to her knowledge! Some things were easier to endure than others; he resolved to stay till the call was made.

For half an hour the boys sat with drooping heads, and the old gentleman read aloud, presumably to Aunt Missouri and themselves. Finally their restless eyes discerned the two Claiborne girls walking serene in Sunday trim under the trees at the edge of the lawn. Arms entwined, they were whispering together and giggling a little. A caller, Ross dared not use his voice to shout nor his legs to run toward them.

“Why don’t you go and talk to the girls, Rossie?” Aunt Missouri asked, in the kindness of her heart. “Don’t be noisy–it’s Sunday, you know–and don’t get to playing anything that’ll dirty up your good clothes.”

Ross pressed his lips hard together; his heart swelled with the rage of the misunderstood. Had the card been in his possession, he would, at that instant, have laid it on Aunt Missouri without a qualm.

“What is it?” demanded the old gentleman, a bit testily.

“The girls want to hear you read, father,” said Aunt Missouri, shrewdly; and she got up and trotted on short, fat ankles to the girls in the arbor. The three returned together, Alicia casting curious glances at the uncomfortable youths, Champe threatening to burst into giggles with every breath.

Abner sat hard on his cap and blushed silently. Ross twisted his hat into a three-cornered wreck.

The two girls settled themselves noisily on the upper step. The old man read on and on. The sun sank lower. The hills were red in the west as though a brush fire flamed behind their crests. Abner stole a furtive glance at his companion in misery, and the dolor of Ross’s countenance somewhat assuaged his anguish. The freckle-faced boy was thinking of the village over the hill, a certain pleasant white house set back in a green yard, past whose gate, the two-plank sidewalk ran. He knew lamps were beginning to wink in the windows of the neighbors about, as though the houses said, “Our boys are all at home–but Ross Pryor’s out trying to call on the girls, and can’t get anybody to understand it.” Oh, that he were walking down those two planks, drawing a stick across the pickets, lifting high happy feet which could turn in at that gate! He wouldn’t care what the lamps said then. He wouldn’t even mind if the whole Claiborne family died laughing at him–if only some power would raise him up from this paralyzing spot and put him behind the safe barriers of his own home!

The old man’s voice lapsed into silence; the light was becoming too dim for his reading. Aunt Missouri turned and called over her shoulder into the shadows of the big hall: “You Babe! Go put two extra plates on the supper-table.”

The boys grew red from the tips of their ears, and as far as any one could see under their wilting collars. Abner felt the lump of gum come loose and slip down a cold spine. Had their intentions but been known, this inferential invitation would have been most welcome. It was but to rise up and thunder out, “We came to call on the young ladies.”

They did not rise. They did not thunder out anything. Babe brought a lamp and set it inside the window, and Mr. Claiborne resumed his reading. Champe giggled and said that Alicia made her. Alcia drew her skirts about her, sniffed, and looked virtuous, and said she didn’t see anything funny to laugh at. The supper-bell rang. The family, evidently taking it for granted that the boys would follow, went in.

Alone for the first time, Abner gave up. “This ain’t any use,” he complained. “We ain’t calling on anybody.”

“Why didn’t you lay on the card?” demanded Ross, fiercely. “Why didn’t you say: ’We’ve-just-dropped-into-call-on-Miss-Champe. It’s-a -pleasant-evening. We-feel-we-must-be-going,’ like you said you would? Then we could have lifted our hats and got away decently.”

Abner showed no resentment.

“Oh, if it’s so easy, why didn’t you do it yourself?” he groaned.

“Somebody’s coming,” Ross muttered, hoarsely. “Say it now. Say it quick.”

The somebody proved to be Aunt Missouri, who advanced only as far as the end of the hall and shouted cheerfully: “The idea of a growing boy not coming to meals when the bell rings! I thought you two would be in there ahead of us. Come on.” And clinging to their head-coverings as though these contained some charm whereby the owners might be rescued, the unhappy callers were herded into the dining-room. There were many things on the table that boys like. Both were becoming fairly cheerful, when Aunt Missouri checked the biscuit-plate with: “I treat my neighbors’ children just like I’d want children of my own treated. If your mothers let you eat all you want, say so, and I don’t care; but if either of them is a little bit particular, why, I’d stop at six!”

Still reeling from this blow, the boys finally rose from the table and passed out with the family, their hats clutched to their bosoms, and clinging together for mutual aid and comfort. During the usual Sunday-evening singing Champe laughed till Aunt Missouri threatened to send her to bed. Abner’s card slipped from his hand and dropped face up on the floor. He fell upon it and tore it into infinitesimal pieces.

“That must have been a love-letter,” said Aunt Missouri, in a pause of the music. “You boys are getting ’most old enough to think about beginning to call on the girls.” Her eyes twinkled.

Ross growled like a stoned cur. Abner took a sudden dive into Hints and Helps, and came up with, “You flatter us, Miss Claiborne,” whereat Ross snickered out like a human boy. They all stared at him.

“It sounds so funny to call Aunt Missouri ’Mis’ Claiborne,’” the lad of the freckles explained.

“Funny?” Aunt Missouri reddened. “I don’t see any particular joke in my having my maiden name.”

Abner, who instantly guessed at what was in Ross’s mind, turned white at the thought of what they had escaped. Suppose he had laid on the card and asked for Miss Claiborne!

“What’s the matter, Champe?” inquired Ross, in a fairly natural tone. The air he had drawn into his lungs when he laughed at Abner seemed to relieve him from the numbing gentility which had bound his powers since he joined Abner’s ranks.

“Nothing. I laughed because you laughed,” said the girl.

The singing went forward fitfully. Servants traipsed through the darkened yard, going home for Sunday night. Aunt Missouri went out and held some low-toned parley with them. Champe yawned with insulting enthusiasm. Presently both girls quietly disappeared. Aunt Missouri never returned to the parlor–evidently thinking that the girls would attend to the final amenities with their callers. They were left alone with old Mr. Claiborne. They sat as though bound in their chairs, while the old man read in silence for a while. Finally he closed his book, glanced about him, and observed absently:

“So you boys were to spend the night?” Then, as he looked at their startled faces: “I’m right, am I not? You are to spent the night?”

Oh, for courage to say: “Thank you, no. We’ll be going now. We just came over to call on Miss Champe.” But thought of how this would sound in face of the facts, the painful realization that they dared not say it because they had not said it, locked their lips. Their feet were lead; their tongues stiff and too large for their mouths. Like creatures in a nightmare, they moved stiffly, one might have said creakingly, up the stairs and received each–a bedroom candle!

“Good night, children,” said the absent-minded old man. The two gurgled out some sounds which were intended for words and doged behind the bedroom door.

“They’ve put us to bed!” Abner’s black eyes flashed fire. His nervous hands clutched at the collar Ross had lent him. “That’s what I get for coming here with you, Ross Pryor!” And tears of humiliation stood in his eyes.

In his turn Ross showed no resentment. “What I’m worried about is my mother,” he confessed. “She’s so sharp about finding out things. She wouldn’t tease me–she’d just be sorry for me. But she’ll think I went home with you.”

“I’d like to see my mother make a fuss about my calling on the girls!” growled Abner, glad to let his rage take a safe direction.

“Calling on the girls! Have we called on any girls?” demanded clear-headed, honest Ross.

“Not exactly–yet,” admitted Abner, reluctantly. “Come on–let’s go to bed. Mr. Claiborne asked us, and he’s the head of this household. It isn’t anybody’s business what we came for.”

“I’ll slip off my shoes and lie down till Babe ties up the dog in the morning,” said Ross. “Then we can get away before any of the family is up.”

Oh, youth–youth–youth, with its rash promises! Worn out with misery the boys slept heavily. The first sound that either heard in the morning was Babe hammering upon their bedroom door. They crouched guiltily and looked into each other’s eyes. “Let pretend we ain’t here and he’ll go away,” breathed Abner.

But Babe was made of sterner stuff. He rattled the knob. He turned it. He put in a black face with a grin which divided it from ear to ear. “Cady say I mus’ call dem fool boys to breakfus’,” he announced. “I never named you-all dat. Cady, she say dat.”

“Breakfast!” echoed Ross, in a daze.

“Yessuh, breakfus’,” reasserted Babe, coming entirely into the room and looking curiously about him. “Ain’t you-all done been to bed at all?” wrapping his arms about his shoulders and shaking with silent ecstasies of mirth. The boys threw themselves upon him and ejected him.

“Sent up a servant to call us to breakfast,” snarled Abner. “If they’d only sent their old servant to the door in the first place, all this wouldn’t ’a’ happened. I’m just that way when I get thrown off the track. You know how it was when I tried to repeat those things to you–I had to go clear back to the beginning when I got interrupted.”

“Does that mean that you’re still hanging around here to begin over and make a call?” asked Ross, darkly. “I won’t go down to breakfast if you are.”

Abner brightened a little as he saw Ross becoming wordy in his rage. “I dare you to walk downstairs and say, ’We-just-dropped-in-to-call-on-Miss-Champe’!” he said.

“I–oh–I–darn it all! there goes the second bell. We may as well trot down.”

“Don’t leave me, Ross,” pleaded the Jilton boy. “I can’t stay here–and I can’t go down.”

The tone was hysterical. The boy with freckles took his companion by the arm without another word and marched him down the stairs. “We may get a chance yet to call on Champe all by herself out on the porch or in the arbor before she goes to school,” he suggested, by way of putting some spine into the black-eyed boy.

An emphatic bell rang when they were half-way down the stairs. Clutching their hats, they slunk into the dining-room. Even Mr. Claiborne seemed to notice something unusual in their bearing as they settled into the chairs assigned to them, and asked them kindly if they had slept well.

It was plain that Aunt Missouri had been posting him as to her understanding of the intentions of these young men. The state of affairs gave an electric hilarity to the atmosphere. Babe travelled from the sideboard to the table, trembling like chocolate pudding. Cady insisted on bringing in the cakes herself, and grinned as she whisked her starched blue skirts in and out of the dining-room. A dimple even showed itself at the corners of pretty Alicia’s prim little mouth. Champe giggled, till Ross heard Cady whisper:

“Now you got one dem snickerin’ spells agin. You gwine bust yo’ dress buttons off in the back ef you don’t mind.”

As the spirits of those about them mounted, the hearts of the two youths sank–if it was like this among the Claibornes, what would it be at school and in the world at large when their failure to connect intention with result became village talk? Ross bit fiercely upon an unoffending batter-cake, and resolved to make a call single-handed before he left the house.

They went out of the dining-room, their hats as ever pressed to their breasts. With no volition of their own, their uncertain young legs carried them to the porch. The Claiborne family and household followed like small boys after a circus procession. When the two turned, at bay, yet with nothing between them and liberty but a hypnotism of their own suggestion, they saw the black faces of the servants peering over the family shoulders.

Ross was the boy to have drawn courage from the desperation of their case, and made some decent if not glorious ending. But at the psychological moment there came around the corner of the house that most contemptible figure known to the Southern plantation, a shirt-boy–a creature who may be described, for the benefit of those not informed, as a pickaninny clad only in a long, coarse cotton shirt. While all eyes were fastened upon him this inglorious ambassador bolted forth his message:

“Yo’ ma say”–his eyes were fixed upon Abner–“ef yo’ don’ come home, she gwine come after yo’–an’ cut yo’ into inch pieces wid a rawhide when she git yo’. Dat jest what Miss Hortense say.”

As though such a book as Hints and Helps had never existed, Abner shot for the gate–he was but a hobbledehoy fascinated with the idea of playing gentleman. But in Ross there were the makings of a man. For a few half-hearted paces, under the first impulse of horror, he followed his deserting chief, the laughter of the family, the unrestrainable guffaws of the negroes, sounding in the rear. But when Champe’s high, offensive giggle, topping all the others, insulted his ears, he stopped dead, wheeled, and ran to the porch faster than he had fled from it. White as paper, shaking with inexpressible rage, he caught and kissed the tittering girl, violently, noisily, before them all.

The negroes fled–they dared not trust their feelings; even Alicia sniggered unobtrusively; Grandfather Claiborne chuckled, and Aunt Missouri frankly collapsed into her rocking-chair, bubbling with mirth, crying out:

“Good for you, Ross! Seems you did know how to call on the girls, after all.”

But Ross, paying no attention, walked swiftly toward the gate. He had served his novitiate. He would never be afraid again. With cheerful alacrity he dodged the stones flung after him with friendly, erratic aim by the girl upon whom, yesterday afternoon, he had come to make a social call.

[From Harper’s Magazine, August, 1906. Copyright, 1906, by Harper & Brothers.]

A Humorous Short Story by George Randolph Chester

I

Just as the stage rumbled over the rickety old bridge, creaking and groaning, the sun came from behind the clouds that had frowned all the way, and the passengers cheered up a bit. The two richly dressed matrons who had been so utterly and unnecessarily oblivious to the presence of each other now suspended hostilities for the moment by mutual and unspoken consent, and viewed with relief the little, golden-tinted valley and the tree-clad road just beyond. The respective husbands of these two ladies exchanged a mere glance, no more, of comfort. They, too, were relieved, though more by the momentary truce than by anything else. They regretted very much to be compelled to hate each other, for each had reckoned up his vis-à-vis as a rather proper sort of fellow, probably a man of some achievement, used to good living and good company.

Extreme iciness was unavoidable between them, however. When one stranger has a splendidly preserved blonde wife and the other a splendidly preserved brunette wife, both of whom have won social prominence by years of hard fighting and aloofness, there remains nothing for the two men but to follow the lead, especially when directly under the eyes of the leaders.

The son of the blonde matron smiled cheerfully as the welcome light flooded the coach.

He was a nice-looking young man, of about twenty-two, one might judge, and he did his smiling, though in a perfectly impersonal and correct sort of manner, at the pretty daughter of the brunette matron. The pretty daughter also smiled, but her smile was demurely directed at the trees outside, clad as they were in all the flaming glory of their autumn tints, glistening with the recent rain and dripping with gems that sparkled and flashed in the noonday sun as they fell.

It is marvelous how much one can see out of the corner of the eye, while seeming to view mere scenery.

The driver looked down, as he drove safely off the bridge, and shook his head at the swirl of water that rushed and eddied, dark and muddy, close up under the rotten planking; then he cracked his whip, and the horses sturdily attacked the little hill.

Thick, overhanging trees on either side now dimmed the light again, and the two plump matrons once more glared past the opposite shoulders, profoundly unaware of each other. The husbands took on the politely surly look required of them. The blonde son’s eyes still sought the brunette daughter, but it was furtively done and quite unsuccessfully, for the daughter was now doing a little glaring on her own account. The blonde matron had just swept her eyes across the daughter’s skirt, estimating the fit and material of it with contempt so artistically veiled that it could almost be understood in the dark.

II

The big bays swung to the brow of the hill with ease, and dashed into a small circular clearing, where a quaint little two-story building, with a mossy watering-trough out in front, nestled under the shade of majestic old trees that reared their brown and scarlet crowns proudly into the sky. A long, low porch ran across the front of the structure, and a complaining sign hung out announcing, in dim, weather-flecked letters on a cracked board, that this was the “Tutt House.” A gray-headed man, in brown overalls and faded blue jumper, stood on the porch and shook his fist at the stage as it whirled by.

“What a delightfully old-fashioned inn!” exclaimed the pretty daughter. “How I should like to stop there over night!”

“You would probably wish yourself away before morning, Evelyn,” replied her mother indifferently. “No doubt it would be a mere siege of discomfort.”

The blonde matron turned to her husband. The pretty daughter had been looking at the picturesque “inn” between the heads of this lady and her son.

“Edward, please pull down the shade behind me,” she directed. “There is quite a draught from that broken window.”

The pretty daughter bit her lip. The brunette matron continued to stare at the shade in the exact spot upon which her gaze had been before directed, and she never quivered an eyelash. The young man seemed very uncomfortable, and he tried to look his apologies to the pretty daughter, but she could not see him now, not even if her eyes had been all corners.

They were bowling along through another avenue of trees when the driver suddenly shouted, “Whoa there!”

The horses were brought up with a jerk that was well nigh fatal to the assortment of dignity inside the coach. A loud roaring could be heard, both ahead and in the rear, a sharp splitting like a fusillade of pistol shots, then a creaking and tearing of timbers. The driver bent suddenly forward.

“Gid ap!” he cried, and the horses sprang forward with a lurch. He swung them around a sharp bend with a skillful hand and poised his weight above the brake as they plunged at terrific speed down a steep grade. The roaring was louder than ever now, and it became deafening as they suddenly emerged from the thick underbrush at the bottom of the declivity.

“Caught, by gravy!” ejaculated the driver, and, for the second time, he brought the coach to an abrupt stop.

“Do see what is the matter, Ralph,” said the blonde matron impatiently.

Thus commanded, the young man swung out and asked the driver about it.

“Paintsville dam’s busted,” he was informed. “I been a-lookin’ fer it this many a year, an’ this here freshet done it. You see the holler there? Well, they’s ten foot o’ water in it, an’ it had ort to be stone dry. The bridge is tore out behind us, an’ we’re stuck here till that water runs out. We can’t git away till to-morry, anyways.”

He pointed out the peculiar topography of the place, and Ralph got back in the coach.

“We’re practically on a flood-made island,” he exclaimed, with one eye on the pretty daughter, “and we shall have to stop over night at that quaint, old-fashioned inn we passed a few moments ago.”

The pretty daughter’s eyes twinkled, and he thought he caught a swift, direct gleam from under the long lashes–but he was not sure.

“Dear me, how annoying,” said the blonde matron, but the brunette matron still stared, without the slightest trace of interest in anything else, at the infinitesimal spot she had selected on the affronting window-shade.

The two men gave sighs of resignation, and cast carefully concealed glances at each other, speculating on the possibility of a cigar and a glass, and maybe a good story or two, or possibly even a game of poker after the evening meal. Who could tell what might or might not happen?

III

When the stage drew up in front of the little hotel, it found Uncle Billy Tutt prepared for his revenge. In former days the stage had always stopped at the Tutt House for the noonday meal. Since the new railway was built through the adjoining county, however, the stage trip became a mere twelve-mile, cross-country transfer from one railroad to another, and the stage made a later trip, allowing the passengers plenty of time for “dinner” before they started. Day after day, as the coach flashed by with its money-laden passengers, Uncle Billy had hoped that it would break down. But this was better, much better. The coach might be quickly mended, but not the flood.

“I’m a-goin’ t’ charge ’em till they squeal,” he declared to the timidly protesting Aunt Margaret, “an’ then I’m goin’ t’ charge ’em a least mite more, drat ’em!”

He retreated behind the rough wooden counter that did duty as a desk, slammed open the flimsy, paper-bound “cash book” that served as a register, and planted his elbows uncompromisingly on either side of it.

“Let ’em bring in their own traps,” he commented, and Aunt Margaret fled, ashamed and conscience-smitten, to the kitchen. It seemed awful.

The first one out of the coach was the husband of the brunette matron, and, proceeding under instructions, he waited neither for luggage nor women folk, but hurried straight into the Tutt House. The other man would have been neck and neck with him in the race, if it had not been that he paused to seize two suitcases and had the misfortune to drop one, which burst open and scattered a choice assortment of lingerie from one end of the dingy coach to the other.

In the confusion of rescuing the fluffery, the owner of the suitcase had to sacrifice her hauteur and help her husband and son block up the aisle, while the other matron had the ineffable satisfaction of being kept waiting, at last being enabled to say, sweetly and with the most polite consideration:

“Will you kindly allow me to pass?”

The blonde matron raised up and swept her skirts back perfectly flat. She was pale but collected. Her husband was pink but collected. Her son was crimson and uncollected. The brunette daughter could not have found an eye anywhere in his countenance as she rustled out after her mother.

“I do hope that Belmont has been able to secure choice quarters,” the triumphing matron remarked as her daughter joined her on the ground. “This place looked so very small that there can scarcely be more than one comfortable suite in it.”

It was a vital thrust. Only a splendidly cultivated self-control prevented the blonde matron from retaliating upon the unfortunate who had muddled things. Even so, her eyes spoke whole shelves of volumes.

The man who first reached the register wrote, in a straight black scrawl, “J. Belmont Van Kamp, wife, and daughter.” There being no space left for his address, he put none down.

“I want three adjoining rooms, en suite if possible,” he demanded.

“Three!” exclaimed Uncle Billy, scratching his head. “Won’t two do ye? I ain’t got but six bedrooms in th’ house. Me an’ Marg’t sleeps in one, an’ we’re a-gittin’ too old fer a shake-down on th’ floor. I’ll have t’ save one room fer th’ driver, an’ that leaves four. You take two now—“

Mr. Van Kamp cast a hasty glance out of the window, The other man was getting out of the coach. His own wife was stepping on the porch.

“What do you ask for meals and lodging until this time to-morrow?” he interrupted.

The decisive moment had arrived. Uncle Billy drew a deep breath.

“Two dollars a head!” he defiantly announced. There! It was out! He wished Margaret had stayed to hear him say it.

The guest did not seem to be seriously shocked, and Uncle Billy was beginning to be sorry he had not said three dollars, when Mr. Van Kamp stopped the landlord’s own breath.

“I’ll give you fifteen dollars for the three best rooms in the house,” he calmly said, and Landlord Tutt gasped as the money fluttered down under his nose.

“Jis’ take yore folks right on up, Mr. Kamp,” said Uncle Billy, pouncing on the money. “Th’ rooms is th’ three right along th’ hull front o’ th’ house. I’ll be up and make on a fire in a minute. Jis’ take th’ Jonesville Banner an’ th’ Uticky Clarion along with ye.”

As the swish of skirts marked the passage of the Van Kamps up the wide hall stairway, the other party swept into the room.

The man wrote, in a round flourish, “Edward Eastman Ellsworth, wife, and son.”

“I’d like three choice rooms, en suite,” he said.

“Gosh!” said Uncle Billy, regretfully. “That’s what Mr. Kamp wanted, fust off, an’ he got it. They hain’t but th’ little room over th’ kitchen left. I’ll have to put you an’ your wife in that, an’ let your boy sleep with th’ driver.”

The consternation in the Ellsworth party was past calculating by any known standards of measurement. The thing was an outrage! It was not to be borne! They would not submit to it!

Uncle Billy, however, secure in his mastery of the situation, calmly quartered them as he had said. “An’ let ’em splutter all they want to,” he commented comfortably to himself.

IV

The Ellsworths were holding a family indignation meeting on the broad porch when the Van Ramps came contentedly down for a walk, and brushed by them with unseeing eyes.

“It makes a perfectly fascinating suite,” observed Mrs. Van Kamp, in a pleasantly conversational tone that could be easily overheard by anyone impolite enough to listen. “That delightful old-fashioned fireplace in the middle apartment makes it an ideal sitting-room, and the beds are so roomy and comfortable.”

“I just knew it would be like this!” chirruped Miss Evelyn. “I remarked as we passed the place, if you will remember, how charming it would be to stop in this dear, quaint old inn over night. All my wishes seem to come true this year.”

These simple and, of course, entirely unpremeditated remarks were as vinegar and wormwood to Mrs. Ellsworth, and she gazed after the retreating Van Kamps with a glint in her eye that would make one understand Lucretia Borgia at last.

Her son also gazed after the retreating Van Kamp. She had an exquisite figure, and she carried herself with a most delectable grace. As the party drew away from the inn she dropped behind the elders and wandered off into a side path to gather autumn leaves.

Ralph, too, started off for a walk, but naturally not in the same direction.

“Edward!” suddenly said Mrs. Ellsworth. “I want you to turn those people out of that suite before night!”

“Very well,” he replied with a sigh, and got up to do it. He had wrecked a railroad and made one, and had operated successful corners in nutmegs and chicory. No task seemed impossible. He walked in to see the landlord.

“What are the Van Kamps paying you for those three rooms?” he asked.

“Fifteen dollars,” Uncle Billy informed him, smoking one of Mr. Van Kamp’s good cigars and twiddling his thumbs in huge content.

“I’ll give you thirty for them. Just set their baggage outside and tell them the rooms are occupied.”

“No sir-ree!” rejoined Uncle Billy. “A bargain’s a bargain, an’ I allus stick to one I make.”

Mr. Ellsworth withdrew, but not defeated. He had never supposed that such an absurd proposition would be accepted. It was only a feeler, and he had noticed a wince of regret in his landlord. He sat down on the porch and lit a strong cigar. His wife did not bother him. She gazed complacently at the flaming foliage opposite, and allowed him to think. Getting impossible things was his business in life, and she had confidence in him.

“I want to rent your entire house for a week,” he announced to Uncle Billy a few minutes later. It had occurred to him that the flood might last longer than they anticipated.

Uncle Billy’s eyes twinkled.

“I reckon it kin be did,” he allowed. “I reckon a ho-tel man’s got a right to rent his hull house ary minute.”

“Of course he has. How much do you want?”

Uncle Billy had made one mistake in not asking this sort of folks enough, and he reflected in perplexity.

“Make me a offer,” he proposed. “Ef it hain’t enough I’ll tell ye. You want to rent th’ hull place, back lot an’ all?”

“No, just the mere house. That will be enough,” answered the other with a smile. He was on the point of offering a hundred dollars, when he saw the little wrinkles about Mr. Tutt’s eyes, and he said seventy-five.

“Sho, ye’re jokin’!” retorted Uncle Billy. He had been considered a fine horse-trader in that part of the country. “Make it a hundred and twenty-five, an’ I’ll go ye.”

Mr. Ellsworth counted out some bills.

“Here’s a hundred,” he said. “That ought to be about right.”

“Fifteen more,” insisted Uncle Billy.

With a little frown of impatience the other counted off the extra money and handed it over. Uncle Billy gravely handed it back.

“Them’s the fifteen dollars Mr. Kamp give me,” he explained. “You’ve got the hull house fer a week, an’ o’ course all th’ money that’s tooken in is your’n. You kin do as ye please about rentin’ out rooms to other folks, I reckon. A bargain’s a bargain, an’ I allus stick to one I make.”

V

Ralph Ellsworth stalked among the trees, feverishly searching for squirrels, scarlet leaves, and the glint of a brown walking-dress, this last not being so easy to locate in sunlit autumn woods. Time after time he quickened his pace, only to find that he had been fooled by a patch of dogwood, a clump of haw bushes or even a leaf-strewn knoll, but at last he unmistakably saw the dress, and then he slowed down to a careless saunter.

She was reaching up for some brilliantly colored maple leaves, and was entirely unconscious of his presence, especially after she had seen him. Her pose showed her pretty figure to advantage, but, of course, she did not know that. How should she?

Ralph admired the picture very much. The hat, the hair, the gown, the dainty shoes, even the narrow strip of silken hose that was revealed as she stood a-uptoe, were all of a deep, rich brown that proved an exquisite foil for the pink and cream of her cheeks. He remembered that her eyes were almost the same shade, and wondered how it was that women-folk happened on combinations in dress that so well set off their natural charms. The fool!

He was about three trees away, now, and a panic akin to that which hunters describe as “buck ague” seized him. He decided that he really had no excuse for coming any nearer. It would not do, either, to be seen staring at her if she should happen to turn her head, so he veered off, intending to regain the road. It would be impossible to do this without passing directly in her range of vision, and he did not intend to try to avoid it. He had a fine, manly figure of his own.

He had just passed the nearest radius to her circle and was proceeding along the tangent that he had laid out for himself, when the unwitting maid looked carefully down and saw a tangle of roots at her very feet. She was so unfortunate, a second later, as to slip her foot in this very tangle and give her ankle ever so slight a twist.

“Oh!” cried Miss Van Kamp, and Ralph Ellsworth flew to the rescue. He had not been noticing her at all, and yet he had started to her side before she had even cried out, which was strange. She had a very attractive voice.

“May I be of assistance?” he anxiously inquired.

“I think not, thank you,” she replied, compressing her lips to keep back the intolerable pain, and half-closing her eyes to show the fine lashes. Declining the proffered help, she extricated her foot, picked up her autumn branches, and turned away. She was intensely averse to anything that could be construed as a flirtation, even of the mildest, he could certainly see that. She took a step, swayed slightly, dropped the leaves, and clutched out her hand to him.

“It is nothing,” she assured him in a moment, withdrawing the hand after he had held it quite long enough. “Nothing whatever. I gave my foot a slight wrench, and turned the least bit faint for a moment.”

“You must permit me to walk back, at least to the road, with you,” he insisted, gathering up her armload of branches. “I couldn’t think of leaving you here alone.”

As he stooped to raise the gay woodland treasures he smiled to himself, ever so slightly. This was not his first season out, either.

“Delightful spot, isn’t it?” he observed as they regained the road and sauntered in the direction of the Tutt House.

“Quite so,” she reservedly answered. She had noticed that smile as he stooped. He must be snubbed a little. It would be so good for him.

“You don’t happen to know Billy Evans, of Boston, do you?” he asked.

“I think not. I am but very little acquainted in Boston.”

“Too bad,” he went on. “I was rather in hopes you knew Billy. All sorts of a splendid fellow, and knows everybody.”

“Not quite, it seems,” she reminded him, and he winced at the error. In spite of the sly smile that he had permitted to himself, he was unusually interested.

He tried the weather, the flood, the accident, golf, books and three good, substantial, warranted jokes, but the conversation lagged in spite of him. Miss Van Kamp would not for the world have it understood that this unconventional meeting, made allowable by her wrenched ankle, could possibly fulfill the functions of a formal introduction.

“What a ripping, queer old building that is!” he exclaimed, making one more brave effort as they came in sight of the hotel.

“It is, rather,” she assented. “The rooms in it are as quaint and delightful as the exterior, too.”

She looked as harmless and innocent as a basket of peaches as she said it, and never the suspicion of a smile deepened the dimple in the cheek toward him. The smile was glowing cheerfully away inside, though. He could feel it, if he could not see it, and he laughed aloud.

“Your crowd rather got the better of us there,” he admitted with the keen appreciation of one still quite close to college days.

“Of course, the mater is furious, but I rather look on it as a lark.”

She thawed like an April icicle.

“It’s perfectly jolly,” she laughed with him. “Awfully selfish of us, too, I know, but such loads of fun.”

They were close to the Tutt House now, and her limp, that had entirely disappeared as they emerged from the woods, now became quite perceptible. There might be people looking out of the windows, though it is hard to see why that should affect a limp.

Ralph was delighted to find that a thaw had set in, and he made one more attempt to establish at least a proxy acquaintance.

“You don’t happen to know Peyson Kingsley, of Philadelphia, do you?”

“I’m afraid I don’t,” she replied. “I know so few Philadelphia people, you see.” She was rather regretful about it this time. He really was a clever sort of a fellow, in spite of that smile.

The center window in the second floor of the Tutt House swung open, its little squares of glass flashing jubilantly in the sunlight. Mrs. Ellsworth leaned out over the sill, from the quaint old sitting-room of the Van Kamp apartments!

“Oh, Ralph!” she called in her most dulcet tones. “Kindly excuse yourself and come right on up to our suite for a few moments!”

VI

It is not nearly so easy to take a practical joke as to perpetrate one. Evelyn was sitting thoughtfully on the porch when her father and mother returned. Mrs. Ellsworth was sitting at the center window above, placidly looking out. Her eyes swept carelessly over the Van Kamps, and unconcernedly passed on to the rest of the landscape.

Mrs. Van Kamp gasped and clutched the arm of her husband. There was no need. He, too, had seen the apparition. Evelyn now, for the first time, saw the real humor of the situation. She smiled as she thought of Ralph. She owed him one, but she never worried about her debts. She always managed to get them paid, principal and interest.

Mr. Van Kamp suddenly glowered and strode into the Tutt House. Uncle Billy met him at the door, reflectively chewing a straw, and handed him an envelope. Mr. Van Kamp tore it open and drew out a note. Three five-dollar bills came out with it and fluttered to the porch floor. This missive confronted him:

MR. J. BELMONT VAN KAMP,

DEAR SIR: This is to notify you that I have rented the entire Tutt House for the ensuing week, and am compelled to assume possession of the three second-floor front rooms. Herewith I am enclosing the fifteen dollars you paid to secure the suite. You are quite welcome to make use, as my guest, of the small room over the kitchen. You will find your luggage in that room. Regretting any inconvenience that this transaction may cause you, I am,

Yours respectfully,
  EDWARD EASTMAN ELLSWORTH.

Mr. Van Kamp passed the note to his wife and sat down or a large chair. He was glad that the chair was comfortable and roomy. Evelyn picked up the bills and tucked them into her waist. She never overlooked any of her perquisites. Mrs. Van Kamp read the note, and the tip of her nose became white. She also sat down, but she was the first to find her voice.

“Atrocious!” she exclaimed. “Atrocious! Simply atrocious, Belmont. This is a house of public entertainment. They can’t turn us out in this high-minded manner! Isn’t there a law or something to that effect?”

“It wouldn’t matter if there was,” he thoughtfully replied. “This fellow Ellsworth would be too clever to be caught by it. He would say that the house was not a hotel but a private residence during the period for which he has rented it.”

Personally, he rather admired Ellsworth. Seemed to be a resourceful sort of chap who knew how to make money behave itself, and do its little tricks without balking in the harness.

“Then you can make him take down the sign!” his wife declared.

He shook his head decidedly.

“It wouldn’t do, Belle,” he replied. “It would be spite, not retaliation, and not at all sportsmanlike. The course you suggest would belittle us more than it would annoy them. There must be some other way.”

He went in to talk with Uncle Billy.

“I want to buy this place,” he stated. “Is it for sale?”

“It sartin is!” replied Uncle Billy. He did not merely twinkle this time. He grinned.

“How much?”

“Three thousand dollars.” Mr. Tutt was used to charging by this time, and he betrayed no hesitation.

“I’ll write you out a check at once,” and Mr. Van Kamp reached in his pocket with the reflection that the spot, after all, was an ideal one for a quiet summer retreat.

“Air you a-goin’ t’ scribble that there three thou-san’ on a piece o’ paper?” inquired Uncle Billy, sitting bolt upright. “Ef you air a-figgerin’ on that, Mr. Kamp, jis’ you save yore time. I give a man four dollars fer one o’ them check things oncet, an’ I owe myself them four dollars yit.”

Mr. Van Kamp retired in disorder, but the thought of his wife and daughter waiting confidently on the porch stopped him. Moreover, the thing had resolved itself rather into a contest between Ellsworth and himself, and he had done a little making and breaking of men and things in his own time. He did some gatling-gun thinking out by the newel-post, and presently rejoined Uncle Billy.

“Mr. Tutt, tell me just exactly what Mr. Ellsworth rented, please,” he requested.

“Th’ hull house,” replied Billy, and then he somewhat sternly added: “Paid me spot cash fer it, too.”

Mr. Van Kamp took a wad of loose bills from his trousers pocket, straightened them out leisurely, and placed them in his bill book, along with some smooth yellowbacks of eye-bulging denominations. Uncle Billy sat up and stopped twiddling his thumbs.

“Nothing was said about the furniture, was there?” suavely inquired Van Kamp.

Uncle Billy leaned blankly back in his chair. Little by little the light dawned on the ex-horse-trader. The crow’s feet reappeared about his eyes, his mouth twitched, he smiled, he grinned, then he slapped his thigh and haw-hawed.

“No!” roared Uncle Billy. “No, there wasn’t, by gum!”

“Nothing but the house?”

“His very own words!” chuckled Uncle Billy. “’Jis’ th’ mere house,’ says he, an’ he gits it. A bargain’s a bargain, an’ I allus stick to one I make.”

“How much for the furniture for the week?”

“Fifty dollars!” Mr. Tutt knew how to do business with this kind of people now, you bet.

Mr. Van Kamp promptly counted out the money.

“Drat it!” commented Uncle Billy to himself. “I could ’a’ got more!”

“Now where can we make ourselves comfortable with this furniture?”

Uncle Billy chirked up. All was not yet lost.

“Waal,” he reflectively drawled, “there’s th’ new barn. It hain’t been used for nothin’ yit, senct I built it two years ago. I jis’ hadn’t th’ heart t’ put th’ critters in it as long as th’ ole one stood up.”

The other smiled at this flashlight on Uncle Billy’s character, and they went out to look at the barn.

VII

Uncle Billy came back from the “Tutt House Annex,” as Mr. Van Kamp dubbed the barn, with enough more money to make him love all the world until he got used to having it. Uncle Billy belongs to a large family.

Mr. Van Kamp joined the women on the porch, and explained the attractively novel situation to them. They were chatting gaily when the Ellsworths came down the stairs. Mr. Ellsworth paused for a moment to exchange a word with Uncle Billy.

“Mr. Tutt,” said he, laughing, “if we go for a bit of exercise will you guarantee us the possession of our rooms when we come back?”

“Yes sir-ree!” Uncle Billy assured him. “They shan’t nobody take them rooms away from you fer money, marbles, ner chalk. A bargain’s a bargain, an’ I allus stick to one I make,” and he virtuously took a chew of tobacco while he inspected the afternoon sky with a clear conscience.

“I want to get some of those splendid autumn leaves to decorate our cozy apartments,” Mrs. Ellsworth told her husband as they passed in hearing of the Van Kamps. “Do you know those oldtime rag rugs are the most oddly decorative effects that I have ever seen. They are so rich in color and so exquisitely blended.”

There were reasons why this poisoned arrow failed to rankle, but the Van Kamps did not trouble to explain. They were waiting for Ralph to come out and join his parents. Ralph, it seemed, however, had decided not to take a walk. He had already fatigued himself, he had explained, and his mother had favored him with a significant look. She could readily believe him, she had assured him, and had then left him in scorn.

The Van Kamps went out to consider the arrangement of the barn. Evelyn returned first and came out on the porch to find a handkerchief. It was not there, but Ralph was. She was very much surprised to see him, and she intimated as much.

“It’s dreadfully damp in the woods,” he explained. “By the way, you don’t happen to know the Whitleys, of Washington, do you? Most excellent people.”

“I’m quite sorry that I do not,” she replied. “But you will have to excuse me. We shall be kept very busy with arranging our apartments.”

Ralph sprang to his feet with a ludicrous expression.

“Not the second floor front suite!” he exclaimed.

“Oh, no! Not at all,” she reassured him.

He laughed lightly.

“Honors are about even in that game,” he said.

“Evelyn,” called her mother from the hall. “Please come and take those front suite curtains down to the barn.”

“Pardon me while we take the next trick,” remarked Evelyn with a laugh quite as light and gleeful as his own, and disappeared into the hall.

He followed her slowly, and was met at the door by her father.

“You are the younger Mr. Ellsworth, I believe,” politely said Mr. Van Kamp.

“Ralph Ellsworth. Yes, sir.”

“Here is a note for your father. It is unsealed. You are quite at liberty to read it.”

Mr. Van Kamp bowed himself away, and Ralph opened the note, which read:

EDWARD EASTMAN ELLSWORTH, ESQ.,

Dear Sir: This is to notify you that I have rented the entire furniture of the Tutt House for the ensuing week, and am compelled to assume possession of that in the three second floor front rooms, as well as all the balance not in actual use by Mr. and Mrs. Tutt and the driver of the stage. You are quite welcome, however, to make use of the furnishings in the small room over the kitchen. Your luggage you will find undisturbed. Regretting any inconvenience that this transaction may cause you, I remain,

Yours respectfully,

J. BELMONT VAN KAMP.

Ralph scratched his head in amused perplexity. It devolved upon him to even up the affair a little before his mother came back. He must support the family reputation for resourcefulness, but it took quite a bit of scalp irritation before he aggravated the right idea into being. As soon as the idea came, he went in and made a hide-bound bargain with Uncle Billy, then he went out into the hall and waited until Evelyn came down with a huge armload of window curtains.

“Honors are still even,” he remarked. “I have just bought all the edibles about the place, whether in the cellar, the house or any of the surrounding structures, in the ground, above the ground, dead or alive, and a bargain’s a bargain as between man and man.”

“Clever of you, I’m sure,” commented Miss Van Kamp, reflectively. Suddenly her lips parted with a smile that revealed a double row of most beautiful teeth. He meditatively watched the curve of her lips.

“Isn’t that rather a heavy load?” he suggested. “I’d be delighted to help you move the things, don’t you know.”

“It is quite kind of you, and what the men would call ’game,’ I believe, under the circumstances,” she answered, “but really it will not be necessary. We have hired Mr. Tutt and the driver to do the heavier part of the work, and the rest of it will be really a pleasant diversion.”

“No doubt,” agreed Ralph, with an appreciative grin. “By the way, you don’t happen to know Maud and Dorothy Partridge, of Baltimore, do you? Stunning pretty girls, both of them, and no end of swells.”

“I know so very few people in Baltimore,” she murmured, and tripped on down to the barn.

Ralph went out on the porch and smoked. There was nothing else that he could do.

VIII

It was growing dusk when the elder Ellsworths returned, almost hidden by great masses of autumn boughs.

“You should have been with us, Ralph,” enthusiastically said his mother. “I never saw such gorgeous tints in all my life. We have brought nearly the entire woods with us.”

“It was a good idea,” said Ralph. “A stunning good idea. They may come in handy to sleep on.”

Mrs. Ellsworth turned cold.

“What do you mean?” she gasped.

“Ralph,” sternly demanded his father, “you don’t mean to tell us that you let the Van Kamps jockey us out of those rooms after all?”

“Indeed, no,” he airily responded. “Just come right on up and see.”

He led the way into the suite and struck a match. One solitary candle had been left upon the mantel shelf. Ralph thought that this had been overlooked, but his mother afterwards set him right about that. Mrs. Van Kamp had cleverly left it so that the Ellsworths could see how dreadfully bare the place was. One candle in three rooms is drearier than darkness anyhow.

Mrs. Ellsworth took in all the desolation, the dismal expanse of the now enormous apartments, the shabby walls, the hideous bright spots where pictures had hung, the splintered flooring, the great, gaunt windows–and she gave in. She had met with snub after snub, and cut after cut, in her social climb, she had had the cook quit in the middle of an important dinner, she had had every disconcerting thing possible happen to her, but this–this was the last bale of straw. She sat down on a suitcase, in the middle of the biggest room, and cried!

Ralph, having waited for this, now told about the food transaction, and she hastily pushed the last-coming tear back into her eye.

“Good!” she cried. “They will be up here soon. They will be compelled to compromise, and they must not find me with red eyes.”

She cast a hasty glance around the room, then, in a sudden panic, seized the candle and explored the other two. She went wildly out into the hall, back into the little room over the kitchen, downstairs, everywhere, and returned in consternation.

“There’s not a single mirror left in the house!” she moaned.

Ralph heartlessly grinned. He could appreciate that this was a characteristic woman trick, and wondered admiringly whether Evelyn or her mother had thought of it. However, this was a time for action.

“I’ll get you some water to bathe your eyes,” he offered, and ran into the little room over the kitchen to get a pitcher. A cracked shaving-mug was the only vessel that had been left, but he hurried down into the yard with it. This was no time for fastidiousness.

He had barely creaked the pump handle when Mr. Van Kamp hurried up from the barn.

“I beg your pardon, sir,” said Mr. Van Kamp, “but this water belongs to us. My daughter bought it, all that is in the ground, above the ground, or that may fall from the sky upon these premises.”

IX

The mutual siege lasted until after seven o’clock, but it was rather one-sided. The Van Kamps could drink all the water they liked, it made them no hungrier. If the Ellsworths ate anything, however, they grew thirstier, and, moreover, water was necessary if anything worth while was to be cooked. They knew all this, and resisted until Mrs. Ellsworth was tempted and fell. She ate a sandwich and choked. It was heartbreaking, but Ralph had to be sent down with a plate of sandwiches and an offer to trade them for water.

Halfway between the pump and the house he met Evelyn coming with a small pail of the precious fluid. They both stopped stock still; then, seeing that it was too late to retreat, both laughed and advanced.

“Who wins now?” bantered Ralph as they made the exchange.

“It looks to me like a misdeal,” she gaily replied, and was moving away when he called her back.

“You don’t happen to know the Gately’s, of New York, do you?” he was quite anxious to know.

“I am truly sorry, but I am acquainted with so few people in New York. We are from Chicago, you know.”

“Oh,” said he blankly, and took the water up to the Ellsworth suite.

Mrs. Ellsworth cheered up considerably when she heard that Ralph had been met halfway, but her eyes snapped when he confessed that it was Miss Van Kamp who had met him.

“I hope you are not going to carry on a flirtation with that overdressed creature,” she blazed.

“Why mother,” exclaimed Ralph, shocked beyond measure. “What right have you to accuse either this young lady or myself of flirting? Flirting!”

Mrs. Ellsworth suddenly attacked the fire with quite unnecessary energy.

X

Down at the barn, the wide threshing floor had been covered with gay rag-rugs, and strewn with tables, couches, and chairs in picturesque profusion. Roomy box-stalls had been carpeted deep with clean straw, curtained off with gaudy bed-quilts, and converted into cozy sleeping apartments. The mow and the stalls had been screened off with lace curtains and blazing counterpanes, and the whole effect was one of Oriental luxury and splendor. Alas, it was only an “effect”! The red-hot parlor stove smoked abominably, the pipe carried other smoke out through the hawmow window, only to let it blow back again. Chill cross-draughts whistled in from cracks too numerous to be stopped up, and the miserable Van Kamps could only cough and shiver, and envy the Tutts and the driver, non-combatants who had been fed two hours before.

Up in the second floor suite there was a roaring fire in the big fireplace, but there was a chill in the room that no mere fire could drive away–the chill of absolute emptiness.

A man can outlive hardships that would kill a woman, but a woman can endure discomforts that would drive a man crazy.

Mr. Ellsworth went out to hunt up Uncle Billy, with an especial solace in mind. The landlord was not in the house, but the yellow gleam of a lantern revealed his presence in the woodshed, and Mr. Ellsworth stepped in upon him just as he was pouring something yellow and clear into a tumbler from a big jug that he had just taken from under the flooring.

“How much do you want for that jug and its contents?” he asked, with a sigh of gratitude that this supply had been overlooked.

Before Mr. Tutt could answer, Mr. Van Kamp hurried in at the door.

“Wait a moment!” he cried. “I want to bid on that!”

“This here jug hain’t fer sale at no price,” Uncle Billy emphatically announced, nipping all negotiations right in the bud. “It’s too pesky hard to sneak this here licker in past Marge’t, but I reckon it’s my treat, gents. Ye kin have all ye want.”

One minute later Mr. Van Kamp and Mr. Ellsworth were seated, one on a sawbuck and the other on a nail-keg, comfortably eyeing each other across the work bench, and each was holding up a tumbler one-third filled with the golden yellow liquid.

“Your health, sir,” courteously proposed Mr. Ellsworth.

“And to you, sir,” gravely replied Mr. Van Kamp.

XI

Ralph and Evelyn happened to meet at the pump, quite accidentally, after the former had made half a dozen five-minute-apart trips for a drink. It was Miss Van Kamp, this time, who had been studying on the mutual acquaintance problem.

“You don’t happen to know the Tylers, of Parkersburg, do you?” she asked.

“The Tylers! I should say I do!” was the unexpected and enthusiastic reply. “Why, we are on our way now to Miss Georgiana Tyler’s wedding to my friend Jimmy Carston. I’m to be best man.”

“How delightful!” she exclaimed. “We are on the way there, too. Georgiana was my dearest chum at school, and I am to be her ’best girl.’”

“Let’s go around on the porch and sit down,” said Ralph.

XII

Mr. Van Kamp, back in the woodshed, looked about him with an eye of content.

“Rather cozy for a woodshed,” he observed. “I wonder if we couldn’t scare up a little session of dollar limit?”

Both Uncle Billy and Mr. Ellsworth were willing. Death and poker level all Americans. A fourth hand was needed, however. The stage driver was in bed and asleep, and Mr. Ellsworth volunteered to find the extra player.

“I’ll get Ralph,” he said. “He plays a fairly stiff game.” He finally found his son on the porch, apparently alone, and stated his errand.

“Thank you, but I don’t believe I care to play this evening,” was the astounding reply, and Mr. Ellsworth looked closer. He made out, then, a dim figure on the other side of Ralph.

“Oh! Of course not!” he blundered, and went back to the woodshed.

Three-handed poker is a miserable game, and it seldom lasts long. It did not in this case. After Uncle Billy had won the only jack-pot deserving of the name, he was allowed to go blissfully to sleep with his hand on the handle of the big jug.

After poker there is only one other always available amusement for men, and that is business. The two travelers were quite well acquainted when Ralph put his head in at the door.

“Thought I’d find you here,” he explained. “It just occurred to me to wonder whether you gentlemen had discovered, as yet, that we are all to be house guests at the Carston-Tyler wedding.”

“Why, no!” exclaimed his father in pleased surprise. “It is a most agreeable coincidence. Mr. Van Kamp, allow me to introduce my son, Ralph. Mr. Van Kamp and myself, Ralph, have found out that we shall be considerably thrown together in a business way from now on. He has just purchased control of the Metropolitan and Western string of interurbans.”

“Delighted, I’m sure,” murmured Ralph, shaking hands, and then he slipped out as quickly as possible. Some one seemed to be waiting for him.

Perhaps another twenty minutes had passed, when one of the men had an illuminating idea that resulted, later on, in pleasant relations for all of them. It was about time, for Mrs. Ellsworth, up in the bare suite, and Mrs. Van Kamp, down in the draughty barn, both wrapped up to the chin and both still chilly, had about reached the limit of patience and endurance.

“Why can’t we make things a little more comfortable for all concerned?” suggested Mr. Van Kamp. “Suppose, as a starter, that we have Mrs. Van Kamp give a shiver party down in the barn?”

“Good idea,” agreed Mr. Ellsworth. “A little diplomacy will do it. Each one of us will have to tell his wife that the other fellow made the first abject overtures.”

Mr. Van Kamp grinned understandingly, and agreed to the infamous ruse.

“By the way,” continued Mr. Ellsworth, with a still happier thought, “you must allow Mrs. Ellsworth to furnish the dinner for Mrs. Van Kamp’s shiver party.”

“Dinner!” gasped Mr. Van Kamp. “By all means!”

Both men felt an anxious yawning in the region of the appetite, and a yearning moisture wetted their tongues. They looked at the slumbering Uncle Billy and decided to see Mrs. Tutt themselves about a good, hot dinner for six.

“Law me!” exclaimed Aunt Margaret when they appeared at the kitchen door. “I swan I thought you folks ’u’d never come to yore senses. Here I’ve had a big pot o’ stewed chicken ready on the stove fer two mortal hours. I kin give ye that, an’ smashed taters an’ chicken gravy, an’ dried corn, an’ hot corn-pone, an’ currant jell, an’ strawberry preserves, an’ my own cannin’ o’ peaches, an’ pumpkin-pie an’ coffee. Will that do ye?” Would it do! Would it do!!

As Aunt Margaret talked, the kitchen door swung wide, and the two men were stricken speechless with astonishment. There, across from each other at the kitchen table, sat the utterly selfish and traitorous younger members of the rival houses of Ellsworth and Van Kamp, deep in the joys of chicken, and mashed potatoes, and gravy, and hot corn-pone, and all the other “fixings,” laughing and chatting gaily like chums of years’ standing. They had seemingly just come to an agreement about something or other, for Evelyn, waving the shorter end of a broken wishbone, was vivaciously saying to Ralph:

“A bargain’s a bargain, and I always stick to one I make.”

[From McClure’s Magazine, June, 1905; copyright, 1905, by the S.S. McClure Co.; republished by the author’s permission.]

A Humorous Short Story by O. Henry

When Major Pendleton Talbot, of Mobile, sir, and his daughter, Miss Lydia Talbot, came to Washington to reside, they selected for a boarding place a house that stood fifty yards back from one of the quietest avenues. It was an old-fashioned brick building, with a portico upheld by tall white pillars. The yard was shaded by stately locusts and elms, and a catalpa tree in season rained its pink and white blossoms upon the grass. Rows of high box bushes lined the fence and walks. It was the Southern style and aspect of the place that pleased the eyes of the Talbots.

In this pleasant private boarding house they engaged rooms, including a study for Major Talbot, who was adding the finishing chapters to his book, Anecdotes and Reminiscences of the Alabama Army, Bench, and Bar.

Major Talbot was of the old, old South. The present day had little interest or excellence in his eyes. His mind lived in that period before the Civil War when the Talbots owned thousands of acres of fine cotton land and the slaves to till them; when the family mansion was the scene of princely hospitality, and drew its guests from the aristocracy of the South. Out of that period he had brought all its old pride and scruples of honor, an antiquated and punctilious politeness, and (you would think) its wardrobe.

Such clothes were surely never made within fifty years. The Major was tall, but whenever he made that wonderful, archaic genuflexion he called a bow, the corners of his frock coat swept the floor. That garment was a surprise even to Washington, which has long ago ceased to shy at the frocks and broad-brimmed hats of Southern Congressmen. One of the boarders christened it a “Father Hubbard,” and it certainly was high in the waist and full in the skirt.

But the Major, with all his queer clothes, his immense area of plaited, raveling shirt bosom, and the little black string tie with the bow always slipping on one side, both was smiled at and liked in Mrs. Vardeman’s select boarding house. Some of the young department clerks would often “string him,” as they called it, getting him started upon the subject dearest to him–the traditions and history of his beloved Southland. During his talks he would quote freely from the Anecdotes and Reminiscences. But they were very careful not to let him see their designs, for in spite of his sixty-eight years he could make the boldest of them uncomfortable under the steady regard of his piercing gray eyes.

Miss Lydia was a plump, little old maid of thirty-five, with smoothly drawn, tightly twisted hair that made her look still older. Old-fashioned, too, she was; but antebellum glory did not radiate from her as it did from the Major. She possessed a thrifty common sense, and it was she who handled the finances of the family, and met all comers when there were bills to pay. The Major regarded board bills and wash bills as contemptible nuisances. They kept coming in so persistently and so often. Why, the Major wanted to know, could they not be filed and paid in a lump sum at some convenient period–say when the Anecdotes and Reminiscences had been published and paid for? Miss Lydia would calmly go on with her sewing and say, “We’ll pay as we go as long as the money lasts, and then perhaps they’ll have to lump it.”

Most of Mrs. Vardeman’s boarders were away during the day, being nearly all department clerks and business men; but there was one of them who was about the house a great deal from morning to night. This was a young man named Henry Hopkins Hargraves–every one in the house addressed him by his full name–who was engaged at one of the popular vaudeville theaters. Vaudeville has risen to such a respectable plane in the last few years, and Mr. Hargraves was such a modest and well-mannered person, that Mrs. Vardeman could find no objection to enrolling him upon her list of boarders.

At the theater Hargraves was known as an all-round dialect comedian, having a large repertoire of German, Irish, Swede, and black-face specialties. But Mr. Hargraves was ambitious, and often spoke of his great desire to succeed in legitimate comedy.

This young man appeared to conceive a strong fancy for Major Talbot. Whenever that gentleman would begin his Southern reminiscences, or repeat some of the liveliest of the anecdotes, Hargraves could always be found, the most attentive among his listeners.

For a time the Major showed an inclination to discourage the advances of the “play actor,” as he privately termed him; but soon the young man’s agreeable manner and indubitable appreciation of the old gentleman’s stories completely won him over.

It was not long before the two were like old chums. The Major set apart each afternoon to read to him the manuscript of his book. During the anecdotes Hargraves never failed to laugh at exactly the right point. The Major was moved to declare to Miss Lydia one day that young Hargraves possessed remarkable perception and a gratifying respect for the old regime. And when it came to talking of those old days–if Major Talbot liked to talk, Mr. Hargraves was entranced to listen.

Like almost all old people who talk of the past, the Major loved to linger over details. In describing the splendid, almost royal, days of the old planters, he would hesitate until he had recalled the name of the negro who held his horse, or the exact date of certain minor happenings, or the number of bales of cotton raised in such a year; but Hargraves never grew impatient or lost interest. On the contrary, he would advance questions on a variety of subjects connected with the life of that time, and he never failed to extract ready replies.

The fox hunts, the ’possum suppers, the hoe-downs and jubilees in the negro quarters, the banquets in the plantation-house hall, when invitations went for fifty miles around; the occasional feuds with the neighboring gentry; the Major’s duel with Rathbone Culbertson about Kitty Chalmers, who afterward married a Thwaite of South Carolina; and private yacht races for fabulous sums on Mobile Bay; the quaint beliefs, improvident habits, and loyal virtues of the old slaves–all these were subjects that held both the Major and Hargraves absorbed for hours at a time.

Sometimes, at night, when the young man would be coming upstairs to his room after his turn at the theater was over, the Major would appear at the door of his study and beckon archly to him. Going in, Hargraves would find a little table set with a decanter, sugar bowl, fruit, and a big bunch of fresh green mint.

“It occurred to me,” the Major would begin–he was always ceremonious–“that perhaps you might have found your duties at the–at your place of occupation–sufficiently arduous to enable you, Mr. Hargraves, to appreciate what the poet might well have had in his mind when he wrote, ’tired Nature’s sweet restorer’–one of our Southern juleps.”

It was a fascination to Hargraves to watch him make it. He took rank among artists when he began, and he never varied the process. With what delicacy he bruised the mint; with what exquisite nicety he estimated the ingredients; with what solicitous care he capped the compound with the scarlet fruit glowing against the dark green fringe! And then the hospitality and grace with which he offered it, after the selected oat straws had been plunged into its tinkling depths!

After about four months in Washington, Miss Lydia discovered one morning that they were almost without money. The Anecdotes and Reminiscences was completed, but publishers had not jumped at the collected gems of Alabama sense and wit. The rental of a small house which they still owned in Mobile was two months in arrears. Their board money for the month would be due in three days. Miss Lydia called her father to a consultation.

“No money?” said he with a surprised look. “It is quite annoying to be called on so frequently for these petty sums, Really, I–“

The Major searched his pockets. He found only a two-dollar bill, which he returned to his vest pocket.

“I must attend to this at once, Lydia,” he said. “Kindly get me my umbrella and I will go downtown immediately. The congressman from our district, General Fulghum, assured me some days ago that he would use his influence to get my book published at an early date. I will go to his hotel at once and see what arrangement has been made.”

With a sad little smile Miss Lydia watched him button his “Father Hubbard” and depart, pausing at the door, as he always did, to bow profoundly.

That evening, at dark, he returned. It seemed that Congressman Fulghum had seen the publisher who had the Major’s manuscript for reading. That person had said that if the anecdotes, etc., were carefully pruned down about one-half, in order to eliminate the sectional and class prejudice with which the book was dyed from end to end, he might consider its publication.

The Major was in a white heat of anger, but regained his equanimity, according to his code of manners, as soon as he was in Miss Lydia’s presence.

“We must have money,” said Miss Lydia, with a little wrinkle above her nose. “Give me the two dollars, and I will telegraph to Uncle Ralph for some to-night.”

The Major drew a small envelope from his upper vest pocket and tossed it on the table.

“Perhaps it was injudicious,” he said mildly, “but the sum was so merely nominal that I bought tickets to the theater to-night. It’s a new war drama, Lydia. I thought you would be pleased to witness its first production in Washington. I am told that the South has very fair treatment in the play. I confess I should like to see the performance myself.”

Miss Lydia threw up her hands in silent despair.

Still, as the tickets were bought, they might as well be used. So that evening, as they sat in the theater listening to the lively overture, even Miss Lydia was minded to relegate their troubles, for the hour, to second place. The Major, in spotless linen, with his extraordinary coat showing only where it was closely buttoned, and his white hair smoothly roached, looked really fine and distinguished. The curtain went up on the first act of A Magnolia Flower, revealing a typical Southern plantation scene. Major Talbot betrayed some interest.

“Oh, see!” exclaimed Miss Lydia, nudging his arm, and pointing to her program.

The Major put on his glasses and read the line in the cast of characters that her fingers indicated.

Col. Webster Calhoun …. Mr. Hopkins Hargraves.

“It’s our Mr. Hargraves,” said Miss Lydia. “It must be his first appearance in what he calls ’the legitimate.’ I’m so glad for him.”

Not until the second act did Col. Webster Calhoun appear upon the stage. When he made his entry Major Talbot gave an audible sniff, glared at him, and seemed to freeze solid. Miss Lydia uttered a little, ambiguous squeak and crumpled her program in her hand. For Colonel Calhoun was made up as nearly resembling Major Talbot as one pea does another. The long, thin white hair, curly at the ends, the aristocratic beak of a nose, the crumpled, wide, raveling shirt front, the string tie, with the bow nearly under one ear, were almost exactly duplicated. And then, to clinch the imitation, he wore the twin to the Major’s supposed to be unparalleled coat. High-collared, baggy, empire-waisted, ample-skirted, hanging a foot lower in front than behind, the garment could have been designed from no other pattern. From then on, the Major and Miss Lydia sat bewitched, and saw the counterfeit presentment of a haughty Talbot “dragged,” as the Major afterward expressed it, “through the slanderous mire of a corrupt stage.”

Mr. Hargraves had used his opportunities well. He had caught the Major’s little idiosyncrasies of speech, accent, and intonation and his pompous courtliness to perfection–exaggerating all to the purpose of the stage. When he performed that marvelous bow that the Major fondly imagined to be the pink of all salutations, the audience sent forth a sudden round of hearty applause.

Miss Lydia sat immovable, not daring to glance toward her father. Sometimes her hand next to him would be laid against her cheek, as if to conceal the smile which, in spite of her disapproval, she could not entirely suppress.

The culmination of Hargraves audacious imitation took place in the third act. The scene is where Colonel Calhoun entertains a few of the neighboring planters in his “den.”

Standing at a table in the center of the stage, with his friends grouped about him, he delivers that inimitable, rambling character monologue so famous in A Magnolia Flower, at the same time that he deftly makes juleps for the party.

Major Talbot, sitting quietly, but white with indignation, heard his best stories retold, his pet theories and hobbies advanced and expanded, and the dream of the Anecdotes and Reminiscences served, exaggerated and garbled. His favorite narrative–that of his duel with Rathbone Culbertson–was not omitted, and it was delivered with more fire, egotism, and gusto than the Major himself put into it.

The monologue concluded with a quaint, delicious, witty little lecture on the art of concocting a julep, illustrated by the act. Here Major Talbot’s delicate but showy science was reproduced to a hair’s breadth–from his dainty handling of the fragrant weed–“the one-thousandth part of a grain too much pressure, gentlemen, and you extract the bitterness, instead of the aroma, of this heaven-bestowed plant”–to his solicitous selection of the oaten straws.

At the close of the scene the audience raised a tumultuous roar of appreciation. The portrayal of the type was so exact, so sure and thorough, that the leading characters in the play were forgotten. After repeated calls, Hargraves came before the curtain and bowed, his rather boyish face bright and flushed with the knowledge of success.

At last Miss Lydia turned and looked at the Major. His thin nostrils were working like the gills of a fish. He laid both shaking hands upon the arms of his chair to rise.

“We will go, Lydia,” he said chokingly. “This is an abominable–desecration.”

Before he could rise, she pulled him back into his seat.

“We will stay it out,” she declared. “Do you want to advertise the copy by exhibiting the original coat?” So they remained to the end.

Hargraves’s success must have kept him up late that night, for neither at the breakfast nor at the dinner table did he appear.

About three in the afternoon he tapped at the door of Major Talbot’s study. The Major opened it, and Hargraves walked in with his hands full of the morning papers–too full of his triumph to notice anything unusual in the Major’s demeanor.

“I put it all over ’em last night, Major,” he began exultantly. “I had my inning, and, I think, scored. Here’s what The Post says:

“’His conception and portrayal of the old-time Southern colonel, with his absurd grandiloquence, his eccentric garb, his quaint idioms and phrases, his motheaten pride of family, and his really kind heart, fastidious sense of honor, and lovable simplicity, is the best delineation of a character role on the boards to-day. The coat worn by Colonel Calhoun is itself nothing less than an evolution of genius. Mr. Hargraves has captured his public.’

“How does that sound, Major, for a first-nighter?”

“I had the honor”–the Major’s voice sounded ominously frigid–“of witnessing your very remarkable performance, sir, last night.”

Hargraves looked disconcerted.

“You were there? I didn’t know you ever–I didn’t know you cared for the theater. Oh, I say, Major Talbot,” he exclaimed frankly, “don’t you be offended. I admit I did get a lot of pointers from you that helped out wonderfully in the part. But it’s a type, you know–not individual. The way the audience caught on shows that. Half the patrons of that theater are Southerners. They recognized it.”

“Mr. Hargraves,” said the Major, who had remained standing, “you have put upon me an unpardonable insult. You have burlesqued my person, grossly betrayed my confidence, and misused my hospitality. If I thought you possessed the faintest conception of what is the sign manual of a gentleman, or what is due one, I would call you out, sir, old as I am. I will ask you to leave the room, sir.”

The actor appeared to be slightly bewildered, and seemed hardly to take in the full meaning of the old gentleman’s words.

“I am truly sorry you took offense,” he said regretfully. “Up here we don’t look at things just as you people do. I know men who would buy out half the house to have their personality put on the stage so the public would recognize it.”

“They are not from Alabama, sir,” said the Major haughtily.

“Perhaps not. I have a pretty good memory, Major; let me quote a few lines from your book. In response to a toast at a banquet given in–Milledgeville, I believe–you uttered, and intend to have printed, these words:

“’The Northern man is utterly without sentiment or warmth except in so far as the feelings may be turned to his own commercial profit. He will suffer without resentment any imputation cast upon the honor of himself or his loved ones that does not bear with it the consequence of pecuniary loss. In his charity, he gives with a liberal hand; but it must be heralded with the trumpet and chronicled in brass.’

“Do you think that picture is fairer than the one you saw of Colonel Calhoun last night?”

“The description,” said the Major, frowning, “is–not without grounds. Some exag–latitude must be allowed in public speaking.”

“And in public acting,” replied Hargraves.

“That is not the point,” persisted the Major, unrelenting. “It was a personal caricature. I positively decline to overlook it, sir.”

“Major Talbot,” said Hargraves, with a winning smile, “I wish you would understand me. I want you to know that I never dreamed of insulting you. In my profession, all life belongs to me. I take what I want, and what I can, and return it over the footlights. Now, if you will, let’s let it go at that. I came in to see you about something else. We’ve been pretty good friends for some months, and I’m going to take the risk of offending you again. I know you are hard up for money–never mind how I found out, a boarding house is no place to keep such matters secret–and I want you to let me help you out of the pinch. I’ve been there often enough myself. I’ve been getting a fair salary all the season, and I’ve saved some money. You’re welcome to a couple hundred–or even more–until you get—-“

“Stop!” commanded the Major, with his arm outstretched. “It seems that my book didn’t lie, after all. You think your money salve will heal all the hurts of honor. Under no circumstances would I accept a loan from a casual acquaintance; and as to you, sir, I would starve before I would consider your insulting offer of a financial adjustment of the circumstances we have discussed. I beg to repeat my request relative to your quitting the apartment.”

Hargraves took his departure without another word. He also left the house the same day, moving, as Mrs. Vardeman explained at the supper table, nearer the vicinity of the downtown theater, where A Magnolia Flower was booked for a week’s run.

Critical was the situation with Major Talbot and Miss Lydia. There was no one in Washington to whom the Major’s scruples allowed him to apply for a loan. Miss Lydia wrote a letter to Uncle Ralph, but it was doubtful whether that relative’s constricted affairs would permit him to furnish help. The Major was forced to make an apologetic address to Mrs. Vardeman regarding the delayed payment for board, referring to “delinquent rentals” and “delayed remittances” in a rather confused strain.

Deliverance came from an entirely unexpected source.

Late one afternoon the door maid came up and announced an old colored man who wanted to see Major Talbot. The Major asked that he be sent up to his study. Soon an old darkey appeared in the doorway, with his hat in hand, bowing, and scraping with one clumsy foot. He was quite decently dressed in a baggy suit of black. His big, coarse shoes shone with a metallic luster suggestive of stove polish. His bushy wool was gray–almost white. After middle life, it is difficult to estimate the age of a negro. This one might have seen as many years as had Major Talbot.

“I be bound you don’t know me, Mars’ Pendleton,” were his first words.

The Major rose and came forward at the old, familiar style of address. It was one of the old plantation darkeys without a doubt; but they had been widely scattered, and he could not recall the voice or face.

“I don’t believe I do,” he said kindly–“unless you will assist my memory.”

“Don’t you ’member Cindy’s Mose, Mars’ Pendleton, what ’migrated ’mediately after de war?”

“Wait a moment,” said the Major, rubbing his forehead with the tips of his fingers. He loved to recall everything connected with those beloved days. “Cindy’s Mose,” he reflected. “You worked among the horses–breaking the colts. Yes, I remember now. After the surrender, you took the name of–don’t prompt me–Mitchell, and went to the West–to Nebraska.”

“Yassir, yassir,”–the old man’s face stretched with a delighted grin–“dat’s him, dat’s it. Newbraska. Dat’s me–Mose Mitchell. Old Uncle Mose Mitchell, dey calls me now. Old mars’, your pa, gimme a pah of dem mule colts when I lef’ fur to staht me goin’ with. You ’member dem colts, Mars’ Pendleton?”

“I don’t seem to recall the colts,” said the Major. “You know. I was married the first year of the war and living at the old Follinsbee place. But sit down, sit down, Uncle Mose. I’m glad to see you. I hope you have prospered.”

Uncle Mose took a chair and laid his hat carefully on the floor beside it.

“Yessir; of late I done mouty famous. When I first got to Newbraska, dey folks come all roun’ me to see dem mule colts. Dey ain’t see no mules like dem in Newbraska. I sold dem mules for three hundred dollars. Yessir–three hundred.

“Den I open a blacksmith shop, suh, and made some money and bought some lan’. Me and my old ’oman done raised up seb’m chillun, and all doin’ well ’cept two of ’em what died. Fo’ year ago a railroad come along and staht a town slam ag’inst my lan’, and, suh, Mars’ Pendleton, Uncle Mose am worth leb’m thousand dollars in money, property, and lan’.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” said the Major heartily. “Glad to hear it.”

“And dat little baby of yo’n, Mars’ Pendleton–one what you name Miss Lyddy–I be bound dat little tad done growed up tell nobody wouldn’t know her.”

The Major stepped to the door and called: “Lydie, dear, will you come?”

Miss Lydia, looking quite grown up and a little worried, came in from her room.

“Dar, now! What’d I tell you? I knowed dat baby done be plum growed up. You don’t ’member Uncle Mose, child?”

“This is Aunt Cindy’s Mose, Lydia,” explained the Major. “He left Sunnymead for the West when you were two years old.”

“Well,” said Miss Lydia, “I can hardly be expected to remember you, Uncle Mose, at that age. And, as you say, I’m ’plum growed up,’ and was a blessed long time ago. But I’m glad to see you, even if I can’t remember you.”

And she was. And so was the Major. Something alive and tangible had come to link them with the happy past. The three sat and talked over the olden times, the Major and Uncle Mose correcting or prompting each other as they reviewed the plantation scenes and days.

The Major inquired what the old man was doing so far from his home.

“Uncle Mose am a delicate,” he explained, “to de grand Baptis’ convention in dis city. I never preached none, but bein’ a residin’ elder in de church, and able fur to pay my own expenses, dey sent me along.”

“And how did you know we were in Washington?” inquired Miss Lydia.

“Dey’s a cullud man works in de hotel whar I stops, what comes from Mobile. He told me he seen Mars’ Pendleton comin’ outen dish here house one mawnin’.

“What I come fur,” continued Uncle Mose, reaching into his pocket–“besides de sight of home folks–was to pay Mars’ Pendleton what I owes him.

“Yessir–three hundred dollars.” He handed the Major a roll of bills. “When I lef’ old mars’ says: ’Take dem mule colts, Mose, and, if it be so you gits able, pay fur ’em.’ Yessir–dem was his words. De war had done lef’ old mars’ po’ hisself. Old mars’ bein’ long ago dead, de debt descends to Mars’ Pendleton. Three hundred dollars. Uncle Mose is plenty able to pay now. When dat railroad buy my lan’ I laid off to pay fur dem mules. Count de money, Mars’ Pendleton. Dat’s what I sold dem mules fur. Yessir.”

Tears were in Major Talbot’s eyes. He took Uncle Mose’s hand and laid his other upon his shoulder.

“Dear, faithful, old servitor,” he said in an unsteady voice, “I don’t mind saying to you that ’Mars’ Pendleton spent his last dollar in the world a week ago. We will accept this money, Uncle Mose, since, in a way, it is a sort of payment, as well as a token of the loyalty and devotion of the old regime. Lydia, my dear, take the money. You are better fitted than I to manage its expenditure.”

“Take it, honey,” said Uncle Mose. “Hit belongs to you. Hit’s Talbot money.”

After Uncle Mose had gone, Miss Lydia had a good cry—for joy; and the Major turned his face to a corner, and smoked his clay pipe volcanically.

The succeeding days saw the Talbots restored to peace and ease. Miss Lydia’s face lost its worried look. The major appeared in a new frock coat, in which he looked like a wax figure personifying the memory of his golden age. Another publisher who read the manuscript of the Anecdotes and Reminiscences thought that, with a little retouching and toning down of the high lights, he could make a really bright and salable volume of it. Altogether, the situation was comfortable, and not without the touch of hope that is often sweeter than arrived blessings.

One day, about a week after their piece of good luck, a maid brought a letter for Miss Lydia to her room. The postmark showed that it was from New York. Not knowing any one there, Miss Lydia, in a mild flutter of wonder, sat down by her table and opened the letter with her scissors. This was what she read:

DEAR MISS TALBOT:

I thought you might be glad to learn of my good fortune. I have received and accepted an offer of two hundred dollars per week by a New York stock company to play Colonel Calhoun in A Magnolia Flower.

There is something else I wanted you to know. I guess you’d better not tell Major Talbot. I was anxious to make him some amends for the great help he was to me in studying the part, and for the bad humor he was in about it. He refused to let me, so I did it anyhow. I could easily spare the three hundred.

Sincerely yours,
  H. HOPKINS HARGRAVES.

P.S. How did I play Uncle Mose?

Major Talbot, passing through the hall, saw Miss Lydia’s door open and stopped.

“Any mail for us this morning, Lydia, dear?” he asked.

Miss Lydia slid the letter beneath a fold of her dress.

“The Mobile Chronicle came,” she said promptly. “It’s on the table in your study.”

[Background of The Duplicity of Hargraves]

A Humorous Short Story by Bret Harte

It had been a day of triumph for Colonel Starbottle. First, for his personality, as it would have been difficult to separate the Colonel’s achievements from his individuality; second, for his oratorical abilities as a sympathetic pleader; and third, for his functions as the leading legal counsel for the Eureka Ditch Company versus the State of California. On his strictly legal performances in this issue I prefer not to speak; there were those who denied them, although the jury had accepted them in the face of the ruling of the half amused, half cynical Judge himself. For an hour they had laughed with the Colonel, wept with him, been stirred to personal indignation or patriotic exaltation by his passionate and lofty periods,–what else could they do than give him their verdict? If it was alleged by some that the American eagle, Thomas Jefferson, and the Resolutions of ’98 had nothing whatever to do with the contest of a ditch company over a doubtfully worded legislative document; that wholesale abuse of the State Attorney and his political motives had not the slightest connection with the legal question raised–it was, nevertheless, generally accepted that the losing party would have been only too glad to have the Colonel on their side. And Colonel Starbottle knew this, as, perspiring, florid, and panting, he rebuttoned the lower buttons of his blue frock-coat, which had become loosed in an oratorical spasm, and readjusted his old-fashioned, spotless shirt frill above it as he strutted from the court-room amidst the handshakings and acclamations of his friends.

And here an unprecedented thing occurred. The Colonel absolutely declined spirituous refreshment at the neighboring Palmetto Saloon, and declared his intention of proceeding directly to his office in the adjoining square. Nevertheless, the Colonel quitted the building alone, and apparently unarmed, except for his faithful gold-headed stick, which hung as usual from his forearm. The crowd gazed after him with undisguised admiration of this new evidence of his pluck. It was remembered also that a mysterious note had been handed to him at the conclusion of his speech,–evidently a challenge from the State Attorney. It was quite plain that the Colonel–a practiced duelist–was hastening home to answer it.

But herein they were wrong. The note was in a female hand, and simply requested the Colonel to accord an interview with the writer at the Colonel’s office as soon as he left the court. But it was an engagement that the Colonel–as devoted to the fair sex as he was to the “code”–was no less prompt in accepting. He flicked away the dust from his spotless white trousers and varnished boots with his handkerchief, and settled his black cravat under his Byron collar as he neared his office. He was surprised, however, on opening the door of his private office, to find his visitor already there; he was still more startled to find her somewhat past middle age and plainly attired. But the Colonel was brought up in a school of Southern politeness, already antique in the republic, and his bow of courtesy belonged to the epoch of his shirt frill and strapped trousers. No one could have detected his disappointment in his manner, albeit his sentences were short and incomplete. But the Colonel’s colloquial speech was apt to be fragmentary incoherencies of his larger oratorical utterances.

“A thousand pardons–for–er–having kept a lady waiting–er! But–er–congratulations of friends–and–er–courtesy due to them–er–interfered with–though perhaps only heightened–by procrastination–the pleasure of–ha!” And the Colonel completed his sentence with a gallant wave of his fat but white and well-kept hand.

“Yes! I came to see you along o’ that speech of yours. I was in court. When I heard you gettin’ it off on that jury, I says to myself, ‘That’s the kind o’ lawyer I want. A man that’s flowery and convincin’! Just the man to take up our case.”

“Ah! It’s a matter of business, I see,” said the Colonel, inwardly relieved, but externally careless. “And–er–may I ask the nature of the case?”

“Well! it’s a breach-o’-promise suit,” said the visitor calmly.

If the Colonel had been surprised before, he was now really startled, and with an added horror that required all his politeness to conceal. Breach-of-promise cases were his peculiar aversion. He had always held them to be a kind of litigation which could have been obviated by the prompt killing of the masculine offender–in which case he would have gladly defended the killer. But a suit for damages,–DAMAGES!–with the reading of love-letters before a hilarious jury and court, was against all his instincts. His chivalry was outraged; his sense of humor was small, and in the course of his career he had lost one or two important cases through an unexpected development of this quality in a jury.

The woman had evidently noticed his hesitation, but mistook its cause. “It ain’t me–but my darter.”

The Colonel recovered his politeness. “Ah! I am relieved, my dear madam! I could hardly conceive a man ignorant enough to–er–er–throw away such evident good fortune–or base enough to deceive the trustfulness of womanhood–matured and experienced only in the chivalry of our sex, ha!”

The woman smiled grimly. “Yes!–it’s my darter, Zaidee Hooker–so ye might spare some of them pretty speeches for HER–before the jury.”

The Colonel winced slightly before this doubtful prospect, but smiled. “Ha! Yes!–certainly–the jury. But–er–my dear lady, need we go as far as that? Can not this affair be settled–er–out of court? Could not this–er–individual–be admonished–told that he must give satisfaction–personal satisfaction–for his dastardly conduct–to–er–near relative–or even valued personal friend? The–er–arrangements necessary for that purpose I myself would undertake.”

He was quite sincere; indeed, his small black eyes shone with that fire which a pretty woman or an “affair of honor” could alone kindle. The visitor stared vacantly at him, and said slowly, “And what good is that goin’ to do US?”

“Compel him to–er–perform his promise,” said the Colonel, leaning back in his chair.

“Ketch him doin’ it!” she exclaimed scornfully. “No–that ain’t wot we’re after. We must make him PAY! Damages–and nothin’ short o’ THAT.”

The Colonel bit his lip. “I suppose,” he said gloomily, “you have documentary evidence–written promises and protestations–er–er love-letters, in fact?”

“No–nary a letter! Ye see, that’s jest it–and that’s where YOU come in. You’ve got to convince that jury yourself. You’ve got to show what it is–tell the whole story your own way. Lord! to a man like you that’s nothin’.”

Startling as this admission might have been to any other lawyer, Starbottle was absolutely relieved by it. The absence of any mirth-provoking correspondence, and the appeal solely to his own powers of persuasion, actually struck his fancy. He lightly put aside the compliment with a wave of his white hand.

“Of course,” he said confidently, “there is strongly presumptive and corroborative evidence? Perhaps you can give me–er–a brief outline of the affair?”

“Zaidee kin do that straight enough, I reckon,” said the woman; “what I want to know first is, kin you take the case?”

The Colonel did not hesitate; his curiosity was piqued. “I certainly can. I have no doubt your daughter will put me in possession of sufficient facts and details–to constitute what we call–er–a brief.”

“She kin be brief enough–or long enough–for the matter of that,” said the woman, rising. The Colonel accepted this implied witticism with a smile.

“And when may I have the pleasure of seeing her?” he asked politely.

“Well, I reckon as soon as I can trot out and call her. She’s just outside, meanderin’ in the road–kinder shy, ye know, at first.”

She walked to the door. The astounded Colonel nevertheless gallantly accompanied her as she stepped out into the street and called shrilly, “You Zaidee!”

A young girl here apparently detached herself from a tree and the ostentatious perusal of an old election poster, and sauntered down towards the office door. Like her mother, she was plainly dressed; unlike her, she had a pale, rather refined face, with a demure mouth and downcast eyes. This was all the Colonel saw as he bowed profoundly and led the way into his office, for she accepted his salutations without lifting her head. He helped her gallantly to a chair, on which she seated herself sideways, somewhat ceremoniously, with her eyes following the point of her parasol as she traced a pattern on the carpet. A second chair offered to the mother that lady, however, declined. “I reckon to leave you and Zaidee together to talk it out,” she said; turning to her daughter, she added, “Jest you tell him all, Zaidee,” and before the Colonel could rise again, disappeared from the room. In spite of his professional experience, Starbottle was for a moment embarrassed. The young girl, however, broke the silence without looking up.

“Adoniram K. Hotchkiss,” she began, in a monotonous voice, as if it were a recitation addressed to the public, “first began to take notice of me a year ago. Arter that–off and on”–

“One moment,” interrupted the astounded Colonel; “do you mean Hotchkiss the President of the Ditch Company?” He had recognized the name of a prominent citizen–a rigid, ascetic, taciturn, middle-aged man–a deacon–and more than that, the head of the company he had just defended. It seemed inconceivable.

“That’s him,” she continued, with eyes still fixed on the parasol and without changing her monotonous tone–“off and on ever since. Most of the time at the Free-Will Baptist Church–at morning service, prayer-meetings, and such. And at home–outside–er–in the road.”

“Is it this gentleman–Mr. Adoniram K. Hotchkiss–who–er–promised marriage?” stammered the Colonel.

“Yes.”

The Colonel shifted uneasily in his chair. “Most extraordinary! for–you see–my dear young lady–this becomes–a–er–most delicate affair.”

“That’s what maw said,” returned the young woman simply, yet with the faintest smile playing around her demure lips and downcast cheek.

“I mean,” said the Colonel, with a pained yet courteous smile, “that this–er–gentleman–is in fact–er–one of my clients.”

“That’s what maw said too, and of course your knowing him will make it all the easier for you.”

A slight flush crossed the Colonel’s cheek as he returned quickly and a little stiffly, “On the contrary–er–it may make it impossible for me to–er–act in this matter.”

The girl lifted her eyes. The Colonel held his breath as the long lashes were raised to his level. Even to an ordinary observer that sudden revelation of her eyes seemed to transform her face with subtle witchery. They were large, brown, and soft, yet filled with an extraordinary penetration and prescience. They were the eyes of an experienced woman of thirty fixed in the face of a child. What else the Colonel saw there Heaven only knows! He felt his inmost secrets plucked from him–his whole soul laid bare–his vanity, belligerency, gallantry–even his mediaeval chivalry, penetrated, and yet illuminated, in that single glance. And when the eyelids fell again, he felt that a greater part of himself had been swallowed up in them.

“I beg your pardon,” he said hurriedly. “I mean–this matter may be arranged–er–amicably. My interest with–and as you wisely say–my–er–knowledge of my client–er–Mr. Hotchkiss–may effect–a compromise.”

“And DAMAGES,” said the young girl, readdressing her parasol, as if she had never looked up.

The Colonel winced. “And–er–undoubtedly COMPENSATION–if you do not press a fulfillment of the promise. Unless,” he said, with an attempted return to his former easy gallantry, which, however, the recollection of her eyes made difficult, “it is a question of–er–the affections.”

“Which?” asked his fair client softly.

“If you still love him?” explained the Colonel, actually blushing.

Zaidee again looked up; again taking the Colonel’s breath away with eyes that expressed not only the fullest perception of what he had SAID, but of what he thought and had not said, and with an added subtle suggestion of what he might have thought. “That’s tellin’,” she said, dropping her long lashes again.

The Colonel laughed vacantly. Then feeling himself growing imbecile, he forced an equally weak gravity. “Pardon me–I understand there are no letters; may I know the way in which he formulated his declaration and promises?”

“Hymn-books.”

“I beg your pardon,” said the mystified lawyer.

“Hymn-books–marked words in them with pencil–and passed ’em on to me,” repeated Zaidee. “Like ‘love,’ ‘dear,’ ‘precious,’ ‘sweet,’ and ‘blessed,'” she added, accenting each word with a push of her parasol on the carpet. “Sometimes a whole line outer Tate and Brady–and Solomon’s Song, you know, and sich.”

“I believe,” said the Colonel loftily, “that the–er–phrases of sacred psalmody lend themselves to the language of the affections. But in regard to the distinct promise of marriage–was there–er–no OTHER expression?”

“Marriage Service in the prayer-book–lines and words outer that–all marked,” Zaidee replied.

The Colonel nodded naturally and approvingly. “Very good. Were others cognizant of this? Were there any witnesses?”

“Of course not,” said the girl. “Only me and him. It was generally at church-time–or prayer-meeting. Once, in passing the plate, he slipped one o’ them peppermint lozenges with the letters stamped on it ‘I love you’ for me to take.”

The Colonel coughed slightly. “And you have the lozenge?”

“I ate it.”

“Ah,” said the Colonel. After a pause he added delicately, “But were these attentions–er–confined to–er–sacred precincts? Did he meet you elsewhere?”

“Useter pass our house on the road,” returned the girl, dropping into her monotonous recital, “and useter signal.”

“Ah, signal?” repeated the Colonel approvingly.

“Yes! He’d say ‘Keerow,’ and I’d say ‘Keeree.’ Suthing like a bird, you know.”

Indeed, as she lifted her voice in imitation of the call, the Colonel thought it certainly very sweet and birdlike. At least as SHE gave it. With his remembrance of the grim deacon he had doubts as to the melodiousness of HIS utterance. He gravely made her repeat it.

“And after that signal?” he added suggestively.

“He’d pass on.”

The Colonel again coughed slightly, and tapped his desk with his penholder.

“Were there any endearments–er–caresses–er–such as taking your hand–er–clasping your waist?” he suggested, with a gallant yet respectful sweep of his white hand and bowing of his head; “er–slight pressure of your fingers in the changes of a dance–I mean,” he corrected himself, with an apologetic cough–“in the passing of the plate?”

“No; he was not what you’d call ‘fond,'” returned the girl.

“Ah! Adoniram K. Hotchkiss was not ‘fond’ in the ordinary acceptance of the word,” noted the Colonel, with professional gravity.

She lifted her disturbing eyes, and again absorbed his in her own. She also said “Yes,” although her eyes in their mysterious prescience of all he was thinking disclaimed the necessity of any answer at all. He smiled vacantly. There was a long pause. On which she slowly disengaged her parasol from the carpet pattern, and stood up.

“I reckon that’s about all,” she said.

“Er–yes–but one moment,” began the Colonel vaguely. He would have liked to keep her longer, but with her strange premonition of him he felt powerless to detain her, or explain his reason for doing so. He instinctively knew she had told him all; his professional judgment told him that a more hopeless case had never come to his knowledge. Yet he was not daunted, only embarrassed. “No matter,” he said. “Of course I shall have to consult with you again.”

Her eyes again answered that she expected he would, and she added simply, “When?”

“In the course of a day or two;” he replied quickly. “I will send you word.”

She turned to go. In his eagerness to open the door for her, he upset his chair, and with some confusion, that was actually youthful, he almost impeded her movements in the hall, and knocked his broad-brimmed Panama hat from his bowing hand in a final gallant sweep. Yet as her small, trim, youthful figure, with its simple Leghorn straw hat confined by a blue bow under her round chin, passed away before him, she looked more like a child than ever.

The Colonel spent that afternoon in making diplomatic inquiries. He found his youthful client was the daughter of a widow who had a small ranch on the cross-roads, near the new Free-Will Baptist Church–the evident theatre of this pastoral. They led a secluded life, the girl being little known in the town, and her beauty and fascination apparently not yet being a recognized fact. The Colonel felt a pleasurable relief at this, and a general satisfaction he could not account for. His few inquiries concerning Mr. Hotchkiss only confirmed his own impressions of the alleged lover,–a serious-minded, practically abstracted man, abstentive of youthful society, and the last man apparently capable of levity of the affections or serious flirtation. The Colonel was mystified, but determined of purpose, whatever that purpose might have been.

The next day he was at his office at the same hour. He was alone–as usual–the Colonel’s office being really his private lodgings, disposed in connecting rooms, a single apartment reserved for consultation. He had no clerk, his papers and briefs being taken by his faithful body-servant and ex-slave “Jim” to another firm who did his office work since the death of Major Stryker, the Colonel’s only law partner, who fell in a duel some years previous. With a fine constancy the Colonel still retained his partner’s name on his doorplate, and, it was alleged by the superstitious, kept a certain invincibility also through the ‘manes’ of that lamented and somewhat feared man.

The Colonel consulted his watch, whose heavy gold case still showed the marks of a providential interference with a bullet destined for its owner, and replaced it with some difficulty and shortness of breath in his fob. At the same moment he heard a step in the passage, and the door opened to Adoniram K. Hotchkiss. The Colonel was impressed; he had a duelist’s respect for punctuality.

The man entered with a nod and the expectant inquiring look of a busy man. As his feet crossed that sacred threshold the Colonel became all courtesy; he placed a chair for his visitor, and took his hat from his half reluctant hand. He then opened a cupboard and brought out a bottle of whiskey and two glasses.

“A–er–slight refreshment, Mr. Hotchkiss,” he suggested politely.

“I never drink,” replied Hotchkiss, with the severe attitude of a total abstainer.

“Ah–er–not the finest Bourbon whiskey, selected by a Kentucky friend? No? Pardon me! A cigar, then–the mildest Havana.”

“I do not use tobacco nor alcohol in any form,” repeated Hotchkiss ascetically. “I have no foolish weaknesses.”

The Colonel’s moist, beady eyes swept silently over his client’s sallow face. He leaned back comfortably in his chair, and half closing his eyes as in dreamy reminiscence, said slowly: “Your reply, Mr. Hotchkiss, reminds me of–er–sing’lar circumstance that–er–occurred, in point of fact–at the St. Charles Hotel, New Orleans. Pinkey Hornblower–personal friend–invited Senator Doolittle to join him in social glass. Received, sing’larly enough, reply similar to yours. ‘Don’t drink nor smoke?’ said Pinkey. ‘Gad, sir, you must be mighty sweet on the ladies.’ Ha!” The Colonel paused long enough to allow the faint flush to pass from Hotchkiss’s cheek, and went on, half closing his eyes: “‘I allow no man, sir, to discuss my personal habits,’ declared Doolittle, over his shirt collar. ‘Then I reckon shootin’ must be one of those habits,’ said Pinkey coolly. Both men drove out on the Shell Road back of cemetery next morning. Pinkey put bullet at twelve paces through Doolittle’s temple. Poor Doo never spoke again. Left three wives and seven children, they say–two of ’em black.”

“I got a note from you this morning,” said Hotchkiss, with badly concealed impatience. “I suppose in reference to our case. You have taken judgment, I believe.”

The Colonel, without replying, slowly filled a glass of whiskey and water. For a moment he held it dreamily before him, as if still engaged in gentle reminiscences called up by the act. Then tossing it off, he wiped his lips with a large white handkerchief, and leaning back comfortably in his chair, said, with a wave of his hand, “The interview I requested, Mr. Hotchkiss, concerns a subject–which I may say is–er–er–at present NOT of a public or business nature–although LATER it might become–er–er–both. It is an affair of some–er–delicacy.”

The Colonel paused, and Mr. Hotchkiss regarded him with increased impatience. The Colonel, however, continued, with unchanged deliberation: “It concerns–er–er–a young lady–a beautiful, high-souled creature, sir, who, apart from her personal loveliness–er–er–I may say is of one of the first families of Missouri, and–er–not remotely connected by marriage with one of–er–er–my boyhood’s dearest friends.” The latter, I grieve to say, was a pure invention of the Colonel’s–an oratorical addition to the scanty information he had obtained the previous day. “The young lady,” he continued blandly, “enjoys the further distinction of being the object of such attention from you as would make this interview–really–a confidential matter–er–er among friends and–er–er–relations in present and future. I need not say that the lady I refer to is Miss Zaidee Juno Hooker, only daughter of Almira Ann Hooker, relict of Jefferson Brown Hooker, formerly of Boone County, Kentucky, and latterly of–er–Pike County, Missouri.”

The sallow, ascetic hue of Mr. Hotchkiss’s face had passed through a livid and then a greenish shade, and finally settled into a sullen red. “What’s all this about?” he demanded roughly.

The least touch of belligerent fire came into Starbottle’s eye, but his bland courtesy did not change. “I believe,” he said politely, “I have made myself clear as between–er–gentlemen, though perhaps not as clear as I should to–er–er–jury.”

Mr. Hotchkiss was apparently struck with some significance in the lawyer’s reply. “I don’t know,” he said, in a lower and more cautious voice, “what you mean by what you call ‘my attentions’ to–any one–or how it concerns you. I have not exchanged half a dozen words with–the person you name–have never written her a line–nor even called at her house.”

He rose with an assumption of ease, pulled down his waistcoat, buttoned his coat, and took up his hat. The Colonel did not move.

“I believe I have already indicated my meaning in what I have called ‘your attentions,'” said the Colonel blandly, “and given you my ‘concern’ for speaking as–er–er–mutual friend. As to YOUR statement of your relations with Miss Hooker, I may state that it is fully corroborated by the statement of the young lady herself in this very office yesterday.”

“Then what does this impertinent nonsense mean? Why am I summoned here?” demanded Hotchkiss furiously.

“Because,” said the Colonel deliberately, “that statement is infamously–yes, damnably to your discredit, sir!”

Mr. Hotchkiss was here seized by one of those impotent and inconsistent rages which occasionally betray the habitually cautious and timid man. He caught up the Colonel’s stick, which was lying on the table. At the same moment the Colonel, without any apparent effort, grasped it by the handle. To Mr. Hotchkiss’s astonishment, the stick separated in two pieces, leaving the handle and about two feet of narrow glittering steel in the Colonel’s hand. The man recoiled, dropping the useless fragment. The Colonel picked it up, fitted the shining blade in it, clicked the spring, and then rising with a face of courtesy yet of unmistakably genuine pain, and with even a slight tremor in his voice, said gravely,–

“Mr. Hotchkiss, I owe you a thousand apologies, sir, that–er–a weapon should be drawn by me–even through your own inadvertence–under the sacred protection of my roof, and upon an unarmed man. I beg your pardon, sir, and I even withdraw the expressions which provoked that inadvertence. Nor does this apology prevent you from holding me responsible–personally responsible–ELSEWHERE for an indiscretion committed in behalf of a lady–my–er–client.”

“Your client? Do you mean you have taken her case? You, the counsel for the Ditch Company?” asked Mr. Hotchkiss, in trembling indignation.

“Having won YOUR case, sir,” replied the Colonel coolly, “the–er–usages of advocacy do not prevent me from espousing the cause of the weak and unprotected.”

“We shall see, sir,” said Hotchkiss, grasping the handle of the door and backing into the passage. “There are other lawyers who”–

“Permit me to see you out,” interrupted the Colonel, rising politely.

–“will be ready to resist the attacks of blackmail,” continued Hotchkiss, retreating along the passage.

“And then you will be able to repeat your remarks to me IN THE STREET,” continued the Colonel, bowing, as he persisted in following his visitor to the door.

But here Mr. Hotchkiss quickly slammed it behind him, and hurried away. The Colonel returned to his office, and sitting down, took a sheet of letter-paper bearing the inscription “Starbottle and Stryker, Attorneys and Counselors,” and wrote the following lines:–

HOOKER versus HOTCHKISS.

DEAR MADAM,–Having had a visit from the defendant in above, we should be pleased to have an interview with you at two P. M. to-morrow.

Your obedient servants,

STARBOTTLE AND STRYKER.

This he sealed and dispatched by his trusted servant Jim, and then devoted a few moments to reflection. It was the custom of the Colonel to act first, and justify the action by reason afterwards.

He knew that Hotchkiss would at once lay the matter before rival counsel. He knew that they would advise him that Miss Hooker had “no case”–that she would be nonsuited on her own evidence, and he ought not to compromise, but be ready to stand trial. He believed, however, that Hotchkiss feared such exposure, and although his own instincts had been at first against this remedy, he was now instinctively in favor of it. He remembered his own power with a jury; his vanity and his chivalry alike approved of this heroic method; he was bound by no prosaic facts–he had his own theory of the case, which no mere evidence could gainsay. In fact, Mrs. Hooker’s admission that he was to “tell the story in his own way” actually appeared to him an inspiration and a prophecy.

Perhaps there was something else, due possibly to the lady’s wonderful eyes, of which he had thought much. Yet it was not her simplicity that affected him solely; on the contrary, it was her apparent intelligent reading of the character of her recreant lover–and of his own! Of all the Colonel’s previous “light” or “serious” loves, none had ever before flattered him in that way. And it was this, combined with the respect which he had held for their professional relations, that precluded his having a more familiar knowledge of his client, through serious questioning or playful gallantry. I am not sure it was not part of the charm to have a rustic femme incomprise as a client.

Nothing could exceed the respect with which he greeted her as she entered his office the next day. He even affected not to notice that she had put on her best clothes, and he made no doubt appeared as when she had first attracted the mature yet faithless attentions of Deacon Hotchkiss at church. A white virginal muslin was belted around her slim figure by a blue ribbon, and her Leghorn hat was drawn around her oval cheek by a bow of the same color. She had a Southern girl’s narrow feet, encased in white stockings and kid slippers, which were crossed primly before her as she sat in a chair, supporting her arm by her faithful parasol planted firmly on the floor. A faint odor of southernwood exhaled from her, and, oddly enough, stirred the Colonel with a far-off recollection of a pine-shaded Sunday-school on a Georgia hillside, and of his first love, aged ten, in a short starched frock. Possibly it was the same recollection that revived something of the awkwardness he had felt then.

He, however, smiled vaguely, and sitting down, coughed slightly, and placed his finger-tips together. “I have had an–er–interview with Mr. Hotchkiss, but–I–er–regret to say there seems to be no prospect of–er–compromise.”

He paused, and to his surprise her listless “company” face lit up with an adorable smile. “Of course!–ketch him!” she said. “Was he mad when you told him?” She put her knees comfortably together and leaned forward for a reply.

For all that, wild horses could not have torn from the Colonel a word about Hotchkiss’s anger. “He expressed his intention of employing counsel–and defending a suit,” returned the Colonel, affably basking in her smile.

She dragged her chair nearer his desk. “Then you’ll fight him tooth and nail?” she asked eagerly; “you’ll show him up? You’ll tell the whole story your own way? You’ll give him fits?–and you’ll make him pay? Sure?” she went on breathlessly.

“I–er–will,” said the Colonel, almost as breathlessly.

She caught his fat white hand, which was lying on the table, between her own and lifted it to her lips. He felt her soft young fingers even through the lisle-thread gloves that encased them, and the warm moisture of her lips upon his skin. He felt himself flushing–but was unable to break the silence or change his position. The next moment she had scuttled back with her chair to her old position.

“I–er–certainly shall do my best,” stammered the Colonel, in an attempt to recover his dignity and composure.

“That’s enough! You’ll do it,” said she enthusiastically. “Lordy! Just you talk for ME as ye did for HIS old Ditch Company, and you’ll fetch it–every time! Why, when you made that jury sit up the other day–when you got that off about the Merrikan flag waving equally over the rights of honest citizens banded together in peaceful commercial pursuits, as well as over the fortress of official proflig–“

“Oligarchy,” murmured the Colonel courteously.

–“oligarchy,” repeated the girl quickly, “my breath was just took away. I said to maw, ‘Ain’t he too sweet for anything!’ I did, honest Injin! And when you rolled it all off at the end–never missing a word (you didn’t need to mark ’em in a lesson-book, but had ’em all ready on your tongue)–and walked out–Well! I didn’t know you nor the Ditch Company from Adam, but I could have just run over and kissed you there before the whole court!”

She laughed, with her face glowing, although her strange eyes were cast down. Alack! the Colonel’s face was equally flushed, and his own beady eyes were on his desk. To any other woman he would have voiced the banal gallantry that he should now, himself, look forward to that reward, but the words never reached his lips. He laughed, coughed slightly, and when he looked up again she had fallen into the same attitude as on her first visit, with her parasol point on the floor.

“I must ask you to–er–direct your memory to–er–another point: the breaking off of the–er–er–er–engagement. Did he–er–give any reason for it? Or show any cause?”

“No; he never said anything,” returned the girl.

“Not in his usual way?–er–no reproaches out of the hymn-book?–or the sacred writings?”

“No; he just QUIT.”

“Er–ceased his attentions,” said the Colonel gravely. “And naturally you–er–were not conscious of any cause for his doing so.”

The girl raised her wonderful eyes so suddenly and so penetratingly without replying in any other way that the Colonel could only hurriedly say: “I see! None, of course!”

At which she rose, the Colonel rising also. “We–shall begin proceedings at once. I must, however, caution you to answer no questions, nor say anything about this case to any one until you are in court.”

She answered his request with another intelligent look and a nod. He accompanied her to the door. As he took her proffered hand, he raised the lisle-thread fingers to his lips with old-fashioned gallantry. As if that act had condoned for his first omissions and awkwardness, he became his old-fashioned self again, buttoned his coat, pulled out his shirt frill, and strutted back to his desk.

A day or two later it was known throughout the town that Zaidee Hooker had sued Adoniram Hotchkiss for breach of promise, and that the damages were laid at five thousand dollars. As in those bucolic days the Western press was under the secure censorship of a revolver, a cautious tone of criticism prevailed, and any gossip was confined to personal expression, and even then at the risk of the gossiper. Nevertheless, the situation provoked the intensest curiosity. The Colonel was approached–until his statement that he should consider any attempt to overcome his professional secrecy a personal reflection withheld further advances. The community were left to the more ostentatious information of the defendant’s counsel, Messrs. Kitcham and Bilser, that the case was “ridiculous” and “rotten,” that the plaintiff would be nonsuited, and the fire-eating Starbottle would be taught a lesson that he could not “bully” the law, and there were some dark hints of a conspiracy. It was even hinted that the “case” was the revengeful and preposterous outcome of the refusal of Hotchkiss to pay Starbottle an extravagant fee for his late services to the Ditch Company. It is unnecessary to say that these words were not reported to the Colonel. It was, however, an unfortunate circumstance for the calmer, ethical consideration of the subject that the Church sided with Hotchkiss, as this provoked an equal adherence to the plaintiff and Starbottle on the part of the larger body of non-churchgoers, who were delighted at a possible exposure of the weakness of religious rectitude. “I’ve allus had my suspicions o’ them early candle-light meetings down at that gospel shop,” said one critic, “and I reckon Deacon Hotchkiss didn’t rope in the gals to attend jest for psalm-singing.” “Then for him to get up and leave the board afore the game’s finished and try to sneak out of it,” said an other,–“I suppose that’s what they call RELIGIOUS.”

It was therefore not remarkable that the court-house three weeks later was crowded with an excited multitude of the curious and sympathizing. The fair plaintiff, with her mother, was early in attendance, and under the Colonel’s advice appeared in the same modest garb in which she had first visited his office. This and her downcast, modest demeanor were perhaps at first disappointing to the crowd, who had evidently expected a paragon of loveliness in this Circe of that grim, ascetic defendant, who sat beside his counsel. But presently all eyes were fixed on the Colonel, who certainly made up in his appearance any deficiency of his fair client. His portly figure was clothed in a blue dress coat with brass buttons, a buff waistcoat which permitted his frilled shirt-front to become erectile above it, a black satin stock which confined a boyish turned-down collar around his full neck, and immaculate drill trousers, strapped over varnished boots. A murmur ran round the court. “Old ‘Personally Responsible’ has got his war-paint on;” “The Old War-Horse is smelling powder,” were whispered comments. Yet for all that, the most irreverent among them recognized vaguely, in this bizarre figure, something of an honored past in their country’s history, and possibly felt the spell of old deeds and old names that had once thrilled their boyish pulses. The new District Judge returned Colonel Starbottle’s profoundly punctilious bow. The Colonel was followed by his negro servant, carrying a parcel of hymn-books and Bibles, who, with a courtesy evidently imitated from his master, placed one before the opposite counsel. This, after a first curious glance, the lawyer somewhat superciliously tossed aside. But when Jim, proceeding to the jury-box, placed with equal politeness the remaining copies before the jury, the opposite counsel sprang to his feet.

“I want to direct the attention of the Court to this unprecedented tampering with the jury, by this gratuitous exhibition of matter impertinent and irrelevant to the issue.”

The Judge cast an inquiring look at Colonel Starbottle.

“May it please the Court,” returned Colonel Starbottle with dignity, ignoring the counsel, “the defendant’s counsel will observe that he is already furnished with the matter–which I regret to say he has treated–in the presence of the Court–and of his client, a deacon of the church–with–er–great superciliousness. When I state to your Honor that the books in question are hymn-books and copies of the Holy Scriptures, and that they are for the instruction of the jury, to whom I shall have to refer them in the course of my opening, I believe I am within my rights.”

“The act is certainly unprecedented,” said the Judge dryly, “but unless the counsel for the plaintiff expects the jury to SING from these hymn-books, their introduction is not improper, and I cannot admit the objection. As defendant’s counsel are furnished with copies also, they cannot plead ‘surprise,’ as in the introduction of new matter, and as plaintiff’s counsel relies evidently upon the jury’s attention to his opening, he would not be the first person to distract it.” After a pause he added, addressing the Colonel, who remained standing, “The Court is with you, sir; proceed.”

But the Colonel remained motionless and statuesque, with folded arms.

“I have overruled the objection,” repeated the Judge; “you may go on.”

“I am waiting, your Honor, for the–er–withdrawal by the defendant’s counsel of the word ‘tampering,’ as refers to myself, and of ‘impertinent,’ as refers to the sacred volumes.”

“The request is a proper one, and I have no doubt will be acceded to,” returned the Judge quietly. The defendant’s counsel rose and mumbled a few words of apology, and the incident closed. There was, however, a general feeling that the Colonel had in some way “scored,” and if his object had been to excite the greatest curiosity about the books, he had made his point.

But impassive of his victory, he inflated his chest, with his right hand in the breast of his buttoned coat, and began. His usual high color had paled slightly, but the small pupils of his prominent eyes glittered like steel. The young girl leaned forward in her chair with an attention so breathless, a sympathy so quick, and an admiration so artless and unconscious that in an instant she divided with the speaker the attention of the whole assemblage. It was very hot; the court was crowded to suffocation; even the open windows revealed a crowd of faces outside the building, eagerly following the Colonel’s words.

He would remind the jury that only a few weeks ago he stood there as the advocate of a powerful Company, then represented by the present defendant. He spoke then as the champion of strict justice against legal oppression; no less should he to-day champion the cause of the unprotected and the comparatively defenseless–save for that paramount power which surrounds beauty and innocence–even though the plaintiff of yesterday was the defendant of to-day. As he approached the court a moment ago he had raised his eyes and beheld the starry flag flying from its dome, and he knew that glorious banner was a symbol of the perfect equality, under the Constitution, of the rich and the poor, the strong and the weak–an equality which made the simple citizen taken from the plough in the field, the pick in the gulch, or from behind the counter in the mining town, who served on that jury, the equal arbiters of justice with that highest legal luminary whom they were proud to welcome on the bench to-day. The Colonel paused, with a stately bow to the impassive Judge. It was this, he continued, which lifted his heart as he approached the building. And yet–he had entered it with an uncertain–he might almost say–a timid step. And why? He knew, gentlemen, he was about to confront a profound–aye! a sacred responsibility! Those hymn-books and holy writings handed to the jury were NOT, as his Honor had surmised, for the purpose of enabling the jury to indulge in–er–preliminary choral exercise! He might, indeed, say, “Alas, not!” They were the damning, incontrovertible proofs of the perfidy of the defendant. And they would prove as terrible a warning to him as the fatal characters upon Belshazzar’s wall. There was a strong sensation. Hotchkiss turned a sallow green. His lawyers assumed a careless smile.

It was his duty to tell them that this was not one of those ordinary “breach-of-promise” cases which were too often the occasion of ruthless mirth and indecent levity in the court-room. The jury would find nothing of that here. There were no love-letters with the epithets of endearment, nor those mystic crosses and ciphers which, he had been credibly informed, chastely hid the exchange of those mutual caresses known as “kisses.” There was no cruel tearing of the veil from those sacred privacies of the human affection; there was no forensic shouting out of those fond confidences meant only for ONE. But there was, he was shocked to say, a new sacrilegious intrusion. The weak pipings of Cupid were mingled with the chorus of the saints,–the sanctity of the temple known as the “meeting–house” was desecrated by proceedings more in keeping with the shrine of Venus; and the inspired writings themselves were used as the medium of amatory and wanton flirtation by the defendant in his sacred capacity as deacon.

The Colonel artistically paused after this thunderous denunciation. The jury turned eagerly to the leaves of the hymn-books, but the larger gaze of the audience remained fixed upon the speaker and the girl, who sat in rapt admiration of his periods. After the hush, the Colonel continued in a lower and sadder voice: “There are, perhaps, few of us here, gentlemen,–with the exception of the defendant,–who can arrogate to themselves the title of regular church-goers, or to whom these humbler functions of the prayer-meeting, the Sunday-school, and the Bible-class are habitually familiar. Yet”–more solemnly–“down in our hearts is the deep conviction of our shortcomings and failings, and a laudable desire that others, at least, should profit by the teachings we neglect. Perhaps,” he continued, closing his eyes dreamily, “there is not a man here who does not recall the happy days of his boyhood, the rustic village spire, the lessons shared with some artless village maiden, with whom he later sauntered, hand in hand, through the woods, as the simple rhyme rose upon their lips,–

     'Always make it a point to have it a rule,
     Never to be late at the Sabbath-school.'

“He would recall the strawberry feasts, the welcome annual picnic, redolent with hunks of gingerbread and sarsaparilla. How would they feel to know that these sacred recollections were now forever profaned in their memory by the knowledge that the defendant was capable of using such occasions to make love to the larger girls and teachers, whilst his artless companions were innocently–the Court will pardon me for introducing what I am credibly informed is the local expression–‘doing gooseberry’?” The tremulous flicker of a smile passed over the faces of the listening crowd, and the Colonel slightly winced. But he recovered himself instantly, and continued,–

“My client, the only daughter of a widowed mother–who has for years stemmed the varying tides of adversity, in the western precincts of this town–stands before you to-day invested only in her own innocence. She wears no–er–rich gifts of her faithless admirer–is panoplied in no jewels, rings, nor mementos of affection such as lovers delight to hang upon the shrine of their affections; hers is not the glory with which Solomon decorated the Queen of Sheba, though the defendant, as I shall show later, clothed her in the less expensive flowers of the king’s poetry. No, gentlemen! The defendant exhibited in this affair a certain frugality of–er–pecuniary investment, which I am willing to admit may be commendable in his class. His only gift was characteristic alike of his methods and his economy. There is, I understand, a certain not unimportant feature of religious exercise known as ‘taking a collection.’ The defendant, on this occasion, by the mute presentation of a tin plate covered with baize, solicited the pecuniary contributions of the faithful. On approaching the plaintiff, however, he himself slipped a love-token upon the plate and pushed it towards her. That love-token was a lozenge–a small disk, I have reason to believe, concocted of peppermint and sugar, bearing upon its reverse surface the simple words, ‘I love you!’ I have since ascertained that these disks may be bought for five cents a dozen–or at considerably less than one half cent for the single lozenge. Yes, gentlemen, the words ‘I love you!’–the oldest legend of all; the refrain ‘when the morning stars sang together’–were presented to the plaintiff by a medium so insignificant that there is, happily, no coin in the republic low enough to represent its value.

“I shall prove to you, gentlemen of the jury,” said the Colonel solemnly, drawing a Bible from his coat-tail pocket, “that the defendant for the last twelve months conducted an amatory correspondence with the plaintiff by means of underlined words of Sacred Writ and church psalmody, such as ‘beloved,’ ‘precious,’ and ‘dearest,’ occasionally appropriating whole passages which seemed apposite to his tender passion. I shall call your attention to one of them. The defendant, while professing to be a total abstainer,–a man who, in my own knowledge, has refused spirituous refreshment as an inordinate weakness of the flesh,–with shameless hypocrisy underscores with his pencil the following passage, and presents it to the plaintiff. The gentlemen of the jury will find it in the Song of Solomon, page 548, chapter ii. verse 5.” After a pause, in which the rapid rustling of leaves was heard in the jury-box, Colonel Starbottle declaimed in a pleading, stentorian voice, “‘Stay me with–er–FLAGONS, comfort me with–er–apples–for I am–er–sick of love.’ Yes, gentlemen!–yes, you may well turn from those accusing pages and look at the double-faced defendant. He desires–to–er–be–‘stayed with flagons’! I am not aware at present what kind of liquor is habitually dispensed at these meetings, and for which the defendant so urgently clamored; but it will be my duty, before this trial is over, to discover it, if I have to summon every barkeeper in this district. For the moment I will simply call your attention to the QUANTITY. It is not a single drink that the defendant asks for–not a glass of light and generous wine, to be shared with his inamorata, but a number of flagons or vessels, each possibly holding a pint measure–FOR HIMSELF!”

The smile of the audience had become a laugh. The Judge looked up warningly, when his eye caught the fact that the Colonel had again winced at this mirth. He regarded him seriously. Mr. Hotchkiss’s counsel had joined in the laugh affectedly, but Hotchkiss himself sat ashy pale. There was also a commotion in the jury-box, a hurried turning over of leaves, and an excited discussion.

“The gentlemen of the jury,” said the Judge, with official gravity, “will please keep order and attend only to the speeches of counsel. Any discussion HERE is irregular and premature, and must be reserved for the jury-room after they have retired.”

The foreman of the jury struggled to his feet. He was a powerful man, with a good-humored face, and, in spite of his unfelicitous nickname of “The Bone-Breaker,” had a kindly, simple, but somewhat emotional nature. Nevertheless, it appeared as if he were laboring under some powerful indignation.

“Can we ask a question, Judge?” he said respectfully, although his voice had the unmistakable Western American ring in it, as of one who was unconscious that he could be addressing any but his peers.

“Yes,” said the Judge good-humoredly.

“We’re finding in this yere piece, out o’ which the Kernel hes just bin a-quotin’, some language that me and my pardners allow hadn’t orter be read out afore a young lady in court, and we want to know of you–ez a fa’r-minded and impartial man–ef this is the reg’lar kind o’ book given to gals and babies down at the meetin’-house.”

“The jury will please follow the counsel’s speech without comment,” said the Judge briefly, fully aware that the defendant’s counsel would spring to his feet, as he did promptly.

“The Court will allow us to explain to the gentlemen that the language they seem to object to has been accepted by the best theologians for the last thousand years as being purely mystic. As I will explain later, those are merely symbols of the Church”–

“Of wot?” interrupted the foreman, in deep scorn.

“Of the Church!”

“We ain’t askin’ any questions o’ YOU, and we ain’t takin’ any answers,” said the foreman, sitting down abruptly.

“I must insist,” said the Judge sternly, “that the plaintiff’s counsel be allowed to continue his opening without interruption. You” (to defendant’s counsel) “will have your opportunity to reply later.”

The counsel sank down in his seat with the bitter conviction that the jury was manifestly against him, and the case as good as lost. But his face was scarcely as disturbed as his client’s, who, in great agitation, had begun to argue with him wildly, and was apparently pressing some point against the lawyer’s vehement opposal. The Colonel’s murky eyes brightened as he still stood erect, with his hand thrust in his breast.

“It will be put to you, gentlemen, when the counsel on the other side refrains from mere interruption and confines himself to reply, that my unfortunate client has no action–no remedy at law–because there were no spoken words of endearment. But, gentlemen, it will depend upon YOU to say what are and what are not articulate expressions of love. We all know that among the lower animals, with whom you may possibly be called upon to classify the defendant, there are certain signals more or less harmonious, as the case may be. The ass brays, the horse neighs, the sheep bleats–the feathered denizens of the grove call to their mates in more musical roundelays. These are recognized facts, gentlemen, which you yourselves, as dwellers among nature in this beautiful land, are all cognizant of. They are facts that no one would deny–and we should have a poor opinion of the ass who, at–er–such a supreme moment, would attempt to suggest that his call was unthinking and without significance. But, gentlemen, I shall prove to you that such was the foolish, self-convicting custom of the defendant. With the greatest reluctance, and the–er–greatest pain, I succeeded in wresting from the maidenly modesty of my fair client the innocent confession that the defendant had induced her to correspond with him in these methods. Picture to yourself, gentlemen, the lonely moonlight road beside the widow’s humble cottage. It is a beautiful night, sanctified to the affections, and the innocent girl is leaning from her casement. Presently there appears upon the road a slinking, stealthy figure, the defendant on his way to church. True to the instruction she has received from him, her lips part in the musical utterance” (the Colonel lowered his voice in a faint falsetto, presumably in fond imitation of his fair client), “‘Keeree!’ Instantly the night becomes resonant with the impassioned reply” (the Colonel here lifted his voice in stentorian tones), “‘Kee-row.’ Again, as he passes, rises the soft ‘Keeree;’ again, as his form is lost in the distance, comes back the deep ‘Keerow.'”

A burst of laughter, long, loud, and irrepressible, struck the whole court-room, and before the Judge could lift his half-composed face and take his handkerchief from his mouth, a faint “Keeree” from some unrecognized obscurity of the court-room was followed by a loud “Keerow” from some opposite locality. “The Sheriff will clear the court,” said the Judge sternly; but, alas! as the embarrassed and choking officials rushed hither and thither, a soft “Keeree” from the spectators at the window, OUTSIDE the court-house, was answered by a loud chorus of “Keerows” from the opposite windows, filled with onlookers. Again the laughter arose everywhere,–even the fair plaintiff herself sat convulsed behind her handkerchief.

The figure of Colonel Starbottle alone remained erect–white and rigid. And then the Judge, looking up, saw–what no one else in the court had seen–that the Colonel was sincere and in earnest; that what he had conceived to be the pleader’s most perfect acting and most elaborate irony were the deep, serious, mirthless CONVICTIONS of a man without the least sense of humor. There was the respect of this conviction in the Judge’s voice as he said to him gently, “You may proceed, Colonel Starbottle.”

“I thank your Honor,” said the Colonel slowly, “for recognizing and doing all in your power to prevent an interruption that, during my thirty years’ experience at the bar, I have never been subjected to without the privilege of holding the instigators thereof responsible–PERSONALLY responsible. It is possibly my fault that I have failed, oratorically, to convey to the gentlemen of the jury the full force and significance of the defendant’s signals. I am aware that my voice is singularly deficient in producing either the dulcet tones of my fair client or the impassioned vehemence of the defendant’s response. I will,” continued the Colonel, with a fatigued but blind fatuity that ignored the hurriedly knit brows and warning eyes of the Judge, “try again. The note uttered by my client” (lowering his voice to the faintest of falsettos) “was ‘Keeree;’ the response was ‘Keerow-ow.'” And the Colonel’s voice fairly shook the dome above him.

Another uproar of laughter followed this apparently audacious repetition, but was interrupted by an unlooked-for incident. The defendant rose abruptly, and tearing himself away from the withholding hand and pleading protestations of his counsel, absolutely fled from the court-room, his appearance outside being recognized by a prolonged “Keerow” from the bystanders, which again and again followed him in the distance.

In the momentary silence which followed, the Colonel’s voice was heard saying, “We rest here, your Honor,” and he sat down. No less white, but more agitated, was the face of the defendant’s counsel, who instantly rose.

“For some unexplained reason, your Honor, my client desires to suspend further proceedings, with a view to effect a peaceable compromise with the plaintiff. As he is a man of wealth and position, he is able and willing to pay liberally for that privilege. While I, as his counsel, am still convinced of his legal irresponsibility, as he has chosen publicly to abandon his rights here, I can only ask your Honor’s permission to suspend further proceedings until I can confer with Colonel Starbottle.”

“As far as I can follow the pleadings,” said the Judge gravely, “the case seems to be hardly one for litigation, and I approve of the defendant’s course, while I strongly urge the plaintiff to accept it.”

Colonel Starbottle bent over his fair client. Presently he rose, unchanged in look or demeanor. “I yield, your Honor, to the wishes of my client, and–er–lady. We accept.”

Before the court adjourned that day it was known throughout the town that Adoniram K. Hotchkiss had compromised the suit for four thousand dollars and costs.

Colonel Starbottle had so far recovered his equanimity as to strut jauntily towards his office, where he was to meet his fair client. He was surprised, however, to find her already there, and in company with a somewhat sheepish-looking young man–a stranger. If the Colonel had any disappointment in meeting a third party to the interview, his old-fashioned courtesy did not permit him to show it. He bowed graciously, and politely motioned them each to a seat.

“I reckoned I’d bring Hiram round with me,” said the young lady, lifting her searching eyes, after a pause, to the Colonel’s, “though he WAS awful shy, and allowed that you didn’t know him from Adam, or even suspect his existence. But I said, ‘That’s just where you slip up, Hiram; a pow’ful man like the Colonel knows everything–and I’ve seen it in his eye.’ Lordy!” she continued, with a laugh, leaning forward over her parasol, as her eyes again sought the Colonel’s, “don’t you remember when you asked me if I loved that old Hotchkiss, and I told you, ‘That’s tellin’,’ and you looked at me–Lordy! I knew THEN you suspected there was a Hiram SOMEWHERE, as good as if I’d told you. Now you jest get up, Hiram, and give the Colonel a good hand-shake. For if it wasn’t for HIM and HIS searchin’ ways, and HIS awful power of language, I wouldn’t hev got that four thousand dollars out o’ that flirty fool Hotchkiss–enough to buy a farm, so as you and me could get married! That’s what you owe to HIM. Don’t stand there like a stuck fool starin’ at him. He won’t eat you–though he’s killed many a better man. Come, have I got to do ALL the kissin’?”

It is of record that the Colonel bowed so courteously and so profoundly that he managed not merely to evade the proffered hand of the shy Hiram, but to only lightly touch the franker and more impulsive finger-tips of the gentle Zaidee. “I–er–offer my sincerest congratulations–though I think you–er–overestimate–my–er–powers of penetration. Unfortunately, a pressing engagement, which may oblige me also to leave town tonight, forbids my saying more. I have–er–left the–er–business settlement of this–er–case in the hands of the lawyers who do my office work, and who will show you every attention. And now let me wish you a very good afternoon.”

Nevertheless, the Colonel returned to his private room, and it was nearly twilight when the faithful Jim entered, to find him sitting meditatively before his desk. “‘Fo’ God! Kernel, I hope dey ain’t nuffin de matter, but you’s lookin’ mighty solemn! I ain’t seen you look dat way, Kernel, since de day pooh Massa Stryker was fetched home shot froo de head.”

“Hand me down the whiskey, Jim,” said the Colonel, rising slowly.

The negro flew to the closet joyfully, and brought out the bottle. The Colonel poured out a glass of the spirit and drank it with his old deliberation.

“You’re quite right, Jim,” he said, putting down his glass, “but I’m–er–getting old–and–somehow I am missing poor Stryker damnably!”

THE END.

A Humorous Short Story by Frank Richard Stockton

“I tell you, William,” said Thomas Buller to his friend Mr. Podington, “I am truly sorry about it, but I cannot arrange for it this year. Now, as to my invitation–that is very different.”

“Of course it is different,” was the reply, “but I am obliged to say, as I said before, that I really cannot accept it.”

Remarks similar to these had been made by Thomas Buller and William Podington at least once a year for some five years. They were old friends; they had been schoolboys together and had been associated in business since they were young men. They had now reached a vigorous middle age; they were each married, and each had a house in the country in which he resided for a part of the year. They were warmly attached to each other, and each was the best friend which the other had in this world. But during all these years neither of them had visited the other in his country home.

The reason for this avoidance of each other at their respective rural residences may be briefly stated. Mr. Buller’s country house was situated by the sea, and he was very fond of the water. He had a good cat-boat, which he sailed himself with much judgment and skill, and it was his greatest pleasure to take his friends and visitors upon little excursions on the bay. But Mr. Podington was desperately afraid of the water, and he was particularly afraid of any craft sailed by an amateur. If his friend Buller would have employed a professional mariner, of years and experience, to steer and manage his boat, Podington might have been willing to take an occasional sail; but as Buller always insisted upon sailing his own boat, and took it ill if any of his visitors doubted his ability to do so properly, Podington did not wish to wound the self-love of his friend, and he did not wish to be drowned. Consequently he could not bring himself to consent to go to Buller’s house by the sea.

To receive his good friend Buller at his own house in the beautiful upland region in which he lived would have been a great joy to Mr. Podington; but Buller could not be induced to visit him. Podington was very fond of horses and always drove himself, while Buller was more afraid of horses than he was of elephants or lions. To one or more horses driven by a coachman of years and experience he did not always object, but to a horse driven by Podington, who had much experience and knowledge regarding mercantile affairs, but was merely an amateur horseman, he most decidedly and strongly objected. He did not wish to hurt his friend’s feelings by refusing to go out to drive with him, but he would not rack his own nervous system by accompanying him. Therefore it was that he had not yet visited the beautiful upland country residence of Mr. Podington.

At last this state of things grew awkward. Mrs. Buller and Mrs. Podington, often with their families, visited each other at their country houses, but the fact that on these occasions they were never accompanied by their husbands caused more and more gossip among their neighbors both in the upland country and by the sea.

One day in spring as the two sat in their city office, where Mr. Podington had just repeated his annual invitation, his friend replied to him thus:

“William, if I come to see you this summer, will you visit me? The thing is beginning to look a little ridiculous, and people are talking about it.”

Mr. Podington put his hand to his brow and for a few moments closed his eyes. In his mind he saw a cat-boat upon its side, the sails spread out over the water, and two men, almost entirely immersed in the waves, making efforts to reach the side of the boat. One of these was getting on very well–that was Buller. The other seemed about to sink, his arms were uselessly waving in the air–that was himself. But he opened his eyes and looked bravely out of the window; it was time to conquer all this; it was indeed growing ridiculous. Buller had been sailing many years and had never been upset.

“Yes,” said he; “I will do it; I am ready any time you name.”

Mr. Buller rose and stretched out his hand.

“Good!” said he; “it is a compact!”

Buller was the first to make the promised country visit. He had not mentioned the subject of horses to his friend, but he knew through Mrs. Buller that Podington still continued to be his own driver. She had informed him, however, that at present he was accustomed to drive a big black horse which, in her opinion, was as gentle and reliable as these animals ever became, and she could not imagine how anybody could be afraid of him. So when, the next morning after his arrival, Mr. Buller was asked by his host if he would like to take a drive, he suppressed a certain rising emotion and said that it would please him very much.

When the good black horse had jogged along a pleasant road for half an hour Mr. Buller began to feel that, perhaps, for all these years he had been laboring under a misconception. It seemed to be possible that there were some horses to which surrounding circumstances in the shape of sights and sounds were so irrelevant that they were to a certain degree entirely safe, even when guided and controlled by an amateur hand. As they passed some meadow-land, somebody behind a hedge fired a gun; Mr. Buller was frightened, but the horse was not.

“William,” said Buller, looking cheerfully around him,

“I had no idea that you lived in such a pretty country. In fact, I might almost call it beautiful. You have not any wide stretch of water, such as I like so much, but here is a pretty river, those rolling hills are very charming, and, beyond, you have the blue of the mountains.”

“It is lovely,” said his friend; “I never get tired of driving through this country. Of course the seaside is very fine, but here we have such a variety of scenery.”

Mr. Buller could not help thinking that sometimes the seaside was a little monotonous, and that he had lost a great deal of pleasure by not varying his summers by going up to spend a week or two with Podington.

“William,” said he, “how long have you had this horse?”

“About two years,” said Mr. Podington; “before I got him, I used to drive a pair.”

“Heavens!” thought Buller, “how lucky I was not to come two years ago!” And his regrets for not sooner visiting his friend greatly decreased.

Now they came to a place where the stream, by which the road ran, had been dammed for a mill and had widened into a beautiful pond.

“There now!” cried Mr. Buller. “That’s what I like. William, you seem to have everything! This is really a very pretty sheet of water, and the reflections of the trees over there make a charming picture; you can’t get that at the seaside, you know.”

Mr. Podington was delighted; his face glowed; he was rejoiced at the pleasure of his friend. “I tell you, Thomas,” said he, “that—-“

“William!” exclaimed Buller, with a sudden squirm in his seat, “what is that I hear? Is that a train?”

“Yes,” said Mr. Podington, “that is the ten-forty, up.”

“Does it come near here?” asked Mr. Buller, nervously. “Does it go over that bridge?”

“Yes,” said Podington, “but it can’t hurt us, for our road goes under the bridge; we are perfectly safe; there is no risk of accident.”

“But your horse! Your horse!” exclaimed Buller, as the train came nearer and nearer. “What will he do?”

“Do?” said Podington; “he’ll do what he is doing now; he doesn’t mind trains.”

“But look here, William,” exclaimed Buller, “it will get there just as we do; no horse could stand a roaring up in the air like that!”

Podington laughed. “He would not mind it in the least,” said he.

“Come, come now,” cried Buller. “Really, I can’t stand this! Just stop a minute, William, and let me get out. It sets all my nerves quivering.”

Mr. Podington smiled with a superior smile. “Oh, you needn’t get out,” said he; “there’s not the least danger in the world. But I don’t want to make you nervous, and I will turn around and drive the other way.”

“But you can’t!” screamed Buller. “This road is not wide enough, and that train is nearly here. Please stop!”

The imputation that the road was not wide enough for him to turn was too much for Mr. Podington to bear. He was very proud of his ability to turn a vehicle in a narrow place.

“Turn!” said he; “that’s the easiest thing in the world. See; a little to the right, then a back, then a sweep to the left and we will be going the other way.” And instantly he began the maneuver in which he was such an adept.

“Oh, Thomas!” cried Buller, half rising in his seat, “that train is almost here!”

“And we are almost—-” Mr. Podington was about to say “turned around,” but he stopped. Mr. Buller’s exclamations had made him a little nervous, and, in his anxiety to turn quickly, he had pulled upon his horse’s bit with more energy than was actually necessary, and his nervousness being communicated to the horse, that animal backed with such extraordinary vigor that the hind wheels of the wagon went over a bit of grass by the road and into the water. The sudden jolt gave a new impetus to Mr. Buller’s fears.

“You’ll upset!” he cried, and not thinking of what he was about, he laid hold of his friend’s arm. The horse, startled by this sudden jerk upon his bit, which, combined with the thundering of the train, which was now on the bridge, made him think that something extraordinary was about to happen, gave a sudden and forcible start backward, so that not only the hind wheels of the light wagon, but the fore wheels and his own hind legs went into the water. As the bank at this spot sloped steeply, the wagon continued to go backward, despite the efforts of the agitated horse to find a footing on the crumbling edge of the bank.

“Whoa!” cried Mr. Buller.

“Get up!” exclaimed Mr. Podington, applying his whip upon the plunging beast.

But exclamations and castigations had no effect upon the horse. The original bed of the stream ran close to the road, and the bank was so steep and the earth so soft that it was impossible for the horse to advance or even maintain his footing. Back, back he went, until the whole equipage was in the water and the wagon was afloat.

This vehicle was a road wagon, without a top, and the joints of its box-body were tight enough to prevent the water from immediately entering it; so, somewhat deeply sunken, it rested upon the water. There was a current in this part of the pond and it turned the wagon downstream. The horse was now entirely immersed in the water, with the exception of his head and the upper part of his neck, and, unable to reach the bottom with his feet, he made vigorous efforts to swim.

Mr. Podington, the reins and whip in his hands, sat horrified and pale; the accident was so sudden, he was so startled and so frightened that, for a moment, he could not speak a word. Mr. Buller, on the other hand, was now lively and alert. The wagon had no sooner floated away from the shore than he felt himself at home. He was upon his favorite element; water had no fears for him. He saw that his friend was nearly frightened out of his wits, and that, figuratively speaking, he must step to the helm and take charge of the vessel. He stood up and gazed about him.

“Put her across stream!” he shouted; “she can’t make headway against this current. Head her to that clump of trees on the other side; the bank is lower there, and we can beach her. Move a little the other way, we must trim boat. Now then, pull on your starboard rein.”

Podington obeyed, and the horse slightly changed his direction.

“You see,” said Buller, “it won’t do to sail straight across, because the current would carry us down and land us below that spot.”

Mr. Podington said not a word; he expected every moment to see the horse sink into a watery grave.

“It isn’t so bad after all, is it, Podington? If we had a rudder and a bit of a sail it would be a great help to the horse. This wagon is not a bad boat.”

The despairing Podington looked at his feet. “It’s coming in,” he said in a husky voice. “Thomas, the water is over my shoes!”

“That is so,” said Buller. “I am so used to water I didn’t notice it. She leaks. Do you carry anything to bail her out with?”

“Bail!” cried Podington, now finding his voice. “Oh, Thomas, we are sinking!”

“That’s so,” said Buller; “she leaks like a sieve.”

The weight of the running-gear and of the two men was entirely too much for the buoyancy of the wagon body. The water rapidly rose toward the top of its sides.

“We are going to drown!” cried Podington, suddenly rising.

“Lick him! Lick him!” exclaimed Buller. “Make him swim faster!”

“There’s nothing to lick,” cried Podington, vainly lashing at the water, for he could not reach the horse’s head. The poor man was dreadfully frightened; he had never even imagined it possible that he should be drowned in his own wagon.

“Whoop!” cried Buller, as the water rose over the sides. “Steady yourself, old boy, or you’ll go overboard!” And the next moment the wagon body sunk out of sight.

But it did not go down very far. The deepest part of the channel of the stream had been passed, and with a bump the wheels struck the bottom.

“Heavens!” exclaimed Buller, “we are aground.”

“Aground!” exclaimed Podington, “Heaven be praised!”

As the two men stood up in the submerged wagon the water was above their knees, and when Podington looked out over the surface of the pond, now so near his face, it seemed like a sheet of water he had never seen before. It was something horrible, threatening to rise and envelop him. He trembled so that he could scarcely keep his footing.

“William,” said his companion, “you must sit down; if you don’t, you’ll tumble overboard and be drowned. There is nothing for you to hold to.”

“Sit down,” said Podington, gazing blankly at the water around him, “I can’t do that!”

At this moment the horse made a slight movement. Having touched bottom after his efforts in swimming across the main bed of the stream, with a floating wagon in tow, he had stood for a few moments, his head and neck well above water, and his back barely visible beneath the surface. Having recovered his breath, he now thought it was time to move on.

At the first step of the horse Mr. Podington began to totter. Instinctively he clutched Buller.

“Sit down!” cried the latter, “or you’ll have us both overboard.” There was no help for it; down sat Mr. Podington; and, as with a great splash he came heavily upon the seat, the water rose to his waist.

“Ough!” said he. “Thomas, shout for help.”

“No use doing that,” replied Buller, still standing on his nautical legs; “I don’t see anybody, and I don’t see any boat. We’ll get out all right. Just you stick tight to the thwart.”

“The what?” feebly asked the other.

“Oh, the seat, I mean. We can get to the shore all right if you steer the horse straight. Head him more across the pond.”

“I can’t head him,” cried Podington. “I have dropped the reins!”

“Good gracious!” cried Mr. Buller, “that’s bad. Can’t you steer him by shouting ’Gee’ and ’Haw’?”

“No,” said Podington, “he isn’t an ox; but perhaps I can stop him.” And with as much voice as he could summon, he called out: “Whoa!” and the horse stopped.

“If you can’t steer him any other way,” said Buller, “we must get the reins. Lend me your whip.”

“I have dropped that too,” said Podington; “there it floats.”

“Oh, dear,” said Buller, “I guess I’ll have to dive for them; if he were to run away, we should be in an awful fix.”

“Don’t get out! Don’t get out!” exclaimed Podington. “You can reach over the dashboard.”

“As that’s under water,” said Buller, “it will be the same thing as diving; but it’s got to be done, and I’ll try it. Don’t you move now; I am more used to water than you are.”

Mr. Buller took off his hat and asked his friend to hold it. He thought of his watch and other contents of his pockets, but there was no place to put them, so he gave them no more consideration. Then bravely getting on his knees in the water, he leaned over the dashboard, almost disappearing from sight. With his disengaged hand Mr. Podington grasped the submerged coat-tails of his friend.

In a few seconds the upper part of Mr. Buller rose from the water. He was dripping and puffing, and Mr. Podington could not but think what a difference it made in the appearance of his friend to have his hair plastered close to his head.

“I got hold of one of them,” said the sputtering Buller, “but it was fast to something and I couldn’t get it loose.”

“Was it thick and wide?” asked Podington.

“Yes,” was the answer; “it did seem so.”

“Oh, that was a trace,” said Podington; “I don’t want that; the reins are thinner and lighter.”

“Now I remember they are,” said Buller. “I’ll go down again.”

Again Mr. Buller leaned over the dashboard, and this time he remained down longer, and when he came up he puffed and sputtered more than before.

“Is this it?” said he, holding up a strip of wet leather.

“Yes,” said Podington, “you’ve got the reins.”

“Well, take them, and steer. I would have found them sooner if his tail had not got into my eyes. That long tail’s floating down there and spreading itself out like a fan; it tangled itself all around my head. It would have been much easier if he had been a bob-tailed horse.”

“Now then,” said Podington, “take your hat, Thomas, and I’ll try to drive.”

Mr. Buller put on his hat, which was the only dry thing about him, and the nervous Podington started the horse so suddenly that even the sea-legs of Buller were surprised, and he came very near going backward into the water; but recovering himself, he sat down.

“I don’t wonder you did not like to do this, William,” said he. “Wet as I am, it’s ghastly!”

Encouraged by his master’s voice, and by the feeling of the familiar hand upon his bit, the horse moved bravely on.

But the bottom was very rough and uneven. Sometimes the wheels struck a large stone, terrifying Mr. Buller, who thought they were going to upset; and sometimes they sank into soft mud, horrifying Mr. Podington, who thought they were going to drown.

Thus proceeding, they presented a strange sight. At first Mr. Podington held his hands above the water as he drove, but he soon found this awkward, and dropped them to their usual position, so that nothing was visible above the water but the head and neck of a horse and the heads and shoulders of two men.

Now the submarine equipage came to a low place in the bottom, and even Mr. Buller shuddered as the water rose to his chin. Podington gave a howl of horror, and the horse, with high, uplifted head, was obliged to swim. At this moment a boy with a gun came strolling along the road, and hearing Mr. Podington’s cry, he cast his eyes over the water. Instinctively he raised his weapon to his shoulder, and then, in an instant, perceiving that the objects he beheld were not aquatic birds, he dropped his gun and ran yelling down the road toward the mill.

But the hollow in the bottom was a narrow one, and when it was passed the depth of the water gradually decreased. The back of the horse came into view, the dashboard became visible, and the bodies and the spirits of the two men rapidly rose. Now there was vigorous splashing and tugging, and then a jet black horse, shining as if he had been newly varnished, pulled a dripping wagon containing two well-soaked men upon a shelving shore.

“Oh, I am chilled to the bones!” said Podington.

“I should think so,” replied his friend; “if you have got to be wet, it is a great deal pleasanter under the water.”

There was a field-road on this side of the pond which Podington well knew, and proceeding along this they came to the bridge and got into the main road.

“Now we must get home as fast as we can,” cried Podington, “or we shall both take cold. I wish I hadn’t lost my whip. Hi now! Get along!”

Podington was now full of life and energy, his wheels were on the hard road, and he was himself again.

When he found his head was turned toward his home, the horse set off at a great rate.

“Hi there!” cried Podington. “I am so sorry I lost my whip.”

“Whip!” said Buller, holding fast to the side of the seat; “surely you don’t want him to go any faster than this. And look here, William,” he added, “it seems to me we are much more likely to take cold in our wet clothes if we rush through the air in this way. Really, it seems to me that horse is running away.”

“Not a bit of it,” cried Podington. “He wants to get home, and he wants his dinner. Isn’t he a fine horse? Look how he steps out!”

“Steps out!” said Buller, “I think I’d like to step out myself. Don’t you think it would be wiser for me to walk home, William? That will warm me up.”

“It will take you an hour,” said his friend. “Stay where you are, and I’ll have you in a dry suit of clothes in less than fifteen minutes.”

“I tell you, William,” said Mr. Buller, as the two sat smoking after dinner, “what you ought to do; you should never go out driving without a life-preserver and a pair of oars; I always take them. It would make you feel safer.”

Mr. Buller went home the next day, because Mr. Podington’s clothes did not fit him, and his own outdoor suit was so shrunken as to be uncomfortable. Besides, there was another reason, connected with the desire of horses to reach their homes, which prompted his return. But he had not forgotten his compact with his friend, and in the course of a week he wrote to Podington, inviting him to spend some days with him. Mr. Podington was a man of honor, and in spite of his recent unfortunate water experience he would not break his word. He went to Mr. Buller’s seaside home at the time appointed.

Early on the morning after his arrival, before the family were up, Mr. Podington went out and strolled down to the edge of the bay. He went to look at Buller’s boat. He was well aware that he would be asked to take a sail, and as Buller had driven with him, it would be impossible for him to decline sailing with Buller; but he must see the boat. There was a train for his home at a quarter past seven; if he were not on the premises he could not be asked to sail. If Buller’s boat were a little, flimsy thing, he would take that train–but he would wait and see.

There was only one small boat anchored near the beach, and a man–apparently a fisherman–informed Mr. Podington that it belonged to Mr. Buller. Podington looked at it eagerly; it was not very small and not flimsy.

“Do you consider that a safe boat?” he asked the fisherman.

“Safe?” replied the man. “You could not upset her if you tried. Look at her breadth of beam! You could go anywhere in that boat! Are you thinking of buying her?”

The idea that he would think of buying a boat made Mr. Podington laugh. The information that it would be impossible to upset the little vessel had greatly cheered him, and he could laugh.

Shortly after breakfast Mr. Buller, like a nurse with a dose of medicine, came to Mr. Podington with the expected invitation to take a sail.

“Now, William,” said his host, “I understand perfectly your feeling about boats, and what I wish to prove to you is that it is a feeling without any foundation. I don’t want to shock you or make you nervous, so I am not going to take you out today on the bay in my boat. You are as safe on the bay as you would be on land–a little safer, perhaps, under certain circumstances, to which we will not allude–but still it is sometimes a little rough, and this, at first, might cause you some uneasiness, and so I am going to let you begin your education in the sailing line on perfectly smooth water. About three miles back of us there is a very pretty lake several miles long. It is part of the canal system which connects the town with the railroad. I have sent my boat to the town, and we can walk up there and go by the canal to the lake; it is only about three miles.”

If he had to sail at all, this kind of sailing suited Mr. Podington. A canal, a quiet lake, and a boat which could not be upset. When they reached the town the boat was in the canal, ready for them.

“Now,” said Mr. Buller, “you get in and make yourself comfortable. My idea is to hitch on to a canal-boat and be towed to the lake. The boats generally start about this time in the morning, and I will go and see about it.”

Mr. Podington, under the direction of his friend, took a seat in the stern of the sailboat, and then he remarked:

“Thomas, have you a life-preserver on board? You know I am not used to any kind of vessel, and I am clumsy. Nothing might happen to the boat, but I might trip and fall overboard, and I can’t swim.”

“All right,” said Buller; “here’s a life-preserver, and you can put it on. I want you to feel perfectly safe. Now I will go and see about the tow.”

But Mr. Buller found that the canal-boats would not start at their usual time; the loading of one of them was not finished, and he was informed that he might have to wait for an hour or more. This did not suit Mr. Buller at all, and he did not hesitate to show his annoyance.

“I tell you, sir, what you can do,” said one of the men in charge of the boats; “if you don’t want to wait till we are ready to start, we’ll let you have a boy and a horse to tow you up to the lake. That won’t cost you much, and they’ll be back before we want ’em.”

The bargain was made, and Mr. Buller joyfully returned to his boat with the intelligence that they were not to wait for the canal-boats. A long rope, with a horse attached to the other end of it, was speedily made fast to the boat, and with a boy at the head of the horse, they started up the canal.

“Now this is the kind of sailing I like,” said Mr. Podington. “If I lived near a canal I believe I would buy a boat and train my horse to tow. I could have a long pair of rope-lines and drive him myself; then when the roads were rough and bad the canal would always be smooth.”

“This is all very nice,” replied Mr. Buller, who sat by the tiller to keep the boat away from the bank, “and I am glad to see you in a boat under any circumstances. Do you know, William, that although I did not plan it, there could not have been a better way to begin your sailing education. Here we glide along, slowly and gently, with no possible thought of danger, for if the boat should suddenly spring a leak, as if it were the body of a wagon, all we would have to do would be to step on shore, and by the time you get to the end of the canal you will like this gentle motion so much that you will be perfectly ready to begin the second stage of your nautical education.”

“Yes,” said Mr. Podington. “How long did you say this canal is?”

“About three miles,” answered his friend. “Then we will go into the lock and in a few minutes we shall be on the lake.”

“So far as I am concerned,” said Mr. Podington, “I wish the canal were twelve miles long. I cannot imagine anything pleasanter than this. If I lived anywhere near a canal–a long canal, I mean, this one is too short–I’d–“

“Come, come now,” interrupted Buller. “Don’t be content to stay in the primary school just because it is easy. When we get on the lake I will show you that in a boat, with a gentle breeze, such as we are likely to have today, you will find the motion quite as pleasing, and ever so much more inspiriting. I should not be a bit surprised, William, if after you have been two or three times on the lake you will ask me–yes, positively ask me–to take you out on the bay!”

Mr. Podington smiled, and leaning backward, he looked up at the beautiful blue sky.

“You can’t give me anything better than this, Thomas,” said he; “but you needn’t think I am weakening; you drove with me, and I will sail with you.”

The thought came into Buller’s mind that he had done both of these things with Podington, but he did not wish to call up unpleasant memories, and said nothing.

About half a mile from the town there stood a small cottage where house-cleaning was going on, and on a fence, not far from the canal, there hung a carpet gaily adorned with stripes and spots of red and yellow.

When the drowsy tow-horse came abreast of the house, and the carpet caught his eye, he suddenly stopped and gave a start toward the canal. Then, impressed with a horror of the glaring apparition, he gathered himself up, and with a bound dashed along the tow-path. The astounded boy gave a shout, but was speedily left behind. The boat of Mr. Buller shot forward as if she had been struck by a squall.

The terrified horse sped on as if a red and yellow demon were after him. The boat bounded, and plunged, and frequently struck the grassy bank of the canal, as if it would break itself to pieces. Mr. Podington clutched the boom to keep himself from being thrown out, while Mr. Buller, both hands upon the tiller, frantically endeavored to keep the boat from the bank.

“William!” he screamed, “he is running away with us; we shall be dashed to pieces! Can’t you get forward and cast off that line?”

“What do you mean?” cried Podington, as the boom gave a great jerk as if it would break its fastenings and drag him overboard.

“I mean untie the tow-line. We’ll be smashed if you don’t! I can’t leave this tiller. Don’t try to stand up; hold on to the boom and creep forward. Steady now, or you’ll be overboard!”

Mr. Podington stumbled to the bow of the boat, his efforts greatly impeded by the big cork life-preserver tied under his arms, and the motion of the boat was so violent and erratic that he was obliged to hold on to the mast with one arm and to try to loosen the knot with the other; but there was a great strain on the rope, and he could do nothing with one hand.

“Cut it! Cut it!” cried Mr. Buller.

“I haven’t a knife,” replied Podington.

Mr. Buller was terribly frightened; his boat was cutting through the water as never vessel of her class had sped since sail-boats were invented, and bumping against the bank as if she were a billiard-ball rebounding from the edge of a table. He forgot he was in a boat; he only knew that for the first time in his life he was in a runaway. He let go the tiller. It was of no use to him.

“William,” he cried, “let us jump out the next time we are near enough to shore!”

“Don’t do that! Don’t do that!” replied Podington. “Don’t jump out in a runaway; that is the way to get hurt. Stick to your seat, my boy; he can’t keep this up much longer. He’ll lose his wind!”

Mr. Podington was greatly excited, but he was not frightened, as Buller was. He had been in a runaway before, and he could not help thinking how much better a wagon was than a boat in such a case.

“If he were hitched up shorter and I had a snaffle-bit and a stout pair of reins,” thought he, “I could soon bring him up.”

But Mr. Buller was rapidly losing his wits. The horse seemed to be going faster than ever. The boat bumped harder against the bank, and at one time Buller thought they could turn over.

Suddenly a thought struck him.

“William,” he shouted, “tip that anchor over the side! Throw it in, any way!”

Mr. Podington looked about him, and, almost under his feet, saw the anchor. He did not instantly comprehend why Buller wanted it thrown overboard, but this was not a time to ask questions. The difficulties imposed by the life-preserver, and the necessity of holding on with one hand, interfered very much with his getting at the anchor and throwing it over the side, but at last he succeeded, and just as the boat threw up her bow as if she were about to jump on shore, the anchor went out and its line shot after it. There was an irregular trembling of the boat as the anchor struggled along the bottom of the canal; then there was a great shock; the boat ran into the bank and stopped; the tow-line was tightened like a guitar-string, and the horse, jerked back with great violence, came tumbling in a heap upon the ground.

Instantly Mr. Podington was on the shore and running at the top of his speed toward the horse. The astounded animal had scarcely begun to struggle to his feet when Podington rushed upon him, pressed his head back to the ground, and sat upon it.

“Hurrah!” he cried, waving his hat above his head. “Get out, Buller; he is all right now!”

Presently Mr. Buller approached, very much shaken up.

“All right?” he said. “I don’t call a horse flat in a road with a man on his head all right; but hold him down till we get him loose from my boat. That is the thing to do. William, cast him loose from the boat before you let him up! What will he do when he gets up?”

“Oh. he’ll be quiet enough when he gets up,” said Podington. “But if you’ve got a knife you can cut his traces—I mean that rope–but no, you needn’t. Here comes the boy. We’ll settle this business in very short order now.”

When the horse was on his feet, and all connection between the animal and the boat had been severed, Mr. Podington looked at his friend.

“Thomas,” said he, “you seem to have had a hard time of it. You have lost your hat and you look as if you had been in a wrestling-match.”

“I have,” replied the other; “I wrestled with that tiller and I wonder it didn’t throw me out.”

Now approached the boy. “Shall I hitch him on again, sir?” said he. “He’s quiet enough now.”

“No,” cried Mr. Buller; “I want no more sailing after a horse, and, besides, we can’t go on the lake with that boat; she has been battered about so much that she must have opened a dozen seams. The best thing we can do is to walk home.”

Mr. Podington agreed with his friend that walking home was the best thing they could do. The boat was examined and found to be leaking, but not very badly, and when her mast had been unshipped and everything had been made tight and right on board, she was pulled out of the way of tow-lines and boats, and made fast until she could be sent for from the town.

Mr. Buller and Mr. Podington walked back toward the town. They had not gone very far when they met a party of boys, who, upon seeing them, burst into unseemly laughter.

“Mister,” cried one of them, “you needn’t be afraid of tumbling into the canal. Why don’t you take off your life-preserver and let that other man put it on his head?”

The two friends looked at each other and could not help joining in the laughter of the boys.

“By George! I forgot all about this,” said Podington, as he unfastened the cork jacket. “It does look a little super-timid to wear a life-preserver just because one happens to be walking by the side of a canal.”

Mr. Buller tied a handkerchief on his head, and Mr. Podington rolled up his life-preserver and carried it under his arm. Thus they reached the town, where Buller bought a hat, Podington dispensed with his bundle, and arrangements were made to bring back the boat.

“Runaway in a sailboat!” exclaimed one of the canal boatmen when he had heard about the accident. “Upon my word! That beats anything that could happen to a man!”

“No, it doesn’t,” replied Mr. Buller, quietly. “I have gone to the bottom in a foundered road-wagon.”

The man looked at him fixedly.

“Was you ever struck in the mud in a balloon?” he asked.

“Not yet,” replied Mr. Buller.

It required ten days to put Mr. Buller’s sailboat into proper condition, and for ten days Mr. Podington stayed with his friend, and enjoyed his visit very much. They strolled on the beach, they took long walks in the back country, they fished from the end of a pier, they smoked, they talked, and were happy and content.

“Thomas,” said Mr. Podington, on the last evening of his stay, “I have enjoyed myself very much since I have been down here, and now, Thomas, if I were to come down again next summer, would you mind–would you mind, not—-“

“I would not mind it a bit,” replied Buller, promptly. “I’ll never so much as mention it; so you can come along without a thought of it. And since you have alluded to the subject, William,” he continued, “I’d like very much to come and see you again; you know my visit was a very short one this year. That is a beautiful country you live in. Such a variety of scenery, such an opportunity for walks and rambles! But, William, if you could only make up your mind not to—-“

“Oh, that is all right!” exclaimed Podington. “I do not need to make up my mind. You come to my house and you will never so much as hear of it. Here’s my hand upon it!”

“And here’s mine!” said Mr. Buller.

And they shook hands over a new compact.

[From Scribner’s Magazine, August, 1897. Republished in Afield and Afloat, by Frank Richard Stockton; copyright, 1900, by Charles Scribner’s Sons. Reprinted by permission of the publishers.]

A Humorous Short Story by Henry Cuyler Bunner

“They certainly are nice people,” I assented to my wife’s observation, using the colloquial phrase with a consciousness that it was anything but “nice” English, “and I’ll bet that their three children are better brought up than most of—-“

“Two children,” corrected my wife.

“Three, he told me.”

“My dear, she said there were two.”

“He said three.”

“You’ve simply forgotten. I’m sure she told me they had only two–a boy and a girl.”

“Well, I didn’t enter into particulars.”

“No, dear, and you couldn’t have understood him. Two children.”

“All right,” I said; but I did not think it was all right. As a near-sighted man learns by enforced observation to recognize persons at a distance when the face is not visible to the normal eye, so the man with a bad memory learns, almost unconsciously, to listen carefully and report accurately. My memory is bad; but I had not had time to forget that Mr. Brewster Brede had told me that afternoon that he had three children, at present left in the care of his mother-in-law, while he and Mrs. Brede took their summer vacation.

“Two children,” repeated my wife; “and they are staying with his aunt Jenny.”

“He told me with his mother-in-law,” I put in. My wife looked at me with a serious expression. Men may not remember much of what they are told about children; but any man knows the difference between an aunt and a mother-in-law.

“But don’t you think they’re nice people?” asked my wife.

“Oh, certainly,” I replied. “Only they seem to be a little mixed up about their children.”

“That isn’t a nice thing to say,” returned my wife. I could not deny it.

* * * * *

And yet, the next morning, when the Bredes came down and seated themselves opposite us at table, beaming and smiling in their natural, pleasant, well-bred fashion, I knew, to a social certainty, that they were “nice” people. He was a fine-looking fellow in his neat tennis-flannels, slim, graceful, twenty-eight or thirty years old, with a Frenchy pointed beard. She was “nice” in all her pretty clothes, and she herself was pretty with that type of prettiness which outwears most other types–the prettiness that lies in a rounded figure, a dusky skin, plump, rosy cheeks, white teeth and black eyes. She might have been twenty-five; you guessed that she was prettier than she was at twenty, and that she would be prettier still at forty.

And nice people were all we wanted to make us happy in Mr. Jacobus’s summer boarding-house on top of Orange Mountain. For a week we had come down to breakfast each morning, wondering why we wasted the precious days of idleness with the company gathered around the Jacobus board. What joy of human companionship was to be had out of Mrs. Tabb and Miss Hoogencamp, the two middle-aged gossips from Scranton, Pa.–out of Mr. and Mrs. Biggle, an indurated head-bookkeeper and his prim and censorious wife–out of old Major Halkit, a retired business man, who, having once sold a few shares on commission, wrote for circulars of every stock company that was started, and tried to induce every one to invest who would listen to him? We looked around at those dull faces, the truthful indices of mean and barren minds, and decided that we would leave that morning. Then we ate Mrs. Jacobus’s biscuit, light as Aurora’s cloudlets, drank her honest coffee, inhaled the perfume of the late azaleas with which she decked her table, and decided to postpone our departure one more day. And then we wandered out to take our morning glance at what we called “our view”; and it seemed to us as if Tabb and Hoogencamp and Halkit and the Biggleses could not drive us away in a year.

I was not surprised when, after breakfast, my wife invited the Bredes to walk with us to “our view.” The Hoogencamp-Biggle-Tabb-Halkit contingent never stirred off Jacobus’s veranda; but we both felt that the Bredes would not profane that sacred scene. We strolled slowly across the fields, passed through the little belt of woods and, as I heard Mrs. Brede’s little cry of startled rapture, I motioned to Brede to look up.

“By Jove!” he cried, “heavenly!”

We looked off from the brow of the mountain over fifteen miles of billowing green, to where, far across a far stretch of pale blue lay a dim purple line that we knew was Staten Island. Towns and villages lay before us and under us; there were ridges and hills, uplands and lowlands, woods and plains, all massed and mingled in that great silent sea of sunlit green. For silent it was to us, standing in the silence of a high place–silent with a Sunday stillness that made us listen, without taking thought, for the sound of bells coming up from the spires that rose above the tree-tops–the tree-tops that lay as far beneath us as the light clouds were above us that dropped great shadows upon our heads and faint specks of shade upon the broad sweep of land at the mountain’s foot.

“And so that is your view?” asked Mrs. Brede, after a moment; “you are very generous to make it ours, too.”

Then we lay down on the grass, and Brede began to talk, in a gentle voice, as if he felt the influence of the place. He had paddled a canoe, in his earlier days, he said, and he knew every river and creek in that vast stretch of landscape. He found his landmarks, and pointed out to us where the Passaic and the Hackensack flowed, invisible to us, hidden behind great ridges that in our sight were but combings of the green waves upon which we looked down. And yet, on the further side of those broad ridges and rises were scores of villages–a little world of country life, lying unseen under our eyes.

“A good deal like looking at humanity,” he said; “there is such a thing as getting so far above our fellow men that we see only one side of them.”

Ah, how much better was this sort of talk than the chatter and gossip of the Tabb and the Hoogencamp–than the Major’s dissertations upon his everlasting circulars! My wife and I exchanged glances.

“Now, when I went up the Matterhorn” Mr. Brede began.

“Why, dear,” interrupted his wife, “I didn’t know you ever went up the Matterhorn.”

“It–it was five years ago,” said Mr. Brede, hurriedly. “I–I didn’t tell you–when I was on the other side, you know–it was rather dangerous–well, as I was saying–it looked–oh, it didn’t look at all like this.”

A cloud floated overhead, throwing its great shadow over the field where we lay. The shadow passed over the mountain’s brow and reappeared far below, a rapidly decreasing blot, flying eastward over the golden green. My wife and I exchanged glances once more.

Somehow, the shadow lingered over us all. As we went home, the Bredes went side by side along the narrow path, and my wife and I walked together.

“Should you think,” she asked me, “that a man would climb the Matterhorn the very first year he was married?”

“I don’t know, my dear,” I answered, evasively; “this isn’t the first year I have been married, not by a good many, and I wouldn’t climb it–for a farm.”

“You know what I mean,” she said.

I did.

* * * * *

When we reached the boarding-house, Mr. Jacobus took me aside.

“You know,” he began his discourse, “my wife she uset to live in N’ York!”

I didn’t know, but I said “Yes.”

“She says the numbers on the streets runs criss-cross-like. Thirty-four’s on one side o’ the street an’ thirty-five on t’other. How’s that?”

“That is the invariable rule, I believe.”

“Then–I say–these here new folk that you ’n’ your wife seem so mighty taken up with–d’ye know anything about ’em?”

“I know nothing about the character of your boarders, Mr. Jacobus,” I replied, conscious of some irritability. “If I choose to associate with any of them—-“

“Jess so–jess so!” broke in Jacobus. “I hain’t nothin’ to say ag’inst yer sosherbil’ty. But do ye know them?”

“Why, certainly not,” I replied.

“Well–that was all I wuz askin’ ye. Ye see, when he come here to take the rooms–you wasn’t here then–he told my wife that he lived at number thirty-four in his street. An’ yistiddy she told her that they lived at number thirty-five. He said he lived in an apartment-house. Now there can’t be no apartment-house on two sides of the same street, kin they?”

“What street was it?” I inquired, wearily.

“Hundred ’n’ twenty-first street.”

“May be,” I replied, still more wearily. “That’s Harlem. Nobody knows what people will do in Harlem.”

I went up to my wife’s room.

“Don’t you think it’s queer?” she asked me.

“I think I’ll have a talk with that young man to-night,” I said, “and see if he can give some account of himself.”

“But, my dear,” my wife said, gravely, “she doesn’t know whether they’ve had the measles or not.”

“Why, Great Scott!” I exclaimed, “they must have had them when they were children.”

“Please don’t be stupid,” said my wife. “I meant their children.”

After dinner that night–or rather, after supper, for we had dinner in the middle of the day at Jacobus’s–I walked down the long verandah to ask Brede, who was placidly smoking at the other end, to accompany me on a twilight stroll. Half way down I met Major Halkit.

“That friend of yours,” he said, indicating the unconscious figure at the further end of the house, “seems to be a queer sort of a Dick. He told me that he was out of business, and just looking round for a chance to invest his capital. And I’ve been telling him what an everlasting big show he had to take stock in the Capitoline Trust Company–starts next month–four million capital–I told you all about it. ’Oh, well,’ he says, ’let’s wait and think about it.’ ’Wait!’ says I, ’the Capitoline Trust Company won’t wait for you, my boy. This is letting you in on the ground floor,’ says I, ’and it’s now or never.’ ’Oh, let it wait,’ says he. I don’t know what’s in-to the man.”

“I don’t know how well he knows his own business, Major,” I said as I started again for Brede’s end of the veranda. But I was troubled none the less. The Major could not have influenced the sale of one share of stock in the Capitoline Company. But that stock was a great investment; a rare chance for a purchaser with a few thousand dollars. Perhaps it was no more remarkable that Brede should not invest than that I should not–and yet, it seemed to add one circumstance more to the other suspicious circumstances.

* * * * *

When I went upstairs that evening, I found my wife putting her hair to bed–I don’t know how I can better describe an operation familiar to every married man. I waited until the last tress was coiled up, and then I spoke:

“I’ve talked with Brede,” I said, “and I didn’t have to catechize him. He seemed to feel that some sort of explanation was looked for, and he was very outspoken. You were right about the children–that is, I must have misunderstood him. There are only two. But the Matterhorn episode was simple enough. He didn’t realize how dangerous it was until he had got so far into it that he couldn’t back out; and he didn’t tell her, because he’d left her here, you see, and under the circumstances—-“

“Left her here!” cried my wife. “I’ve been sitting with her the whole afternoon, sewing, and she told me that he left her at Geneva, and came back and took her to Basle, and the baby was born there–now I’m sure, dear, because I asked her.”

“Perhaps I was mistaken when I thought he said she was on this side of the water,” I suggested, with bitter, biting irony.

“You poor dear, did I abuse you?” said my wife. “But, do you know, Mrs. Tabb said that she didn’t know how many lumps of sugar he took in his coffee. Now that seems queer, doesn’t it?”

It did. It was a small thing. But it looked queer, Very queer.

* * * * *

The next morning, it was clear that war was declared against the Bredes. They came down to breakfast somewhat late, and, as soon as they arrived, the Biggleses swooped up the last fragments that remained on their plates, and made a stately march out of the dining-room, Then Miss Hoogencamp arose and departed, leaving a whole fish-ball on her plate. Even as Atalanta might have dropped an apple behind her to tempt her pursuer to check his speed, so Miss Hoogencamp left that fish-ball behind her, and between her maiden self and contamination.

We had finished our breakfast, my wife and I, before the Bredes appeared. We talked it over, and agreed that we were glad that we had not been obliged to take sides upon such insufficient testimony.

After breakfast, it was the custom of the male half of the Jacobus household to go around the corner of the building and smoke their pipes and cigars where they would not annoy the ladies. We sat under a trellis covered with a grapevine that had borne no grapes in the memory of man. This vine, however, bore leaves, and these, on that pleasant summer morning, shielded from us two persons who were in earnest conversation in the straggling, half-dead flower-garden at the side of the house.

“I don’t want,” we heard Mr. Jacobus say, “to enter in no man’s pry-vacy; but I do want to know who it may be, like, that I hev in my house. Now what I ask of you, and I don’t want you to take it as in no ways personal, is–hev you your merridge-license with you?”

“No,” we heard the voice of Mr. Brede reply. “Have you yours?”

I think it was a chance shot; but it told all the same. The Major (he was a widower) and Mr. Biggle and I looked at each other; and Mr. Jacobus, on the other side of the grape-trellis, looked at–I don’t know what–and was as silent as we were.

Where is your marriage-license, married reader? Do you know? Four men, not including Mr. Brede, stood or sat on one side or the other of that grape-trellis, and not one of them knew where his marriage-license was. Each of us had had one–the Major had had three. But where were they? Where is yours? Tucked in your best-man’s pocket; deposited in his desk–or washed to a pulp in his white waistcoat (if white waistcoats be the fashion of the hour), washed out of existence–can you tell where it is? Can you–unless you are one of those people who frame that interesting document and hang it upon their drawing-room walls?

Mr. Brede’s voice arose, after an awful stillness of what seemed like five minutes, and was, probably, thirty seconds:

“Mr. Jacobus, will you make out your bill at once, and let me pay it? I shall leave by the six o’clock train. And will you also send the wagon for my trunks?”

“I hain’t said I wanted to hev ye leave—-” began Mr. Jacobus; but Brede cut him short.

“Bring me your bill.”

“But,” remonstrated Jacobus, “ef ye ain’t—-“

“Bring me your bill!” said Mr. Brede.

* * * * *

My wife and I went out for our morning’s walk. But it seemed to us, when we looked at “our view,” as if we could only see those invisible villages of which Brede had told us–that other side of the ridges and rises of which we catch no glimpse from lofty hills or from the heights of human self-esteem. We meant to stay out until the Bredes had taken their departure; but we returned just in time to see Pete, the Jacobus darkey, the blacker of boots, the brasher of coats, the general handy-man of the house, loading the Brede trunks on the Jacobus wagon.

And, as we stepped upon the verandah, down came Mrs. Brede, leaning on Mr. Brede’s arm, as though she were ill; and it was clear that she had been crying. There were heavy rings about her pretty black eyes.

My wife took a step toward her.

“Look at that dress, dear,” she whispered; “she never thought anything like this was going to happen when she put that on.”

It was a pretty, delicate, dainty dress, a graceful, narrow-striped affair. Her hat was trimmed with a narrow-striped silk of the same colors–maroon and white–and in her hand she held a parasol that matched her dress.

“She’s had a new dress on twice a day,” said my wife, “but that’s the prettiest yet. Oh, somehow–I’m awfully sorry they’re going!”

But going they were. They moved toward the steps. Mrs. Brede looked toward my wife, and my wife moved toward Mrs. Brede. But the ostracized woman, as though she felt the deep humiliation of her position, turned sharply away, and opened her parasol to shield her eyes from the sun. A shower of rice–a half-pound shower of rice–fell down over her pretty hat and her pretty dress, and fell in a spattering circle on the floor, outlining her skirts–and there it lay in a broad, uneven band, bright in the morning sun.

Mrs. Brede was in my wife’s arms, sobbing as if her young heart would break.

“Oh, you poor, dear, silly children!” my wife cried, as Mrs. Brede sobbed on her shoulder, “why didn’t you tell us?”

“W-W-W-We didn’t want to be t-t-taken for a b-b-b-b-bridal couple,” sobbed Mrs. Brede; “and we d-d-didn’t dream what awful lies we’d have to tell, and all the aw-awful mixed-up-ness of it. Oh, dear, dear, dear!”

* * * * *

“Pete!” commanded Mr. Jacobus, “put back them trunks. These folks stays here’s long’s they wants ter. Mr. Brede”–he held out a large, hard hand–“I’d orter’ve known better,” he said. And my last doubt of Mr. Brede vanished as he shook that grimy hand in manly fashion.

The two women were walking off toward “our view,” each with an arm about the other’s waist–touched by a sudden sisterhood of sympathy.

“Gentlemen,” said Mr. Brede, addressing Jacobus, Biggle, the Major and me, “there is a hostelry down the street where they sell honest New Jersey beer. I recognize the obligations of the situation.”

We five men filed down the street. The two women went toward the pleasant slope where the sunlight gilded the forehead of the great hill. On Mr. Jacobus’s veranda lay a spattered circle of shining grains of rice. Two of Mr. Jacobus’s pigeons flew down and picked up the shining grains, making grateful noises far down in their throats.

[From Puck, July 30, 1890. Republished in the volume, Short Sixes: Stories to Be Read While the Candle Burns (1891), by Henry Cuyler Bunner; copyright, 1890, by Alice Larned Bunner; reprinted by permission of the publishers, Charles Scribner’a Sons.]