Of the three remaining vagrants, two, Goggles and Indiana Tom,
reclined lazily upon convenient lumber and regarded Whistling Dick
with undisguised disfavour. Boston, observing that the dissenting
recruit was disposed to remain peaceably, relaxed a little of his
vigilance. Whistling Dick arose presently and strolled leisurely up
and down keeping carefully within the territory assigned him.
"Dis planter chap," he said, pausing before Boston Harry, "w'ot
makes yer t'ink he's got de tin in de house wit' 'im?"
"I'm advised of the facts in the case," said Boston. "He drove to
Noo Orleans and got it, I say, to-day. Want to change your mind now
and come in?"
"Naw, I was just askin'. Wot kind o' team did de boss drive?"
"Pair of grays."
"Double surrey?"
"Yep."
"Women folks along?"
"Wife and kid. Say, what morning paper are you trying to pump news
for?"
"I was just conversin' to pass de time away. I guess dat team passed
me in de road dis evenin'. Dat's all."
As Whistling Dick put his hands in his pockets and continued his
curtailed beat up and down by the fire, he felt the silk stocking he
had picked up in the road.
"Ther bloomin' little skeezicks," he muttered, with a grin.
As he walked up and down he could see, through a sort of natural
opening or lane among the trees, the planter's residence some
seventy-five yards distant. The side of the house toward him
exhibited spacious, well-lighted windows through which a soft
radiance streamed, illuminating the broad veranda and some extent
of the lawn beneath.
"What's that you said?" asked Boston, sharply.
"Oh, nuttin' 't all," said Whistling Dick, lounging carelessly, and
kicking meditatively at a little stone on the ground.
"Just as easy," continued the warbling vagrant softly to himself,
"an' sociable an' swell an' sassy, wit' her 'Mer-ry Chris-mus,' Wot
d'yer t'ink, now!"
Dinner, two hours late, was being served in the Bellemeade
plantation dining-room.
The dining-room and all its appurtenances spoke of an old regime
that was here continued rather than suggested to the memory. The
plate was rich to the extent that its age and quaintness alone saved
it from being showy; there were interesting names signed in the
corners of the pictures on the walls; the viands were of the kind
that bring a shine into the eyes of gourmets. The service was swift,
silent, lavish, as in the days when the waiters were assets like the
plate. The names by which the planter's family and their visitors
addressed one another were historic in the annals of two nations.
Their manners and conversation had that most difficult kind of
ease - the kind that still preserves punctilio. The planter himself
seemed to be the dynamo that generated the larger portion of the
gaiety and wit. The younger ones at the board found it more than
difficult to turn back on him his guns of raillery and banter. It is
true, the young men attempted to storm his works repeatedly, incited
by the hope of gaining the approbation of their fair companions; but
even when they sped a well-aimed shaft, the planter forced them to
feel defeat by the tremendous discomfiting thunder of the laughter
with which he accompanied his retorts. At the head of the table,
serene, matronly, benevolent, reigned the mistress of the house,
placing here and there the right smile, the right word, the
encouraging glance.
The talk of the party was too desultory, too evanescent to follow,
but at last they came to the subject of the tramp nuisance, one that
had of late vexed the plantations for many miles around. The planter
seized the occasion to direct his good-natured fire of raillery
at the mistress, accusing her of encouraging the plague. "They
swarm up and down the river every winter," he said. "They overrun
New Orleans, and we catch the surplus, which is generally the
worst part. And, a day or two ago, Madame New Orleans, suddenly
discovering that she can't go shopping without brushing her skirts
against great rows of the vagabonds sunning themselves on the
banquettes, says to the police: 'Catch 'em all,' and the police
catch a dozen or two, and the remaining three or four thousand
overflow up and down the levee, and madame there," - pointing
tragically with the carving-knife at her - "feeds them. They won't
work; they defy my overseers, and they make friends with my dogs;
and you, madame, feed them before my eyes, and intimidate me when
I would interfere. Tell us, please, how many to-day did you thus
incite to future laziness and depredation?"
"Six, I think," said madame, with a reflective smile; "but you know
two of them offered to work, for you heard them yourself."
The planter's disconcerting laugh rang out again.
"Yes, at their own trades. And one was an artificial-flower maker,
and the other a glass-blower. Oh, they were looking for work! Not a
hand would they consent to lift to labour of any other kind."
"And another one," continued the soft-hearted mistress, "used quite
good language. It was really extraordinary for one of his class.
And he carried a watch. And had lived in Boston. I don't believe
they are all bad. They have always seemed to me to rather lack
development. I always look upon them as children with whom wisdom
has remained at a standstill while whiskers have continued to grow.
We passed one this evening as we were driving home who had a face
as good as it was incompetent. He was whistling the intermezzo from
'Cavalleria' and blowing the spirit of Mascagni himself into it."
A bright eyed young girl who sat at the left of the mistress leaned
over, and said in a confidential undertone:
"I wonder, mamma, if that tramp we passed on the road found my
stocking, and do you think he will hang it up to-night? Now I
can hang up but one. Do you know why I wanted a new pair of silk
stockings when I have plenty? Well, old Aunt Judy says, if you hang
up two that have never been worn, Santa Claus will fill one with
good things, and Monsieur Pambe will place in the other payment
for all the words you have spoken - good or bad - on the day before
Christmas. That's why I've been unusually nice and polite to
everyone to-day. Monsieur Pambe, you know, is a witch gentleman;
he - "
The words of the young girl were interrupted by a startling thing.
Like the wraith of some burned-out shooting star, a black streak
came crashing through the window-pane and upon the table, where it
shivered into fragments a dozen pieces of crystal and china ware,
and then glanced between the heads of the guests to the wall,
imprinting therein a deep, round indentation, at which, to-day, the
visitor to Bellemeade marvels as he gazes upon it and listens to
this tale as it is told.
The women screamed in many keys, and the men sprang to their feet,
and would have laid their hands upon their swords had not the
verities of chronology forbidden.
The planter was the first to act; he sprang to the intruding
missile, and held it up to view.
"By Jupiter!" he cried. "A meteoric shower of hosiery! Has
communication at last been established with Mars?"
"I should say - ahem - Venus," ventured a young-gentleman visitor,
looking hopefully for approbation toward the unresponsive young-lady
visitors.
The planter held at arm's length the unceremonious visitor - a long
dangling black stocking. "It's loaded," he announced.
As he spoke, he reversed the stocking, holding it by the toe, and
down from it dropped a roundish stone, wrapped about by a piece of
yellowish paper. "Now for the first interstellar message of the
century!" he cried; and nodding to the company, who had crowded
about him, he adjusted his glasses with provoking deliberation, and
examined it closely. When he finished, he had changed from the jolly
host to the practical, decisive man of business. He immediately
struck a bell, and said to the silent-footed mulatto man who
responded: "Go and tell Mr. Wesley to get Reeves and Maurice and
about ten stout hands they can rely upon, and come to the hall door
at once. Tell him to have the men arm themselves, and bring plenty
of ropes and plough lines. Tell him to hurry." And then he read
aloud from the paper these words:
TO THE GENT OF DE HOUS:
Dere is five tuff hoboes xcept meself in the vaken lot near
de road war de old brick piles is. Dey got me stuck up wid
a gun see and I taken dis means of communication. 2 of der
lads is gone down to set fire to de cain field below de hous
and when yous fellers goes to turn de hoes on it de hole
gang is goin to rob de hous of de money yoo gotto pay off
wit say git a move on ye say de kid dropt dis sock in der
rode tel her mery crismus de same as she told me. Ketch de
bums down de rode first and den sen a relefe core to get me
out of soke youres truly,
WHISTLEN DICK.
There was some quiet, but rapid, mavoeuvring at Bellemeade during
the ensuring half hour, which ended in five disgusted and sullen
tramps being captured, and locked securely in an outhouse pending
the coming of the morning and retribution. For another result, the
visiting young gentlemen had secured the unqualified worship of the
visiting young ladies by their distinguished and heroic conduct.
For still another, behold Whistling Dick, the hero, seated at the
planter's table, feasting upon viands his experience had never
before included, and waited upon by admiring femininity in shapes
of such beauty and "swellness" that even his ever-full mouth could
scarcely prevent him from whistling. He was made to disclose in
detail his adventure with the evil gang of Boston Harry, and how he
cunningly wrote the note and wrapped it around the stone and placed
it at the toe of the stocking, and, watching his chance, sent it
silently, with a wonderful centrifugal momentum, like a comet, at
one of the big lighted windows of the dining-room.
The planter vowed that the wanderer should wander no more; that his
was a goodness and an honesty that should be rewarded, and that
a debt of gratitude had been made that must be paid; for had he
not saved them from a doubtless imminent loss, and maybe a greater
calamity? He assured Whistling Dick that he might consider himself a
charge upon the honour of Bellemeade; that a position suited to his
powers would be found for him at once, and hinted that the way would
be heartily smoothed for him to rise to as high places of emolument
and trust as the plantation afforded.
But now, they said, he must be weary, and the immediate thing to
consider was rest and sleep. So the mistress spoke to a servant,
and Whistling Dick was conducted to a room in the wing of the house
occupied by the servants. To this room, in a few minutes, was
brought a portable tin bathtub filled with water, which was placed
on a piece of oiled cloth upon the floor. There the vagrant was left
to pass the night.
By the light of a candle he examined the room. A bed, with the
covers neatly turned back, revealed snowy pillows and sheets. A
worn, but clean, red carpet covered the floor. There was a dresser
with a beveled mirror, a washstand with a flowered bowl and pitcher;
the two or three chairs were softly upholstered. A little table held
books, papers, and a day-old cluster of roses in a jar. There were
towels on a rack and soap in a white dish.
Whistling Dick set his candle on a chair and placed his hat
carefully under the table. After satisfying what we must suppose to
have been his curiosity by a sober scrutiny, he removed his coat,
folded it, and laid it upon the floor, near the wall, as far as
possible from the unused bathtub. Taking his coat for a pillow, he
stretched himself luxuriously upon the carpet.
When, on Christmas morning, the first streaks of dawn broke above
the marshes, Whistling Dick awoke, and reached instinctively for his
hat. Then he remembered that the skirts of Fortune had swept him
into their folds on the night previous, and he went to the window
and raised it, to let the fresh breath of the morning cool his brow
and fix the yet dream-like memory of his good luck within his brain.
As he stood there, certain dread and ominous sounds pierced the
fearful hollow of his ear.
The force of plantation workers, eager to complete the shortened
task allotted to them, were all astir. The mighty din of the ogre
Labour shook the earth, and the poor tattered and forever disguised
Prince in search of his fortune held tight to the window-sill even
in the enchanted castle, and trembled.
Already from the bosom of the mill came the thunder of rolling
barrels of sugar, and (prison-like sounds) there was a great
rattling of chains as the mules were harried with stimulant
imprecations to their places by the waggon-tongues. A little vicious
"dummy" engine, with a train of flat cars in tow, stewed and fumed
on the plantation tap of the narrow-gauge railroad, and a toiling,
hurrying, hallooing stream of workers were dimly seen in the half
darkness loading the train with the weekly output of sugar. Here was
a poem; an epic - nay, a tragedy - with work, the curse of the world,
for its theme.
The December air was frosty, but the sweat broke out upon Whistling
Dick's face. He thrust his head out of the window, and looked down.
Fifteen feet below him, against the wall of the house, he could make
out that a border of flowers grew, and by that token he overhung a
bed of soft earth.
Softly as a burglar goes, he clambered out upon the sill, lowered
himself until he hung by his hands alone, and then dropped safely.
No one seemed to be about upon this side of the house. He dodged
low, and skimmed swiftly across the yard to the low fence. It was an
easy matter to vault this, for a terror urged him such as lifts the
gazelle over the thorn bush when the lion pursues. A crash through
the dew-drenched weeds on the roadside, a clutching, slippery rush
up the grassy side of the levee to the footpath at the summit,
and - he was free!
The east was blushing and brightening. The wind, himself a vagrant
rover, saluted his brother upon the cheek. Some wild geese, high
above, gave cry. A rabbit skipped along the path before him, free
to turn to the right or to the left as his mood should send him.
The river slid past, and certainly no one could tell the ultimate
abiding place of its waters.
A small, ruffled, brown-breasted bird, sitting upon a dog-wood
sapling, began a soft, throaty, tender little piping in praise of
the dew which entices foolish worms from their holes; but suddenly
he stopped, and sat with his head turned sidewise, listening.
From the path along the levee there burst forth a jubilant,
stirring, buoyant, thrilling whistle, loud and keen and clear as the
cleanest notes of the piccolo. The soaring sound rippled and trilled
and arpeggioed as the songs of wild birds do not; but it had a
wild free grace that, in a way, reminded the small, brown bird of
something familiar, but exactly what he could not tell. There was
in it the bird call, or reveille, that all birds know; but a great
waste of lavish, unmeaning things that art had added and arranged,
besides, and that were quite puzzling and strange; and the little
brown bird sat with his head on one side until the sound died away
in the distance.
The little bird did not know that the part of that strange warbling
that he understood was just what kept the warbler without his
breakfast; but he knew very well that the part he did not understand
did not concern him, so he gave a little flutter of his wings and
swooped down like a brown bullet upon a big fat worm that was
wriggling along the levee path.
XX
THE HALBERDIER OF THE LITTLE RHEINSCHLOSS
I go sometimes into the _Bierhalle_ and restaurant called Old
Munich. Not long ago it was a resort of interesting Bohemians,
but now only artists and musicians and literary folk frequent it.
But the Pilsner is yet good, and I take some diversion from the
conversation of Waiter No. 18.
For many years the customers of Old Munich have accepted the place
as a faithful copy from the ancient German town. The big hall with
its smoky rafters, rows of imported steins, portrait of Goethe,
and verses painted on the walls - translated into German from the
original of the Cincinnati poets - seems atmospherically correct when
viewed through the bottom of a glass.
But not long ago the proprietors added the room above, called it
the Little Rheinschloss, and built in a stairway. Up there was an
imitation stone parapet, ivy-covered, and the walls were painted to
represent depth and distance, with the Rhine winding at the base of
the vineyarded slopes, and the castle of Ehrenbreitstein looming
directly opposite the entrance. Of course there were tables and
chairs; and you could have beer and food brought you, as you
naturally would on the top of a castle on the Rhine.
I went into Old Munich one afternoon when there were few customers,
and sat at my usual table near the stairway. I was shocked and
almost displeased to perceive that the glass cigar-case by the
orchestra stand had been smashed to smithereens. I did not like
things to happen in Old Munich. Nothing had ever happened there
before.
Waiter No. 18 came and breathed on my neck. I was his by right of
discovery. Eighteen's brain was built like a corral. It was full of
ideas which, when he opened the gate, came huddling out like a flock
of sheep that might get together afterward or might not. I did not
shine as a shepherd. As a type Eighteen fitted nowhere. I did not
find out if he had a nationality, family, creed, grievance, hobby,
soul, preference, home, or vote. He only came always to my table
and, as long as his leisure would permit, let words flutter from him
like swallows leaving a barn at daylight.
"How did the cigar-case come to be broken, Eighteen?" I asked, with
a certain feeling of personal grievance.
"I can tell you about that, sir," said he, resting his foot on the
chair next to mine. "Did you ever have anybody hand you a double
handful of good luck while both your hands was full of bad luck, and
stop to notice how your fingers behaved?"
"No riddles, Eighteen," said I. "Leave out palmistry and
manicuring."
"You remember," said Eighteen, "the guy in the hammered brass Prince
Albert and the oroide gold pants and the amalgamated copper hat,
that carried the combination meat-axe, ice-pick, and liberty-pole,
and used to stand on the first landing as you go up to the Little
Rindslosh."
"Why, yes," said I. "The halberdier. I never noticed him
particularly. I remember he thought he was only a suit of armour. He
had a perfect poise."
"He had more than that," said Eighteen. "He was me friend. He was an
advertisement. The boss hired him to stand on the stairs for a kind
of scenery to show there was something doing in the has-been line
upstairs. What did you call him - a what kind of a beer?"
"A halberdier," said I. "That was an ancient man-at-arms of many
hundred years ago."
"Some mistake," said Eighteen. "This one wasn't that old. He wasn't
over twenty-three or four.
"It was the boss's idea, rigging a man up in an ante-bellum suit
of tinware and standing him on the landing of the slosh. He bought
the goods at a Fourth Avenue antique store, and hung a sign-out:
'Able-bodied hal - halberdier wanted. Costume furnished.'
"The same morning a young man with wrecked good clothes and a hungry
look comes in, bringing the sign with him. I was filling the
mustard-pots at my station.
"'I'm it,' says he, 'whatever it is. But I never halberdiered in a
restaurant. Put me on. Is it a masquerade?'
"'I hear talk in the kitchen of a fishball,' says I.
"'Bully for you, Eighteen,' says he. 'You and I'll get on. Show me
the boss's desk.'
"Well, the boss tries the Harveyized pajamas on him, and they fitted
him like the scales on a baked redsnapper, and he gets the job.
You've seen what it is - he stood straight up in the corner of the
first landing with his halberd to his shoulder, looking right ahead
and guarding the Portugals of the castle. The boss is nutty about
having the true Old-World flavour to his joint. 'Halberdiers goes
with Rindsloshes,' says he, 'just as rats goes with rathskellers and
white cotton stockings with Tyrolean villages.' The boss is a kind
of a antiologist, and is all posted up on data and such information.
"From 8 P.M. to two in the morning was the halberdier's hours. He
got two meals with us help and a dollar a night. I eat with him at
the table. He liked me. He never told his name. He was travelling
impromptu, like kings, I guess. The first time at supper I says to
him: 'Have some more of the spuds, Mr. Frelinghuysen.' 'Oh, don't be
so formal and offish, Eighteen,' says he. 'Call me Hal - that's short
for halberdier.' 'Oh, don't think I wanted to pry for names,' says
I. 'I know all about the dizzy fall from wealth and greatness. We've
got a count washing dishes in the kitchen; and the third bartender
used to be a Pullman conductor. And they _work_, Sir Percival,' says
I, sarcastic.
"'Eighteen,' says he, 'as a friendly devil in a cabbage-scented
hell, would you mind cutting up this piece of steak for me? I don't
say that it's got more muscle than I have, but - ' And then he shows
me the insides of his hands. They was blistered and cut and corned
and swelled up till they looked like a couple of flank steaks
criss-crossed with a knife - the kind the butchers hide and take
home, knowing what is the best.
"'Shoveling coal,' says he, 'and piling bricks and loading drays.
But they gave out, and I had to resign. I was born for a halberdier,
and I've been educated for twenty-four years to fill the position.
Now, quit knocking my profession, and pass along a lot more of
that ham. I'm holding the closing exercises,' says he, 'of a
forty-eight-hour fast.'
"The second night he was on the job he walks down from his corner to
the cigar-case and calls for cigarettes. The customers at the tables
all snicker out loud to show their acquaintance with history. The
boss is on.
"'An' - let's see - oh, yes - 'An anachronism,' says the boss.
'Cigarettes was not made at the time when halberdiers was invented.'
"'The ones you sell was,' says Sir Percival. 'Caporal wins from
chronology by the length of a cork tip.' So he gets 'em and lights
one, and puts the box in his brass helmet, and goes back to
patrolling the Rindslosh.
"He made a big hit, 'specially with the ladies. Some of 'em would
poke him with their fingers to see if he was real or only a kind of
a stuffed figure like they burn in elegy. And when he'd move they'd
squeak, and make eyes at him as they went up to the slosh. He looked
fine in his halberdashery. He slept at $2 a week in a hall-room on
Third Avenue. He invited me up there one night. He had a little book
on the washstand that he read instead of shopping in the saloons
after hours. 'I'm on to that,' says I, 'from reading about it in
novels. All the heroes on the bum carry the little book. It's either
Tantalus or Liver or Horace, and its printed in Latin, and you're a
college man. And I wouldn't be surprised,' says I, 'if you wasn't
educated, too.' But it was only the batting averages of the League
for the last ten years.
"One night, about half past eleven, there comes in a party of these
high-rollers that are always hunting up new places to eat in and
poke fun at. There was a swell girl in a 40 H.-P. auto tan coat and
veil, and a fat old man with white side-whiskers, and a young chap
that couldn't keep his feet off the tail of the girl's coat, and an
oldish lady that looked upon life as immoral and unnecessary. 'How
perfectly delightful,' they says, 'to sup in a slosh.' Up the stairs
they go; and in half a minute back down comes the girl, her skirts
swishing like the waves on the beach. She stops on the landing and
looks our halberdier in the eye.
"'You!' she says, with a smile that reminded me of lemon sherbet. I
was waiting up-stairs in the slosh, then, and I was right down here
by the door, putting some vinegar and cayenne into an empty bottle
of tabasco, and I heard all they said.
"'It,' says Sir Percival, without moving. 'I'm only local colour.
Are my hauberk, helmet, and halberd on straight?'
"'Is there an explanation to this?' says she. 'Is it a practical
joke such as men play in those Griddle-cake and Lamb Clubs? I'm
afraid I don't see the point. I heard, vaguely, that you were away.
For three months I - we have not seen you or heard from you.'
"'I'm halberdiering for my living,' says the stature. 'I'm working,'
says he. 'I don't suppose you know what work means.'
"'Have you - have you lost your money?' she asks.
"Sir Percival studies a minute.
"'I am poorer,' says he, 'than the poorest sandwich man on the
streets - if I don't earn my living.'
"'You call this work?' says she. 'I thought a man worked with his
hands or his head instead of becoming a mountebank.'
"'The calling of a halberdier,' says he, 'is an ancient and
honourable one. Sometimes,' says he, 'the man-at-arms at the door
has saved the castle while the plumed knights were cake-walking in
the banquet-halls above.'
"'I see you're not ashamed,' says she, 'of your peculiar tastes. I
wonder, though, that the manhood I used to think I saw in you didn't
prompt you to draw water or hew wood instead of publicly flaunting
your ignominy in this disgraceful masquerade.'
"Sir Percival kind of rattles his armour and says: 'Helen, will you
suspend sentence in this matter for just a little while? You don't
understand,' says he. 'I've got to hold this job down a little
longer.'
"'You like being a harlequin - or halberdier, as you call it?' says
she.
"'I wouldn't get thrown out of the job just now,' says he, with a
grin, 'to be appointed Minister to the Court of St. James's.'
"And then the 40-H.P. girl's eyes sparkled as hard as diamonds.
"'Very well,' says she. 'You shall have full run of your
serving-man's tastes this night.' And she swims over to the boss's
desk and gives him a smile that knocks the specks off his nose.
"'I think your Rindslosh,' says she, 'is as beautiful as a dream. It
is a little slice of the Old World set down in New York. We shall
have a nice supper up there; but if you will grant us one favour the
illusion will be perfect - give us your halberdier to wait on our
table.'
"That hits the boss's antiology hobby just right. 'Sure,' says he,
'dot vill be fine. Und der orchestra shall blay "Die Wacht am Rhein"
all der time.' And he goes over and tells the halberdier to go
upstairs and hustle the grub at the swells' table.
"'I'm on the job,' says Sir Percival, taking off his helmet and
hanging it on his halberd and leaning 'em in the corner. The girl
goes up and takes her seat and I see her jaw squared tight under her
smile. 'We're going to be waited on by a real halberdier,' says she,
'one who is proud of his profession. Isn't it sweet?'
"'Ripping,' says the swell young man. 'Much prefer a waiter,' says
the fat old gent. 'I hope he doesn't come from a cheap museum,' says
the old lady; 'he might have microbes in his costume.'
"Before he goes to the table, Sir Percival takes me by the arm.
'Eighteen,' he says, 'I've got to pull off this job without a
blunder. You coach me straight or I'll take that halberd and make
hash out of you.' And then he goes up to the table with his coat of
mail on and a napkin over his arm and waits for the order.
"'Why, it's Deering!' says the young swell. 'Hello, old man. What
the - '
"'Beg pardon, sir,' interrupts the halberdier, 'I'm waiting on the
table.'
"The old man looks at him grim, like a Boston bull. 'So, Deering,'
he says, 'you're at work yet.'
"'Yes, sir,' says Sir Percival, quiet and gentlemanly as I could
have been myself, 'for almost three months, now.' 'You haven't been
discharged during the time?' asks the old man. 'Not once, sir,' says
he, 'though I've had to change my work several times.'
"'Waiter,' orders the girl, short and sharp, 'another napkin.' He
brings her one, respectful.
"I never saw more devil, if I may say it, stirred up in a lady.
There was two bright red spots on her cheeks, and her eyes looked
exactly like a wildcat's I'd seen in the zoo. Her foot kept slapping
the floor all the time.
"'Waiter,' she orders, 'bring me filtered water without ice. Bring
me a footstool. Take away this empty salt-cellar.' She kept him on
the jump. She was sure giving the halberdier his.
"There wasn't but a few customers up in the slosh at that time, so
I hung out near the door so I could help Sir Percival serve.
"He got along fine with the olives and celery and the bluepoints.
They was easy. And then the consommé came up the dumb-waiter all in
one big silver tureen. Instead of serving it from the side-table he
picks it up between his hands and starts to the dining-table with
it. When nearly there he drops the tureen smash on the floor, and
the soup soaks all the lower part of that girl's swell silk dress.
"'Stupid - incompetent,' says she, giving him a look. 'Standing in a
corner with a halberd seems to be your mission in life.'
"'Pardon me, lady,' says he. 'It was just a little bit hotter than
blazes. I couldn't help it.'
"The old man pulls out a memorandum book and hunts in it. 'The 25th
of April, Deering,' says he. 'I know it,' says Sir Percival. 'And
ten minutes to twelve o'clock,' says the old man. 'By Jupiter! you
haven't won yet.' And he pounds the table with his fist and yells
to me: 'Waiter, call the manager at once - tell him to hurry here as
fast as he can.' I go after the boss, and old Brockmann hikes up to
the slosh on the jump.
"'I want this man discharged at once,' roars the old guy. 'Look
what he's done. Ruined my daughter's dress. It cost at least $600.
Discharge this awkward lout at once or I'll sue you for the price of
it.'
"'Dis is bad pizness,' says the boss. 'Six hundred dollars is much.
I reckon I vill haf to - '
"'Wait a minute, Herr Brockmann,' says Sir Percival, easy and
smiling. But he was worked up under his tin suitings; I could see
that. And then he made the finest, neatest little speech I ever
listened to. I can't give you the words, of course. He give the
millionaires a lovely roast in a sarcastic way, describing their
automobiles and opera-boxes and diamonds; and then he got around
to the working-classes and the kind of grub they eat and the long
hours they work - and all that sort of stuff - bunkum, of course. 'The
restless rich,' says he, 'never content with their luxuries, always
prowling among the haunts of the poor and humble, amusing themselves
with the imperfections and misfortunes of their fellow men and
women. And even here, Herr Brockmann,' he says, 'in this beautiful
Rindslosh, a grand and enlightening reproduction of Old World
history and architecture, they come to disturb its symmetry and
picturesqueness by demanding in their arrogance that the halberdier
of the castle wait upon their table! I have faithfuly and
conscientiously,' says he, 'performed my duties as a halberdier. I
know nothing of a waiter's duties. It was the insolent whim of these
transient, pampered aristocrats that I should be detailed to serve
them food. Must I be blamed - must I be deprived of the means of a
livelihood,' he goes on, 'on account of an accident that was the
result of their own presumption and haughtiness? But what hurts me
more than all,' says Sir Percival, 'is the desecration that has been
done to this splendid Rindslosh - the confiscation of its halberdier
to serve menially at the banquet board.'
"Even I could see that this stuff was piffle; but it caught the
boss.
"'Mein Gott,' says he, 'you vas right. Ein halberdier have not got
der right to dish up soup. Him I vill not discharge. Have anoder
waiter if you like, und let mein halberdier go back und stand mit
his halberd. But, gentlemen,' he says, pointing to the old man, 'you
go ahead and sue mit der dress. Sue me for $600 or $6,000. I stand
der suit.' And the boss puffs off down-stairs. Old Brockmann was an
all-right Dutchman.
"Just then the clock strikes twelve, and the old guy laughs loud.
'You win, Deering,' says he. 'And let me explain to all,' he goes
on. 'Some time ago Mr. Deering asked me for something that I did
not want to give him.' (I looks at the girl, and she turns as red
as a pickled beet.) 'I told him,' says the old guy, 'if he would
earn his own living for three months without being discharged for
incompetence, I would give him what he wanted. It seems that the
time was up at twelve o'clock to-night. I came near fetching you,
though, Deering, on that soup question,' says the old boy, standing
up and grabbing Sir Percival's hand.
"The halberdier lets out a yell and jumps three feet high.
"'Look out for those hands,' says he, and he holds 'em up. You never
saw such hands except on a labourer in a limestone quarry.
"'Heavens, boy!' says old side-whiskers, 'what have you been doing
to 'em?'
"'Oh,' says Sir Percival, 'little chores like hauling coal and
excavating rock till they went back on me. And when I couldn't hold
a pick or a whip I took up halberdiering to give 'em a rest. Tureens
full of hot soup don't seem to be a particularly soothing
treatment.'
"I would have bet on that girl. That high-tempered kind always go
as far the other way, according to my experience. She whizzes round
the table like a cyclone and catches both his hands in hers. 'Poor
hands - dear hands,' she sings out, and sheds tears on 'em and holds
'em close to her bosom. Well, sir, with all that Rindslosh scenery
it was just like a play. And the halberdier sits down at the table
at the girl's side, and I served the rest of the supper. And that
was about all, except that when they left he shed his hardware store
and went with 'em."
I dislike to be side-tracked from an original proposition.
"But you haven't told me, Eighteen," said I, "how the cigar-case
came to be broken."
"Oh, that was last night," said Eighteen. "Sir Percival and the
girl drove up in a cream-coloured motor-car, and had dinner in the
Rindslosh. 'The same table, Billy,' I heard her say as they went up.
I waited on 'em. We've got a new halberdier now, a bow-legged guy
with a face like a sheep. As they came down-stairs Sir Percival
passes him a ten-case note. The new halberdier drops his halberd,
and it falls on the cigar-case. That's how that happened."
XXI
TWO RENEGADES
In the Gate City of the South the Confederate Veterans were
reuniting; and I stood to see them march, beneath the tangled
flags of the great conflict, to the hall of their oratory and
commemoration.
While the irregular and halting line was passing I made onslaught
upon it and dragged from the ranks my friend Barnard O'Keefe, who
had no right to be there. For he was a Northerner born and bred; and
what should he be doing hallooing for the Stars and Bars among those
gray and moribund veterans? And why should he be trudging, with his
shining, martial, humorous, broad face, among those warriors of a
previous and alien generation?
I say I dragged him forth, and held him till the last hickory leg
and waving goatee had stumbled past. And then I hustled him out
of the crowd into a cool interior; for the Gate City was stirred
that day, and the hand-organs wisely eliminated "Marching Through
Georgia" from their repertories.
"Now, what deviltry are you up to?" I asked of O'Keefe when there
were a table and things in glasses between us.
O'Keefe wiped his heated face and instigated a commotion among the
floating ice in his glass before he chose to answer.
"I am assisting at the wake," said he, "of the only nation on earth
that ever did me a good turn. As one gentleman to another, I am
ratifying and celebrating the foreign policy of the late Jefferson
Davis, as fine a statesman as ever settled the financial question of
a country. Equal ratio - that was his platform - a barrel of money for
a barrel of flour - a pair of $20 bills for a pair of boots - a hatful
of currency for a new hat - say, ain't that simple compared with W.
J. B.'s little old oxidized plank?"
"What talk is this?" I asked. "Your financial digression is merely
a subterfuge. Why were you marching in the ranks of the Confederate
Veterans?"
"Because, my lad," answered O'Keefe, "the Confederate Government in
its might and power interposed to protect and defend Barnard O'Keefe
against immediate and dangerous assassination at the hands of a
blood-thirsty foreign country after the Unites States of America
had overruled his appeal for protection, and had instructed Private
Secretary Cortelyou to reduce his estimate of the Republican
majority for 1905 by one vote."
"Come, Barney," said I, "the Confederate States of America has been
out of existence nearly forty years. You do not look older yourself.
When was it that the deceased government exerted its foreign policy
in your behalf?"
"Four months ago," said O'Keefe, promptly. "The infamous foreign
power I alluded to is still staggering from the official blow dealt
it by Mr. Davis's contraband aggregation of states. That's why you
see me cake-walking with the ex-rebs to the illegitimate tune about
'simmon-seeds and cotton. I vote for the Great Father in Washington,
but I am not going back on Mars' Jeff. You say the Confederacy has
been dead forty years? Well, if it hadn't been for it, I'd have
been breathing to-day with soul so dead I couldn't have whispered
a single cuss-word about my native land. The O'Keefes are not
overburdened with ingratitude."
I must have looked bewildered. "The war was over," I said vacantly,
"in - "
O'Keefe laughed loudly, scattering my thoughts.
"Ask old Doc Millikin if the war is over!" he shouted, hugely
diverted. "Oh, no! Doc hasn't surrendered yet. And the Confederate
States! Well, I just told you they bucked officially and solidly and
nationally against a foreign government four months ago and kept me
from being shot. Old Jeff's country stepped in and brought me off
under its wing while Roosevelt was having a gunboat painted and
waiting for the National Campaign Committee to look up whether I had
ever scratched the ticket."
"Isn't there a story in this, Barney?" I asked.
"No," said O'Keefe; "but I'll give you the facts. You know I went
down to Panama when this irritation about a canal began. I thought
I'd get in on the ground floor. I did, and had to sleep on it, and
drink water with little zoos in it; so, of course, I got the Chagres
fever. That was in a little town called San Juan on the coast.
"After I got the fever hard enough to kill a Port-au-Prince nigger,
I had a relapse in the shape of Doc Millikin.
"There was a doctor to attend a sick man! If Doc Millikin had your
case, he made the terrors of death seem like an invitation to a
donkey-party. He had the bedside manners of a Piute medicine-man and
the soothing presence of a dray loaded with iron bridge-girders.
When he laid his hand on your fevered brow you felt like Cap John
Smith just before Pocahontas went his bail.
"Well, this old medical outrage floated down to my shack when I sent
for him. He was build like a shad, and his eyebrows was black, and
his white whiskers trickled down from his chin like milk coming
out of a sprinkling-pot. He had a nigger boy along carrying an old
tomato-can full of calomel, and a saw.
"Doc felt my pulse, and then he began to mess up some calomel with