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THE UNIVERSITY OF 
 
 NORTH CAROLINA 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 THE WILMER COLLECTION 
 
 OF CIVIL WAR NOVELS 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 RICHARD H. WILMER, JR. 
 

 THE UNIVERSITY OF 
 
 NORTH CAROLINA 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 PRESENTED BY THE 
 
 WILLIAM A. WHITAKER 
 
 FOUNDATION 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2010 with funding from 
 
 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/shortsixesstorie01bunn 
 
"SHORT sixes: 1 
 
LOUISE. 
 
"SHORT SIXES" 
 
 STORIES TO BE READ WHILE THE CANDLE BURNS 
 
 H. C. BUNNER 
 
 Author of "Airs from A ready" "The Midge" etc. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED BY 
 
 C. JAY TAYLOR, F. OPPER and S. B. GRIFFIN 
 
 PUCK 
 
 keppler & schwarzmann 
 
 New York 
 
 1891 
 
Copyright, 1890, by Keppler & SchwarzmanN. 
 
TO 
 
 A. L. B. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 I. The Tenor i 
 
 Illustrated by C. Jay Taylor. 
 
 II. Col. Brereton's Aunty 23 
 
 Illustrated by C. J iy Taylor. 
 
 III. A Round-Up 39 
 
 Illustrated by C. Jay Taylor. 
 
 IV. The Two Churches of 'Quawket 55 
 
 Illustrated by F. Opper. 
 
 V. The Love-Letters of Smith 71 
 
 Illustrated by C. Jay Taylor. 
 
 VI. Zenobia's Infidelity 89 
 
 Illustrated by S. B. Griffin. 
 
 VII. The Nine Cent-Girls in 
 
 Illustrated by S. B. Griffin. 
 
 VIII. The Nice People 129 
 
 Illustrated by C. Jay Taylor. 
 
 IX. Mr. Copernicus and the Proletariat 147 
 
 Illustrated by C. Jay Taylor. 
 
 X. Hector 165 
 
 Illustrated by C. Jay Taylor. 
 
 XL A Sisterly Scheme 181 
 
 Illustrated by C. Jay Taylor. 
 
 XII. Zozo iox) 
 
 Illustrated by C. Jay Taylor. 
 
 XIII. An Old, Old Story 217 
 
 Illustrated by C. Jay Taylor. 
 
THE TENOR. 
 
THE TENOR. 
 
 IT WAS A DIM, QUIET ROOM in an old-fashioned New 
 York house, with windows opening upon a garden 
 that was trim and attractive, even in its Winter dress — 
 for the rose-bushes were all bundled up in straw ulsters. 
 The room was ample, yet it had 
 
 a cosy air. Its dark hangings A\ 
 
 suggested comfort and lux- 
 ury, with no hint of gloom. 
 A hundred pretty trifles told 
 that it was a young girl's 
 room : in the deep alcove 
 nestled her dainty white bed, 
 draped with creamy lace and 
 ribbons. 
 
 " I was so afraid that 
 I 'd be late ! " 
 
 The door opened, and two 
 pretty girls came in, one in hat 
 
 and furs, the other in a modest house-dress. The girl in 
 the furs, who had been afraid that she would be late, 
 \vas fair, with a bright color in her cheeks, and an eager. 
 
SHORT SIXES." 
 
 intent look in her clear brown eyes. The other girl was 
 dark-eyed and dark-haired, dreamy, with a soft', warm, 
 dusky color in her face. They were two very pretty girls 
 indeed — or, rather, two girls about to be very pretty, 
 for neither one was eighteen years old. 
 The dark girl glanced at a little 
 porcelain clock. 
 
 " You are in time, dear," she 
 said, and helped her com- 
 panion to take off her wraps. 
 Then the two girls crossed 
 the room, and with a caress- 
 ing and almost a reverent 
 touch, the dark girl open- 
 ed the doors of a little 
 carven cabinet that hung 
 upon the wall, above a 
 small table covered with 
 a delicate white cloth. 
 In its depths, framed in a 
 mat of odorous double violets, stood the photograph of 
 the face of a handsome man of forty — a face crowned 
 with clustering black locks, from beneath which a pair 
 of large, mournful eyes looked out with something like 
 religious fervor in their rapt gaze. It was the face of a 
 foreigner. 
 
 " O Esther ! " cried the other girl, "how beautifully 
 you have dressed him to-day ! " 
 
 "I wanted to get more," Esther said; "but I've 
 spent almost all my allowance — and violets do cost so 
 
THE TENOR. $ 
 
 shockingly. Come, now — " with another glance at the 
 clock — "don't let's lose any more time, Louise dear." 
 
 She brought a couple of tiny candles in Sevres can- 
 dlesticks, and two little silver saucers, in which she lit 
 fragrant pastilles. As the pale gray smoke arose, floating 
 in faint wreaths and spirals before the enshrined photo- 
 graph, Louise sat down and gazed intently upon the little 
 altar. Esther went to her piano and watched the clock. 
 It struck two. Her hands fell softly on the keys, and, 
 studying a printed programme in front of her, she began 
 to play an overture. After the overture she played one 
 or two pieces of the regular concert stock. Then she 
 paused. 
 
 "I can't play the Tschaikowski piece." 
 
 "Never mind," said the other. "Let us wait for 
 him in silence." 
 
 The hands of the clock pointed to 2:29. Each girl 
 drew a quick breath, and then the one at the piano 
 began to sing softly, almost inaudibly, " les Rameaux " 
 in a transcription for tenor of Faure's great song. When 
 it was ended, she played and sang the encore. Then, 
 with her fingers touching the keys so softly that they 
 awakened only an echo-like sound, she ran over the 
 numbers that intervened between the first tencr solo and 
 the second. Then she sang again, as softly as before. 
 
 The fair-haired girl sat by the little table, gazing in- 
 tently on the picture. Her great eyes seemed to devour 
 it, and yet there was something absent-minded, specula- 
 tive, in her steady look. She did not speak until Esther 
 played the last number on the programme. 
 
4 " SHORT SIXES." 
 
 " He had three encores for that last Saturday,' 
 she said, and Esther played the three encores. 
 
 Then they closed the piano and the little cabinet, 
 and exchanged an innocent girlish kiss, and Louise went 
 out, and found her father's coupe waiting for her, and was 
 driven away to her great, gloomy, brown-stone home 
 near Central Park. 
 
 Louise Laura Latimer and Esther Van Guilder were 
 the only children of two families which, though they 
 were possessed of the three "Rs" which are all and more 
 than are needed to insure admission to New York society 
 - — Riches, Respectability and Religion — yet were not in 
 Society ; or, at least, in the society that calls itself So- 
 ciety. This was not because Society was not willing to 
 have them. It was because they thought the world too 
 worldly. Perhaps this was one reason — although the 
 social horizon of the two families had expanded some- 
 what as the girls grew up — why Louise and Esther, 
 who had been playmates from their nursery days, and 
 had grown up to be two uncommonly sentimental, fan- 
 ciful, enthusiastically morbid girls, were to be found 
 spending a bright Winter afternoon holding a ceremonial 
 service of worship before the photograph of a fashion- 
 able French tenor. 
 
 It happened to be a French tenor whom they were 
 worshiping. It might as well have been anybody or any 
 thing else. They were both at that period of girlish 
 growth when the young female bosom is torn by a hys- 
 terical craving to worship something — any thing. They 
 had been studying music, and they had selected the tenor 
 
THE TEXOR. 5 
 
 who was the sensation of the hour in New York for their 
 idol. They had heard him only on the concert stage; they 
 were never likely to see him nearer. But it was a mere 
 matter of chance that the idol was not a Boston Tran- 
 scendentalism a Popular Preacher, a Faith-Cure Healer, 
 or a ringleted old maid with advanced ideas of Woman's 
 Mission. The ceremonies might have been different in 
 form : the worship would have been the same. 
 
 M. Hyppolite Remy was certainly the musical hero 
 of the hour. When his advance notices first appeared, 
 the New York critics, who are a singularly unconfiding, 
 incredulous lot, were inclined to discount his European 
 reputation. 
 
 When they learned that M. Remy was not only a 
 great artist, but a man whose character was "wholly 
 free from that deplorable laxity which is so often a blot 
 on the proud escutcheon of his noble profession ; " that 
 he had married an American lady; that he had "em- 
 braced the Protestant religion" — no sect was specified, 
 possibly to avoid jealousy — and that his health was 
 delicate, they were moved to suspect that he might have 
 to ask that allowances be made for his singing. But 
 when he arrived, his triumph was complete. He was as 
 handsome as his pictures, if he was a trifle short, a 
 shade too stout. 
 
 He was a singer of genius, too; with a splendid 
 voice and a sound method — on the whole. It was be- 
 fore the days of the Wagner autocracy, and perhaps his 
 tremolo passed unchallenged as it could not now ; but 
 he was a great artist. He knew his business as well as 
 
6 "SHORT SIXES." 
 
 his advance-agent knew his. The Remy Concerts were a 
 splendid success. Reserved seats, $5. For the Series 
 of Six, $25. 
 
 On the following Monday, Esther Van Guilder re- 
 turned her friend's call, in response to an urgent invita- 
 tion, despatched by mail. Louise Latimer's great bare 
 room was incapable of transmutation into a cosy nest 
 of a boudoir. There was too much of its heavy raw silk 
 furniture — too much of its vast, sarcophagus-like bed — 
 too much of its upholsterer's elegance, regardless of cost 
 — and taste. An enlargement from an ambrotype of the 
 original Latimer, as he arrived in New York from New 
 Hampshire, and a photograph of a "child subject" by 
 Millais, were all her works of art. It was not to be 
 doubted that they had climbed upstairs from a front 
 parlor of an earlier stage of social development. The 
 farm-house was six generations behind Esther; two be- 
 hind Louise. 
 
 Esther found her friend in a state of almost feverish 
 excitement. Her eyes shone ; the color burned high on 
 her clear cheeks. 
 
 "You never would guess what I 've done, dear!" 
 she began, as soon as they were alone in the big room. 
 " I 'm going to see him — to speak to him — Esther!' 1 '' 
 Her voice was solemnly hushed, " to serve him ! " 
 
 " Oh, Louise ! what do you mean? " 
 
 "To serve him — with my own hands! To — to — 
 
^ v -r l " "\ *- aft i^LJ^<- 
 
 help him on with his coat — I don't know — to do some- 
 thing that a servant does — any thing, so that I can say 
 that once, once only, just for an hour, I have been near 
 him, been of use to him, served him in one little thing, 
 as loyally as he serves OUR ART." 
 
 Music was THEIR art, and no capitals could tell 
 how much it was theirs or how much of an art it was. 
 
 "Louise," demanded Esther, with a frightened look, 
 "are you crazy ? " 
 
 " No. Read this ! " She handed the other girl a 
 clipping from the advertising columns of a newspaper. 
 
 pHAMBERMAID AND WAITRESS.— WANTED, A NEAT 
 ' k -* and willing girl, for light work. Apply to Rime. Kemy, The 
 Midlothian, Broadway. 
 
 " I saw it just by accident, Saturday, after I left 
 you. Papa had left his paper in the coupe. I was going 
 
8 "SHORT SIXES." 
 
 up to my First Aid to the Injured Class — it 's at four 
 o'clock now, you know. I made up my mind right off 
 
 — it came to me like an inspiration. I just waited until 
 it came to the place where they showed how to tie up 
 arteries, and then I slipped out. Lots of the girls slip 
 out in the horrid parts, you know. And then, instead 
 of waiting in the ante-room, I put on my wrap, and 
 pulled the hood over my head and ran off to the 
 Midlothian — it's just around the corner, you know. 
 And I saw his wife." 
 
 "What was she like?" queried Esther, eagerly. 
 
 "Oh, I don't know. Sort of horrid — actressy. 
 She had a pink silk wrapper with swansdown all over 
 it — at four o'clock, think ! I was awfully frightened 
 when I got there ; but it was n't the least trouble. 
 She hardly looked at me, and she engaged me right off. 
 She just asked me if I was willing to do a whole lot 
 of things — I forget what they were — and where I 'd 
 worked before. I said at Mrs. Barcalow's." 
 
 " ' Mrs. Barcalow's?' " 
 
 "Why, yes — my Aunt Amanda, don't you know 
 
 — up in Framingham. I always have to wash the tea- 
 cups when I go there. Aunty says that everybody has 
 got to do something in her house." 
 
 "Oh, Louise!" cried her friend, in shocked ad- 
 miration; "how can you think of such things?" 
 
 "Well, I did. And she — his wife, you know — 
 just said: 'Oh, I suppose you '11 do as well as any one 
 
 — all you girls are alike.' " 
 
 " But did she really take you for a — servant?" 
 
THE TENOR. g 
 
 " Why, yes, indeed. It was raining. I had that old 
 ulster on, you know. I 'm to go at twelve o'clock next 
 Saturday." 
 
 "But, Louise !" cried Esther, aghast, "you don't 
 truly mean to go !" 
 
 "I do ! " cried Louise, beaming triumphantly. 
 
 " Oh, Louise J" 
 
 " Now, listen, dear, said Miss Latimer, with the 
 decision of an enthusiastic young lady with New Eng- 
 land blood in her veins. "Don't say a word till I tell 
 you what my plan is. I 've thought it all out, and 
 you 've got to help me." 
 
 Esther shuddered. 
 
 " You foolish child ! " cried Louise. Her eyes were 
 sparkling : she was in a state of ecstatic excitement ; she 
 could see no obstacles to the carrying out of her plan. 
 "You don't think I mean to stay there, do you? I 'm 
 just going at twelve o'clock, and at four he comes back 
 from the matinee, and at five o'clock I 'm going to 
 slip on my things and run downstairs, and have you 
 waiting for me in the coupe, and off we go. Now 
 do you see ? " 
 
 It took some time to bring Esther's less venturesome 
 spirit up to the point of assisting in this bold undertak- 
 ing; but she began, after awhile, to feel the delights of 
 vicarious enterprise, and in the end the two girls, their 
 cheeks flushed, therr eyes shining feverishly, their voices 
 tremulous with childish eagerness, resolved themselves 
 into a committee of ways and means ; for they were two 
 well-guarded young women, and to engineer five hours 
 
io "SHORT SIXES." 
 
 of liberty was difficult to the verge of impossibility. 
 However, there is a financial manoeuvre known as "kit- 
 ing checks," whereby A exchanges a check with B and 
 B swaps with A again, playing an imaginary balance 
 against Time and the Clearing House ; and by a similar 
 scheme, which an acute student of social ethics has called 
 "kiting calls," the girls found that they could make Sat- 
 urday afternoon their own, without one glance from the 
 watchful eyes of Esther's mother or Louise's aunt — 
 Louise had only an aunt to reckon with. 
 
 "And, oh, Esther!" cried the bolder of the con- 
 spirators, " I 've thought of a trunk — of course I 've 
 got to have a trunk, or she would ask me where it was, 
 and I could n't tell her a fib. Don't you remember the 
 French maid who died three days after she came here ? 
 Her trunk is up in the store-room still, and I don't be- 
 lieve anybody will ever come for it — it 's been there 
 seven years now. Let 's go up and look at it." 
 
 The girls romped upstairs to the great unused upper 
 story, where heaps of household rubbish obscured the 
 dusty half-windows. In a corner, behind Louise's baby 
 chair and an unfashionable hat-rack of the old steering- 
 wheel pattern, they found the little brown-painted tin 
 trunk, corded up with clothes-line. 
 
 "Louise!" said Esther, hastily, "what did you tell 
 her your name was?" 
 
 "I just said 'Louise'." 
 
 Esther pointed to the name painted on the trunk, 
 
 Louise Levy. 
 
THE TENOR. 
 
 II 
 
 Some- 
 
 " It is the hand of Providence," she said, 
 how, now, I 'm sure you 're quite right to go." 
 
 And neither of these conscientious young ladies re- 
 flected for one minute on the discomfort which might be 
 occasioned to Madame Remy by the defection of her new 
 servant a half-hour before dinner-time on Saturday night. 
 
 "Oh, child, it's you, is it?" was Mme. Remy's 
 greeting at twelve o'clock on Saturday. " Well, you 're 
 punctual — and you look clean. Now, are you going to 
 
 break my dishes or are you 
 going to steal my rings ? 
 Well, we '11 find out soon 
 enough. Your trunk 's 
 up in your room. Go up 
 to the servants' quarters 
 — right at the top of 
 those stairs there. Ask 
 for the room that be- 
 longs to apartment I I . 
 You are to room with 
 their girl." 
 
 Louise was glad of a moment's respite. She had 
 taken the plunge; she was determined to go through to 
 the end. But her heart would beat and her hands 
 would tremble. She climbed up six flights of winding 
 stairs, and found herself weak and dizzy when she 
 reached the top and gazed around her. She was in a 
 
SHORT SIXES." 
 
 great half-story room, eighty feet square. The most of 
 it was filled with heaps of old furniture and bedding, 
 rolls of carpet, of canvas, of oilcloth, and odds and ends 
 of discarded or unused household gear — the dust thick 
 over all. A little space had been left around three sides, 
 to give access to three rows of cell-like rooms, in each 
 of which the ceiling sloped from the very door to a tiny 
 window at the level of the floor. In each room was a 
 bed, a bureau that served for wash-stand, a small look- 
 ing-glass, and one or two trunks- Women's dresses hung 
 on the whitewashed walls. She 
 found No. ii, threw off, 
 desperately, her hat and 
 jacket, and sunk down on 
 the little brown tin trunk, 
 all trembling from head 
 to foot. 
 
 " Hello," called a 
 cheery voice. She looked 
 up and saw a girl in a 
 dirty calico dress. 
 
 " Just come? " 
 quired this person, 
 agreeable informality. 
 
 m- 
 with 
 She was 
 
 a good-looking large girl, with red hair 
 and bright cheeks. She leaned against the door-post and 
 polished her finger-nails with a little brush. Her hands 
 were shapely. 
 
 "Ain't got onto the stair-climbing racket yet, eh? 
 You '11 get used to it. ' Louise Levy/" she read the name 
 
THE TENOR. 13 
 
 on the trunk. "You don't look like a sheeny. Can't 
 tell nothin' 'bout names, can you? My name 's Slattery. 
 You 'd think I was Irish, would n't you ? Well, I 'm 
 straight Ne' York. I 'd be dead before I was Irish. Born 
 here. Ninth Ward an' next to an engine-house. How 's 
 that ? There 's white Jews, too. I worked for one, pick- 
 in' sealskins down in Prince Street. Most took the lungs 
 out of me. But that was n't why I shook the biz. It 
 queered my hands — see ? I 'm goin' to be married in 
 the Fall to a German gentleman. He ain't so Dutch 
 when you know him, though. He 's a grocer. Drivin' 
 now ; but he buys out the boss in the Fall. How's that ? 
 He 's dead stuck on my hooks, an' I have to keep 'em 
 lookin' good. I come here because the work was light. 
 I don't have to work — only to be doin' somethin', see? 
 Only got five halls and the lamps. You got a fam'ly job, 
 I s'pose? I would n't have that. I don't mind the 
 Sooprintendent ; but I 'd be dead before I 'd be bossed 
 by a woman, see? Say, what fam'ly did you say you 
 was with ? " 
 
 This stream of talk had acted like a nerve-tonic on 
 Louise. She was able to answer : 
 
 " M — -Mr. Remy." 
 
 "Ramy? — oh, lord! Got the job with His Ton- 
 sils? Well, you won't keep it long. They 're meaner 'n 
 three balls, see ? Rent their room up here and chip in 
 with eleven. Their girls don't never stay. Well, I got 
 to step, or the Sooprintendent '11 be borin' my ear. Well 
 — so long ! " 
 
 But Louise had fled down the stairs. "His Tonsils" 
 
i 4 "SHORT SIXES." 
 
 rang in her ears. What blasphemy ! What sacrilege ! 
 She could scarcely pretend to listen to Mme. Remy's 
 first instructions. 
 
 The household was parsimonious. Louise washed 
 the caterer's dishes — he made a reduction in his price. 
 Thus she learned that a late breakfast took the place of 
 luncheon. She began to feel what this meant. The beds 
 had been made ; but there was work enough. She helped 
 Mme. Remy to sponge a heap of faded finery — her 
 dresses. If they had been his coats ! Louise bent her 
 hot face over the tawdry silks and satins, and clasped 
 her parboiled little finger-tips over the wet sponge. At 
 half-past three Mme. Remy broke the silence. 
 
 "We must get ready for Musseer," she said. An 
 ecstatic joy filled Louise's being. The hour of her re- 
 ward was at hand. 
 
 Getting ready for "Musseer" proved to be an ap- 
 palling process. First they brewed what Mme. Remy 
 called a "teaze Ann." After the tisane, a host of strange 
 foreign drugs and cosmetics were marshalled in order. 
 Then water was set to heat on a gas-stove. Then a 
 little table was neatly set. 
 
 "Musseer has his dinner at half- past four," Ma- 
 dame explained. " I don't take mine till he 's laid down 
 and I 've got him off to the concert. There, he 's com- 
 ing now. Sometimes he comes home pretty nervous. If 
 he 's nervous, don't you go and make a fuss, do you 
 hear, child? " 
 
 The door opened, and Musseer entered, wrapped in 
 a huge frogged overcoat. There was no doubt that he 
 
THE TENOR. 
 
 15 
 
 was nervous. He cast his hat upon the floor, as if he 
 were Jove dashing a thunderbolt. Fire flashed from his 
 eyes. He advanced upon his wife 
 and thrust a newspaper in her face 
 
 — a little pinky sheet, a notorious 
 blackmailing publication. 
 
 "Zees," he cried, "is your 
 work ! " 
 
 "What is it, now, Hipleet?" 
 demanded Mine. Remy. 
 
 " Vot it ees?" shrieked the 
 tenor. " It ees ze history of how zey 
 have heest me at Nice ! It ees all 
 zair — how I have been heest — in 
 zis sacre sheet — in zis hankairchif 
 of infamy ! And it ees you zat have 
 told it to zat devil of a Rastignac — traiiresse ! " 
 
 "Now, Hipleet," pleaded his wife, "if I can't 
 learn enough French to talk with you, how am I going 
 to tell Rastignac about your being hissed? " 
 
 This reasoning silenced Mr. Remy for an instant 
 
 — an instant only. 
 
 "You vood have done it!" he cried, sticking out 
 his chin and thrusting his face forward. 
 
 "Well, I did n't," said Madame, "and nobody 
 reads that thing, any way. Now, don't you mind it, and 
 let me get your things off, or you '11 be catching cold." 
 
 Mr. Remy yielded at last to the necessity of self- 
 preservation, and permitted his wife to remove his 
 frogged overcoat, and to unwind him from a system of 
 
i6 "SHORT SIXES." 
 
 silk wraps to which the Gordian knot was a slip-noose. 
 This done, he sat down before the dressing-case, and 
 Mine. Remy, after tying a bib around his neck, pro- 
 ceeded to dress his hair and put brilliantine on his 
 moustache. Her husband enlivened the operation by 
 reading from the pinky paper. 
 
 "It ees not gen-air-al-lee known — zat zees dees- 
 tin-guished tenor vos heest on ze pob-lic staidj at Nice 
 - — in ze year — " 
 
 Louise leaned against the wall, sick, faint and 
 frightened, with a strange sense of shame and degrada- 
 tion at her heart. At last the tenor's eye fell on her. 
 
 "Anozzair eediot ? " he inquired. 
 
 "She ain't very bright, Hipleet," replied his wife; 
 "but I guess she'll do. Louise, open the door — there 's 
 the caterer." 
 
 Louise placed the dishes upon the table mechani- 
 cally. The tenor sat himself at the board, and tucked 
 a napkin in his neck. 
 
 "And how did the Benediction Song go this after- 
 noon ? " inquired his wife. 
 
 " Ze Benediction? Ah! One encore. One on-lee. 
 Zese pigs ot Americains. I t'row my pairls biffo' swine. 
 Chops once more ! You vant to mordair me ? Vat do 
 zis mean, madame ? You ar-r-r-re in lig wiz my ene- 
 mies. All ze vorlt is against ze ar-r-r-teest ! " 
 
 The storm that followed made the first seem a 
 zephyr. The tenor exhausted his execratory vocabulary 
 in French and English. At last, by way of a dramatic 
 finale, he seized the plate of chops and flung it from 
 
THE TENOR. 
 
 tf 
 
 him. He aimed at the wall ; but Frenchmen do not 
 pitch well. With a ring and a crash, plate and chops 
 went through the broad window-pane. In the moment 
 of stricken speechlessness that followed, the sound of 
 the final smash came softly up from the sidewalk. 
 
 " Ah-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-ah ! " 
 
 The tenor rose to his feet with the howl of an 
 anguished hyena. 
 
 " Oh, good gracious!" cried his wife; "he 's going 
 to have one of his creezes — his creezes de nare ! " 
 
 He did have a crise de nerfs. " Ten dollair ! " he 
 yelled, " for ten dollair of glass ! " He tore his pomaded 
 hair; he tore off his bib and his neck-tie, and for three 
 minutes without cessation he shrieked wildly and unin- 
 telligibly. It was possible to make out, however, that 
 " arteest " and "ten dollair" were the themes of his 
 improvisation. Finally he sank exhausted into the 
 chair, and his white-faced wife rushed to 
 his side. 
 
 " Louise ! " she cried, " get the 
 foot- tub out of the closet while I 
 spray his throat, or he can't sing 
 a note. Fill it up with warm water 
 — 1 02 degrees — there 's the 
 thermometer — and bathe his 
 feet." 
 
 Trembling from head to 
 foot, Louise obeyed her orders, 
 and brought the foot-tub, full of steaming water. Then 
 she knelt down and began to serve the maestro for the 
 
/<? " SHORT SIXES." 
 
 first time. She took off his shoes. Then she looked at 
 his socks. Could she do it? 
 
 " Eediot ! "gasped the sufferer, " make haste ! I die !" 
 
 "Hold your mouth open, dear," said Madame, "I 
 have n't half sprayed you." 
 
 " Ah ! you /" cried the tenor. "Cat! Devil! It ees 
 you zat have killed me ! " And moved by an access of 
 blind rage, he extended his arm, and thrust his wife 
 violently from him. 
 
 Louise rose to her feet, with a hard, set, good old 
 New England look on her face. She lifted the tub of 
 water to the level ot her breast, and then she inverted it 
 on the tenor's head. For one instant she gazed at the 
 deluge, and at the bath-tub balanced on the maestro's 
 skull like a helmet several sizes too large — then she 
 fled like the wind. 
 
 Once in the servants' quarters, she snatched her 
 hat and jacket. From below came mad yells of rage. 
 
 "I kill hare! give me my knife — give me my 
 rivvolvare ! Au secours ! Assassin ! " 
 
 Miss Slattery appeared in the doorway, still polish- 
 ing her nails. 
 
 "What have you done to His Tonsils?" she in- 
 quired. " He 's pretty hot, this trip." 
 
 "How can I get away from here?" cried Louise. 
 
 Miss Slattery pointed to a small door. Louise 
 rushed down a long stairway — another — and yet others 
 — through a great room where there was a smell of 
 cooking and a noise of fires — past white-capped cooks 
 and scullions — through a long stone corridor, and out 
 
THE TENOR. 
 
 19 
 
 into the street. She cried aloud as she saw Esther's 
 face at the window of the coupe. 
 She drove home — cured. 
 
 Owing to the 
 
 Sudden Indisposition 
 
 of 
 
 M. Remy, 
 
 There will be no 
 
 Concert 
 
 This Evening. 
 
 Money Refunded at the 
 
 Box Office. 
 
COL. BRERETON'S AUNTY. 
 
<o 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^3 
 
 ^ 
 
 "*. 
 
COL. BRERETON'S AUNTY. 
 
 =L,HE pleasant smell of freshly turned 
 garden-mould and of young growing 
 things came in through the open window 
 of the Justice of the Peace. His nasturtiums 
 were spreading, pale and weedy — I could 
 distinguish their strange, acrid scent from the 
 odor of the rest of the young vegetation. The tips of 
 the morning-glory vines, already up their strings to the 
 height of a man's head, curled around the window-frame, 
 and beckoned to me to come out and rejoice with them 
 in the freshness of the mild June day. It was pleasant 
 enough inside the Justice's front parlor, with its bright 
 ingrain carpet, its gilt clock, and its marble-topped 
 centre-table. But the Justice and the five gentlemen 
 who were paying him a business call — although it was 
 Sunday morning — looked, the whole half dozen of them, 
 ill in accord with the spirit of the Spring day. The 
 Justice looked annoyed. The five assembled gentlemen 
 looked stern. 
 
 "Well, as you say," remarked the fat little Justice, 
 who was an Irishman, " if this divilment goes on — " 
 
s 4 "SHORT SIXES." 
 
 " It 's not a question of going on, Mr. O'Brien," 
 broke in Alfred Winthrop ; "it has gone on too long." 
 
 Alfred is a little inclined to be arrogant with the 
 unwinthropian world ; and, moreover, he was rushing 
 the season in a very grand suit of white flannels. He 
 looked rather too much of a lord of creation for a demo- 
 cratic community. Antagonism lit the Justice's eye. 
 
 " I 'm afraid we 've got to do it, O'Brien," I inter- 
 posed, hastily. The Justice and I are strong political 
 allies. He was mollified. 
 
 "Well, well," he assented; "let 's have him up and 
 see what he 's got to say for himself. Mike ! " he shouted 
 out the window; "bring up Colonel Brereton ! " 
 
 Colonel Brereton had appeared in our village about 
 a year before that Sunday. Why he came, whence he 
 came, he never deigned to say. But he made no secret 
 of the fact that he was an unreconstructed Southron. He 
 had a little money when he arrived — enough to buy a 
 tiny one-story house on the outskirts of the town. By 
 vocation he was a lawyer, and, somehow or other, he 
 managed to pick up enough to support him in his avoca- 
 tion, which, we soon found out, was that of village 
 drunkard. In this capacity he was a glorious, picturesque 
 and startling success. Saturated with cheap whiskey, he 
 sat all day long in the barroom or on the porch of the 
 village groggery, discoursing to the neighborhood loafers 
 of the days befo' the wah, when he had a vast planta- 
 tion in "Firginia" — "and five hundred niggehs, seh." 
 
 So long as the Colonel's excesses threatened only 
 his own liver, no one interfered with him. But on the 
 
COL. BRERETONS AUNTY. 25 
 
 night before we called upon the Justice, the Colonel, 
 having brooded long over his wrongs at the hands of 
 the Yankees, and having made himself a reservoir of 
 cocktails, decided to enter his protest against the whole 
 system of free colored labor by cutting the liver out 
 of every negro in the town ; and he had slightly lacer- 
 ated Winthrop's mulatto coachman before a delegation 
 of citizens fell upon him, and finding him unwilling to 
 relinquish his plan, placed him for the night in the 
 lock-up in Squire O'Brien's cellar. 
 
 We waited for the Colonel. From under our feet 
 suddenly arose a sound of scuffling and smothered im- 
 precations. A minute later, Mike, the herculean son of 
 the Justice, appeared in the doorway, bearing a very 
 small man hugged to his breast as a baby hugs a doll. 
 
 "Let me down, seh ! " shouted the Colonel. Mike 
 set him down, and he marched proudly into the room, 
 and seated himself with dignity and firmness on the ex- 
 treme edge of a chair. 
 
 The Colonel was very small indeed for a man of so 
 much dignity. He could not have been more than five 
 foot one or two; he was slender — but his figure was 
 shapely and supple. He was unquestionably a handsome 
 man, with fine, thin features and an aquiline profile — 
 like a miniature Henry Clay. His hair was snow-white 
 — prematurely, no doubt — and at the first glance you 
 thought he was clean shaven. Then you saw that there 
 was scarcely a hair on his cheeks, and that only the finest 
 imaginable line of snowy white moustaches curled down 
 his upper lip. His skin was smooth as a baby's and of 
 
26 "SHORT SIXES." 
 
 the color of old ivory. His teeth, which he was just 
 then exhibiting in a sardonic smile, were white, small, 
 even. But if he was small, his carriage was large, and 
 military. There was something military, too, about his 
 attire. He wore a high collar, a long blue frock coat, 
 and tight, light gray trousers with straps. That is, the 
 coat had once been blue, the trousers once light gray, 
 but they were now of many tints and tones, and, at 
 that exact moment, they had here and there certain 
 peculiar high lights of whitewash. 
 
 The Colonel did not wait to be arraigned. Sweep- 
 ing his black, piercing eye over our little group, he 
 arraigned us. 
 
 "Well, gentlemen ," with keen irony in his tone, 
 " I reckon you think you 've done a right smart thing, 
 getting the Southern gentleman in a hole ? A ^ro-dee- 
 gious tine thing, I reckon, since it 's kept you away from 
 chu'ch. Bap/is' church, I believe ? " This was to poor 
 Canfield, who was suspected of having been of that com- 
 munion in his youth, and of being much ashamed of it 
 after his marriage to an aristocratic Episcopalian. "Nice 
 Sunday mo'ning to worry a Southern gentleman ! Gen- 
 tleman who 's owned a plantation that you could stick 
 this hyeh picayune town into one co'neh of! Owned 
 mo' niggehs than you eveh saw. Robbed of his land 
 and his niggehs by you Yankee gentlemen. Drinks a 
 little wine to make him fo'get what he 's suffehed. Gets 
 ovehtaken. Tries to avenge an insult to his honah. 
 Put him in a felon's cell and whitewash his gyarments. 
 And now you come hyeh — you come hyeh — " here 
 
COL. BRERETONS AUNTY. z-j 
 
 his eye fell with deep disapproval upon Winthrop's white 
 flannels — "you come hyeh in youh underclothes, and 
 you want to have him held fo' Special Sessions." 
 
 " You are mistaken, Colonel Brereton," Winthrop 
 interposed; " if we can have your promise — " 
 
 "I will promise you nothing, seh ! " thundered the 
 Colonel, who had a voice like a church-organ, whenever 
 he chose to use it; "I will make no conventions with 
 you ! I will put no restrictions on my right to defend 
 my honah. Put me in youh felon's cell. I will rot in 
 youh infehnal dungeons; but I will make no conventions 
 with you. You can put me in striped breeches, but you 
 cyan't put my honah in striped breeches ! " 
 
 "That settles it," said the justice. 
 
 "And all," continued the Colonel, oratorically, 
 " and all this hyeh fuss and neglect of youh religious 
 duties, fo' one of the cheapest and most o'nery niggehs 
 I eveh laid eyes on. Why, I would n't have given one 
 hundred dollahs fo' that niggeh befo' the wah. No, 
 seh, I give you my wo'd, that niggeh ain't wo'th ninety 
 dollahs ! " 
 
 "Mike!" said the Justice, significantly. The Col- 
 onel arose promptly, to insure a voluntary exit. He 
 bowed low to Winthrop. 
 
 " Allow me to hope, seh," he said, " that you won't 
 catch cold." And with one lofty and comprehensive 
 salute he marched haughtily back to his dungeon, fol- 
 lowed by the towering Mike. 
 
 The Justice sighed. An elective judiciary has its 
 trials, like the rest of us. It is hard to commit a voter 
 
SHORT SIXES." 
 
 of your own party for Special Sessions. However — 
 "I '11 drive him over to Court in the morning," said the 
 little Justice. 
 
 I was sitting on my verandah that afternoon, read- 
 ing. Hearing my name softly spoken, I looked up and 
 
 saw the largest and oldest 
 negress I had ever met. 
 She was at least six feet 
 tall, well-built but not 
 fat, full black, with 
 carefully dressed gray 
 hair. 1 knew at once 
 from her neat dress, 
 her well-trained man- 
 ner, the easy defer- 
 ence of the curtsey 
 she dropped me, that 
 she belonged to the 
 class that used to 
 be known as "house 
 darkeys " — in contradistinction to the field hands. 
 
 "I understand, seh," she said, in a gentle, low 
 voice, " that you gentlemen have got Cunnle Bre'eton 
 jailed? " 
 
 She had evidently been brought up among educated 
 Southerners, for her grammar was good and her pro- 
 nunciation correct, according to Southern standards. 
 Only once or twice did she drop into negro talk. 
 
COL. BRERETONS AUNTY. ag 
 
 I assented. 
 
 " How much will it be, seh, to get him out?" She 
 produced a fat roll of twenty and fifty dollar bills. " I 
 do fo' Cunnle Bre'eton," she explained: "I have always 
 done fo' him. I was his Mammy when he was a baby." 
 
 I made her sit down — - when she did there was 
 modest deprecation in her attitude — and I tried to ex- 
 plain the situation to her. 
 
 " You may go surety for Colonel Brereton," I said; 
 "but he is certain to repeat the offense." 
 
 "No, seh," she replied, in her quiet, firm tone; 
 "the Cunnle won't make any trouble when I 'm here to 
 do fo' him." 
 
 " You were one of his slaves?" 
 
 " No, seh. Cunnle Bre'eton neveh had any slaves, 
 seh. His father, Majah Bre'eton, he had slaves one time, 
 I guess, but when the Cunnle was bo'n, he was playing 
 kyards fo' a living, and he had only me. When the Cun- 
 nle's mother died, Majah Bre'eton he went to Mizzoura, 
 and he put the baby in my ahms, and he said to me, 
 ' Sabrine,' he sez, 'you do fo' him.' And I 've done fo' 
 him eveh since. Sometimes he gets away from me, and 
 then he gets kind o' wild. He was in Sandusky a year, 
 and in Chillicothe six months, and he was in Tiffin once, 
 and one time in a place in the state of Massachusetts — 
 I disremembeh the name. This is the longest time he 
 eveh got away from me. But I always find him, and 
 then he 's all right." 
 
 "But you have to deal with a violent man." 
 
 "The Cunnle won't be violent with me, seh." 
 
jo "SHORT SIXES." 
 
 "But you 're getting old, Aunty — how old?" 
 
 " I kind o' lost count since I was seventy-one, seh. 
 But I 'm right spry, yet." 
 
 "Well, my good woman," I said, decisively, "I 
 can't take the responsibility of letting the Colonel go at 
 large unless you give me some better guarantee of your 
 ability to restrain him. What means have you of keep- 
 ing him in hand?" 
 
 She hesitated a long time, smoothing the folds of 
 her neat alpaca skirt with her strong hands. Then 
 she said : 
 
 "Well, seh, I would n't have you say any thing 
 about it, fo' feah of huhting Cunnle Bre'eton's feelings; 
 but when he gets that way, I jes' nachully tuhn him up 
 and spank him. I 've done it eveh since he was a baby," 
 she continued, apologetically, "and it's the only way. 
 But you won't say any thing about it, seh ? The Cunnle's 
 powerful sensitive." 
 
 I wrote a brief note to the Justice. I do not know 
 what legal formalities he dispensed with ; but that after- 
 noon the Colonel was free. Aunt Sabrine took him 
 home, and he went to bed for two days while she washed 
 his clothes. The next week he appeared in a complete 
 new outfit — in cut and color the counterpart of its 
 predecessor. 
 
 Here began a new era for the Colonel. He was no 
 longer the town drunkard. Aunty Sabrine "allowanced" 
 him — one cocktail in the "mo'ning:" a "ho'n" at noon, 
 
COL. BRERETONS AUNTY. jt 
 
 and one at night. On this diet he was a model of 
 temperance. If occasionally he essayed a drinking bout, 
 Aunty Sabrine came after him at eve, and led him home. 
 From my window I sometimes saw the steady big figure 
 and the wavering little one going home over the crest of 
 the hill, equally black in their silhouettes against the 
 sunset sky. 
 
 What happened to the Colonel we knew not. No 
 man saw him for two days. Then he emerged — with 
 unruffled dignity. The two always maintained genuine 
 Southern relations. He called her his damn black 
 nigger — and would have killed any man who spoke ill 
 of her. She treated him with the humble and deferen- 
 tial familiarity of a "mammy" toward " young mahse." 
 
 For herself, Aunty Sabrine won the hearts of the 
 town. She was an ideal washerwoman, an able tem- 
 porary cook in domestic interregna, a tender and wise 
 nurse, and a genius at jam and jellies. The Colonel, 
 too, made money in his line, and put it faithfully into 
 the common fund. 
 
 In March of the next year, I was one of a Reform 
 Town Committee, elected to oust the usual local ring. 
 We discharged the inefficient Town Counsel, who had 
 neglected our interests in a lot of suits brought by swind- 
 ling road-contractors. Aunty Sabrine came to me, and 
 solemnly nominated Colonel Brereton for the post. "He 
 is sho'ly a fine loyyeh," she said. 
 
 I know not whether it was the Great American 
 sense of humor, or the Great American sense of fairness, 
 but we engaged the Colonel, conditionally. 
 
."-' 
 
 'SHORT sixes: 
 
 He was a positive, a marvelous, an incredible suc- 
 cess, and he won every suit. Perhaps he did not know 
 much law; but he was the man of men for country 
 judges and juries. Nothing like his eloquence had ever 
 before been heard in the county. He argued, he cajoled, 
 he threatened, he pleaded, he thundered, he exploded, 
 he confused, he blazed, he fairly dazzled — for silence 
 stunned you when the Colonel ceased to speak, as the 
 lightning blinds your eyes long after it has vanished. 
 
 The Colonel was utterly incapable of seeing any but 
 his own side of the case. I remember a few of his 
 remarks concerning Finnegan, the contractor, who was 
 suing for $31.27 payments withheld. 
 " Fohty yahds ! " the Colonel roar- 
 ed: " fohty yahds ! This hyeh man 
 Finnegan, this hyeh cock-a-doodle- 
 doo, he goes along this hyeh road, 
 and he casts his eye oveh this hyeh 
 excavation, and he comes hyeh and 
 sweahs it 's fohty yahds good meas- 
 ure. Does he take a tape measure 
 and measure it ? NO ! Does he even 
 pace it off with those hyeh corkscrew 
 legs of his that he 's trying to hide 
 under his chaiah ? NO ! ! He says, 
 ' I 'm Finnegan, and this hyeh 's fohty 
 yahds,' and off he sashays up the hill, 
 wondering wheah Finnegan 's going to 
 bring up when he 's walked off the topmost peak of 
 the snow-clad Himalayas of human omniscience ! And 
 
COL. BRERETOMS AUNTY. 33 
 
 this hyeh man, this hyeh insult to humanity in a papeh 
 collah, he comes hyeh, to this august tribunal, and he 
 asks you, gentlemen of the jury, to let him rob you of 
 the money you have earned in the sweat of youh brows, 
 to take the bread out of the mouths of the children 
 whom youh patient and devoted wives have bohne to 
 you in pain and anguish — but I say to you, gen — tel — 
 men — (suddenly exploding) HIS PAPEH COLLAH 
 SHALL ROAST IN HADES BEFO' I WILL BE A 
 PAHTY TO THIS HYEH INFAMY!" 
 
 Finnegan was found in hiding in his cellar when his 
 counsel came to tell him that he could not collect his 
 $31.27. " Bedad, is that all?" he gasped; "I fought 
 I 'd get six mont's." 
 
 People flocked from miles about to hear the Colonel. 
 Recalcitrant jurymen were bribed to service by the pro- 
 mise of a Brereton case on the docket. His perform- 
 ances were regarded in the light of a free show, and a 
 verdict in his favor was looked upon as a graceful gra- 
 tuity. 
 
 He made money — and he gave it meekly to Aunty 
 Sabrine. 
 
 It was the night of the great blizzard; but there 
 was no sign of cold or wind when I looked out, half-an- 
 hour after midnight, before closing my front door. 
 I heard the drip of water from the trees, I saw a faint 
 mist rising from the melting snow. At the foot of my 
 lawn I dimly saw the Colonel's familar figure marching 
 
34 
 
 SHORT SIXES." 
 
 homeward from some political meeting preliminary to 
 Tuesday's election. His form was erect, his step steady. 
 He swung his little cane and whistled as he walked. I 
 was proud of the Colonel. 
 
 An hour later the storm was upon us. By noon of 
 Monday, Alfred Winthrop's house, two hundred yards 
 away, might as well have been two thousand, so far as 
 getting to it, or even seeing it, was concerned. Tuesday 
 morning the snow had stopped, and we looked out over 
 a still and shining deluge with sparkling fringes above 
 the blue hollows of its frozen waves. Across it roared an 
 icy wind, bearing almost invisible diamond dust to fill 
 irritated eyes and throats. The election was held that 
 day. The result was to be expected. All the "hard" 
 citizens were at the polls. Most of the reformers were 
 
COL. BREHETON-S AUNTY. jj 
 
 stalled in railroad trains. The Reform Ticket failed of 
 re-election, and Colonel Brereton's term of office was 
 practically at an end. 
 
 I was outdoors most of the day, and that night, 
 when I awoke about three o'clock, suddenly and with a 
 shock, thinking I had heard Aunty Sabrine's voice cry- 
 ing: " Cunnle ! wheah are you, Cunnle?" my exhausted 
 brain took it for the echo of a dream. I must have 
 dozed for an hour before I sprang up with a certainty 
 in my mind that I had heard her voice in very truth. 
 Then I hurried on my clothes, and ran to Alfred Win- 
 throp's. He looked incredulous ; but he got into his 
 boots like a man. We found Aunty Sabrine, alive but 
 unconscious, on the crest of the hill. When we had 
 secured an asylum for her, we searched for the Colonel. 
 The next day we learned that he had heard the news of 
 the election and had boarded a snow-clearing train that 
 was returning to the Junction. 
 
 It was a week before Aunty Sabrine recovered. 
 When I asked her if she was going to look for the Colo- 
 nel, she answered with gentle resignation : 
 
 " No, seh. I 'm 'most too old. I '11 stay hyeh, 
 wheah he knows wheah to find me. He '11 come afteh 
 
 me, sho'." 
 
 ***** 
 
 Sixteen months passed, and he did not come. 
 Then, one evening, a Summer walk took me by the little 
 house. I heard a voice I could not forget. 
 
 "Hyeh, you black niggeh, get along with that sup- 
 peh, or I come in theah and cut youh damn haid off!" 
 
 4 
 
36 
 
 short sixes: 
 
 -k 
 
 Looking up, I saw Colonel Brereton, a little the 
 worse for wear, seated on the snake fence. No .... he 
 was not seated ; he was hitched on by the 
 crook of his knees, his toes braced against 
 the inside of the lower rail. His coat- 
 tails hung in the vacant air. 
 
 He descended, a little stiffly, I 
 thought, and greeted me cordially, 
 with affable dignity. His manner 
 somehow implied that it was / who 
 had been away. 
 
 He insisted on my coming into 
 his front yard and sitting down on 
 the bench by the house, while he con- 
 descendingly and courteously inquired after 
 the health of his old friends and neighbors. I stayed 
 until supper was announced. The Colonel was always 
 the soul of hospitality; but on this occasion he did not 
 ask me to join him. And I reflected, as I went away, 
 that although he had punctiliously insisted on my sitting 
 down, the Colonel had remained standing during our 
 somewhat protracted conversation. 
 
A ROUND-UP. 
 
V 
 
 yo*. 
 
 WBmm 
 
 >f/ 
 
 « She was beautiful as the Queen of Sheba was beautiful: 1 
 
A ROUND-UP. 
 
 I. 
 Y\ 7hen Rhodora Boyd — Rhodora Pennington that 
 ' * was — died in her little house, with no one near 
 her but one old maid who loved her, the best society 
 of the little city of Trega Falls indulged in more or less 
 complacent reminiscence. 
 
 Except to Miss Wimple, the old maid, Rhodora had 
 been of no importance at all in Trega for ten long years, 
 and yet she had once given Trega society the liveliest 
 year it had ever known. (I should tell you that Trega 
 people never mentioned the Falls in connection with 
 Trega. Trega was too old to admit any indebtedness 
 to the Falls.) 
 
 Rhodora Pennington came to Trega with her invalid 
 mother as the guest of her uncle, the Commandant at 
 the Fort — for Trega was a garrison town. She was a 
 beautiful girl. I do not mean a pretty girl: there were 
 pretty girls in Trega — several of them. She was beau- 
 tiful as the Queen of Sheba was beautiful — grand, 
 perfect, radiantly tawny of complexion, without a flaw 
 Qr a failing in her pulchritude — almost too fine a being 
 
4 o "SHORT SIXES.' 
 
 for family use, except that she had plenty of hot woman's 
 blood in her veins, and was an accomplished, delightful, 
 impartial flirt. 
 
 All the men turned to her with such prompt unani- 
 mity that all the girls of Trega's best society joined 
 hands in one grand battle for their prospective altars 
 and hearths. From the June day when Rhodora came, 
 to the Ash Wednesday of the next year when her en- 
 gagement was announced, there was one grand battle, 
 a dozen girls with wealth and social position and knowl- 
 edge of the ground to help them, all pitted against one 
 garrison girl, with not so much as a mother to back her 
 — Mrs. Pennington being hopelessly and permanently 
 on the sick-list. 
 
 Trega girls who had never thought of doing more 
 than wait at their leisure for the local young men to 
 marry them at their leisure now went in for accomplish- 
 ments of every sort. They rode, they drove, they danced 
 new dances, they read Browning and Herbert Spencer, 
 they sang, they worked hard at archery and lawn-tennis, 
 they rowed and sailed and fished, and some of the more 
 desperate even went shooting in the Fall, and in the 
 Winter played billiards and — penny ante. Thus did 
 they, in the language of a somewhat cynical male ob- 
 server, back Accomplishments against Beauty. 
 
 The Shakspere Club and the Lake Picnic, which 
 had hitherto divided the year between them, were sub- 
 merged in the flood of social entertainments. Balls and 
 parties followed one another. Trega's square stone 
 houses were lit up night after night, and the broad 
 
A ROUND-UP. 
 
 P 
 
 moss-grown gardens about them were made trim and 
 presentable, and Chinese lanterns turned them into a 
 fairy-land for young lovers. 
 
 It was a great year for Trega ! 
 The city had been dead, commer- 
 cially, ever since the New York 
 Central Railroad had opened up 
 the great West; but the unpre- 
 cedented flow of champagne and 
 Apollinaris actually started a little 
 business boom, based on the in- 
 ferable wealth of Trega, and two 
 or three of Trega's remaining 
 firms went into bankruptcy be- 
 cause of the boom. And Rhodora 
 Pennington did it all. 
 
 Have you ever seen the end of a sham-fight ? You 
 have been shouting and applauding, and wasting enough 
 enthusiasm for a foot-ball match. And now it is all 
 finished, and nothing has been done, and you go home 
 somewhat ashamed of yourself, and glad only that the 
 blue- coated participants must feel more ashamed of 
 themselves ; and the smell of the villainous saltpetre, 
 that waked the Berserker in your heart an hour ago, 
 is now noisome and disgusting, and makes you cough 
 and sneeze. 
 
 Even so did the girls of Trega's best society look 
 each in the face of the other, when Ash Wednesday 
 ended that nine months of riot, and ask of each other, 
 " What has it all been about ? " 
 
42 "SHORT SIXES." 
 
 True, there were nine girls engaged to be married, 
 and engagement meant marriage in Trega. Alma Lyle 
 was engaged to Dexter Townsend, Mary Waite to John 
 Lang, Winifred Peters to McCullom Mcintosh, Ellen 
 Humphreys to George Lister, Laura Visscher to Wil- 
 liam Jans, (Oranje boven ! — Dutch blood stays Dutch,) 
 Millicent Smith to Milo Smith, her cousin, Olive Cregier 
 to Aleck Sloan, Aloha Jones, (niece of a Sandwich Is- 
 lands missionary,) to Parker Hall, and Rhodora Pen- 
 nington to Charley Boyd. 
 
 But all of these matches, save the last, would have 
 been made in the ordinary course of things. The pre- 
 destination of propinquity would have settled that. And 
 even if Ellen Humphreys had married John Lang in- 
 stead of George Lister, and George Lister had wedded 
 Mary Waite — why, there would have been no great 
 difference to admire or to deplore. The only union of 
 the nine which came as a surprise to the community was 
 the engagement of Rhodora to Charley Boyd. The 
 beauty of the season had picked up the one crooked 
 stick in the town — a dissolute, ne'er-do-well hanger-on 
 of Trega's best society, who would never have seen a 
 dinner-card if he had not been a genius at amateur 
 theatricals, an artist on the banjo, and a half-bred 
 Adonis. 
 
 There the agony ended for the other girls, and there 
 it began for Rhodora Boyd. In less than a year, Boyd 
 had deserted her. The Commandant was transferred to 
 the Pacific Coast. Rhodora moved, with her mother, 
 bed-ridden now, into a little house in the unfashionadle 
 
A ROUND-UP. 
 
 43 
 
 outskirts of Trega. There she nursed the mother until 
 the poor bed-ridden old lady died. Rhodora supported 
 them both by teaching music and French at the Trega 
 Seminary, down by the Falls. Morning and evening she 
 went out and back on that weary, 
 jingling horse-car line. She re- 
 ceived the annual visits that her 
 friends paid her, inspired by 
 something between courtesy 
 and charity, with her old 
 stately simplicity and 
 imperturbable calm ; 
 and no one of them 
 could feel sure that 
 she was conscious of 
 their triumph or of 
 her degradation. And 
 she kept the best part 
 of her stately beauty to 
 
 the very last. In any other town she would have been 
 taught what divorce-courts were made for; but Trega 
 society was Episcopalian, and that communion is health- 
 ily and conservatively monogamous. 
 
 And so Rhodora Boyd, that once was Rhodora Pen- 
 nington, died in her little house, and her pet old maid 
 closed her eyes. And there was an end of Rhodora. 
 Not quite an end, though. 
 
II. 
 
 Scene. — The Public Library of Trega. Mrs. George 
 
 Lister and Mrs. John Lang are seated in the 
 
 Rotunda. Mr. LlBRIVER, the Librarian, advances 
 
 to them with books in his hands. 
 
 Mrs. Lister. — Ah, here comes Mr. Libriver, with my 
 
 "Intellectual Life." Thank you, Mr. Libriver — you 
 
 are always so kind ! 
 
 MRS. Lang. — And Mr. Libriver has brought me my 
 
 "Status of Woman." Oh, thank you, Mr. Libriver. 
 
 Mr. Libriver, a thin young man in a linen duster, 
 
 retires, blushing. 
 Mrs. Lister. — Mr. Libriver does so appreciate women 
 who are free from the bondage of the novel. Did 
 you hear about poor Rhodora's funeral? 
 
A ROUND-UP. 45 
 
 MRS. Lang (with a sweeping grasp at the intellectual 
 side of the conversation). — Oh, I despise love-stories. 
 In the church ? Oh, yes, I heard. (Sweetly). Dr. 
 Homly told me. Does n't it seem just a little — 
 ostentatious ? 
 
 MRS. Lister. — Ostentatious — but, do you know, my 
 dear, there are to be eight pall-bearers ! 
 
 Mrs. Lang (turning defeat into victory). — No, I did 
 not know. I don't suppose that ridiculous old maid, 
 that Miss Wimple, who seems to be conducting the 
 affair, dared to tell that to Dr. Homly. And who 
 are they ? 
 
 MRS. Lister (with exceeding sweetness). — Oh, I don't 
 know, dear. Only I met Mr. Townsend, and he told 
 me that Dr. Homly had just told him that he was 
 one of the eight. 
 
 Mrs. Lister. — Dexter Townsend ! Why, it 's scandal- 
 ous. Everybody knows that he proposed to her three 
 times and that she threw him over. It 's an insult 
 to — to — 
 
 Mrs. Lang. — To poor dear Alma Townsend. I quite 
 agree with you. I should like to know how she feels 
 — if she understands what it means. 
 
 Mrs. Lister. — Well, if I were in her place — 
 
 Enter Mrs. Dexter Townsend. 
 
 Mrs. Lang. ) „., ., , 
 } Why, Alma ! 
 Mrs. Lister. ) 
 
 Mrs. Townsend. — Why, Ellen! Why, Mary! Oh, 
 
 I 'm so glad to meet you both. I want you to lunch 
 
 with me to-morrow at one o'clock. I do so hate to be 
 
46 "SHORT SIXES." 
 
 left alone. And poor Rhodora Pennington — Mrs. 
 Boyd, I mean — her funeral is at noon, and our three 
 male protectors will have to go to the cemetery, and 
 Mr. Townsend is just going to take a cold bite before 
 he goes, and so I 'm left to lunch — 
 
 Mrs. Lang (coldly). — I don't think Mr. Lang will go 
 to the cemetery -— 
 
 Mrs. Lister. — There is no reason why Mr. Lister — 
 
 Mrs. Townsend. — But, don't you know? — They're 
 all to be pall-bearers ! They can't refuse, of course. 
 
 Mrs. Lang (icily). — Oh, no, certainly not. 
 
 Mrs. Lister (below zero). — I suppose it is an unavoid- 
 able duty. 
 
 Mrs. Lang. — Alma, is that your old Surah? What did 
 you do to it? 
 
 Mrs. Lister. — They do dye things so wonderfully 
 nowadays ! 
 
 Scene. — A Verandah in front of Mr. McCullom 
 McIntosh's house. Mrs. McCullom McIntosh 
 seated, with fancy work. To her, enter Mr. Wil- 
 liam Jans and Mr. Milo Smith. 
 Mrs. McIntosh (with effusion). — Oh, Mr. Jans, I'm 
 so delighted to see you ! And Mr. Smith, too ! I never 
 expect to see you busy men at this time in the after- 
 noon. And how is Laura? — and Millicent? Now 
 don't tell me that you 've come to say that you can't 
 go fishing with Mr. Mcintosh to-morrow ! He '11 be 
 so disappointed ! 
 
Mr. Jans. — Well, the fact is — • 
 
 Mrs. McIntosh. — You haven't been invited to be one 
 of poor Rhodora Boyd's pall-bearers, have you? That 
 would be too absurd. They say she 's asked a regular 
 party of her old conquests. Mr. Libriver just passed 
 here and told me — Mr. Lister and John Lang and 
 Dexter Townsend — 
 
 Mr. Jans. — Yes, and me. 
 
 Mrs. McIntosh. — Oh, Mr. Jans! And they do say — 
 at least Mr. Libriver says — - that she has n't asked a 
 man who had n't proposed to her. 
 
 Mr. Jans (Dutchily). — 1 d'no. But I 'm asked, and — 
 
 Mrs. McIntosh. — You don't mean to tell me that Mr. 
 Smith is asked, too ? Oh, that would be too impossible. 
 You don't mean to tell me, Mr. Smith, that you fur- 
 nished one of Rhodora's scalps ten years ago? 
 
 Mr. Smith. — You ought to know, Mrs. Mcintosh. Or 
 — no — perhaps not. You and Mac were to windward 
 of the centre-board on Townsend's boat when / got 
 the mitten. I suppose you could n't hear us. But we 
 were to leeward, and Miss Pennington said she hoped 
 all proposals did n't echo. 
 
 Mrs. McIntosh. — The wretched c but she's dead. 
 
 Well, I 'm thankful Mac — Mr. Mcintosh never could 
 abide that girl. He always said she was horribly bad 
 form — poor thing, I ought n't to speak so, I suppose. 
 She 's been punished enough. 
 
 Mr. Smith. — I'm glad you think so, Mrs. Mcintosh. 
 I hope you won't feel it necessary to advise Mac to 
 refuse her last dying request. 
 
4* 
 
 SHORT SIXES." 
 
 Mrs. McIntosh. — What — 
 
 Mr. Smith. — Oh, well, the fact is, 
 
 Mrs. Mcintosh, we only stopped in 
 
 to say that as Mcintosh and all 
 
 the rest of us are asked to be 
 
 pall - bearers at Mrs. Boyd's 
 
 funeral, you might ask Mac if 
 
 it would n't be just as well to 
 
 postpone the fishing party for 
 
 a week or so. If you remember 
 
 — will you be so kind? Thank you, good afternoon. 
 
 Mr Jans. — Good afternoon, Mrs. Mcintosh. 
 
 Scene. — The Linen Closet, at the end of a sunny cor- 
 ridor in Mr. Alexander Sloan's house. Mrs. 
 Sloan inspecting her sheets and pillow-cases. To 
 her, enter Bridget, her housemaid, with a basket 
 full of linen, the Trega Evening Eagle on the 
 top, folded. 
 Mrs. Sloan. — Why, that surely is n't one of the new 
 napkins ! — oh, it 's the evening paper. Dear me ! 
 how near-sighted I am getting ! (Takes it and opens 
 it.) You may put those linen sheets on the top shelf, 
 Bridget. We '11 hardly need them again this Fall. 
 Oh, Bridget — here 's poor Mrs. Boyd's obituary. 
 You used to live at Colonel Pennington's before she 
 was married, did n't you ? 
 Bridget. — I did that, Mum. 
 Mrs. Sloan (reading). — "Mrs. Boyd's pall-bearers are 
 
A ROUND-UP. 
 
 49 
 
 fitly chosen from the most distinguished and prominent 
 citizens of Trega." I 'm sure I don't see why they 
 should be. (Reads.) "Those invited to render the 
 last honors to the deceased are Mr. George Lister — " 
 
 Bridget. — 'T is he was foriver at the house. 
 
 Mrs. Sloan ' (reads). — "Mr. John Lang — " 
 
 Bridget. — And him. 
 
 MRS Sloan (reads). — " Mr. Dexter 
 Townsend — " 
 
 Bridget. — And him, too. 
 
 Mrs. Sloan (reads). — " Mr. Mc- 
 intosh, Mr William Jans, Mr. 
 Milo Smith — " 
 
 Bridget. — And thim. Mr. Smith 
 was her siventh. 
 
 Mrs. Sloan. — Hex what? 
 
 Bridget. — Her sivinth. There 
 was eight of thim proposed to 
 her in the wan week. 
 
 MRS Sloan. — Why, Bridget! How can you possibly 
 know that? 
 
 Bridget. — Sure, what does it mean whin a gintleman 
 calls twice in th' wake an' thin stops like he was 
 shot. An' who is the eight' gintleman to walk wid 
 the corpse, Mum? 
 
 Mrs. Sloan. — That is all, Bridget. And those pillow- 
 cases look shockingly ! I never saw such ironing ! 
 (Exit, hastily and sternly.) 
 
 Bridget (sola). — Only siven of thim. Saints bless us! 
 The pore lady '11 go wan-sided to her grave ! 
 
 "Sr**^' 
 
s° 
 
 SHORT SIXES." 
 
 Scene. — The Private Office of Mr. Parker HalL. 
 Mr. Hall writing. To him, enter Mr. Aleck 
 Sloan. 
 Mr. Sloan. — Ah, there, Parker! 
 Mr. Hall. — Ah, there, Aleck! What brings you 
 
 around so late in the day ? 
 Mr. Sloan. — I just thought you might like to hear the 
 
 names of the fellows Rhodora Pennington chose for 
 
 her pall-bearers. (Produces list.) 
 MR. Hall (sighs). — Poor Rho- 
 dora ! Too bad ! Fire ahead. 
 Mr. Sloan (reads list). — 
 
 " George Lister." 
 Mr. Hall. — Ah! 
 Mr. Sloan (reads). — 
 
 " John Lang." 
 Mr. Hall.— Oh ! 
 Mr. Sloan (reads). — 
 
 " Dexter Townsend." 
 Mr. Hall.— Well ! 
 Mr. Sloan (reads). — "Mc- 
 
 Cullom Mcintosh." 
 Mr. Hall. — Say ! — 
 Mr. Sloan (reads). — "William Jans." 
 Mr. Hall. — The Deuce ! 
 Mr. Sloan (reads). — " Milo Smith." 
 Mr. Hall. — Great Caesar's ghost! This is getting very 
 
 personal ! 
 Mr. Sloan. — Yes. (Reads, nervously.) "Alexander 
 
 Sloan." 
 
A ROUND-UP. 
 
 5t 
 
 Mr. Hall. — Whoo-o-o-o-up ! You too? 
 
 Mr. SLOAN (reads). — " Parker Hall." 
 (A long silence.) 
 
 Mr. Hall (faintly). — Oh, lord, she rounded us up, 
 did n't she? Say, Parker, can't this thing be sup- 
 pressed, somehow? 
 
 Mr. Sloan. — It 's in the evening paper. 
 (Another long silence.) 
 
 Mr. Hall (desperately). — Come out and have a bottle 
 with me ? 
 
 Mr. Sloan. — I can't. I 'm going down to Bitts's stable 
 to buy that pony that Mrs. Sloan took such a shine to 
 a month or so ago. 
 
 Mr. Hall. — If I could get out of this for a pony — 
 Oh, lord! 
 
THE TWO CHURCHES OF 
 'QUAWKET. 
 
THE TWO CHURCHES OF 'QUAWKET. 
 
 rrjHE Reverend Colton M. 
 PURSLY, of Aquawket, 
 (commonly pronounced 'Ouaw- 
 ket,) looked out of his study 
 window over a remarkably 
 pretty New England prospect, 
 stroked his thin, grayish side- 
 whiskers, and sighed deeply. 
 He was a pale, sober, ill-dressed 
 Congregationalist minister of 
 forty -two or three. He had eyes 
 of willow-pattern blue, a large nose, 
 and a large mouth, with a smile of forced amiability in 
 the corners. He was amiable, perfectly amiable and 
 innocuous — but that smile sometimes made people with 
 a strong sense of humor want to kill him. The smile 
 lingered even while he sighed. 
 
 Mr. Pursly's house was set upon a hill, although 
 it was a modest abode. From his window he looked 
 down one of those splendid streets that are the pride 
 and glory of old towns in New England — a street fifty 
 
5b "SHORT SIXES." 
 
 yards wide, arched with grand Gothic elms, bordered 
 with houses of pale yellow and white, some in the home- 
 like, simple yet dignified colonial style, some with great 
 Doric porticos at the street end. And above the billowy 
 green of the tree-tops rose two shapely spires, one to 
 the right, of granite, one to the left, of sand-stone. It 
 was the sight of these two spires that made the Reverend 
 Mr. Pursly sigh. 
 
 With a population of four thousand five hundred, 
 'Quawket had an Episcopal Church, a Roman Catholic 
 Church, a Presbyterian Church, a Methodist Church, a 
 Universalist Church, (very small,) a Baptist Church, a 
 Hall for the " Seventh-Day Baptists," (used for secular 
 purposes every day but Saturday,) a Bethel, and — 
 "The Two Churches" — as every one called the First 
 and Second Congregational Churches. Fifteen years 
 before, there had been but one Congregational Church, 
 where a prosperous and contented congregation wor- 
 shiped in a plain little old-fashioned red brick church 
 on a side-street. Then, out of this very prosperity, came 
 the idea of building a fine new free-stone church on 
 Main Street. And, when the new church was half-built, 
 the congregation split on the question of putting a 
 "rain-box" in the new organ. It is quite unnecessary to 
 detail how this quarrel over a handful of peas grew into 
 a church war, with ramifications and interlacements and 
 entanglements and side-issues and under-currents and 
 embroilments of all sorts and conditions. In three years 
 there was a First Congregational Church, in free-stone, 
 solid, substantial, plain, and a Second Congregational 
 
THE TWO CHURCHES OF QUAWKET. 57 
 
 Church in granite, something gingerbready, but showy 
 and modish — for there are fashions in architecture as 
 there are in millinery, and we cut our houses this way 
 this year and that way the next. And these two churches 
 had half a congregation apiece, and a full-sized debt, 
 and they lived together in a spirit of Christian unity, on 
 Capulet and Montague terms. The people of the First 
 Church called the people of the Second Church the 
 " Sadduceeceders," because there was no future for them, 
 and the people of the Second Church called the people 
 of the First Church the " Pharisee-me"s. And this 
 went on year after year, through the Winters when the 
 foxes hugged their holes in the ground within the woods 
 about 'Quawket, through the Summers when the birds 
 of the air twittered in their nests in the great elms of 
 Main Street. 
 
 If the First Church had a revival, the Second 
 Church had a fair. If the pastor of the First Church 
 exchanged with a distinguished preacher from Philadel- 
 phia, the organist of the Second Church got a celebrated 
 tenor from Boston and had a service of song. This 
 system after a time created a class in both churches 
 known as "the floats," in contradistinction to the 
 " pillars." The floats went from one church to the 
 other according to the attractions offered. There were, 
 in the end, more floats than pillars. 
 
 The Reverend Mr. Pursly inherited this contest from 
 his predecessor. He had carried it on for three years. 
 Finally, being a man of logical and precise mental 
 processes, he called the head men of his congregation 
 
5 8 "SHORT SIXES." 
 
 together, and told them what in worldly language might 
 be set down thus : 
 
 There was room for one Congregational Church in 
 'Quawket, and for one only. The flock must be re- 
 united in the parent fold. To do this a master stroke 
 was necessary. They must build a Parish House. All 
 of which was true beyond question — and yet — the 
 church had a debt of $20,000 and a Parish House 
 would cost $15,000. 
 
 And now the Reverend Mr. Pursly was sitting at 
 his study window, wondering why all the rich men would 
 join the Episcopal Church. He cast down his eyes, and 
 saw a rich man coming up his path who could readily 
 have given $15,000 for a Parish House, and who might 
 safely be expected to give $1.50, if he were rightly 
 approached. A shade of bitterness crept over Mr. 
 Pursly's professional smile. Then a look of puzzled 
 wonder took possession of his face. Brother Joash Hitt 
 was regular in his attendance at church and at prayer- 
 meeting; but he kept office-hours in his religion, as in 
 everything else, and never before had he called upon 
 his pastor. 
 
 Two minutes later, the minister was nervously shak- 
 ing hands with Brother Joash Hitt. 
 
 " I 'm very glad to see you, Mr. Hitt," he stam- 
 mered, "very glad — I'm — I'm — " 
 
 "S'prised?" suggested Mr. Hitt, grimly. 
 
 " Won't you sit down ? " asked Mr. Pursly. 
 
 Mr. Hitt sat down in the darkest corner of the 
 room, and glared at his embarrassed host. He was a 
 
THE TWO CHURCHES OE 'QUAWKET. jg 
 
 huge old man, bent, heavily-built, with grizzled dark 
 hair, black eyes, skin tanned to a mahogany brown, 
 a heavy square under-jaw, and big leathery dew-laps on 
 each side of it that looked as hard as the jaw itself. 
 Brother Joash had been all things in his long life — sea- 
 captain, commission merchant, speculator, slave-dealer 
 even, people said — and all things to his profit. Of late 
 years he had turned over his capital in money-lending, 
 and people said that his great claw-like fingers had 
 grown crooked with holding the tails of his mortgages. 
 
 A silence ensued. The pastor looked up and saw 
 that Brother Joash had no intention of breaking it. 
 
 " Can I do any thing for you, Mr. Hitt?" inquired 
 Mr. Pursly. 
 
 "Ya-as," said the old man. " Ye kin. I b'leeve 
 you gin'lly git sump'n' over 'n' above your sellery when 
 you preach a fun'l sermon?" 
 
 "Well, Mr. Hitt, it — yes — it is customary." 
 
 " How much ?" 
 
 "The usual honorarium is — h'm — ten dollars." 
 
 "The — whut? " 
 
 '• The — the fee." 
 
 '■ Will you write me one for ten dollars ? " 
 
 "Why — why — " said the minister, nervously; 
 " I did n't know that any one had — had died — " 
 
 " There hain't no one died, ez I know. It 's ?ny 
 fun'l sermon I want." 
 
 "But, my dear Mr. Hitt, I trust you are not — 
 that you won't — that — " 
 
 << Life's a rope of sand, parson — you'd ought to 
 
6o "SHORT SIXES." 
 
 know that — nor we don't none of us know when it 's 
 goin' to fetch loost. I 'm most ninety now, 'n' I don't 
 cal'late to git no younger." 
 
 "Well," said Mr. Pursly, faintly smiling; "when 
 the time does come — " 
 
 "No, sir.'" interrupted Mr. Hitt, with emphasis; 
 "when the time doos come, I won't have no use for it. 
 Th' ain't no sense in the way most folks is berrid. 
 Whut 's th' use of puttin' a man into a mahog'ny coffin, 
 with a silver plate big 's a dishpan, an' preachin' a fun'l 
 sermon over him, an' costin' his estate good money, 
 when he 's only a poor deef, dumb, blind fool corpse, 
 an' don't get no good of it ? Naow, I 've be'n to the 
 undertaker's, an' hed my coffin made under my own 
 sooperveesion — good wood, straight grain, no knots — 
 nuthin' fancy, but doorable. I 've hed my tombstun 
 cut, an' chose my text to put onto it — 'we brung 
 nuthin' into the world, an' it is certain we can take 
 nuthin' out' — an' now I want my fun'l sermon, jes' as 
 the other folks is goin' to hear it who don't pay nuthin' 
 for it. Kin you hev it ready for me this day week?" 
 
 " I suppose so," said Mr. Pursly, weakly. 
 
 " I '11 call fer it," said the old man. " Heern some 
 talk about a Perrish House, did n't I ?" 
 
 "Yes," began Mr. Pursly, his face lighting up. 
 
 " 'T ain't no sech a bad /dee," remarked Brother 
 Joash. "Wal, good day." And he walked off before the 
 minister could say any thing more. 
 
THE TWO CHURCHES OF 'QUAWKET. 61 
 
 One week later, Mr. Pursly again sat in his study, 
 looking at Brother Joash, who had a second time settled 
 himself in the dark corner. 
 
 It had been a terrible week for Mr. Pursly. He and 
 his conscience, and his dream of the Parish House, had 
 been shut up together working over that sermon, and 
 waging a war of compromises. The casualties in this 
 war were all on the side of the conscience. 
 
 " Read it ! " commanded Brother Joash. The min- 
 ister grew pale. This was more than he had expected. 
 He grew pale and then red and then pale again. 
 
 " Go ahead ! " said Brother Joash. 
 
 " Brethren," began Mr. Pursly, and then he stopped 
 short. His pulpit voice sounded strange in his little study. 
 
 " Go ahead ! " said Brother Joash. 
 
 "We are gathered together here to-day to pay a 
 last tribute of respect and affection — " 
 
 "Ok!" There was a sound like the report of a 
 small pistol. Mr. Pursly looked up. Brother Joash 
 regarded him with stern intentness. 
 
 " — to one of the oldest and most prominent 
 citizens of our town, a pillar of our church, and a 
 monument of the civic virtues of probity, industry and 
 wisdom, a man in whom we all took pride, and — " 
 
 "Ok!" Mr. Pursly looked up more quickly this 
 time, and a faint suggestion of an expression just vanish- 
 ing from Mr. Hitt's lips awakened in his unsuspicious 
 breast a horrible suspicion that Brother Joash had 
 chuckled. 
 
 " — whose like we shall not soon again see in our 
 
6s •'SHORT SIXES." 
 
 midst. The children on the streets will miss his familiar 
 face — " 
 
 " Say ! " broke in Brother Joash, " how 'd it be for 
 a delegation of child'n to foller the remains, with flowers 
 or sump'n' ? They 'd volunteer if you give 'em the hint, 
 would n't they? " 
 
 "It would be — unusual," said the minister. 
 
 " All right," assented Mr. Hitt, "only an z'dee of 
 mine. Thought they might like it. Go ahead !" 
 
 Mr. Pursly went ahead, haunted by an agonizing 
 fear of that awful chuckle, if chuckle it was. But he got 
 along without interruption until he reached a casual and 
 guarded allusion to the widows and orphans without 
 whom no funeral oration is complete. Here the metallic 
 voice of Brother Joash rang out again. 
 
 " Say ! Ef the widders and orphans send a wreath 
 — or a Gates- Ajar — ef they do, mind ye ! — you '11 hev 
 it put a-top of the coffin, where folks '11 see it, wun't ye?" 
 
 "Certainly," said the Reverend Mr. Pursly, hastily; 
 " his charities were unostentatious, as was the whole 
 tenor of his life. In these days of spendthrift extrava- 
 gance, our young men may well — " 
 
 " Say ! " Brother Joash broke in once more. " Ef 
 any one wuz to git up right there, an' say that I wuz the 
 derndest meanest, miserly, penurious, parsimonious old 
 hunks in 'Quawket, you would n't let him talk like that, 
 would ye? " 
 
 " Unquestionably not, Mr. Hitt ! " said the minister, 
 in horror. 
 
 " Thought not. On'y thet 's whut I heern one o' 
 
THE TWO CHURCHES OF 'QUAWKET. bj 
 
 your deacons say about me the other day. Did n't know 
 I heern him, but I did. I thought you would n't allow 
 no such talk as that. Go ahead ! " 
 
 "I must ask you, Mr. Hitt," Mr. Pursly said, per- 
 spiring at every pore, " to refrain from interruptions — 
 or I — I really — can not continue." 
 
 "All right," returned Mr. Hitt, with perfect calm- 
 ness. "Continner." 
 
 Mr. Pursly continued to the bitter end, with no 
 further interruption that called for remonstrance. There 
 were soft inarticulate sounds that seemed to him to come 
 from Brother Joash's dark corner. But it might have 
 been the birds in the Ampelopsis Veitchii that covered 
 the house. 
 
 Brother Joash expressed no opinion, good or ill, of 
 the address. He paid his ten dollars, in one-dollar bills, 
 and took his receipt. But as the anxious minister fol- 
 lowed him to the door, he turned suddenly and said: 
 
 " You was talkin' 'bout a Perrish House?" 
 
 "Yes — " 
 
 " Kin ye keep a secret?" 
 
 "I hope so — yes, certainly, Mr. Hitt." 
 
 " The' '11 be one." 
 
 " I feel," said the Reverend Mr. Pursly to his wife, 
 " as if I had carried every stone of that Parish House 
 on my shoulders and put it in its place. Can you make 
 me a cup of tea, my dear? " 
 
6/ 
 
 SHORT SIXES. 
 
 The Summer days had begun to grow chill, and tht 
 great elms of 'Quawket were flecked with patches and 
 spots of yellow, when, early one morning, the meagre 
 little charity-boy whose duty 
 it was to black Mr. Hitt's 
 boots every day — it was a 
 luxury he allowed himself in 
 his old age — rushed, pale 
 and frightened, into a neigh- 
 boring grocery, and cried: 
 "Mist' Hitt 's dead!" 
 "Guess not," said the 
 grocer, doubtfully. "Brother 
 Hitt 's gut th' Old Nick's 
 agency for 'Quawket, 'n' I ain't 
 heerd th't he 's been discharged 
 for inattention to dooty." 
 " He 's layin' there smilin'," said the boy. 
 " Smilin'?" repeated the grocer. " Guess I'd better 
 go 'n' see." 
 
 In very truth, Brother Joash lay there in his bed, 
 dead and cold, with a smile on his hard old lips, the first 
 he had ever worn. And a most sardonic and discom- 
 forting smile it was. 
 
 The Reverend Mr. Pursly read Mr. Hitt's funeral 
 address for the second time, in the First Congregational 
 Church of 'Quawket. Every seat was filled; every ear 
 
THE TWO CHURCHES OF QUAWKET. 6j 
 
 was attentive. He stood on the platform, and below 
 him, supported on decorously covered trestles, stood the 
 coffin that enclosed all that was mortal of Brother Joash 
 Hitt. Mr. Pursly read with his face immovably set on 
 the line of the clock in the middle of the choir-gallery 
 railing. He did not dare to look down at the sardonic 
 smile in the coffin below him; he did not dare to let his 
 eye wander to the dark left-hand corner of the church, 
 remembering the dark left-hand corner of his own study. 
 And as he repeated each complimentary, obsequious, 
 flattering platitude, a hideous, hysterical fear grew 
 stronger and stronger within him that suddenly he would 
 be struck dumb by the "elk!" of that mirthless chuckle 
 that had sounded so much like a pistol-shot. His voice 
 was hardly audible in the benediction. 
 
 The streets of 'Ouawket were at their gayest and 
 brightest when the mourners drove home from the ceme- 
 tery at the close of the noontide hour. The mourners 
 were principally the deacons and elders of the First 
 Church. The Reverend Mr. Pursly lay back in his seat 
 with a pleasing yet fatigued consciousness of duty per- 
 formed and martyrdom achieved. He was exhausted, 
 but humbly happy. As they drove along, he looked with 
 a speculative eye on one or two eligible sites for the 
 Parish House. His companion in the carriage was Mr. 
 Uriel Hankinson, Brother Joash's lawyer, whose entire 
 character had been aptly summed up by one of his 
 
66 
 
 SHORT sixes: 
 
 fellow-citizens in conferring on him the designation of 
 "a little Joash for one cent." 
 
 "Parson," said Mr. Hankinson, breaking a long 
 silence, "that was a fust-rate 
 oration you made." 
 
 " I 'm glad to hear you 
 say so," replied Mr. 
 Pursly, his chronic 
 smile broadening. 
 "You treated the- de- 
 ceased right handsome, 
 considerin'," went on the 
 lawyer Hankinson. 
 
 " Considering what ? " 
 inquired Mr. Pursly, in 
 surprise. 
 
 " Considerin' — well, con- 
 siderin' — " replied Mr. Hank- 
 inson, with a wave of his hand. 
 "You must feel to be reel disap- 
 p'inted 'bout the Parish House, 
 I sh'd s'pose. " 
 "The Parish House?" repeated the Reverend Mr. 
 Pursly, with a cold chill at his heart, but with dignity in 
 his voice. "You may not be aware, Mr. Hankinson, 
 that I have Mr. Hitt's promise that we should have a 
 Parish House. And Mr. Hitt was — was — a man of his 
 word." This conclusion sounded to his own ears a trifle 
 lame and impotent. 
 
 " Guess you had his promise that there should be 
 
The two churches of 'quAWkeT. 
 
 6? 
 
 a Parish House," corrected the lawyer, with a chuckle 
 that might have been a faint echo of Brother Joash's. 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 "Well — the Second Church gits it. I draw'd his 
 will. Good day, parson, I '11 'light here. Air 's kind o' 
 cold, ain't it ?" 
 
THE LOVE-LETTERS 
 OF SMITH. 
 
" A peculiar gritting noise made her look down." 
 
THE LOVE-LETTERS OF SMITH. 
 
 Y\ Then the little seamstress had climbed to her 
 ™ " room in the story over the top story of the great 
 brick tenement house in which she lived, she was quite 
 tired out. If you do not understand what a story over a 
 top story is, you must remember that there are no 
 limits to human greed, and hardly any to the height of 
 tenement houses. When the man who owned that seven- 
 story tenement found that he could rent another floor, 
 he found no difficulty in persuading the guardians of 
 our building laws to let him clap another story on the 
 roof, like a cabin on the deck of a ship ; and in the 
 southeasterly of the four apartments on this floor the 
 little seamstress lived. You could just see the top of her 
 window from the street — the huge cornice that had 
 capped the original front, and that served as her window- 
 sill now, quite hid all the lower part of the story on top 
 of the top-story. 
 
 The little seamstress was scarcely thirty years old, 
 but she was such an old-fashioned little body in so many 
 of her looks and ways that I had almost spelled her 
 sempstress, after the fashion of our grandmothers. She 
 
J 2 " SHORT SIXES." 
 
 had been a comely body, too ; and would have been still, 
 if she had not been thin and pale and anxious-eyed. 
 
 She was tired out to-night because she had been 
 working hard all day for a lady who lived far up in the 
 " New Wards" beyond Harlem River, and after the long 
 journey home, she had to climb seven flights of tene- 
 ment-house stairs. She was too tired, both in body and 
 in mind, to cook the two little chops she had brought 
 home. She would save them for breakfast, she thought. 
 So she made herself a cup of tea on the miniature stove, 
 and ate a slice of dry bread with it. It was too much 
 trouble to make toast. 
 
 But after dinner she watered her flowers. She was 
 never too tired for that: and the six pots of geraniums 
 that caught the south sun on the top of the cornice did 
 their best to repay her. Then she sat down in her rock- 
 ing chair by the window and looked out. Her eyry was 
 high above all the other buildings, and she could look 
 across some low roofs opposite, and see the further end 
 of Tompkins Square, with its sparse Spring green show- 
 ing faintly through the dusk. The eternal roar of the 
 city floated up to her and vaguely troubled her. She 
 was a country girl, and although she had lived for ten 
 years in New York, she had never grown used to that 
 ceaseless murmur. To-night she felt the languor of 
 the new season as well as the heaviness of physical 
 exhaustion. She was almost too tired to go to bed. 
 
 She thought of the hard day done and the hard day 
 to be begun after the night spent on the hard little bed. 
 She thought of the peaceful days in the country, when 
 
THE LOVE-LETTERS OF SMITH. 73 
 
 she taught school in the Massachusetts village where she 
 was born. She thought of a hundred small slights that 
 she had to bear from people better fed than bred. She 
 thought of the sweet green fields that she rarely saw 
 nowadays. She thought of the long journey forth and 
 back that must begin and end her morrow's work, and 
 she wondered if her employer would think to offer to pay 
 her fare. Then she pulled herself together. She must 
 think of more agreeable things, or she could not sleep. 
 And as the only agreeable things she had to think about 
 were her flowers, she looked at the garden on top of 
 the cornice. 
 
 A peculiar gritting noise made her look down, and 
 she saw a cylindrical object that glittered in the twilight, 
 advancing in an irregular and uncertain manner toward 
 her flower-pots. Looking closer, she saw that it was a 
 pewter beer-mug, which somebody in the next apartment 
 was pushing with a two-foot rule. On top of the beer- 
 mug was a piece of paper, and on this paper was written, 
 in a sprawling, half-formed hand : 
 
 porter 
 
 pleas excuse the libberty And 
 
 drink it 
 
 The seamstress started up in terror, and shut the 
 window. She remembered that there was a man in the 
 next apartment. She had seen him on the stairs, on 
 Sundays. He seemed a grave, decent person ; but — he 
 must be drunk. She sat down on her bed, all a-tremble. 
 Then she reasoned with herself. The man was drunk, 
 
74 "SHORT SIXES." 
 
 that was all. He probably would not annoy her further. 
 And if he did, she had only to retreat to Mrs. Mulvaney's 
 apartment in the rear, and Mr. Mulvaney, who was a 
 highly respectable man and worked in a boiler-shop, 
 would protect her. So, being a poor woman who had 
 already had occasion to excuse — and refuse — two or 
 three " libberties " of like sort, she made up her mind to 
 go to bed like a reasonable seamstress, and she did. She 
 was rewarded, for when her light was out, she could see 
 in the moonlight that the two-foot rule appeared again, 
 with one joint bent back, hitched itself into the mug- 
 handle, and withdrew the mug. 
 
 The next day was a hard one for the little seam- 
 stress, and she hardly thought of the affair of the 
 night before until the same hour had come around again, 
 and she sat once more by her window. Then she smiled 
 at the remembrance. "Poor fellow," she said in her 
 charitable heart, "I 've no doubt he 's awfully ashamed 
 of it now. Perhaps he was never tipsy before. Perhaps 
 he did n't know there was a lone woman in here to be 
 frightened." 
 
 Just then she heard a gritting sound. She looked 
 down. The pewter pot was in front of her, and the 
 two-foot rule was slowly retiring. On the pot was a 
 piece of paper, and on the paper was : 
 
 porter- 
 good for the helth 
 it makes meet 
 
 This time the little seamstress shut her window 
 
THE LOVE-LETTERS OF SMITH. 75 
 
 with a bang of indignation. The color rose to her pale 
 cheeks. She thought that she would go down to see the 
 janitor at once. Then she remembered the seven nights 
 of stairs ; and she resolved to see the janitor in the 
 morning. Then she went to bed and saw the mug 
 drawn back just as it had been drawn back the night 
 before. 
 
 The morning came, but, somehow, the seamstress 
 did not care to complain to the janitor. She hated to 
 make trouble — and the janitor might think — and — 
 and — well, if the wretch did it again she would speak 
 to him herself, and that would settle it. 
 
 And so, on the next night, which was a Thursday, 
 the little seamstress sat down by her window, resolved 
 to settle the matter. And she had not sat there long, 
 rocking in the creaking little rocking-chair which she 
 had brought with her from her old home, when the 
 pewter pot hove in sight, with a piece of paper on 
 the top. 
 
 This time the legend read : 
 
 Perhaps you are afrade i will 
 
 adress you 
 
 i am not that kind 
 
 The seamstress did not quite know whether to 
 laugh or to cry. But she felt that the time had come 
 for speech. She leaned out of her window and addressed 
 the twilight heaven. 
 
 "Mr. — Mr. — sir — I — will you please put your 
 head out of the window so that I can speak to you ? " 
 
76 "SHORT SIXES." 
 
 The silence of the other room was undisturbed. 
 The seamstress drew back, blushing. But before she 
 could nerve herself for another attack, a piece of paper 
 appeared on the end of the two-foot rule. 
 
 ■when i Say a thing i 
 mene it 
 
 i have Sed i would not 
 A dress you and i 
 Will not 
 
 What was the little seamstress to do? She stood by 
 the window and thought hard about it. Should she 
 complain to the janitor? But the creature was perfectly 
 respectful. No doubt he meant to be kind. He cer- 
 tainly was kind, to waste these pots of porter on her. 
 She remembered the last time — and the first — that she 
 had drunk porter. It was at home, when she was a 
 young girl, after she had had the diphtheria. She 
 remembered how good it was, and how it had given her 
 back her strength. And without one thought of what 
 she was doing, she lifted the pot of porter and took one 
 little reminiscent sip — two little reminiscent sips — and 
 became aware of her utter fall and defeat. She blushed 
 now as she had never blushed before, put the pot down, 
 closed the window, and fled to her bed like a deer to 
 the woods. 
 
 And when the porter arrived the next night, bear- 
 ing the simple appeal : 
 
 Dont be afrade of it 
 drink it all 
 
THE LOVE-LETTERS OF SMITH. 
 
 77 
 
 the little seamstress arose and grasped 
 the pot firmly by the handle, and 
 poured its contents over the earth 
 around her largest geranium. She 
 poured the contents out to the last s 
 
 drop, and then she dropped the 
 pot, and ran back and sat on her 
 bed and cried, with her face hid in 
 her hands. 
 
 "Now," she said to herself, 
 " you Ve done it ! And you 're just as 
 nasty and hard-hearted and suspicious and mean as — 
 as pusley ! " 
 
 And she wept to think of her hardness of heart. 
 " He will never give me a chance to say I am sorry," she 
 thought. And, really, she might have spoken kindly to 
 the poor man, and told him that she was much obliged 
 to him, but that he really must n't ask her to drink porter 
 with him. 
 
 " But it 's all over and done now," she said to her- 
 self as she sat at her window on Saturday night. And 
 then she looked at the cornice, and saw the faithful little 
 pewter pot traveling slowly toward her. 
 
 She was conquered. This act of Christian forbear- 
 ance was too much for her kindly spirit. She read the 
 inscription on the paper: 
 
 porter is good for Flours 
 but better for Fokes 
 
 and she lifted the pot to her lips, which were not half 
 
7* 
 
 SHORT SIXES." 
 
 so red as her cheeks, and took a good, hearty, grateful 
 draught. 
 
 She sipped in thoughtful silence after this first 
 plunge, and presently she was surprised to find the bot- 
 tom of the pot in full view. 
 
 On the table at her side a few 
 pearl buttons were screwed up 
 in a bit of white paper. She un- 
 twisted the paper and smoothed 
 it out, and wrote in a tremulous 
 hand — she could write a very 
 neat hand — 
 
 Thanks. 
 
 This she laid on the top of 
 the pot, and in a moment the 
 bent two-foot-rule appeared and 
 drew the mail - carriage home. 
 Then she sat still, enjoying the warm 
 glow of the porter, which seemed to have permeated 
 her entire being with a heat that was not at all like the 
 unpleasant and oppressive heat of the atmosphere, an 
 atmosphere heavy with the Spring damp. A gritting on 
 the tin aroused her. A piece of paper lay under her eyes. 
 
 fine groing weather 
 
 ., Smith 
 
 it said. 
 
 Now it is unlikely that in the whole round and range 
 
 of conversational commonplaces there was one other 
 
 greeting that could have induced the seamstress to 
 
THE LOVE-LETTERS OF SMITH. 
 
 79 
 
 continue the exchange of communications. But this sim- 
 ple and homely phrase touched her country heart. What 
 did "groing weather" matter to the toilers in this 
 waste of brick and mortar? This stranger must be, 
 like herself, a country-bred soul, longing for the new 
 green and the upturned brown mould of the country 
 fields. She took up the paper, and wrote under the 
 first message : 
 
 Fine 
 
 But that seemed curt; for she added: "for" 
 what? She did not know. At last in desperation she 
 put down potatos. The piece of paper was withdrawn 
 and came back with an addition : 
 
 Too mist for potatos. 
 
 And when the little seamstress had read this, and 
 grasped the fact that m-i-s-t represented the writer's 
 pronunciation of "moist," she laughed softly to herself. 
 A man whose mind, at such a time, was seriously bent 
 upon potatos, was not a man to be feared. She found a 
 half-sheet of note-paper, and wrote: 
 
 / lived in a small village before I came to New 
 York, but I am afraid I do not know much about 
 farming. Are you a farmer? 
 
 The answer came : 
 
 have ben most Every thing 
 farmed a Spel in Maine 
 
 Smith 
 
So ''SHORT SIXES." 
 
 As she read this, the seamstress heard a church 
 clock strike nine. 
 
 "Bless me, is it so late?" she cried, and she hur- 
 riedly penciled Good Night, thrust the paper out, and 
 closed the window. But a few minutes later, passing by, 
 she saw yet another bit of paper on the cornice, flutter- 
 ing in the evening breeze. It said only good nite, and 
 after a moment's hesitation, the little seamstress took it 
 in and gave it shelter. 
 
 After this, they were the best of friends. Every 
 evening the pot appeared, and while the seamstress 
 drank from it at her window, Mr. Smith drank 
 from its twin at his ; and notes were 
 exchanged as rapidly as Mr. Smith's 
 early education permitted. They 
 told each other their his- 
 tories, and Mr. Smith's 
 was one of travel and 
 variety, which he seemed 
 to consider quite a mat- 
 ter of course. He had 
 followed the sea, he had 
 farmed, he had been a 
 logger and a hunter in 
 the Maine woods. Now 
 he was foreman of an East 
 River lumber yard, and he 
 
THE LOVE-LETTERS OF SMITH. 
 
 Si 
 
 was prospering. In a year or two he would have enough 
 
 laid by to go home to Bucksport and buy a share in a 
 
 ship-building business. All this dribbled out in the 
 
 course of a jerky but variegated correspondence, in 
 
 which autobiographic details were mixed with reflections, 
 
 moral and philosophical. 
 
 A few samples will give an idea of Mr. Smith's 
 
 style : 
 
 i was one trip to van demens 
 
 land 
 To which the seamstress replied : 
 
 It must have been very interesting. 
 But Mr. Smith disposed of this subject very briefly: 
 
 it wornt 
 Further he vouchsafed: 
 
 i seen a Chinese cook in 
 
 hong kong could cook flapjacks 
 
 like your Mother 
 
 a mishnery that sells Rum 
 is the menest of Gods crechers 
 
 a bulfite is not what it is 
 cract up to Be 
 
 the dagos are wussen the 
 brutes 
 
 i am 6 I }£ 
 
 but my Father was 6 foot 4 
 
 The seamstress had taught school one Winter, and 
 
Ss ''SHOUT SIXES." 
 
 she could not refrain from making an attempt to reform 
 Mr. Smith's orthography. One evening, in answer to 
 this communication : 
 
 i killd a Bare in Maine 600 
 lbs ivaight 
 she wrote : 
 
 Is n't it generally spelled Bear? 
 
 but she gave up the attempt when he responded: 
 
 a bare is a mene animle any 
 way yon spel him 
 
 The Spring wore on, and the Summer came, and 
 still the evening drink and the evening correspondence 
 brightened the close of each day for the little seamstress. 
 And the draught of porter put her to sleep each night, 
 giving her a calmer rest than she had ever known during 
 her stay in the noisy city; and it began, moreover, to 
 make a little " meet" for her. And then the thought 
 that she was going to have an hour of pleasant com- 
 panionship somehow gave her courage to cook and eat 
 her little dinner, however tired she was. The seamstress's 
 cheeks began to blossom with the June roses. 
 
 And all this time Mr. Smith kept his vow of silence 
 unbroken, though the seamstress sometimes tempted him 
 with little ejaculations and exclamations to which he 
 might have responded. He was silent and invisible. 
 Only the smoke of his pipe, and the clink of his mug 
 as he set it down on the cornice, told her that a living, 
 material Smith was her correspondent. They never met 
 
THE LOVE-LETTERS OF SMITH. 
 
 on the stairs, for their hours of coming and going did not 
 coincide. Once or twice they passed each other in the 
 street — but Mr. Smith looked straight ahead of him, 
 about a foot over her head. The little seamstress thought 
 he was a very fine-looking man, with his six feet one and 
 three-quarters and his thick brown beard. Most people 
 would have called him plain. 
 
 Once she spoke to him. She was coming home 
 one Summer evening, and a gang of corner- loafers 
 stopped her and demanded money to buy beer, as is 
 their custom. Before she had time to be frightened, 
 Mr. Smith appeared — whence, she knew 
 not — scattered the gang like chaff, 
 and, collaring two of the human 
 hyenas, kicked them, with deliber- 
 ate, ponderous, alternate kicks 
 until they writhed in ineffable 
 agony. When he let them 
 crawl away, she turned to him 
 and thanked him warmly, look- 
 ing very pretty now, with the 
 color in her cheeks. But Mr. 
 Smith answered no word. 
 He stared over her head, 
 grew red in the face, fidgeted 
 nervously, but held his peace 
 until his eyes fell on a rotund 
 Teuton, passing by. 
 
 "Say, Dutchy ! " he roared. 
 
 The German stood aghast. 
 
 7 
 
short sixes: 
 
 " 1 ain't got nothing to write with ! " thundered Mr. 
 Smith, looking him in the eye. And then the man of 
 his word passed on his way. 
 
 And so the Summer went on, and the two cor- 
 respondents chatted silently from window to window, hid 
 from sight of all the world below by the friendly cornice. 
 And they looked out over the roof, 
 and saw the green of Tomp- 
 kins Square grow darker 
 and dustier as the months 
 went on. 
 
 Mr. Smith was given to 
 Sunday trips into the sub- 
 urbs, and he never came 
 back without a bunch of 
 daisies or black-eyed Su- 
 sans or, later, asters or 
 golden - rod for the little 
 seamstress. Sometimes, with 
 a sagacity rare in his sex, he 
 brought her a whole plant, with 
 fresh loam for potting. 
 He gave her also a reel in a bottle, which, he wrote, 
 he had "maid" himself, and some coral, and a dried fly- 
 ing-fish, that was somewhat fearful to look upon, with its 
 sword-like fins and its hollow eyes. At first, she could 
 not go to sleep with that flying-fish hanging on the wall. 
 But he surprised the little seamstress very much 
 one cool September evening, when he shoved this letter 
 along the cornice : 
 
THE LOVE-LETTERS OF SMITH. 8$ 
 
 f '\jumjoC xwuL sfaowwL McwLwl j 
 
 off /wvu A^tOmjcmtl^S/yiarir CiA/tuX- /muAzJft- 
 of.M^L ^AM/i&njL oft '^^^^^^/^w^^W 
 fa ati//U&&n£ /wavt/ti/iXL j££vc -/ux^^uvt'^u. 
 
 <^ad(WVl<k VAvM/tZ^X<rna\^Jkr CtffiAOwUi- /UovL 
 wMs?f^/y^/wUh- £uZaZ££- 9^Aw6iCo<J^C^ £ 
 
 cficrrwt syncohu at owul zAu. ZUM$y ttfwt s£wL 
 €/^m/voimc of dwwLm /nrfiv /yutn^Ccc-m <&£ syuor- 
 
 ^AaJma. owl mthvU, scflioAmi' asnct /tA/Jua4 ^Ju?u&- 
 
<?rt " SHORT SIXES." 
 
 The little seamstress gazed at this letter a long time. 
 Perhaps she was wondering in what Ready Letter-Writer 
 of the last century Mr. Smith had found 
 his form. Perhaps she was amazed 
 at the results of his first attempt at 
 punctuation. Perhaps she was think- 
 ing of something else, for there were 
 tears in her eyes and a smile on her 
 small mouth. 
 
 But it must have been a long 
 time, and Mr. Smith must have 
 grown nervous, for presently another 
 communication came along the line 
 where the top of the cornice was worn 
 smooth. It read : 
 
 If not understood will you 
 inary vie 
 
 The little seamstress seized a piece of paper and 
 wrote : 
 
 If I say 1 r es, will you speak to me ? 
 
 Then she rose and passed it out to him, leaning out 
 of the window, and their faces met. 
 
ZENOBIA'S INFIDELITY. 
 
k 
 
 ■^ 
 
 "^ 
 
 c. 
 
 "S. 
 
 ^■V; -, 
 
ZENOBIA'S INFIDELITY. 
 
 R. Tibbitt stood on the porch of Mrs. Pen- 
 nypepper's boarding-house, and looked 
 up and down the deserted Main Street 
 of Sagawaug with a contented smile, 
 the while he buttoned his driving- 
 gloves. The little doctor had good 
 cause to be content with himself and with 
 everything else — with his growing practice, with his 
 comfortable boarding-house, with his own good-looks, 
 with his neat attire, and with the world in general. He 
 could not but be content with Sagawaug, for there never 
 was a prettier country town. The Doctor looked across 
 the street and picked out the very house that he pro- 
 posed to buy when the one remaining desire of his soul 
 was gratified. It was a house with a hip-roof and with a 
 long garden running down to the river. 
 
 There was no one in the house to-day, but there 
 was no one in any of the houses. Not even a pair of 
 round bare arms was visible among the clothes that 
 waved in the August breeze in every back-yard. It was 
 Circus Day in Sagawaug. 
 
go "SHORT SIXES." 
 
 The Doctor was climbing into his gig when a yell 
 startled him. A freckled boy with saucer eyes dashed 
 around the corner. 
 
 "Doctor!" he gasped, " come quick ! The circus 
 got a- fire an' the trick elephant 's most roasted ! " 
 
 " Don't be silly, Johnny," said the Doctor, re- 
 provingly. 
 
 " Hope to die — Honest Injun — cross my breast ! '' 
 said the boy. The Doctor knew the sacredness of this 
 juvenile oath. 
 
 " Get in here with me," he said, " and if I find 
 you 're trying to be funny, I '11 drop you in the river." 
 
 As they drove toward the outskirts of the town, 
 Johnny told his tale. 
 
 "Now," he began, "the folks was all out of the 
 tent after the show was over, and one of the circus men, 
 he went to the oil-barrel in the green wagon with Dan'l 
 in the Lion's Den onto the outside of it, an' he took in a 
 candle an' left it there, and fust thing the barrel busted, 
 an' he was n't hurted a bit, but the trick elephant she 
 was burned awful, an' the ring-tailed baboon, he was 
 so scared he had a fit. Say, did you know baboons 
 had fits?" 
 
 When they reached the circus-grounds, they found 
 a crowd around a small side-show tent. A strong odor 
 of burnt leather confirmed Johnny's story. Dr. Tibbitt 
 pushed his way through the throng, and gazed upon the 
 huge beast, lying on her side on the grass, her broad 
 shoulder charred and quivering. Her bulk expanded 
 and contracted with spasms of agony, and from time to 
 
ZENOBIA'S INFIDELITY. gi 
 
 time she uttered a moaning sound. On her head was a 
 structure of red cloth, about the size of a bushel-basket, 
 apparently intended to look like a British soldier's 
 forage-cap. This was secured by a strap that 
 went under her chin — if an elephant has a 
 chin. This scarlet cheese-box every now and 
 then slipped down over her eye, and the 
 faithful animal patiently, in all her anguish, 
 adjusted it with her prehensile trunk. 
 
 By her side stood her keeper and the 
 proprietor of the show, a large man with a 
 dyed moustache, a wrinkled face, and hair 
 oiled and frizzed. These two bewailed their lose 
 alternately. 
 
 " The boss elephant in the business ! " cried the 
 showman. " Barnum never had no trick elephant like 
 Zenobia. And them lynes and Dan'l was painted in new 
 before I took the road this season. Oh, there 's been a 
 hoodoo on me since I showed ag'inst the Sunday-school 
 picnic ! " 
 
 " That there elephant 's been like my own child," 
 groaned the keeper, " or my own wife, I may say. I 've 
 slep' alongside of her every night for fourteen damn 
 years." 
 
 The Doctor had been carefully examining his 
 patient. 
 
 " If there is any analogy — " he began. 
 
 " Neuralogy ! " snorted the indignant showman; 
 " 't ain't neuralogy, you jay pill-box, she 's cooked ! " 
 
 (t If there is any analogy," repeated Dr. Tibbitt, 
 
g2 "SHORT SIXES." 
 
 flushing a little, "between her case and that of a human 
 being, I think I can save your elephant. Get me a 
 barrel of linseed oil, and drive these people away." 
 
 The Doctor's orders were obeyed with eager sub- 
 mission. He took off his coat, and went to work. He 
 had never doctored an elephant, and the job interested 
 him. At the end of an hour, Zenobia's sufferings were 
 somewhat alleviated. She lay on her side, chained 
 tightly to the ground, and swaddled in bandages. Her 
 groans had ceased. 
 
 "I'll call to-morrow at noon," said the Doctor — 
 "good gracious, what's that?" Zenobia's trunk was 
 playing around his waistband. 
 
 " She wants to shake hands with you," her 
 keeper explained. " She 's a lady, she is, and she 
 knows you done her good." 
 
 "I 'd rather not have any thing of the sort," said 
 the Doctor, decisively. 
 
 When Dr. Tibbitt called at twelve on the morrow, 
 he found Zenobia's tent neatly roped in, an amphitheatre 
 of circus-benches constructed around her, and this 
 ampnitheatre packed with people. 
 
 " Got a quarter apiece from them jays," whispered 
 ihe showman, "jest to see you dress them wownds." 
 Subsequently the showman relieved his mind to a casual 
 acquaintance. " He 's got a heart like a gun-flint, that 
 doctor," he said; "made me turn out every one of them 
 jays and give 'em their money back before he 'd lay a 
 hand to Zenobia. " 
 
 But if the Doctor suppressed the clinic, neither he 
 
ZENOBIA'S INFIDELITY. 
 
 93 
 
 nor the showman suffered. From dawn till dusk people 
 came from miles around to stare a quarter's worth at the 
 burnt elephant. Once in a while, as a rare treat, the 
 keeper lifted a corner of her bandages, and revealed the 
 seared flesh. The show went off in a day or two, leav- 
 ing Zenobia to recover at leisure ; and as it wandered 
 westward, it did an increased business simply because it 
 had had a burnt trick elephant. Such, dear friends, is 
 the human mind. 
 
 The Doctor fared even better. The fame of his 
 new case spread far and wide. People seemed to think 
 that if he could cure an elephant 
 he could cure any thing. He was 
 called into consultation in 
 neighboring towns. Women 
 in robust health imagined 
 ailments, so as to send for 
 him and ask him shudder- 
 ing questions about " that 
 wretched animal." The trust- 
 ees of the orphan-asylum made 
 him staff-physician — in this case 
 
 the Doctor thought he could trace a connection of ideas, 
 in which children and a circus were naturally associated. 
 And the local newspaper called him a savant. 
 
 He called every day upon Zenobia, who greeted 
 him with trumpetings of joyful welcome. She also 
 desired to shake hands with him, and her keeper had to 
 sit on her head and hold her trunk to repress the famil- 
 iarity. In two weeks she was cured, except for extensive 
 
g4 •'SHORT SIXES." 
 
 and permanent scars, and she waited only for a favorable 
 opportunity to rejoin the circus. 
 
 The Doctor had got his fee in advance. 
 
 Upon a sunny afternoon in the last of August, 
 Dr. Tibbitt jogged slowly toward Sagawaug in his neat 
 little gig. He had been to Pelion, the next town, to 
 call upon Miss Minetta Bunker, the young lady whom 
 he desired to install in the house with the garden run- 
 ning down to the river. He had found her starting out 
 for a drive in Tom Matson's dog-cart. Now, the Doctor 
 feared no foe, in medicine or in love; but when a young 
 woman is inscrutable as to the state of her affections, 
 when the richest young man in the county is devoting 
 himself to her, and when the young lady's mother is 
 backing the rich man, a young country doctor may well 
 feel perplexed and anxious over his chance of the prize. 
 
 The Doctor was so troubled, indeed, that he paid 
 no heed to a heavy, repeated thud behind him, on the 
 macadamized road. His gentle little mare heard it, 
 though, and began to curvet and prance. The Doctor 
 was pulling her in, and calming her with a " Soo — 
 Soo — down, girl, down ! " when he interrupted him- 
 self to shout : 
 
 " Great Caesar ! get off me ! " 
 
 Something like a yard of rubber hose had come in 
 through the side of the buggy, and was rubbing itself 
 against his face. He looked around, and the cold sweat 
 stood out on him as he saw Zenobia, her chain dragging 
 
Z&NOBlA'S INFIDELITY 
 
 95 
 
 from her hind-foot, her red cap a-cock on her head, 
 trotting along by the side of his vehicle, snorting with 
 joy, and evidently bent on lavishing her pliant, ser- 
 pentine, but leathery caresses upon his person. 
 
 His fear vanished in a moment. The 
 animal's intentions were certainly pacific, t *£& 
 
 to put it mildly. He reflected that if fv^Al, 
 
 he could keep his horse ahead of As£ ^mf^t?}^ 
 
 ;^J^Sl 
 
 her, he could toll her around 
 the block and back toward 
 her tent. He had hardly 
 guessed, as yet, the depth 
 of the impression which 
 he had made upon Zeno- 
 bia's heart, which must 
 have been a large organ, _J| 
 if the size of her ears was 
 any indication - — according to 
 the popular theory. 
 
 He was on the very edge of the town, and his road 
 took him by a house where he had a new and highly 
 valued patient, the young wife of old Deacon Burgee. 
 Her malady being of a nature that permitted it, Mrs. 
 Burgee was in the habit of sitting at her window when 
 the Doctor made his rounds, and indicating the satisfac- 
 tory state of her health by a bow and a smile. On this 
 occasion she fled from the window with a shriek. Her 
 mother, a formidable old lady under a red false-front, 
 came to the window, shrieked likewise, and slammed 
 down the sash. 
 
go 
 
 'short sixes: 
 
 The Doctor tolled his elephant around the block 
 without further misadventure, and they started up the 
 road toward Zenobia's tent, Zenobia caressing her bene- 
 factor while shudders of antipathy ran _x>ver his frame. 
 In a few minutes the keeper hove in sight. Zenobia 
 saw him first, blew a shrill blast on her trumpet, close 
 to the Doctor's ear, bolted through a snake fence, lum- 
 bered across a turnip-field, and disappeared in a patch 
 of woods, leaving the Doctor to quiet his excited horse 
 and to face the keeper, who ad- 
 vanced with rage in his eye. 
 "What do you mean, you 
 cuss," he began, "weaning 
 a man's elephant's affections 
 away from him ? You ain't 
 got no more morals than a 
 Turk, you ain't. That ele- 
 phant an' me has been side- 
 partners for fourteen years, an' 
 here you come between us." 
 "I don't want your confounded elephant," roared 
 the Doctor; "why don't you keep it chained up?" 
 "She busted her chain to git after you," replied 
 the keeper. "Oh, I seen you two lally-gaggin' all along 
 the road. I knowed you wa'n't no good the first time I 
 set eyes on yer, a-sayin' hoodoo words over the poor 
 dumb beast." 
 
 The Doctor resolved to banish " analogy " from his 
 vocabulary. 
 
ZENOBIA S INFIDELITY. Qf 
 
 The next morning, about four o'clock, Dr. Tibbitt 
 awoke with a troubled mind. He had driven home after 
 midnight from a late call, and he had had an uneasy 
 fancy that he saw a great shadowy bulk ambling along 
 in the mist-hid fields by the roadside. He jumped out 
 of bed and went to the window. Below him, completely 
 covering Mrs. Pennypepper's nasturtium bed, her pre- 
 hensile trunk ravaging the early chrysanthemums, stood 
 Zenobia, swaying to and fro, the dew glistening on her 
 seamed sides beneath the early morning sunlight. The 
 Doctor hastily dressed himself and slipped downstairs 
 and out, to meet this Frankenstein's-monster of affection. 
 
 There was but one thing to do. Zenobia would fol- 
 low him wherever he went — she rushed madly through 
 Mrs. Pennypepper's roses to greet him — and his only 
 course was to lead her out of the town before people 
 began to get up, and to detain her in some remote 
 meadow until he could get her keeper to come for her 
 and secure her by force or stratagem. He set off by the 
 least frequented streets, and he experienced a pang of 
 horror as he remembered that his way led him past the 
 house of his one professional rival in Sagawaug. Sup- 
 pose Dr. Pettengill should be coming home or going out 
 as he passed ! 
 
 He did not meet Dr. Pettengill. He did meet 
 Deacon Burgee, who stared at him with more of rage 
 than of amazement in his wrinkled countenance. The 
 Deacon was carrying a large bundle of embroidered linen 
 and flannel, that must have been tied up in a hurry. 
 
 " Good morning, Deacon," the Doctor hailed him, 
 
Q8 
 
 SHORT sixes:' 
 
 with as much ease of manner as he could assume. 
 " How 's Mrs. Burgee? " 
 
 " She 's doin' fust rate, no thanks to no circus doc- 
 tors ! " snorted the Deacon. " An' if you want to know 
 any thing further concernin' her 
 health, you ask Dr. Pettengill. 
 He 's got more sense than 
 to go trailin' around 
 the streets with a par- 
 boiled elephant be- 
 hind him, a-fright- 
 ening women-folks 
 a hull month afore 
 the'r time." 
 
 "Why, Deacon!" 
 cried the Doctor, 
 "what — what is 
 it?" 
 
 "It 's a boy," 
 responded the Dea- 
 con, sternly; " and 
 it 's God's own mercy that 't wa'n't born with a trunk 
 and a tail." 
 
 The Doctor found a secluded pasture, near the 
 woods that encircled the town, and there he sat him 
 down, in the corner of a snake-fence, to wait until some 
 farmer or market-gardener should pass by, to carry his 
 message to the keeper. He had another message to 
 
IRNObtA'S INFIDELITY. $9 
 
 send, tOd. He had several cases that must be attended 
 to at once. Unless he could get away from his pachy- 
 dermatous familiar, Pettengill mUst care for his cases 
 that morning. It was hard — but what was he to do? 
 
 Zenobia stood by his side* dividing her attention 
 between the caresses she bestowed on him and the care 
 she was obliged to take of her red cap, which was not 
 tightly strapped on, and slipped in various directions at 
 every movement of her gigantic head. She was unmis- 
 takably happy. From time to time she trumpeted 
 cheerily. She plucked up tufts of grass, and offered 
 them to the Doctor. He refused them, and she ate them 
 herself. Once he took a daisy from her, absent-mindedly, 
 and she was so greatly pleased that she smashed his hat 
 in her endeavors to pet him. The Doctor was a kind- 
 hearted man. He had to admit that Zenobia meant well. 
 He patted her trunk, and made matters worse. Her 
 elephantine ecstasy came near being the death of him. 
 
 Still the farmer came not, nor the market-gardener. 
 Dr. Tibbitt began to believe that he had chosen a 
 meadow that was too secluded. At last two boys ap- 
 peared. After they had stared at him and at Zenobia 
 for half-an-hour, one of them agreed to produce Dr. 
 Pettengill and Zenobia's keeper for fifty cents. Dr. 
 Pettengill was the first to arrive. He refused to come 
 nearer than the furthest limit of the pasture. 
 
 "Hello, Doctor," he called out, "hear you 've been 
 seeing elephants. Want me to take your cases? Guess 
 I can. Got a half-hour free. Brought some bromide 
 down for you, if you 'd like to try it. " 
 
too 
 
 SHORT SIXES." 
 
 To judge from his face, Zenobia was invisible. But 
 his presence alarmed that sensitive animal. She crowded 
 up close to the fence, and every time she flicked her 
 skin to shake off the flies she endangered 
 the equilibrium of the Doctor, who was 
 sitting on the top rail, for dignity's 
 sake. He shouted his directions to his 
 colleague, who shouted back profes- 
 sional criticisms. 
 "Salicylate of soda for that old woman? 
 What 's the matter with salicylate of cin- 
 chonidia? Don't want to kill her before you 
 get out of this swamp, do you?" 
 Dr. Tibbitt was not a profane man ; but at 
 this moment he could not restrain himself. 
 "Damn you/" he said, with such vigor that the 
 elephant gave a convulsive start. The Doctor felt his 
 seat depart from under him — he was going — going 
 into space for a brief moment, and then he scrambled 
 up out of the soft mud of the cow-wallow back of 
 the fence on which he had been sitting. Zenobia had 
 backed against the fence. 
 
 The keeper arrived soon after. He had only 
 reached the meadow when Zenobia lifted her trunk in 
 the air, emitted a mirthful toot, and struck out for the 
 woods with the picturesque and cumbersome gallop of a 
 mastodon pup. 
 
 " Dern you," said the keeper to Dr. Tibbitt, who 
 was trying to fasten his collar, which had broken loose 
 in his fall; "if the boys was here, and I hollered 'Hey 
 
2.EN0BIAS INFIDELITY. tot 
 
 Rube ! ' — there would n't be enough left of yer to 
 spread a plaster fer a baby's bile ! " 
 
 The Doctor made himself look as decent as the 
 situation allowed, and then he marched toward the 
 town with the light of a firm resolve illuminating his 
 face. The literature of his childhood had come to his 
 aid. He remembered the unkind tailor who pricked the 
 elephant's trunk. It seemed to him that the tailor was 
 a rather good fellow. 
 
 " If that elephant's disease is gratitude," thought 
 the Doctor, " I '11 give her an antidote." 
 
 He went to the drug-store, and, as he went, he 
 pulled out a blank pad and wrote down a prescription, 
 from mere force of habit. It read thus: 
 
 PESSELS & MORTON, 
 
 Druggists, 
 
 Commercial Block, Main Street, Sagawaug. 
 m~ PRESCRIPTIONS CAREFULLY COMPOUNDED. ■=©& 
 
 ^ ^£^~~~ ^- f y- 
 
 
 r 
 
 LC^HJC~~~~> 
 
ioz 
 
 'SHORT S/XES: 
 
 When the druggist looked at it, he was taken short 
 of breath. 
 
 " What 's this ? " he asked — "a bombshell ? " 
 "Put it up," said the Doctor, "and don't talk so 
 much." He lingered nervously on the druggist's steps, 
 looking up and down the street. He had sent a boy to 
 order the stable-man to harness his gig. By-and-by, 
 the druggist put his head out of the door. 
 
 "I 've got some asafcetida pills," he said, "that 
 are kind o' tired, and half a pound of whale-oil soap 
 that 's higher 'n Haman — " 
 
 "Put 'em in!" said the Doctor, grimly, as he saw 
 Zenobia coming in sight far down the street. 
 She came up while the Doctor was waiting 
 for the bolus. Twenty-three boys were 
 watching them, although it was only 
 seven o'clock in the morning. 
 
 "Down, Zenobia!" said the 
 Doctor, thoughtlessly, as he 
 might have addressed a dog. 
 He was talking with the drug- 
 gist, and Zenobia was patting his 
 ear with her trunk. Zenobia sank 
 to her knees. The Doctor did not 
 notice her. She folded her trunk about 
 him, lifted him to her back, rose, with a 
 heave and a sway, to her feet, and started up the road. 
 The boys cheered. The Doctor got off on the end of 
 an elm-branch. His descent was watched from nineteen 
 second-story windows. 
 
ZENOBIA'S INFIDELITY. 103 
 
 His gig came to meet him at last, and he entered 
 it and drove rapidly out of town, with Zenobia trotting 
 contentedly behind him. As soon as he had passed 
 Deacon Burgee's house, he drew rein, and Zenobia 
 approached, while his perspiring mare stood on her 
 hind-legs. 
 
 " Zenobia — pill ! " said the Doctor. 
 
 As she had often done in her late illness, Zenobia 
 opened her mouth at the word of command, and swal- 
 lowed the infernal bolus. Then they started up again, 
 and the Doctor headed for Zenobia's tent. , 
 
 But Zenobia's pace was sluggish. She had been 
 dodging about the woods for two nights, and she was 
 tired. When the Doctor whipped up, she seized the 
 buggy by any convenient projection, and held it back. 
 This damaged the buggy and frightened the horse; but 
 it accomplished Zenobia's end. It was eleven o'clock 
 before Jake Bumgardner's " Half- Way-House " loomed 
 up white, afar down the dusty road, and the Doctor 
 knew that his round-about way had at length brought 
 him near to the field where the circus-tent had been 
 pitched. 
 
 He drove on with a lighter heart in his bosom. He 
 had not heard Zenobia behind him, for some time. He 
 did not know what had become of her, or what she was 
 doing, but he learned later. 
 
 The Doctor had compounded a pill well calculated 
 to upset Zenobia's stomach. That it would likewise give 
 her a consuming thirst he had not considered. But 
 chemistry was doing its duty without regard to him. A 
 
io4 
 
 SHORT SIXES. 
 
 thirst like a furnace burned within Zenobia. Capsicum 
 and chloride of lime were doing their work. She gasped 
 and groaned. She searched for water. She filled her 
 trunk at a wayside trough and poured the contents into 
 her mouth. Then she sucked up a puddle or two. 
 Then she came to Bumgardner's, where a dozen kegs 
 of lager-beer and a keg of what passed at Bumgardner's 
 for gin stood on the sidewalk. Zenobia's circus expe- 
 rience had taught her what a water-barrel meant. She 
 applied her knowledge. With her forefoot she deftly 
 staved in the head of one keg after another, and with 
 her trunk she drew up the beer and the gin, and delivered 
 them to her stomach. If you think her taste at fault, 
 remember the bolus. 
 
 r 7~~—~[ 
 
 Bumgardner rushed out and assailed her with a 
 bung-starter. She turned upon him and squirted lager- 
 beer over him until he was covered with an iridescent 
 lather of foam from head to foot. Then she finished the 
 kegs and went on her way, to overtake the Doctor. 
 t * * * * 
 
ZENOBIA' S INFIDELITY. 
 
 105 
 
 The Doctor 
 
 The Doctor was speeding his mare merrily along, 
 grateful for even a momentary relief from Zenobia's 
 attentions, when, at one and the same time, he heard a 
 heavy, uncertain thumping on the road behind him, and 
 the quick patter of a trotter's hoofs on the road ahead 
 of him. He glanced behind him first, and saw Zenobia. 
 She swayed from side to side, more than was her wont. 
 Her red cap was far down over her left eye. Her aspect 
 was rakish, and her gait was unsteady, 
 did not know it, but Zenobia was drunk. 
 
 Zenobia was sick, but intoxica- 
 tion dominated her sickness. Even 
 sulphide of calcium withdrew court- 
 eously before the might of 
 and gin. Rocking from side 
 side, reeling across the road 
 and back, trumpeting in 
 imbecile inexpressive tones, 
 Zenobia advanced. 
 
 The Doctor looked 
 forward. Tom Matson sat in 
 his dog-cart, with Miss Bunker by 
 
 his side. His horse had caught sight of Zenobia, and 
 he was rearing high in air, and whinnying in terror. 
 Before Tom could pull him down, he made a sudden 
 break, overturned the dog-cart, and flung Tom and Miss 
 Minetta Bunker on a bank by the side of the road. It 
 was a soft bank, well-grown with mint and stinging- 
 nettles, just above a creek. Tom had scarce landed be- 
 fore he was up and off, running hard across the fields. 
 
ro6 -SHORT SIXES." 
 
 Miss Minetta rose and looked at him with fire in 
 her eyes. 
 
 " Well ! " she said aloud; " I 'd like Mother to see 
 you now / " 
 
 The Doctor had jumped out of his gig and let his 
 little mare go galloping up the road. He had his arm 
 about Miss Minetta's waist when he turned to face his 
 familiar demon — which may have accounted for the 
 pluck in his face. 
 
 But Zenobia was a hundred yards down the road, 
 and she was utterly incapable of getting any further. 
 She trumpeted once or twice, then she wavered like a 
 reed in the wind ; her legs weakened under her, and she 
 sank on her side, Her red cap had slipped down, and 
 she picked it up with her trunk, broke its band in a 
 reckless swing that resembled the wave of jovial farewell, 
 gave one titanic hiccup, and fell asleep by the road-side. 
 
 An hour later, Dr. Tibbitt was driving toward 
 Pelion, with Miss Bunker by his side. His horse had 
 been stopped at the toll-gate. He was driving with one 
 hand. Perhaps he needed the other to show how they 
 could have a summer-house^ in the garden that ran 
 down to the river. 
 
 But it was evening when Zenobia awoke to find her 
 keeper sitting on her head. He jabbed a cotton-hook 
 
ZE NO BIAS INFIDELITY. 
 
 107 
 
 firmly and decisively into her ear, and led her home- 
 ward down the road lit by the golden sunset. That was 
 the end of Zenobia's infidelity. 
 
THE NINE CENT-GIRLS. 
 

 
 ^ 
 b 
 
 3 
 
THE NINE CENT-GIRLS. 
 
 MISS BESSIE VAUX, of Baltimore, paid a visit to her 
 aunt, the wife of the Commandant at old Fort 
 Starbuck, Montana. She had at her small feet all the 
 garrison and some two dozen young 
 ranch - owners, the flower of the 
 younger sons of the best society 
 of New York, Boston, and Phila- 
 delphia. Thirty-seven notches in 
 the long handle of her parasol 
 told the story of her three months' 
 stay. The thirty-seventh was final. 
 She accepted a measly Second- 
 Lieutenant, and left all the bachelors 
 for thirty miles around the Fort to mourn her and to 
 curse the United States Army. This is the proem. 
 
 Mr. John Winfield, proprietor of the Winfield 
 Ranch, sat a-straddle a chair in front of the fire in his 
 big living room, and tugged at his handsome black 
 beard as he discussed the situation with his foreman, 
 
Its "SHORT SIXES." 
 
 who was also his confidant, his best friend and his old 
 college mate. Mr. Richard Cutter stood with his back 
 to the fire, twirled a very blonde moustache and smoked 
 cigarettes continually while he ministered to his suffering 
 friend, who was sore wounded in his vanity, having been 
 notch No. 36 on Miss Vaux's parasol. Uick had been 
 notch No. 1 ; but Dick was used to that sort of thing. 
 
 "By thunder," said Mr. Winfield, "I'm going to 
 get married this year, if I have to marry a widow with 
 six children. And I guess I '11 have to. I 've been ten 
 years in this girlless wilderness, and I never did know 
 any girls to speak of, at home. Now you, you always 
 everlastingly knew girls. What 's that place you lived at 
 in New York State — where there were so many girls?" 
 
 "Tusculum," replied Mr. Cutter, in a tone of com- 
 placent reminiscence. "Nice old town, plastered so thick 
 with mortgages that you can't grow flowers in the front 
 yard. All the fellows strike for New York as soon as they 
 begin to shave. The crop of girls remains, and they 
 wither on the stem. Why, one Winter they had a hump- 
 backed man for their sole society star in the male line. 
 Nice girls, too. Old families. Pretty, lots of them. Good 
 form, too, for provincials." 
 
 "Gad!" said Jack Winfield, "I 'd like to live in 
 Tusculum for a year or so." 
 
 "No, you would n't. It's powerful dull. But the 
 girls were nice. Now, there were the Nine Cent-Girls." 
 
 "The Nine-cent Girls?" 
 
 "No, the Nine Cent-Girls. Catch the difference? 
 They were the daughters of old Bailey, the civil engineer. 
 
THE NINE CENT-GIRLS. t/j 
 
 Nine of 'em, ranging from twenty-two, when I was there 
 
 — that 's ten years ago — down to — oh, I don't know 
 
 — a kid in a pinafore. All looked just alike, barring 
 age, and every one had the face of the Indian lady on 
 the little red cent. Do you remember the Indian lady 
 on the little red cent?" 
 
 " Hold on," suggested Jack, rising; " I 've got one. 
 I 've had it ever since I came." He unlocked his desk, 
 rummaged about in its depths, and produced a specimen 
 of the neatest and most artistic coin that the United 
 States government has ever struck. 
 
 "That's it," said Dick, holding the coppery disk 
 in his palm. "It would do for a picture of any one 
 of 'em — only the Bailey girls did n't wear feathers in 
 their hair. But there they were, nine of 'em, nice girls, 
 every way, and the whole lot named out of the classics. 
 Old Bailey was strong on the classics. His great-grand- 
 father named Tusculum, and Bailey's own name was 
 M. Cicero Bailey. So he called all his girls by heathen 
 names, and had a row with the parson every christening. 
 Let me see — there was Euphrosyne, and Clelia, and 
 Lydia, and Flora and Aurora — those were the twins 
 
 — I was sweet on one of the twins — and Una — and, 
 oh, I can't remember them all. But they were mighty 
 nice girls." 
 
 "Probably all married by this time," Jack groaned. 
 "Let me look at that cent." He held it in the light of 
 the fire, and gazed thoughtfully upon it. 
 
 " Not a one," Dick assured him. " I met a chap 
 from Tusculum last time I was in Butte City, and I 
 
tl4 "SMORT SIXES" 
 
 asked him. He said there 'd been only one wedding in 
 Tusculum in three years* and then the local paper had 
 a wire into the church and got out extras." 
 
 "What sort of girls were they?" Winfield asked* 
 still regarding the coin. 
 
 "Just about like that, for looks. Let me see it 
 again." Dick examined the cent critically, and slipped 
 it into his pocket, in an absent-minded way. " Just 
 about like that. First rate girls. Old man was as poor 
 as a church mouse ; but you would never have known it, 
 the way that house was run. Bright girls, too — at 
 least, my twin was. I 've forgotten which twin it was ; 
 but she was too bright for me." 
 
 "And how old did you say they were? How old 
 was the youngest ? " 
 
 "Oh, I don't know," replied Dick, with a bachelor's 
 vagueness on the question of a child's age, "five — six 
 — seven, may be. Ten years ago, you know." 
 
 "Just coming in to grass," observed Mr. Winfield, 
 meditatively. 
 
 Two months after the evening on which this con- 
 versation took place, Mr. Richard Cutter walked up one 
 of the quietest and most eminently respectable of the 
 streets of Tusculum. 
 
 Mr. Cutter was nervous. He was, for the second 
 time, making up his mind to attempt a difficult and 
 delicate task. He had made up his mind to it, or had 
 had it made up for him ; but now he felt himself obliged 
 
THE NINE CENT-GIRLS. 
 
 "5 
 
 to go over the whole process in his memory, in order to 
 assure himself that the mind was really made up. 
 
 The suggestion had come from Winfield. He re- 
 membered with what a dazed incomprehension he had 
 heard his chum's proposition to induce Mr. Bailey and 
 all his family to migrate to Montana and settle at 
 Starbuck. 
 
 "We '11 give the old man all the surveying he 
 wants. And he can have Ashford's place on the big 
 dam when Ashford goes East in August. Why, the finger 
 of Providence is pointing Bailey straight for Starbuck." 
 
 With a clearer remembrance of Eastern conven- 
 tionalities than Mr. Winfield, Dick Cutter had suggested 
 various obstacles in the way of this apparently simple 
 scheme. But Winfield would hear of no opposition, 
 and he joined with him eight other young .-, 
 
 ranchmen, who entered into the idea with ^*r~(J&fil 
 
 wild Western enthusiasm and an Ar- 
 cadian simplicity that could see 
 no chance of failure. These 
 energetic youths subscribed a 
 generous fund to defray the ex- 
 penses of Mr. Cutter as a missionary 
 to Tusculum ; and Mr. Cutter had found himself com- 
 mitted to the venture before he knew it. 
 
 Now, what had seemed quite feasible in Starbuck's 
 wilds wore a different face in prim and proper Tuscu- 
 lum. It dawned on Mr. Cutter that he was about to 
 make a most radical and somewhat impudent proposition 
 to a conservative old gentleman. The atmosphere of 
 
Il6 
 
 SHORT SIXES." 
 
 Tusculum weighed heavy on its spirits, which were light 
 and careless enough in his adopted home in Montana. 
 
 Therefore Mr. Cutter found his voice very uncertain 
 as he introduced himself to the young lady who opened, 
 at his ring, the front door of one of the most respectable 
 houses in that respectable street of Tusculum. 
 
 " Good morning," he said, wondering which one 
 of the Nine Cent-Girls he saw before him ; and then, 
 noting a few threads of gray in her hair, he ventured : 
 
 "It's Miss — Miss Euphrosyne, is n't it? You 
 don't remember me — Mr. Cutter, Dick Cutter? Used 
 to live on Ovid Street. Can I see your father ? " 
 
 "My father?" repeated Miss Euphrosyne, looking 
 a little frightened. 
 
 " Yes — I just want — " 
 
 "Why, Mr. Cutter — I do 
 
 remember you now — did n't 
 
 you know that Papa died nine 
 
 years ago — the year after you 
 
 - c left Tusculum?" 
 
 Dick Cutter leaned against the door- 
 jamb and stared speechlessly at Euphro- 
 syne. He noted vaguely that she looked 
 much the same as when he had last seen her, except 
 that she looked tired and just a shade sad. When he 
 was able to think, he said that he begged her pardon. 
 Then she smiled, faintly. 
 
 "We could n't expect you to know," she said, 
 simply. "Won't you come in?" 
 
 "N-N-No," stuttered Dick. " I-I-I '11 call later — 
 
THE NINE CENT-GIRLS. 
 
 117 
 
 this evening, if you don't mind. Ah — ah — good day." 
 And he fled to his hotel, to pull himself together, leav- 
 ing Miss Euphrosyne smiling. 
 
 He sat alone in his room all the afternoon, ponder- 
 ing over the shipwreck of his scheme. What should he 
 tell the boys ? What would the boys say ? Why had 
 he not thought to write before he came ? Why on earth 
 had Bailey taken it into his head to die ? 
 
 After supper, he resolved to call as he had prom- 
 ised. Mrs. Bailey, he knew, had died a year after the 
 appearance of her ninth daughter. But, he thought, 
 with reviving hope, there might be a male head to the 
 family — an uncle, perhaps. 
 
 The door was opened by Clytie, the youngest of the 
 nine. She ushered him at once into a bright little 
 parlor, hung around with dainty things in artistic needle- 
 work and decorative painting. A big lamp glowed on a 
 centre-table, and around it sat seven of the sisters, each 
 one engaged in some sort of work, 
 sewing, embroidering or de- 
 signing-. Nearest the lamp £>'t''''^~v^%\'.ti-» jl^'Ju 
 
 sat Euphrosyne, reading 
 Macaulay aloud. She stop- 
 ped as he entered, and wel 
 corned him in a half-timid "^ 
 
 but wholly friendly fashion. 
 
 Dick sat down, very much embarrassed, in spite 
 of the greeting. It was many years since he had talked 
 to nine ladies at once. And, in truth, a much less em- 
 barrassed man might have found himself more or less 
 
uS "SHORT SIXES." 
 
 troubled to carry on a conversation with nine young 
 women who looked exactly like each other, except for the 
 delicate distinctions of age which a masculine stranger 
 might well be afraid to note. Dick looked from one to 
 the other of the placid classic faces, and could not help 
 having an uneasy idea that each new girl that he ad- 
 dressed was only the last one who had slipped around 
 the table and made herself look a year or two older or 
 younger. 
 
 But after a while the pleasant, genial, social atmos- 
 phere of the room, sweet with a delicate, winning vir- 
 ginity, thawed out his awkward reserve, and Dick began 
 to talk of the West and Western life until the nine pairs 
 of blue eyes, stretched to their widest, fixed upon him as 
 a common focus. It was eleven when he left, with many 
 apologies for his long call. He found the night and the 
 street uncommonly dark, empty and depressing. 
 
 ' ; Just the outfit!" he observed to himself. "And 
 old Bailey dead and the whole scheme busted." 
 
 For he had learned that the Nine Cent-Girls had 
 not a relative in the world. Under these circumstances, 
 it was clearly his duty to take the morning train for the 
 West. And yet, the next evening, he presented him- 
 self, shamefaced and apologetic, at the Bailey's door. 
 
 He thought that he wanted to make some sort of 
 explanation to Miss Euphrosyne. But what explanation 
 could he make ? There was no earthly reason for his 
 appearance in Tusculum. He talked of the West until 
 eleven o'clock, and then he took a hesitating leave. 
 
 The next day he made a weak pretense of casually 
 
THE NINE CENT-GIRLS. 
 
 ug 
 
 passing by when he knew that Miss Euphrosyne was 
 working in the garden ; but he found it no easier to 
 explain across the front fence. 
 The explanation never would 
 have been made if it had not 
 been for Miss Euphrosyne. 
 A curious nervousness had 
 come over her, too, and sud- 
 denly she spoke out. 
 
 " Mr. Cutter — excuse 
 me — but what has brought 
 you here? I mean is it any- 
 thing that concerns us — or — 
 or — Papa's affairs! I thought everything was settled 
 
 — I had hoped — " 
 
 There was nothing for it now but to tell the whole 
 story, and Dick told it. 
 
 " I suppose you '11 think we 're a pack of barba- 
 rians," he said, when he had come to the end, "and, of 
 course, it's all impracticable now." 
 
 But Miss Euphrosyne did not seem to be offended 
 
 — only thoughtful. 
 
 " Can you call here to-morrow at this time, Mr. 
 Cutter?" she inquired. 
 
 Miss Euphrosyne blushed faintly when Dick pre- 
 sented himself to hear judgement pronounced. 
 
 "I suppose you will think it strange," she said, 
 "but if your plan is feasible, I should wish to carry it 
 
120 " SHORT SIXES." 
 
 out. Frankly, I do want to see the girls married. Clelia 
 and Lydia and I are past the time when women think 
 about such things — but Clytie — and the rest. And, 
 you know, I can remember how Papa and Mama lived 
 together, and sometimes it seems cruelly hard that those 
 dear girls should lose all that happiness — I 'm sure it 's 
 the best happiness in the world. And it can never be, 
 here. Now, if I could get occupation — you know that 
 I 'm teaching school, I suppose — and if the rest of the 
 girls could keep up their work for the New York people 
 — why — don't you know, if I didn't tell — if I put it 
 on business grounds, you know — I think they would feel 
 that it was best, after all, to leave Tusculum ..." 
 Her voice was choked when she recommenced. 
 " It seems awful for me to talk to you in this cold- 
 blooded way about such a thing; but — what can we do, 
 Mr. Cutter? You don't know how poor we are. There 's 
 nothing for my little Clytie to do but to be a dressmaker 
 — and you know what that means, in 
 Tusculum. Oh, do you think I could 
 teach school out in Star — Star — 
 Starbuckle ? " 
 jCjfeJ Miss Euphrosyne was crying. 
 
 Dick's census of possible pu- 
 pils in the neighborhood of 
 Starbuck satisfied Miss Euphrosyne. 
 It troubled Dick's conscience a bit, as he walked back to 
 the hotel. "But they'll all be married off before she 
 finds it out, so I guess it 's all right," he reflected. 
 
THE NINE CENT-GIRLS. 121 
 
 The next week Dick went to New York. This was 
 in pursuance of an idea which he had confided to Win- 
 field, on the eve of his forth-setting. 
 
 " Why," Winfield had said to him, "you are clean 
 left out of this deal, are n't you ? " 
 
 " Of course I am," said Dick. " How am I going 
 to marry a poor girl on a hundred dollars a month?" 
 
 " I might set you up for yourself — " began his 
 employer. 
 
 " Hold on ! " broke in Dick Cutter, with emphasis. 
 " You would n't talk that way if you 'd ever been hungry 
 yourself. I 'most starved that last time I tried for my- 
 self; and I'd starve next trip, sure. You 've been a good 
 friend to me, Jack Wintfield. Don't you make a damn 
 fool of yourself and spoil it all." 
 
 "But," he added, after a pause, "I have a little 
 racket of my own. There 's a widow in New York who 
 smiled on yours affectionately once, ere she wed Mam- 
 mon. I 'm going just to see if she feels inclined to divide 
 the late lamented's pile with a blonde husband." 
 
 So, the business at Tusculum being determined, and 
 preparations for the hegira well under way, Dick went to 
 look after his own speculation. 
 
 He reached New York on Tuesday morning, and 
 called on the lady of his hopes that afternoon. She was 
 out. He wrote to her in the evening, asking when he 
 might see her. On Thursday her wedding-cards came 
 to his hotel by special messenger. He cursed his luck, 
 and went cheerfully about attending to a commission 
 which Miss Euphrosyne, after much urging, had given 
 
122 "SHORT SIXES." 
 
 him, trembling at her own audacity. The size of it had 
 somewhat staggered him. She asked him to take an 
 order to a certain large dry-goods house for nine travel- 
 ing ulsters, (ladies', medium weight, measurements en- 
 closed,) for which he was to select the materials. 
 
 " Men have so much taste," said Miss Euphrosyne. 
 " Papa always knew when we were well dressed." 
 
 Dick had to wait while another customer was served. 
 He stared at her in humble admiration. It was a British 
 actress, recently imported. 
 
 When Mr. Richard Cutter sat on the platform of 
 Tusculum station and saw his nine charges approach, 
 ready for the long trip to the Far West, it struck him that 
 the pinky-dun ulsters with the six-inch-square checks of 
 pale red and blue did not look, on these nine virgins, as 
 they looked on the British actress. It struck him, more- 
 over, that the nine "fore-and-aft," or "deer-stalker" 
 caps which he had thrown in as Friendship's Offering 
 only served to more accentuate a costume already ac- 
 centuated. 
 
 But it was too late for retreat. The Baileys had 
 burned their bridges behind them. The old house was 
 sold. Their lot was cast in Montana. He had his mis- 
 givings ; but he handed them gallantly into the train — 
 it was not a vestibule express, for economy forbade — and 
 they began their journey. 
 
 He had an uneasy feeling that they were noticed; 
 
THE NINE CENT-GIRLS. 123 
 
 that the nine ladies in the ulsters of one pattern — and 
 of the pattern of his choosing — were attracting more 
 attention than any ladies not thus uniformed would have 
 attracted; but he was not seriously disturbed until a 
 loquacious countryman sat down beside him. 
 
 "Runnin' a lady base-ball nine, be ye? 
 he inquired. " I seen one, wunst, down 
 to Ne' York. They can't play ball not 
 to speak of; but it 's kinder fun lookin' 
 at 'em. Could n't ye interdooce me to 
 the pitcher? " 
 
 Mr. Cutter made a dignified reply, 
 and withdrew to the smoking-car. There a 
 fat and affable stranger tapped him on the back and 
 talked in his ear from the seat behind. 
 
 "It don't pay, young man," he said. "I 've handled 
 'em. Female minstrels sounds first rate ; but they don't 
 give the show that catches the people. You 've gotter 
 have reel talent kinder mixed in with them if you want 
 to draw." 
 
 " Them ladies in your comp'ny, where do they 
 show ? " inquired the Conductor, as he examined the ten 
 tickets that Dick presented. 
 
 "What do you mean?" asked the irritated pioneer. 
 
 " If they show in Cleveland, I 'd like to go, first 
 rate," the Conductor explained. 
 
 "Those ladies," Dick thundered, at the end of his 
 patience, " are not actresses ! " 
 
 " Hmf ! What be they then ? " asked the Conductor. 
 
124 " SHORT SIXES." 
 
 They had arrived at Buffalo. They had gone to 
 the Niagara Hotel, and had been told that there were no 
 rooms for them ; and to the Tifft House, where there 
 were no rooms ; and to the Genesee, where every room 
 was occupied. Finally they had found quarters in a 
 very queer hotel, where the clerk, as he dealt out the 
 keys, said : 
 
 " One for Lily, and one for Daisy and one for Rosie 
 
 — here, Boss, sort out the flower-bed yourself," as he 
 handed over the bunch. 
 
 Dick was taking a drink in the dingy bar-room, and 
 trying to forget the queer looks that had been cast at his 
 innocent caravan all the day, when the solitary hall-boy 
 brought a message summoning him to Miss Euphrosyne's 
 room. He went, with his moral tail between his men- 
 tal legs. 
 
 "Mr. Cutter," said Miss Euphrosyne, firmly, "we 
 have made a mistake." 
 
 "It looks that way," replied Dick, feebly; "but 
 may be it 's only the — the ulsters." 
 
 "No," said Miss Euphrosyne. "The ulsters are a 
 part of it; but the whole thing is wrong, Mr. Cutter; 
 and I see it all now. I did n't realize what it meant. 
 But my eyes have been opened. Nine young unmarried 
 women can not go West with a young man — if you had 
 heard what people were saying all around us in the cars 
 
 — you don't know. We 've got to give up the idea. Oh, 
 but it was awful ! " 
 
 Miss Euphrosyne, trembling, hid her face in her 
 hands. Her tears trickled out through her thin fingers. 
 
THE NINE CENT-GIRLS. i2 5 
 
 "And the old house is sold! What shall we do? 
 Where shall we go ? " she cried, forgetting Dick utterly, 
 lost and helpless. 
 
 Dick was stalking up and down the room. 
 
 " It would be all right," he demanded, " if there 
 was a married woman to lead the gang, and if — if — if 
 we caught on to something new in the ulster line?" 
 
 "It might be different," Miss Euphrosyne admitted, 
 with a sob. Speaking came hard to her. She was tired : 
 well nigh worn out. 
 
 " THEN," said Dick, with tremendous emphasis, 
 "what 's the matter with my marrying one of you ? " 
 
 "Why, Mr. Cutter!" Miss Euphrosyne cried, "I 
 had no idea that you — you — ever — thought of — is it 
 Clytie?" 
 
 "No," said Mr. Cutter, "it is n't Clytie." 
 
 "Is it — is it — " Miss Euphrosyne's eyes lit up 
 with hope long since extinguished, " is it Aurora?" 
 
 "No! " 
 
 Dick Cutter could have been heard three rooms off. 
 
 "No !" he said, with all his lungs. "It ain't Clytie, 
 nor it ain't Aurora, nor it ain't Flora, nor Melpomene 
 nor Cybele nor Alveolar Aureole nor none of 'em. It 's 
 YOU — Y-O-U ! I want to marry yon, and what's 
 more, I 'm going to ! " 
 
 " Oh ! oh ! oh ! oh ! " said poor Miss Euphrosyne, 
 and hid her face in her hands. She had never thought 
 to be happy, and now she was happy for one moment. 
 That seemed quite enough for her modest soul. And yet 
 more was to come. 
 
126 
 
 SHORT SIXES." 
 
 For once in his life, Dick Cutter seized the right 
 moment to do the right thing. One hour later, Miss 
 Euphrosyne Bailey was Mrs. Richard Cutter. She did 
 not know quite how it happened. Clytie told her she 
 had been bullied into it. But oh ! such sweet bullying ! 
 
 "No," said Mr. Richard Cutter one morning in 
 September of the next year, to Mr. Jack Winfield and 
 his wife, (Miss Aurora Bailey that was,) "I can't stop a 
 minute. We 're too busy up at the ranch. The Wife 
 has just bought out Wilkinson ; and I 've got to round 
 up all his stock. 1 '11 see you next month, at Clytie's 
 wedding. Queer, she should have gone off the last, 
 ain't it ? Euphrosyne and I are going down to Butte City 
 Monday, to buy her a present. Know anybody who 
 wants to pay six per cent, for a thousand ? " 
 
THE NICE PEOPLE. 
 

 •fe 
 
 ^ 
 
 <& 
 
 "fe 
 
 
THE NICE PEOPLE. 
 
 " TThey certainly are nice people," I assented to my 
 * wife's observation, using the colloquial phrase with 
 a consciousness that it was any thing but "nice" Eng- 
 lish, "and I '11 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." 1 
 
 " He said three." 
 
 " You 've simply forgotten. I 'm sure she told me 
 they had only two — a boy and a girl." 
 
 "Well, I did n't enter into particulars." 
 
 " No, dear, and you could n'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 obser- 
 vation 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 
 
t$o "SHORT SIXES." 
 
 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 is n'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, beam- 
 ing 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 wa& 
 "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 
 
THE NICE PEOPLE. 
 
 W 
 
 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 Moun- 
 tain. For a week we had come down 
 to breakfast each morning, wonder- 
 ing why we wasted the precious days 
 of idleness with the company gath- 
 ered around the Jacobus board. 
 What joy of human companion- 
 ship was to be had out of Mrs. 
 Tabb and Miss Hoogencamp, the 
 two middle-aged gossips from Scran- 
 ton, Pa. — out of Mr. and Mrs. Big- 
 gie, 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 com- 
 pany 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 
 
132 '•SHORT SIXES." 
 
 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 - Biggie - Tabb - Halkit contingent never 
 stirred off Jacobus's verandah; 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, with- 
 out 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 
 
THE NICE PEOPLE. 133 
 
 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 did n't 
 know you ever went up the Matterhorn." 
 
 " It — it was five years ago," said Mr. Brede, hur- 
 riedly. "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 did n'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. 
 
m 
 
 SHOUT SIXES." 
 
 Somehow, the shadow lingered over us all. As we 
 went home, the Bredes went side by side along the nar- 
 row 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 is n't the first year I have been married, not by a 
 
 good many, and I would n'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 dis- 
 course, " my wife, she used to live in 
 N* York ! " 
 
 I did n'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 
 any thing about 'em ? " 
 
 " I know nothing about the character of your 
 boarders, Mr. Jacobus," I replied, conscious of some 
 
THE NICE PEOPLE. 135 
 
 irritability. "If 1 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 was n'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. 
 
 " Hunderd '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 '11 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 does 
 n'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." 
 
SHORT sixes:' 
 
 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 un- 
 conscious 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 ever- 
 lasting big show he had 
 to take stock in the Capi- 
 toline 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 yoti, 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 m-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 
 verandah. But I was troubled none the less. The 
 Major could not have influenced the sale of one share of 
 
THE NICE PEOPLE. 
 
 '37 
 
 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 remark- 
 able 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 did n't have to cate- 
 chize him. He seemed 
 to feel that some sort 
 of explanation was 
 looked for, and he was 
 very out-spoken. 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 did n't realize how dangerous it was until he had got 
 so far into it that he could n't back out ; and he did n't 
 tell her, because he 'd left her here, you see, and under 
 the circumstances — " 
 
ijg "SHORT SIXES." 
 
 " Left her here ! " cried my wife. "I 've been sit- 
 ting 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 did n't 
 know how many lumps of sugar he took in his coffee. 
 Now that seems queer, does n't it." 
 
 It did. It was a small thing. But it looked queer. 
 Very queer. 
 
 The next morning, it was clear that war was de- 
 clared against the Bredes. They came down to break- 
 fast 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 de- 
 parted, 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 Hoogen- 
 camp 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 
 
THE NICE PEOPLE. 
 
 139 
 
 
 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 <G& 
 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 grape-vine 
 
 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 per- 
 sonal, 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. Biggie 
 
 ^W^ 
 
140 • ' SHOR T SIXES. ' ' 
 
 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 sate 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 
 
THE NICE PEOPLE. 141 
 
 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 brusher 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 any thing 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 ostracised woman, 
 as though she felt the deep humiliation of her position, 
 turned sharply away, and opened her parasol to shield 
 
142 
 
 SHORT SIXES. 
 
 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 did n't 
 you tell us ? " 
 
 "W-W-W-We did n't want to be t-t-taken 
 
 for a b-b-b-b-bridal couple," sobbed Mrs. 
 
 Brede; "and we d-d-did n't dream what 
 
 awful lies we 'd have to tell, and all the aw- 
 
 aw-ful 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, 
 Biggie, the Major and me, " there is a hostelry down 
 
THE NICE PEOPLE. 
 
 *43 
 
 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 sun- 
 light gilded the forehead of the great hill. On Mr. 
 Jacobus's verandah 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. 
 
 V 
 
MR. COPERNICUS AND 
 THE PROLETARIAT. 
 
1* 
 
 
 b 
 
 ^ 
 
 fc 
 
MR. COPERNICUS AND THE 
 PROLETARIAT. 
 
 THE OLD publishing house of T. Copernicus & Son 
 was just recovering from the rush of holiday busi- 
 ness — a rush of perhaps a dozen purchasers. Christmas 
 shoppers rarely sought out the dingy building just around 
 the corner from Astor Place, and T. C. & Son had done 
 no great business since young T. C, the "Son," died, 
 fifteen years before. The house lived on two or three 
 valuable copyrights ; and old Mr. Copernicus kept it 
 alive just for occupation's sake, now that Tom was dead. 
 But he liked to maintain the assumption that his queer 
 old business, with its publication of half-a-dozen scientific 
 or theological works per annum, was the same flourishing 
 concern that it had been in his prime. That it did not 
 flourish was nothing to him. He was rich, thanks to 
 himself; his wife was rich, thanks to her aunt; his 
 daughter was rich, thanks to her grandmother. So he 
 played at business, and every Christmas-time he bought 
 a lot of fancy stationery and gift-books that nobody 
 called for, and hired a couple of extra porters for whom 
 
148 
 
 SHORT SIXES." 
 
 the head-porter did his best to find some work. Then, 
 the week after New Year's, he would discharge his holi- 
 day hands, and give each of them a dollar or two apiece 
 out of his own pocket. 
 
 "Barney," he said to the old porter, "you don't 
 need those two extra men any longer?" 
 
 "'Deed an' we do not, sorr ! " said Barney; " th' 
 wan o' thim wint off av himself the mornin', an' t' other 
 do be readin' books the whole day long." 
 
 "Send him to me," Mr. Copernicus ordered, and 
 Barney yelled unceremoniously, "Mike!" 
 
 The figure of a large and somewhat stout youth, 
 who might have been eighteen or twenty -eight years 
 old, appeared, rising from the sub-cellar. His hair was 
 black, his face was clean-shaven, and although 
 he held in his hand the evidence of his 
 guilt, a book kept partly open with his 
 forefinger, he had an expression of 
 imperturbable calm, and placid, ox- 
 like fixity of purpose. He wore a 
 long, seedy, black frock-coat, but- 
 toned up to the neck-band of his 
 collarless shirt. 
 
 "How's this?" inquired Mr. 
 
 Copernicus. " I 'm told that you 
 
 spend your time reading my books." 
 
 The young man slowly opened his mouth 
 
 and answered in a deliberate drawl, agreeably diversified 
 
 by a peculiar stutter. 
 
 "I have n't been reading your b-b-books, sir; I 've 
 
MR. COPERNICUS AND THE PROLETARIAT. i 49 
 
 been reading my own. All I had to do was to hand up 
 boxes of fuf-fuf-fancy stationery, and — " 
 
 " I see," interposed Mr. Copernicus, hurriedly, 
 "there has n't been any very great call for fancy sta- 
 tionery this year." 
 
 " And when there was n't any c-c-call for it, I 
 read. I ain't going to be a pip-pip-porter all my life. 
 Would you ? " 
 
 "Why, of course, my boy," said Mr. Copernicus, 
 " if you are reading to improve your mind, in your 
 leisure time — let 's see your book." 
 
 The young man handed him a tattered duodecimo. 
 
 "Why, it 's Virgil!" exclaimed his employer. 
 "You can't read this." 
 
 "Some of it I kik-kik-can," returned the employee, 
 "and some of it I kik-kik-can't." 
 
 Mr. Copernicus sought out " Arma virumque " and 
 " Tityre, tu patulae," and one or two other passages he 
 was sure of, and the studious young porter read them 
 in the artless accent which the English attribute to the 
 ancient Romans, and translated them with sufficient 
 accuracy. 
 
 " Where did you learn to read Latin? " 
 
 " I p-p-picked it up in odd hours." 
 
 " What else have you studied ? " 
 
 "A little Gig-Gig-Greek." 
 
 " Any thing else? " 
 
 " Some algebra and some Fif-Fif-French." 
 
 " Where do you come from ? " 
 
 "From Baltimore," drawled the prodigy, utterly 
 
'S<> 
 
 SHORT SIXES." 
 
 unmoved by his employer's manifest astonishment. " I 
 was janitor of a school there, and the principal lent me 
 his bib-bib-books." 
 
 " What is your name? " 
 
 " M-M-Michael Ouinlan." 
 
 "And what was your father's business? " 
 
 " He was a bib-bib-bricklayer," the young man 
 replied calmly, adding, reflectively, "when he wasn't 
 did-did-drunk. " 
 
 " Bless my old soul ! " said Mr. Copernicus to him- 
 self, "this is most extraordinary! I '11 see you again, 
 young man. Barney ! " he called to the head porter, 
 "this young man will remain with us for the present." 
 
 A couple of days later, Mr. Copernicus sent for 
 Michael Ouinlan, and invited him to call at the Coperni- 
 can residence on Washington Square, that evening. 
 
 " I want to have Professor Barcalow talk with you," 
 he explained. 
 
 At the hour appointed, Mr. M. Ouinlan presented 
 himself at the basement door of the old house, and 
 was promptly translated to the library, where Professor 
 Barcalow, once President of Clear Creek University, 
 Indiana, rubbed his bald head and examined the young 
 man at length. 
 
 Ouinlan underwent an hour's ordeal without the 
 shadow of discomposure. 
 
 He drawled and stuttered with a placid face, whether 
 his answers were right or wrong. At the end of the hour, 
 the Professor gave his verdict. 
 
 "Our young friend," he said, "has certainly done 
 
MR. COPERNICUS AND THE PROLETARIAT. T51 
 
 wonders for himself in the way of self-tuition. He is 
 almost able — mind, I say almost — to pass a good 
 Freshman examination. Of course, 
 he is not thorough. There is just 
 the same difference, Mr. Coper- 
 nicus, between the tuition you 
 do for yourself and the tuition 
 that you receive from a com- 
 petent teacher as there is be- 
 tween the carpentering you do 
 for yourself and the carpenter- 
 ing a regular carpenter does 
 for you. I can see the marks of 
 self-tuition all over this young 
 man's conversation. He has 
 never met a competent instruc- 
 tor in his life. But he has done 
 very well for himself — wonderfully 
 
 well. He in entitled to great credit. Try to remember, 
 Ouinlan, what I told you about the use of the ablative 
 absolute." 
 
 Ouinlan said he would, and made his exit by the 
 basement door. 
 
 "If he works hard," remarked the Professor, "he 
 will be able to enter Clear Creek by June, and work his 
 way through." 
 
 "And as it happens," said Mr. Copernicus, "I 'm 
 going to lose my night-watchman next week, and I 
 think I '11 put Quinlan in. And then I 've been think- 
 ing — there are all poor Tom's books that he had when 
 
v 
 
 SHORT SIXES." 
 
 he went to Columbia. I '11 let the boy come here and 
 borrow them, and I can keep an eye on him and see 
 how he 's getting along." 
 
 "H'm! yes, of course," the 
 Professor assented hesitat- 
 ingly, dubious of Mr. Coper- 
 N nicus's classics. 
 
 Well, Barney," Mr. Coper- 
 nicus hailed his head-por- 
 ter a month or two later, 
 "how does our new 
 night-watchman do?" 
 "Faith, I 've seen 
 worse than him," said 
 Barney. "He's a will- 
 ing lad." 
 Barney's heart had been won. He came down to 
 the store each morning and found that Quinlan had 
 saved him the trouble of taking off the long sheets of 
 cotton cloth that protected the books on the counters 
 from the dust. 
 
 Every week thereafter, Ouinlan presented himself 
 at the basement door, shabby, but no longer collarless, 
 was admitted to the library, by way of the back-stairs, 
 and received from Mrs. Copernicus the books that Mr. 
 Copernicus had set aside for him. But one day Mr. 
 
MR. COPERNICUS AND THE PROLETARIAT. rjj 
 
 Copernicus forgot the books, and Mrs. Copernicus asked 
 the young man into the parlor to explain to him how it 
 had happened. When she had explained, being a kindly 
 soul, she made a little further conversation, and asked 
 Quinlan some questions about his studies. Greek was 
 Greek indeed to her; but when he spoke of French, she 
 felt as though she had a sort of second-hand acquaint- 
 ance with the language. 
 
 " Floretta," she said to her daughter, " talk to Mr. 
 Ouinlan in French, and find out how much he knows." 
 
 Floretta blushed. She was a wren-like little thing, 
 with soft brown hair, rather pretty, and yet the sort 
 of girl whom men never notice. To address this male 
 stranger was an agony to her. But she knew that her 
 French had been bought at a fashionable boarding- 
 school, and bought for show, and her mother had a 
 right to demand its exhibition. She asked M. Quinlan 
 how he portayed himself, and M. Ouinlan, with no more 
 expression on his face than a Chinese idol, but with a 
 fluency checked only by his drawl and his stutter, poured 
 forth what sounded to Mrs. Copernicus like a small 
 oration. 
 
 "What did he say then, Floretta?" she demanded. 
 
 " He said how grateful he was to Papa for giving 
 him such a chance, and how he wants to be a teacher 
 when he knows enough. And, oh, Mama, he speaks 
 ever so much better than / do." 
 
 "Where did you learn to speak so well?" inquired 
 Mrs. Copernicus, incredulously. 
 
 " I lived for some years in a French house, Ma'am. 
 
'54 
 
 SHORT SIXES." 
 
 At least, the lady of the house was French, and she 
 never spoke any thing else." 
 
 Beneficence is quick to develop into an insidious 
 habit. When Mr. Copernicus heard this new thing of his 
 prodigy and protege, a new idea came to him. 
 
 " Old Haverhill, down at the office, speaks French 
 like a native. I '1 let him feel Quinlan's teeth, and if he 
 is as good as you say he is, he 'd better come once a 
 week and talk French to Floretta for an hour. You can 
 sit in the room. She ought to keep up her French." 
 
 And every Wednesday, from four to five, 
 Mr. Ouinlan and Miss Floretta con- 
 versed, Floretta blushing 
 ever, Ouinlan retaining his 
 idol-like stolidity. Some- 
 times the dull monotony 
 of his drawl, broken only 
 by his regular and rhyth- 
 mic stutter, lulled Mrs. 
 Copernicus into a brief 
 nap over her book or her 
 fancy work. 
 
 Spring had come. The trees had brought out their 
 pale and gauzy green veils, the beds of tulips and Alpine 
 daisies made glad spots in the parks, and Quinlan, at his 
 employer's suggestion, had purchased a ready made 
 Spring suit, in which he looked so presentable that Mr. 
 Copernicus was half minded to ask him to dinner. 
 
MR. COPERNICUS AND THE PROLETARIAT. 155 
 
 For Mrs. Copernicus had said something to Mr. 
 Copernicus that had set him to thinking of many things. 
 The Chinese idol had abated no jot of his stolidity, and 
 yet — perhaps — he had found a worshiper. Floretta 
 began blushing of Wednesdays, a full hour before the 
 lesson. 
 
 What was to come of it ? On the face of it, it seemed 
 impossible. A Ouinlan and a Copernicus ! And yet — 
 great-grandfather Copernicus, who founded the family in 
 America — was not he a carpenter? And did not his 
 descendants point with pride to his self-made solidity ? 
 And here was native worth ; high ambition ; achieve- 
 ment that promised more. And Floretta was twenty- 
 four, and had never had an offer. " What," inquired 
 Mr. Copernicus of himself, "is my duty toward the 
 proletariat ?" 
 
 One thing was certain. If the question was not set- 
 tled in the negative at once, Ouinlan must be educated. 
 So, instead of inviting Ouinlan to dinner, he invited Mr. 
 Joseph Mitts, the traveling agent of the Hopkinsonian 
 Higher Education Association, who, by a rare 
 chance, was in town. 
 
 Cynical folk said that the Hopkinsonian 
 Association existed only to sell certain text- 
 books and curious forms of stationery which 
 were necessary to the Hopkinsonian system. 
 But no such idea had ever entered the head 
 of Mr. Mitts. He roamed about the land, 
 introducing the System wherever he could, and 
 a brisk business agent followed him and sold 
 
rj6 "SHORT SIXES." 
 
 the Hopkinsonian Blackboards and the Hopkinsonian 
 Ink and the Hopkinsonian Teachers' Self-Examination 
 Blanks, on commission. 
 
 As they smoked their cigars in the Library after 
 dinner, Mr. Copernicus told Mr. Mitts about Ouinlan. 
 Mr. Mitts was interested. He knew a Professor at a 
 fresh-water college who would put Quinlan through his 
 studies during the vacation. 
 
 "Well, that 's settled," Mr. Copernicus said, and he 
 beamed with satisfaction. "I knew you 'd help me out, 
 Mitts. Only it 's so hard ever to get a sight of you — 
 you are always traveling about." 
 
 "We don't often meet," Mr. Mitts assented. "And 
 it is curious that this visit should have been the means 
 of giving me sight of a man in whom I want to interest 
 you. His name is Chester — Dudley Winthrop Chester. 
 He is the son of my old clergyman, and he has given 
 his parents a deal of trouble. I don't know that Dud 
 ever was vicious or dissolute. But he was the most con- 
 firmed idler and spendthrift I ever knew. He could n't 
 even get through college, and he never would do a 
 stroke of work. He made his father pay his debts half 
 a dozen times, and when that was stopped, he drifted 
 away, and his family quite lost sight of him. I met him 
 in Baltimore last year, and lent him money to come to 
 New York. He said he was going to work. And just 
 as I came in your front door, I saw him going out of 
 your basement door with a package under his arm, so 
 I infer he is employed by one of your trades-people — 
 your grocer, perhaps." 
 
MR. COPERNICUS AND THE PROLETARIAT. 157 
 
 " Just as you came in? Why — a large, dark-haired 
 young man? " 
 
 "Yes; clean-shaven." 
 
 " Why, that was Ouinlan ! " 
 
 "No," said Mr. Mitts, with the smile of superior 
 knowledge. "It was Chester, and if I 'm not mistaken, 
 he was kissing the cook." 
 
 "Then you are mistaken!" cried Mr. Copernicus; 
 "my cook is as black as the ace of spades. There is n't 
 a white servant in the house." 
 
 "Why, that 's so!" Mr. Mitts was staggered for 
 the moment. "But — wait a minute — does your man 
 Quinlan speak with a drawl, and just one stutter to the 
 sentence?" 
 
 "I think he does," replied his host; "but — " 
 
 " Dudley Chester ! " said Mr. Mitts. 
 
 " But, my dear Mitts, where did he get the Latin 
 and Greek? " 
 
 " He had to learn something at Yale." 
 
 "And the French?" 
 
 " His mother was a French Canadian. That 's 
 where he gets his French — and his laziness." 
 
 Mr. Copernicus made one last struggle. 
 
 "But he has been most industrious and faithful in 
 my employ." 
 
 "What is he?" 
 
 "My — my night-watchman." 
 
 " Mr. Copernicus," inquired Mr. Mitts, "have you a 
 watchman's clock in your building?" 
 
 " No, sir," said Mr. Copernicus, indignantly. " I 
 
rjS "SHORT SIXES." 
 
 have none of those degrading new-fangled machines. I 
 prefer to trust my employees." 
 
 " Then Dudley Chester is asleep in your store at 
 this minute." 
 
 A soft, moist breeze, with something of the sea in 
 it, blew gently in at an open window of the second 
 floor of the business establishment of T. Copernicus & 
 Son. Near the window a gas-jet flickered. Under the 
 gas-jet, on, or rather in, a bed ingeniously constructed 
 of the heaped-up covering-cloths from the long counters, 
 lay Mr. Michael Quinlan, half-supported on his left 
 elbow. In his other hand he held, half-open, a yellow- 
 covered French novel. Between his lips was a cigarette. 
 A faint shade of something like amusement lent expres- 
 sion to his placid features as he listened to Mr. Coper- 
 nicus puffing his way up the stairs, followed by Mr. 
 Mitts and Barney. The hands on the clock pointed to 
 eleven. Mr. Quinlan's attire was appropriate to the 
 hour. He wore only a frayed cotton night-shirt. His 
 other clothes were carelessly disposed about his couch. 
 
 He waited calmly until his visitors had appeared 
 before him, and then he greeted them with a gracious 
 wave of his hand — an easy gesture that seemed to 
 dismiss Quinlan and announce Chester. 
 
 "Gentlemen," he drawled, "you '11 excuse my not 
 gig-gig-getting up to welcome you. Ah, Joseph ! I saw 
 you this evening, and I supposed the j-j-jig was up." 
 
 Mr. Copernicus was purple and speechless for the 
 
MR. COPERNICUS AND THE PROLETARIAT. rjg 
 
 better part of a minute. Then he demanded, in a husky 
 whisper : 
 
 "Who are you?" 
 
 Mr. Chester, with nothing of the Ouinlan left about 
 him, waved his hand once more. 
 
 " Mr. Joseph Mitts is a gentleman of irre-pip-pip- 
 proachable veracity," he said. "I can kik-kik-confidently 
 confirm any statements he has made about me." 
 
 "And why — " Mr. Copernicus had found his voice 
 — "why have you humbugged me in this iniquitous — 
 infamous way?" 
 
 The late Otiinlan gazed at him with blank surprise. 
 
 "My dear sir, did-did-don't you see? If I'd told 
 you who I was, you 'd have thought I was a did-did-damn 
 fool not to know more than I did. Whereas, don't you 
 see? you thought I was a did-did-devil of a fellow." 
 
 " Get up and dress yourself and get out of here ! " 
 said his employer. 
 
 "The jig, then," inquired Mr. Dudley Chester, 
 slowly rising, "is did-did-definitely up? No more Fif- 
 Fif-French lessons? No? Well," he continued, as he 
 leisurely pulled on his trousers, "that 's the kik-kik- 
 cussed inconsistency. The j-j-jig is up for the gentle- 
 man; but when you thought I was a did-did-damn 
 Mick, I was right in the bib-bib-bosom of the blooming 
 family." 
 
 " Here are your week's wages," said Mr. Coperni- 
 cus, trembling with rage. "Now, get out!" 
 
 "Not exactly," responded the unperturbed sinner: 
 " a ticket to Chicago ! " 
 
t6o "SHORT SIXES." 
 
 "I'm afraid you had best yield," whispered Mr. 
 Mitts. " Your family,, you know. It would n't do to 
 have this get out." 
 
 Mr.- Copernicus had a minute of purple rage. Then 
 he handed the money to Mr. Mitts. 
 
 "Put him on the train," he said. " There 's one 
 at twelve." 
 
 "We can make it if we hurry," said the obliging 
 Mr. Mitts. "Where 's your lodging-house, Chester?" 
 
 Chester opened his eyes inquiringly. "Why, this 
 is all I 've got," he said; "what 's the mim-mim-matter 
 with this?" 
 
 "But your — your luggage?" inquired Mr. Mitts. 
 
 Mr. Chester waved a much-worn tooth-brush in 
 the air. 
 
 "Man wants but lil-lil-little here below," he re- 
 marked. 
 
 " You see," explained Mr. Dudley Winthrop Ches- 
 ter, formerly Quinlan, as he stepped out into the night 
 air with Mr. Mitts, " the scheme is bib-bib-busted here, 
 but I 've got confidence in it. It 's good — it '11 gig- 
 gig-go. Chicago 's the pip-pip-place for me. I sup- 
 pose if you flash up ' amo, amas ' to a Chicago man, 
 he thinks you 're Elihu Burritt, the learned bib-bib- 
 blacksmith." 
 
 "Aren't you tired of this life of false pretences?" 
 asked Mr. Mitts, sternly. 
 
 "You can bib-bib-bet I am," responded Chester, 
 
MR. COPERNICUS AND THE PROLETARIAT. 161 
 
 frankly; "I haven't said a cuss-word in six months. 
 Did-did-did-damn — damn — damn — damn ! " he vo- 
 ciferated into the calm air of night, by 
 way of relieving his pent-up feelings. 
 ' How long is it, Dudley," pur- 
 sued the patient Mitts, "since 
 your parents heard from you ? " 
 " Two years, I gig- gig- 
 guess," said Chester. " By 
 Jove," he added, as his eye 
 fell on the blue sign of a tele- 
 graph office, "did-did-damn if 
 I don't telegraph them right now." 
 Mr. Mitts was deeply gratified. "That s a good 
 idea," he said. 
 
 " Lend me a kik-kik-quarter," said 
 Dudley Chester. 
 
 At midnight sharp, Mr. Mitts saw his 
 charge ascend the rear platform of the 
 Chicago train just as it moved out of the 
 gloomy Jersey City station of the Penn- 
 sylvania Railroad. 
 
 A young woman of slight figure, with 
 a veil about her face, emerged from the 
 interior of the car and threw her arms 
 around the neck of Mr. Chester, late Ouinlan. 
 
 "I thought I wasn't mistaken." said Mr. Mitts to 
 himself. 
 
162 
 
 SHORT SIXES.' 1 
 
 The next week he received an envelope containing 
 a scrap roughly torn out of a daily paper. It read as 
 follows : 
 
 MARRIL 
 
 SCHOFF.-At tli- 
 
 .S the Rev. Dr. Krotej, 
 
 Bischoff. daughter of 
 off. to Theodore Breusino. of Oscabriye. - 
 many. 
 
 CHE9TER-C0PERN1CD9.-Atlhe rectory of the 
 Church of St. Jamos the Greater, by the Rev. Dr. 
 Wilson Wilson. D D.. Flobetta. daughter of 
 Thomas CoperDicus. of New York, to Dudle? 
 Wimtheop Chester, of Baltimore. Md, No cards 
 
 Mai rlaffe r 
 extra cbar 
 Loodi'p 
 
 ■Kh nax* 
 
 »d, without 
 
 ",her the 
 
 Rt 
 
 And yet, within six months, Mr. Mitts received 
 cards. They bade him to a reception given by Mr. and 
 Mrs. Chester at the house of Mr. Thomas Copernicus. 
 
 "/ could n't have done that," said Mr. Mitts to 
 himself. 
 
HECTOR. 
 
.^ 
 
 
 o 
 
HECTOR. 
 
 IT was such a quiet old home, so comfortably covered 
 with wistaria from basement to chimney-tops, and it 
 stood on the corner of two such quiet, old-fashioned 
 streets on the East side of New York that you would 
 never have imagined that it held six of the most agitated 
 and perturbed women in the great city. But the three 
 Miss Pellicoes, their maid, their waitress and their cook, 
 could not have been more troubled in 
 their feminine minds had they 
 been six exceptionally attract- 
 ive Sabines with the Roman 
 soldiery in full cry. 
 
 For twenty years — ever 
 
 since the death of old Mr. 
 
 Pellicoe — these six women 
 
 had lived in mortal fear of 
 
 the marauding man, and the 
 
 Man had come at last. That 
 
 very evening, at a quarter past 
 
 eight o'clock, a creature who called 
 
 himself a book-agent had rung the 
 
i66 "SHORT SIXES." 
 
 front door bell. Honora, the waitress, had opened the 
 door a couple of inches, inquired the stranger's business, 
 learned it, told him to depart, tried to close the door, 
 and discovered that the man had inserted his toe in the 
 opening. She had closed the door violently, and the 
 man had emitted a single oath of deep and sincere pro- 
 fanity. He had then kicked the door and departed, with 
 a marked limp. 
 
 At least this was the story as Honora first related it. 
 But as she stood before the assembled household and 
 recounted it for the seventh time, it had assumed propor- 
 tions that left no room for the charitable hypothesis that 
 an innocent vender of literature had been the hapless 
 victim of his own carelessness or clumsiness. 
 
 " And whin he had the half of his big ugly body 
 in the crack o' th' dure," she said, in excited tones and 
 with fine dramatic action, " and him yellin' an' swearin' 
 and cussin' iv'ry holy name he could lay his black tongue 
 to, and me six years cook in a convent, and I t'rew th' 
 whole weight o' me on th' dure, an' — " 
 
 " That will do, Honora," said Miss Pellicoe, who 
 was the head of the household. She perceived that the 
 combat was deepening too rapidly. " You may go. We 
 will decide what is to be done." 
 
 And Miss Pellicoe had decided what was to be done. 
 
 "Sisters," she said to her two juniors, "we must 
 keep a dog." 
 
 "A dog! " cried Miss Angela, the youngest; "oh, 
 how nice ! " 
 
 " I do not think it is nice at all," said Miss Pellicoe, 
 
HECTOR. 167 
 
 somewhat sternly, "nor would you, Angela, if you had 
 any conception of what it really meant. I do not pro- 
 pose to keep a lap-dog, or a King Charles spaniel, but a 
 dog — a mastiff, or a bloodhound, or some animal of 
 that nature, such as would spring at the throat of an 
 invader, and bear him to the ground ! " 
 
 "Oh, dear!" gasped Miss Angela. "I should be 
 afraid of him ! " 
 
 "You do not understand as yet, Angela," Miss 
 Pellicoe explained, knitting her brows. " My intention 
 is to procure the animal as a — in fact — a puppy, and 
 thus enable him to grow up and to regard us with affec- 
 tion, and be willing to hold himself at all times in readi- 
 ness to afford us the protection we desire. It is clearly 
 impossible to have a man in the house. I have decided 
 upon a mastiff." 
 
 When Miss Pellicoe decided upon a thing, Miss 
 Angela Pellicoe and her other sister promptly acquiesced. 
 On this occasion they did not, even in their inmost 
 hearts, question the wisdom of the decision of the head 
 of the house. A man, they knew, was not to be thought 
 of. For twenty years the Pellicoe house had been a 
 bower of virginity. The only men who ever* entered it 
 were the old family doctor, the older family lawyer, and 
 annually, on New Year's Day, in accordance with an 
 obsolete custom, Major Kitsedge, their father's old 
 partner, once junior of the firm of Pellicoe &. Kitsedge. 
 Not even the butcher or the baker or the candlestick- 
 maker forced an entrance to that innocent dovecote. 
 They handed in their wares through a wicket- gate in the 
 
168 
 
 SHORT SIXES." 
 
 back yard and were sent about their business by the 
 chaste Honora. 
 
 The next morning, having awakened to find them- 
 selves and the silver still safe, Miss Pellicoe and Miss 
 Angela set out for a dog store which they had seen ad- 
 vertised in the papers. It was in an unpleasantly low 
 and ill-bred part of the town, and when the two ladies 
 reached it, they paused outside the door, and listened, 
 with lengthened faces, to the combined clamor and smell 
 that emanated from its open door. 
 " This," said Miss 
 Pellicoe, after a brief 
 deliberation, "is not 
 a place for us. If 
 we are to procure a 
 dog, he must be pro- 
 cured in some 
 other way. It need 
 not entail a loss of 
 self-respect. 
 
 "I have it!" 
 she added with a 
 sudden inspira- 
 tion. " I will write 
 to Hector." 
 Hector was the sole male representative of the Pel- 
 licoe family. He was a second cousin of the Misses 
 Pellicoe. He lived out West — his address varying from 
 year to year. Once in a long while Miss Pellicoe wrote 
 to him, just to keep herself in communication with the 
 
HECTOR. i6g 
 
 Man of the family. It made her feel more secure, in 
 view of possible emergencies. She had not seen Hector 
 since he was nineteen. He was perhaps the last person 
 of any positive virility who had had the freedom of the 
 Pellicoe household. He had used that freedom mainly 
 in making attempts to kiss Honora, who was then in her 
 buxom prime, and in decorating the family portraits with 
 cork moustaches and whiskers. Miss Pellicoe clung to 
 the Man of the family as an abstraction ; but she was 
 always glad that he lived in the West. Addressing him 
 in his capacity of Man of the family, she wrote to him 
 and asked him to supply her with a young mastiff, and 
 to send her bill therefor. She explained the situation to 
 him, and made him understand that the dog must be of 
 a character to be regarded as a male relative. 
 
 Hector responded at once. He would send a mastiff 
 pup within a week. The pup's pedigree was, unfortu- 
 nately, lost, but the breed was high. Fifty dollars would 
 cover the cost and expenses of transportation. The pup 
 was six months old. 
 
 For ten days the Pellicoe household was in a fever 
 of expectation. Miss Pellicoe called in a carpenter, and, 
 chaperoned by the entire household, held an interview 
 with him, and directed him how to construct a dog-house 
 in the back-yard — a dog-house with one door about six 
 inches square, to admit the occupant in his innocent 
 puphood, and with another door about four feet in height 
 to emit him, when, in the pride of his mature mascu- 
 linity, he should rush forth upon the burglar and the 
 book-agent. The carpenter remarked that he "never 
 
I"JO 
 
 SHORT SIXES." 
 
 seen no such a dorg as that;" but Miss Pellicoe thought 
 him at once ignorant and ungrammatical, and paid no 
 heed to him. 
 
 In conclave assembled, the Misses Pellicoe decided 
 to name the dog Hector. Beside the consideration of 
 the claims of gratitude and family affection, they remem- 
 bered that Hector was a classical hero. 
 
 The ten days came to an end when, just at dusk of 
 a dull January day, two stalwart expressmen, with much 
 open grumbling and smothered cursing, deposited a huge 
 packing-case in the vestibule of the Pellicoe house, and 
 departed, slamming the doors behind them. From this 
 box proceeded such yelps and howls that the entire 
 household rushed affrighted to peer through the slats 
 that gridironed the top. Within was a mighty black 
 beast, as high as a table, that flopped itself wildly about, 
 clawed at the sides of the box, and swung in every direc- 
 tion a tail as large as a policeman's night-club. 
 
 It was Hector. There was no mistake about it, for 
 Mr. Hector Pellicoe's card was nailed to a slat. It was 
 Hector, the six-months-old pup, for whose diminutive 
 proportions fhe small door in the dog-house had been 
 devised; Hector, for whom a saucer of lukewarm milk 
 was even then waiting by the kitchen range. 
 
 "Oh, Sister!" cried Miss Angela, "we never can 
 get him out ! You '11 have to send for a man / " 
 
 " I certainly shall not send for a man at this hour 
 of the evening," said Miss Pellicoe, white, but firm; 
 "and I shall not leave the poor creature imprisoned 
 during the night." Here Hector yawped madly. 
 
HECTOR. 171 
 
 "I shall take him out," concluded Miss Pellicoe, 
 " myself/ " 
 
 They hung upon her neck, and entreated her not to 
 risk her life; but Miss Pellicoe had made up her mind. 
 The three maids shoved the box into the butler's pantry, 
 shrieking with terror every time that Hector leaped at 
 the slats, and at last, with the two younger Pellicoes 
 holding one door a foot open, and the three maids hold- 
 ing the other door an inch open, Miss Pellicoe seized the 
 household hatchet, and began her awful task. One slat ! 
 Miss Pellicoe was white but firm. Two slats ! Miss 
 Pellicoe was whiter and firmer. Three slats ! — and a 
 vast black body leaped high in the air. With five simul- 
 taneous shrieks, the two doors were slammed to, and 
 Miss Pellicoe and Hector were left together in the but- 
 ler's pantry. 
 
 The courage of the younger Pellicoes asserted itself 
 after a moment, and they flung open the pantry door. 
 Miss Pellicoe, looking as though she needed aromatic 
 vinegar, leaned against the wall. Hector had his fore- 
 paws on her shoulders, and was licking her face in 
 exuberant affection. 
 
 "Sisters," gasped Miss Pellicoe, "will you kindly 
 remove him? I should like to faint." 
 
 But Hector had already released her to dash at Miss 
 Angela, who frightened him by going into such hysterics 
 that Miss Pellicoe was obliged to deny herself the luxury 
 of a faint. Then he found the maids, and, after driving 
 them before him like chaff for five minutes, succeeded 
 in convincing Honora of the affectionate- purpose of 
 
rja 
 
 short sixes: 
 
 his demonstrations, and accepted her invitation to the 
 kitchen, where he emptied the saucer of milk in 
 three laps. 
 
 " I think, Honora," suggested Miss Pellicde, who 
 had resumed command, " that you 
 might, perhaps, give him a 
 slice or two of last night's 
 leg of mutton. Perhaps 
 he needs something more 
 sustaining." 
 
 Honora produced the 
 mutton-leg. It was clearly 
 what Hector wanted. He 
 took it from her without cere- 
 mony, bore it under the sink and 
 ate all of it except about six inches of the bone, which 
 he took to bed with him. 
 
 The next day, feeling the need of masculine advice, 
 Miss Pellicoe resolved to address herself to the policeman 
 on the beat, and she astonished him with the following 
 question : 
 
 "Sir," she said, in true Johnsonian style, "what 
 height should a mastiff dog attain at the age of six 
 months? " 
 
 The policeman stared at her in utter astonishment. 
 "They do be all sizes, Mum," he replied, blankly, 
 "like a piece of cheese." 
 
 " My relative in the West," explained Miss Pellicoe, 
 " has sent me a dog, and I am given to understand that 
 his age is six months. As he is phenomenally large, 
 
HECTOR 
 
 m 
 
 I have thought it best to seek for information. 
 Has my relative been imposed upon ? " 
 
 " It 's har-r-rd to tell, Mum," replied 
 the policeman, dubiously. Then his coun- 
 tenance brightened. " Does his feet 
 fit him? " he inquired. 
 
 "What — what do you mean?" 
 asked Miss Pellicoe, shrinking back 
 a little. 
 
 " Is his feet like blackin'-boxes on 
 th' ind of his legs ? " 
 
 "They are certainly very large." 
 
 "Thin 't is a pup. You see, Mum, 
 with a pup, 't is this way. The feet starts 
 first, an' the pup grows up to 'em, like. Av they match 
 him, he 's grown. Av he has arctics on, he 's a pup." 
 
 Hector's growth in the next six months dissipated 
 all doubts as to his puphood. He became a four-legged 
 Colossus, martial toward cats, aggressive toward the 
 tradesmen at the wicket-gate, impartially affectionate 
 toward all the household, and voracious beyond all imag- 
 ining. But he might have eaten the gentle ladies out 
 of house and home, and they would never have dreamed 
 of protesting. The house had found a Head — even a 
 Head above Miss Pellicoe. 
 
 The deposed monarch gloried in her subjection. 
 She said " Hector likes this," or " Hector likes that," 
 
174 •'SHORT SIXES." 
 
 with the tone of submissive deference in which you may- 
 hear a good wife say, "Mr. Smith will not eat cold 
 boiled mutton," or "Mr. Smith is very particular about 
 his shirt-bosoms." 
 
 As for Miss Angela, she never looked at Hector, 
 gamboling about the back-yard in all his superabundance 
 of strength and vitality, without feeling a half-agreeable 
 nervous shock, and a flutter of the heart. He stood for 
 her as the type of that vast outside world of puissant 
 manhood of which she had known but two specimens — 
 her father and Cousin Hector. Perhaps, in the old days, 
 if Cousin Hector had not been so engrossed in frivolity 
 and making of practical jokes, he might have learned of 
 something to his advantage. But he never did. 
 
 For the first time in her life, Miss Angela found 
 herself left to watch the house through the horrors of 
 the Fourth of July. This had always been Miss Pelli- 
 coe's duty ; but this year Miss Pellicoe failed to come 
 back from the quiet place in the Catskills, where no 
 children were admitted, and where the Pellicoe family, 
 two at a time, spent the Summer in the society of other 
 old maids and of aged widows. 
 
 " I feel that you are safe with Hector," she wrote. 
 
 Alack and alack for Miss Pellicoe's faith in Hector ! 
 The first fire-cracker filled him with excitement, and 
 before the noises of the day had fairly begun, he was 
 careering around the yard, barking in uncontrollable 
 
HECTOR. 
 
 ns 
 
 frenzy. At twelve o'clock, when the butcher-boy came 
 with the chops for luncheon, Hector bounded through 
 the open wicket, right into the arms of a dog- 
 catcher. Miss Angela wrung her hands as 
 she gazed from her window and saw the 
 Head of the House cast into the cage 
 with a dozen curs of the street and 
 driven rapidly off. 
 
 In her lorn anguish she sought 
 the functionary who was known in the 
 house as " Miss Pellicoe's policeman." 
 
 "Be aisy, Miss," he said. " Av 
 the dog is worth five dollars, say, to yez, 
 I have a friend will get him out for th' accommodation." 
 
 " Oh, take it, take it ! " cried Miss Angela, trem- 
 bling and weeping. 
 
 After six hours of anxious waiting, Miss Angela 
 received Hector at the front door, from a boy who turned 
 and fled as soon as his mission was accomplished. Hec- 
 tor was extremely glad to be at home, and his health 
 seemed to be unimpaired; but to Miss Angela's delicate 
 fancy, contact with the vulgar of his kind had left a 
 vague aroma of degradation about him. With her own 
 hands she washed him in tepid water and sprinkled him 
 with eau de cologne. And even then she could not help 
 feeling that to some extent the bloom had been brushed 
 from the peach. 
 
r?6 "SHORT SIXES." 
 
 Hector was ill — - very ill. The family conclave 
 assembled every night and discussed the situation with 
 knit brows and tearful eyes. They could not decide 
 whether the cause of his malady was the unwholesome- 
 ness of the Summer air in the city, or whether it was 
 simply over-feeding. He was certainly shockingly fat, 
 and much indisposed to exertion. He had lost all his 
 activity; all his animal spirits. He spent most of the 
 time in his house. Even his good-nature was going. 
 He had actually snapped at Honora. They had tried to 
 make up their minds to reduce his rations ; but their 
 hearts had failed them. They had hoped that the cool 
 air of September would help him ; but September was 
 well nigh half gone ; and Hector grew worse and worse. 
 
 " Sisters," said Miss Pellicoe, at last, "we shall have 
 to send for a Veterinary ! " She spoke as though she had 
 just decided to send for an executioner. And even as the 
 words left her lips there came from Hector such a wail of 
 anguish that Miss Pellicoe's face turned a ghastly white. 
 
 " He is going mad ! " she cried. 
 
 There was no sleep in the Pellicoe household that 
 night, although Hector wailed no more. At the break 
 of day, Miss Pellicoe led five other white-faced women 
 into the back yard. 
 
 Hector's head lay on the sill of his door. He seemed 
 too weak to rise, but he thrashed his tail pleasantly 
 against the walls, and appeared amiable and even cheer- 
 ful. The six advanced. 
 
 Miss Pellicoe knelt down and put her hand in to 
 pet him. Then a strange expression came over her face. 
 
" Sister," she said, " I think — a cat has got in and 
 bitten him." 
 
 She closed her hand on something soft, lifted it out 
 and laid it on the ground. It was small, it was black, it 
 was dumpy. It moved a round head in an uncertain, 
 inquiring way, and tried to open its tightly-closed eyes. 
 Then it squeaked. 
 
 Thrice more did Miss Pellicoe thrust her hand into 
 the house. Thrice again did she bring out an object 
 exactly similar. 
 
 " Wee-e-e-e !" squeaked the four objects. Hector 
 thrashed her tail about and blinked joyfully, all uncon- 
 scious of the utter wreck of her masculinity, looking as 
 though it were the most natural thing in the world for 
 her to have a litter of pups — as, indeed, it was. 
 
 Honora broke the awful silence, — Miss Angela was 
 sobbing so softly you could scarcely hear her. 
 
 "Be thim Hector's?" Honora inquired. 
 
t 7 S 
 
 SNORT SIXES." 
 
 " Honora ! " said Miss Pellicoe, rising, "never utter 
 that name in my presence again." 
 
 "An' fwat shall I call the dog?" 
 
 " Call it" — and Miss Pellicoe made a pause of im- 
 pressive severity, "call it — Andromache." 
 
A SISTERLY SCHEME. 
 

 ~. 
 
 K 
 
A SISTERLY SCHEME. 
 
 AWAY UP in the very heart of Maine there is a mighty 
 lake among the mountains. It is reached after a 
 journey of many hours from the place where you "go 
 in." That is the phrase of the country, and when you 
 have once "gone in," you know why it is not correct to 
 say that you have gone through the woods, or, simply, 
 to your destination. You find that you have plunged 
 into a new world — a world that has nothing in common 
 with the world that you live in ; a world of wild, solemn, 
 desolate grandeur, a world of space and silence ; a world 
 that oppresses your soul — and charms you irresistibly. 
 And after you have once "come out" of that world, there 
 will be times, to the day of your death, when you will be 
 homesick for it, and will long with a childlike longing to 
 go back to it. 
 
 Up in this wild region you will find a fashionable 
 Summer-hotel, with electric bells and seven-course din- 
 ners, and "guests" who dress three times a day. It is 
 perched on a little flat point, shut off from the rest of 
 the mainland by a huge rocky cliff". It is an impertinence 
 in that majestic wilderness, and Leather-Stocking would 
 
t8a 
 
 short sixes: 
 
 doubtless have had a hankering to burn such an affront 
 to Nature ; but it is a good hotel, and people go to it and 
 breathe the generous air of the 
 great woods. 
 
 On the beach near this 
 hotel, where the canoes were 
 drawn up in line, there stood 
 one Summer morning a curly- 
 haired, fair young man — not 
 so very young, either — whose 
 cheeks were uncomfortably red 
 as he looked first at his own 
 canoe, high and dry, loaded 
 with rods and landing-net and 
 luncheon-basket, and then at 
 another canoe, fast disappear- 
 ing down the lake, wherein sat 
 a young man and a young woman. 
 "Dropped again, Mr. Morpeth?" 
 The young man looked up and saw a saucy face 
 laughing at him. A girl was sitting on the string-piece of 
 the dock. It was the face of a girl between childhood 
 and womanhood. By the face and the figure, it was a 
 woman grown. By the dress, you would have judged 
 it a girl. 
 
 And you would have been confirmed in the latter 
 opinion by the fact that the young person was doing 
 something unpardonable for a young lady, but not inex- 
 cusable in the case of a youthful tomboy. She had 
 taken off her canvas shoe, and was shaking some small 
 
A SISTERLY SCHEME. i8j 
 
 stones out of it. There was a tiny hole in her black 
 stocking, and a glimpse of her pink toe was visible. The 
 girl was sunburnt, but the toe was prettily pink. 
 
 "Your sister," replied the young man with dignity, 
 "was to have gone fishing with me; but she remem- 
 bered at the last moment that she had a prior engage- 
 ment with Mr. Brown." 
 
 " She had n't," said the girl. "I heard them make 
 it up last evening, after you went upstairs." 
 
 The young man clean forgot himself. 
 
 " She 's the most heartless coquette in the world!" 
 he cried, and clinched his hands. 
 
 " She is all that," said the young person on the 
 string-piece of the dock, "and more too. And yet, I 
 suppose, you want her all the same?" 
 
 " I 'm afraid I do," said the young man, miserably. 
 
 "Well," said the girl, putting her shoe on again, 
 and beginning to tie it up, " I '11 tell you what it is, Mr. 
 Morpeth. You 've been hanging around Pauline for a 
 year, and you are the only one of the men she keeps on 
 a string who has n't snubbed me. Now, if you want me 
 to, I '11 give you a lift." 
 
 " A — a — what? " 
 
 "A lift. You 're wasting your time. Pauline has 
 no use for devotion. It 's a drug in the market with her 
 — has been for five seasons. There 's only one way to 
 get her worked up. Two fellows tried it, and they nearly 
 got there ; but they were n't game enough to stay to the 
 bitter end. I think you 're game, and I '11 tell you. 
 You 've got to make her jealous." 
 
1 84 " SHORT SIXES." 
 
 " Make her jealous of me? " 
 
 "No! " said his friend, with infinite scorn; "make 
 her jealous of the other girl. Oh / but you men are 
 stupid ! " 
 
 The young man pondered a moment. 
 
 "Well, Flossy," he began, and then he became 
 conscious of a sudden change in the atmosphere, and 
 perceived that the young lady was regarding him with 
 a look that might have chilled his soul. 
 
 "Miss Flossy — Miss Belton — " he hastily corrected 
 himself. Winter promptly changed to Summer in Miss 
 Flossy Belton's expressive face. 
 
 "Your scheme," he went on, "is a good one. Only 
 — it involves the discovery of another girl." 
 
 "Yes," assented Miss Flossy, cheerfully. 
 
 "Well," said the young man, "doesn't it strike 
 you that if I were to develop a sudden admiration for 
 any one of these other young ladies whose charms I 
 have hitherto neglected, it would come tardy off — lack 
 artistic verisimilitude, so to speak?" 
 
 " Rather," was Miss Flossy's prompt and frank 
 response; "especially as there isn't one of them fit to 
 flirt with." 
 
 " Well, then, where am I to discover the girl? " 
 
 Miss Flossy untied and retied her shoe. Then she 
 said, calmly : 
 
 "What's the matter with — " a hardly perceptible 
 hesitation — " me ? " 
 
 " With you ? " Mr. Morpeth was startled out of his 
 manners. 
 
A SISTERLY SCHEME. i8 5 
 
 "Yes! " 
 
 Mr. Morpeth simply stared. 
 
 "Perhaps," suggested Miss Flossy, "I 'm not good- 
 looking enough ? " 
 
 "You are good-looking enough," replied Mr. Mor- 
 peth, recovering himself, "for anything — " and he 
 threw a convincing emphasis into the last word as he 
 took what was probably his first real inspection of his 
 adored one's junior — "but — are n't you a trifle — 
 young? " 
 
 "How old do you suppose I am?" 
 
 "I know. Your sister told me. You are sixteen." 
 
 " Sixteen ! " repeated Miss Flossy, with an infinite 
 and uncontrollable scorn, "yes, and I 'm the kind of 
 sixteen that stays sixteen till your elder sister 's married. 
 1 was eighteen years old on the third of last December 
 — unless they began to double on me before I was old 
 enough to know the difference — it would be just like 
 Mama to play it on me in some such way," she con- 
 cluded, reflectively. 
 
 "Eighteen years old !" said the young man. " The 
 deuce ! " Do not think that he was an ill-bred young 
 man. He was merely astonished, and he had much more 
 astonishment ahead of him. He mused for a moment. 
 
 "Well," he said, "what 's your plan of campaign? 
 I am to — to discover you." 
 
 "Yes," said Miss Flossy, calmly, "and to flirt with 
 me like fun." 
 
 "And may I ask what attitude you are to take when 
 you are — discovered?" 
 
t86 "SHORT SIXES." 
 
 "Certainly," replied the imperturbable Flossy. "I 
 am going to dangle you." 
 
 " To — to dangle me ? " 
 
 " As a conquest, don't you know. Let you hang 
 round and laugh at you." 
 
 "Oh, indeed?" 
 
 "There, don't be wounded in your masculine pride. 
 You might as well face the situation. You don't think 
 that Pauline 's in love with you, do you?" 
 
 " No ! " groaned the young man. 
 
 " But you 've got lots of money. Mr. Brown has 
 got lots more. You 're eager. Brown is coy. That 's 
 the reason that Brown is in the boat and you are on the 
 cold, cold shore, talking to Little Sister. Now if Little 
 Sister jumps at you, why, she 's simply taking Big Sister's 
 leavings; it's all in the family, any way, and there 's 
 no jealousy, and Pauline can devote her whole mind to 
 Brown. There, don't look so limp. You men are simply 
 childish. Now, after you 've asked me to marry you — " 
 
 "Oh, I 'm to ask you to marry me?" 
 
 "Certainly. You need n't look frightened, now. I 
 won't accept you. But then you are to go around like a 
 wet cat, and mope, and hang on worse then ever. Then 
 Big Sister will see that she can't afford to take that sort 
 of thing from Little Sister, and then — there 's your 
 chance." 
 
 "Oh, there's my chance, is it?" said Mr. Morpeth. 
 He seemed to have fallen into the habit of repetition. 
 
 "There's your only chance," said Miss Flossy, with 
 decision. 
 
A SISTERLY SCHEME. 187 
 
 Mr. Morpeth meditated. He looked at the lake, 
 where there was no longer sign or sound of the canoe, 
 and he looked at Miss Flossy, who sat calm, self-confi- 
 dent and careless, on the string-piece of the dock. 
 
 "I don't know how feasible — " he began. 
 
 "It 's feasible," said Miss Flossy, with decision. 
 "Of course Pauline will write to Mama, and of course 
 Mama will write and scold me. But she 's got to stay in 
 New York, and nurse Papa's gout ; and the Miss Red- 
 ingtons are all the chaperons we 've got up here, and 
 they don't amount to any thing — so I don't care." 
 
 " But why," inquired the young man; and his tone 
 suggested a complete abandonment to Miss Flossy's idea : 
 "why should you take so much trouble for me?" 
 
 " Mr. Morpeth," said Miss Flossy, solemnly, " I 'm 
 two years behind the time-table, and I 've got to make a 
 strike for liberty, or die. And besides," she added, "if 
 you are nice, it need n't be such an awful trouble." 
 
 Mr. Morpeth laughed. 
 
 "I '11 try to make it as little of a bore as possible," 
 he said, extending his hand. The girl did not take it. 
 
 " Don't make any mistake," she cautioned him, 
 searching his face with her eyes; "this is n't to be any 
 httle-girl affair. Little Sister does n't want any kind, 
 elegant, supercilious encouragement from Big Sister's 
 young man. It 's got to be a real flirtation — devotion 
 no end, and ten times as much as ever Pauline could get 
 out of you — and you've got to keep your end 'way — 
 'way — 'way up ! " 
 
 The young man smiled. 
 
i8S 
 
 SHORT SIXES." 
 
 "I'll keep my end up," he said; "but are you 
 certain that you can keep yours up ? " 
 
 "Well, I think so," replied Miss Flossy. " Pauline 
 will raise an awful row ; but if she goes too 
 far, I '11 tell my age, and hers, too.'''' 
 
 Mr. Morpeth looked in Miss Flossy's 
 calm face. Then he extended his hand 
 once more. 
 
 " It 's a bargain, so far as I 'm con- 
 cerned," he said. 
 
 This time a soft and small hand 
 met his with a firm, friendly, honest 
 pressure. 
 " And I '11 refuse you," said Miss Flossy. 
 
 Within two weeks, Mr. Morpeth found himself en- 
 tangled in a flirtation such as he had never dreamed of. 
 Miss Flossy's scheme had succeeded only too brilliantly. 
 The whole hotel was talking about the outrageous be- 
 havior of "that little Belton girl" and Mr. Morpeth, who 
 certainly ought to know better- 
 Mr. Morpeth had carried out his instructions. Be- 
 fore the week was out, he found himself giving the most 
 life-like imitation of an infatuated lover that ever de- 
 lighted the old gossips of a Summer-resort. And yet he 
 had only done what Flossy told him to do. 
 
 He got his first lesson just about the time that 
 Flossy, in the privacy of their apartments, informed 
 her elder sister that if she, Flossy, found Mr. Morpeth's 
 
A SISTERLY SCHEME. 
 
 i8g 
 
 society agreeable, it was nobody's concern but her own, 
 and that she was prepared to make some interesting 
 additions to the census statistics if any one thought dif- 
 ferently. 
 
 The lesson opened his eyes. 
 
 " Do you know," she said, " that it would n't be a 
 bit of a bad idea to telegraph to New York for some real 
 nice candy and humbly present it for my acceptance ? I 
 might take it — if the bonbonniere was pretty enough." 
 
 He telegraphed to New York and received, in the 
 course of four or five days, certain marvels of sweets 
 in a miracle of an upholstered box. The next day he 
 found her on the verandah, flinging the bonbons on the 
 lawn for the children to scramble for. 
 
 " Awfully nice of you to send me 
 these things," she said languidly, but 
 loud enough for the men around 
 her to hear — she had men around 
 her already : she had been discov- 
 ered — "but I never eat sweets, 
 you know. Here, you little mite 
 in the blue sash, don't you want 
 this pretty box to put your doll's 
 clothes in ? " 
 
 And Maillard's finest bonbon- 
 niere went to a yellow-haired brat 
 of three. 
 
 But this was the slightest and lightest of her capri- 
 ces. She made him send for his dog-cart and his horses, 
 all the way from New York, only that he might drive her 
 
igo 
 
 short sixes: 
 
 over the ridiculous little mile-and-a-half of road that 
 bounded the tiny peninsula. And she christened him 
 " Muffets," a nickname presumably suggested by " Mor- 
 peth"; and she called him "Muffets" in the hearing of 
 all the hotel people. 
 
 And did such conduct pass unchallenged? No. 
 Pauline scolded, raged, raved. She wrote to Mama. 
 Mama wrote back and reproved Flossy. But Mama could 
 not leave Papa. His gout was worse. The Miss Reding- 
 tons must act. The Miss Redingtons merely wept, and 
 nothing more. Pauline scolded ; the flirtation went on ; 
 and the people at the big hotel enjoyed it immensely. 
 
 And there was more to come. Four weeks had 
 passed. Mr. Morpeth was hardly on speaking terms with 
 the elder Miss Belton ; and with the younger Miss Belton 
 he was on terms which the hotel gossips characterized as 
 "simply scandalous." Brown glared at him when they 
 met, and he glared at Brown. Brown was having a hard 
 time. Miss Belton the elder was not pleasant 
 of temper in those trying days. 
 
 "And now," said Miss Flossy to 
 Mr. Morpeth, "it 's time you 
 proposed to me, Muffets." 
 
 They were sitting on the 
 hotel verandah, in the even- 
 ing darkness. No one was 
 near them, except an old 
 lady in a Shaker chair. 
 "There 's Mrs. Melby. 
 She 's pretending to be asleep, 
 
A SISTERLY SCHEME. tgl 
 
 but she is n't. She 's just waiting for us. Now walk me 
 up and down and ask me to marry you so that she can 
 hear it. It Ml be all over the hotel inside of half an hour. 
 Pauline will just rage." 
 
 With this pleasant prospect before him, Mr. Mor- 
 peth marched Miss Flossy Belton up and down the long 
 verandah. He had passed Mrs. Melby three times before 
 he was able to say, in a choking, husky, uncertain voice : 
 
 "Flossy — I — I — I love you ! " 
 
 Flossy's voice was not choking nor uncertain. It 
 rang out clear and silvery in a peal of laughter. 
 
 " Why, of course you do, Muffets, and I wish you 
 did n't. That 's what makes you so stupid half the time." 
 
 "But — " said Mr. Morpeth, vaguely; "but I — " 
 
 "But you're a silly boy," returned Miss Flossy; 
 and she added in a swift aside: "You have n't asked me 
 to marry you ! " 
 
 " W-W-W-Will you be my wife?" stammered Mr. 
 Morpeth. 
 
 "No !" said Miss Flossy, emphatically, " I will not. 
 You are too utterly ridiculous. The idea of it ! No, 
 Muffets, you are charming in your present capacity ; but 
 you are n't to be considered seriously." 
 
 They strolled on into the gloom at the end of the 
 great verandah. 
 
 " That 's the first time," he said, with a feeling of 
 having only the ghost of a breath left in his lungs, "that 
 I ever asked a woman to marry me." 
 
 " I should think so," said Miss Flossy, " from the 
 way you did it. And you were beautifully rejected, 
 
igs "SHORT SIXES." 
 
 were n't you. Now — look at Mrs. Melby, will you ? 
 She 's scudding off to spread the news." 
 
 And before Mr. Morpeth went to bed, he was aware 
 of the fact that every man and woman in the hotel knew 
 that he had "proposed" to Flossy Belton, and had been 
 "beautifully rejected." 
 
 Two sulky men, one sulky woman, and one girl 
 radiant with triumphant happiness started out in two 
 canoes, reached certain fishing-grounds known only to 
 the elect, and began to cast for trout. They had indif- 
 ferent luck. Miss Belton and Mr. Brown caught a dozen 
 trout; Miss Flossy Belton and Mr. Morpeth caught 
 eighteen or nineteen, and the day was wearing to a 
 close. Miss Flossy made the last cast of the day, just as 
 her escort had taken the paddle. A big trout rose — just 
 touched the fly - — and disappeared. 
 
 "It's this wretched rod!" cried Miss Flossy ; and 
 she rapped it on the gunwale of the canoe so sharply that 
 the beautiful split-bamboo broke sharp off in the middle 
 of the second-joint. Then she tumbled it overboard, 
 reel and all. 
 
 " I was tired of that rod, any way, Muffets," she said ; 
 "row me home, now; I 've got to dress for dinner." 
 
 Miss Flossy's elder sister, in the other boat, saw and 
 heard this exhibition of tyranny ; and she was so much 
 moved that she stamped her small foot, and endangered 
 the bottom of the canoe. She resolved that Mama should 
 come back, whether Papa had the gout or not. 
 
A SISTERLY SCHEMA. f 9 j 
 
 Mr. Morpeth, wearing a grave expression, was pad- 
 dling Miss Flossy toward the hotel. He had said nothing 
 whatever, and it was a noticeable silence that Miss Flossy 
 finally broke. 
 
 "You 've done pretty much everything that I wanted 
 you to do, Muffets," she said; "but you haven't saved 
 my life yet, and I 'm going to give you a chance." 
 
 It is not difficult to overturn a canoe. One twist of 
 Flossie's supple body did it, and before 
 he knew just what had happened, 
 Morpeth was swimming toward 
 the shore, holding up Flossy 
 Belton with one arm, and 
 fighting for life in the icy 
 water of a Maine lake. 
 
 The people were run- 
 ning down, bearing blankets 
 
 and brandy, as he touched bottom in his last desperate 
 struggle to keep the two of them above water. One 
 yard further, and there would have been no strength 
 left in him. 
 
 He struggled up on shore with her, and when he 
 got breath enough, he burst out : 
 
 " Why did you do it ? It was wicked ! It was cruel !" 
 
 "There!" she said, as she reclined composedly in 
 his arms, "that will do, Muffets. I don't want to be 
 scolded." 
 
 A delegation came along, bringing blankets and 
 brandy, and took her from him. 
 
tW "SHORT SIXES." 
 
 At five o'clock of that afternoon, Mr. Morpeth pre- 
 sented himself at the door of the parlor attached to the 
 apartments of the Belton sisters. Miss Belton, senior, 
 was just coming out of the room. She received his 
 inquiry after her sister's health with a white face and a 
 quivering lip. 
 
 "I should think, Mr. Morpeth," she began, "that 
 you had gone far enough in playing with the feelings of 
 a m-m-mere child, and that — oh! I have no words to 
 express my contempt for you ! " 
 
 And in a most unladylike rage Miss Pauline Belton 
 swept down the hotel corridor. 
 
 She had left the door open behind her. Morpeth 
 heard a voice, weak, but cheery, addressing him from 
 the far end of the parlor. 
 
 "You 've got her !" it said. She 's crazy mad. She '11 
 make up to you to-night — see if she don't." 
 
 Mr. Morpeth looked up and down the long corridor. 
 It was empty. He pushed the door open, and entered. 
 Flossy was lying on the sofa, pale, but 
 bright-eyed. 
 
 " You can get her," she whis- 
 pered, as he knelt down beside her. 
 " Flossy," he said, " don't you 
 know that that is all ended ? Don't 
 you know that I love you and you 
 only ? Don't you know that I have n't 
 thought about any one else since — since 
 — oh, Flossy, don't you — is it possible that you don't 
 understand?" 
 
A SlSTERL V SctikMk, 
 
 195 
 
 Flossy stretched out two weak arms, and put them 
 around Mr. Morpeth's neck. 
 
 << Why have I had you in training all Summer?" 
 said she. " Did you think it was for Pauline?" 
 
zozo. 
 
"*. 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 *S 
 
 s 
 
zozo. 
 
 THROUGH A THICKLY FALLING SNOW, on the outskirts 
 of one of New York's suburban towns, (a. hamlet of 
 some two hundred thousand population,) walked a man 
 who had but one desire in the world 
 ungratified. His name was Rich- 
 ard Brant, and he was a large, 
 deep -chested, handsome man 
 — a man's man ; hardly a 
 .. _^ ..j-, _ „ ( M woman's man at all : and yet 
 ^"^^rip g Yr r ^^il? ----.'' tne sort OI " man ^at is likely 
 §haS~£ " to make a pretty serious mat- 
 
 ter of it if he loves a woman, 
 or if a woman loves him. 
 Mr. Richard Brant came from the West, the West- 
 ern-born child of Eastern-born parents. He made his 
 fortune before he was thirty-five, and for five years he 
 had been trying to find out what he wanted to do with 
 that fortune. He was a man of few tastes, of no vices, 
 and of a straight-forward, go-ahead spirit that set him 
 apart from the people who make affectation the spice of 
 life. He wanted only one thing in the world, and that 
 
SHORT SIXES." 
 
 one thing money would not buy for him. So he was 
 often puzzled as to how he might best spend his money ; 
 and he often spent it foolishly. As he walked 
 through the suburban streets of the subur- 
 ban city, this sharp Winter's night, he 
 was reflecting on the folly of spending 
 money on a fur coat. He was wearing 
 the coat — a magnificent affair of bear- 
 skin and sable. 
 
 " South of Canada," he said to him- 
 self, "this sort of thing is vulgar and 
 unnecessary. / don't need it, any more 
 than a cow needs a side-pocket. It 's too 
 beastly hot for comfort at this moment. 
 I 'd carry it over my arm, only that I should 
 feel how absurdly heavy it really is." 
 Then he looked ahead through the thick snow, 
 and, although he was a man of strong nerves, he started 
 and stepped back like a woman who sees a cow. 
 "Great Caesar's Ghost!" said he. 
 He was justified in calling thus upon the 
 most respectable spook of antiquity. The 
 sight he saw was strange enough in it- 
 self: seen in the squalid, common- ^v| 
 place sub-suburban street, it was 
 bewildering. There, ahead of him, 
 walked Mephistopheles — Meph- 
 istopheles dressed in a red flan- 
 nel suit, trimmed with yellow, 
 all peaks and points; and on 
 
 *t 
 
 py 
 
 if 
 
 M 
 
 , 
 
 "4/ 
 
ZOZO. zoi 
 
 the head of Mephistopheles was an old, much worn, 
 brown Derby hat. 
 
 Brant caught Mephisto by the shoulder and turned 
 him around. He was a slight, undersized man of fifty, 
 whose moustache and goatee, dyed an impossible black, 
 served only to accentuate the meagre commonness of 
 his small features. 
 
 " Who are you? " demanded Brant. 
 
 " Sh-h-h ! " said the shivering figure, " lemme go ! 
 I 'm Zozo ! " 
 
 Brant stared at him in amazement. What was it? 
 A walking advertisement — for an automatic toy or a 
 new tooth-powder? 
 
 "It's all right," said the slim man, his teeth chat- 
 tering, "lemme get along. I'm most freezing. I 'm 
 Zozo — the astrologer. Why — don't you know ? — -on 
 Rapelyea Street? " 
 
 Brant dimly remembered that there was a Rapelyea 
 Street, through which he sometimes passed on his way 
 to the railroad station, and he had some faint memory 
 of a gaudily painted shanty decked out with the signs 
 of the zodiac in gilt papier mac he. 
 
 " My orfice got afire this evening," explained Zozo, 
 " from the bakery next door. And I had to light out 
 over the back fence. Them people in that neighbor- 
 hood is kinder superstitious. They ain't no idea of as- 
 trology. They don't know it 's a Science. They think 
 it 's some kind of magic. And if they 's to see me 
 drove out by a common, ordinary fire, they 'd think I 
 was no sort of an astrologer. So I lit out quiet." 
 
202 "SHORT SIXES." 
 
 His teeth chattered so that he made ten syllables 
 out of "quiet." 
 
 "They don't understand the Science of it," he con- 
 tinued, "and the fire got at my street clo'es before I 
 knew it, and so I had to light out mighty quick. Now, 
 jes' lemme get home, will you ? This here flannel ain't 
 no fur coat." 
 
 Brant's coat came off his shoulders in an instant. 
 
 "Put this on," he said. "Confound you! — " as 
 the man resisted, — "put it on /" 
 
 The astrologer slipped into the coat with a gasp 
 of relief. 
 
 " Cracky ! " he cried, " but I was freezin' ! " 
 
 " Do you live far from here ? " Brant inquired. 
 
 "Just a bit up the road. I 'm 'most home, now," 
 replied Zozo, still chattering as to his teeth. 
 
 As they walked along the half-built street, Zozo 
 told his tale. He had been in the astrology business for 
 thirty years, and it had barely yielded him a living. 
 Yet he had been able, by rigorous economy, to save up 
 enough money to build himself a house — "elegant 
 house, sir," he said; " 't ain't what you may call large ; 
 but it 's an elegant house. I got the design out of a 
 book that cost a dollar, sir, a dollar. There ain't no use 
 in trying to do things cheap when you 're going to build 
 a house." 
 
 But his joy in his house was counterbalanced by 
 his grief for the loss of his "orfice." He had taken the 
 ground-rent of the city lot, and had erected the "orfice" 
 at his own cost. Three hundred and twenty-seven dollars 
 
ZOZO. 203 
 
 he had spent on that modest structure. No, he had not 
 insured it. And now the bakery had caught fire, and 
 his "orfice" was burned to the ground, and his best suit 
 of street-clothes with it — his only suit, as he owned 
 after a second's hesitation. 
 
 In ten minutes' walk they arrived at Zozo's house. 
 It was quite the sort of house that might have come out 
 of a dollar book, with a great deal of scroll-work about 
 it, and with a tiny tower, adorned with fantastically 
 carved shingles. As they stood on the porch — nothing 
 would content Zozo but that his new friend should come 
 in and warm himself — Mr. Brant looked at the name 
 on the door-plate. 
 
 " Zozo 's only my name in the Science," the astrolo- 
 ger explained. " My real name — my born name- — is 
 Simmons. But I took Zozo for my business name. "Z"s 
 seem to kinder go with the astrology business, somehow 
 — I don't know why. There 's Zadkiel, and Zoroaster, 
 and — oh, I don't know — they're " Z "s or "X"s, most 
 of 'em ; and it goes with the populace. I don't no more 
 like humoring their superstition than you would; but a 
 man 's got to live ; and the world ain't up to the Science 
 yet. Oh, that's you, Mommer, is it?" he concluded, 
 as the door was opened by a bright, buxom, rather 
 pretty woman. " Mother ain't to bed yet, is she? Say, 
 Mommer, the orfice is burnt down ! " 
 
 " Oh, Popper ! " cried the poor woman ; " you don't 
 reelly say ! " 
 
 " True 's I live," said the astrologer, "and my 
 street-clo'es, too." 
 
204 "SHORT SIXES." 
 
 "Oh, Popper ! " his wife cried, " what '11 we do?" 
 
 " I don't know, Mommer, I don't know. We '11 
 have to think. Jes' let this here gentleman in, though. 
 I 'd most 'a' froze if he had n't lent me the loan of his 
 overcoat. My sakes ! " he broke out, as he looked at the 
 garment in the light of the hall-lamp, "but that cost 
 money. Mommer, this here 's Mr. — I ain't caught 
 your name, sir." 
 
 " Brant," said the owner of the name. 
 
 "Band. And a reel elegant gentleman he is, Mom- 
 mer. I 'd 'a' froze stiff in my science clo'es if 't had n't 
 been for this coat. My sakes ! " he exclaimed, reverently, 
 " never see the like ! That 'd keep a corpse warm. Shut 
 the door, Mommer, an' take the gentleman into the 
 dining-room. He must be right cold himself. Is Mother 
 there? " 
 
 "Yes," said Zozo's wife, "and so 's Mamie. You 
 was so late we all got a kinder worried, and Mamie 
 come right down in her nighty, just before you come in. 
 ' Where 's Popper ? ' sez she ; < ain't he came in yet to 
 kiss me good night ? 'T ain't mornin', is it ? ' sez she. And 
 the orfice burned down ! Oh, my, Popper ! I thought our 
 troubles was at an end. Come right in, Mr. — Mr. — I 
 ain't rightly got your name ; but thank you kindly for 
 looking after Popper, and if you had an /dee how easy 
 he takes cold on his chist, you 'd know how thankful I 
 am. Come right into the dinin'-room. Mother, this is 
 Mr. Band, and he lent Simmons the loan of his coat to 
 come home with. Wa' n't it awful ? " 
 
 " What 's that? " croaked a very old woman in the 
 
ZOZO. 203 
 
 corner of the dining-room. It was a small dining-room, 
 with a small extension-table covered with a cheap red 
 damask cloth. 
 
 " Simmons's orfice is burned up, and his best suit 
 with it," explained Mrs. Simmons. " Ain't it awful ! " 
 
 "It's a jedgement," said the old lady, solemnly. 
 She was a depressing old lady. And yet she evidently 
 was much revered in the family. A four-year-old child 
 hung back in a corner, regarding her grandmother with 
 awe. But when her father entered, she slipped up to his 
 knee, and took his kisses silently, but with sparkling eyes. 
 
 "Only one we 've got," said Zozo, as he sat down 
 and took her on his knee. "Born under Mercury and 
 Jupiter — if that don't mean that she '11 be on top of the 
 real-estate boom in this neighborhood, I ain't no astrolo- 
 ger. Yes, Ma," he went on, addressing the old woman, 
 who gave no slightest sign of interest, "the orfice 
 burned down, and I had to get home quick. Would n't 
 'a' done for them Rapelyea Street folks to see me, scuttin' 
 off in my orfice clo'es. " 
 
 He had shed Brant's huge overcoat, and his wife 
 was passing her hand over his thin flannel suit. 
 
 "Law, Simmons!" she said, "you're all wet! " 
 
 " I '11 dry all right in these flannels," said Zozo 
 "Don't you bother to get no other clo'es." 
 
 He had forgotten that he had told Brant that the 
 suit in his office was his only suit. Or perhaps he wished 
 to spare his wife the humiliation of such an admission. 
 
 "I'm dryin' off first-rate," he said, cheerfully; 
 "Mamie, Popper ain't wet where you're settin', is he? 
 
206 ' • SHOR T SIXES." 
 
 No. Well, now, Mommer, you get out the whiskey and 
 give Mr. — Mr. Band — a glass, with some hot water, 
 and then he won't get no chill. We 're all pro'bitionists 
 here," he said, addressing Brant, "but we b'lieve in 
 spirits for medicinal use. Yes, Mother, you 'd oughter 've 
 seen that place burn. Why, the flames was on me before 
 I know'd where I was, and I jist thought to myself, 
 thinks I, if these here people see me a-runnin' away 
 from a fire, I won't cast no horoscope in Rapelyea Street 
 after this j and I tell you, the way I got outer the back 
 window and over the back fence was a caution ! There 's 
 your whiskey, sir : you '11 excuse me if I don't take none 
 myself. We ain't in the habit here." 
 
 Brant did not greatly wonder at their not being 
 in the habit when he tasted the whiskey. It was bad 
 enough to wean a toper on. But he sipped it, and made 
 overtures to the baby. And after a while she showed an 
 inclination to come and look at his wonderful watch, that 
 struck the hour when you told it to. Before long she was 
 sitting on his knee. Her father was telling the female 
 members of the family about the fire, and she felt both 
 sleepy and shut out. She played with Brant's watch for 
 a while, and then fell asleep on his breast. He held her 
 tenderly, and listened to the astrologer as he told his 
 pitiful tale over and over again, trying to fix the first 
 second when he had smelled smoke. 
 
 He was full of the excitement of the affair : too full 
 of the consciousness of his own achievement to realize 
 the extent of the disaster. But his wife suddenly brok? 
 down, crying out : 
 
ZOZO. ixjj 
 
 "Oh, Simmons! where '11 you get three hundred 
 dollars to build a new orfice?" 
 
 Brant spoke up, but very softly, lest he might wake 
 the baby, who was sleeping with her head on his shoulder. 
 
 " I '11 be happy to — to advance the money," he said. 
 
 Zozo looked at him almost sourly. 
 
 " I ain't got no security to give you. This is a 
 Building Society house, and there 's all the mortgage 
 on it that it 's worth. I could n't do no better," he 
 concluded, sullenly. 
 
 Brant had been poor enough himself to understand 
 the quick suspicion of the poor. "Your note will do, 
 Mr. Simmons," he said; " I think you will pay me back. 
 I sha'n't worry about it." 
 
 But it was some time before the Simmons family 
 could understand that a loan of the magnitude of three 
 hundred dollars could be made so easily. When the 
 glorious possibility did dawn upon them, nothing would 
 do but that Mr. Brant should take another drink of 
 whiskey. It was not for medicinal purposes this time ; 
 it was for pure conviviality ; and Brant was expected, 
 not being a prohibitionist, to revel vicariously for the 
 whole family. He drank, wondering what he had at 
 home to take the taste out of his mouth. 
 
 Then he handed the baby to her mother, and started 
 to go. But Simmons suddenly and unexpectedly turned 
 into Zozo, and insisted on casting his benefactor's horo- 
 scope. His benefactor told him the day of his birth, and 
 guessed at the hour. Zozo figured on a slate, drawing 
 astronomical characters very neatly indeed, and at last 
 
iois "SHORT SIXES." 
 
 began to read off the meaning of his stellar stenography, 
 in a hushed, important voice. 
 
 He told Brant everything that had happened to 
 him, (only none of it had happened ; but Brant did not 
 say him nay.) Then he told him various things that 
 were to happen to him ; and Zozo cheered up greatly 
 when his impassive and sleepy guest sighed as he spoke 
 of a blonde woman who was troubling his heart, and who 
 would be his, some day. There was a blonde woman 
 troubling Brant's heart ; but there was small probability 
 of her being his some day or any day. And then Zozo 
 went on to talk about a dark woman who would disturb 
 the course of true love ; but only temporarily and as a 
 side issue, so to speak. 
 
 " She ain't serious," he said. " She may make a 
 muss; but she ain't reel serious." 
 
 " Good night ! " said Brant. 
 
 " You don't b'lieve in the Science," said Zozo, in a 
 voice of genuine regret. " But you jist see if it don't 
 come true. Good night. Look out you don't trip over 
 the scraper." 
 
 The blonde woman in Mr. Brant's case was Madame 
 la Comtesse de Renette. No, she was not a French wo- 
 man : she was a loyal American. She was the daughter 
 of an American millionaire ; she had lived for many years 
 in France, and her parents had married her, at the age 
 of eighteen, to a title. The title was owned by a disa- 
 greeable and highly immoral old spendthrift, who had 
 
ZOZO. sex) 
 
 led her a wretched life tor two weary years, and then 
 had had the unusual courtesy and consideration to die. 
 Then she took what he had left of her millions, went 
 home to the town of her birth, bought a fine estate on 
 its outskirts, and settled down to enjoy a life wherein she 
 could awake each morning to feel that the days would 
 never more bring her suffering and humiliation. 
 
 Then Mr. Richard Brant disturbed her peace of 
 mind by falling in love with her, and what was worse, 
 asking her to marry him. That, she said, she could not 
 do. He was her best, her dearest friend : she admired 
 and esteemed him more than any man in the world. If 
 she ever could marry a man, she would marry him. But 
 she never, never could. He must not ask her. 
 
 Of course, he did ask her. And he asked her more 
 than once. And there matters stood, and there they 
 seemed likely to stay. 
 
 But Richard Brant was a man who, when he wanted 
 a thing, wanted it with his whole heart and his whole 
 soul, and to the exclusion of every other idea from his 
 mind. After eighteen months of waiting, he began to 
 find the situation intolerable. He had no heart in his 
 business — which, for the matter of that, took care of 
 itself — and he found it, as he said to himself, "a chore 
 to exist." And what with dwelling on the unattainable, 
 and what with calling on the unattainable once or twice 
 every week, he found that he was getting into a morbid 
 state of mind that was the next thing to a mild mania. 
 
 "This has got to stop," said Richard Brant. "I 
 will put an end to it. I will wait till an even two years 
 
no 
 
 SHORT SIXES. 1 ' 
 
 \Z- 
 
 is up, and then I will go away somewhere where I can't 
 get back until — until I 've got over it. " 
 
 Opportunity is never lacking to a man in this 
 mood. Some scientific idiot was getting up an Antarctic 
 expedition, to start in the coming June. Brant applied 
 for a berth. 
 
 "That settles it," he said. 
 
 Of course, it did n't settle it. He moped as much 
 as ever and found it just as hard as ever to occupy his 
 mind. If it had not been for the astrologer, he would 
 hardly have known what to do. 
 It amused him to interest himself in 
 Zozo and his affairs. He watched 
 ;. the building of the new "orfice", 
 and discussed with Zozo the 
 color of the paint and the style 
 of the signs. Zozo tried to 
 convert him to astrology, and 
 that amused him. The little 
 man's earnest faith in this 
 "science" was an edifying study. 
 Then, when the "orfice" was com- 
 pleted, and Zozo began business again, he took great 
 pleasure in sitting hid in Zozo's back room, listening to 
 Zozo's clients, who were often as odd as Zozo himself. 
 He had many clients now. Had he not miraculously 
 evanished from a burning building, and come back un- 
 scathed ? 
 
ZOZO. ill 
 
 But there are two sides to every friendship. Brant 
 took an amused interest in Zozo. Zozo worshiped Brant 
 as his preserver and benefactor. Zozo's affairs entertained 
 Brant. Brant's affairs were a matter of absorbing con- 
 cern to Zozo. Zozo would have died for Brant. 
 
 So it came about that Zozo found out all about the 
 blonde lady in Brant's case. How? Well, one is not 
 an astrologer for nothing. Brant's coachman and Rime, 
 de Renette's maid were among Zozo's clients. No society 
 gossip knew so much about the Brant-Renette affair as 
 Zozo knew, inside of two months. 
 
 "It's perfectly ridiculous, Annette! I ca/i't see 
 the man ! ' 
 
 "Madame knows best," said Annette, wiping away 
 a ready tear. " It is only that I love Madame. And it 
 is not well to anger those who have the power of magic. 
 If they can bring good luck, they can bring bad. And 
 he is certainly a great magician. Fire can not burn him." 
 
 Mme. de Renette toyed with a gorgeously-printed 
 card that read : 
 
 Astrologer & Fire Monarch 
 
 Seventh Son of a Seventh Son. 
 27 Kapelyea St. 
 
SHORT SIXES." 
 
 "Well," she said at last, "show him in, Annette. 
 But it 's perfectly absurd ! " 
 
 Zozo, in a very ready-made suit, with no earthly idea 
 what to do with his hat, profuse of bows 
 and painfully flustered, did not in- 
 spire awe. 
 
 "You wish to see me?" inquired 
 
 [me. de Renette, somewhat sternly. 
 
 "Madam," began her visitor, in 
 
 tremulous voice, "I come with a 
 
 message from the stars." 
 
 "Very well," said Mme. 
 de Renette, "will you kindly 
 deliver your message? I do 
 not wish to detain you — 
 from your stars." 
 
 It was a flushed, but a self- 
 complacent, beaming, happy 
 Zozo who stopped Richard 
 Brant on the street an hour later. 
 
 "If you please, Mr. Brant, sir," he said; "I 'd like 
 a few minutes of your time." 
 
 "Certainly," said Mr. Brant, wondering if Zozo 
 wanted to borrow any more money. 
 
 "You 've been a great good friend to me, Mr. 
 Brant," Zozo began, "and I hope you b'lieve, sir, that 
 me and Mommer and Ma Simmons and Mamie are jist 
 as grateful as — well, as anything." 
 
zozo. 
 
 213 
 
 "Oh, that's all right, Simmons — " 
 
 "Yes, sir. Well, now you '11 pardon me for seeming 
 to interfere, like, in your business. But knowin' as I done 
 how your affairs with the blonde lady was hangin' fire, 
 so to speak — " 
 
 " 'The blonde lady ! ' " broke in Brant. 
 
 "Madam dee Rennet," explained Zozo. 
 
 "The devil ! " said Brant. 
 
 " Well, sir, knowin' that, as I done, and knowin' 
 that there could n't be nothin' to it — no 
 lady would chuck you over her shoulder, 
 Mr. Brant, sir — but only jist that her 
 mind was n't at ease with regard 
 to the dark lady — whereas the 
 stars show clear as ever they 
 showed any thin', that the 
 dark lady was only temporary 
 and threatened, and nothin' 
 reel serious — why, I made so 
 free as jist to go right straight 
 to Madam dee Rennet and 
 ease her mind on that point 
 — and I did." 
 
 "Great heavens!" Brant 
 yelled. "You infernal meddler! 
 what have you done? I don't know 
 a dark woman in the world ! What 
 have you said? — oh, curse it !" he cried, as he realized, 
 from the pain of its extinction, that hope had been alive 
 in his heart, "what have you done? — you devil!" 
 
»4 
 
 SHORT SIXES." 
 
 He turned on his heel and rushed off toward Ma- 
 dame de Renette's house. 
 
 "This does settle it," he thought. " There 's no 
 getting an idea like that out of a woman's head." 
 
 " I understand," he said, as he hurriedly presented 
 himself to the lady of his love, "that a madman has 
 been here — " 
 
 " Yes," said Mme. de Renette, severely. 
 
 "You didn't pay any attention to his nonsense?" 
 
 "About the dark woman?" inquired Mme. de 
 Renette. 
 
 "Why, there s no other woman dark or light — " 
 
 " I don't know whether there is or not, Richard," 
 said Mme. de Renette, with icy distinctness; "but I 
 know that there won't be, after — well, sir, could you 
 break your June engagement for — me?" 
 
 And Zozo was justified. 
 
AN OLD, OLD STORY. 
 
°0 
 
AN OLD, OLD STORY. 
 
 SUPPOSE THE Tullingworth- 
 Gordons were good Ameri- 
 cans at heart; but the Tul- 
 lingworth-Gordons were of 
 English extraction, and, as 
 somebody once said, the 
 extraction had not been 
 completely successful — 
 a great deal of the English 
 soil clung to the roots of 
 the family tree. 
 They lived on Long Island, in a very English way, 
 in a manor-house which was as English as they could 
 make it, among surroundings quite respectably English 
 for Americans of the third or fourth generation. 
 
 They had two English servants and some other 
 American "help"; but they called the Americans by 
 their last names, which anglified them to some extent. 
 They had a servants' hall, and a butler's pantry, and a 
 page in buttons, and they were unreasonably proud of 
 
2/8 "SHORT SIXES." 
 
 the fact that one of their Tory ancestors had been obliged 
 to leave New York for Halifax, in 1784, having only the 
 alternative of a more tropical place of residence. I do 
 not know whether they really held that the signers of 
 the Declaration of Independence committed a grave 
 error; but I do know that when they had occasion to 
 speak of Queen Victoria, they always referred to her as 
 " Her Majesty." 
 
 "I see by the Mail to- 
 night," Mr. Tulling- 
 worth-Gordon would say 
 to his wife, ''that Her 
 
 V " - \i l JfVlW*- ^ 38&- Ma -> est y has P re sented 
 '.-g^BaL'^Ay i| ^ jpSy^ ^W*- m 1& 5|pfcl the poor bricklayer who 
 
 •" mx * 1 ' saved seventeen lives and 
 
 lost both his arms at the Chillingham- 
 
 on-Frees disaster with an India shawl and a copy of the 
 
 Life of the Prince Consort." 
 
 " Her Majesty is always so generous ! " Mrs. Tulling- 
 worth-Gordon would sigh; "and so considerate of the 
 common people ! " 
 
 Mr. Tullingworth-Gordon was a rich man, and he 
 was free to indulge the fancy of his life, and to be as 
 English as his name; and he engaged those two English 
 servants to keep up the illusion. 
 
 It is the tale of the menials that I have to tell — 
 the tale of the loves of Samuel Bilson, butler, and 
 Sophronia Huckins, "which 'Uckins it ever was an' so it 
 were allays called, and which 'Uckins is good enough for 
 me, like it was good enough for my parents now departed, 
 
AN OLD, OLD STORY. 219 
 
 and there is 'ope for 'eaven for chapel-goers, though a 
 Church-of-England woman I am myself." 
 
 Sophronia Huckins was lady's maid to Mrs. Tulling- 
 worth-Gordon, housekeeper to Mr. and Mrs. Tulling- 
 worth-Gordon, and, in a way, autocrat and supreme ruler 
 over the whole house of Tullingworth-Gordon. There 
 were other servants, as I have said, but, in their several 
 departments, Bilson and Sophronia were king and queen. 
 Of course, at the first, there was some friction between 
 these two potentates. For ten years they scratched and 
 sparred and jostled; for ten years after that they lived in 
 comfortable amity, relieving their feelings by establishing 
 a reign of terror over the other servants; and then — 
 ah, then — began the dawn of another day. Bilson was 
 careless about the wine ; Sophronia took to the wearing 
 of gowns unbefitting a maid of forty years. It broke upon 
 the Tullingworth-Gordon mind that something was in the 
 wind, and that the conservative quiet of their domestic 
 service was likely to be troubled. 
 
 Meanwhile, Nature, unconscious of the proprieties 
 of the situation, was having her own way in the little 
 passage back of the butler's pantry. 
 
 " You say " — the housekeeper spoke with a certain 
 sternness — " as how you have loved me for ten long 
 years. But I say as how it would 'ave been more to 
 your credit, Samuel Bilson, to 'ave found it out afore 
 this, when, if I do say it myself, there was more 
 occasion." 
 
 "It's none the wuss, Sophronia, for a-bein' found 
 out now," rejoined the butler, sturdily: "what you was, 
 
SHORT SIXES." 
 
 you is to me, an' I don't noways regret that you ain't 
 what you was, in point of beauty, to 'ave young men an' 
 sich a-comin' between us, as an engaged pair." 
 
 "'Oo'san engaged pair?" demanded Sophronia, 
 with profound dignity. 
 
 "Us," said Mr. Bilson, placidly: "or to be con- 
 sidered as sich." 
 
 "I ain't considered us as sich," said Sophronia, 
 coquettishly : "not as yet." 
 
 Mr. Bilson was stacking up dishes 
 on the shelves in the passage- 
 way. He paused in his labors; 
 put his hands on his hips, and 
 faced his tormenting charmer 
 with determination in his eye. 
 "Sophronia 'Uckins ! " he 
 said : ' ' you 're forty, this day 
 week; that much I know. 
 Forty 's forty. You 've kep' 
 your looks wonderful, an' you 
 'ave your teeth which Provi- 
 dence give you. But forty 's 
 forty. If you mean Bilson, 
 you mean Bilson now, 'ere 
 in this 'ere cupboard-exten- 
 sion, your 'and an' your 'art, 
 to love, honor, an' obey, so 
 'elp you. Now, 'ow goes it?" 
 It went Mr. Bilson's way. 
 Sophronia demurred, and for a 
 
AN OLD, OLD STORY. 22t 
 
 space of some few weeks she was doubtful ; then she 
 said "No" — but in the end she consented. 
 
 Why should she not? Bilson had been a saving 
 man. No luxurious furniture beautified his little room 
 over the stables. His character was above reproach. 
 He allowed himself one glass of port each day from Mr. 
 Tullingworth-Gordon's stock; but there he drew the 
 line. Such as it was, the master of the house had his 
 own wine, every drop, except that solitary glass of port 
 — save on one occasion. 
 
 And Sophronia Huckins was the occasion of that 
 occasion. Smooth and decorous ran the course of true 
 love for four months on end. Mrs. Tullingworth-Gordon 
 had been made acquainted with the state of affairs ; had 
 raged, had cooled, and had got to that point where the 
 natural woman arose within her, and she began to think 
 about laying out a trousseau for the bride. Fair was the 
 horizon ; cloudless the sky. Then came the heavy blow 
 of Fate. 
 
 When Cupid comes to you at forty years, he is 
 likely to be something wrinkled, more or less fat and 
 pursy, a trifle stiff in the joints. You must humor him a 
 little ; you must make believe, and play that he is young 
 and fair. It takes imagination to do this, and in imagina- 
 tion Sophronia was deficient. Her betrothal was not two 
 months old when she suddenly realized that there was 
 something grotesque and absurd about it. How did she 
 get the idea ? Was it an echo of the gossip of the other 
 servants ? Did she see the shop-keepers, quick to catch 
 all the local gossip, smiling at her as she went about the 
 
222 '•SHORT SIXES." 
 
 little town on her domestic errands ? Was there some- 
 thing in Bilson's manners that told her that he felt, in 
 his inmost heart, that he had got to the point where he 
 had to take what he could get, and that he held her 
 lucky to have been conveniently accessible at that critical 
 juncture ? 
 
 We can not know. Perhaps Bilson was to blame. 
 A man may be in love — over head and ears in love — 
 and yet the little red feather of his vanity will stick out 
 of the depths, and proclaim that his self-conceit is not 
 yet dead. 
 
 Perhaps it was Bilson : perhaps it was some other 
 cause. It matters not. One dull November day, Soph- 
 ronia Huckins told Samuel Bilson that she could not and 
 would not marry him. 
 
 " It was my intent, Samuel ; but I 'ave seen it was 
 not the thing for neither of us. If you had 'a' seen your 
 way clear five or ten or may be fifteen years ago, I don't 
 say as it would n't 'a' been different. But as to sich a 
 thing now, I may 'ave been foolish a-listenin' to you last 
 July ; but what brains I 'ave is about me now, an' I tell 
 you plain, Samuel Bilson, it can't never be." 
 
 To Bilson this came like a clap of thunder out of 
 the clearest and sunniest of skies. If the Cupid within 
 him had giown old and awkward, he was unaware of it. 
 To his dull and heavily British apprehension, it was the 
 same Cupid that he had known in earlier years. The 
 defection of his betrothed was a blow from which he 
 could not recover. 
 
 " Them women," he said, " is worse 'n the measles. 
 
AN OLD, OLD STORY. 
 
 223 
 
 You don't know when they 're comin' out, an' you don't 
 know when they're goin' in." 
 
 The blow fell upon him late one evening, long after 
 dinner; when everything had been put to rights. He 
 was sitting in the butler's pantry, sipping his one glass of 
 port, when Sophronia entered and delivered her dictum. 
 
 She went out and left him — left him with 
 the port. She left him with the sherry ; 
 she left him with the claret, with the old, 
 old claret, with the comet year, with the 
 wine that had rounded the Cape, with 
 the Cognac, with the Chartreuse, 
 with the syrupy Curacoa and the 
 Eau de Dantzic, and with the 
 Scotch whiskey that Mr. Tulling- 
 worth- Gordon sometimes drank 
 in despite of plain American Rye. 
 
 She left him with the struct- 
 ure of a lifetime shattered; with 
 the love of twenty years nipped in 
 its late-bourgeoning bud. She left him 
 alone, and she left him with a deadly nepenthe at hand. 
 
 He fell upon those bottles, and, for once in his 
 quiet, steady, conservative life, he drank his fill. He 
 drank the soft, sub-acid claret ; he drank the nutty 
 sherry; he drank the yellow Chartreuse and the ruddy 
 Curacoa. He drank the fiery Cognac, and the smoky 
 Scotch whiskey. He drank and drank, and as his grief 
 rose higher and higher, high and more high he raised 
 the intoxicating flood. 
 
224 " SHORT SIXES." 
 
 At two o'clock of that night, a respectable butler 
 opened a side-door in the mansion of Mr. Tullingworth- 
 Gordon, and sallied forth to cool his brow in the mid- 
 night air. 
 
 He was singing as they brought him back on a 
 shutter, in the early morning; but it was not wholly 
 with drunkenness, for delirium had hold of him. Down 
 to the south of the house were long stretches of marsh, 
 reaching into the Great South Bay, and there he had 
 wandered in his first intoxication. There he had stepped 
 over the edge of a little dyke that surrounded Mr. Tul- 
 lingworth-Gordon's pike-pond — where all the pike died, 
 because the water was too salt for them- — and there they 
 found him lying on his back, with one of the most 
 interesting cases of compound fracture in his right leg 
 that has yet been put on record, and with the flat stones 
 that topped the dyke lying over him. 
 
 They took him to his room over the stable, and put 
 him to bed, and sent for the doctor. The doctor came, 
 and set the leg. He also smelt of Mr. Bilson's breath, and 
 gazed upon Mr. Bilson's feverish countenance, and said : 
 
 " Hard drinker, eh? We '11 have trouble with him, 
 probably. Has n't he got anybody to look after him ? " 
 
 This query found its way up to the manor-house of 
 the Tullingworth-Gordons. It came, in some way, to 
 the ears of Sophronia. Shortly after dinner-time she 
 appeared in the chamber of Bilson. 
 
 Bilson was "coming out of it." He was conscious, 
 he was sore; he was heavy of heart and head. He 
 looked up, as he lay on his bed, and saw a comely, 
 
AN OLD, OLD STORY. 
 
 22$ 
 
 middle-aged Englishwoman, sharp of feature, yet some- 
 how pleasant and comforting, standing by his bed. 
 
 " Sophronia ! " he exclaimed. • 
 
 "Hush!" she said; "the medical man said you 
 was n't to talk." 
 
 " Sophronia — 't ain't you ! " 
 
 " P'r'aps it ain't," said Sophronia, sourly; "p'r'aps 
 it 's a cow, or a 'orse or a goat, or anythin' that is my 
 neighbor's. But the best I know, it 's me, an' I 've come 
 to 'ave an eye on you." 
 
 "Sophronia!" gasped the sufferer; "'t ain't no- 
 ways proper." 
 
 " 'T 's goin' to be proper, Samuel Bilson. You 
 wait, an' you '11 see what you '11 see. 
 'Ere 'e comes." 
 
 Mr. Bilson's room was 
 reached by a ladder, com- 
 ing up through a hole in 
 the floor. Through this 
 hole came a peculiarly 
 shaped felt hat ; then a 
 pale youthful face ; then a 
 vest with many buttons. 
 
 "To 'ave and to 'old," 
 said Sophronia. "'Ere 'e is." 
 The head came up, and 
 a long, thin body after it. Pale and 
 gaunt, swaying slightly backward and forward, like a 
 stiff cornstalk in a mild breeze, the Reverend Mr. Chizzy 
 stood before them and smiled vaguely. 
 
iab "SHORT SIXES." 
 
 The Reverend Mr. Chizzy was only twenty-four, 
 and he might have passed for nineteen ; but he was so 
 high a churchman that the mould of several centuries 
 was on him. He was a priest without a cure ; but, as 
 some of his irreverent friends expressed it, he was "in 
 training " for the Rectorship of St. Bede's the Less, a 
 small church in the neighborhood, endowed by Mr. 
 Tullingworth-Gordon and disapproved of by his Bishop, 
 who had not yet appointed a clergyman. The Bishop 
 had been heard to say that he had not yet made up his 
 mind whether St. Bede's the Less was a church or some 
 new kind of theatre. Nevertheless, Mr. Chizzy was on 
 hand, living under the wing of the Tullingworth-Gor- 
 dons, and trying to make the good Church-of-England 
 people of the parish believe that they needed him and 
 his candles and his choir-boys. 
 
 Behind Mr. Chizzy came two limp little girls, hang- 
 ers-on of the Tullingworth-Gordon household by grace 
 of Mrs. Tullingworth-Gordon's charity. In New England 
 they would have been called "chore-girls." The Tul- 
 lingworth-Gordons called them "scullery maids." 
 
 Bilson half rose on his elbow in astonishment, alarm 
 and indignation. 
 
 " Sophronia 'Uckins," he demanded, " what do 
 this 'ere mean? I ain't a-dyin', and I ain't got no need 
 of a clergyman, thank 'eaven. And no more this ain't 
 a scullery, Mrs. 'Uckins." 
 
 " This," said Sophronia, pointing at the clergyman 
 as though he were a wax-figure in a show, " this is 
 to wed you and me, Samuel Bilson, and them " (she 
 
AN OLD, OLD STORY. 
 
 32? 
 
 indicated the scullery maids,) "them 
 witnesses it." 
 
 " Witnesses wot? " Mr. Bilson 
 inquired, in a yell. 
 
 " Witnesses our marriage, 
 Samuel Bilson. Nuss you 1 
 can not, both bein' single, and 
 nussed you must and shall be. 
 Now set up and be marri'd quiet." 
 
 Mr. Bilson's physical condition 
 forbade him to leap from the bed ; 
 but his voice leaped to the rafters 
 above him. 
 
 " Marri'd ! " he shouted : " I '11 die fust ! " 
 
 " Die you will," said Sophronia, calmly but sternly, 
 " if married you ain't, and that soon." 
 
 " Sophronia ! " Bilson's voice was hollow and deeply 
 reproachful; "you 'ave thro wed me over." 
 
 " I 'ave," she assented. 
 
 " And 'ere I am." 
 
 " And there you are." 
 
 " Sophronia, you 'ave not treated me right." 
 
 "I 'ave not, Samuel Bilson," Miss Huckins cheer- 
 fully assented; " I might 'ave known as you was not fit 
 to take care of yourself. But I mean to do my dooty 
 now, so will you 'ave the kindness to button your clo'es 
 at the neck, and sit up?" 
 
 Mr. Bilson mechanically fastened the neck-band of 
 his night-shirt and raised himself to the sitting posture. 
 
 "Mrs. Huckins," Mr. Chizzy interrupted, in an 
 
Z28 "SHORT SIXES." 
 
 uncertain way ; " I did n't understand — you did not tell 
 me — there does not appear to have been the usual pre- 
 liminary arrangement for this most sacred and solemn 
 ceremony." 
 
 Sophronia turned on him with scorn in her voice 
 and bearing. 
 
 " Do I understand, sir, as you find yourself in a 
 'urry ?" 
 
 "I am not in a hurry — oh, no. But — dear me, 
 you know, I can't perform the ceremony under these 
 circumstances." 
 
 Miss Huckins grew more profoundly scornful. 
 
 " Do you know any himpediment w'y we should 
 not be lawfully joined together in matrimony?" 
 
 " Why," said the perturbed cleric, " he does n't 
 want you." 
 
 " 'E does n't know what 'e wants," returned Soph- 
 ronia, grimly; "if women waited for men to find out 
 w'en they wanted wives, there 'd be more old maids than 
 there is. If you '11 be good enough to take your book 
 in your 'and, sir, I '11 see to 'im." 
 
 Bilson made one last faint protest. 
 
 " 'T would n't be right, Sophronia," he wailed; " I 
 ain't wot I was; I 'm a wuthless and a busted wreck. I 
 can't tie no woman to me for life. It ain't doin' justice 
 to neither." 
 
 " If you 're what you say you are," said Sophronia, 
 imperturbably, " and you know better than I do, you 
 should be glad to take wot you can get. If I 'm suited, 
 don't you complain." 
 
AN OLD, OLD STORY. Z2 9 
 
 " Mrs. Huckins," the young clergyman broke in, 
 feebly asserting himself, " this is utterly irregular." 
 
 " I know it is," said Sophronia; "and we 're a- wait- 
 in' for you to set it straight." 
 
 The two chore-girls giggled. A warm flush mounted 
 to Mr. Chizzy's pale face. He hesitated a second ; then 
 nervously opened his book, and began the service. 
 Sophronia stood by the bedside, clasping Bilson's hand 
 in a grasp which no writhing could loosen. 
 
 "Dearly beloved," Mr. Chizzy began, addressing 
 the two chore-girls; and with a trembling voice he hur- 
 ried on to the important question : 
 
 " Wilt thou have this woman to be thy wedded 
 wife ? — " 
 
 «N — yah!" 
 
 Bilson had begun to say "No;" but Sophronia's 
 firm hand had tightened on his with so powerful a pres- 
 sure that his negative remonstrance ended in a posi- 
 tive yell. 
 
 "Ah, really," broke in Mr. Chizzy; "I can not 
 proceed, M — M — Miss — ah, what 's your name ? — 
 I positively can't ! " 
 
 "Mrs. Bilson" returned the unmoved Sophronia. 
 "Are you intending for to part 'usband and wife at this 
 point, sir ? Excuse me ; but we 're a-waitin' of your 
 convenience." 
 
 Mr. Chizzy was a deep red in the face. His pallor 
 had given place to a flush quite as ghastly in its way. 
 The blood was waltzing in giddy circles through his 
 brain as he read on and on. 
 
sjo • • SHOR T SrXES. ' ' 
 
 No church — no candles — no robes — no choiring 
 boys. Only this awful woman, stern as death, com- 
 manding him and Bilson. Why had he yielded to her? 
 Why had he permitted himself to be dragged hither? 
 Why was he meekly doing her bidding? Mr. Chizzy 
 felt as though he were acting in some ghastly, night- 
 marish dream. 
 
 " Then shall the Minister say : Who giveth this 
 Woman to be married to this Man ? " 
 
 That roused Mr. Chizzy from his trance. It came 
 late; but it seemed to open a way out of the horribly 
 irregular business. He paused and tried to fix an un- 
 certain eye on Sophronia. 
 
 "Have you a Father or a Friend here?" he de- 
 manded. 
 
 "Jim!" said Sophronia, loudly. 
 
 "Ma'am?" came a voice from the lower story of 
 the stable. 
 
 "Say 'I do.'" 
 
 "Ma'am?" 
 
 " Say 'I do ' — an' say it directly ! " 
 
 "Say — say? — what do you want, Miss Huckins?" 
 
 " Jim!" said Sophronia, sternly, "open your 
 mouth an' say ' I do ' out loud, or I come down there 
 immejit ! " 
 
 "I do ! " came from the floor below. 
 
 " 'Ere 's the ring," said Sophronia, promptly; " ' I, 
 M., take thee, N.' — if you '11 'ave the kindness to go on, 
 sir, we won't detain you any longer than we can 'elp. 
 I 'm give away, I believe; an' I '11 take 'im, M." 
 
AN OLD, OLD STORY. 
 
 *3* 
 
 Up through the opening 
 
 " Forasmuch as," began the Reverend Mr. Chizzy, a 
 few minutes later, addressing the chore-girls, " Samuel 
 and Sophronia have consented together in holy wed- 
 lock — " 
 
 He stopped suddenly, 
 in the floor arose the head 
 of a youthful negro, per- 
 
 haps fourteen years of age. 
 Mr. Chizzy recognized him 
 as the stable-boy, a jockey 
 of some local fame. 
 
 " What you want me 
 to say I done do ? " he 
 inquired. 
 
 «Mrs. — Mrs. — Bil- 
 son ! " said Mr. Chizzy, with 
 a tremulous indignation in 
 his voice; "did this negro 
 infant act as your parent or 
 friend, just now? " 
 
 " 'E give me away," 
 replied the unabashed bride. 
 
 Mr. Chizzy looked at her, at Bilson, at Jim, and at 
 the chore-girls. Then he opened his book again and 
 finished the ceremony. 
 
 The Tullingworth-Gordons were angry when they 
 heard of the marriage. They missed the two main- 
 stays of their domestic system. But — well, Bilson was 
 
2& ' • SHOE T SIXES." 
 
 growing old, and Sophronia was growing tyrannical. 
 Perhaps it was better as it was. And, after all, they had 
 always wanted a Lodge, and a Lodge : keeper, and the 
 old ice-house stood near the gate — a good two hundred 
 feet from the house. 
 
 It was nearly a year before Bilson could walk around 
 with comfort. Indeed, eighteen months later, he did 
 not care to do more than sit in the sun and question 
 Fate, while Mrs. Bilson tried to quiet a noisy baby within 
 the Lodge. 
 
 "'Ere I am laid up, as I should be," said Bilson; 
 "an there's an active woman a-goin' around with a 
 baby, and a-nussin' of him. If things was as they 
 should be, in the course of nachur, we 'd 'ave exchanged 
 jobs, we would." 
 
RARE BOOK 
 COLLECTION 
 
 THE LIBRARY OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 
 NORTH CAROLINA 
 
 AT 
 
 CHAPEL HILL 
 
 Wilmer 
 174