THE BROWN 
 
 STONE BOY 
 
 W, Henry Bishop
 
 350 Erie St., 
 
 OLEVKUN1. OBIO.
 
 THE 
 
 BROWN STONE BOY 
 
 AND 
 
 OTHER QUEER PEOPLE 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM HENRY BISHOP 
 
 AUTHOR OF "THE HOUSE OF A MERCHANT PRINCE," "THE 
 
 GOLDEN JUSTICE," " DETMOLD," " CHOY SUSAN," 
 
 "OLD MEXICO AND HER LOST PROVINCES," ETC. 
 
 CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED 
 104 & 106 FOURTH AVENUE, NEW YORK
 
 COPYRIGHT, 
 
 1888, 
 By O. M. DUNHAM. 
 
 All rights reserved.
 
 \-\t\ r 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 THE BROWN STONE BOY, i 
 
 A LITTLE DINNER, 45 
 
 JERRY AND CLARINDA, - 79 
 
 A LUNCH AT MCARTHUR'S, 126 
 
 NEAR THE ROSE, 171 
 
 BETWIXT AND BETWEEN, - - 208 
 A CHRISTMAS CRIME, - - 235 
 
 A DOMESTIC MENAGERIE, 258
 
 THE BROWN-STONE BOY. 
 
 A -A-A-H ! he's no consul-general ! " cried 
 \. the brown-stone boy, with an accent 
 of supreme disgust. 
 
 " Oh yes, I think he is; I'm quite sure he 
 is," I expostulated. " I had occasion to visit 
 the consul at his office, and I am sure this is 
 the same man." 
 
 " Well, what I mean is that he's no kind oi a. 
 consul-general : he's a fossil. What a treasure 
 he'd have been about ten thousand years ago ! " 
 cried the brown-stone boy, wagging his head 
 with enthusiasm. 
 
 " How so?" I inquired, still puzzled. 
 
 " He wouldn't give me a ' distressed-sea- 
 man's ' certificate. If he had, I could have 
 sailed on this steamer for nothing. That's the 
 kind of a man he is." 
 
 It was the first I had heard of the brown- 
 stone boy's being a distressed seaman, or a
 
 2 THE BROWN-STONE BOY. 
 
 seaman at all, for that matter. He did not 
 look it in the least. 
 
 We had made a long voyage together from 
 the tropics. My companion had generally ap- 
 peared on deck in pajamas, claiming that this 
 was the only rational costume for such a cli- 
 mate. And on a succession of hot days, when 
 the very wind was hot, and blew the fumes of 
 the smoke-funnels directly back into our faces, 
 his claim was not without a certain amount of 
 reason. Again he would appear in a ragged, 
 greasy old jacket, a bad hat, slouchy carpet 
 slippers, and quite innocent of shirt-collar, 
 which was much less satisfactorily accounted for. 
 His comings on deck were of a mysterious, 
 periodic sort. The long intervals between 
 them we inclined to ascribe to sea-sickness. 
 He had two different manners. At one time 
 he would hang upon the outskirts of the groups, 
 listening with an air of exaggerated reverence 
 to every word let fall. Then again he would ex- 
 hibit a decidedly hilarious flow of spirits, bestir 
 himself to start the game of shuffle-board, intro- 
 duce people to each other who were already 
 well acquainted, and engage in loud, warm
 
 THE BROWN-STONE BOY. 3 
 
 controversy with any that would argue with 
 him. His favorite reproach to opponents, 
 as to the consul, was that of fossilism and old- 
 fogyism. To be behind the age, in his view, 
 seemed the fault above all others most deserv- 
 ing of reprobation. 
 
 He was, let us say, twenty-four years of age ; 
 he had a certain plump, still boyish aspect, 
 and his features in general were good, but 
 coarse as from dissipation. His eyes were 
 heavy, and he had a fixed way of smiling, at 
 times, which seemed half maudlin, and turned 
 out to be really so. 
 
 The object of our discussion just now was a 
 pompous little man, who was in the habit of 
 strutting up and down the deck, with his 
 hands behind him, keeping very much to him- 
 self. 
 
 " Ah, you were a distressed seaman, then ? 
 Was it among the Islands you were wrecked ? " 
 I inquired. The revelation lent my casual 
 new acquaintance a picturesqueness he had 
 not before possessed. 
 
 " No, I never was wrecked. 'Most every- 
 thing else has happened to me, but I never
 
 4 THE BROWN-STONE BOY. 
 
 was wrecked," he replied. " I wasn't a rea- 
 mun ; I was busted in business." 
 
 " Ah, in business ? " 
 
 " Yes ; but a consul-general needn't look so 
 close, need he? He's got; a right to draw off 
 them certificates and pass you home, if he 
 wants to. What's he good for, if he don't do 
 it ? He knew all about me I told him. My 
 family lives in New York, the old lady's well 
 known. We're way up high-toned. We've 
 got a four-story, high-stoop house on West 
 Blank Street, close to the Avenue. I ain't no 
 slouch : I'm a brown-stone boy, I am." 
 
 Ah, he was a brown-stone boy ; that was it ? 
 This description of himself from the brown- 
 stone houses that form the prosperous and 
 fashionable quarter of New York, he repeated 
 more than once, and by it, better than his own 
 name, I have ever since remembered him. 
 
 " He wouldn't give me a certificate, this old 
 consul wouldn't. He ought to have associated 
 with Methuselah. So I had to play it fine, and 
 stow away on the steamer on my own account." 
 
 This was a new light on the case. Though 
 the brown-stone boy was avowedly far from an
 
 THE BROWN-STONE BOY. 5 
 
 exemplary companion, I heard his story with 
 involuntary entertainment. His talk was char- 
 acterized by a peculiar slang and intonation 
 not found in just that form anywhere but in 
 New York, and there among its reprobate 
 classes. If he were of superior station, he had 
 thoroughly adapted himself to the manners of 
 strata far lower down. It was reprehensible, 
 no doubt, but, after long hearing only foreign 
 tongues, it had a certain racy and almost pat- 
 riotic flavor. The brown-stone boy had, too, 
 while recounting his misdeeds, a way of inter- 
 larding them with profuse apologies, as if these 
 follies and errors of youth were now wholly at 
 an end. 
 
 " Well, that's all over, now ; that's done for," 
 he would say. " I'm not going back to it, 
 either, you can bet your dear life." 
 
 " I walked aboard as bold as brass," he con- 
 tinued, " and said nothing to nobody. Of 
 course I had to give it away to the purser when 
 he came 'round after the tickets, but by that 
 time we were far out to sea. Well, if you had 
 seen that man dance and swear ! I thought I 
 had heard some swearing before, but well, all
 
 6 THE BROWN-STONE BOY. 
 
 right ! He grabbed me and called some men, 
 and I thought they were going to fire me over- 
 board at once. Then he called the captain, 
 and the captain he danced. They sent for a 
 lot more, and they all danced. It was a holy 
 circus, you better believe. I told 'em all the 
 yarns I could think of, and talked 'em deaf, 
 dumb, and blind." 
 
 " What did you tell them ?" 
 
 " I said the consul-general had promised me 
 a distressed seaman's certificate, and forgot to 
 give it to me. But what did they do but walk 
 this here fellow right up to me. He was mak- 
 ing the voyage, too, without my knowing it. 
 That spoiled the racket, there wasn't much use 
 trying, but I told 'em next I had lost my 
 pocket-book, with my ticket in it. Then I told 
 'em the parties in whose sugar warehouse I 
 used to work said I could come aboard and 
 have a passage any time I wanted to, because 
 they had an interest in the line. I told 'em I 
 was down sick of a ragin' fever, and had to get 
 away ; told 'em who my family was ; told 'em 
 I'd see they was paid as soon as I got back to the 
 United States of America. But it was all no use."
 
 THE BROWN-STONE BOY. 1 
 
 " But they did not throw you overboard, it 
 seems ? " 
 
 " No, nor they didn't put me ashore, neither, 
 though they swore they were goin' to. The 
 captain would have me up every few days, and 
 say, ' It won't do, you know ; it won't do. 
 We've got to put you off at the first landin'.' 
 But they didn't do it. I suppose they got 
 satisfied because I belong to one of the first 
 families," he said, complacently. " They gave 
 me a place down by the furnace-room, to sleep, 
 'cause there wasn't room in the cabin see?" 
 He laid a finger beside his nose, with a humor- 
 ous leer. " You don't wonder now I was a 
 little backward sometimes in comin' round 
 where you folks was, do you ? I had to pawn 
 all my clothes before comin' aboard." 
 
 This was quite a different account of' his 
 pajamas from that of a luxurious adaption to 
 circumstances, before advanced. It was but 
 natural, after such a confidence, that he should 
 go on to give me some account of his doings 
 in the Islands, previous to embarkation. 
 
 " It was family influence that first took me 
 down there," he said. " My father died when
 
 e THE BRQWN-STOK& BOY. 
 
 I was a small kid, and I never saw much of 
 him. But the old lady she had lots of influ- 
 ence, all the same. So when I had to get out 
 of New York, I had to get away from New 
 York, for certain reasons " (he favored me with 
 one of his fixed smiles, in which it was evident 
 that these reasons were of a disreputable sort) 
 " the old lady spoke to some friends of hers, 
 for a place down in the Islands, in a sugar 
 warehouse. There wasn't much to do, and I 
 was easy-going and didn't do even that. I 
 used to draw my little hundred dollars a month, 
 and write home to the old lady that I was 
 saving it, and getting to be a regular Vander- 
 bilt. I Avasn't, though, all the same. One day 
 the superintendent came along and found me 
 asleep on a convenient pile of coffee-sacks. 
 
 " ' Are you down here for your health ? ' he 
 says, very mad and stiff. 
 
 " ' I don't know as I am,' I says. ' What's 
 the matter with you ? ' giving him back a lot 
 of impudence. 
 
 "Well, the shipping-book hadn't been at- 
 tended to for a couple of weeks, and a memor- 
 andum of hogsheads he wanted couldn't be
 
 THE BROWN-STONE. BOY. 9 
 
 found nowhere. What with that and my back 
 talk, he fired me out entirely. I didn't care, 
 as long as my money lasted ; but the worst of 
 it was after that was gone the old skeesix 
 wouldn't give me back the place, and I h'ad to 
 shift for myself. Jobs ain't very plenty in the 
 Islands, and I couldn't afford to let the old 
 lady know what had happened to me, either. 
 It was a kind of last chance, her sendin' me 
 down there. I'd been into various matters and 
 things before, you see. Nor I couldn't playoff 
 the invalid dodge on her any more ; I'd pretty 
 much run through that, too." 
 
 My brown-stone friend was apparently so 
 used to being taken for an out-and-out scape- 
 grace, that he would be at no pains to give 
 himself a character and assume a virtue, though 
 he had it not, even under the most favorable 
 opportunities. 
 
 It appeared that he had next enlisted, in the 
 Islands, as the sub-agent of a man engaged in 
 introducing American sewing-machines. He 
 had been instructed in running and repairing 
 them, and, having picked up by this time con- 
 siderable of the Spanish " lingo," had " traveled
 
 10 THE BROWN-Sl'ONE BOY. 
 
 around among the good-looking senoras and 
 sefioritas," with much entertainment to him- 
 self. He had, however, repaired many of the 
 machines in such a way that " a steam engine 
 could not have run them again," and been, in 
 consequence, deprived of his office in disgrace. 
 He had next acted as sub-agent for the sale of 
 illustrated Bibles, sent down from Connecti- 
 cut. 
 
 " They were cram-full of pictures," he said. 
 "The natives had never seen any thing of the 
 kind before, and it was a big scheme. The 
 trouble with 'em was they cost too much. I 
 had to sell 'em for less than half-price, to make 
 my expenses. The boss agent was crazy over 
 it. I finally saw my talents were not appre- 
 ciated in the Islands, and the only thing for 
 me to do was to get out." 
 
 His CQmplacent way of taking me into part- 
 nership, in his peculiar iniquities, was not com- 
 plimentary, but he was impervious to reproof. 
 He received it, at best, only in a very puzzled 
 way. 
 
 We were coming into port at this time, and 
 set foot on shore towards evening. Much more
 
 THE BROWN-STOIVE BO'Y. IT 
 
 intimate acquaintanceships than this are 
 -broken on landing from steamers, and I sup- 
 posed I had seen the last of the brown-stone 
 boy. 
 
 The next day, however, he walked into my 
 hotel, at dinner time, and dragging out his 
 chair, in an easy way, joined me at table. 
 There had been a wonderful change in his ap- 
 pearance. He was very well dressed, and in no 
 respect resembled the slovenly figure he had 
 been during the voyage. 
 
 " Yes, all ragged out new," he said, follow- 
 ing my involuntary glance of inspection. 
 " Ready-made of course, but I'll have some- 
 thing more lum-tum than this, in a few days. 
 The old lady's come down with the stamps 
 again, see ?" 
 
 He reached forward comfortably and took 
 the bill of fare from among the bottles of the 
 caster, gave his order to the waiter in a face- 
 tious way, and went on with his confidences to 
 me. I soon found that I did not enjoy them ex- 
 clusively : he was of a naturally expansive dis- 
 position, and amiably disposed to share them 
 with whoever would listen.
 
 12 THE BROWN-STONE BOY. 
 
 " I was up to the post-office, and there was the 
 money order all ready waiting for me," he said. 
 " I didn't hardly expect it. Doubtful things 
 are pretty uncertain, and you can't sometimes 
 'most always tell : but the new scheme has 
 worked like a charm. I didn't ask her for any 
 thing to get away from the Islands. I told 
 her I had fallen in with a party who wanted to 
 take me into partnership in the beef-canning 
 business. I told her it was the biggest thing 
 that had ever happened to me, and I had got 
 the place all by my own unaided exertions, 
 see? He wanted an active young partner, I 
 said, and I was going to learn the business ; 
 and then we were to put up a factory, some 
 place where cattle were plenty and cheap. I 
 said I had saved money of my own, and all I 
 wanted was five hundred dollars more, to make 
 the thing complete. I didn't suppose the old 
 lady would do it this time, but, as I tell you, she 
 has come to time like a brick." 
 
 " And you mean that there is no beef-canning 
 project?" 
 
 "You bet your dear life there is a beef- 
 canning project. That's just what there is a
 
 THE BROWN-STONE BOY. 13 
 
 beef-canning project. I'm going to learn the 
 business see ? There's factories here where 
 they carry it on, and I'm going around and 
 look for a place. Yes, sir ; you'll see me with 
 my little overalls on pretty soon, chopping up 
 sausage-meat, or boiling down soap-fat, or any 
 thing else they want. I wont kick ; it don't 
 make any difference what it is. I'm a worker, 
 I am." 
 
 " And the partner ? " I asked in surprise, 
 half trusting to his emphasis. 
 
 He looked at me with a compassionate 
 smile. 
 
 " That was only a blind for the old lady," he 
 said ; " I had to do it. But now it's over, I've 
 reformed. A fellow hadn't ought to be spout- 
 ing his clothes, beating his board-bills and all 
 that, you know," he added philosophically. " I 
 had a good mother ; that's what always brings 
 me round all right. A mother's prayers is 
 what you want every time." 
 
 There was a dangerous levity in this, and 
 yet a certain air of sincerity, too. The method 
 might have been only his ideal of a manly way 
 of expressing himself.
 
 14 THE BROWN-STONE BOY. 
 
 " I shouldn't wonder if there was any quan- 
 tity of will-power about me, still," he said. " I 
 had a brother once with a will-power Lord, 
 what a will-power he did have ! " 
 
 His platitudes on goodness and the exem- 
 plary influence of his mother whose heart, it 
 could plainly be seen, this young reprobate 
 must often have wrung were a curious glib 
 parody of sermons we have heard on the ill- 
 fated course of the prodigal. He had not in 
 the least a repentant air, yet he continually 
 gave himself out at great length as one who 
 had at last seen the error of his ways, and 
 chosen the better part. 
 
 " I'll give you the whole business straight," 
 he said, treating further of his project. " It's 
 the biggest scheme out. I've had it on the 
 brain for some time. I heard parties talk of it 
 in the Islands. You snake your cattle right 
 up to the factory, and run 'em through the 
 canning machines before they know where they 
 are. The profits come in in having 'em right 
 on the ground where the factory is, instead of 
 'way off, with big bills to pay, first for trans- 
 portin' the stock, and then for sendin' away
 
 THE BROWN-STONE BOY. 15 
 
 the stuff. Why, the hides and horns alone '11 
 more than pay all expenses. I anticipate four 
 hundred per cent, profit the first year. Any- 
 body '11 put up money with me, as soon as I've 
 learned the business. I wouldn't wonder if 
 the old lady herself would, as soon as she knew 
 I was actually on the ground. Say ! you 'd 
 make a first-rate partner. I don't mind givin' 
 you an interest," with frank bon cameraderie. 
 " It's a big thing, now, I tell you. Let's you 
 and I go into it." 
 
 I declined the handsome offer. Engagements 
 prevented me from entering into any other 
 business enterprises at present. It was now 
 Friday, and the brown-stone boy promised to 
 begin his labors on the following Monday 
 morning. 
 
 " I shan't give it away at the factory what 
 I'm up to, either," he said. " I'll go in just as 
 a common hand. I'll stay a week, two weeks, 
 or whatever time it takes to learn the whole 
 racket. And you won't hear a squeal out of 
 me, not a squeal nor a kick, no sir," he con- 
 cluded, in a large, magnanimous' way. 
 
 I said nothing to dash his sanguine estimate
 
 1 6 THE BROWN-STONE BOY. 
 
 of the obstacles before him. It so happened 
 that I was detained for a considerable time at 
 the port where we had landed, and saw much 
 more of my brown-stone friend than I had ex- 
 pected. I met him on the Monday when he 
 was to have gone to work, strolling about in a 
 leisurely fashion. 
 
 "They gave me the cold bluff up there;- 
 that's why I ain't workin'," he explained. 
 
 " How was that ? " 
 
 " I went and applied for a job. They said 
 they didn't want me. Then I tried palaverin' ; 
 told 'em what was up, how I only wanted to 
 learn the business, and was willing to work for 
 nothing. They called me too fresh, and asked 
 if I took 'em for flats and thought they was 
 goin' to give away the secrets of the trade." 
 
 Still he was not greatly depressed at his 
 
 rebuff. 
 
 " There's two more places," he said. " I'll 
 tackle one to-morrow, and the other the day 
 after. They ain't so big as the first one, but 
 they'll do well enough. All I want is just to 
 learn the business, see? " 
 
 The next day he did not go, being occupied,.
 
 THE BROWN-STONE BOY. 17 
 
 as he said, in changing his hotel. He had 
 choosen a cheaper one, to save his money, an 
 object that seemed highly commendable. This 
 took, however, a couple of days instead of one. 
 Then occurred a national holiday, and next he 
 was occupied with his tailor. He appeared to 
 feel under some sort of obligation at first to 
 report progress to me, but this was soon 
 abandoned. I heard no more of his attempts 
 to procure employment at the places indicated, 
 further than vague denunciations of their pro- 
 prietors, and statements that the business was 
 overdone, and wasn't " what it was cracked up to 
 be, any way." I could not judge whether he 
 had tried and failed, or arrived at these con 
 elusions only on independent grounds. 
 
 Once, while in the porch of the hotel, we 
 saw a group of rough hobbledehoys teasing an 
 old man, a foreigner and vender of small wares, 
 in the street. 
 
 " That was me ; that's it ; that was my style 
 too! I used to be a holy terror!" cried the 
 brown-stone boy, slapping his thigh with an ani- 
 mated delight at the spectacle. The circum- 
 stance was the starting-point of a new train of
 
 1 8 THE BROWN-STONE BOY. 
 
 reminiscence, which, in time, comprised most 
 of the adventures of his life. 
 
 " I used to belong to the old West Blank 
 Street and Tenth Avenue gang," he said. 
 " Did you ever belong to that gang ? " 
 
 " No, I never belonged to that gang," I 
 replied as calmly as possible. 
 
 " You've heard tell of it ?" 
 
 " Yes, I have heard of it." 
 
 I had heard at least of similar groups of young 
 ruffians, who infested certain streets, made life 
 a burden to the residents therein, and were the 
 sworn enemies of the police. A graduate of 
 one of them, aged nineteen, was at that very 
 time lying in the Tombs under sentence of. 
 death for murder, in connection with a heinous 
 robbery. He proclaimed himself " a tough," 
 and looked with pride upon his exploit, as a 
 sort of method of winning his spurs. The 
 gang waylaid children, if well dressed, or sent 
 with money to pay bills or make purchases, 
 dragged them into lumber-yards and the like, 
 and plundered them. But I had not thought 
 that these were in any degree recruited from 
 respectable and wealthy families,
 
 THE BROWN-STONE BOY. 19 
 
 " Oh, they got no prejudice against family/' 
 he responded, cavalierly. "What they want 
 is the feller that can make the liveliest racket ; 
 they don't mind his bringin' up." 
 
 "And were there many who were well off? " 
 It was interesting to hear of such a band 
 from the inside point of view. 
 
 " Well, Patsy Bogan's father was a black- 
 smith, Jimmy Gunnison's drove a truck, and 
 ''Big Ed ' White's old man kept a saloon. Big 
 Ed has fought a prize-fight since. Billy Bol- 
 ton's folks, though, was high-toned, the same as 
 mine, only more so. Jever hear of Billy's 
 game that got him nipped?" 
 
 " No, I don't recollect hearing of it." 
 " His father was a church deacon, bang-up 
 respectable. They lived on Thirty-eighth 
 Street, in one of the swellest houses. They got 
 Billy a kind of confidential place in a broker's 
 office down town, after a while, 'cause he 
 wouldn't go to school. One afternoon the 
 broker gave Billy a package of bills, about ten 
 thousand dollars, to put away in the safe. 
 Billy shoved the money into his coat, right 
 there under the broker's nose, slammed up the
 
 20 THE BROWN-STONE BOY. 
 
 safe, walked off, and came down next morning 
 as bold as brass. He was collared, though. 
 They proved it on him, and sent him up to the 
 penitentiary for seven years. He isn't out yet. 
 But he didn't give 'em back the money, and 
 he'll have it to spend when he gets out." 
 
 The narrator showed little emotion at this 
 story but amusement, with perhaps a trace of 
 envy. 
 
 " Of course we didn't go in as heavy as that. 
 That was after he left the gang. We used to 
 generally make it lively for the stores on our 
 beat ; snatch fruit, tip over barrels, bother 
 the customers as they passed in and out, and 
 so on. One day I was standing side of old 
 Zumpt's show-case, Zumpt was a shoemaker, 
 you know, it was full of boots and shoes, fancy 
 styles and ail that. The other youths bounced 
 me into it, smashing the glass all to flinders. 
 Out comes old Zumpt, a-boomin'. 
 
 " ' Who done it ? who done it?' he says, wild. 
 
 "'I don't know 'em,' I says, playin' the 
 innocent dodge ; 'all I know is, I want a ambu- 
 lance.' He tears up the street after 'em, and I 
 dodges 'round the corner."
 
 THE BROWN-STONE BOY. 21 
 
 " Did the cruelty of destroying the property 
 of a poor, hard-working man, putting him to 
 such expense and trouble, never occur to you ? " 
 
 " Well, it was pretty rough, that's so. I can 
 see it now, looking back. Besides, I got a cut 
 across the thumb that lasted me a couple of 
 months." 
 
 " Wouldn't the boys refuse to associate with 
 a companion if they knew he had actually 
 stolen money ? " 
 
 " Well, no, no, they wouldn't exactly refuse 
 to associate with him," he replied judicially. 
 " The fact is, they had to get money some way. 
 They weren't provided liberally from home. 
 Their folks, you see, most generally didn't 
 approve of 'em. Why, I recollect, myself,"- 
 he started off with a new gusto," havin' to 
 sell all the hats and umbrellas on our hall-rack, 
 once, to get funds to go and see Mazeppa, at 
 the old Bowery theatre." 
 
 No doubt I seemed duly impressed with the 
 painful necessity for this measure, for the 
 further details were at once forthcoming. 
 
 " There was an old party that went through 
 the street every afternoon. I used to call him
 
 22 THE BROWN-STONE BOY. 
 
 Yowlrigs. That was the way he said ' Any 
 old rags? any old rags?' see? Sometimes 
 it was, ' Eggs bottled ! ' ' eggs bottled ? ' 
 instead of ' Rags, bottles ! ' See ? I called 
 Yowlrigs in, one day when the old lady was out, 
 and made the trade. Some of the servants 
 saw him leaving, and they peached. But I lit 
 out on time, you bet. I had it all arranged, so 
 I could sleep in an engine-house, once in a 
 while." 
 
 " But you had to go back finally? " 
 " Yes ; but I could always scare the old 
 lady by staying away long enough ; that's 
 where I had the inside track. The old lady 
 was pretty soft. My drinking was what riled 
 her at last." 
 
 " Ah, drinking ? The gang drank too ? " 
 "What the gang didn't do wasn't worth 
 doing. I got as drunk as a boiled owl the day 
 I was fourteen years old. A policeman brought 
 me home on his back at two o'clock in the 
 morning. Whiskey done it ; I'd never took 
 anything but beer before that. One of the 
 kids borrowed some money from his father's 
 till, and nothing would do but we must all take
 
 THE BROWN-STONE BOY. 23 
 
 whiskey, and get tight. Then there was a 
 circus, and don't you forget it- I got in the 
 way of drinking then, and have kind of kept up 
 ever since. You 'might have noticed I was full 
 on the steamer now and then. But that's all 
 over now. It was for something of that kind, 
 the old lady finally fired me. No, I don't 
 know as it was, either. I've forgotten now 
 just exactly what it was for," slightly scratch- 
 ing his head. 
 
 " She sent you away, then ? She could not 
 stand you ? I hardly wonder at it. ' 
 
 He showed no offense at unfavorable mo- 
 ments. 
 
 "She had to do so, you know, she had to do 
 it. I don't say nothing against her. She 
 used to come up to my room nights, or early in 
 the morning, in her wrapper, and say prayers 
 over me. She used to tell what big things my 
 father did and how I ought to be worthy of 
 him, and all that. Sometimes I used to prom- 
 ise to make a try, but it never seemed to 
 amount to anything. So there she was, one 
 morning I wish I could think now exactly 
 what it was for standing by me like a ghost
 
 24 THE BROWN-STONE BOY. 
 
 waving hands handkerchief to eyes high 
 tragedy business, see ? I'd finally got to go. 
 She asked me how much money I wanted, to 
 take me away where she'd never hear of me 
 again till she could hear something that wasn't 
 a disgrace and shame. I was kind of dazed on 
 account of its being so early in the morning 
 and the racket over night, and I named a sum. 
 I might just as well have had twice as much, 
 but we can't always tell how sharp to be. I 
 took another nap, and when I woke up again, 
 about nine o'clock, there was the money and a 
 note on the pillow beside me. The old lady 
 wasn't goin' to see me any more, but when I 
 went down the steps I bet she was behind the 
 blinds, cryin', all the same." 
 
 Alas and alas, for the poor old lady ! 
 
 " I didn't clear out altogether just then," 
 the scapegrace continued. " Not so green. 
 I waited till I'd spent that money, and then 
 went back after more. ' If you really want to 
 get rid of me,' I said, 'give me five hundred 
 dollars, and I'll go.' She planked it down, and 
 I went." 
 
 The frankness of these confessions seemed
 
 THE BROWN-STONE BOY. 25 
 
 incredible. Perhaps he saw that I marveled, 
 for he explained at once : 
 
 " Oh, I don't mind telling you some of this 
 stuff, for if you was to go back to New York 
 and inquire about me you'd hear a dozen times 
 worse. That's one of the advantages of having 
 a bad character. Nobody can do me any 
 hurt. But that's all over now. I had a good 
 mother, see ? There was no discount on her. 
 That's what's always brought me 'round all 
 right." 
 
 It was difficult to see in what the brown-stone 
 boy was so much better than formerly, since he 
 told of his misdeeds many more, and more 
 serious ones, too, than here set down with the 
 utter flippancy described ; but one could only 
 hopefully take him at his word. He had a 
 plausible, ingratiating way with him. He 
 could flatter by an artful air of respect and 
 deference as to superior wisdom, and he could 
 amuse by many drolleries. He had the social 
 talents, skill at cards and billiards, a knack at 
 music, and the like, with the aid of which his 
 brief successes were accomplished. 
 
 He was now very fashionably dressed. He
 
 26 THE BROWN-STONE BOY. 
 
 had evidently not spared money, and his 
 tailor had made a very complete thing of it. 
 One day he proposed to hire an expensive 
 livery-team and take me for a drive in the park. 
 I strenuously opposed this as contrary to his 
 newly devised plans of economy and reform. 
 We compromised by partly walking and then 
 taking an open horse-car. We passed the city 
 hospital, a structure of dingy, yellow brick, on 
 a cold, windy-looking hill. An ambulance was 
 drawn up at the gate, and from it a pale and 
 wasted invalid was being taken out on a 
 stretcher. My brown-stone boy tipped me a 
 wink, as if the joke were decidedly on this 
 poor invalid, and it were a situation no more 
 to be expected for himself than if he belonged 
 to a different order of beings. 
 
 The gatekeeper superintending the transfer 
 said to us, as we paused a moment to look on : 
 
 "This man was once a big actor. Drink 
 brought him to this." 
 
 " Plenty o' lodgin's to let in, still, the old 
 shebang?" the brown-stone boy inquired, face- 
 tiously. 
 
 " A fine suit up where ye see them open
 
 THE BROWN-STONE BOY. 2^ 
 
 windys," returned the porter, " or in the cot- 
 tage beyant," indicating a low edifice in a 
 corner of the yard. " We'll fit ye out when 
 ye'll be needin' them." 
 
 " Put me in a private bath, 'lectric bells, and 
 the rest of the modern conveniences, and I'll 
 see you later," said the brown-stone boy. 
 
 " That ain't no cottage ! " cried an irrepressi- 
 ble gamin now running up ; " that's the morgue. 
 Don't I be playin' there every day? And them 
 windys is the room where the doctors grinds 
 up the dead bodies to make medicine of." 
 
 The porter made a good-natured pass at the 
 gamin, which the latter evaded by ducking his 
 head. " He's a young foundlin' that's got 
 a job here," said the porter. " He has gab 
 enough for twenty." 
 
 " This is a boss place, you bet. I've got a 
 job clearin' the dinner-tables. We have fun 
 stealin' puddin', and everything. Give a feller 
 a dime, will yer ? " went on the urchin. 
 " A w, ye might ! " 
 
 It was but a slight circumstance, this brief 
 stop at the hospital, but it was to impress itself 
 later on by serious events of which none of
 
 28 THE BROWN-STONE BOY. 
 
 us could have had then the least expecta- 
 tion. 
 
 " Actor, was he ? I've been an actor myself," 
 said the brown-stone boy, as we moved off. 
 " Wonder if that had anything to do with 
 breakin' me up ? I went away with a theatre 
 company when I left home, the time I was 
 tellin' you of, and stayed with 'em most a 
 year. It ain't what it's cracked up to be ; it's 
 hard lines and poor pay. I was just gettin* 
 ready to come out in leadin* parts, when the 
 company failed. I got the old lady to put up 
 for me. I'd been away from home so long 
 that she was ready to, then, and she thought 
 some occupation was better than none. I 
 handed over the funds to the manager, and he 
 was going to back me and see me through, and 
 give me a salary of twenty-five dollars a week. 
 I was going to be a juvenile. ' What is a 
 juvenile?' Why, for instance, if you was to 
 play Richard, I'd play Richmond ; or if you 
 was Hamlet, I'd be Laertes, see? that's 
 juvenile. 
 
 " But the company busted, and I didn't do 
 my actin', nor get my money back either. I
 
 THE BROWN-STONE BOY. 29 
 
 was stranded in a small Iowa town. First we 
 tried a little variety-show ; thqn I got to bein' 
 a waiter in the hotel. I couldn't stand that 
 but a few days, so I got a job canvassing for 
 advertisements for the local paper. Then I 
 traveled with a lightning-rod man. That is 
 what made me so handy with the sewing- 
 machines and Bibles down in the Islands. 
 After a while I raised money enough to get 
 away to a city, and started a kind of paper of 
 my own. It contained the theatre programmes, 
 and was to be filled up with payin' advertising 
 around the margins Only it wasn't. I fell in 
 with a young lawyer, and we got up a Collec- 
 tion Agency for the Northwest, but we had to 
 keep all we collected for expenses, and the cli- 
 ents wasn't satisfied. We had a Mining and 
 Town-Site Company afterwards in Idaho; 
 but the bottom soon dropped out of that. 
 
 " I never used to let it cost me much for 
 travelin' and hotel expenses those times. 
 Railroads and landlords fatten on the hard 
 earnin's of the people, any way, and I gen- 
 erally looked on what I could beat 'em out 
 of as so much clear gain. But that's all over
 
 3 THE BROWN-STONE BOY. 
 
 now. I s'pose I'd been away from home about 
 three years before I turned up in New York 
 again. I'd come to understand what the com- 
 fort of a home was, by that time, you'd better 
 believe. I swore off drinking and smoking, cut 
 the old gang dead, turned over an entirely new 
 leaf, and was ready to tackle regular busi- 
 ness. " 
 
 "And was your mother pleased to see 
 you ?" 
 
 " Pleased is no name for it. She was tickled 
 to death," complacently. "The next thing 
 was to consider my future. The old lady was 
 amitious, and wanted me to do big things. 
 My father, he'd been a kind of a celebrity ; he 
 was a lawyer, and may be you've heard of 
 some of his writin's, too? She would like me 
 to follow in his footsteps. I thought it over 
 a few minutes, and then I says, ' I'll go on the 
 lecture platform.' 
 
 " ' Oh, my dear,' she says, ' I'm afraid you 
 can't.' 
 
 " ' I'll show you whether I can or not,' I 
 says. ' Lecturin' is different from writin.' 
 You get your little lecture done, and go all
 
 THE BROWN-STONE BOY. 31 
 
 over the country deliverin' it, and rakin' in the 
 money. But when you've written one thing, 
 you've just got to go to work and write 
 another. My actin' and travelin' experience '11 
 come in. You let me go ahead, and I'll be a 
 bigger man than old Grant.' 
 
 "So I pitches in. I knew thinkin' wasn't 
 my best hold, and I'd have to piece it out with 
 delivery"; he sawed the air in an explanatory 
 way. " I knew I'd have to take some subject 
 where I could use the Encyclopaedia pretty 
 free ; and I did use it, and don't you forget it. 
 I called the thing ' The Perils of the Sea.' 
 When I got it done, I took it to a New Jersey 
 town, where the population was mostly clam- 
 diggers, I guess. I got the old lady to put up 
 for me to hire a hall, and I delivered it. They 
 went wild over it. They'd never had any 
 show in the place before, I guess, and they 
 wanted me to stay there all the time. I paid 
 the local correspondent to telegraph up a few 
 lines of slush about it to the ' Herald.' 
 When I got back, I takes the notices down to 
 Cooper's Institute, and shows 'em to the 
 lecture-bureau man.
 
 32 THE BROWN-STONE BOY. 
 
 " ' Here/ I says, ' this is the kind of hairpin 
 I am. Now put me in a page of advertisin' 
 in that journal of yours, and hustle along your 
 engagements ! ' ' 
 
 The brown-stone boy always represented 
 himself as talking in this off-hand manner, 
 even upon the most serious subjects and to 
 the gravest of persons ; but it is probable that 
 he meant only the sense rather than the actual 
 text of what he said. 
 
 "The lecture-bureau man wanted twenty- 
 five dollars for a page in his journal, and I got 
 it from the old lady, and put it up. Engage- 
 ments didn't come very lively at first, but the 
 lecture-bureau man says, ' Lay low and wait. 
 You'll be all right. You better pay me 
 twenty-five dollars more for another page, 
 though, and then you'll be doubly sure.' " 
 
 He paused a little, to admire in retro- 
 spect the shrewdness of the lecture-bureau 
 man. 
 
 " In about a month an order did come. It 
 was from Cahokia, or Kalamazoo, or some 
 such place, out West. They wanted me for 
 one night only, at thirty dollars a night. The
 
 THE BROWN-STONE BOY. 33 
 
 railroad fare and expenses footed up about a 
 hundred dollars. " 
 
 He paused again, to scratch his head, and 
 look at me with an air of comic perplexity, 
 then went on : 
 
 " I thought the rush had begun, and I was 
 goin' to start out at once, but the bureau man 
 he says, ' You better wait for a few more 
 orders, so's to lay out a rowte, and take 'em 
 in all together.' So I waited another month, 
 but there was nothin' else. The next month 
 another order came from Arkansas. They 
 wanted ' The Perils of the Sea ' at Texarkana 
 one night only. Then orders stopped comin' 
 entirely. The lecture-bureau man says, ' If 
 you don't feel like payin' expenses to fill these 
 engagements, perhaps I'd better arrange to 
 hand them over to somebody else?' 
 
 " ' I guess you better had,' I says, and with 
 that I quits the lecture platform. The next 
 thing I went into was real estate. I went in 
 an office about three months, till I'd learnt the 
 business up to the nines. Real estate ain't no 
 trick ; anybody can do it. The old lady fitted 
 me out handsome in an office of my own,
 
 34 THE BROWN- STONE BOY. 
 
 Pine Street, black-walnut furniture, gold let- 
 ters on the window. I put a big advertisement 
 in the papers 'City and country property 
 for sale and to rent. Half a million dollars to 
 loan on approved mortgages,' and sat back 
 smoking cigarettes, and waiting for customers. 
 I hadn't a red cent to loan, and not even a 
 shanty to rent. If anybody came in, I was 
 going to shin around among the other agents 
 and get something, and divide commissions. 
 The first quarter nobody came in but a Bow- 
 ery Dutchman, who wanted to borrow ten 
 thousand dollars on an old rookery that wasn't 
 worth a thousand ; you wouldn't take it for a 
 gift. The second quarter wasn't quite so 
 good. Every night, mostly, the old lady used 
 to ask me how much business I'd done that 
 day, and how much I was makin'. When a 
 third quarter's rent came due, the old lady 
 began to kick. ' I won't put up another 
 copper,' she says. 'You just sell the furniture, 
 and skip out of it." " 
 
 These, again, could not have been the pre- 
 cise words, but only the gist, of his good 
 mother's discourse.
 
 THE BROWN-STONE BOY. 35 
 
 " But the way my drug business panned out 
 was even worse. I went into wholesale drugs 
 and dye-stuffs. There was a young feller, that 
 I'd known for some time, who traveled for a 
 house in that line. He told me the customers 
 had all rather buy of him than his firm. ' If 
 you and me could go in together, and take a 
 store, and I had five hundred dollars for a 
 year's travelin' expenses,' he says, 'we could 
 make things boom.' I talked the old lady into 
 it. We set up in Pearl Street this time ; no 
 flummery and fancy furniture now, but cob- 
 webs, inky old desks, and big ledgers, the 
 heavy solid, see? We scattered some empty 
 carboys and indigo and cutch around. , Cutch 
 has an awful respectable look. We looked as 
 if we'd been established forty years and were 
 doing a business of a million a year. I was to 
 stay in the office and fill orders, and he was to 
 send 'em on. Well, in two months the year's 
 travelin' expenses was used up. Most of the 
 shipments we'd made was returned on our 
 hands, marked, 'N. G.' No Good. Some of 
 the mistakes was mine, but most of 'em his. 
 He was on a steady spree the whole time, I
 
 3 THE BROWN-STONE BOY. 
 
 didn't know he was that kind of a feller, and 
 I got news at last that he'd been lying drunk 
 somewhere in Vermont for two weeks; and 
 then I closed up the place. ' One by one the 
 roses fade ' ; it beats all how circumstances 
 used to turn out against me every time." 
 "You do seem to have had rather bad luck." 
 " Luck ? well ! The next thing I tried was 
 bein' a detective. I'd always had a fancy for 
 that kind of business, and knowin' the ropes 
 about town, and havin* seen as much as I had, 
 I thought I'd make a good one. The old lady 
 did n't like it at all. But she'd begun to get 
 tired of putting up money for me, and this 
 was something that didn't take no capital. I 
 got a place in a detective agency. They set 
 me to shadowing a house where some woman 
 lived whose husband wanted a ' divorce with- 
 out publicity,' or somethin' that way. My 
 watch was on nights, and most all night too ; 
 and it was precious cold and lonesome, I can 
 tell you, hanging around them corners in De- 
 cember. All of a sudden the police on the 
 beat grabbed me and run me in for a sus- 
 picious character. There had been burglaries
 
 THE BROWN-STONE BOY. 37 
 
 in the neighborhood, and they thought, from 
 the way I was manoeuvring, that I was the 
 one that done 'em. They locked me up, and 
 wouldn't let me go till I had to explain what 
 I was up to. The woman, she got wind of it 
 and went off, and the office bounced me for 
 bein' a double-dashed flat. A detective hadn't 
 ought to give away his racket to the police nor 
 nobody else, no matter what happens to him, 
 see? Yes, sir, I was more broke up by that 
 than most anything else I can think of. The 
 newspaper reportin' wasn't so bad, for I never 
 really looked at that as much in my line." 
 
 What ! a reporter, too ? Would the line of 
 his occupations stretch out to the crack of 
 doom ? 
 
 " I had a relation who owned a newspaper, 
 and he gave me a job as a local reporter. 
 That suited the old lady to a T. She was ex- 
 pectin' me to be a Horace Greeley right away. 
 But if ever there was a dry time for news, that 
 was it. I tore around, with my little note- 
 book ready and my pencil out, but not a thing 
 happened. There wasn't a fire, murder, colli- 
 sion, assault and battery, not an accident of
 
 38 THE BROWN-STONE BOY. 
 
 any kind. I boned the police and coroners, and 
 I tackled the undertakers, hackmen, and omni- 
 bus-drivers. If I saw anybody anywheres look- 
 in' the least excited, I grabbed him, and asked 
 him what was the matter. I went up to the 
 gang again, but even they had quieted down 
 just then, and couldn't give me anything. You 
 might as well have been reporting the New 
 Jerusalem. I shoved one feller down an area- 
 way, myself, to make an item ; but of course it 
 was too expensive to provide subjects that way. 
 After I'd been comin' in to the office, every 
 day for a month or so, without a blessed thing 
 to show for it, my relation, he says, kind o' sar- 
 castic : 
 
 " ' I guess you're spoilin' yourself for some 
 other profession, where you'd shine. News- 
 paper reportin' don't seem to be your best 
 hold. You talk a walk ; we'll spare you.' " 
 
 His record of chronic mishaps and miscar- 
 riages did not end even with this. But enough 
 has been given to show the irresponsible view 
 and manner of life of a character of which many 
 another prosperous family as well produces an
 
 THE BROWN-STONE BOY. 39 
 
 example. The poor" old lady" had stood 
 by him through it all, paid in cash the score of 
 his escapades, and paid more dearly yet, no 
 doubt, in sad yearning and disappointment over 
 this graceless son of her heart. She had had 
 her intervals of holding aloof, but even these 
 probably designed more in a salutary spirit for 
 his improvement than out of real sternness. I 
 gathered that he had left the country for his 
 country's good, and had done something that 
 would make it more than inconvenient for him 
 to return to New York. But, again, he said 
 that his mother wished him to return, and 
 marry a pretty and virtuous girl she had 
 picked out for him, 
 
 " Bah ! I don't want any molly-coddle in 
 mine; that ain't my style. Besides, I'm not 
 on the marry," was his first comment on this 
 prospect. 
 
 Recollecting, however, that this was hardly 
 in keeping with his newly assumed character 
 for reform, he amended with, 
 
 " I don't know but I will, though ; may be I 
 will. I'll see about it." 
 
 Questioned further as to the meat-canning
 
 4 THE BROWN-STONE BOY. 
 
 industry, he avoided the subject. But one day 
 he came in with, " Say ! I've got to send the 
 old lady a certificate that I'm working in the 
 business that she sent me the money for. You 
 wouldn't mind signing that, would you?" 
 
 " Are you actually in the business? " 
 
 " Well, no, but I will be next Monday, sure. 
 It's only dating a little ahead, you see." 
 
 " I don't exactly seem to see it." 
 
 " Well, I only mentioned it. I thought per- 
 haps you'd like to send her on your name, on 
 account of your bein' from New York. She'd 
 have more confidence in it too," and he went 
 off, with for him a rather disconsolate 
 manner. 
 
 Alas and alas, for the poor old lady! There 
 was undoubtedly ample trouble yet in store 
 for her. 
 
 From this time, I saw less and less of the 
 brown-stone boy. His appearance when we 
 met was less and less hopeful of permanent 
 reformation. He made new acquaintances 
 of a flashy aspect, strolled with them on the 
 principal thoroughfare, laughing loudly, and 
 played billiards a great deal with them. I saw
 
 THE BROWN-STONE BOY. 41 
 
 him driving a number of them in a handsome 
 vehicle, and, surrounded by them in a box at 
 the theatre, where he seemed the ruling spirit. 
 
 He came and borrowed a sum of money of 
 me, under pretext of having left his pocket- 
 book at home, and, on getting it, returned no 
 more. I met him one evening in the streets, 
 stupidly intoxicated, his fine apparel gone, and 
 as shabby as when I had first seen him on ship- 
 board. As I was leaving the place, on the way 
 to the train, I met him again. He was now 
 even more dilapidated, but sober, or at least 
 coherent in his talk. 
 
 " Hel-\Q, pard ! You off? " he cried, in hilar- 
 ious greeting. " Well, be good to yourself ! 
 You wouldn't mind droppin' a friend a dol- 
 lar, as you're goin' away, would you ? I've 
 been workin' in a theatre. -Say ! I've got the 
 biggest scheme out. I wish you had more 
 time to stop and talk. Say! . Well, so 
 long ! " 
 
 It was not yet a final leave-taking, however. 
 Contrary to my expectations, I was obliged to 
 return some two months later, and passed, one 
 day, the hospital on the windy hill. The
 
 42 THE BROWN-STONE &OY. 
 
 porter there recognized me, hesitated, and then 
 said, with a certain eagerness, 
 
 " You was with him It would be a char'ty 
 to step up and see him. He's in a bad way." 
 
 " Who is in a bad way?" I asked. 
 
 " The short shmilin' one, that was chaffin' 
 me, that day ; don't ye mind ? " 
 
 * 
 
 I mounted the stairs with him, and there, in 
 a ward among the pauper sick, lay the brown- 
 stone boy. He was emaciated to the last de- 
 gree. His eyes were closed when I first paused 
 by his iron cot. They seemed abnormally 
 large, in their hollow sockets, as he feebly 
 opened them. 
 
 "You come, pard?" he said. "I'm laid up. 
 I got a heavy cold on me. I've got to stop 
 these rackets; they won't do. I'm going to 
 swear off." 
 
 The voice that came from his chest, full of 
 strange rattlings and wheezings, on which he 
 placed one thin hand, was very faint and husky. 
 
 "There hasn't seemed to be nobody here to 
 take much notice of me lately," he continued, 
 gazing around in a wandering way. " I got 'em 
 to telegraph to the old lady ; it must ha' been
 
 THE BROWN-STONE BOY. 43 
 
 some time ago. It's seven or eight days' jour- 
 ney, but once she'd ha' come if it was a hun- 
 dred. I guess I've played it on her too often ; 
 she don't believe me. I don't blame her, pard, 
 do you ?" 
 
 He turned his face toward the wall. 
 
 A sudden flurry and movement made itself 
 felt ; there was a rustle of feminine skirts ; and 
 up to the bedside came a spare, comely old lady, 
 piloted thither by the garrulous urchin from 
 the yard. She was a lady, refined in every 
 lineament ; white-haired, dressed in dark silken 
 attire, and her features crossed by an expression 
 of woful pain. The sight would have moved a 
 heart of stone. " The old lady " had come to 
 her Benjamin, her youngest-born, to him who 
 had been a lovable child in her arms, before all 
 this nightmare of evil years to him for whom 
 she had had ambitions, for whom she had 
 prayed, suffered, sacrificed herself, and she 
 found him thus. He looked up, with a gasp, 
 knew her, and acted as if her presence were 
 incredible. 
 
 She threw herself upon him passionately,
 
 44 THE BROWN- STONE BOY. 
 
 embraced and kissed him as if he were again 
 her little child. 
 
 " I didn't have the will power," he mur- 
 mured, feebly, " I didn't have the will-power." 
 
 " Mother ! mother ! " he cried again, pres- 
 ently, " if I could live ? Oh, if I could live 
 
 And with the greatness of this aspiration, 
 that it might yet be possible for him to show 
 her the measure of his gratitude for all her love 
 and forbearance, this spirit, so strangely weak, 
 so lacking the essential grain of fortitude and 
 self-control that might have given him ascend- 
 ency over fortune, took its flight. 
 
 The brown-stone boy had added to his mani- 
 fold experiences the last and greatest experi- 
 ence of all.
 
 A LITTLE DINNER. 
 
 1 REGRET to have to use so unpleasant a 
 description, and nothing in the world would 
 induce me to do it outside of this confidential 
 circle, but Juliet Scatterbury who afterwards 
 became Mrs. Bang was one of the most super- 
 lative of liars. Oh, it was so admitted. You 
 should hear the gentle irony of Sam Lambert's 
 remarks about her ! His wife checks him, it is 
 true, as to the particular case here to be des- 
 cribed, believing that to have been largely her 
 own fault, but the fact remains that Juliet was 
 an egregious follower of Ananias and Sapphira. 
 There was wide range and ingenuity in her 
 inventions ; no one ever appeared to take a 
 more genuine comfort in mendacity than she. 
 It often seemed as if she would rather employ 
 it than truth, even when the latter would have 
 answered the purpose better. She sometimes 
 wore a rapt and imaginative air as if she thor-
 
 4 6 A LITTLE DINNER. 
 
 oughly believed in her statements herself. She 
 would romance, for instance, about her early 
 life, tell you of journeys she had made, thrilling 
 adventures she had met with, priceless jewels 
 and wondrous ball-dresses she had worn, and 
 unmeasured social attentions that had been 
 showered upon her. She would make small 
 scruple, if it suited her whim, of claiming she 
 had owned the largest steam yacht in the world, 
 had written, anonymously, the last popular 
 novel, or had sometimes played the parts of 
 Ristori or Bernhardt, appearing under proper 
 disguise. With all this, she was young, pretty, 
 possessed the art of dressing well, and was ac- 
 complished in several ways. 
 
 Her career in the large Western city of let 
 us say Minneapolis was but a brief one. Her 
 family were not in affluent circumstances ; 
 they had moved about a good deal, her father 
 had something to do with contracts. But they 
 were much respected, and as for Juliet she was 
 the associate of the leading people. While 
 there she was not thoroughly found out.. 
 There were always some who believed in her, 
 thought her a very sprightly and entertaining
 
 A LITTLE DINNER. 47 
 
 person, and confidently expected her to make 
 a great match. The young men in particular 
 did not credit all the ill they heard of her, but 
 laid a good part of this to the natural jealousy 
 of their sisters and cousins, her rivals. It was 
 probably not till individuals from different 
 quarters of the country began to meet casually 
 and compare notes about her that the full 
 measure of her iniquities came out. 
 
 Now, Juliet Scatterbury also confidently 
 counted on making a brilliant match. When 
 she removed to New York, and, in some unac- 
 countable way, made one of quite the opposite 
 sort instead, she was still anxious that an im- 
 pression to that effect should go out among 
 the denizens of the place she had left. The 
 view, in fact, prevailed there, from some artful 
 hints let fall in a few letters she had sent back, 
 that, though the marriage had been a very 
 quiet one, it was due to a recent death in Mr. 
 Bang's family ; that it covered in reality a good 
 deal of solid magnificence, and that her 
 position in the world was a highly enviable 
 one. 
 
 She had, in truth, married a club man,
 
 4 A LITTLE DINNER. 
 
 the son of a club man, a fellow of good inten- 
 tions enough, but not at all enterprising and 
 with no very definite means of support. They 
 lived in a small flat, in a respectable neighbor- 
 hood, where everything was, as it were, some- 
 thing else. Their bedstead, for instance, when 
 off duty, was a mantelpiece ; their piano a 
 refrigerator, and the principal arm-chair a coal- 
 box. About the only genuine piece of furni- 
 ture was an easel, holding some photo-engrav- 
 ings. This gave an air of elegant space, and 
 served no extraneous purpose save to suggest 
 to Mr. Bang his standing pun as to the facility 
 with which it also might have been something 
 else. 
 
 This manner of living was Juliet's own 
 doing; she was still brimful of vanity and ac- 
 tive social push. 
 
 They had some prosperous acquaintances 
 who befriended them ; among these, a Mrs. 
 Lambert, a former schoolmate of Juliet's, a 
 friend of her husband, and a person, it would 
 seem, of quite phenomenal good-nature. 
 
 "Poor little thing!" said Mrs. Lambert. 
 " And her husband has the makings of such a
 
 A LITTLE DINNER. 49 
 
 good fellow about him, and they have so much 
 to contend with." 
 
 Many the quiet dinner, therefore, they had 
 at her house, and many the comfortable drive 
 had Juliet in her carriage. 
 
 As to Mrs. Bang's peculiar trait of invention 
 she probably employed it outside of the house, 
 at this time, as briskly as ever, but she did not 
 employ it at home, having found out from 
 Jim, in very emphatic form, soon after their 
 marriage, that he did not approve of it. 
 
 One afternoon she rushed in, in a state of 
 much excitement, and said to Jim : 
 
 " I have just met the Gradshaws of Minne- 
 apolis a mother and daughter, you know the 
 most prominent people there. They were at 
 Arnold's, and are staying in town a short time, 
 at the Bolingbroke. I hardly knew how I 
 should get away from them, but I made a great 
 palaver about intending to go and see them 
 immediately, and escaped under cover of the 
 confusion." 
 
 " Oh," said Jim, with but a languid interest, 
 looking for a fresh cigar in a Japanese jug on 
 the mantelpiece.
 
 5 A LITTLE DINNER. 
 
 " I wish we could think of some way of en- 
 tertaining them without letting them come near 
 us. Our fate is in their hands ; whatever they 
 report, when they go back to Minneapolis, will 
 settle it. I told them we were all upset with 
 house-cleaning. If they should once see how 
 we live " 
 
 " Well, we haven't any patent on it, and 
 can't expect to keep it to ourselves always. I 
 don't know as there's any invention of ours 
 they'd want to steal very much, unless it's the 
 way that piano plays sonatas on the butter 
 and eggs, when you touch the keys." 
 
 " Jim, you don't quite understand. I guess 
 you'd want to produce a good impression too > 
 in the place where you used to live, and were 
 brought up. They seem to think I've made a 
 a rich marriage ; that we are great swells, 
 you know, and rolling in luxury." 
 
 "They've got left, haven't they? Well, 
 then, I see nothing for it but to pretend to be 
 such swells we couldn't possibly associate with 
 anybody so much beneath us. We must cut 
 their acquaintance." 
 
 Mrs. Bang repeated this same source of
 
 A LITTLE DINNER. 51 
 
 anxiety to her friend Mrs. Lambert, when she 
 happened to drop in upon the latter the next 
 morning. 
 
 " They live a thousand miles away, and will 
 not turn up here again in nobody knows how 
 long," she recited complainingly. " Why can't 
 I think of something to do for them? If I 
 could only give them a little dinner in such a 
 charming house as yours. Why cannot such 
 things be done ? Why could not one go to a 
 friend and say, ' Here, just lend me your beau- 
 tiful house for one evening' ? It wouldn't be 
 such a very great tax upon them, and might do 
 such an enormous amount of good to some- 
 body else." 
 
 " It can be done," said Mrs. Lambert, whose 
 amiability sometimes ran to quixotic extremes. 
 " You shall have my house for any evening you 
 may select provided it be within the week, 
 for after that, unfortunately, I expect visitors." 
 
 " Beware, I may take you at your word." 
 
 " That is just how I mean to be taken," said 
 her hostess, warming with the idea. " It will 
 not incommode us in the least. Mr. Lambert is 
 at the South, and the date of his return is in-
 
 $2 A LITTLE DINNER. 
 
 definite, and my parents, whom I had been ex- 
 pecting this week to begin their annual visit to 
 us, have written to say that they have put it off a 
 few days longer. I will go to the opera on that 
 night, and take care not to return too early." 
 
 " It is too kind of you. Of course I shall 
 only say that we are in the house of one of our 
 friends fora short time," said Mrs. Bang. " If 
 they happen to think that our own is just as 
 good, and is closed for repairs or something of 
 the sort, why, we can't help that, can we ? " 
 To this extent alone Mrs. Lambert became a 
 sharer in the proposed deception. 
 
 " Oh, here, no nonsense ! " said Jim, when he 
 heard of the plan. 
 
 " I will do it," responded Juliet. 
 
 She explained it to him, and began with 
 feverish energy to carry out her preparations for 
 it. It was necessary to manoeuvre somewhat 
 for the proper date. The best would be that 
 just previous to her intended guests leaving 
 town ; otherwise they might turn up again, in 
 some awkward way, at her supposed residence, 
 and then all would be lost. She discovered 
 that they were to go on the 24th, and that
 
 A LITTLE DINNER. 53 
 
 their tickets and sleeping-car berths were 
 already taken, and, accordingly, invited them 
 for the 23d addressing to them somewhat the 
 following discourse : 
 
 " It has been the greatest grief to me ever 
 since you have been here that we are so upset 
 that we could not receive you at our house ; 
 but, thank heaven, in a day or two everything 
 will be in order, and you positively must dine 
 with us on the 23d. I cannot think of letting 
 you go back without a glimpse of our interior, 
 modest as it is. It will please my dear friends 
 at Minneapolis to know that you have seen it 
 and broken bread with us. And my husband 
 as well as myself will be inconsolable if you will 
 not promise to make us a long visit on your 
 next coming to town." 
 
 By such hospitable insistence she managed to 
 secure the Gradshaws on her own date. They 
 had not intended to go out at all that evening, 
 but rather to reserve themselves for the fatigues 
 of their long journey, which was to begin at a 
 seasonable hour on the following morning. 
 
 A cab deposited them before a handsome 
 house in West Thirty-seventh street. All,
 
 54 A LITTLE DINNER. 
 
 both without and within, accorded with what 
 they were prepared to expect of the good for- 
 tune of Juliet Scatterbury. 
 
 Mrs. Juliet met them in the hall and went 
 upstairs with them herself. The door below 
 being heard to shut again, she left them and 
 hurried down to say a word, by way of warning 
 to Jim. It was characteristic of that rather 
 slow-moving person that he had only at this 
 moment arrived, leaving himself no time to 
 become more familiar with his surroundings. 
 
 "Of course you will take care to sustain me 
 in all that I say, Jim," she said. " We may 
 have to make a few harmless little a efforts, 
 to carry out our position." 
 
 Jim began to grumble, but, at this moment, 
 the guests were heard coming downstairs. 
 
 Mrs. Gradshaw had a bustling, assertive way 
 with her, and was evidently a person used to 
 much consideration. Her daughter was of the 
 quieter sort, yet quite ready to echo all her 
 opinions, the more especially in the present 
 case as she wholly agreed with them. The 
 two professed themselves delighted with every- 
 thing.
 
 A LITTLE DINNER, 55 
 
 " Such comfort, such good taste ! We 
 thought we had a good deal, but I begin to 
 see now, we don't half know how to live," 
 explained the elder. " Everything is perfect. 
 You really must excuse me if I stare round a 
 little." She put up her eyeglass, first at one 
 wall of the parlor, then at the other. " You 
 say there is a separate bath-room for each 
 sleeping-apartment? And, then, all this patent 
 ventilation, and hot-air supply, and electrical 
 attachments, and the sliding shutters it is per- 
 fect, perfect." 
 
 "There is one thing poor Jim insists upon ; 
 I don't know that he is such a particularly 
 selfish individual, but he will have comfort." 
 
 Fortunately, at this time, Jim had led Miss 
 Gradshaw to the front window, and they were 
 gazing out of it at the dimly discerned archi- 
 tecture of the neighborhood. 
 
 " What does the vapor-bath attachment con- 
 nect with ? It seems so convenient. We must 
 have one too," continued Mrs. Gradshaw. 
 
 Juliet was a little flustered. " The the ele- 
 vator, I believe," she said, and then launched 
 out into a torrent of words, intended to mystify
 
 5 6 A LITTLE DINNER. 
 
 her visitor and carry her over this tight place. 
 "And all the furnace-pipes, and electric bells, 
 and range, and burglar alarms, and stationary 
 tubs, and everything, are hydrostatic, pneu- 
 matic, interchangeable, and self-acting. We 
 wouldn't be without them for anything." 
 
 The rugs, portieres, astral lamps, an elaborate 
 piece of statuary, and the pottery, even to a 
 choice collection of old luster-ware, were a sub- 
 ject on which she was much more nearly at 
 home. She drew attention to some of these 
 things of her own accord, and deftly invented 
 the occasions on which they had acquired them. 
 The portraits were a more difficult field. Still, 
 Juliet had thought it quite probable she might 
 have to respond to some comments about 
 them, and though her answers were left 
 chiefly to the inspiration of the moment she 
 did not shrink from the ordeal. She had hur- 
 ried round just before the arrival of the guests, 
 and put away most of the small family photo- 
 graphs, porcelain-types, and the like that 
 bestrew the usual American household, and 
 replaced them from an album full of similar 
 mementos of her own ; but the framed pieces
 
 A LITTLE DINNER. 57 
 
 were naturally too heavy to be treated in this 
 summary fashion. She proceeded to account 
 for the large heads of the Clamptons, Mrs. 
 Lambert's father and mother, by saying they 
 were a dear old great aunt and uncle of her 
 own, who had always been extremely devoted 
 to her. They had sent their portraits on their 
 last birthday as a token of their warm regard, 
 the birthdays of both occurring, by a singu- 
 lar coincidence, on the same date. 
 
 Mrs. Gradshaw paused before a painting 
 of Mr. Lambert, in Huntington's best bank- 
 president manner, including a red curtain, a 
 column, a table, and a globe. 
 
 "Who is this?" she asks. 
 
 " Jim's, that is, Mr. Bang's, father." To have 
 made it any more remote connection she 
 thought would have necessitated too elabo- 
 rate an accounting for the principal place 
 given it. 
 
 "Mr. Bang's father, so young?" 
 
 There was in reality but little difference in 
 the ages of the two men. 
 
 " Oh, it was taken a long time ago, you 
 know ; and it really is remarkable how young
 
 58 A LITTLE DINNER. 
 
 he does look for his age. It is noticed by 
 everybody." 
 
 " And who is this? " She stops now before 
 the likeness of the Lamberts' boy, now absent 
 at boarding-school, painted with an orange and 
 a hoop in either hand. 
 
 " Oh, that is only a fancy piece," replies 
 Juliet, nonchalantly. 
 
 " Oh, I thought it must be a portrait ; it 's 
 so very like one." 
 
 " It's Louis XIV. at the battle of how 
 execrable my memory is ! Of course I mean 
 before the battle. It 's from some old painting. 
 I forget what but I want you to look at this" 
 
 She escaped in this way similar inquiry as to 
 the likeness of Lambert's daughter, diverting 
 her guests' attention to a valuable picture of 
 the Munich school that hung near by. She 
 thought good to affect to scorn it. 
 
 " I have never had any patience with it," she 
 said. " Did you ever see such sheep and peas- 
 ants ? Jim sat at Leavitt's sale like grim death 
 till he got it. It cost him ten thousand dollars. 
 Perhaps I 'm wrong, but I actually cried the 
 night he brought it home."
 
 A LITTLE DINNER. 59 
 
 Jim, coming up, had caught the last words 
 of this, and his eyes opened widely, but a maid, 
 of a veteran air, now appeared at the portiere 
 announcing dinner. 
 
 " We have had to let our butler go for to- 
 day ; one of his family is sick, and we shall 
 have to try to put up with the girl," whispered 
 Juliet, confidentially, as they went in. "We 
 are so fortunate in our servants ; we have had 
 the same ones, either in Jim's family or mine, 
 almost always. Entertaining as much as I do, 
 even in my quiet way, you can appreciate what 
 an incalculable blessing it is." 
 
 There were indications, upon this, in the 
 figure of Jim, who was going in first with Mrs. 
 Gradshaw on his arm, as if he were about to 
 kick backwards in some alarming way, or even 
 to burst. 
 
 Nevertheless for the memory of the pre- 
 varicator must be a good one Mrs. Juliet was 
 soon mistaking repeatedly even her long-tried 
 servant's name. 
 
 " Miss Gradshaw is not drinking her wine ; 
 won't you see if you can find some Apollinaris 
 water, Susan?" she said. Again, "The ter-
 
 60 A LITTLE DINNER. 
 
 rapin is a little under-flavored: will you just 
 mention it to the cook, Susan?" 
 
 "Jane, ma'am," corrected the woman, in a 
 stolid way, not too respectfully, it must be 
 admitted, but she was secretly resenting the 
 invasion. 
 
 At table, in the cozy, rich dining-room, not 
 too large, Juliet romanced about the plates, 
 reconciled discrepancies in the monograms on 
 the silver and linen, and fabricated striking 
 origins for the handsome screen and carved, 
 high-backed chairs. These were a few of the 
 " harmless little efforts " they were to make, to 
 carry out their position. Jim was a person of 
 so little imagination that all this adapting of 
 one's-self in detail to the small intimacies of 
 another's household had never once occurred 
 to him as a necessity of the situation, but he 
 could not now retreat, and he endeavored to 
 distract himself from it for the time being, by 
 opening a little flirtation with Miss Gradshaw, 
 who was comely, and did not show herself 
 wholly averse to something of that sort. 
 
 Whenever any thing inconvenient was 
 trenched upon, Mrs. Juliet began to ply Mrs.
 
 A LITTLE DINNER. 6 1 
 
 Gradshaw with more sweet-breads, or mush- 
 rooms, or red-head duck, or the delicacies of 
 dessert. That lady was fond of her dinner, 
 and the policy was generally successful. As to 
 Lucy, she plied her with questions upon the 
 current state of society at Minneapolis, asking 
 her who was married, who were the belles, who 
 was giving parties, who leading the germans, 
 and the like. In spite of all this management, 
 however, there was presently an inquiry that 
 fell like a thunderbolt. 
 
 " By the way, who is the portrait over the 
 mantel, in your room ? " broke out Mrs. Grad- 
 shaw, addressing herself to Jim. 
 
 " In my room ? " murmured Jim, taken ex- 
 tremely aback. 
 
 " Yes, the door of the adjoining one where 
 we were stood ajar, and we really couldn't 
 resist the temptation of peeping in, to see what 
 the retreat of the lord and master was like. 
 Of course it was wholly inexcusable." 
 
 "Do try some of the vegetables," hastily 
 interposed Juliet. " Speaking of vegetables, 
 Mrs. Hedges, who has lately returned from 
 San Francisco, was telling me the other day
 
 62 A LITTLE DINNER. 
 
 what a wonderful market they have for vege- 
 tables there. Do you know, I want to see San 
 Francisco so much." And so forth, and so 
 forth, and so forth. 
 
 But without avail, for though diverted from 
 the subject for the time being, Mrs. Gradshaw 
 kept an air of having something on her mind, 
 and returned to it again. 
 
 " Such an unusual face and such an excellent 
 piece of crayon work," she said ; " we were 
 both intending to speak to you about it." 
 
 It was, in fact, that of Mrs. Lambert herself. 
 
 Now, Jim had never been in the chamber 
 thus ascribed to him, and Juliet could not, 
 for the life of her, remember the likeness, nor 
 even whether it was that of a man or a woman. 
 Jim, driven to the necessity of saying some- 
 thing, was about to open his mouth for a reply 
 that would certainly have been their utter ruin, 
 but Juliet snatched the words from him, and 
 manoeuvred for time. Could she have got at 
 the key controlling its electric lighting, she 
 would have suddenly extinguished all the gas. 
 As it was, she meditated tipping over her 
 bottle of claret, to escape the topic under
 
 A LITTLE DINNER. 63 
 
 cover of a calamitous crash. There was a long- 
 drawn moment of suspense, when Miss Lucy 
 let fall a further word or two giving, as Juliet 
 thought, a clew to the sex of the person. 
 Upon no more basis than this, in which she 
 was mistaken, she launched out intrepidly: 
 
 " Oh, yes, that is Colonel Toplift in citizen's 
 dress. He is one of the most gentlemanly 
 men and best fellows that ever was. He comes 
 in on my mother's side, my mother was a 
 Toplift, you know. Jane, I think there is a 
 draught ; just draw the screen a little more. 
 I am sure you must feel it, dear Mrs. Grad- 
 shaw ; these New York dining-rooms are so 
 draughty, do what you will." 
 
 " Not at all, I assure you. But the one I 
 was speaking of was not a man's face ; it was a 
 woman's." 
 
 "Yes, such a really charming expression," 
 echoed the daughter. 
 
 "To be sure! How stupid I am ! Colonel 
 Toplift was sent to the frame-makers', for 
 repairs, only a few days ago. I couldn't think 
 for the moment just which one you meant. It 
 is a Mrs. N Neufchatel, a cousin of Jim's.
 
 64 A LITTLE DINNER. 
 
 There 's the most romantic history connected 
 with her life. I wish I had time to tell it to 
 you with all the details. She was a great 
 beauty. The family lived in Portugal. All 
 the men at the foreign legations and consul- 
 ships and every thing were wildly in love with 
 her. They say whenever she left St. Peters- 
 burg to visit this country, it was like a perfect 
 funeral. She and Jim were wrecked, on the 
 same steamer, once, and saved each other's 
 lives. It was near Havana. That was before 
 she married, of course. I suppose I ought to 
 be jealous about leaving her up there for Jim 
 to gaze upon all the time, but, you know, they 
 were always like brother and sister together ; 
 and then, if there 's one thing I do abominate, 
 it's having your own portraits all around the 
 house, so one must fill up with something." 
 
 Furthermore, on the retirement to the draw- 
 ing-room, the budget of the Lamberts' small 
 effects which Juliet had meant to put away, 
 but, in reality, had only absently laid down in- 
 stead, turned up again and fell into the hands 
 of the visitors, necessitating new prodigies of 
 invention. She met them, as she thought, to
 
 A LITTLE DINNER. 65 
 
 a marvel. The greatest absolute awkwardness, 
 if not danger of detection, after so many mirac- 
 ulous escapes, arose from her unfamiliarity with 
 so innocent-seeming a bit of furniture as a coal- 
 scuttle. It was of a new ornamental pattern, 
 which would not give out its contents, when 
 she undertook to throw coal on the fire, without 
 pressing on a certain spring. Again, Jim, in or- 
 der to give himself an easy air of proprietorship, 
 after remaining by himself to smoke as long as 
 possible in the dining-room, undertook to kin- 
 dle in the library grate a fire of ostensible logs, 
 which turned out to be only a cunning imitation 
 in cast iron, designed to be illuminated by gas 
 though this, with a sickly kind of smile, he 
 managed to turn off as only his humor. 
 
 However, even these episodes passed safely 
 'over, and the evening came to an end without 
 disaster. The Gradshaws made their farewells 
 in the friendliest manner. They may have felt 
 that Juliet, as of old, was a little absent in her 
 replies and not always governed by the strictest 
 accuracy of statement perhaps they did not 
 thoroughly believe, for instance, the story of 
 the romantic shipwrecked cousin of Jim's, with
 
 66 A LITTLE DINNER. 
 
 its numerous variations of scene between Portu- 
 gal and St. Petersburg but what seemed certain 
 was that Juliet had a most comfortable home. 
 She appeared a person of decidedly important 
 and luxurious position in the world, and to that, 
 as we all know, much may be forgiven. As to 
 Jim, he was an honest soul, without an atom of 
 pretense about him. 
 
 Hardly had they taken their departure when 
 the Bangs Juliet first gathering up her pho- 
 tographic mementos followed them. Jim was 
 exceedingly grouty, declaring he would rather 
 spend an evening in the infernal regions than 
 another such as this. Juliet comforted him, 
 and defended the case on the plea that once in 
 they had to keep it up. But it was all over 
 now, it was a great success, the Gradshaws 
 were immensely pleased, and there was no 
 telling how much good it might do in the 
 future. 
 
 A few minutes after they had gone Mrs. 
 
 Lambert returned from the opera. She found 
 
 * 
 the house quiet and everything pretty much in 
 
 its usual order. The first object on which she 
 set eyes, after entering her room and tossing
 
 A LlTJ^LE DINNER. 67 
 
 about a few light articles on the dressing-table, 
 was a valuable ring. 
 
 At an early hour the next morning she or- 
 dered her carriage and drove away. While 
 she was out, it so happened that the elderly 
 Clamptons and Mr. Lambert himself unexpect- 
 edly arrived. The former had changed back 
 to an original plan once countermanded, and 
 now calmly proceeded to install themselves. 
 Lambert, like a true business man, hurried 
 out again on some affair, the very moment he 
 was at home, leaving word he would return to 
 lunch. 
 
 This being the new situation in the house, 
 about eleven o'clock a hack loaded with travel- 
 ing-trunks drew up before it in a hasty way, 
 and Mrs. Gradshaw, followed by her daughter, 
 alighted and ascended the steps. 
 
 " Is Mrs. Bang at home ? " 
 
 " She don't live here, ma'am." 
 
 " You don't quite understand : I said Mrs. 
 Bang" repeated Mrs. Gradshaw blandly. " We 
 dined here last evening, you remember. Will 
 you ask her to step here a moment ; it is about 
 something important."
 
 68 A LITTLE DINNER. 
 
 " Those ones went away last night, and Mrs. 
 Lambert is out," returned the maid. 
 
 " Went away last night? went away? " catch- 
 ing her breath in amazement at this unforeseen 
 rebuff. " Well, where did they go ? " 
 
 " They might 'a' went home, ma'am ; I 
 couldn't say." 
 
 " In goodness' name? you mean to tell me 
 they went home ? Where is their home, if not 
 here ? " 
 
 " I disremember, ma'am. You might inquire 
 next door," suggested the servant ; " I ain't 
 livin' very long in this block." 
 
 " Can it be that we have somehow mistaken 
 the number, Lucy? " Mrs. Gradshaw said, gaz- 
 ing round in an unsettled way at her daughter. 
 " I was so absolutely sure of the place." 
 
 " No, mamma, it wthe right number," replied 
 Lucy. " Here is the same carved oak chest 
 from the royal palace at Dresden, you know 
 and the chairs from the Cologne cathedral." 
 And they proceeded to identify many other 
 objects immediately under their eyes, in the 
 entrance hall. 
 
 " Let this stupidity cease instantly," now
 
 A LITTLE DINNER. 69 
 
 exclaimed Mrs. Gradshaw, to the flurried maid. 
 " Go at once and tell your mistress we would 
 like to see her. We must catch a train at 
 Forty-second street, and have but little time 
 to spare." 
 
 With that, she pushed on into the drawing- 
 room, as having a perfect right to do so. She 
 heaved a sigh of relief at seeing there the 
 alleged portrait of Mr. Bang's father, the little 
 Louis XIV., and the rest of the well-known 
 objects of the night before. But, as they en- 
 tered, the maid who had waited at dinner, and 
 who had heard something of the altercation at 
 the door, came up to corroborate the other, 
 and said : 
 
 " Mrs. Lambert, the lady's name as lives 
 here, is out, ma'am, and Mr. and Mrs. Bang 
 don't belong to us at all." 
 
 " Oh, this is a gross conspiracy, Lucy," cried 
 the matron, flushing red with indignation. 
 " This girl is probably the one who has stolen 
 your ring, and the family being away from 
 home, she has formed a plot with the other to 
 evade us in this brazen way, at least until she 
 has a chance to escape. I think I ought to
 
 7 A LITTLE DINNER. 
 
 have our driver bring a policeman at once. 
 You stay here, Lucy, to see that she does not 
 leave the house." 
 
 " Is it me steal a ring, me that was with the 
 Lambert family for twenty years? Oh, my! 
 Oh, my ! but the poor girls do have their char- 
 acters easy took away." 
 
 She gave a hysterical gasp and then a scream 
 that hastened the advent of the elderly Clamp- 
 tons, who were already coming down. 
 
 " Thank heaven ! the ' dear old great aunt 
 and uncle ' ! " Mrs. Gradshaw exclaimed, at 
 sight of them ; " now we shall see." 
 
 But Mrs. Clampton, far from being concil- 
 iatory, sailed in with the majesty of a seventy- 
 four-gun ship. 
 
 " What is the meaning of this invasion of a 
 peaceful home, this browbeating of our ser- 
 vants," she demanded, full of trepidation, 
 shared by the old gentleman who attended at 
 her side. 
 
 " I asked only for Mrs. Bang. I presume 
 you have but lately arrived and do not know 
 the circumstances," said Mrs. Gradshaw, brist- 
 ling in return. " My daughter unfortunately
 
 A LITTLE DINNER. ft 
 
 lost a valuable ring when we dined here last 
 night. If Mrs. Bang is not at home, will you 
 kindly look on the dressing-table upstairs, 
 where the ring was left ? We discovered the 
 loss only as we were starting for our train, and 
 have driven here on our way." 
 
 " We know nothing about Mrs. Bang. You 
 have certainly mistaken the address." 
 
 " Mistaken the address ? and here is Mr. 
 Bang's portrait before our eyes, and there your 
 .own, Juliet's great aunt and uncle ! " 
 
 " Great aunt and uncle ? ha, ha ! " hysteri- 
 cally ; " we are Mrs. Lambert's father and 
 mother. Lester," to her husband "per- 
 haps they are burglars and want to rob the 
 house ; you must certainly bring a police, 
 man." 
 
 " It is a shameless conspiracy to defraud us 
 of our property, Lucy. Who could have sus- 
 pected it in such a place ? Or else they are all 
 mad. But I will not be done out of it so. I 
 insist upon going upstairs. I know just where 
 the ring was left. And do you see that none 
 of them leave." 
 
 She made a bold push to go up the stairs,
 
 72 A LITTLE DINNER. 
 
 but, being a stout woman, and her way being 
 barred by somebody, this was not effective. 
 There was general hysteria among the women. 
 The suspected servant, pale with fright, was 
 almost fainting. Lucy Gradshaw leaned, weep- 
 ing, against the wall. A policeman had, some- 
 how, actually been brought, and, instigated by 
 the Lambert servants, even went so far as to 
 confront Mrs. Gradshaw in a sort of official 
 way. Mrs. Lambert, now returning, followed 
 almost upon his heels. In the midst of all the 
 confusion, the two visitors recognized her as 
 the heroine of the multifarious adventures of 
 which they had heard ; they turned upon each 
 other wild eyes of wonderment, and Mrs. Grad- 
 shaw gasped : 
 
 " The beautiful cousin from Portugal ! " 
 Next Lambert rushed in, and sustained pleas- 
 ing Lucy Gradshaw in his arms by some un- 
 conscious mental process selecting her as the 
 most worthy object of sympathy. But he made 
 a vigorous effort, at the same time, to dissipate 
 the misunderstandings that had settled down 
 upon all the group like an obfuscating fog. 
 " In heaven's name, what does all this mean ? "
 
 A LITTLE DINNER. 73 
 
 he ejaculated. "Anita," to his wife : " ex- 
 plain it." 
 
 " It means, it means," breathed Mrs. Lam- 
 bert faintly, "that that they dined here last 
 night, and and Juliet must have represented 
 this as her own house. I did not think she 
 would do that. And and some one left a 
 valuable ring. So I drove right down to their 
 flat, after breakfast, to give it to Juliet. She 
 was not at home," addressing the visitors 
 " and I left it for her with a very particular 
 note. I thought it might belong to her 
 guests." 
 
 " Pray, where is this flat ? " demanded Mrs. 
 Gradshaw grimly. 
 
 The others were all so occupied in offering 
 her profuse apologies, with which by degrees 
 she allowed herself to be somewhat mollified, 
 that she could not for a while procure the ad- 
 dress. Why dwell upon the long conversation 
 and comparison of notes about Juliet Scatter- 
 bury that followed ? Mrs. Gradshaw persisted 
 in her demand for the address, wrote it down, 
 and departed to find it. 
 
 " I will go there myself ; we have now lost
 
 74 A LITTLE DlNNEk. 
 
 our train, and there is plenty of time," she 
 said, with the same ominous grimness. 
 
 " The deceitful, deceitful, deceitful little 
 minx ! " ejaculated old Mrs. Clampton, " What 
 punishment is bad enough for her? " 
 
 Mrs. Lambert made a feel^e attempt to say 
 something for her quondam friends, but was 
 easily put down. 
 
 " A quarter of an hour with Mrs. Gradshaw 
 will be a very good beginning," responded 
 Lambert, his wonted cheerful flow of spirits 
 quite restored at the prospect. So indeed, it 
 proved. Mrs. Bang had sallied forth that 
 morning, after an earlier breakfast than Mrs. 
 Lambert. After performing various errands, 
 she bethought her that it would be becoming 
 and polite to go and thank the friend who had 
 so kindly loaned her house the night before ; 
 the more so as the visit was, more likely than 
 not, to be accompanied by an invitation to stay 
 to lunch. She was in the vicinity of Thirty- 
 fourth Street, going up Madison Avenue, when 
 she saw the carriage containing the Gradshaws, 
 coming down. Not that she would have no- 
 ticed it, except that they two had their heads out
 
 A LITTLE DINNER, 
 
 of the window, their eyes glaringly fixed upon \ 
 her. They waved her to stop, and drew up 
 close beside the curbstone, where she met them. 
 She suspected some unusual circumstance, of 
 course, from an excited air worn by the inmates, 
 but supposed it would be only some travelers'de- 
 lay, and, seeing the baggage piled high behind, 
 had no idea of any change of plan that could 
 interfere with the successful consummation of 
 events as they had been left. Mrs. Gradshaw \ 
 in her eagerness thrust the door ajar. Both 
 women opened their mouths at once, but Juliet, / 
 with traditional glibness, got in her effusion first. 
 
 " What a delightful surprise ! Not off yet ? 
 It is such a pleasure to see you again. Now, 
 why will you not postpone your going and come 
 and make us a nice visit ? I declare ! I am 
 going to tell your coachman to drive around 
 to Thirty-seventh Street at once." And she 
 bobbed her pretty head aside as if about to 
 do so. 
 
 Good Mrs. Gradshaw fell back, all but in an 
 apoplectic fit, 'at this unheard-of attempt to 
 renew the imposition. 
 
 " You wicked, disgraceful, brazen girl, get
 
 7 6 A LITTLE DINNER. 
 
 right into this carriage," she exclaimed, straight- 
 ening herself again. " Oh, what a cheat and 
 humbug you are ! You always were, from a 
 little child. We know all about you ; you never 
 lived there ; all those people you described were 
 utter fictions. We have been there. It was all 
 owing to the blessed circumstance of Lucy's 
 ring. She left it, and Mrs. Lambert took it 
 round to your abode, and we are going after it. 
 Produce it instantly, or get into this carriage 
 and drive with us to where it may be found." 
 
 She even laid her hand on Juliet's shoulder 
 to enforce her commands. 
 
 " I haven't got it," murmured Juliet feebly, 
 overwhelmed by a torrent so violent that it was 
 useless to think of stemming it ; she offered no 
 resistance, but entered the carriage with them. 
 
 " This shall go to Minneapolis ; this shall be 
 related to your old acquaintances," resumed the 
 Nemesis, with high and mighty sarcasm ; " this 
 is what is called keeping up appearances, I 
 suppose I don't know why I don't expose you 
 to the people in the street." 
 
 Juliet essayed some other feeble fabrications 
 that she and Jim had had a wager; that some
 
 A LITTLE DINNER. 77 
 
 people had different ideas of hospitality from 
 others ; that it was a joke, and she had meant 
 to tell them all about it, but all was overborne 
 in Mrs. Gradshaw's indignation. 
 
 " Mamma ! " expostulated the daughter, from 
 time to time. Her own way would have been 
 much better " form," to treat this person 
 with dignified silence, and simply keep clear of 
 all such entanglements hereafter. 
 
 Finally," You had a good dinner, at any 
 rate," declared Juliet, trying open bravado; 
 but immediately after she broke down, put both 
 hands before her face, begged her accusers not 
 to relate the affair in Minneapolis, and threw 
 herself back among the cushions sobbing. 
 
 " Mamma ! " exclaimed Lucy Gradshaw, this 
 time with even greater energy touched by 
 her tears. 
 
 Mrs. Gradshaw was fond of describing the 
 " tongue-lashing" she gave the reprobate, but 
 they rode the rest of the way in silence. 
 
 They mounted the stairs to the flat, and 
 found the "very particular " note, with the ring. 
 Mrs. Gradshaw surveyed with' a supercilious 
 air all the economic make-shifts in the place,
 
 78 A LITTLE DINNER. 
 
 which, had it had a straightforward mistress, she 
 would have considered a trim and attractive 
 little domicile. Delivering a parting homily in 
 the same severe strain, she withdrew, leaving 
 the culprit in a cowed attitude, overcome with 
 chagrin. 
 
 Juliet did not dare tell her husband, but he 
 could not fail to hear of it. This particular 
 offense was condoned, but the circumstance 
 became the starting-point of a final rupture. 
 Juliet Scatterbury went abroad to reside, and 
 Jim having in the mean time done well in the 
 financial way as yet sends her money to main- 
 tain existence in the Riviera.
 
 JERRY AND CLARINDA. 
 
 THE Medfords sat at early breakfast in a 
 tenement-house of the more respectable 
 sort, among the battered old mansions of once 
 fashionable Bleecker Street, New York. 
 
 A distinctly unpleasant atmosphere of tem- 
 per prevailed. Some might have accounted 
 for it by the narrow quarters or the advancing 
 heats of the fervid July day, but there was 
 much more than this under the surface. 
 
 " Well, give the boy something to eat, any- 
 way," cried Thomas Medford. " You look as 
 if you hoped every next mouthful he took 
 might choke him." 
 
 " Maybe I do," returned the coarse woman, 
 his companion, sullenly. " You know I didn't 
 want him to come here. It ain't the first time 
 you've heard me say so ; nor yet it won't be 
 the last." 
 
 head of the household was a large,
 
 8o JERRY AND CLAR1NDA. 
 
 strong man of fifty, unkempt, and slouching 
 about in his shirt-sleeves. His wife was a 
 frowzy woman of perhaps thirty-five, over-stout, 
 and with thin, shrewish lips, yet retaining still 
 considerable traces of good looks. 
 
 The boy they spoke of, the third member of 
 the group, was neatly dressed, of a certain 
 refined air, and decidedly superior in aspect to 
 either. His expression was chronically uneasy 
 or pained, as if trouble were no stranger to his 
 experience, yet, curious enough, he seemed 
 quite oblivious of the acrimonious discussion 
 being waged in his regard. 
 
 " Look at him now," pursued Mrs. Medford, 
 " with no more sense o' what we're talkin' 
 about than if he was the obbylix up to Central 
 Park." 
 
 " He's my offspring, and I'll have him well 
 treated, or I'll know the reason why," thun- 
 dered Tom Medford, pounding the table. 
 
 "Then why don't you leave him in the deef- 
 and-dumb asylum, where he belongs ? What 
 did you put him in there for, if you'd got to 
 keep takin' him out ? " 
 
 " Jerry wants a little pleasure like anybody
 
 JERRY AND CLARINDA. 81 
 
 else. It's three years before this since he's set 
 foot outside of it. When he kep' writin' all 
 them letters that he was bound to come home 
 for a part of his vacation, what could I do but 
 bring him ? And here he is, and I'll stand by 
 him while my name's Tom Medford." 
 
 Even in the man's defiance there was a per- 
 ceptible trace of skulking and surrender. His 
 was a morally indolent and selfish nature, and 
 thoroughly under control of his wife, whom 
 he had married for her good looks. She was 
 then a Mrs. Seemtiller, a German bakeress of 
 the neighborhood. She had taken him when 
 the fortunes of the bakery were at a low ebb, 
 because, with the good wages he was earning 
 at his trade as a coppersmith, he promised to be 
 able to support her in greater comfort. She 
 had made him put a number of other children 
 by a former marriage into various half-orphan 
 asylums and what not, and treated poor Jerry 
 with great cruelty on every opportunity that 
 offered, considering her dignity with her 
 choice circle of acquaintance best vindicated 
 by this means. It is safe to say that under the 
 same sensuous influence Medford would have
 
 82 JERRY AND CLARINDA. 
 
 done, in the long run, whatever else she might 
 demand. 
 
 From a small dark bedroom en suite with the 
 parlor and the kitchen, in which the repast was 
 being held, now came forth another boy, a son 
 of the ex-bakeress's own, who proved himself 
 a true chip of the old block. He wore the 
 trim uniform of an employe in the District 
 Messenger service, yet this could not overcome 
 his appearance of a hulking, insolent lout. 
 
 "Dummy! dummy!" he whispered, to 
 Jerry with malicious satisfaction, as he passed 
 around to his own side of the table, accom- 
 panying the words with a torturing pinch and 
 thrust of the elbow. 
 
 Medford raised his voice in reprimand. " I 
 had to defend myself, hadn't I ? " responded 
 the cub, with an air of injured protest. " He 
 gave me a lick, and I had to return it, 
 hadn't I?" 
 
 " My boy's bein' the whole time set upon. 
 I'll take my bonnet and leave the house this 
 minute," screamed the mother, in her shrillest 
 tones. 
 
 Medford succumbed, as was his way, before
 
 JERRY AND CLARINDA. 83 
 
 her violence. He had now, besides, to hurry 
 away to his shop in Centre Street. When he 
 was gone, the pair renewed their persecutions 
 of Jerry, now quite unhampered. The coarse 
 woman, leaning one fat arm heavily on the 
 table, mimicked the motions of his peculiar 
 mode of speech before his very face, and 
 laughed loudly at the excellence of the joke. 
 Her son was an able assistant. Finally they 
 struck the deaf boy, and then, smarting with 
 pain, and bearing a visible mark of the blow on 
 his cheek, he fled from them, and made his 
 way to the place where his father was at work. 
 
 Tom Medford was but little pleased to see 
 his unusual offspring enter his shop. Instead 
 of being proud of the boy, who was in many 
 ways superior, he was never any thing more 
 than apologetic for his existence. The eyes 
 of his shop-mates were fixed upon him with 
 curiosity. He summoned one of the more 
 intelligent of them, and said : " Here, talk 
 with him a bit, will you? See what he wants." 
 
 " Me talk with him ? Why don't you do it 
 yourself ? " 
 
 "The fact is, mate, I don't understand his
 
 &4 JERKY AND CLARINDA. 
 
 lingo; he's learned the devil's own crinklum- 
 crunklums that nobody but themselves knows 
 anything about." 
 
 "Then how do you think I know ? I never 
 was no dummy." 
 
 "Oh, he writes it down ; he can write it 
 down for ye fast enough ; but the fact is "- 
 confidentially " the fact is, I don't read much 
 writin', and I wouldn't wonder if a good part o' 
 what he's got to say goes astray at our house." 
 
 Thus urged, the other procured a soiled 
 piece of paper, and endeavored to open com- 
 munication with the youth thus so curiously 
 cut off from intercourse even with the parent 
 who, brought him into the world. Even with 
 so good a cause of complaint as he had, Jerry 
 was reticent, however, before a stranger. 
 
 " As near as I can make out," summed up 
 the interpreter, " he's been hit a pretty hard 
 crack by some woman, and he don't like it. 
 There's the mark of it on his face, too." 
 
 " Yes," assented Medford, " the woman o' 
 the house don't fancy him that's it, that's it. 
 Well, tell him it's all right, all right," waving 
 an arm soothingly. " I'll look after him at
 
 JERRY AND CLARINDA. 85 
 
 supper-time. Tell him he can run around 
 town and play till then. Of course he wouldn't 
 want to stay here." 
 
 He quite forgot to give the boy any money 
 for lunch, but this soon proved, even to the 
 latter, a matter of slight consequence. He had 
 seen little of the world till now. He had a 
 quick eye and alert movements, and was amply 
 able to take care of himself in the Crowded 
 streets. He gazed into the shop windows, at 
 the burly policemen, and up at the tall build- 
 ings. Finally a fire-engine tore by, dropping 
 hot coals behind it. When he followed this to 
 its destination, and actually saw the conflagra- 
 tion of a dry-goods house in Worth Street, he 
 was quite beside himself with enthusiasm, and, 
 for the time being, at the end of all his 
 troubles. 
 
 He was a boy much like other boys. The 
 public institution where he had been placed 
 for long years past was benevolent, no doubt, 
 but it was far from his ideal of a home. Alas ! 
 since the coming of a step-mother there had 
 been for him no home, no trace of that warm 
 personal interest and affection that it is in the
 
 86 JERRY AND CLARINDA. 
 
 hearts of human beings to desire. His was 
 the very old story of the heartless cruelty that 
 so often arises from this kind of parentage, 
 frequently so desirable in itself. He had felt 
 that unless some change for the better arose 
 in his friendless and desolate situation he must 
 even run away from the school, and seek his 
 fortune in the world. He had persuaded him- 
 self that he might have exaggerated the former 
 repulses met with under his father's roof, or 
 that things there, in the long interval, might 
 have taken a favorable turn. Self-invited, he 
 had begun this luckless visit ; it had proceeded 
 from bad to worse ; its third day was now 
 drawing to aclose, and events were approach- 
 ing their most embittered pass. 
 
 At the supper table the scenes of the morn- 
 ing were renewed, and even, if possible, in ag- 
 gravated form. Medford could give no real 
 protection, and the boy's heart sank within 
 him. Hardly knowing whither to turn, he 
 went alone into the stuffy little parlor, and 
 took up one of a few cheap books lying there. 
 The first two nights of his stay he had gone 
 down into the street, with Mrs. Seemuller's
 
 JERRY AND CLARINDA. 87 
 
 son, to be amused, but found that this was 
 only to be made a butt of instead by a band of 
 companions as rough and graceless as his con- 
 ductor. 
 
 The virago and her son followed him into 
 the parlor. The latter struck the book from 
 his hand, and the former bristled up over him 
 in a threatening attitude. He threw out his 
 hands in a gesture of self-defence. The mes- 
 senger-boy ran to the door and summoned 
 Medford, malevolently crying, " He's struck 
 me mother ! he's struck me mother ! " 
 
 " Ah, would you ? You strike a woman ! 
 That's a little too much," cried the man, seiz- 
 ing the cowering Jerry, and violently belabor- 
 ing him. His ire had long been fuming at the 
 idea of all this annoyance to which he found 
 himself subjected, and, like many such natures, 
 he now, as the easiest course, turned squarely 
 over to the side of injustice, and vented it 
 upon the poor victim who had already suffered 
 so much. 
 
 Jerry escaped from his hands, blinded, 
 stunned, and crying as if his heart would break 
 though this even less at the injuries he had
 
 88 JERRY AND CLARINDA. 
 
 received than the final dissipation of all his illu- 
 sions. He found himself in the brilliantly 
 lighted street. The electric lights, then only 
 lately introduced there, shone vividly into the 
 shop windows and upon the motley groups of 
 foreigners on the sidewalks. This was no 
 place for concealment. Even as he paused a 
 moment to take breath he saw his father com- 
 ing after him. 
 
 " Hi, Jerry ! come back now. I'll do ye no 
 more harm," cried the parent. " Come back 
 now, I say." 
 
 But the ears of the fugitive were imper- 
 vious to all human sounds ; thinking he was 
 wanted only for further punishment, he sped 
 on, fear adding wings to his feet. He plunged 
 down a side street and through a number of 
 dark alleys, and came out at last at the water's 
 edge. 
 
 Medford, discomfited in the pursuit, went 
 back to his home, swore a while, as in duty 
 bound, at the family remaining there, and then 
 settled down in an entirely comfortable state 
 of resignation to his loss, which was not dis- 
 turbed even when he found that Jerry had not
 
 JERRY AND CLARINDA. 89 
 
 returned to school, nor was heard of from any 
 quarter. 
 
 The great dark hulls and tangled cordage of 
 the shipping rose mysteriously around our 
 fugitive, and the dark waters gave their omi- 
 nous chuckle at his feet. He could not re- 
 turn to school to-night, even if he would. The 
 pressing question first before him was to 
 secure a night's lodging. 
 
 While he was lost in thought, a young man 
 of dandified pattern came by and threw a 
 valise at his feet for him to carry. The action, 
 though not the speech, was plainly intelligible, 
 and Jerry, glad of the opening, shouldered the 
 heavy bag and followed him across one of the 
 ferries, and then a considerable distance up 
 into the town on the other side. He received 
 a quarter of a dollar piece in payment for his 
 service, and with this coin in his hand found 
 himself at ten o'clock at night in an unknown 
 part of Jersey City all parts of which, 
 for that matter, were equally unknown to 
 him. 
 
 He wandered about somewhat aimlessly, 
 and reached the northern suburbs. There he
 
 9 JERRY AND CL A RIND A. 
 
 met an ice wagon, going homeward empty 
 after its belated rounds of the day. A high 
 partition so cut off the rear part of it from the 
 view of the driver drowsing besides on the 
 seat that he would not be likely to see what 
 was transacting there. Jerry took advantage 
 of this circumstance to creep within and 
 steal a ride. Lulled by the long-continued, 
 monotonous motion, he at length fell fast 
 asleep. 
 
 He was awakened next morning by a num- 
 ber of people belonging to a farm attached to 
 an ice-cutting establishment standing over 
 him. They scolded him at first, then mani- 
 fested much curiosity about his infirmity, and 
 finally gave him a good breakfast and let him 
 go. According to Jerry's own subsequent ac- 
 count, his endeavor to communicate with these 
 acquaintances was not in all respects satisfac- 
 tory. 
 
 " That ice-farmer family," he wrote, " ask me 
 how was my name, where did I go, and what did 
 I do. I gave them a changed name, because I 
 was not secure if they would send me back to 
 my father. But sometimes they look to both
 
 JERRY AND CL A RIND A. 91 
 
 sides of the paper, and can not know its mean- 
 ing, and I had discouraged." 
 
 Among deaf-mutes there are many who learn 
 to express themselves with perfect facility in 
 ordinary language, but the vast majority never 
 escape from a quaint dialect constructed upon 
 analogy with their language of signs. They 
 use the vernacular like the most unversed of 
 foreigners. Jerry, with all his brightness 
 bearing in mind, too, that he had by no means 
 finished his schooling belonged to the latter 
 class, and afforded no exception to their peculi- 
 arities. 
 
 From this first stopping-place he went on, 
 meeting with various adventures and hard- 
 ships, till he arrived at a region which must 
 have been somewhere about the Wallkill Val- 
 ley. There he worked a short time at his 
 trade of cabinet-maker, the elements of which 
 he acquired at the Institution, and thence set 
 out again, this time making in the direction of 
 the Hudson, which he finally reached at New- 
 burgh. He was conveyed across it by a fish- 
 erman, took to catching rides on railroad 
 trains, with the idea of getting to Canada, lost
 
 9 2 JERRY AND CLARIS DA. 
 
 his bearings, and was at length ignominiously 
 put off by a conductor. He found himself at 
 the small station of Staatsburg, much south 
 of the point where, by this time, he had ex- 
 pected to be. 
 
 It was there I first saw him, sitting discon- 
 solately on the edge of the depot platform. 
 He had fallen in already with one of our own 
 characters of local celebrity, Barney Pringle, a 
 strong, adult deaf-mute, of little education, 
 employed on the railroad to move turn-tables, 
 now here and now further up the track. He 
 had lost both arms in an accident, but neither 
 this nor any other of his disabilities was 
 allowed to dampen a peculiar flow of spirits. 
 He was a short, thick-set fellow, with a ruddy 
 visage, and very lively ways. He could do a 
 variety of surprising feats, the principal of 
 which was putting on and taking off his hat 
 with the aid of his stumps and teeth. 
 
 As I approached the pair seemed to have been 
 conferring together, probably to no great pur- 
 pose. Jerry arose and handed me a written 
 paper, which I took and read as follows : 
 
 " Do you know a gentlemen who would be
 
 JERRY AND CLARINDA. 93 
 
 willing to let a deaf boy work how to do farm- 
 ing, without getting any money for several 
 weeks?" 
 
 The hint was a modest one, and certainly 
 much more striking than common in its form. 
 Pringle, who stood by, and had evidently 
 acquainted himself with the purport of the 
 communication, waved his stumps in a cheer- 
 ful way, as if conveying that the plan sug- 
 gested was one that amply met his approval. 
 
 I had learned, years before, something of 
 the method of spelling on the fingers, and now 
 proceeded to revive it, much to Jerry's delight. 
 It so happened that just at this time, a valu- 
 able colt on our place had been discovered to 
 be totally deaf. He was Bulbul, son of Bull- 
 finch, by imported Capricorn, first dam Electra, 
 second dam Alcyone, etc., etc., a dark bay 
 beauty with a star on his forehead and black 
 points extending up to the knees. By his 
 birthright he should have been one of the best 
 of his kind, but he was likely, instead, through 
 his unfortunate disability, to be all but wholly 
 worthless. 
 
 A singular idea flashed across my mind ;
 
 94 JERRY AND CLARINDA, 
 
 might not some affinity be developed between 
 the boy and the colt? Perhaps some occult 
 sympathy might arise out of their common 
 affliction that would render Jerry a more use- 
 ful guardian and educator for Bulbul than any- 
 body else. 
 
 It was a wild and whimsical conceit, no 
 doubt, yet it determined me to take the boy 
 home. I had come to the station that day to 
 meet a coppersmith who was to arrive from 
 New York to do work on a rather elaborate 
 fountain we were putting up in an oblong fish- 
 pond on a terrace before the house ; but he 
 disappointed me. He did not come, in fact, 
 till a week or ten days afterwards. I therefore 
 took Jerry up beside me, and we drove away 
 homeward. 
 
 At a transverse road we met another wagon, 
 containing a man and several women, com- 
 ing directly across our course. All at once 
 Jerry leaped to his feet, leaned out over the 
 dash-board, and began to signal violently to a 
 young girl in the other wagon, who replied to 
 his manifestations in kind. She was a chubby 
 little thing of fourteen or fifteen, with a comely
 
 JERRY AND CLARINDA. 95 
 
 face, and black hair tied in a twist, falling 
 down her back. My companion seemed to ask 
 me, in an appealing way, to stop, and when I 
 had done so, leaping down, he ran to shake 
 hands with his friend. Their motions, rapid 
 as lightning, were a marvel to see. They 
 were rather like some of the animated races 
 of southern Europe than phlegmatic Anglo- 
 Saxons. It seemed that they were friends or 
 acquaintances from the same school. They 
 met like strangers in a strange land, overjoyed 
 at the unexpected encounter, and the recol- 
 lection it brought up of the many things in 
 common between them. 
 
 "Clarinda's my brother's child," said the 
 man in the other vehicle, very civilly. " He 
 left her to us when he died, and she's the pride 
 of our house. It's a great treat to them dum- 
 mies," he added, presently, "to see some o' 
 their own sort once in a while. I'd go half a 
 day's journey out o' my way, any time, to give 
 the girl a treat like this." 
 
 He was a locomotive engineer, living at 
 Tivoli, and being briefly off duty, had hired a 
 horse and taken his family out for a drive. I
 
 96 JERRY AND CLARINDA. 
 
 told him how it was I happened to have Jerry 
 with me. 
 
 " He's a good boy," said Clarinda, her certifi- 
 cate of character being passed over to me in 
 her own handwriting, on a pad she carried for 
 the purpose. " He can study very well. He 
 can also play well at various many games, as 
 such the baseball, the oar, the athletic, etc." 
 
 "You must let him come and see us," urged 
 Clarinda's family ; and the girl herself gave 
 him such a parting salute as might some viva- 
 cious Spanish sefiorita. 
 
 He returned to me flushed with excitement 
 and pleasure. The only drawback to his con- 
 tentment for the time being was that his 
 clothes were "too old-fashionable" for such 
 an interview. Thus he described their dusty, 
 travel-stained condition. 
 
 Our farm at Staatsburg was an attractive 
 one. There was not much money in such an 
 enterprise, it is true, but it was, though I say 
 it myself, the show-place of the country round- 
 about. I think Jerry enjoyed its charms to 
 the full. We had from the terrace a view of 
 the distant ranges of the Catskills, blue as a
 
 JERRY AND CLAR1NDA. 97 
 
 dream of fairy-land. Back of the house, on a 
 sunny slope, was a vineyard, the terraced vines 
 of which, on their slim poles, always impressed 
 me like rows of dismounted cavaliers on parade. 
 A feature on whic^h we particularly prided our- 
 selves was our white pigeons, a flock of 
 which were continually fluttering above the 
 farm buildings, or sitting along the ridge crests, 
 with a most genial, home-like effect. If by 
 chance any of darker hue appeared among 
 them, it was the great misfortune, if not the 
 fault of these, for the shot-gun was at once 
 got out, and they were picked off, to keep the 
 flock pure white. 
 
 A certain part of the farm buildings was at 
 no great remove from the railroad. The track, 
 I regret to say, ran directly through our place, 
 this being its only drawback. And yet per- 
 haps it was not so much of a drawback after all, 
 inasmuch as our young horses, for instance, 
 being daily accustomed to this alarm would 
 not be so easily frightened in after-life. 
 
 Before being introduced to the colt, Jerry 
 was familiarized somewhat with the other 
 stock, and set at a variety of small tasks, in all
 
 98 JERRY AND CLARINDA. 
 
 of which he acquitted himself very well. I 
 asked him about his trade ; he said he had not 
 learned it well. 
 
 " Our boss," said he, " taught us to make 
 only very common or old-fashionable articles, 
 such as mostly sweeping the floor." 
 
 Meantime the coppersmith from New York 
 arrived. He proved to be from the very shop 
 in Center Street where Jerry's father be- 
 longed. He was, in fact, the one who had 
 acted as interpreter in the interview described. 
 
 " His step-mother battered him round, and 
 he ran away from 'em. I don't blame him," 
 said he, explaining what he knew about Jerry's 
 case. 
 
 After this we felt in but little further need 
 of certificates to our new assistant's standing. 
 
 A letter came from Clarinda, a little over- 
 ture, beginning an innocent, quaintly amusing, 
 and original correspondence, which, first and 
 last, extended over a long time. It was ad- 
 dressed to " Esq. J. Medford." 
 
 CLARINDA TO JERRY. 
 
 " MY FRIEND That is the first time I wrote
 
 AND CLARlNDA. 99 
 
 to you for my improving education. I ask 
 what is your doing now? What is your busi- 
 ness in? Also I would like to hear of your 
 travels. Will you tell me them? For my own 
 person, I help my aunt, Mrs. Shackley, in 
 house-working. Sometimes I ride with my 
 uncle on his locomotive engine, of which its 
 name is Ajax. My uncle says if you will come 
 to see us here, you can ride with ourselves on 
 Ajax, if you will have a curiosity to do so. 
 When you come here you can find a white 
 color house. You must turn in a eastly direc- 
 tion, about three blocks far, right side down. 
 It opposites the Baptist religion's church, also 
 white color. I am quite better in my writing 
 now, so I close my satisfactorily letter with 
 saying Good Morning. Your Friend, 
 
 SHACKLEY." 
 
 The much-flattered recipient of this epistle 
 replied to it substantially as follows : 
 
 JERRY TO CLARlNDA. 
 
 "Mv DEAR FRIEND CLARINDA My busi- 
 ness is I work in a large farm. My employer 
 is a fine-headed and sound man in his heart.
 
 100 JflRRY AND CL A RIND A. 
 
 He will give me some dollars each month or 
 week, and will buy my fare on the railroad to 
 go seeing you. I have to arise up at five 
 o'clock in the morning, milking cows or animals 
 and drive them in the woods. Also I give 
 food to a small deaf horse name Bulbul, and 
 have many frolic times with him. He is deaf 
 like us ; he could not hear a railroad track. 
 When a dog, Peter, barked at him in his field 
 he can not hear it. Bulbul leaved that dog 
 alone till when Peter went too near his heels 
 and he kicked his leg out backwardly. If I 
 could be a rich farmer I would made much 
 money by selling my fruits, corns, vegetables, 
 poultries, and eggs. I like best country than a 
 city life, because if we do not exercise our 
 muscles they soon become senseless. Many 
 city men who only play in billiard-house, rinks, 
 etc., become weak in their bodies and pale face. 
 I can not say now about my travels because I 
 have not a leisure time, but another time I will 
 tell you them. I hope you will accept my let- 
 ter. I am glad to have a benevolence for you. 
 So now I have come to an end. Your good 
 friend, JERRY MEDFORD."
 
 JERRY AND CLARINDA. IOI 
 
 Whether it was but a mere coincidence, or 
 that there was, in fact, an atom of truth in my 
 theory, the colt really seemed to take to his 
 new keeper with a peculiar kindness. Jerry 
 was greatly interested when he heard of his 
 condition, and set out upon his work with an 
 evident zest. Without dwelling here at any 
 length upon the details, it may be said that we 
 first discovered this case of deafness by observ- 
 ing the conduct of the young animal at feed- 
 ing-time, after the weaning period. If he 
 chanced to be asleep at these times, he did not 
 rouse up like the others. We at first thought 
 it lack of appetite, but his performances at the 
 trough, when his attention was fairly called to 
 it, showed there was no fault on that score. 
 Again, when the rest of the troop of rogues, 
 in response to the call, would come galloping 
 to the top of the slope in the pasture, and clus- 
 ter there with ears erect, he would mope alone 
 in the background. It might even be said that 
 Bulbul was dumb as well as deaf, for he would 
 stretch out his neck and open his mouth as if 
 to whinny, and did not succeed even in that ; 
 there came from his mouth instead only a sort
 
 102 JERRY AND CLARINDA. 
 
 of half gurgle amusing or pathetic, according 
 as one chose to look at it. 
 
 Jerry bade fair to cure him of many of his 
 eccentricities. He adopted a system of ges- 
 tures and sudden gyrations to replace the use 
 of the voice, and was soon able to control him, 
 even from a distance, by a certain friendly sor- 
 cery, as it were, by signals with a handker- 
 chief, and by waving arms and passes. 
 
 He found time withal to give Clarinda an 
 account of his journey into our part of the 
 country, as she had requested. 
 
 JERRY TO CLARINDA. 
 
 " I ran out of my father's inhabitation be- 
 cause it had not been in peaceful sociability with 
 me. I had not money enough, but soon a young 
 man of worldly pleasure gave me a quarter to 
 brought his satchel over a Jersey ferry. I did 
 the same. . . . Then I started, staid, and ar- 
 rived in various many popular ["populous " no 
 doubt intended] town and villages. When the 
 sun did not shine and the weather rained I 
 could not tell which was the east or west direc- 
 tion. Once I made a little house for defense
 
 JERRY AND CLARINDA. 103 
 
 from the rain, but it was all in vain. I often 
 felt a homesick, and thought if I would better 
 go back. I met many men and boys and asked 
 them the way by my writing, but I considered 
 that they were mostly uneducated. . . . 
 
 " When I reached to Newburgh there were 
 many wonderful and relic things there. I 
 would like to describe you them all. The 
 most relic thing in Newburgh is Washington's 
 head-quarter. I visited that head-quarter 
 many times, both inside and outside. There 
 was a man who was taking many fishes in a long 
 net. I asked him would he be willing to give me 
 a row with him across the river ; he said he 
 would do the same. There was a rough water, 
 the waves dashed themselves and flew up in a 
 foam, and my clothing was wetted to the skin, 
 but I continued to smile pleasantly, because I 
 was crossed over for nothing, and viewed many 
 fine sceneries on either shores of the Hudson 
 River. Now I tell you another thing, the last. 
 I took much pains in walking on the track, 
 and contrived how I could go to Canada to get 
 work. I asked a man how I could get a ride, 
 in the freight cars, to anywhere. He pointed
 
 104 JERRY AND C LA KIND A. 
 
 the truck, under the car, for me to go there, 
 but I informed him I would accidently be 
 killed if I went there. When he saw I was 
 very wet, and had no breakfast, dinner, and 
 supper, he let me go in the caboose with him 
 and dry on the side of a stove. Also he gave 
 me some food, and was told I could eat as 
 much as I choose. I spent not less than some 
 time and had a very pleasant vacation with 
 that man, and on parting gave him many thanks 
 in return of his kindness, which he accepted. 
 
 " The next time, I went in a passenger car, 
 till what the conductor would say when I had 
 no money to buy my fare. I did not care if it 
 would go as far as California or not, but un- 
 luckily it came in a wrong direction. But I 
 had troubled about it, and asked a passenger 
 what would the conductor do. That passenger 
 said he might bring some detectives to collar 
 me to the station-house, but luckily he only 
 put me off at a small town. Then I was sad, 
 and my head hung down loosely. I do not say 
 any more of it now, because I think by this 
 time you are too busy. So I remain, 
 
 " Your sincerely friend, J. MEDFORD."
 
 JERRY AND CLARINDA. 105 
 
 He went to visit Clarinda, and the visit 
 appears to have been a social success. One 
 striking feature of it was a jaunt he took in her 
 company, on her uncle's locomotive, on the 
 Ajax. He wrote for me, when he came back, 
 an enthusiastic account of it, from which I ex- 
 tract some sentences. 
 
 " The iron horse stood in his stable till Mr. 
 Pringle moved the turn-table for his coming 
 out on his own track. I was afraid to climb in 
 on the leviathan Ajax, but Clarinda was not 
 afraid. Some people made fun of ourselves by 
 making signs at us. Mr. Shackley rolled up his 
 coat on the sleeves. At first Ajax was lazy, 
 and the large wheel turned slowly, but soon it 
 turned fastly, and he seemed to ate up the 
 railroad ground. Long smoke went off back- 
 wardly, and loud whistles blew, but alas! I 
 could not hear them, but I could feel some of 
 them. We back down many freight cars, and 
 went once in a tunnel where no light larger 
 than a needle's head could be seen." 
 
 He was installed, as his abode, in the gar- 
 dener's house, but spent many evenings with
 
 io6 JERRY AND CLARINDA. 
 
 us. His manners, through the influence no 
 doubt of polished instructors, were perfectly 
 good. We came to look upon him not as one 
 hampered by an infirmity, but as a very original 
 sort of little foreigner. We remarked him, 
 when engrossed in some piece of study, uncon- 
 sciously rendering the sense of it to himself 
 with rapidly twinkling ringers, just as hearing 
 children con over their lessons on their lips. 
 He had been educated, too, partly by the 
 method of visible speech, so mysterious to the 
 unaccustomed outsider, and if we formed our 
 words with distinctness, could often read them 
 as we spoke. 
 
 We were interested in all this, in some novel 
 games he had, and in the opinions on all sorts 
 of subjects he had formed from the point of 
 view of his peculiar isolation. Spelling on our 
 fingers, and talking by signs, came to possess 
 for us a sort of fascination. It was the rage. 
 If we had any visitor with pretty hands, she 
 was always particularly anxious to take part 
 in it, for the purpose of showing them. 
 
 On one occasion we had Clarinda over to 
 dine, with Jerry, and were much entertained to
 
 JERRY AND CL A RIND A. 107 
 
 see them together once more. Her uncle 
 brought her down on his locomotive as from 
 this time on he did occasionally and having 
 some business further along the line, left her 
 with us till his return. 
 
 Jerry had considerable knack in mechani- 
 cal contrivances, and made her a rustic chair. 
 
 " My employer says I have some very fine 
 faculty for it," he announced, complacently. 
 
 Clarinda acknowledged his present in these 
 terms: 
 
 CLARINDA TO JERRY. 
 
 " I sit in the rustic chair you had made me, 
 and show to all my hearing friends. Each one 
 say he or she had never seen such a beautifully 
 chair, and he or she would like to have that 
 chair. A another my friend said she pointed 
 once her father a rusticked one like that in a 
 showed-case window, but he could not be able 
 to afford the expenses of it." 
 
 Jerry desired to know if it were not true 
 that many great men had passed through the 
 world without a knowledge of arithmetic in 
 which, as may be inferred from this, he was
 
 io8 JERRY AND CLARINDA. 
 
 not at first remarkably proficient. Yet, again, 
 with a blush, he inquired if I thought he also 
 could become a learned philosopher and cele- 
 brity by abstaining from animal food for one 
 year, as he had heard was done by Benjamin 
 Franklin. 
 
 I urged Jerry to return to school when the 
 time arrived, dwelling upon the advantages of 
 a superior education ; but he said he was happy 
 in his present situation, and he was set upon 
 earning wages, and getting on in the world as 
 fast as possible. I wrote to his father, and 
 once, when in town in his vicinity, even called 
 upon him. The interview, on the Medford 
 side, was conducted chiefly by the ex-bakeress. 
 Disbelieving or affecting to disbelieve that the 
 boy could have found friends of any considera- 
 tion, she said : " A good riddance to bad rub- 
 bish ! If there's them that wants him, let 'em 
 keep him, say I." 
 
 Her worthy spouse stood by, participating 
 ,now and then by a monosyllable and a sub- 
 dued insolent grin. 
 
 Clarinda had gone back to school, and the 
 two still corresponded, at intervals treating
 
 JERRY AND CLARINDA. 109 
 
 of such topics as the books they had read, 
 the studies and other occupations they were 
 engaged in. These effusions inclined strongly 
 to be didactic. 
 
 " I have read a Longfellow," wrote Jerry ; 
 " he is a grand poet, he poets well. Also I 
 have read one called ' Peck, the Life of a Bad 
 Boy,' which contains many good, laughable 
 histories." 
 
 He wrote, too, about field sports, which 
 always had a strong interest for him. " I ex- 
 cite much at present," he said, for instance, 
 " about the champion game of the New Yorks 
 and Chicagos. I hope the New Yorks can win. 
 I would be willing myself to play the base 
 ball many times if the players do not quarrel 
 so much to each other." 
 
 " The brain exercises," returned Clarinda, 
 " in committing wisdom to memory. Arith- 
 metic is that which avoids us from being 
 cheated in money and other valuable mathe- 
 matical articles. In history is told us much 
 about ancient buildings, animals, huts, human 
 beings, presidents, statesmen, and other many 
 things. Our earth is round alike a ball ; it is
 
 no JERRY AND CLARINDA. 
 
 the centre of a polar system, which strongly 
 attracts our earth around its heat." 
 
 The girl returned home to spend her vaca- 
 tions, and Jerry went to see her on these oc- 
 casions. In the autumn they found some op- 
 portunity to wade among the rich-stained 
 leaves that fall so profusely along our pleasant 
 road-sides, and to gather nuts ; and in the 
 winter not infrequently they joined the other 
 young people of the neighborhood in coast- 
 ing down the long hills. 
 
 A considerable period now elapses, during 
 most of which I was absent from Staatsburg, 
 and saw little in person of what was tran- 
 sacting there. Jerry grew to be a mature 
 young man, tall and strong, and a figure 
 of no little consequence in the place. He 
 worked a piece of land on shares, took prizes 
 at the county fair for fruit, Queen of the 
 Valley potatoes, and colts of his own raising, 
 and had put money in the savings bank. Clar- 
 inda, too, had become a woman grown, and 
 leaving school, as so many young women will, 
 even before her education was complete, set- 
 tled down as a permanent assistant to the
 
 JERRY AND CLARINDA. in 
 
 family in which she was so kindly harbored. 
 Examples from the epistles of the two friends, 
 during this time, might be multiplied here at 
 great length, but let us now pass till we find 
 them assuming a new and much more surpris- 
 ing tone. , 
 
 A ball and reunion of deaf-mutes was held 
 at Tivoli to honor the birthday of some cele- 
 brity in the annals of deaf-mute education. A 
 considerable company of mutes gathered from 
 the country round about, or came up from the 
 city to take part in this occasion, and to have 
 the opportunity at the same time of enjoying 
 the autumn scenery of the Hudson. It was 
 shortly after my return to the farm, and I was 
 privileged to have a brief glimpse of the pro- 
 ceedings. 
 
 There seemed something mysterious and 
 almost alarming in the view of so large a hall 
 full of people going through all the forms of 
 animated gayety in scarcely broken silence. 
 A parallel assemblage of hearing persons would 
 have rent the air with their laughter and chat- 
 ter. The dancing and there was a great deal 
 Qf it w,as excellently done, considering all the
 
 H2 JERRY AND CLARINDA. 
 
 circumstances. The drum held a position of 
 distinguished prominence in the orchestra, 
 its vibration being felt, I gathered, and giving 
 the rhythm and a point of departure to the 
 dancers. 
 
 There was no lack of genuine 'enjoyment. 
 A very democratic spirit appeared to prevail. 
 The jovial Pringle, who moved turn-tables, was 
 there, and amused the company with prodigious 
 caperings and flourishes of his stumps. Jerry, 
 as one of the floor managers, was resplendent 
 with a large rosette of blue and silver. He 
 had obtained the cherished privilege of acting 
 as the escort of Clarinda. 
 
 "After the middle of the dancing was over," 
 said he, in describing the affair, later on, " we 
 formed in two by two, and marched ourselves 
 to the supper place. Stew oysters, crackers, 
 and richly cakes were served on us on long 
 length tables. There were only not more than 
 about fifty couples, and we laughed and chatted 
 merrily at each other. Clarinda was the belle 
 of them." 
 
 He even attempted, ambitiously, to describe 
 her toilet. There is every reason to believe
 
 JERRY AND C LA KIND A. 1 13 
 
 that the great approaches towards a tender 
 understanding between the pair were made at 
 this ball, for, shortly after, the following letters 
 of proposal and acceptance were exchanged. 
 
 JERRY TO CLARINDA. 
 
 " MY DEAR FRIEND CLARINDA. Perhaps 
 you might miss me after our lately pleasant 
 companionship together. I shall not soon for- 
 get how pleasantly I enjoyed myself in your 
 company. Now I will say another important 
 thing, which is about love and matrimony. 
 Since greatly a long time I am thinking very 
 much about you all day, also in night-time. 
 When a young man become about nineteen to 
 thirty years of age, he can not always foretell 
 that he would be a single man. He thinks he 
 would like a wife and a general house-keeping. 
 Well, it is what I feel about you, my dear 
 friend. 
 
 " Since I knew you, I hold many long con- 
 versation with you, and see you in many place. 
 I find you to be a good, honest, and beautiful 
 young lady, very good to do general housework, 
 so I ask you if you can be willing to marry me,
 
 114 JERRY AA'D CLARIS DA. 
 
 I truthfully hope your favorable answer would 
 be, 'Yes.' I can give you a valuable gold ring 
 for engagement ring. We can engage ourselves 
 for some months or years, till when I should 
 have money enough to support for two or 
 more persons. Then we will wed ourselves 
 warmly in either a public or private marriage. 
 The pastor will speak to us about marriage 
 while we standing opposite to him. Then the 
 male put the finger of the female into a wed- 
 ding ring, and the relatives or friends disband 
 to their respective homes. Then we can take 
 onr marriage trip to anywhere. Perhaps I 
 will purchase some U. S. farming lands for 
 nothing in Dakota, and we can have a large 
 farm and a beautiful residence in a country. 
 Hoping you will say a heartfully 'Yes,' I con- 
 tinue your always loving true lover, 
 
 " J. MEDFORD." 
 
 CLARINDA TO JERRY. 
 
 "MY SINCERELY FRIEND JERRY, I Confess 
 I can not say much of love and matrimony, 
 because I do not know much of love and 
 matrimony, and the gentleman must be more
 
 JERRY AMD CLARINDA. 11$ 
 
 skilful to speak of those events than the lady, 
 but I will try to tell you of them by writing. I. 
 was much interest and feel a benevolence to you 
 for a long time. In school, I noticed first you 
 was often bowing to me very politely with a 
 hat. Another time in Staatsburg I meet you 
 again, and we were often corresponding many 
 letters. I ask many questions to your conduct, 
 and find you to be a working-hard, industrial, 
 land young man, well reputated in your good 
 name. So that makes a gentleman and lady 
 court and soon fall in love to each other. 
 We did not often quarrelling ; it is understood 
 that if they are often quarrelling they do not 
 fall in love. When a gentleman meet a lady 
 he mostly begin to woo her by helping her 
 from being badly hurt by some one, or saving 
 her from drowning. We have not done the 
 same because those had not happened to us, 
 but we often talk a short time and take a walk 
 for pleasure, and you company to me at my 
 house or to travel. A lady can not be wedded 
 without the consents of her parents and 
 guardians, who first consent the gentleman to 
 visit her. So, you can ask my uncle Mr.
 
 Il6 JERRY AND CLARINDA. 
 
 Shackley when will he have a wedding. For 
 my own person 1 can say I am gladly willing 
 to love you affectionately and marry you for 
 my husband. 
 
 " Your always true-devoted and now en- 
 gaged friend, 
 
 " CLARINDA SHACKLEY." 
 
 The engineer did not wish to lose this niece, 
 who was both so well-appreciated and service- 
 able a feature in his household, but being a 
 man of excellent heart, and having no valid 
 objection to offer, he gracefully submitted to a 
 contingency likely to overtake all guardians in 
 similar circumstances. For our own part we 
 had no thought of withholding our approval. 
 We were not alarmists on the subject of 
 deaf-mutes marrying among themselves. We 
 only urged that they should not be in 
 haste ; they were both young, and could 
 afford to wait, and happiness was more likely 
 to be insured when they were amply prepared 
 for the step. Our advice fell in, on the whole, 
 with their own views, and they rested con- 
 tented enough for a while in the state of en- 
 gaged lovers.
 
 JERRY AND CLARTNDA. 117 
 
 When things had been in this pleasant con- 
 dition for some little time, Jerry was seen one 
 day while crossing the track to hold a brief 
 parley with a ragged tramp. Then, like Cru- 
 soe's man Friday meeting his father among 
 the captive war party of cannibals, he fell upon 
 his neck. The tramp, in fact, was Tom Med- 
 ford. It appeared that he had been thrown 
 out of work in consequence of taking part in 
 an unsuccessful strike, and never recovered his 
 place. A liking for idleness had grown with 
 this ample taste of it, and he had taken to 
 drink. At last, after many vicissitudes, he had 
 to go upon the road as a vagrant. It is more 
 likely that his meeting with his son was a 
 pure accident than that he had accurate knowl- 
 edge of his whereabouts, or the supreme impu- 
 dence to hunt him up. 
 
 The ex-bakeress, it further appeared, had 
 abandoned him at the first touch of calamity, 
 Her hopeful son had been imprisoned for 
 some enterprising feat of thievery perpetrated 
 under cover of his duties as a messenger boy. 
 
 I would have advised Jerry to have little or 
 nothing to do, now, with this graceless parent
 
 Ii8 JERRY AND CLARINDA. 
 
 who had treated him so ill, but no one could 
 have failed to admire, and even be touched by 
 the charming warmth of heart and ideal of 
 filial duty, apparently still surviving, that led 
 him to desire to confer substantial benefits 
 upon him, even after all that had happened. 
 He asked me, with diffident appeal, to find 
 him at least temporary employment, and I had 
 reason to know that he took him to his own 
 lodgings, and clothed him from his own 
 wardrobe. 
 
 For a while Tom Medford went about in a 
 state of deeply-abashed humility, but by degrees 
 began to recover his confidence, and give him- 
 self airs of importance.. He let fall, among 
 the other hands, furtive disdainful remarks on 
 the infirmity of Jerry. He began to drink 
 again. Of this it is not probable that Jerry, 
 who always remained very innocent on that 
 score, was aware. When the fact of the en- 
 gagement finally entered into Tom Medford's 
 consciousness, he was extremely disagreeable 
 about it. He forbade it, in fact, and de- 
 clared that he would never receive another 
 member into his family with such a drawback.
 
 JERRY AND CLARINDA. 119 
 
 Poor Jerry came to me in alarm and asked 
 what he should do about it. Do ? I was for 
 turning the vaporing reprobate off the place at 
 once ; I bade him not pay the slightest atten- 
 tion to it. 
 
 The deaf-mute Pringle stopped one morning 
 to leave word that Clarinda was coming down 
 on the Ajax to pass part of the day at the 
 farm, while her uncle was switching cars below. 
 Pringle too had wanted to marry Clarinda, but, 
 finding she was otherwise disposed of, and 
 about to do much better in the world, had 
 accepted the situation with perfect acquies- 
 cence. There never was reason for Jerry's 
 flying into a passion, as he was at first disposed 
 to do on hearing of the presumption of this 
 ridiculous fellow. On the contrary, Pringle 
 was ready to run on his errands and do him 
 any service whatever, in regard to Clarinda as 
 in other directions. 
 
 Hardly had Pringle gone that day, when 
 Jerry came to me, in great anguish of mind. 
 He drew me gently by the arm past the dairy 
 buildings to a tool-house for the storage of the 
 lighter farm implements.
 
 120 JERRY AND CLARINDA. 
 
 " Look within, through the hinges at the 
 door's side," he spelled out. 
 
 I followed his injunction, and there saw his 
 father, squalid, heavy, and inert, lying prone on 
 some straw spread out for him. Accompany- 
 ing Pringle a little way back he had found 
 Medford wandering on the place, in a state of 
 besotted intoxication, and brought him thither 
 for safe-keeping. It was his first discovery of 
 the truth, and he was overwhelmed by it. 
 
 The hour was at hand when Clarinda was to 
 arrive, and the distant smoke of the Ajax 
 could already be seen, approaching around the 
 long bend that debouched at our boundaries. 
 Jerry, with a very sad face, moved toward the 
 usual place a part of the bank less steep than 
 the rest, near the southern line of the estate 
 where she usually landed. 
 
 All at once the colt Bulbul now, it should 
 be explained, fully three years old, unusually 
 large and powerful for his age, was seen to stay 
 upon the railroad track at some distance away. 
 Great pains were taken ordinarily to keep him 
 away from all that part of the estate. By some 
 mysterious means he had broken his trammels
 
 JERRY AND CLARINDA. 121 
 
 and passed the barriers ; a long rope halter with 
 which he had been tied still trailed behind 
 him. 
 
 Jerry was startled at the dangerous situation 
 of the animal, and, in vivid alarm, signalled to 
 him in his customary way, but in vain. Then, 
 dismissing for the moment all other thoughts 
 from his mind, he ran down to try and save him. 
 
 He caught the end of the halter, but the 
 stalwart beast, his head, as it chanced, averted 
 from the peril, and mistakenly playful or con- 
 tumacious in the extreme, resisted, and even 
 drew his would-be rescuer upon the track after 
 him. A conflict now ensued between horse 
 and man like that of another Alexander with 
 Bucephalus. The Ajax hove in sight, and gave 
 a succession of such piercing whistles as might 
 have waked the very dead. All of us who 
 were in the vicinity ran out, and looked with 
 horror at the scene. The white pigeons on 
 the roof, as though even they felt something 
 ominous in the air, darted and careened about 
 like autumn leaves blown in the gale. 
 
 The whole action took less time than it does 
 to tell. Riveted though my attention was, I
 
 122 JERRY AND CL A RIND A. 
 
 was vaguely conscious that the drunken elder 
 Medford had broken out of his place of con- 
 cealment, and was approaching the immediate 
 scene by a series of staggering lurches. 
 
 A sudden turn of his head discovered to Bul- 
 bul himself the approaching locomotive. Its 
 thunder already shook the ground. Crazed 
 and half-paralyzed with terror then, he leaped, 
 plunged, and bolted furiously, yet without 
 moving sensibly from the same spot, which 
 seemed to hold him to it as by some fatal spell. 
 
 In his plunging the stout rope became en- 
 tangled about Jerry. He was like one of the 
 sons of Niobe in the coils of the serpent. He 
 could no longer have saved even himself. 
 Were we then to see our poor Jerry perish by 
 such a fate almost a typical one for deaf 
 mutes before our very eyes ? Alas ! it seemed 
 as if that swift-rushing monster could not be 
 avoided. 
 
 Shackley leaned out in horror from one side 
 of his engine cab. Clarinda, holding by a guard- 
 rail, fluttered yet farther out from the other 
 side. She was like some supremely anxious 
 brooding bird, or one of those goddesses of
 
 JERRY AND CLARINDA. 123 
 
 the Homeric poem who would have snatched 
 up her hero and saved him from harm, in 
 defiance of all natural laws. The Ajax had 
 made every effort to slacken its momentum, 
 but with only slight avail. It must needs 
 happen that the throttle-valve, at this time of 
 all others, would not do its work. 
 
 But at the last moment, when the jaws of 
 destruction were opened, a new element min- 
 gled with the action. It was extraordinary, lu- 
 dicrous, contemptible, but efficient. Besotted 
 Thomas Medford stood beside the track, 
 glowering, leering, uttering incoherent words 
 as of interest or encouragement to the contest. 
 Whether it was only pure, mad delight in strife, 
 such as actuates the typical Irishman at Donny- 
 brook Fair, or a sudden vertigo by which he 
 was taken, or a partial sobering, a disgust with 
 life, and vague repentance and purpose of 
 reparation even at this late hour all at once, 
 throwing out both arms before him, with the 
 fists stoutly doubled, he leaped headlong into 
 the fray, impinging violently against Jerry and 
 the colt. 
 
 Whirling wreaths of steam, lashing coils of
 
 124 JERRY AND CLARINDA. 
 
 rope, vague forms in turmoil, and the white 
 pigeons circling above it all like gulls in a 
 storm. 
 
 Then the Ajax passed on. Our Jerry was 
 found beside the track, bruised, half stunned, 
 but practically unharmed. Tom Medford was 
 crushed beyond recovery. The benighted colt 
 too had tried conclusions with the mechanical 
 force with fatal effect. Thus, though his ec- 
 centricities had been pretty well studied 
 already, opportunity was never afforded of 
 seeing what such an exceptional animal would 
 have become under the full-fledged responsi- 
 bilities of life. 
 
 Jerry threw himself upon his father's body in 
 a touching way, and Clarinda joined sweetly in 
 his grief. It had always been one of the things 
 to note that the boy perhaps through sense 
 of shame had said so little about his family 
 difficulties. He would now have liked to repre- 
 sent that this father had had no faults, and as 
 to their apparent estrangement and his living 
 away from home, it had been a plan commend- 
 ing itself to the judgment of both. 
 
 May I say, by way of a word in conclusion,
 
 JERRY AND CLARINDA. 125 
 
 that Jerry and Clarinda took up a quarter sec- 
 tion of government land in Montana. They 
 rose to a position of admitted prominence 
 there. Jerry and properly enough too, hav- 
 ing the best handwriting and best average 
 education of any one in the place was made 
 postmaster. He might have counted upon re- 
 taining this office indefinitely, but for charges 
 of " offensive partisanship " laid at his door. 
 This was unfortunate, if true, but it has the 
 redeeming feature that a good deal of vigor of 
 mind must have been the cause of it. 
 
 But perhaps the most interesting bit of in- 
 telligence that has come to us about them is 
 that their first child is a hearing and speaking 
 baby, just like any other. We often please 
 ourselves with picturing some of the experi- 
 ences likely to befall an infant to be brought 
 up under such exceptional circumstances.
 
 A LUNCH AT McARTHUR'S. 
 
 THE McARTHURS were temporarily 
 without a servant. The last one had 
 said she could not dress on the wages they 
 paid. The one just before that had mixed up 
 the roast beef and fish on the same platter, and 
 when discharged had departed with a scornful 
 fling at the illiteracy of Mrs. McArthur, be- 
 cause, forsooth, that ambitious young matron 
 was taking a course of German lessons. 
 
 " It's always studyin' ye are," said she, "and 
 a mighty sthupid head ye musht have, intirely. 
 Sure, I complayted me eddicashin before I 
 was tin." 
 
 But these were only occasional incidents ; 
 the standard complaint was that they lived in 
 a flat. The contemporary American flat has, 
 like certain electricity, induced a current in the 
 opposite direction : it has given rise to a class
 
 A LUNCH AT Me ARTHUR'S. 12? 
 
 of servants who are known by their aversion to 
 it. It has no area railings to hang over, and 
 gives no opportunity to entertain chance ad- 
 mirers, or for delightful converse with the do- 
 mestics of neighboring families ; their society 
 is reduced to a matter of formal visiting ; and 
 how can a girl provision her family from 
 kitchens so easily under observation ? 
 
 When it is added to all this that the McAr- 
 thurs' flat was small, and situated in the rather 
 remote district of Washington Heights, to 
 which McArthur was consigned by his employ- 
 ment as a civil engineer on the new aqueduct, 
 it will readily be seen how Mrs. McArthur 
 might have become her own servitor. 
 
 " My friends, the Vandersilts and Castors, 
 have the same sort of trouble," said McArthur 
 one day, in a jocose mood, though as a rule 
 he was much more inclined to grumble. 
 
 " Do you mean that they have taken to living 
 in flats?" 
 
 " No, but I mean even they don't escape the 
 common annoyance. Look at the Van Red 
 Hooks there, who keep from fifteen to twenty 
 pampered menials. Lately, when the butler col-
 
 128 A LUNCH AT McARTHUR'S. 
 
 lided with a man with a basket of glass, in the 
 hall, they couldn't find anybody whose busi- 
 ness it was to sweep up the fragments." 
 
 " Nobody to sweep up the fragments of all 
 that glassware ? " 
 
 " No, the fragments of the butler." 
 
 The new experiment proved a delightful 
 success ; it was like some pleasant game. 
 They were but two in family, not very long 
 married, in robust health, and of rather bo- 
 hemian tastes. They decorated the little 
 kitchen with blue plates, put a flowered Dutch 
 curtain and pots of geranium in the window, 
 and made it one of the most attractive apart- 
 ments in the house. When the notion took 
 them, they had only to turn the key and walk 
 out and dine in town at a restaurant. McAr- 
 thur, as has been explained, was inclined to 
 discontent. One evening, at dinner, he said : 
 
 " I have asked Currituck to come up and 
 lunch with us to-morrow." 
 
 "Very well, I will get ready for him. And, 
 by the way, who is Currituck?" 
 
 " His chief title to distinction is that he has 
 a good deal of money. We were fellow engi-
 
 A LUNCH AT McARTHUR'S. 129 
 
 neers together as students, but he has never 
 had any need to practice, while I 
 
 " Yes, you, poor, boy, must work so hard, 
 and construct famous bridges, aqueducts and 
 tunnels. But you will become greater and 
 richer than any of them, yet." 
 
 " Currituck is on the move about the world 
 a great deal ; he has been ranching and min- 
 ing in the West of late years, and he is going 
 to sail for somewhere else in a few days." 
 
 " And he comes to bid you good-by ? " 
 
 " No, not at all ; but he has had an idea, from 
 my connection with public works in this part 
 of town, that I ought to be a good judge of real 
 estate, and he has trusted me to make a small in- 
 vestment for him. I often tried to get him up 
 here before, but he would never do it. Now he 
 comes of his own accord. We will have lunch 
 first, and go and look at ttie lots afterward. 
 I should not be sorry if he felt inclined to do a 
 little more in the same line ; the commissions 
 come in very handy, and it does not take much 
 time." 
 
 "Oh, I wish he would." 
 
 " But we must have a servant. He will
 
 130 A LUNCH AT Me ARTHUR'S. 
 
 think a man who has been able to feather his 
 nest no better than this, no proper manager of 
 his affairs." 
 
 " If he's an intimate friend of yours, I'm sure 
 he'll understand it, and make all the more of 
 us for it." 
 
 " We took our diplomas together ; and I see 
 him about once in every five or ten years ; I 
 don't know whether you call that being an in- 
 timate friend or not. He was a most conven- 
 tional person in those days, fastidious in dress, 
 manners, and everything else ; and it takes a 
 lot of imagination and poetry to appreciate 
 this sort of thing." 
 
 " Then what a poetess /must be." 
 
 " You have got to keep up appearances ; you 
 have got to take a degenerate world as you 
 find it, "continued the husband, airing his pessi- 
 mism. " Don't you suppose I would have got 
 that bridge up in Ulster county the other day- 
 after they had approved my design and all if 
 the committee had come down here and found 
 me a member of all the leading clubs, and liv- 
 ing in imposing style ? Don't you suppose my 
 jokes and stories would be better appreciated
 
 A LUNCH AT Me ARTHUR'S. 131 
 
 if they were heard over solid mahogany and 
 the laughter they occasioned echoed through 
 lofty drawing-rooms ? " 
 
 " Lofty ceilings are not the style at pres- 
 ent." 
 
 " Well, low-ceiled drawing-rooms then. 
 Don't you suppose 
 
 " Yes, my poor, unappreciated genius, I sup- 
 pose everything. But there is no possibility of 
 getting a servant at short notice, and I have so 
 good a memory I feel as if I never wanted to 
 see another one in the house, any way." 
 " Oh, very well, very well ! " 
 But no sooner was this settled than 
 " I have an idea ! " exclaimed the young 
 housekeeper. She jumped up in the elation 
 of it and waltzed gayly around the room. 
 "An idea ! No, really? You alarm me." 
 " 7'11 be the servant. 7'11 play the maid," 
 " Nonsense ! Borrow your aunt's waitress, 
 just for three or four hours, for this one occa- 
 sion." 
 
 " It can't be done : Rosette was in here only 
 this morning complaining of all the trouble her 
 mother is having. They give a large lunch-
 
 i3 2 A LUXCti AT McAKTUUR'S. 
 
 party, to-morrow, themselves. Currituck has 
 never seen me, and Mrs. Crawford, who played 
 Belinda in ' Our Boys,' showed me how to 
 draw lines on my face, and make up so he 
 would never know me if he ever should." 
 
 " Do you mean that you are really ' game ' 
 for such an escapade?" asked McArthur, ad- 
 miringly. 
 
 She struck her hand into his after the ap- 
 proved manner of conspirators, and, seizing a 
 dust-brush, took with its aid various attitudes 
 supposed to be peculiar to stage soubrettes. 
 
 " Haven't I sworn to love, honor, and 
 obey? " she returned. " What does that mean 
 if I can't be a waiting-maid a little if I like? 
 You can say I had an invitation to visit my 
 family out of town, you know. And so I had 
 though I didn't accept it. You will regret 
 that I could not have had the very great pleas- 
 ure of meeting him, and all that." 
 
 " Don't give yourself much pains about cos- 
 tume ; he's a particularly unobservant person 
 where women are concerned, and would never 
 notice." 
 
 " I'll make a perfect guy of myself," re-
 
 A LUNCH AT McARTHUK'S. 133 
 
 sponded Mrs. McArthur with enthusiasm. " I 
 haven't studied our valuable domestics for 
 nothing." 
 
 " I wouldn't make too much of a guy of my- 
 self," suggested McArthur, with an air of mod- 
 eration. 
 
 " No, not too much, only just enough. 
 You'll see." 
 
 " What name will you have ? You must 
 take an easy one, that I shan't be likely to 
 forget." 
 
 " Why not keep my own ? " 
 
 " He may by some chance have heard it, or 
 may hear it hereafter, and complications would 
 arise." 
 
 " Suppose I take Rosette's, then. You 
 won't forget that." 
 
 " Very good ! Shall we let Rosette into the 
 secret ? She would enjoy it immensely." 
 
 " No ; it may prove a failure, and then we 
 wouldn't like to have her know. Let's wait 
 till it's over." 
 
 At the appointed hour the guest arrived. 
 McArthur had been detained from home that 
 morning by some untoward accident, and when
 
 134 A LUNCH AT Me ARTHUR'S. 
 
 he arrived Currituck was already installed in 
 the little library, and inspecting some few 
 odd curiosities there. Mrs. McArthur was 
 engaged at the rear. Her husband went to 
 seek her, inquiringly ; but she concealed her- 
 self and called out from the kitchen : 
 
 " It's all right. I let him in. I'll ring the 
 little bell when I am ready ; and be sure you 
 don't keep me waiting." 
 
 Currituck had changed a good deal, and not 
 for the better, since the host saw him last. 
 He had grown stouter, wrinkled, and red- 
 faced, and he knitted his brows in a brusque, 
 arbitrary way. When the signal for lunch was 
 at length given he started for the dining-room 
 with alacrity. 
 
 "A favorable sign," reflected McArthur; 
 " he has a good appetite at any rate." 
 
 The two sat down at table, tucked in their 
 very fresh white napkins, and attacked the 
 first course, appetizingly laid out before them. 
 
 "I shall have to apologize for entertaining 
 you in free-and-easy bachelor fashion," said the 
 host, choking down his qualms of conscience ; 
 " Mrs. McArthur had an invitation from her
 
 A LUNCH AT McARTHUR'S. 13$ 
 
 parents to go and spend a fortnight with 
 them." 
 
 " Ya-as, ya-as, sorry," returned the visitor, 
 engaged upon his oysters with an air denoting 
 that the existence of any Mrs. McArthur was 
 a matter of the supremest indifference to him. 
 
 " It will be a source of great regret to her 
 not to have had the pleasure of meeting you ; 
 but perhaps at some other time " 
 
 It was at this moment that the new maid 
 drew back the little porttire across the door 
 separating the dining-room from the kitchen, 
 and made her dramatic entry. He husband 
 suspended the operations of his knife and fork 
 for a moment in amazement. As to Mr. .Cur- 
 rituck, who had seen her already, he beamed 
 with a most satisfied smile of recognition. 
 
 Mrs. McArthur was round, plump, and very 
 pretty, and had never appeared to better ad- 
 vantage than in her present costume. Her 
 dimpled cheeks, flushed with excitement and 
 the warmth of the cooking, glowed delicate 
 pink. She had put on a simple gown of pink 
 gingham, selected from her summer wardrobe, 
 a large white apron crisply starched and a
 
 13 6 A LUNCH AT McARTHUR'S. 
 
 most coquettish white cap of equal freshness. 
 It was a coup de thtdtre, all charmingly imag- 
 ined from the point of view of effect, but a 
 good deal lacking in probability, as it were. 
 
 But no sooner had she left the room than 
 he poked his knife facetiously in the air 
 towards McArthur, exclaiming: 
 " Eh, sly dog! sly dog! " 
 " What do you mean ? " 
 "Wife away, eh? aha! oho! eh?' 
 " Oh, I assure you " protested the host, en- 
 deavoring to assume an air of formal dignity. 
 Somehow he found the hilarious under- 
 standing and quick intelligence he had ex- 
 pected to have with his ingenious and lively 
 confederate missing. For his own part he had 
 a very constrained feeling. Currituck on the 
 other hand, alleged to be so unobservant, fol- 
 lowed her movements with such a pleased 
 avidity it seemed as if she drew a tangible part 
 of him along with her. She was flustered at 
 first, but finding herself undetected regained her 
 self-command. She directed sly, amusing pan- 
 tomime at her husband, served Carrituck with 
 a flattering emfiressement, not free from
 
 A LUNCH AT Me ARTHUR'S. 137 
 
 coquetry ; she stood about in a variety of cap- 
 tivating attitudes, and showed a smiling inter- 
 est in all the conversation. 
 
 "Don't smile!" telegraphed McArthur en- 
 ergetically, seizing a half-favorable moment for 
 doing so. 
 
 " Seems an uncommonly nice girl, that," 
 said Currituck, when she was again absent, 
 having been frowned down in his levity. 
 
 " Yes, Rosette is a rather good sort of a 
 girl," languidly. 
 
 "Why, she's a regular beauty; don't you 
 think so ?" 
 
 "Can't say I've ever thought deeply on the 
 subject," said the master of the house, affect- 
 ing the utmost indifference. 
 
 "You're a cool fellow to trust yourself this 
 way. It wouldn't be safe for me ; it wouldn't, 
 I assure you." 
 
 " You were saying, in ranching now the pro- 
 fits are much reduced ?" with a yawn. 
 
 " Looks nice enough to eat with a spoon," 
 Currituck persisted incorrigibly. " Won- 
 derfully refined way with her nice voice 
 too." 

 
 13 s A LUNCH AT Me ARTHUR'S. 
 
 " Don't speak ! " signaled McArthur to the 
 maid with yet greater energy than before. 
 
 " As I recollect you, you used to be very in- 
 different to petticoats," he continued with 
 Currituck. 
 
 - "Oh, bless you! that's a mistake. I may 
 not have shown it, but I have a great eye for 
 good looks." 
 
 How could McArthur have been so in 
 error? His wife's conduct was doubly prepos- 
 terous. If he could only have seen her in 
 time, how peremptorily he would have put a 
 stop to any such business. 
 
 *' If ranching be so much overdone, it makes 
 these Inwood lots all the more promising," he 
 said, making another push to change the con- 
 versation. 
 
 The fictitious Rosette here entered with a 
 tray of sweetbreads and green peas. It was 
 rather heavy for her delicate wrists, and be- 
 sides an end of the door-curtain embarrassed 
 her. Mr. Currituck gallantly leaped up and 
 relieved her, taking the tray from her hands 
 and setting it upon a side-table. He resumed 
 his place, however, with a somewhat shame-
 
 A LUNCH AT McARTHUR'S. 139 
 
 faced air as if he had forgotten himself. This 
 capped the climax. 
 
 The host felt it was high time to take a vig- 
 orous step in the direction of keeping up the 
 illusion, or all would be lost. He looked for 
 an opportunity and presently found one. 
 
 "Rosette," he exclaimed sharply, "do be 
 more careful how you serve that salad ; you 
 have rubbed the bowl against Mr. Currituck's 
 collar ! " 
 
 She was serving the salad properly in every 
 particular, but she was startled by this sudden 
 admonition ; so was Currituck, who threw up 
 his hand. She let go the handsome china 
 bowl, and it fell to the floor with a crash, 
 breaking in a dozen pieces. 
 
 " There, that will do," said McArthur, loath- 
 ing himself at this unlooked-for result. " You 
 may go now ; don't come in again till you are 
 called." 
 
 " Oh, I beg ' interposed Currituck. " It 
 was my fault it must have been. We can't 
 get on without so lovely that is. so excellent 
 a waitress." 
 
 " Oh, if you wish it, to be sure ! " re-
 
 140 A LUNCH AT 2\IcARTHUR'S. 
 
 sponded McArthur, with strongly satirical 
 meaning. 
 
 But the spirit had gone out of the adven- 
 ture for Mrs. McArthur. She went to the 
 kitchen and wept bitterly over the reprimand 
 and her salad bowl. She presented herself 
 after this but. briefly. 
 
 When she was in the room Mr. Currituck 
 was almost as much flustered as she. She 
 brought him cheese, and he absently slid off a 
 whole Camembert upon his plate, as if it had 
 been an ice. He squeezed orange juice in 
 his coffee, and put mustard on his brandy- 
 peaches. 
 
 The two men retired to the little study to 
 enjoy a smoke before setting out on their 
 quest. 
 
 " Isn't she somebody out of the common ? 
 Isn't she a superior person in some way ? " the 
 guest began anew. 
 
 "Who?" asked McArthur, still playing his 
 ineffectual game of indifference. 
 
 " Your Rosette, the Hebe who condescends 
 to serve you, unworthy that you are, with 
 those hands, that shape, that blooming color,
 
 A LUNCH AT McARTHUR'S. 141 
 
 those dark eyes, full of a merry yet languish- 
 ing archness." 
 
 " Languishing archness ? " Oh, Mrs. Mc- 
 Arthur should hear of this to her cost. 
 
 The victim replied : " Mrs. McArthur likes 
 to have somebody respectable about her. Her 
 references are good, if that is what you mean 
 though you can't put much trust in refer- 
 ences, either, for people will sign almost any 
 thing nowadays." 
 
 "No; but hasn't she good connections? 
 Isn't she in reduced circumstances? Hasn't 
 she aspirations above her station and that 
 sort of thing?" 
 
 " Not unless it be to put up the price of 
 crockery; I suspect her of being in league 
 with the manufacturers. You saw for your- 
 self." 
 
 " Do you know there's a lot of nonsense in 
 our talk about 'station,' here in America. 
 There is and can be but one station," said the 
 visitor, in a philosophizing way. 
 
 " I believe he fell wildly in love with you," 
 said McArthur to his wife on returning home 
 that evening.
 
 I4 2 A LUNCH AT McARTHUR'S. 
 
 " I appreciate the distinguished compliment. 
 As he is to sail again in a day or two, I sup- 
 pose it can do no great harm." 
 
 " Yes ; but I had to keep checking his im- 
 pertinent allusions to you all the afternoon, 
 and I suppose he's so incensed with me there's 
 an end of all our business transactions." 
 
 "Oh, I hope not." 
 
 " I thought you were going to 'make a guy' 
 of yourself? " 
 
 " I changed my mind about it, and I thought 
 I would give you a pleasant surprise. It isn't 
 very nice to have to make yourself look ugly 
 before strangers, the first time. How would 
 you like it ? And it was much more to your 
 credit to have a neat servant than a frowsy 
 one." 
 
 " But you were so confoundedly chic ; you 
 don't see that kind of thing outside of opera 
 bouffe. You encouraged his forwardness." 
 
 " You never want another man to look at 
 me not the most insignificant ; I've often 
 noticed it," and she sobbed. 
 
 " No, no, dearest ; I only mean that if 
 under the circumstances you had been a lit-
 
 A LUNCH AT McARTHUR'S. H3 
 
 tie more like real life. Why, he said, him- 
 self, you were sweet enough to eat with a 
 spoon ! " 
 
 z say that?" 
 
 " Yes ; and that wasn't more than half the 
 real truth. I had to appear to scold you, you 
 know, to keep up appearances ; I was in mortal 
 dread lest he should find us out." 
 
 " She was mollified by the compliment. 
 "Yes, I understood that perfectly," she said, 
 " But what did you mean by telling me he was 
 indifferent to women ? He's one of the most 
 susceptible men I ever saw." 
 
 " I thought so, hang it ! That is one of the 
 mistakes we make about our friends." 
 
 In the midst of this there was a jingle at the 
 door-bell and Cousin Rosette came running up 
 the stairs in her usual lively way. 
 
 So amused was this real Rosette when she 
 heard all that happened, that no seriousness of 
 mood could stand before her irresistible gale of 
 merriment. 
 
 "You don't half appreciate it, not half," she 
 declared, overwhelming them with reproaches 
 for not having made her a participant. " Oh,
 
 144 A LUNCH AT McARTHUR'S. 
 
 why didrit you let me know ? Why didn't 
 you take me in it?" 
 
 " What low common taste ! " she com- 
 mented presently, " Who would have thought 
 he could be so smitten by a mere servant- 
 girl?" 
 
 " Well, I must say ! " protested Mrs. McAr- 
 thur, "am I a mere servant-girl ? Do I look it ? " 
 
 " No ; that is just where all the trouble comes 
 in ; you don't look it," rejoined her husband. 
 
 "Well, I hope not" 
 
 " The question is," said McArthur judicially, 
 " whether he ought to be scorned for a low, 
 unworthy passion, or admired for his superior 
 discernment. I fear we do him injustice. 
 Yes, he is entitled to the credit of detecting 
 true loveliness and refinement under every dis- 
 guise. Et vera incessu patuit dea. And the 
 veritable goddess stood revealed by her gait." 
 
 "But now what is to be done?" 
 
 "As he is to sail away somewhere in a day 
 or two," said the real Rosette, " I do not see 
 a pressing need of doing any thing." 
 
 " I feel it in my bones he will return ; we 
 have not got rid of him yet," said McArthur.
 
 A LUNCH AT McARTHUR'S. 145 
 
 His predictions were verified. Currituck re- 
 turned again in two days. He rubbed his 
 hands together, gazed about a good deal in a 
 nervous way, and seemed to have had no par- 
 ticular object in coming. As he was taking 
 leave, however, he darted suddenly into the 
 dining-room, under pretext of looking once 
 more at a certain engraving there ; but Mrs. 
 McArthur had been prepared for him, and his 
 artful attempt to happen upon the person of 
 whom he was in search by strategy was frus- 
 trated. 
 
 Yet again he came in the same aimless way. 
 He said he had postponed his sailing for a 
 week. As the pretty maid was not visible 
 this time any more than the other, he inquired 
 for her. 
 
 " She is not in," was all the response he re- 
 ceived. 
 
 " Does she remember me ? Has she spoken 
 of me since? It's a whim of mine; I'd really 
 like to know." 
 
 " I should judge you had offended her; in 
 my opinion, she took a strong dislike to you," 
 McArthur replied,
 
 146 A LUNCH AT McARTHUR'S. 
 
 The visitor went off in dudgeon, and Mc- 
 Arthur resigned himself to the loss of this 
 friend and patron as inevitable. He had 
 opened the door himself, pulling the handle 
 that communicated with it from the landing 
 above, while his wife had hastily betaken her- 
 self to hiding. They began henceforth to re- 
 connoiter all visitors from the window before 
 admitting them. Mrs. McArthur hardly ven- 
 tured out-of-doors at all for a while, but dis- 
 patched her commissions as much as possible 
 by proxy. It was thought Currituck was seen 
 watching the house from a distance. 
 
 Currituck did, in very fact, watch the house 
 from a distance. How tantalizing not to be 
 able to go near, for fear of being recognized ! 
 He was rewarded by seeing a fascinating per- 
 son come forth and enter occasionally. Some- 
 times she would seem stouter and again more 
 slender than his Rosette; but there were cer- 
 tain familiar things about her in which he could 
 not be mistaken. What a pretty hat and 
 jacket she wore! what excellent quiet taste she 
 had ! Perhaps these were her mistress' clothes ; 
 but if so, undoubtedly she wore them with a
 
 A LUNCtf AT Me ARTHUR'S. 147 
 
 grace to which her mistress could never 
 aspire. 
 
 He dared to follow her once, with great cir- 
 cumspection. She went to a shabby quarter, 
 and entered a poor habitation. From some 
 squalid children playing about the entrance he 
 was just about to inquire the name and cir- 
 cumstances of the inmates, when she came 
 forth and confused his plans. She supported 
 for a short distance the steps of a tall, gaunt, 
 old woman, in rusty black, who bore herself 
 with a certain comic stateliness and had a very 
 bad cough. When she had left this old 
 woman, he threw himself in her way, at vari- 
 ous cross-walks, and looked earnestly for some 
 sign of her recognition ; but she passed him as 
 if she had never seen him before. 
 
 That afternoon Rosette was again at the 
 Me Arthurs'. 
 
 " Do you know," said she, " I think your Mr. 
 Currituck was inclined to bestow his attentions 
 on me yesterday. I am sure I recognized him, 
 from the description. I went to see my ' lone 
 widow woman,' Mrs. Finnegan, to ask after 
 her cough, and he
 
 148 A LUNCH AT McARTHUR'S. 
 
 " She makes the most of that cough, for 
 your benefit, Rosette. What with paying her 
 board in the country in summer, and taking her 
 tonics and foot-warmers in winter, you are a 
 perfect slave to her." 
 
 " That is not the point at present. Your 
 friend was over that way, and perhaps mistook 
 me for you. They say we look alike." 
 
 " I never could see the resemblance that 
 some people make so much of though, of 
 course, I should feel greatly flattered if it 
 were so." 
 
 " Nor I either though I should be only too 
 highly delighted if I could believe it." 
 
 It was dusk when the last speaker rose to go 
 to her home. 
 
 " Rosette, that man may be still hanging 
 about, and who knows but he may speak to 
 you ? " expostulated the mistress of the house. 
 
 " Nonsense ! it is only a step ; and I must 
 be at dinner on time to-day, to get ready to go 
 out this evening. Have you decided what to 
 wear at the Assembly Ball yet ? " And she was 
 off, not waiting for an answer. 
 
 A portion of her brief journey lay along the
 
 A LUNCH AT Me ARTHUR'S. M9 
 
 massive granite wall that skirts the park-like 
 Trinity cemetery. The Tenth Avenue cable 
 cars ran in the street, and across the way were 
 cheerful, brightly-lighted shops, so that it was 
 not a place for alarm, though rather secluded 
 and dim. 
 
 In this spot, so favoring adventure, Currituck 
 came up and accosted her for her cousin. 
 There was in truth no small resemblance be- 
 tween the two. Rosette was of exactly the 
 same height as her cousin, a year or two 
 younger, more slender, yet rounder, and had 
 the same features, and they could wear each 
 other's dresses. 
 
 Currituck's voice was uncertain, and he 
 breathed hard in the evident agitation of his 
 bold stroke. 
 
 " I beg your pardon. My purpose in ad- 
 dressing you is most honorable. Perhaps you 
 do not recognize me ; but I had the pleasure 
 of meeting you at er at lunch at McArthur's. 
 You were there, you know. You I was the 
 one that er you 
 
 Rosette had averted her head and involun-
 
 5 A LUNCH AT Me ARTHUR'S. 
 
 tarily quickened her pace, but Currituck quick- 
 ened his also. 
 
 "You must try to excuse this method of 
 making your acquaintance. You will under- 
 stand that, under the circumstances, I couldn't 
 Very well do anything else. My object was 
 I er wanted to say, you know, that when 
 you broke that dish I didn't mind in the least. 
 Bless you, no, I didn't care if you broke all 
 his dishes." 
 
 Rosette managed to pull down over her face 
 a little veil she wore, answered only in the 
 merest monosyllables, saying to him, "Yes, sir," 
 and " No, sir." Her first impulse had been to 
 fly from him, but she felt a certain duty to the 
 McArthurs to keep up the illusion. Besides, 
 she smiled to herself at the good story she was 
 going to have to tell about it afterwards. 
 
 "Isn't the work pretty hard? Aren't you 
 tired of a task-master so unappreciative of 
 of such loveliness?" the intruder continued 
 sentimentally. " Do you know, there was 
 something about you from the first glimpse I 
 had of you 
 
 But they had now traversed the obscure
 
 A LUNCH AT McARTHUR'S. 151 
 
 part of the promenade and come under the 
 bright gas-light again, and she left him so 
 abruptly that it almost took his breath away. 
 
 " I've had such an adventure ! I've had such 
 an adventure ! " she screamed, bursting into the 
 McArthurs' later in the evening to tell them 
 all about it. 
 
 " What do you think was the most ridiculous 
 thing he said to me? He took me for a 
 daughter of the Finnegan. He saw me walk 
 with her, you know. He commended my filial 
 devotion, and said he would be glad to do 
 something to make the condition of such a 
 worthy parent more comfortable. I was so 
 annoyed, I forgot for the moment my sup- 
 posed character, and came near getting you 
 into all sorts of trouble. 'Ah, only a friend?' 
 he answered, 'well, of course, we all need a 
 little society, but you must have better.' 
 Shades of the Van Red Hooks we are dis- 
 tantly connected, you know what an idea! " 
 
 " He is a lunatic!" exclaimed McArthur, im- 
 patiently. 
 
 " Not at all ; he's a real nice old thing. He 
 isn't half as bad-looking as you said, either,
 
 IS 2 A LUNCH AT McARTHUR'S. 
 
 He must be dreadfully in love with me to 
 act so." 
 
 " In love with you ? Well, I like that ! " re- 
 joined Mrs. McArthur. " Why, he has scarcely 
 ever seen you." 
 
 " He calls me Rosette, and he has seen me a 
 number of times." 
 
 " Who was it that dressed up in costume and 
 waited on him ? " 
 
 " Go on ladies, don't mind me ! It's a noble 
 rivalry. Can you think of any thing I can 
 do to forward it?" exclaimed McArthur. 
 " Currituck has apparently given up all inten- 
 tion of sailing. Once you could not drag him 
 here for love nor money, and now he is coming 
 all the time. What is to be done ? " McArthur 
 asked himself for the twentieth time. " If he 
 comes again," he finally determined, " I'll settle 
 him." 
 
 Currituck returned, and began, as with a 
 fixed purpose in his eye, to speak anew of the 
 captivating maid. 
 
 " She is gone; we had to discharge her," re- 
 sponded McArthur, barely civil. 
 
 " You have discharged that paragon of per-
 
 A LUNCH AT McARTHUR'S. 153 
 
 faction, that compendium of the loves and 
 graces?" 
 
 " Her airs and graces might do very well for 
 you who only had to stand her a few moments, 
 -but she was altogether too forward for us. 
 That sort of person is apt to be." 
 
 " That sort of person ! that and where do 
 you think I can find her again?" 
 
 " I don't know. Perhaps at an intelligence 
 office. 
 
 " Gone ? an intelligence office ! " gasped the 
 visitor. 
 
 " You may have noticed I was rather partial 
 to her?" he said, after some moments spent 
 in overcoming his agitation. 
 
 " I judged so from a few small indications," 
 responded his hearer dryly. 
 
 " I was rather hoping you would help me 
 along with the affair. That is what I came to 
 see about to-day." 
 
 "Oh, come now, brother Currituck, you 
 really couldn't expect me a married man to 
 encourage such an affair? What would my 
 wife think of it? She's at home now, by the 
 way."
 
 154 A LUNCH AT McARTHUR'S. 
 
 " Oh, I hope she doesn't know about it yet," 
 returned the other, nervously. " My inten- 
 tions are quite straightforward. Yes, I have at 
 length come to that conclusion I want to 
 marry that charming girl ! " 
 
 " To marry her?" echoed McArthur, aghast, 
 for the better the intentions of the other, by 
 so much the worse his own predicament. 
 " But, as I was saying here only the other day, 
 you used to be such a fastidious person in all 
 matters of of social etiquette and conven- 
 tion." 
 
 " But a man can't knock around the world 
 all these years as I have done without getting 
 a lot of it taken out of him. I've seen the 
 folly of many of my old ideas ; I now go for 
 reality instead of humbugging imitations." 
 
 " Heavens ! " inwardly groaned McArthur, 
 " why did we give ourselves so much trouble 
 with a man like this, about the lack of a ser- 
 vant ? " 
 
 " This matter of station is all mere caprice 
 at best. Out among the great ranching and 
 mining interests your Rosette would be a reg- 
 ular countess or duchess ; there wouldn't be
 
 A LUNCH AT Me ARTHUR'S. 155 
 
 a wife that could approach her," Currituck 
 went on. 
 
 " Why, yes ; as to looks she's well enough." 
 
 "That reminds me, I was intending to ask 
 you about her education ? " 
 
 " All I know is that another servant once 
 left complaining there was too little of it for 
 her. Fcom that I judge it's pretty de- 
 fective." 
 
 " That could be remedied, of course," said 
 Currituck, hastily, " The great thing is to 
 get a person that suits you. Now it may sur- 
 prise you to hear that I have been going about 
 for years with a certain ideal of feminine love- 
 liness in my head." 
 
 " It does surprise me to hear it ; it does, in- 
 deed. I had thought, as I told you some time 
 ago, you were an incorrigible bachelor, who 
 took no interest in such things." 
 
 " Not at all. I was not in the least anxious 
 to marry having early remarked the crying 
 evils of the marriage state and I determined 
 I would not do so until I had met with my 
 ideal. Instead of being callous, as you sup- 
 posed, I have been looking at women with a
 
 156 A L UNCH A T Me A R 7 H UR ' S. 
 
 great deal of attention ; but my preconceived 
 idea served me as a safeguard." 
 
 "But how did you form this ideal? How 
 did you happen to have it?" 
 
 " It was composed much after the manner of 
 the Greek slave the head from one model, the 
 hand or foot from another, and so on. If I 
 saw anywhere an especial bit of perfection, I 
 included it. I said to myself, ' I will not marry 
 a woman without such and such a nose.' ' I 
 will have just that lovely arching brow and no 
 other.' ' I must have that peculiar roundness 
 and firmness of the chin.' ' I will take nothing 
 less than that fascinating poise of the head,' 
 and so on throughout. In particular I wanted 
 a general smiling piquancy. Would you be- 
 lieve it, your beautiful maid, who did us the 
 honor 'to wait upon us at luncheon, united all 
 the perfections I demanded as I had never ex- 
 pected to see them united in the world. She 
 has the figure, the nose, the eye to a dot." 
 
 " Good gracious ! you don't tell me so ! " 
 
 " When I had fully realized this striking cir- 
 cumstance, was it wonderful that I should find 
 myself overpowered? Ought I let any mere
 
 A LUNCH AT Me ARTHUR'S. 157 
 
 trifle of a matter of station interfere with such 
 manifest destiny? It was clear that I was or- 
 dained to marry her, and I shall do it or perish 
 in the attempt." 
 
 " Are you can you be serious? " 
 
 " Serious to the last degree," returned Cur- 
 rituck, with firmly pursed lips. 
 
 The real Rosette here occurred to McArthur ; 
 but he had taken a certain position and could 
 not go back on his own statements. He could 
 only say : 
 
 "Wait a moment. Ibeg you to pause a 
 little. Certain types of people are found in 
 certain places just as freckled white horses are 
 plentiful in certain parts of New Jersey. I 
 have no doubt a dozen girls corresponding to 
 the type of looks you prefer can be found 
 around here. I'll tell you what I will do ; come 
 up and go to the Assembly ball with me next 
 Thursday night, and I'll guarantee to introduce 
 you to one I have in my mind's eye at present 
 who fills the bill in every particular." 
 
 " I'll do it ! " assented Currituck, eagerly. 
 " It will be useless, no doubt ; but I'll take 
 every favorable chance, make every effort, in
 
 I5 8 A LUNCH AT McAXTHUR'S. 
 
 the first place, to carry the thing out in a re- 
 gular way." 
 
 McArthur reported to his wife and her cousin 
 what had taken place. 
 
 " Since he is only in love with a type, the 
 thing to do is to introduce him to Rosette, 
 who corresponds to it, and let him marry her. 
 Then we will own up and get out of the 
 scrape." 
 
 " Let Rosette have something to say about 
 it for herself," put in that young woman, 
 sharply. 
 
 " He is an unexceptional parti, rich, edu- 
 cated, traveled, and gallant, as you see," per- 
 severed McArthur. " Your affair with young 
 Tompkins is fortunately off just now, I believe, 
 and Currituck will make exactly the husband 
 for you. It will be an excellent thing all 
 around." 
 
 " I'm not to be disposed of as a sample of 
 a peculiar type of female, thank you ! And, 
 while we are on the subject, Mr. Tompkins is 
 not the only admirer in the world, either." 
 
 " But you said Mr. Currituck was ' a real nice, 
 old thing,' and you liked his looks,"
 
 A LUNCH AT McARTHUR'S. 159 
 
 " Now I say if you are so absurd I dorit 
 like his looks, and I wouldn't take him for a 
 gift. I shall not go to the Assembly ball if he 
 is to be there. I care very little about it any 
 way, and had thought of going to town in- 
 stead." 
 
 " And I know I never could consent to ex- 
 plain our joke to him," added Mrs. McArthur. 
 " I should not be able to hold up my head. 
 If it hadn't gone so far, you know. And what 
 would he think of you as a business man if he 
 found you had engaged in such a thing ? He 
 would tell it everywhere, and ruin you 
 utterly." 
 
 " There is something in what you say. 
 Probably this must remain one of those dark 
 secrets which we are condemned to carry un- 
 confessed to our graves. The only other 
 thing remaining to be done," said McArthur, 
 " is this." 
 
 They waited in suspense for his new plan. 
 
 " We must now get a servant a real one 
 and ask Currituck to dinner. You," to Mrs. 
 McArthur, " must be there this time ; but, 
 whereas you were yourself before, now you
 
 1 60 A L UNCH A T Me A Rl HI 'K ' S. 
 
 must really make up into an unrecognizable 
 character. Finding you at home, any possible 
 suspicion of his on that score will be allayed ; 
 he will see the new servant, and be satisfied 
 that the fictitious Rosette has really gone ; he 
 will go to the Assembly with me, and there 
 will be nobody corresponding to his ideal. 
 Then at last he will be satisfied of the useless- 
 ness of his quest in these parts, and stay away 
 perhaps even sail away, as he has so often 
 promised to do and leave us at peace forever- 
 more." 
 
 " Oh, I can't undertake any more masquer- 
 ading, after all this experience has cost us," 
 objected Mrs. McArthur. 
 
 " It is one of the penalties of duplicity that 
 it has to go on. A second step is incumbent 
 upon us to cover up the first. Then I trust 
 we shall be done with it for good." 
 
 " But the new servant, what will she think 
 of my sitting at my own table in disguise ? It 
 will put us in her power." 
 
 " We'll pretend it's only a little way you 
 have, of a piece with your humor. You must 
 do it again some time when there is nobody
 
 A L UNCH A T Me A R THUR 'S. 1 6 1 
 
 but ourselves, and then she'll think no more 
 of it." 
 
 " Alas, a third step ! " lamented Mrs. Mc- 
 Arthur, dolefully. 
 
 She did not at all like the prospect. Never- 
 theless, she set about engaging the servant. 
 The day she was to have gone to town for the 
 purpose she was overtaken by a complication 
 of duties, and Rosette volunteered to attend 
 to it for her. 
 
 " I've got to go, any way," she said, " to 
 match the trimming for my braided skirt and 
 get some ribbon for the pug's collar; and I can 
 do it just as well as not." 
 
 "" Don't go to Clamfoot's ; they all want at 
 least fifty dollars a month there," said the 
 young matron as she was starting. " Don't go 
 to that Gulthorp's. It advertises as a Christian 
 training-school, but most likely all the girls 
 there have just come off Blackwell's Island, 
 instead." 
 
 "Shall I try Brixton's?" 
 
 " Oh, horrors ! no ! I engaged six in suc- 
 cession from there, last time, and not one of 
 them ever came. If you hear the girl you hire
 
 162 A LUNCH AT McARTHUR'S. 
 
 speak of going after her things, don't take 
 your eyes off her. Bring her along on the 
 instant, or you'll never get her. We'll send 
 for her wardrobe, or she can have mine. How 
 can they be so unreliable ? " 
 
 " It's only a delicate native politeness on 
 their part," suggested McArthur. " They 
 don't like to hurt your feelings by refusing on 
 the spot, so they merely leave you in the lurch. 
 I've often done the same thing myself." 
 " Gilbert McArthur, you never have! " 
 " Well, I mean, I've often felt like it." 
 "Don't be afraid, I'll find one somewhere. 
 I'll get you a good girl," called Rosette and 
 she hurried off. 
 
 She went to Mugway's, on Fourth Avenue. 
 There were but few servants present as yet, it 
 being their custom to take things quite easy in 
 the morning. She therefore sat down to wait 
 for them, placing herself in one of a long row 
 of vacant chairs in such a position as to ob- 
 serve those who came in. She cross-examined 
 one or two of these, who asked her, in return, 
 "How many's in family?" "Is it a flat?" 
 and " Is it the country?"
 
 A LUNCH AT McARTHUR'S. 163 
 
 Then what was her surprise to see Currituck 
 enter! 
 
 He was haunting the intelligence offices, and 
 had seen her through the window. She did not 
 see him till he was almost upon her. He came 
 and stood before her and said "Good-morning ! " 
 with an air of profound respect. She first 
 turned her head squarely to the right, then to 
 the left, then bent it very low, pretending to 
 be searching for something in her pocket, and 
 made him no answer. 
 
 This embarrassing conduct only defeated its 
 own end, for Mr. Currituck was forced by his 
 very awkwardness to walk into the next room, 
 where the manager's assistant sat at a desk. 
 
 " Who is that girl at this end of the row of 
 chairs? " he asked the man; and "what kind 
 of a place does she want?" 
 
 " She ain't no girl ; she's come to get one, 
 herself," was the reply. 
 
 "Ah yes, what name did you say ?" insinu- 
 atingly. 
 
 The man glared at him in suspicion. He 
 nervously put on the desk about twice the 
 usual fee.
 
 164 A LUNCH AT Me ARTHUR'S. 
 
 " Mrs. G. McArthur Washington Heights, 
 girl for general housework," then said the 
 agent. 
 
 " Would you mind my sitting down ? " asked 
 Mr. Currituck, faintly. 
 
 " Cert'nly have a chair." 
 
 Currituck drew up close to him, and there 
 saw the name and address, on the register, with 
 his own eyes. 
 
 " You don't mean that this is Mrs. McArthur 
 in person ? " he suggested. 
 
 " I guess I've seen her here often enough to 
 know." 
 
 To say that Mr. Currituck was astounded 
 would be putting it mildly: he was stricken with 
 veritable anguish. He had had a wild gleam 
 of exultation for a moment when the man had 
 said though he hardly believed him that she 
 was not a servant ; and it appeared he need 
 not make a mesalliance after all ; but now she 
 proved to be the wife of another ; she was 
 utterly beyond his reach ; all his hopes were at 
 an end. 
 
 A light broke in 'upon him too something 
 like a true explanation of the affair he was
 
 A LUNCH AT McARTHUR'S. 165 
 
 the victim of a masquerade. " For some 
 reason they are afraid to confess to me," 
 said he. " All the twistings and turnings of 
 McArthur, and his pretense that he knows 
 somebody else corresponding to the same type 
 are but subterfuges to divert me by little and 
 little from the pursuit." , 
 
 Rosette recognized that flight would now be 
 of no avail. The two men were looking 
 out at her and discussing her. Her conduct 
 had been supremely silly. She knew the con- 
 sideration in which Currituck was held by the 
 McArthurs, as an investor of funds at least, 
 and open rudeness to him would not do, even 
 if any policy whatever could be subserved by it. 
 She saw herself placed in an extremely difficult 
 position ; the moment for an explanation of 
 some sort was at hand, and the whole respon- 
 sibility of betraying the secret, or of persisting 
 in it against all semblance of probability, was 
 to be thrown upon her slender shoulders. She 
 endeavored to decide upon some plan of action, 
 but before any was evolved, Mr. Currituck came 
 out and again accosted her, with a very grave 
 mien.
 
 166 A LUNCH AT McARTHUR'S. 
 
 11 1 wish to apologize for my inexcusable 
 error," said he. " May I also offer my profound 
 thanks for all the pains you have been good 
 enough to take for my entertainment. I did 
 not know till just now that you were Mrs. 
 McArthur." 
 
 " But I am not. I am nothing of the kind," 
 rejoined Rosette, much alarmed. 
 
 " Can I be mistaken? the manager so in- 
 formed me " and he look backed uncertainly 
 in that direction. " Did you not come hereto 
 engage a servant for the McArthur family?" 
 
 "Yes, yes, indeed ; that is true." 
 
 " But if you were a servant just discharged 
 yourself for forwardness and impudence, you 
 wouldn't be likely to do that." 
 
 The supreme moment had evidently come ; 
 mendacity now could only make matters worse. 
 
 " I am a cousin of theirs," said Rosette as 
 demurely as possible. " I am Miss Dawson. 
 Mrs. McArthur couldn't come, and I am here 
 for her." 
 
 " Then you were the one ? " cried Currituck, 
 his heart giving a new bound, this time of 
 genuine delight. She was not a servant, but a
 
 A LUNCH AT McARTHUR'S. 1^7 
 
 person of education ; she was unmarried, and 
 presumably free. " Oh, I see it all," he went on 
 rapturously : " Mrs. McArthur was away, and 
 for a joke you personated the maid ? Don't 
 let it distress you, I beg. When I thought 
 you were Mrs. McArthur, you cannot know 
 the profound depression I felt, now happily re- 
 moved. How should you know anything of 
 it?" he hastened to add. 
 
 " But it was not I ; I was not there, and Mrs. 
 McArthur was not away," she persisted. 
 
 " You are not Mrs. McArthur ? you were 
 not .there? you had no knowledge of it, and 
 yet you understand my words, and I should 
 know you among a million. How can I recon- 
 cile all this?" 
 
 Even on the theory of many examples of the 
 same type, suggested by McArthur, he was 
 mystified. Had he not seen this very person 
 go in and out ? Had he not held interviews 
 with her ? 
 
 " Is your memory so good ? " asked Rosette. 
 
 " Yes, for people especially for one who 
 has made so overpowering an impression. For 
 localities, no : I hunted high and low, for in-
 
 1 68 A LUNCH AT Me ARTHUR'S. 
 
 stance, to find again the place where you went 
 to see those poor people. If I could have 
 found that, most likely all this confusion could 
 have been avoided." 
 
 " You will not admit a defective memory, 
 then?" 
 
 " Not unless I suppose you and Mrs. McAr- 
 thur to look remarkably alike, which is absurd, 
 such coincidences don't really happen. And 
 besides, did you not confess you broke the 
 china bowl at the lunch ? " 
 
 " I did not confess," flushing ; " I only did 
 not deny it. I felt bound to to help keep up 
 an illusion. And let me tell you such coinci- 
 dences do really happen." 
 
 " What happiness if I could only go back 
 with you. Let us present ourselves before them 
 together and tell them how much I appreciate 
 their joke. I really never heard anything bet- 
 ter ; ha ! ha ! particularly since it 
 
 " No, no ; you mustn't betray me ; they would 
 never forgive me. The secret must rest with 
 us alone." 
 
 " Let's argue it : I've got to know some time, 
 haven't I unless Mrs. McArthur keeps out of
 
 A LUNCH AT McARTHUR'S. 169 
 
 sight forever, or I leave the country. I don't 
 want to do that, for to tell you the truth I had 
 been thinking of a few operations with McAr- 
 thur that would help us both in a financial 
 way. Besides, what's the use of turning a jolly 
 thing into a funeral. It's capital, I tell you, 
 capital ! " 
 
 His laugh may have had a slightly hollow 
 sound, but there was no malice in it. 
 
 " But a servant ? "said Rosette ; " I dare not 
 go back without one, after this." 
 
 " I know of a perfect treasure, one who'll 
 live in a flat, or a light-house, or up in a balloon 
 if need be, and the less wages you pay her 
 the better she likes it. By great good luck I 
 happened to see her in the last intelligence 
 office I called at. We'll take her along as a 
 peace offering." 
 
 Currituck ingratiated himself so well with 
 her on their way homeward that Rosette had 
 determined she would go to the Assembly Ball 
 after all. 
 
 The surprise of the McArthurs on seeing 
 them walk in together may well be imagined. 
 Mrs. McArthur, at first about to take flight,
 
 17 A LUNCH AT McARTHUR^S. 
 
 was stopped and met with the disclosure, which 
 so well satisfied was she with her respite from 
 further deception she welcomed it with posi- 
 tive joy. 
 
 " Honors are easy, old fellow; honors are 
 easy. It's six of one and half a dozen of the 
 other," cried Currituck to McArthur in a 
 hearty way. 
 
 " Why, if you think so ; easy they are," re- 
 sponded McArthur, with equal good-nature. 
 
 The comic note was struck, and one item 
 aiter another of the general embarrassment was 
 recalled and laughed over to the heart's con- 
 tent of all. 
 
 In the midst of this Currituck was looking 
 inquiringly at Rosette, comparing her, feature 
 by feature, with her cousin. There was a good 
 deal of hopefulness in his look too. 
 
 "The resemblance is nothing like so close as 
 I would have sworn to in advance," said he, 
 "and it's not to my credit for accuracy. Still, 
 there's quite resemblance enough ; and, if I'm 
 not mistaken, this lunch at McArthur's is going 
 to be one of the very best things that ever hap- 
 pened to me."
 
 NEAR THE ROSE. 
 
 IT was in Stambul, the peculiarly Turkish 
 quarter of Constantinople. The men had 
 met at the foot of the venerable Burnt Pillar 
 of Constantine the Great. 
 
 " By the way, Lysicrates Stauros, a word 
 with you ! " said the elder of the men, turning 
 back as if struck by a sudden thought : "Can 
 you tell me anything about Pandeli Panjiri ? " 
 
 " He has quite recovered ; his illness was 
 nothing serious ; he has been about, as usual, 
 for some little time," replied the other. 
 
 He found himself considerably surprised at 
 being thus addressed, for the questioner was 
 the Armenian Crcesus, Agob Oglou, and he 
 but a young clerk in a broker's office on the 
 Stock Exchange. 
 
 " I thought I would ask, as I see you with 
 him rather often," said Agob Oglou, indiffer-
 
 IJ 2 NEAR THE ROSE. 
 
 ently, while a searching glance showed a much 
 greater interest than his words expressed. 
 
 " We are relations ; my mother and Mr. 
 Panjiri are cousins ; I am treated almost like 
 one of the family." 
 
 "Ah, cousins?" murmured the merchant 
 when going away, " that is it ; then it may not 
 mean so much after all." 
 
 He crossed the bridge of the Sultana Valide 
 amid a glorious prospect, swimming in light 
 and colors, and, paying but small heed to this 
 or to the picturesque tide of travel ever going 
 and coming upon it, went to his home at Pera. 
 There he threw himself down in his sachnis- 
 chiri, the bay-window, to reflect. 
 
 There was nothing heroic about Agob Oglou, 
 either in looks or disposition. He was small, 
 pock-marked, slow in speech and diffident in 
 manner. His father had left him at the age 
 of thirty-seven master of a great business in 
 which he was almost wholly absorbed. He had 
 a box at the opera in which he hardly ever set 
 foot, and his summer palace at the Princes 
 Islands might as well have belonged to some- 
 body else. It would be difficult to say in just
 
 NEAR THE ROSE. 173 
 
 what the amusements of this humdrum Croesus 
 consisted. If he occasionally went to some 
 entertainment at the house of a rich brother 
 merchant, even there it was rather to talk over 
 business matters in a corner than to avail him- 
 self of the festal opportunities offered. 
 
 On Sundays and holidays he looked over 
 papers at leisure in his bay-window. This was 
 the place where the women of a household 
 usually sat, in pleasant gossip, with their em- 
 broidery ; but there were no women now in the 
 house of Agob Oglou. Even his mother, who 
 had presided over the establishment till lately, 
 was dead, and he was very much of an old 
 bachelor indeed. 
 
 One day, while sitting in his sachnischiri, he 
 saw a beautiful girl enter the Armenian church 
 of Saint Agob, across the way. Then as his 
 papers did not confine him too closely, he 
 watched for her to come out again. He rather 
 wondered why he had never noticed her before, 
 but it was, in fact, her first visit there, having 
 just left school, a French school at Pancaldi, 
 where she had been educated. He formed the 
 habit of looking for her every Sunday. Some-
 
 174 NEAR THE ROSE. 
 
 times she came with adult members of her fam- 
 ily, sometimes with young children, sometimes 
 though rarely, alone. There was also, occasion- 
 ally, a young man along, whom he remem- 
 mered as a clerk presenting drafts at his count- 
 ing-room from the Stock Exchange. The 
 presence of this young man, after his interest 
 had become fully aroused, occasioned him keen 
 pangs of jealousy. 
 
 After this process of watching had gone 
 on for quite a while, his great house began 
 to seem lonesome to him. He would walk 
 through the spacious parlors, the music-room, 
 the upper chambers, and surprise himself 
 thinking how much pleasanter all that would 
 be with just the right kind of a mistress over 
 it such a one, for instance, as the sweet 
 young girl across the way. 
 
 How perfectly enchanting she was ! Her 
 luxuriant hair and lustrous dark eyes had the 
 loveliest tones of hazel-brown in them ; her 
 skin was white as milk ; she had a vivacious 
 and, at the same time, entirely modest manner. 
 It was her intelligent liveliness that particu- 
 larly pleased Agob, as the women of his own
 
 NEAR THE ROSE. 175 
 
 nation, those he knew the best, were apt to be 
 rather slow and heavy ; they appealed to the 
 senses but not so much to the intellect. But, 
 beyond all, what a delicious smile it was that 
 seemed forever hovering about the corners of 
 her perfect mouth, and just ready to break 
 forth. When she gave it its own way it illum- 
 ined the shadows of the dark porch, and even 
 gave a touch of brightness to the gloomy 
 priests with their heavy beards and high black 
 hats, who appeared there at the head of pro- 
 cessions. All this could be seen even from a 
 distance, but Agob did not fail to see it from 
 close quarters also. He crossed over and 
 took his place among the crowd of wor- 
 shipers, pressing up as close to her as pos- 
 sible, and looking for small signs of her favor 
 of which it must be confessed he got very 
 few. 
 
 It did not consist with his peculiar depth of 
 reserve to intrust his secret even to his very 
 prudent servant, but he made a few judicious 
 inquiries on his own account. He took much 
 credit to himself for the way he had managed 
 the casual meeting with Lysicrates Stauros,
 
 1 76 NEAR THE ROSE. 
 
 which bade fair to clear away the last impedi- 
 ment to a definite conclusion. 
 
 " I read clearly in his face that he is in love 
 with her," said he to himself, " but I could see 
 just as well that he has no established footing 
 nor assured prospect of success. There is noth- 
 ing to prevent my seeking the hand of Panjiri's 
 beautiful daughter if I want to," he concluded. 
 " Now, do I want to ? " 
 
 Accordingly he reflected and reflected and 
 reflected. His wrestlings consumed not merely 
 the remainder of the afternoon, but a very lib- 
 eral share of the evening as well. He had 
 allowed himself to become so dry and brittle 
 an old stick, as it seemed, only, when his time 
 came, to be the more easily ignited. 
 
 The clerk, Lysicrates, the same evening, made 
 the meeting with Agob Oglou a pretext for still 
 another of the visits to Pandeli Panjiri's family, 
 which an uneasy conscience made him fear 
 were not quite as well received as formerly. 
 He was glad to have something in the way of 
 a special message to talk about to the old 
 folks. 
 
 Pandeli Panjiri, the shipping agent, occupied
 
 NEAR THE ROSE. . 17? 
 
 a handsome apartment in the Avenue du Grand 
 Opera, the West End of Pera. It was rather 
 beyond his means, it is true, and he would have 
 been more prudent to live among his compa- 
 triots in the distinctively Greek quarter of San 
 Dimitri, but he was a man of sanguine dispo- 
 sition and fond of the good things of this 
 world. " Let us live while we live," he would 
 say. He had a large family, chiefly daughters, 
 to bring up, and only slender resources to do 
 it with. But there was one thing to be said of 
 all the children which was the next best to for- 
 tune : they were comely, robust, had scarcely 
 ever known a day's sickness in their lives, they 
 inherited a hopeful temperament from both 
 father and mother, and were endowed with the 
 happy faculty of making friends wherever they 
 went. 
 
 When Lysicrates entered the house that 
 evening most of the daughters were gathered 
 round a large center-table, playing dominos. It 
 was a chilly night, and beneath the table was the 
 usual brazier of hot coals, the warmth of which 
 was kept in by the folds of an ample table- 
 cover, the tandouri. He exchanged meaning
 
 178 NEAR THE ROSE. 
 
 glances with Urania, and being invited to join 
 the game, furtively pressed her hand several 
 times under the tandouri. He commended 
 himself to the young Olympia, by a present of 
 rakat lokoum, fig-paste, and to Thekla by akide, 
 lemon-drops, both of a particularly choice vari- 
 ety and which, not to arouse embittered jeal- 
 ousies, they were immediately obliged to share 
 with Yessamina, Aspasia, the urchin Pericles, 
 Anais, and even with baby Calypso, in her 
 nurse's arms. 
 
 The Kyrios, that is to say simply " Mr." 
 Panjiri, explained to the circle the importance 
 of the personage who, as reported by the clerk, 
 had so kindly inquired after his health. 
 
 " It is the more courteous of him too," he 
 said, " since I have but the slightest personal 
 acquaintance with him. No doubt," compla-r 
 cently, " he has heard of me by reputation. 
 Well, it is a good thing for all of us to take a 
 little interest in our neighbors, in this world." 
 
 " I know him," spake up the pretty Urania, 
 tartly, " if you say he lives in that fine house 
 across the way from St. Agob's Church. He 
 js the ugly little man who stares at me so, and
 
 NEAR THE ROSE. !?<) 
 
 sometimes pushes up so close to me I hardly 
 know what to do. One would think he had 
 never seen a girl before. I would often like to 
 slap him." 
 
 She broke out into a melodious laugh at the 
 absurdity of the idea, in which all the younger 
 sisters gayly joined, while the Kyria, their 
 mother, tried to explain that when men looked 
 impertinently at girls it was often the latter's 
 own fault. 
 
 " I begin to understand the secret of Mr. 
 Agob Oglou's interest," said the broker's clerk 
 to himself, and he fell to chewing the ends of 
 his silky mustache in a gloomy reverie. 
 
 He was a handsome young fellow, partly of 
 French extraction. He had been sent to Paris 
 to complete his education, and, on returning 
 thence, had begun commercial life at the foot 
 of the ladder, above which point he had not 
 climbed very far even yet. He had fallen in 
 love with his cousin when she came home from 
 school on a certain vacation. She returned 
 his feeling, and they had secretly exchanged 
 vows ; but he was forever torturing himself 
 with the fear that she would be snatched away
 
 i8o NEAR THE ROSE. 
 
 by some one whose only superiority would be 
 found to consist in the cursed inequality of 
 fortune. 
 
 Toward ten o'clock he created a diversion by 
 going out and buying a supply of semit, the 
 sweet cakes which the semit ji hawked around, 
 about that hour, carrying them ringed upon a 
 long rod. The Kyrias taste for this homely 
 confection availed him a short extension of 
 his stay, but no sooner were the cakes eaten, 
 than the Kyrios, in bluff, unceremonious fash- 
 ion, bundled him out of the house, saying it 
 was high time all good folks were in bed. 
 
 A little after this, the watchmen in the street 
 beat their staves loudly upon the pavement, 
 and cried : " Yunghen var ! Yunghen var ! " 
 There is a fire ! There is a fire ! The engines 
 ran it was somewhere in the neighborhood 
 and for a while a perfect pandemonium pre- 
 vailed. 
 
 No sooner was this over, than Panjiri was 
 once more defeated in his efforts to secure 
 repose, by the announcement of a visitor. 
 
 " Are you keeping Ramadan [the Mussul- 
 man Lent] ? Do you fast all day and pass the
 
 2TEAR THE ROSE. 181 
 
 night in revelling ? " he asked, unable to refrain, 
 from venting a certain ill-humor even upon so 
 considerable a personage as this visitor proved 
 to be, for it was no other than Agob Oglou. 
 
 " I am an Armenian, and we do not keep 
 Ramadan, as you know," replied Agob. 
 
 He sat uneasily while the servant brought in 
 the customary tray containing coffee, a glass 
 of water and some conserve of rose-leaves, and 
 his hand trembled in tasting these refresh- 
 ments. Then he broke forth with : 
 
 " I have done myself the honor of calling, to 
 offer myself as your son-in-law. I desire to 
 marry your daughter." 
 
 " Ha, that is business indeed ! And which 
 one ?" 
 
 " I was informed that you had but one of 
 marriageable age. I refer to the beautiful 
 Urania." 
 
 " Why, that's so, that's so ; I might have 
 spared myself the question. Urania is just 
 turned eighteen and I don't suppose Olympia 
 can be more than fourteen yet I must ask her 
 mother. And you could not wait till to-mor- 
 row morning for this? "
 
 182 NEAR THE ROSE. 
 
 " I beg your indulgence ; I am the kind of 
 man who, when he wants something, wants it 
 very much indeed. I had only lately come to 
 this conclusion, and I was anxious to carry it 
 out on the instant." 
 
 Panjiri recognized in this the same trait of 
 prompt energy by which the great fortune his 
 visitor enjoyed had been made. He was in 
 secret greatly pleased with the proposition, 
 though for the sake of dissimulating a little, 
 he ordered his yourgoulidion to be brought, 
 and the bubbling of this water-pipe acted as a 
 soothing accompaniment to the rest of the dis-* 
 course. 
 
 " I had not thought of asking any dowry," 
 pursued Agob. 
 
 " Oh, as to that," returned the other, waving 
 the stem of his pipe deprecatingly, as though it 
 would have been quite convenient to him to 
 give some millions. 
 
 " And in case I could do you any small favors 
 in a business way, I should expect you to look 
 to me for them, you know." 
 
 " I am in your favor," said Panjiri, now 
 abandoning his affectations ; " I will see my
 
 NEAR THE ROSE. 183 
 
 daughter and acquaint you with her answer at 
 the earliest moment. I have not the least 
 doubt she will agree with me as to the advisa- 
 bility of such a union, and as to the great honor 
 you do her." 
 
 Nor had he any such doubt ; but when he 
 made known to Urania the favor she had met 
 with in the eyes of Agob Oglou, and the high 
 destiny in store for her, he was met by the 
 most downright refusal. 
 
 " Not marry him ? not marry Agob Oglou ? " 
 he exclaimed in amazement. 
 
 " Not if his odious little form were entirely 
 made up of the gold on account of which he 
 takes such forward airs." 
 
 Every argument was applied to her in vain. 
 The Kyrios did not try coercion ; he was not 
 that kind of a father. He was forced to go in 
 despair to Agob and tell him the unpalatable 
 truth. Agob received it grimly. 
 
 "There may be another lover," he suggested. 
 
 " Another lover, in my house, in a well- 
 regulated family like ours, without my consent? 
 I should say not. I should like to see any- 
 thing of that kind going on indeed."
 
 1 84 NEAR THE ROSE. 
 
 Nevertheless he questioned both his wife 
 and Urania. Almost at the first mention of 
 the subject Urania burst into tears and con- 
 fessed the whole story. 
 
 " Lysicrates and I are engaged," she said, 
 " and he is going to claim me in a very little 
 while. He has only to wait till he has made 
 his fortune." 
 
 "Till he has made his fortune," repeated the 
 parent, with unspeakable disgust at this lack 
 of worldly wisdom " till he has made his for- 
 tune indeed ! How long has it taken me to 
 make my fortune, and how much fortune have 
 I got now ? Oh, the young reprobate, to stand 
 between you and such a brilliant match as that ! 
 Let him never dare to show his face within 
 our doors again." 
 
 In dealing with young Stauros, however, he 
 postponed his rage to policy. Assuming his 
 most off-hand genial manner, he said to him : 
 
 " It seems there has been some little senti- 
 mental nonsense between you and Urania " 
 
 " Nonsense ? " 
 
 " Yes, of course, you and I as men of the 
 world don't attach much importance to that
 
 NEAR THE ROSE. 185 
 
 sort of thing ; all of us have gone through 
 more or less of it. But Urania has a decidedly 
 finical streak in her composition. Just now 
 she feels a trifle embarrassed. What do you 
 think she has asked me to do ? Why, to come 
 here and see if you could have the slightest ob- 
 jection to her accepting an offer of marriage from 
 the great merchant Agob Oglou as though 
 such an idea could ever enter your head." 
 
 "Urania sent you to ask me that?" re- 
 sponded Lysicrates in an overpowering fury. 
 His worst suspicions were confirmed, and he 
 fell with unexpected ease into a rather trans- 
 parent plot. 
 
 " She did indeed Heaven forgive me ! " in a 
 mental aside ; and Heaven would naturally 
 forgive a little artifice to a father with so many 
 daughters to settle in the world. " Will you 
 just put down on a bit of paper," he added, 
 ingratiatingly, " that you would have no desire 
 to interfere with so advantageous an opening? 
 It will be more satisfactory to her. You see 
 what a doting father I am. I am often ready 
 to go on errands even out of all reason.'* 
 
 " I will put it down on monumental brass, if
 
 l86 NEAR THE ROSE. 
 
 you like," replied the other with the grimmest 
 bitterness, and he dashed off, in his utter dis- 
 dain, a statement so cold and matter-of-fact 
 that Urania, stung by this easy resignation, 
 accepted Agob Oglou at once. 
 
 Pandeli Panjira, who had dreaded a long and 
 losing campaign, was almost alarmed by the 
 success of his simple stratagem. It was too 
 good to be true ; it had worked like a charm. 
 Now it was only a .question of pushing on the 
 preparations for the wedding and keeping the 
 lovers carefully apart till that momentous date 
 was over. 
 
 The engagement ring was a diamond of the 
 largest size, a jewel veritably fit for a sultana. 
 It was followed by a pair of the loveliest India 
 shawls, and almost every day arrived other 
 beautiful presents a small earnest of the fine 
 things she was to enjoy in the future. Her 
 younger sisters tried on or reveled in all the 
 superb gifts, and her mother was never tired 
 of expatiating upon the resources and*potential 
 magnificence of her son-in-law that was to be. 
 
 All this was so satisfying in the first flush of 
 its novelty as to banish most of her early
 
 NEAR THE ROSE. 187 
 
 repugnance to the match from Urania's head. 
 And nothing seemed so utterly and absolutely 
 driven out of her head as Lysicrates Stauros. 
 Not that she was ever the vivacious companion 
 to Agob Oglou that worthy man had dreamed 
 of, but this he laid for the present to maiden 
 modesty. Not being over-glib in talk himself, 
 he had often to go away for sheer want of 
 ability to keep up the conversation. By de- 
 grees, too, her baffled feeling reasserted itself. 
 
 " If he could only be the Least bit in the 
 world like Lysicrates," she repined, in a forlorn 
 way; and again : " If he would only give me 
 engagement-rings and shawls and a summer- 
 palace at Prinkipo, and not come near me him- 
 self, I think I could learn to like him very 
 much." 
 
 Her air became so dejected, her eyes so 
 often red with weeping, and her conversation 
 confined itself so persistently to only half- 
 audible " Yes" and " No," that Agob Oglou at 
 last became aware of the cause. 
 
 " I am a sensible man," he said to her father, 
 " and it is better for me to give her up now, 
 much as I shall suffer, rather than to suffer all
 
 1 88 NEAR THE ROSE. 
 
 my life long on account of her indifference and 
 dislike." 
 
 Panjiri protested that there must surely be 
 some mistake in this matter. 
 
 " No, no," said Agob, " I know when it is 
 winter and when it is summer; I can see when 
 there is snow on the head of Olympus. I 
 am a sensible man, and. I want no unwilling 
 bride." 
 
 Pandeli Panjiri thereupon went to his 
 daughter, and said to her in a final way : 
 
 " Cease now your crying once for all. The 
 decision is left in your own hands. Agob 
 Oglou wants no unwilling bride. Tell him 
 that you are happy in the prospect before you 
 and will be a good and loving wife to him, or 
 give up these all but fabulous prospects and 
 have done with it. Only if you decide the 
 wrong way don't hold me nor anybody else 
 responsible for it afterward." 
 
 This perfect liberty of choice thus suddenly 
 thrown upon her proved rather embarrassing. 
 She dried her eyes and thoughtfully looked up 
 and down and all around as if for aid in com- 
 ing to a -decision. Agob Oglou had never
 
 NEAR THE ROSE. 189 
 
 appeared to so good advantage as in his 
 magnanimous offer to give her up. Whenever 
 she looked down her eyes fell upon the dia- 
 mond sparkling on her white hand ; it shot up 
 to her in return bluish gleams almost of a 
 shrewd human intelligence. 
 
 " I will be a good and true wife to Agob 
 Oglou," she said, smiling sweetly, as she had 
 been used to smile of old. 
 
 Now fate, which had so long refrained from 
 interfering, might well enough have held off its 
 hands to the end. But this was not to be. 
 Urania's qualms broke out anew, and having 
 seen Lysicrates at a distance haunting the 
 house forlornly, she bribed her maid to convey 
 a note to him. Now this maid was in a gen- 
 eral way on the side of youth and romance, as 
 all good serving-maids should be, but even she 
 could not bear to stand in the way of so bril- 
 liant a prospect for her young mistress. She 
 took the missive to the Kyria instead, and 
 asked in an artless way : 
 
 " Shall I deliver it at once, Kokona [Mis- 
 tress]?" 
 
 "Deliver it/' repeated the Kyria, her brow
 
 19 NEAR THE ROSE. 
 
 dark as a thunder-cloud ; " give it to me this 
 instant." 
 
 Urania explained in tears, that it was only a 
 friendly word of parting to Lysicrates, whom 
 it did not seem fair wholly to neglect, even 
 though he had behaved so badly. Nor was 
 there much more than this in the contents, 
 but it was an indication of a wavering mood, 
 and vigilance was redoubled. 
 
 This episode would seem to have put an end 
 to all possibility of correspondence, but on the 
 morning of the ceremony itself, Lysicrates 
 found means of sending Urania a communi- 
 cation by her little brother, Pericles. This 
 urchin enjoying more freedom than usual, 
 in the excitement of the occasion, ran out to 
 gaze at one of those small street processions 
 made in honor of the first day of a young 
 Turkish boy's attendance at school. While he 
 was shouting huzza ! with a gusto at the youth- 
 ful hero of the festival, going by on a gayly be- 
 dizened donkey, Lysicrates slipped the note, 
 with the present of a handsome penknife, into 
 his hand, and arranged to have him bring him 
 back the answer under a neighboring archway.
 
 NEAR THE ROSE. 191 
 
 He magnanimously offered to forgive all ; 
 he begged her to fly with him, and, to that end, 
 to make some pretext for coming down to the 
 confectioner's, or even to her own door-way, as 
 if for a breath of fresh air. He would have a car- 
 riage there, and snatch her away, if need be, by 
 main force. The answer was all the most ardent 
 lover could desire ; but this wild plan had 
 no opportunity of being put in execution, 
 for by accident Pandeli Panjiri happened 
 upon his infant son and heir just as he 
 was delivering the reply, and he endeavored 
 to seize it. The two men had a struggle 
 over it, in which Lysicrates succeeded ; but, 
 so far as discovery was concerned, it was just 
 the same as if the result had been the other 
 way. 
 
 In a little while Lysicrates Stauros came 
 storming at the door of Pandeli Panjiri, almost 
 beside himself, but he could obtain no admit- 
 tance, and he had sense enough to know there 
 was nothing he could accomplish there. His 
 next resource was Agob Oglou, and he stormed 
 even more violently at the door of the Arme- 
 nian merchant.
 
 1 92 NEAR THE ROSE. 
 
 " Admit him," said Agob Oglou to his staid 
 porter, Yusuf. 
 
 With his own hands he was putting the finish- 
 ing touches to the bridal chamber, and to give 
 an additional point of grim irony received the 
 visitor there. The sight of these preparations 
 the modish upholstery, the little tables inlaid 
 with ivory and pearl, the mirrors framed in gold 
 and colors, the brazen-columned couch with its 
 bespangled draperies, all of the freshest and 
 costliest that money could buy, served to rob 
 the luckless youth of any small vestige of self- 
 control he had brought with him-. 
 
 We must fight ! We must fight ! " he ex- 
 claimed. " One of us must die to determine 
 to which Urania shall belong. 
 
 ' You overlook the trifling circumstance that 
 she already belongs to me," returned the 
 owner of the mansion, quite coolly. " She has 
 chosen me of her own free will, and we are to 
 be married within the hour." 
 
 " Here is her letter ; read her opinions "; and 
 the clerk thrust the missive in the merchant's 
 face with so much violence that the latter 
 started back in much alarm.
 
 NEAR THE ROSE. 193 
 
 On reading it, he bowed his head ; he even 
 beat his hand against his forehead, in his great 
 surprise and dejection. 
 
 " It seems to interest you. Now will you 
 give her up to me?" said the clerk sneeringly, 
 recovering a certain coolness, and standing by 
 like fate, with folded arms. 
 
 " Upon her own head be it upon her own 
 head be it ! " almost screamed Agob Oglou. 
 " Why did she not draw back while it was still 
 time ? Unhappy jade that she is, she shall go 
 on to the bitter end. Am I to be made the 
 laughing-stock of all Pera? All the devils in 
 Eblis shall not take her from me now." 
 
 The proverb cautions us against the wrath of 
 a patient man, and Agob Oglou was one of the 
 most patient of men. He called his servants 
 and they quickly thrust Lysicrates Stauros out 
 of the house. There the police intervened in the 
 affair, as being now within their province, and 
 marched off the disorderly looking figure they 
 laid hold upon to the station-house. 
 
 Meanwhile Urania had set up in open re- 
 bellion. " Patera and MiUra [Father and 
 Mother] " she cried, " I will not marry Agob
 
 194 NEAR THE ROSE. 
 
 Oglou." She repulsed her maids, refused to 
 allow herself to be dressed, and the fine scheme 
 seemed wholly at an end. But the assurance 
 that, no matter what became of Agob Oglou, 
 she should never see Lysicrates again, the com- 
 mands and appeals of her parents, even the 
 noise of the controversy, her physical fatigue, 
 and something imperious to a naturally ami- 
 able character in the fixed hour of the cere- 
 mony so rapidly approaching, at last prevailed 
 with her. Almost more dead than alive, she 
 dried her eyes and suffered her wedding gar- 
 ments to be put upon her. 
 
 She was conveyed to the bridegroom's house 
 in a sedan-chair, followed by her ten brides- 
 maids, also in sedan chairs, with gentlemen 
 walking beside them. She was the saddest of 
 all brides, yet very lovely, too, in her rich white 
 silk robe, over which hung a veil of loose silver 
 threads, as if she were some nymph of the 
 fountain seen through its shining spray. Agob 
 Oglou received her at the door of his house, 
 and led her to the seat of honor in the princi- 
 pal parlor above. She rose to salute each 
 guest in turn, as etiquette demanded. The
 
 NEAR THE ROSE. 195 
 
 archimandrite pronounced his benediction, the 
 combaro, or best man, distributed bon-bons 
 among the guests ; and thus, while Lysicrates 
 Stauros (having been soon rescued from the 
 lock-up) was tossing like a lunatic on his bed in 
 his own chamber, under the guard of vigilant 
 attendants, she was made hard and fast the 
 wife of Agob Oglou. 
 
 Now, according to all good romancers, a 
 tragedy of some sort should here be recorded 
 a fatal combat between the two men, or at 
 least an elopement. But, whether former 
 romancers have sometimes made mistakes or 
 whether this was a very exceptional case, 
 nothing of the kind happened. On the con- 
 trary, after no great while, Urania showed 
 every appearance of being wholly cured. She 
 made Agob Oglou a most excellent wife. 
 There was really nothing against him but his 
 looks, and we know how easily we get over ob- 
 jections on that score. Perhaps she had an 
 unusually strong sense of duty, or an uncom- 
 mon feminine talent for yielding ; perhaps 
 even the invincible obstinacy Agob Oglou had 
 shown in carrying her off in spite of herself may
 
 *9 6 NEAR THE ROSE. 
 
 have won him her regard : and no doubt the 
 soothing influence of the ample luxury into the 
 lap of which she had fallen had something to 
 do with it. Tradition states, to be sure, that 
 she once fainted away. Her husband had 
 taken her to the terrace caft at the great 
 artillery barracks of Schalil Pasha, looking 
 down over the Bosphorus, and there Lysicrates 
 unexpectedly came in. She moped, too, when 
 she heard by the gossip of some families she 
 met at the hammam that he had lost all his 
 savings in a desperate effort to get rich. But 
 these, if correctly reported, were small episodes 
 at best, without enduring influence. She grew 
 buxom and comfortable-looking, her wonted 
 smile returned, and when she had children to 
 enlist her attention, it is probable that a score 
 of Lysicrates could not have shaken her alle- 
 giance in the least. 
 
 The healing influence of time also seemed 
 even more remarkable in the case of Lysicrates 
 himself. What ? not that Lysicrates who had 
 written despairing verses, who had wandered 
 in the woods at Buyukdere, which nourish the 
 springs of the capital, and along the side of
 
 NEAR THE ROSE. 197 
 
 Satan's Current at Bebek, meditating suicide, 
 who had called upon gods and men to witness 
 his misery, and had for a while left the coun- 
 try? Oh, no, that we cannot believe. Very 
 well ! but the proof of the statement is and 
 probably little more is needed that within 
 three or four years he became a suitor for the 
 hand of the next oldest daughter, the charm- 
 ing Olympia. Can it be possible that Lysicra- 
 tes desired to marry another of the daughters 
 of Pandeli Panjiri ? Yes, it is true. He had 
 given over his wildness of late, and made by 
 no means a bad start in the business way ; time 
 had thrown a haze over the old disturbance ; 
 he conciliated Panjiri, apparently dismissing 
 all resentment, and the astute shipping-agent, 
 who had always had some little compunctions 
 about the past, met him half-way, and now 
 that things were looking up with him thought 
 him a very good fellow. 
 
 What is more, Lysicrates even went to Ura- 
 nia to induce her to aid him with her sister. 
 She involuntarily sighed a little over such fick- 
 leness, but she felt that compensation was 
 justly due him, and was glad if she might now
 
 198 NEAR THE ROSE. 
 
 have some small part in bringing it about. 
 Agob Oglou was absolutely set against her 
 having any thing to do with him at first, but 
 finding out what the object was he counte- 
 nanced it, and many visits were necessary on 
 this score. 
 
 " But you were so so there was so much 
 trouble about you and my sister, how can you 
 be in love with me?" replied the fair Olympia 
 to his addresses, " I do not understand that." 
 
 " Oh, those things get exaggerated ! You 
 must not pay attention to all you hear. Did I 
 not bring you fig-paste ? Was I not always 
 looking forward to your growing up ? You are 
 the perfect type of which any predecessor 
 could only have been the faint indication." 
 
 Now, as Olympia was not more averse to 
 being complimented than other of the fair sex 
 at Constantinople, and he was almost her first 
 serious admirer, and her father made no inter- 
 ference, it is quite possible that had she fewer 
 distractions in other directions, things might 
 have taken quite a serious course. But she 
 was going to ambassadors' balls with her sister 
 Urania and going out in her caique at Prinkipo
 
 NEAR THE ROSE. 199 
 
 in the summer there were ten rowers, in suits 
 of white Broussa silk, with red caps and 
 sashes and from these diversions she was sud- 
 denly rapt away by a gallant colonel of some 
 foreign army, and there was the end of that. 
 
 Not a little tremor showed itself in Lysicra- 
 tes' investments in the stock market after this 
 event, but they were all on the right side, and 
 he went on and became a rich man. 
 
 Once more he returned to Urania. 
 
 " I am madly in love with your adorable sis- 
 ter, Thekla, " he said, " will you not help me 
 with her?" 
 
 Some scorn mingled with his confidante's 
 sympathy this time. 
 
 " Have you no memory ?" she asked. 
 
 " I have only a heart, and it is crushed by 
 the divine Thekla. Recall, I pray you, all the 
 good you know of me in the past, and tell it 
 to her to forward my cause." 
 
 Urania smiled at him, but with no great 
 malice as yet. 
 
 " I shall not be averse to having you as a 
 brother-in-law ; I will do all I can for you, " 
 she said.
 
 200 NEAR THE ROSE. 
 
 "You do not love me; it is not possible," 
 the sprightly Thekla replied to his wooing. 
 
 " Did I not bring you lemon-drops? Was I 
 not always delighted to sit by your side even 
 when you were a child? " he argued. " You are 
 the perfect type " 
 
 " Oh yes, of which nobody else could ever 
 have been more than the dim indication," she 
 cut in mockingly. " I know, you told that to 
 my sister." 
 
 Pandeli Panjiri not only consented in the 
 present instance, but, since Lysicrates had 
 become such a desirable parti, he was even 
 delighted. Now, however, by a curious alter- 
 nation of roles, it was the daughter that was 
 intractable and obdurate. She coqueted with 
 him just the least bit in the world, and then 
 danced off with a handsome young Russian sec- 
 retary of legation, and there was the end of that 
 also. Lysicrates was as cruelly gored upon this 
 horn of the dilemma as he had formerly been 
 upon the other. 
 
 Urania was the recipient of his expressions 
 of disappointment in this affair as in that of 
 Olympia ; and many more visits were neces-
 
 NEAR THE ROSE. 20 1 
 
 sary, though Agob Oglou by no means looked 
 upon them with the same favoring eye when 
 they were connected with defeat as with hope- 
 ful advance. However, Agob Oglou was 
 suffering of late from over-zealous devotion to 
 business, and his doctors did not permit him 
 to give all the attention to current matters he 
 was in the habit of doing. 
 
 When Lysicrates proposed to the next sis- 
 ter, Yessamina, Urania still bore with him, 
 though distantly, but when he proposed to 
 Aspasia, she crossed him off her books entirely. 
 It had then become ridiculous, and a discour- 
 tesy, almost an insult to her. Yes, as the suc- 
 cessive daughters of Pandeli Panjiri arrived at 
 woman's estate, Lysicrates laid siege to all of 
 them in turn, and he was by one and all 
 rejected. Aspasia was in some respects the 
 most fascinating of the younger set, but all 
 were fashioned upon a most charming pattern 
 and fortunate was she who belonged to it. 
 Anais was black-eyed, Yessamina gray-eyed, 
 Olympia was most plump, Rumania the most 
 tall and slender, Aspasia the most rollicking, 
 and Calypso the most sedate, but all had
 
 202 NEAR THE ROSE. 
 
 nearly the same taking ways, the same com- 
 plexion and hair, the same roundness of con- 
 tour, the same half-mischievous smile hovering 
 about the corners of their amiable mouths. 
 
 Lysicrates wooed with a gallant intrepidity ; 
 he sent sonatas to the musical one, whole par- 
 terres of symbolic flowers to the sentimental 
 one, and illuminated prayer-books to her who 
 had a religious streak. But this task became 
 increasingly difficult. The sisters naturally 
 communicated with one another, and he was 
 hard put to it for new expressions of tender- 
 ness and a plausible accounting for his former 
 infatuations. Any one with a less persistent 
 nature would have given it up long before. 
 The later comers upon the scene laughed at 
 him to his face, as the earlier ones had been 
 forced to do behind his back. His compli- 
 ments of a past generation had a positive 
 moldiness in their venerable antiquity. Who 
 could have believed this wrinkled, faded, 
 over-amorous old fellow had once been, as 
 reported, a handsome, dashing young man ? 
 
 These young women were so fair and flow- 
 er-like that it was not possible any of them
 
 NEAR THE ROSE. 203 
 
 should remain long on the parent stem. Some 
 aspirant, more or less worthy, plucked off one 
 after another. Even the urchin Pericles, very 
 much grown-up, had a wife and family of his 
 own, and was established in a flourishing 
 export trade. 
 
 At last Calypso she that had been, baby 
 Calypso in her nurse's arms was wed. Then 
 and then only did Lysicrates Stauros aban- 
 don his long and vain pursuit, a quest 
 which was in some respects pathetic, even 
 while amusing. Great recklessness marked 
 his next speculations on the Stock Exchange, 
 and he lost most of the large gains he had 
 acquired. Nor did he stop here ; he gave 
 full head to a general eccentricity that 
 had more and more gained upon him. He 
 abandoned all pretense to be a conventional 
 member of society. He let his beard grow 
 down to his waist, till he resembled a dancing 
 dervish, and even got so low that the boys 
 followed him mockingly in the street. At 
 length he took a hut and small bit of land 
 at Pancaldi, and led a hermit existence. He 
 alternated this with wandering among the
 
 204 NEAR THE ROSE. 
 
 cypress groves of the cemeteries all about the 
 city, or might even be found sitting on some 
 turban-crested Moslem tomb in distant, many- 
 domed Scutari. 
 
 Meanwhile Urania had crossed him off her 
 books utterly, and perhaps hardly even knew 
 whether he was alive or dead ; for her it seemed 
 as if he had never existed. But Agob Oglou's 
 maladies went on increasing, and he died, leav- 
 ing her free. There is no telling just when 
 Lysicrates, in his lonely way of life, heard this 
 news. He went no more prominently into 
 public on account of it, but from that time he 
 began to be more particular in his dress, and to 
 make an effort to recover something of his 
 former dignity, as if there were now a tribunal 
 to which a regard for appearances was due, 
 even though he cared nothing for them himself. 
 
 Urania's husband might have been dead a 
 year and a half, and she was living in a state of 
 philosophic seclusion when Lysicrates presented 
 himself at her house. 
 
 " This is of no avail," he said. 
 
 " I do not understand you," she stammered. 
 She could not but feel sorry for him. She had
 
 NEAR THE ROSE. 205 
 
 hardly known him at first. His well-made 
 black coat hung very loosely about his attenu- 
 ated form, and the late removal of a bushy 
 beard that had so long hidden his face from 
 the sun gave his complexion a peculiar pallor ; 
 he was like an apparition. 
 
 " Who is going to pay me for my wasted 
 life?" he demanded quite sternly. "Of you 
 I ask it you, Mademoiselle Urania Panjiri." 
 
 " It was not my fault," she returned, still 
 confused. " You wrote me that release, 
 you 
 
 " Ah yes, you say one thing, I say another. 
 Well, what is the use ? Providence wished it 
 so," he interrupted. " But why does he not 
 content us with onr lot when he breaks down 
 our most dearly cherished hopes? I wanted 
 nothing bu twhat was worthy and good." 
 
 Urania essayed no reply to a line of reason- 
 ing such as has probably been indulged in at 
 some time by all of us. 
 
 " However, I have a plan," extending his 
 hand with a certain briskness, " I am going 
 away." 
 
 "Where will you go?"
 
 206 NEAR THE ROSE. 
 
 " To America." 
 
 " You will not go to those desolate wilds," 
 expostulated Urania, starting in genuine sym- 
 pathy and horror. " You will not face an 
 inclement climate, ferocious animals, the sav- 
 age red men of Fenimore Cooper, at your age? 
 How can there be any need of any thing so 
 dreadful?" 
 
 "What difference can it make?" he replied, 
 as with a sneer for his own luckless fate. " I 
 shall not lack money ; my savings have notably 
 accamulated during my hermit life. It is very 
 faraway, that is the main consideration, and 
 there at last perhaps I shall forget. I will live 
 with my illusions, the children of my heart, in 
 a realm of shadows. I wanted but one thing 
 in this world, one face, one form, and, failing 
 that, nothing could satisfy me. All the years 
 of my life I have tried, and it is now too late to 
 hope to succeed." 
 
 "Why do you say that? Did you not court 
 Olympia, Yessamina, Thekla, Calypso every 
 one of my sisters as well ? " 
 
 He looked at her with a singular gaze, 
 mournful but penetrated with the old fire.
 
 NEAR THE ROSE. 207 
 
 " I cast them out of my heart " he dashed 
 his hand away from his breast, as if actually 
 doing so " they never had any real hold there. 
 But you always remained ; you know it very 
 well, Urania Panjiri. I saw only you in them 
 as I can now see them faintly in you. At a 
 certain age there was always one who ap- 
 proached you so nearly that I could imagine 
 I saw your reflection in a dim mirror. But not 
 one of them all ever equaled you nor ever can ; 
 you are peerless ; you are still the most queenly, 
 the loveliest of them all." 
 
 This was not quite true, for age had begun 
 to tell upon Urania, but so flattering a view, 
 even if misguided, was none the less pleasant 
 to hear. 
 
 " Why do you think I have haunted you all 
 these long years? Why did they please my 
 fancy?" the lover went on. "You know the 
 old saying, ' If one can not have the rose, it 
 is pleasant to be near it.' That is the reason." 
 
 Urania remained silent, but continued to 
 look at him with a very relenting air. A little 
 while after this she said : 
 
 " Do not go to America ! I will tell you
 
 208 NEAR THE ROSE. 
 
 something, though my sisters, when they hear 
 it, may think it strange. I did my duty well 
 by Agob Oglou. Since you still find me 
 beautiful, I still think you young and brave. 
 We have even yet all the world before us."
 
 BETWIXT AND BETWEEN. 
 
 WHEN Lieutenant Sturgeon, of the Elev- 
 enth cavalry, had settled down after a 
 brief acquaintance into a warm admirer of 
 Miss Edith Elbridge and intended to ask her 
 hand in marriage, he became aware that Mr. 
 J. Applegate Crump was a very interfering 
 sort of person. 
 
 Applegate Crump, on the other hand, tired 
 of his fashionable bachelorhood and determined 
 to marry a debutante of the last season, who 
 was the most beautiful, wealthy, and highly 
 connected of them all, found a stalwart lieu- 
 tenant, from Fort Schuyler very square in 
 the shoulders, and effusively over-gallant, after 
 the manner of some army men obtruding very 
 much into his plans and opportunities. 
 
 Lieutenant Sturgeon had met her first at 
 one of the lawn-parties near Pelham to which
 
 210 BETWIXT AND BETWEEN. 
 
 some of the officers often came over possibly 
 at that pleasant spot for out-of-door diversions, 
 the Country Club. As to Applegate Crump, 
 he had always known her, as' he always knew 
 everybody of social distinction. 
 
 Applegate Crump was small and dapper, a 
 broker in Wall Street, and his name was one of 
 those said to be kept in newspaper offices in 
 lists scissored off in suitable lengths as occa- 
 sion requires. There could be no mistake in 
 this, for if he was not at the particular place 
 mentioned he ought to have been, and so it 
 was all right. And now he had decided to 
 become a family man, and have a rich and 
 beautiful wife. He had been discreet about it, 
 disguised it from the public, and only let it out 
 by little and little, as it were, even to himself. 
 
 Lieutenant Sturgeon had resolved to make 
 his proposal this very night. When I say 
 " this very night," in such a way for the dash- 
 ing lieutenant communicates something of his 
 own impetuosity to the writer I mean the last 
 cotillon of the " Small and Early " at Delmon- 
 ico's. It was after Lent, and probably, too, the 
 final ball of the season. New York would soon
 
 BETWIXT AND BETWEEN. 211 
 
 seek new methods of amusing itself. The S. 
 and E. was really both numerous and late vciy 
 fashionable, as a matter of course. Among the 
 guests were Lord Stuff, Sir Peddlington Stare, 
 the Marquis de Babille, and all the other trav- 
 eling foreigners of note who were in town at 
 the time. The rooms were handsomely set off 
 with tapestries, statuary, banks and festoons of 
 flowers, and wax tapers in the chandeliers. 
 
 By an odd coincidence, Applegate Crump 
 had resolved to propose to Miss Elbridge that 
 evening also. And yet, there is nothing so 
 strange about the coincidence, for she was an 
 attractive girl to whom it is supposable a great 
 many men might want to propose on the same 
 evening. 
 
 On this occasion she was fair and radiant 
 beyond words. When she stood against the 
 fine tapestry draping the music gallery of the 
 Hungarian band Lander's occupied the other 
 she seemed like one of its own ideal figures, 
 in the enchanted wood, only far lovelier. It was 
 usual to say of her that she " looked like some- 
 body in particular," which meant that she had 
 distinction. She was easy, natural, not for-
 
 212 BETWIXT Ai\D BETWEEN. 
 
 ward, but with the manner of one who had 
 never been forced to bow to superiors. Her 
 married sister almost equally fair under 
 whose protection she \vas, had made the great 
 match with Van Red Hook Corlaer, just before. 
 The beautiful heads of the two, seen together 
 in profile, had an exquisite, cameo-like effect. 
 The white neck of the elder sister inclined un- 
 duly to plumpness. That of the younger, 
 amid its dainty laces, in the license accorded 
 by fashion, was of a girlish purity to inspire 
 poets and sculptors. 
 
 The two intending suitors had many inter- 
 ruptions, conflicted with each other, and with 
 others in turn, and it was late before their 
 desired opportunities came. A sensible young 
 friend of Edith Elbridge wondered to her how 
 she could w r aste so much time on this pair. 
 But she was independent, had her whims, took 
 neither of them seriously, and they had amused 
 her though the indications decidedly were 
 that this whim was waning. 
 
 The lieutenant brought his shoulders pre- 
 pared for conquest. It was Edith who said 
 of these shoulders, that he carried them
 
 BETWIXT AND BETWEEN. 213 
 
 around as if they belonged to somebody 
 else. 
 
 " I am a man who goes straight to the 
 point, Miss Elbridge," he began. "We rough 
 soldiers are like that. When there's a bat- 
 tery to be charged, we " 
 
 " Oh, do tell me about charging a battery; 
 what is it like ? " she interrupted. Whether 
 she suspected his drift or not, she persisted 
 in leading the conversation into other 
 channels. 
 
 " It's nothing at all to facing your bright 
 eyes. You're a regular dead shot, you know. 
 A glance, a smile, and over a man goes, riddled 
 through the heart." 
 
 " Do you know what I often think your 
 heart is like, Lieutenant?" 
 
 " No, I don't, really." 
 
 " Made in compartments, like the ocean 
 steamers. If a few of them are broken, the 
 rest of them are all right, and the ship goes on 
 as well as ever." 
 
 " Oh, I assure you you are the only one 
 you " he protested, mopping his brow. 
 
 He began to have the air of charging a bat-
 
 214 BETWIXT AND BETWEEN. 
 
 tery himself, or, rather, one of those squares of 
 light infantry that resist assault on every side. 
 He squared his martial shoulders to the front, 
 to the right, to the left, as seeking new points 
 of attack. 
 
 " Do you know I have never heard a battle 
 described to me. I want to hear all the par- 
 ticulars," she went on. 
 
 " Well, we er don't have them much now 
 not in the army." 
 
 " But you have plenty of other hardships, of 
 course?" 
 
 " Why 'ho, I have influence at headquarters, 
 
 and generally get stationed at civilized places. 
 
 I like to be about town a good deal, you know. 
 
 That's one reason why I've been thinking it 
 
 would be easier for us in case you " 
 
 "No active service? No real hardship?" 
 arching her brows in surprise. 
 
 " Oh, as to hardships, there's the Mount 
 Vernon Barracks, down on the Alabama River: 
 I put up with a few months of that once. 
 There's a station. Talk about war! It's in 
 the heart of the pine woods, three miles from a 
 boat landing twelve miles from anywhere. '
 
 BETWIXT AND BETWEEN. 215 
 
 " What is called a fine strategic position, J 
 suppose." 
 
 " I don't seem to er er " 
 
 "An enemy couldn't get your address, you 
 know. You would be perfectly safe there." 
 
 With this she cut her way through the cav- 
 alry for the time being, and made her escape. 
 The doughty lieutenant, dissatisfied with his 
 opening movement, carried his shoulders across 
 the room, and withdrew to the Caf6, below, 
 to seek some stronger inspiration than was to 
 be had above for a renewed and more strenu- 
 ous attack. 
 
 Next advanced J. Applegate Crump, with 
 his proposal cut and dried. But lead up to his 
 subject as he would, all his diplomatic ap- 
 proaches beginning with the Easter weddings 
 and the like were of no avail. He too 
 was repulsed, but returned before the more 
 slowly moving lieutenant, and secured a new 
 opportunity. 
 
 " For some dreary time past," he now began, 
 " all my pleasures and pursuits pall upon me ; 
 my appetite fails : my sleep is broken. One 
 engrossing thought occupies my mind
 
 216 BETWIXT AND BETWEEN. 
 
 " It is ' spring fever,' I know. But summer 
 is approaching. Perhaps the coaching-parade 
 will cure you." 
 
 " No, a hundred coaching-parades could not 
 cure me. By the way, you'll be going out 
 with us as usual ?" 
 
 " I shall do nothing of the sort. I consider 
 it very bad style. The same women who get 
 upon the drags to be stared at by all New 
 York, pretend to be indignant if a reporter 
 describes their dresses at a party. It's too 
 much like a circus for me." 
 
 " But you went last year you never found 
 any fault before, you know," gasped Mr. J. 
 Applegate Crump. 
 
 " Dont quote to me what I did last year, 
 or last month, or last week, for that matter. I 
 am not to be governed by my last year's. I 
 should think you would know it by this time. 
 Nothing is more tiresome As if there were 
 nothing new in the world." 
 
 A strange young man, but rarely seen in this 
 circle, had been, for some time, following her 
 about with his eyes, and his presence possibly 
 had a disturbing effect on her conversation.
 
 BETWIXT AND BETWEEN. 217 
 
 " But you'll go up to the Country Club with 
 us, on Decoration Day. A large party. All 
 the young society beauties are to be there.'' 
 
 " I have not the least claim on that score. 
 No, I shall stay in town to see the procession. 
 The military are splendid. I love brass but- 
 tons, bayonets flashing, and banners waving." 
 
 ' But society doesn't stay in town. It isn't 
 a-a-expected, you know. And if we pillars of 
 society don't stand by each other " expostu- 
 lated Mr. Crump in alarm. He began to fear 
 that her ideas were almost too heterodox to 
 base any substantial future upon. 
 
 " I often think I never want to hear the 
 word society again." 
 
 " You say such jolly severe things, ha, ha ! " 
 laughed the other. " Well, I don't mind that, 
 because I do the same thing myself." 
 
 His severities were about as formidable as 
 " Good morning," or " It's a fine day." 
 
 The strange young man above-mentioned 
 now stood directly opposite, by a doorway, 
 gazing across with an air of keen wistfulness 
 mingled with moody reproach. The Lieuten- 
 ant came back, exuberantly ready for victory.
 
 218 BETWIXT AND BETWEEN. 
 
 Miss Elbridge despatched him and Applegate 
 Crump on specious messages. She made them 
 search for her gloves and her fan, and then 
 bring glasses of water in turn like buckets from 
 a well. The young man at the doorway at last 
 began to realize that room was being made 
 beside her, for himself. 
 
 " You do not approve of me, Mr. Knowlton," 
 she said to him as he joined her. 
 
 " I can't deny it, though I had not expected 
 to say it to you in person." 
 
 " And may one ask why you condescend to 
 honor our poor ball? Your disdain of all such 
 matters is well known." 
 
 "To tell the truth, I couldn't sleep. The 
 booming of the carriages about Delmonico's 
 and all the noises of the night often disturb me 
 over here at my lodging close by but to- 
 night they seemed worse than usual. All at 
 once I remembered that you were at this ball, 
 "and I gave myself up to the luxury of thinking 
 of you. Then, sleep was indeed impossible ; I 
 grew more and more wakeful, and finally got tp 
 and dressed and came over to the Cafe, below, 
 to continue my reflections more comfortably."
 
 BETWIXT AND BETWEEN. 219 
 
 " Not a very practical proceeding for a 
 young man who has to get up so early in the 
 the morning as you tell me you have, to make 
 his way in the world. But how do you happen 
 to be here ? " 
 
 " I happened to have an invitation sent me, 
 by a patron who thought I would be apprecia- 
 tive. He no doubt meant to eke out with it 
 the smallness of his fee. I had not really 
 thought of using it, till 1 heard some men in 
 the Caf6 discussing you." 
 
 "What men could they have been?" 
 
 He indicated with his eyes the two just now 
 again approaching. " It was the military one 
 that principally bragged about you and toasted 
 you," he said. 
 
 " Oh, the Lieutenant. Did you ever see more 
 delightfully broad shoulders ? " 
 
 " No, nor heard half a dozen much broader 
 stories than he told. I would not have be- 
 lieved they could even know you, and now I 
 come here and find them and their like appar- 
 ently in more favor than anybody else. How 
 can you have any possible patience with such 
 people? What have you been saying to them,
 
 220 BETWIXT AND BETWEEN. 
 
 for instance, all this time that I have been 
 looking on? " 
 
 " I was inculcating upon them your favorite 
 morality, railing at society, scoffing at Anglo- 
 mania and the coaching parade, I assure you 
 I was. I told them we were flies in amber, not 
 half worthy of our costly environment. Oh, I 
 am a great apostle of your doctrines when you 
 are not by. You should have heard me." 
 
 " How sorry I am I came ! " he responded 
 mournfully, as if her graceless levity made the 
 case quite hopeless. " I have always put you 
 on such a lofty pedestal, you have been to me 
 something sacred and holy. I wanted to come 
 and have a glimpse of you in your own manner 
 of life, to which all my own is so much unlike. 
 I felt that you always chose in it the worthiest 
 part, that most in keeping with yourself, and 
 that no doubt much was forced upon you only 
 by the necessities of your position. And now 
 ah, these men! these imbeciles!" And he 
 broke off abruptly and ground his teeth. 
 
 " They do not scold me ; they do not say un- 
 complimentary things," affecting to pout in a 
 childish way.
 
 BETWIXT AND BETWEEN. 221 
 
 "What do they say if it be worth while 
 asking ? " he demanded grimly. 
 
 " They tell me a battery is less formidable 
 than my bright eyes, that my mouth is too small 
 to pronounce three-syllable words, that I " 
 
 An open snort of disdain interrupted this 
 trying response, and he was preparing to take 
 his leave. 
 
 "Are you never coming to see me any more, 
 at five o'clock tea ? " demanded the pretty girl 
 with a half-repentant air ; " I really miss you." 
 
 Foster Knowlton yielded, upon this, to a 
 new revulsion of feeling. Here he had come 
 thundering, like another John Knox, to 
 destroy the idols of the winsome frivolous 
 queen, and she showed no resentment but even 
 submitted with a sort of meekness. 
 
 "Oh, pardon this wild, utterly unwarrantable 
 talk!" he exclaimed. "/ indeed to find 
 fault with, to say uncomplimentary things to 
 you whom I revere, before whom I hold my 
 very breath with admiration. You are so 
 beautiful you must be good, no matter what 
 you may seem to say, no matter what you may 
 seem to do."
 
 222 BETWIXT AND BETWEEN. 
 
 " Ah ! you are the worst flatterer of all," 
 she returned with a seraphic smile. 
 
 Foster Knowlton was a young landscape- 
 gardener, of the scientific sort. He had come 
 to her father's place at Pelham to supervise 
 some improvements for an important firm of 
 which he was an employe. It happened during 
 one of his visits that Miss Edith Elbridge 
 thanks to a French heel and a polished oaken 
 floor had met with a Potts' fracture of the 
 ankle. There was nobody in the house at the 
 time but women-folk, and he was forced to 
 carry her up-stairs to her room. He said to 
 himself that this close contact with her dainty 
 form would do him no good. He did not 
 appreciate it so much in the agitation and sym- 
 pathy of the moment, but it made his heart 
 beat so continuously with thinking of it after- 
 wards, he feared a chronic affection of that 
 organ. 
 
 The acquaintance thus begun went on to 
 warm intimacy. It was confined in a peculiar 
 way to themselves, for Knowlton had little part 
 in her circle. He boldly said amusing and 
 disparaging things of it. She, on her side,
 
 BETWIXT AND BETWEEN. 223 
 
 argued with him that he must cultivate the 
 world more, for his own interest. The young 
 landscape-gardener became a half Mentor to 
 her, an uncommon sort of friend, quite outside 
 the usual routine. He fell extremely in love 
 with her, and then, feeling that he had so little 
 to give and so much to gain in such a match, 
 had heroically kept away and seldom saw her. 
 
 The visit of this third person, to whom they 
 would never have thought of giving serious 
 attention, had consequences the other two 
 aspirants could little have foreseen. He re- 
 vived in Miss Elbridge an impatience 
 often indulged in with the nonentities and 
 incompetents of her prosperous set, who had 
 everything in the world in their favor and 
 so little to show for it. She could have morally 
 taken them by the throat, like a female Jack 
 Sheppard, and made them disgorge their unused 
 possessions for the benefit of their betters. 
 
 She became particularly short with the 
 military man and the society beau. They 
 bored her greatly, and in her anxiety to get rid 
 of them led each of them into a most astonish- 
 ing mistake,
 
 224 BETWIXT AND BETWEEN, 
 
 Applegate Crump had made some dis- 
 paraging remarks on the military, particularly 
 at the expense of the Lieutenant, who by 
 reason partly of his great responsibility to 
 his shoulders was certainly not a dancer of 
 merit. 
 
 "I dote upon the army, Mr. Crump," re- 
 sponded the lady wilfully. " You are wrong in 
 aspersing a body which, being our country's 
 shield, has too little time, perhaps, for all the 
 petty accomplishments of civil life." 
 
 "You refer to the a a the profession, not 
 to any individual, I trust?" 
 
 " The profession, decidedly. I refer to hero- 
 ism, great sieges, battle, murder, and sudden 
 death. You are such a languid, conventional 
 sort of person, Mr. Crump." 
 
 "I languid ? I oh, I assure you you should 
 see me at the Stock Exchange. I may be 
 calm on the surface, but underneath I'm a per- 
 fect volcano. I am, really." 
 
 " And all for a little more money to spen : 
 in the idlest ways. When people have got 
 money enough, why do they not turn to higher 
 things?"
 
 BETWIXT AND BETWEEN. 225 
 
 " Oh, I a assure you I don't get so very 
 much," explained the broker, half paralyzed 
 by this unexpected turn. 
 
 He went away full of a new, agitating idea. 
 It suddenly popped into his head that if he 
 were only in another profession he should suc- 
 ceed with her easily. Why did she tolerate 
 that clumsy Lieutenant Sturgeon ? Clearly only 
 because he was in the army. She had as good 
 as declared she would never marry but in the 
 army. 
 
 "Well, why not?" said Crump. "My 
 uncle, on the maternal side, is Secretary of 
 War, and the thing is feasible enough. And 
 Wall Street has been so dull ever since Gar- 
 field's death, the grass is nearly growing there ; 
 one is better out of than in it." 
 
 Sturgeon, on the other hand, might be de- 
 scribed as a volcano on the surface and calm 
 beneath. A habit of falling in love with every 
 pretty face had left him emotions of but little 
 depth and slight possibilities of pain. Never- 
 theless they were energetic while they lasted, 
 and he was highly in earnest at present. 
 
 It was the caprice of Miss Elbridge with
 
 226 BETWIXT AND BETWEEN. 
 
 him to look very differently at the army. She 
 celebrated the victories of peace. ' It is the 
 age of commerce and the arts," she said. " I 
 can't get over the silliness and wickedness' of 
 great strong men cutting one another's throats 
 at this time of day." 
 
 " Maybe you'd like me better if I were in 
 some other kind of profession ?" 
 
 " I know what I don't like, at any rate," she 
 replied, in a non-committal way. 
 
 " Something in stocks and the dancing- 
 school line?" suggested the warrior vindic- 
 tively, catching sight of Crump. " And you 
 wouldn't be a soldier's bride ? " 
 
 " Oh dear no, not a soldier s bride, no, in- 
 deed." 
 
 There certainly seemed to Sturgeon an entic- 
 ing stress on the word " soldier's," and a start- 
 ling thought sprang up in his brain. 
 
 " There's an Indian war coming on in which 
 all my family influence may not be able to save 
 me from having to take part," said he. "And 
 there's the danger of Mount Vernon Barracks 
 again. And there's always the dull routine. 
 Suppose I beat my sword into a ploughshare,
 
 BETWIXT AND BETWEEN. 227 
 
 my spear into a pruning-hook, and take to civil 
 life?" 
 
 He went away ruminating profoundly. 
 
 Sturgeon and Crump met at the same club, 
 scowled at each other, looked at each other 
 with glances of veiled meaning, each wrote a 
 multitude of letters, and not long before 
 Decoration Day both were summoned by busi- 
 ness, at a slight interval apart, to Washington. 
 ****** 
 
 The formal parade of Decoration Day was 
 over. Fifth Avenue and Broadway were free 
 again of the swaying bayonets, the heavy guns, 
 the trim Seventh, the fighting Sixty-ninth, the 
 veterans with their tattered banners, and the 
 wagon-loads of flowers following behind for 
 the decoration of the graves in the cemeteries. 
 Edith Elbridge and Foster Knowlton sat in 
 the parlor of a Norman Shaw mansion on the 
 Avenue, its rich interior, in the latest modern 
 taste, forming a background for two very 
 comely figures. 
 
 The girl had a certain gratified sort of look 
 and rosy color : something momentous had 
 evidently just passed. The young man was
 
 228 BETWIXT AND BETWEEN. 
 
 utilizing his holiday to photograph some of the 
 house, it appeared, and had stayed to lunch. 
 
 A card was now brought in, bearing the in- 
 scription, " Mr. Sturgeon ! " 
 
 " Mr. Sturgeon ? Mr. Sturgeon ? I know of 
 no Mr. Sturgeon," commented Miss Edith. 
 
 Her companion sought the library across the 
 hall, to gather up his photographic traps and 
 leave her free. 
 
 It was Lieutenant Sturgeon that followed the 
 servant. He was dressed in a way intended 
 to denote extreme devotion to civil life. He 
 wore snuff-colored clothes ; had abandoned the 
 square carriage of his shoulders, and affected a 
 sort of book-keeper stoop or the air of a mer- 
 chant in feeble health. 
 
 " I have prepared a little surprise for you," 
 said he. " I have beaten my sword into a 
 ploughshare, my spear into a pruning-hook. 
 Will you accept the heart and hand of Peter 
 Sturgeon, member of the Stock Exchange ? " 
 
 "Lieutenant Sturgeon!" exclaimed Edith. 
 
 " Pardon ! Mr. Sturgeon of the Stock 
 Exchange. Office, No. 11 Wall Street all 
 orders promptly attended to."
 
 BE T WIX T A ND BE 1 WEEX. 229 
 
 " I don't know what this means, and I'm so 
 disappointed, Lieutenant, not to see you in 
 uniform. I thought all army men made it a 
 point to honor the day." 
 
 " Aha, ahem ! " carelessly. " Of course, when 
 I was in the army I wore my uniform, but 
 now it's a very different matter." 
 
 " And pray, how long since you left the 
 army ? " in strong surprise. 
 
 " A week ago I resigned from the Eleventh 
 Cavalry. Yesterday I secured my seat in the 
 Stock Board. Fortunately there was one for 
 sale just at the very moment I wanted it." 
 
 The servant brought in a new card. 
 
 " I have done this for your sake. I must have 
 a few moments' private talk with you," said 
 Sturgeon, hurriedly " I cannot see any other 
 visitors in this agitated state," and he slipped 
 through the porttire into the back parlor. 
 
 A well-known figure again appeared. It 
 was Crump, in military costume, resplendent 
 in brass buttons, a sword by his side, his shoul- 
 ders rigidly squared, his chest well-thrown out. 
 He moved only from the hips downward, salu- 
 ted, and struck the position of " stand at ease."
 
 230 BETWIXT AND BETWEEN. 
 
 "Ah, Mr. Crump," said Edith, genially. 
 " You at least are doing honor to the day. 
 But this surprise. And you were to be out of 
 town. I did not know before you were con- 
 nected with a militia regiment." 
 
 " Beg pardon ! it is no militia ; far from it. 
 May I refer you to my " 
 
 He extended, stiffly, his visiting card, since 
 she had not grasped the detail of the first ; she 
 read : " Lieutenant J. Applegate Crump, Elev- 
 enth Cavalry." 
 
 " What is this masquerade ? " 
 
 " Masquerade ? not at all. It's the card 
 proper to the army; all military men have it." 
 
 " And pray how long have you been in the 
 army ? " she inquired, bewilderment mingling 
 with her surprise and amusement. 
 
 " My commission arrived only late last night, 
 I am sorry to say, or I should have appeared 
 before you earlier. Still, this was the first day 
 on which I could have come in my uniform. 
 How do you like it, by the way?" 
 
 He turned about, lifting both arms. 
 
 " You are too splendid ; one really ought to 
 look at you through smoked glass."
 
 BETWIXT AND BETWEEN. 231 
 
 " My uncle, on the maternal side, who is 
 secretary of war, made it all right for me. 
 Fortunately there was a commission vacant in 
 the Eleventh Cavalry just at the right moment. 
 Now that all objections are removed " 
 
 " This is a gross imitation of me, sir! " cried 
 the ex-lieutenant Sturgeon, bursting into the 
 room. "This is a deliberate parody. I call 
 you to account for it." 
 
 " Parody, sir ? What do you mean, sir ? " 
 demanded Crump, fuming equally. 
 
 " I changed my profession in life, at the 
 request of this lady whose wish is my only 
 law. I have enlisted for the victories of peace, 
 put myself in unison as every sensible person 
 should with the age of progress, of commerce 
 and the arts. And now you presume to 
 
 " I call it rather a paltry imitation of me," 
 cut in the other. " At the desire of this young 
 lady, I have turned to heroism, great ideas, 
 battle, murder and sudden death, and I shall 
 allow no reflections upon my conduct by you, 
 Lieutenant Sturgeon." 
 
 " Don't ' lieutenant' me, Mr. Crump! Peter 
 Sturgeon, Civilian, of the Stock Exchange and
 
 232 BETWIXT AND BETWEEN. 
 
 No. 1 1 Wall Street. You will do well not to 
 let the fact escape your attention." 
 
 "And don't ' Mr.' me, Peter Sturgeon, Civ- 
 ilian. Recollect, unequivocally, that / am 
 Lieutenant Crump, of the Eleventh Cavalry ! " 
 
 " Heavens, the very commission I resigned ! 
 Who could have imagined you would 
 get it ? " 
 
 "And I now recall it was a Sturgeon to 
 whom my seat in the Stock Board was sold. 
 Who would have dreamed that you could have 
 bought it ?" 
 
 " I can only call this a most extraordinary 
 coincidence, sir," cried Sturgeon, blustering 
 hotly. 
 
 " I catch your meaning, sir. It is a coinci- 
 dence; I do not deny it," cried Crump, bluster- 
 ing in return as much as he dared to one of 
 such superior size and strength. 
 
 " Gentlemen, do not quarrel, I beg of you : 
 it is not worth while ; it is not really," appealed 
 Edith, some alarm mingling with her mirth at 
 their eccentric conduct. " Mr. Knowles, will 
 you come here a moment ? " 
 
 Knowles entered. She flew to this new-
 
 BETWIXT AND BETWEEN. 233 
 
 comer with an air of joyous relief, led him for- 
 ward by the hand, and said : 
 
 " Gentlemen, allow me to present to you my 
 future husband." 
 
 " Do you mean to say " gasped Sturgeon, 
 in the first instant of wild consternation. 
 
 " Do I understand you to mean ' gasped 
 J. Applegate Crump, equally agitated. 
 
 " Will you go back on a man who beat his 
 sword into a ploughshare ? who gave up the 
 gallant, dashing Eleventh Cavalry to become a 
 member of a one-horse Stock Exchange?" 
 
 " Do you mean to say you go back on one 
 who for your sake has become his country's 
 shield, dismissed the abject pursuit of money- 
 getting and all the petty accomplishments of 
 civil life?" 
 
 Foster Knowles took a pace or two forward. 
 He did not speak, but a good deal seemed 
 gathering in his eye. 
 
 The two disappointed suitors looked at each 
 other aghast. 
 
 " Crump, old man ? " suddenly exclaimed 
 Sturgeon. 
 
 " Sturgeon, old boy ? " responded Crump.
 
 234 BETWIXT AND BETWEEN. 
 
 They shook hands in that hasty way as if 
 they did not know exactly what they were 
 doing, and they withdrew in company. 
 
 " And I," said the young landscape-gardener 
 to Edith, "who shine neither in the army nor 
 finance and society, and only appear betwixt 
 and between these distinguished claimants 
 you can overlook all that and still be satisfied 
 with me? " 
 
 "Yes, for this once," she replied with a smile 
 of the sweetest indulgence, " but don't let it 
 happen again."
 
 M 
 
 A CHRISTMAS CRIME. 
 
 ISS DE GILBERT was a stately-looking 
 girl, in a soft white gown, with a scarf of 
 the same material tied lightly about her shoul- 
 ders. There was a sort of Marie Antoinette 
 suggestion in her aspect, and also, as it were, 
 the shadow of a brooding sorrow hanging over 
 her. 
 
 She was from somewhere or other we 
 haven't always time in this busy world of ours 
 to find out where everybody is from. There 
 was a general impression that she had lately 
 come back from abroad. She was visiting in 
 town. She was a friend of our hostess, Mrs. 
 Grambold, or had been particularly recom- 
 mended to her, and that lively young matron 
 had invited her for this dinner. People came 
 rather late ; and Mrs. Grambold busy with 
 about a hundred things at once, as was her usual
 
 236 A CHRISTMAS CRIME. 
 
 custom, was not able to tell much about this 
 guest in advance, either. 
 
 Mr. Grassletree, who took Miss de Gilbert 
 in, was particularly impressed by her. In- 
 deed, he induced the hostess to change the 
 arrangement already made, and give her to 
 him. Towards him, on the contrary, she 
 showed as much asperity as politeness permit- 
 ted. If he drew from her an occasional rare 
 pale smile, it was only by the exertion of his 
 utmost powers of entertaining. 
 
 Who was Mr. Grassletree? Oh, Grassletree 
 was a kind of law unto himself. He was one 
 of those persons such as we meet with in our 
 journeys about the Club end of town. In 
 short, Grassletree was Grassletree. 
 
 It was Christmas Eve. After dinner a 
 couple of standard young banjo players of 
 North America gave some selections, Miss 
 Amy Goboy, of the Amateur Comedy Com- 
 pany, recited a sweet thing or two. and then 
 we settled down upon the floor to tell ghost 
 stories. We spread out a lot of cushions com- 
 fortably all around, and in the midst set a 
 large tin pan, containing a plate in which
 
 A CHRISTMAS CRIME. 237 
 
 burned a mixture of salt and alcohol. This 
 cast a pale flickering light over all the faces 
 and gave the proper weird and ghastly effect. 
 In spite of this, however, the ghost stories 
 rather languished. 
 
 Mr. Grassletree now all at once drew a heavy 
 sigh keeping Miss Ernestine de Gilbert, it 
 might be noted, well under observation. 
 
 " Speaking of Christmas presents," said he 
 when nobody at all had been speaking of 
 Christmas presents " speaking of Christmas 
 presents, fellow-sufferers, I'd like to submit a 
 case to you." 
 
 " Anything up to a packing-case ; now is 
 your time ; there are stockings here that will 
 hold it." 
 
 " Speak for yourself, Mr. Chinkerton," said 
 Mrs. Grambold. 
 
 " I thought it more magnanimous to speak 
 for Miss Goboy or Miss Ten Stroke." 
 
 Both those young ladies uttered shrill excla- 
 mations of protest and resentment at this au- 
 dacity. 
 
 " Now suppose a man had bought a present 
 for another man, and then yielded to the temp-
 
 238 A CHRISTMAS CRIME. 
 
 tation of keeping it himself?" went on Gras- 
 sletree. 
 
 " Mr. Grassletree has yielded to a tempta- 
 tion. I'm not surprised at it at all. I think 
 him quite capable of it," said Elsie Ten Stroke. 
 
 " Tell us all about it ! " clamored the com- 
 pany. 
 
 " Well, it's like this. You see before you 
 one who, whom which but let it pass ! 
 Despise me if you will, but hear me. I know 
 not why I speak to you of this now, but probably 
 because there comes to every conscience-bur- 
 dened criminal a moment when all considera- 
 tions of prudence must be laid aside." 
 
 " Oh, indeed ! " said Mrs. Grambold, and 
 she vivaciously threw at him a small sofa pil- 
 low that made a convenient missile. 
 
 " I bought the nicest thing I could think of 
 as a Christmas present for a friend, and then 
 couldn't bear to give it him. I robbed him, as 
 it were," he bowed his head, as in gloomy 
 remorse, upon his hand, " and I could never 
 look him in the face again." 
 
 " It was only between you and yourself, 
 wasn't it ? " asked Amy Goboy. " He never
 
 A CHRISTMAS CRIME. 239 
 
 knew it, and besides a person has a right to 
 change his mind." 
 
 " No that was the worst of it : there was glar- 
 ing testimony and proof. Witnesses could be 
 produced to show that I had actually bought 
 it for him." 
 
 " Well, it could be easily explained, and I 
 suppose nothing came of it ? " 
 
 " My dear friend was ruined, and the article 
 I had proposed to give him would have saved 
 him, that's all. I am the cause of all his 
 calamities." 
 
 " Will you stop your circumlocutions, and 
 goon?" demanded Mrs. Grambold, peremp- 
 torily. 
 
 " I used to see the article in the show-win- 
 dow, day after day, as I passed by. I thought 
 I could get it at any time, and so was in no 
 hurry. ' It's the very thing for old Fred,' I 
 used to say to myself and the others. ' It will 
 suit him to a " t ". Old Fred shall have it as 
 sure as my name is Sam Grassletree.' One day 
 it was missing and I had a regular panic ; but I 
 found it had only been taken out of the window 
 \o be shined up a bit. That decided me ; I
 
 240 A CHRISTMAS CRIME. 
 
 bought it at once. Some poor devil of a me- 
 chanic had got it up for himself originally, and 
 it was the only one of the kind. There never 
 was a thing more exactly adapted to Fred's 
 case." 
 
 At the name of Fred, Miss de Gilbert, who 
 had sat hitherto in dignified silence, had visibly 
 started, and she began to pay close attention. 
 
 "What was it?" demanded a chorus of 
 voices. 
 
 " It was a most ingenious invention. I re- 
 turned to America with it about three weeks 
 afterwards." 
 
 " Do you want to drive us mad ? ' article,' 
 'thing, 'invention,' what was it?" 
 
 "What was it? It was an antol-aphobo-takis- 
 taferon ; that's what it was." 
 
 " Is that all of it ? " 
 
 " Do you get a commission ? " 
 
 " Shall we leave orders for it at the grocer's, 
 the stationer's, or the blacksmith's ? " 
 
 " Tell us instantly what you mean, and cease 
 this aggravating conduct." 
 
 " That's a part of it. It was a musical-early- 
 rising-without-alarm clock."
 
 A CHRISTMAS CRIME. 241 
 
 " Oh, indeed ! only an alarm clock ? " 
 " No, a without-a.la.rm clock. Instead of 
 springing at you in a ferocious way, as those 
 clocks usually do, like a kind of moral rattle- 
 snake, it began gently, soothingly, with soft 
 mellifluous notes, and gradually increased the 
 pressure, till you were thrilled all over with an 
 idea of the grandeur and glory of getting up 
 to breakfast, and going about your day's work. 
 I tell you what, when you had once known 
 the antolaphobotakistaferon, it was invaluable. 
 But, at first, I had hesitated between that and 
 a thlao-pil-akoustikon" 
 
 " Is that all of it, and would your friend have 
 liked that too?" 
 
 " He was an amateur of all curious contriv- 
 ances, and I'm sure he would." 
 
 "What was that curious contrivance ?" 
 " Oh, that was a combined crush hat and 
 acoustic fan. You could use it at the opera, 
 you know, or a concert, for bringing the sounds 
 nearer. And it might serve to fill up a gap in 
 the conversation now and then." 
 "Or a gap in one's information." 
 " Even this would have saved him from much
 
 242 A CHRISTMAS CRIME. 
 
 of the misery into which he fell. Ah ! I was 
 Fred Bradstock's worst enemy. Imagine the 
 feelings with which I first met him after thus 
 purloining his property." 
 
 Miss Ernestine de Gilbert started now 
 indeed ; one would say she had some pecu- 
 liar interest in this name. 
 
 Mrs. Grambold endeavored, in the dark, to 
 kick the narrator warningly with her small foot, 
 but did not succeed in reaching him. 
 
 "If it's Fred Bradstock you mean," here put 
 in her husband, "you are not troubled with 
 confronting him very much of late. He's 
 been at the Antipodes, or somewhere near 
 it, for I don't know how long. He's in the 
 Bermudas now, I believe, with a yachting 
 party." 
 
 " Happily for me, yes," assented the nar- 
 rator, with a new access of mournfulness. 
 What I tell you of happened a good while ago. 
 We are judged by our intentions, and I felt 
 guilty before him, even from the first, though 
 I little suspected then what genuine cause I 
 was going to have for it." 
 
 A gasp merging into a disdainful sniff, or a
 
 A CHRISTMAS CRIME. 243 
 
 disdainful sniff merging into a gasp, came from 
 the direction of Miss de Gilbert. 
 
 " The worst burden on me was the witnesses, 
 who had known of my intentions. They all 
 returned to this country at once. I had to be 
 a whole corps of detectives in myself to keep 
 them and Fred apart. I paid the fare of one 
 of them to Florida, got another away on some 
 plausible pretext to Montreal, and let the third 
 into such a good thing in an interest of mine in 
 a Montana stock ranch, that he couldn't possi- 
 bly refuse to go there. 
 
 " Why not confess, if you felt so badly 
 about it, as you say ? " 
 
 " You do not know the antol-aphobo the 
 persuader, when you talk like that, Will you 
 believe that I, inheriting a nervous tempera- 
 ment, and almost constitutionally incapable of 
 sleeping after seven in the morning, actually 
 cultivated the habit of taking opiates, to enjoy 
 as much as possible the delightful sensation of 
 being waked up by the antol-aphabo-takista- 
 feron" 
 
 " Are all your long names strictly neces- 
 sary ? " demanded Miss Amy Goboy, suspic-
 
 244 A CHRISTMAS CRIME. 
 
 iously, "are they really the names of the 
 things ? " 
 
 " They strike me as very good names for the 
 things, and I give them for what they are 
 worth. You see the case of Fred was peculiar. 
 On the one hand, he had some heart trouble, 
 and couldn't be called by any of the existing 
 alarm clocks, because the rattling metallic 
 things might have scared him into an untimely 
 grave. On the other hand, he needed some 
 assistance, for he could not be depended upon 
 to wake up on his own account. Out of these 
 conditions developed the possibility for evil in 
 my duplicity, in all its glaring horror." 
 
 Charlie Chinkerton, a versatile genius, had 
 placed himself at the piano and was playing a 
 slow accompaniment to the narrative. At the 
 last words he struck two or three chords of 
 heavily ominous import. 
 
 " I began to trace constantly in Fred's 
 record the baneful influence of my theft- 
 There was the case, for instance, where he lost 
 the grizzly, in California. His guide inadver- 
 tently failed to call him, and the hunt was up 
 and away three hours before he put in an
 
 A CHRISTMAS CRIME. 245 
 
 appearance. It was a stuffed grizzly, it is true, 
 but if he had been there he would have known 
 it and saved the reputation of the party, for he 
 had been taken in once with a stuffed deer, in 
 the Adirondacks." 
 
 " Grassletree, you are up to something in all 
 this," said our hostess ; " I don't know what it 
 is, but I think I ought to throw another sofa- 
 cushion at you." 
 
 And she proceeded to do so. 
 
 "You are too good," said the story-teller, 
 easily catching this ineffective missile. Then 
 he continued : 
 
 " The antol the musical-early-rising-without 
 alarm persuader would have saved him from 
 being left by the steam-launch at the ocean 
 yacht race ; it would have saved him from 
 being left at the great Rockaway steeple- 
 chases ; and, again, it would have saved him 
 from being late at his broker's office, the day 
 that K. G. & Q. stock jumped up twenty 
 points in an hour. I need not go over the list 
 of all the other appointments, whether of busi- 
 ness or pleasure, he disastrously missed, 
 through the same cause. But the really
 
 246 A CHRISTMAS CRIME. 
 
 tragic episode was the breaking off of his 
 engagement." 
 
 Chinkerton here struck a most discordant 
 crash upon the keys. 
 
 "This is really too much!" exclaimed the 
 hostess whether she meant Chinkerton at the 
 piano or some other circumstance. 
 
 Miss de Gilbert, who had shown signs of 
 extreme restlessness, for some time past, 
 attempted to rise from the improvised divan. 
 It was not so easy a matter, however, in the 
 toilette of the day, and before she had pro- 
 gressed far, Grassletree, continuing imperturb- 
 ably but more rapidly, had said : 
 
 " They say the girl he was engaged to was a 
 perfect fascinator, just too pretty for anything. 
 She was from somewhere out of town, Spuyten 
 Duyvil, Yonkers, Baltimore, or something that 
 way. She was rich." 
 
 A scoff of indignation from Miss de Gilbert, 
 engaged in her efforts to get up. 
 
 " Beautiful, refined, accomplished, most 
 charming in every way. She was, as I have 
 been told, all that the most ardent fancy could 
 paint, and I I you conceive the bitterness
 
 A CHRISTMAS CRIME. 247 
 
 of this avowal was the sole cause of the break- 
 ing of that engagement." 
 
 Miss de Gilbert settled back with a sigh upon 
 her cushions. Mrs. Grambold telegraphed 
 her reassuringly with eyes and lips : 
 
 " He does not know. I have not told any- 
 body." 
 
 It was apparent that Grassletree could not 
 be stopped. One thing was certain, that he 
 held the attention of the company particu- 
 larly that of its most perverse member very 
 fixedly. 
 
 " The union of those two admirable persons, 
 exactly suited to each other, was prevented by 
 the antolapho the musical-early-rising pro- 
 ducer. Once more poor Fred was missing at 
 the critical moment." 
 
 "The wedding?" 
 
 " No, but almost the next thing to it. His 
 fianctes heart had been set on having him 
 appear at a certain dinner to meet her rela- 
 tives and so on. He did not appear, and she 
 threw him over, and that was the end of it 
 all. But it was only the fault of not having 
 the missing machine, and not his own in the
 
 248 A CHRISTMAS CRIME. 
 
 least. I'll tell you all about it. One of the 
 peculiarities of Miss er of his affianced a 
 part of her charm, showing force and real 
 character, was that she was implacable, 
 unchanging as the laws of the Medes and 
 Persians. It is a delicate matter to touch 
 upon, and I don't pretend to fathom the subtle 
 mysteries of the female heart, but I have some- 
 how gathered that there was another girl at 
 the dinner, who flattered herself she might 
 have been a successful rival for Fred's affec- 
 tions, and it was thought he did not want to 
 see her so publicly. Of course, it is amply 
 demonstrated that there was nothing in this, 
 if only by the fact that Fred has never set eyes 
 upon that one since." 
 
 " But will you tell us what a musical alarm- 
 clock can have had to do with his being late 
 at dinner? You don't want us to believe he 
 slept all day, I suppose ? " 
 
 " It was in Philadelphia now I thirrk of 
 it, it was in Philadelphia. They dine there in 
 the middle of the day ; for all I know, it was 
 twelve o'clock, sharp." 
 
 " But even if it was, considering the occasion
 
 A CHRISTMAS CRIME. 249 
 
 and that he was visiting there expressly on her 
 account, he might have managed to get up by 
 noon at least once in his life." 
 
 " Oh, he did, he did ! I happen to know 
 that he did a lot of things that day, bright 
 and early. He went out to Bryn Mawr, and 
 attended the City Troop Races. He was on 
 the jump from morning till night." 
 
 " But then, self-contradictory person," cried 
 Mrs. Grambold, " what are you telling us ? 
 Why could he not have gone to the dinner as 
 well as elsewhere ? " 
 
 " He mistook the day, you know, that's the 
 point ; he thought it was another day." 
 
 " But, in the name of long-suffering patience, 
 what had your wretched alarm-clock to do with 
 his mistaking the day? " 
 
 " Oh, don't speak of it in that way," he pro- 
 tested tenderly. 
 
 " Well, your absurd alarm-clock, then ? " 
 
 " Pardon me, not an alarm-clock ; it was a 
 without-alarm clock. It was a musical-early- 
 rising " 
 
 " But what had that to do with his mistak- 
 ing the day? "
 
 250 A CHRISTMAS CRIME. 
 
 ' Oh, yes ; it had a calendar attachment ; 
 didn't I tell you about that ? or did I only 
 mention its self-lighting candle ? If he had 
 seen the calendar, you know, if he had seen 
 that index hand come round slowly, but inex- 
 orably, pointing out your Tuesdays, Wednes- 
 days, and Thursdays, no such dreadful error 
 could ever have arisen." 
 
 With this, the company began to break up. 
 While the preparations for departure were 
 going on, Mr. Grassletree and Miss Ernestine 
 de Gilbert gravitated together, casually, as it 
 were, and drew a little apart. 
 
 " How did you know who I was? " asked the 
 lady, with a languid, proud way of poising her 
 head. 
 
 " From the description. Yours were the 
 eyes, the hair, a certain stately carriage, I had 
 heard of, from Fred, too often to be forgotten. 
 There was a particular charming dimple near 
 the left corner of the mouth 
 
 " That will do on that score." 
 
 " When I discovered you here, I induced 
 Mrs. Grambold, by special request, to let me 
 take you in."
 
 ./ CHRISTMAS CRIME. 251 
 
 " Did you, indeed ! I half suspected it. 
 Well, I knew you, too. You were one of his 
 dissolute companions." 
 
 " Ha, ha ! " laughed her auditor with only 
 a rather hollow sort of mirth, however. 
 
 " Tell me," she continued, " was there a sin- 
 gle word of truth in all your ridiculous 
 story?" 
 
 " I really mean that there is that there was, 
 about such a clock. And I really mean that 
 Fred adores the very ground you walk on. He 
 is one of the most wretched men in two hemi- 
 spheres without you." 
 
 " There, that will do, also. Were you seri- 
 ous when you said that his health was not good, 
 that he was disposed to heart disease ? " 
 
 "Oho ! " reflected Grassletree, " so the wind 
 lies in that quarter ? She takes a little inter- 
 est, after all." 
 
 " I honestly think his heart is in no danger," 
 he said aloud, "except in so far as it may be 
 affected by his sufferings on your account." 
 
 " But you have given him such an absurd, 
 stupid character. He is not the indolent 
 person you represent him to be. He occupies
 
 252 A CHRISTMAS CRIME. 
 
 himself in a great many useful ways besides 
 in his sports. Go back and say something that 
 will set those people righl about him." 
 
 " It would hardly be necessary. I fear 
 those people are already in the habit of taking 
 Samuel Grassletree's utterances with some 
 grains of salt." 
 
 " Then what does this all mean ? " she asked, 
 infinitely puzzled. 
 
 " That ' I would give half I possess,' as the 
 novelists say, to bring you and my old young 
 friend, Frederick Bradstock, together again. 
 If, in the mean time, nothing has happened to 
 prevent it, why can it not be done? May I 
 venture to ask with infinite respect whether 
 anything has happened on your side ? " 
 
 "No," she replied diffidently, f* nothing." 
 
 " Then, as between two sensible and well- 
 disposed human beings, frankly, why can it 
 not be done? " 
 
 " No, no, it can not be done. I will not 
 hear of it, on any account. The fact is, he did 
 not ivant to go to that dinner from the first, 
 aud I had to try and make him. I knew I 
 must put my foot down in the beginning.
 
 A CHRISTMAS CRIME. 253 
 
 Now tell me the real reason why he stayed 
 away." 
 
 " I am sure you do not really think old Fred 
 would get up false ones to account for it," 
 expostulated his friend Grassletree. 
 
 " He has. never given any, except that he 
 forgot the day." 
 
 " Why not accept that one, then, by way 
 of a little variety ? It's gospel truth, I assure 
 you. Fred was in a strange town ; he had a 
 lot of things to do, and he's always something 
 of a dreamer, you know. Bless you, what's 
 the harm in a little absent-mindedness? The 
 greatest men have been troubled that way. 
 Look at me : I left my best umbrella in the 
 omnibus this very morning ! All Fred Brad- 
 stock needs, my dear Miss de Gilbert, is an ac- 
 complished wife. With just the right kind of 
 wife, to infuse her own method and precision, 
 into shall we say his madness ? he'd be a 
 model of models in every particular." 
 
 " I dare say," rejoined his hearer, dryly. 
 " Let us hope he may get such a one." 
 
 " I have seen him knock his head against 
 the wall, on account of his conduct, a dozen
 
 254 A* CHRISTMAS CRIME. 
 
 times. ' It was so uncomplimentary to her,' 
 he says, ' it can't be explained. She treated 
 me just as I deserved ; she couldn't have done 
 otherwise." 
 
 " Of course I could not," assented Ernestine 
 de Gilbert, " but," flushing very much and 
 almost tearful, " why didn't he do something 
 further? He might have persisted ; he might 
 have kept on trying to explain." 
 
 " As I understand it, you would not see him, 
 and poor Fred was never glib with his pen. If 
 I am right, also, you returned some of his let- 
 te/s unopened. Am I right ? " 
 
 She lowered her head a trifle, as if in haughty 
 admission that this was so. But, somehow, the 
 shadow of a brooding sorrow did not seem to 
 hang over Miss de Gilbert half as much now as 
 formerly. 
 
 " Fred got it into his head, at last, that you 
 were glad the match was off, and that you liked 
 some one else better. On this wrong tack as 
 we now see it was he tried to brace up by de- 
 voting himself to other women, but it was all 
 no go. I happened to see it for myself, and I 
 tell you, there's not an unhappier man in
 
 A CHRISTMAS CRIME. 255 
 
 Christendom to-day than that same Fred Brad- 
 stock." 
 
 "You must go at once, and say something 
 before all those people to set him right," ex- 
 claimed his hearer, a little irrelevantly. 
 
 " Ladies and gentlemen ! " thereupon began 
 Grassletree, advancing in a sort of professional 
 way. " Ladies and gentlemen of the company ! 
 I wish to say that while driven by a reckless 
 despair to ease an overburdened conscience, I 
 may at the same time have seemed to depre- 
 ciate another person. Let me say that Fred 
 Bradstock is no inmate of the Castle of Indo- 
 lence, and that while all the claims of the 
 antol-aphobo-takistaferon remain as Represented 
 anybody has got to get up very early in the 
 morning, indeed, to catch him napping. I 
 seem to feel, too, a certain prophetic sense that 
 the end of his troubles may be near. I would 
 withdraw no essential statement, but I suggest 
 that all that part of the allegations relating to 
 Frederick Bradstock be stricken out, or con- 
 strued only in that Pickwickian sense so proper 
 to this genial East Thirty-fourth Street ob- 
 servance at this hospitable Christmas home,
 
 256 A CHRISTMAS CRIME. 
 
 that is, this home-like Christmas occasion, at 
 this observant, In short, I am thoroughly 
 convinced that, so far from needing adven- 
 titious aids, the more persons you sent to 
 waken Frederick Bradstock, the sounder he 
 would sleep ; whereas, the fewer and the 
 less" 
 
 "Don't make it worse," hastily whispered a 
 voice at his sleeve. 
 
 And the next moment she began hesita- 
 tingly, "Of course, if you say Fred is really 
 sorry " 
 
 In the very next mail there went to the 
 Bermudas a letter, in which Frederick Brad- 
 stock was assured that the chances of win- 
 ning back his old sweetheart were now most 
 promising. 
 
 "I told them all, after dinner," the letter 
 concluded, "a wild tale of a without-alarm 
 clock I had meant to give you. By hook and 
 by crook I've fixed it all up with her, and it's 
 rather a handsome piece of work on my part. 
 By the way, that clock isn't a bad one ; I'll 
 send you the maker's name. I dare say they 
 are in the market by this time. Miss de Gil-
 
 A CHRISTMAS CRIHE. 257 
 
 bert's yours, my boy. Come home and take 
 her and the blessing of 
 
 " SAMUEL GRASSLETREE." 
 
 At the very earliest moment, too, returned 
 an answer from the Bermudas. 
 
 "I'm coming home "Of course he is, 
 lucky young dog! Why shouldn't he? Of 
 course he is " interpolated Grassletree, com- 
 placently. "I'm I'm ' "bless me, what's 
 this? What's this?" "I'm on my wedding 
 trip. Married to a lovely girl I met in the 
 Islands. Affair been on some time, but you've 
 been so deuced off these last few years, no 
 chance to tell you about it. Comparisons are 
 odorous, but the de Gilbert well, the fact is, 
 the de Gilbert was a little inclined to be 
 domineering. Excuse short letter. Tell you 
 all about it when we meet." 
 
 Samuel Grassletree was not an accomplished 
 whistler, but, on this occasion, he whistled. 
 For an instant he raised his hand against the 
 without-alarm clock, as if to do it violent injury ; 
 but instead of yielding to this impulse, he took 
 it down from' the modest place it had occupied
 
 258 A CHRISTMAS CRIME. 
 
 in his bedroom, and placed it boldly on the 
 most conspicuous wall of his apartment. 
 
 After that, he sat down and reflected on the 
 divers characters of the persons who had heard 
 his story on Christmas Eve, and particularly on 
 certain positive traits in Miss de Gilbert. 
 
 He began to think he would take another 
 European trip.
 
 A DOMESTIC MENAGERIE. 
 
 A CANARY-BIRD, by the name of "Trill," 
 resided in a gilt wire cage in the window 
 of a dining-room facing north. I can not say 
 whether the bird had any other name or not. 
 If he had, of course it would have been Bar- 
 clay. Perhaps it would have been Trill W. 
 Barclay, or Trill Alexander Barclay, or some- 
 thing of that kind. At any rate, he belonged 
 to the Barclays, and was only being taken care 
 of temporarily by friends of theirs during the 
 absence of the Barclays in Europe. 
 
 This was a handsomely-furnished dining- 
 room, and pleasant enough, when a good fire 
 burned in the grate and not too much was ex- 
 pected from the weather without. At the 
 same time, it must have been rather discour- 
 aging to a bird thus thrown upon his own re- 
 sources, as it were, to have to sing in a window
 
 260 A DOMESTIC MENAGERIE. 
 
 opening to the north, where the sun never 
 came in. If you ask why he was not hung in 
 some other room then, I can not exactly tell 
 you, but no doubt there were good reasons. 
 For one thing the people couldn't help the 
 way their house faced, could they ? What is 
 certain is, that it was found most convenient to 
 hang the cage there on its first arrival, and 
 there it continued to remain. 
 
 The people in whose charge the bird was 
 thus placed were a young couple, not long 
 married. The house, of the " English base- 
 ment " pattern, was given the bride by her 
 father as a wedding-present. The pair were 
 persons who perhaps did not care so very much 
 for birds. A slight coolness arising from this 
 cause may have combined with the unfa- 
 miliar surroundings to increase the natural re- 
 serve of Trill, and detract from the excellence 
 of his music. The apparent mediocrity of his 
 talent, as thus influenced, again, may have 
 added somewhat further to his new guardians' 
 lack of interest. 
 
 A certain " Peter " brought Trill down from 
 the Barclays' when they went away, put up a
 
 A DOMESTIC MENAGERIE. 261 
 
 hook in the top of the window, and suspended 
 the cage to it by a brass chain. This Peter 
 was a peculiar old man of German or Scandi- 
 navian extraction who claimed to have been 
 once a sailor. He had his quarters in a poor 
 basement, on the door of which' he had put a 
 home-made sign running about as follows : 
 
 tAKiNg CARE of fURNisses, CaRyiNg in Cole 
 AND going OUT By dAys woRk doNE HERe. 
 
 He had come round at first as a mere beg- 
 gar. The lady of the house had charitably 
 given him clothes and food, then trusted him 
 with odd jobs, such as shaking carpets and 
 cleaning up the cellar, and had found him a 
 good, honest, well-meaning man, broken down 
 by misfortunes. She had by degrees given 
 him the regular occupation of looking after 
 the furnace and carrying coal to the upper 
 stories, to relieve a servant who grumbled a 
 great deal too much over these things. He 
 had managed to secure more work of the same 
 sort elsewhere, and had ended, as we have 
 seen, by making a profession of it.
 
 262 A DOMESTIC MENAGERIE. 
 
 The family consisted of the young couple, 
 whom we may designate here as the Man and 
 the Lady, with two servants, a cook and a 
 chambermaid. 
 
 The Man, when at leisure in the dining- 
 room, would often bestow very particular at- 
 tention upon a small collection of rare ceramics 
 he had there, on some bracket shelves in a cor- 
 ner. Trill's cage almost touched it, yet the Man 
 took no more notice of it or him on these oc- 
 casions than if he did not exist. 
 
 "A bird might be in Jericho, for all he 
 cares," I wish it to be supposed that Trill 
 reflected. The Man indeed? not he. He 
 would caressingly flick off a speck of impercep- 
 tible dust from a blue plate of the willow pat- 
 tern, give an affectionate pat to a Flemish 
 pitcher or a German beer-mug, change a Quim- 
 per mustard-pot for a Sevres cup and saucer, 
 or set a Chinese jar with raised figures in mosaic 
 where one of Italian majolica had been before; 
 and then he would stand back with half-closed 
 eyes and stare at the whole effect with keen 
 enjoyment. 
 
 " What does he get so much pleasure out
 
 A DOMESTIC MENAGERIE. 263 
 
 of?" let us suppose Trill still to reflect. 
 " Is it that pinky-faced girl in a crimson gown, 
 on the plate which forms the apex of the pyra- 
 mid ? Most likely it's she. She sits down, 
 does she? Her hair is ebony black, her eyes 
 are made with two whisks of a brush. Not to 
 speak of beauty she hasn't even an intelli- 
 gent look. She's highly insipid, if I know any 
 thing about it. That style of dress, too, may be 
 all very well for those who like it, but it's cer- 
 tainly no triumph of taste." 
 
 One day a fashionable little old lady came 
 into the room and, adjusting her eye-glass 
 upon that particular specimen, exclaimed to 
 the Man : 
 
 "That plate is three hundred years old at 
 least. That is the real. Oh, it is, you know ; 
 it is. You can tell it by the cracks and every- 
 thing." 
 
 The Man began to say something as if in 
 protest, but the little old lady was hard of 
 hearing, or else she had a way of walking right 
 over whatever he said, for she went on : 
 
 " It's immensely valuable ; immensely! Oh, 
 I am a great judge of such things."
 
 264 A DOMESTIC MENAGERIE. 
 
 Upon this the man desisted. Either he 
 could not make her listen, or may have 
 thought it a pity, since the fashionable little 
 old lady was such a great judge of such things, 
 to say anything to the contrary. 
 
 Now Trill may have meditated once more 
 as to this and then again, of course, he may 
 not, "Ah, three hundred years old, is she? 
 and I am but two and a half at most. Why 
 should I expect to be noticed ? " 
 
 The next day, when the Lady was cleaning 
 the cage and putting in fresh water and seed 
 as usual for, out of consideration to the Bar- 
 clays, she preferred to do this service herself 
 instead of leaving it to the maid the Man, 
 quite in keeping with his crabbedness from the 
 first, took occasion to remark: 
 
 " It seems to me that cage gives you a great 
 lot of trouble. When are those Barclays of 
 yours coming back, to take it off your hands? " 
 
 The Lady, who was a far more amiable per- 
 son, as anybody could see and probably much 
 too good for such a man replied that she really 
 did not mind it. The Barclays, she thought, 
 would return in the spring.
 
 A DOMESTIC MENAGEKIE. 265 
 
 "When little old Mrs. Methusaleh, your 
 aunt, was here waiting for you, yesterday," sa^d 
 the man, for so the talk went on, " she de- 
 clared that cheap Italian plate of mine at least 
 three hundred years old, and immensely valua- 
 ble. You remember my buying it last year at the 
 pottery in Vicenza a common little bit, with 
 some decorative effect but really no value 
 whatever. What an idiot she is ! If that's the 
 reputation a plate is going to get by being 
 smashed into a hundred pieces, perhaps we'd 
 better smash them all. However, that mustn't 
 be smashed anymore, though I found it a little 
 topply only yesterday. It's such a soft ware 
 that another fall would be the end of it, and 
 thengood-by, my sweetheart of Vicenza ! " 
 
 "Sweetheart of Vicenza? 'Common little 
 bit,' I should say so. And this is the sort of 
 thing, forsooth, a bird is sacrificed to ! Oh, 
 very well ! " 
 
 Another irritating circumstance on the part 
 of the family of the Man especially was the 
 interest taken in a certain Scotch terrier, 
 named Osman Pasha. To prefer an object like 
 that, again, to a canary, indicated some extreme
 
 266 A DOMESTIC MENAGERIE. 
 
 perversity of nature. The terrier had no shape 
 at all, and his frowsy hair overhung his small eyes 
 in such a way that you couldn't tell one end of 
 him from the other. Still, whoever could like 
 a soft ware " Vicenza sweetheart," in a brick- 
 red costume, was no doubt capable of liking an 
 Osman Pasha, or any other monstrosity, for 
 that matter. 
 
 This Osman Pasha had two pronounced 
 eccentricities. In the first place, he had a 
 chronic aversion to being washed. Notwith- 
 standing that the process was performed upon 
 him regularly every few days, familiarity never 
 reconciled him to it. The bare mention of it 
 would cause him to prick up his ears in alarm 
 and try to beat a retreat. If the purpose were 
 seriously entertained, if he were commanded, 
 for instance : " Come here, Osman, it is time to 
 be washed ! come, sir, you're going to be 
 washed ! " then indeed would he retire in earn- 
 est, beginning in a cringing way, casting back 
 furtive glances over his shoulder. If actually 
 seized, he would set up expostulatory yelps 
 that were only smothered in the tub itself. 
 
 In the second place, Osman Pasha had a
 
 A DOMESTIC MENAGERIE. 267 
 
 mortal dread of a baby. This may have been 
 either the result of teasing by thoughtless in- 
 fants, or one of those natural antipathies of 
 which so many instances are related in history. 
 Thus several distinguished personages have 
 fainted at a certain perfume ; Jagellan, king of 
 Poland, could not abide apples ; Marshal Saxe 
 was afraid of cats ; Erasmus of fish ; and 
 Vangheim, the grand-huntsman of Hanover, of 
 a roast pig. Osman Pasha would rush out into 
 the hall at the ring of the door-bell, bark even 
 at the tallest and stoutest men, and return, 
 wagging his tail with satisfaction. But if the 
 puniest babe in arms appeared, he was stricken 
 with abject fear, and sought the most obscure 
 refuge he could find. If he could climb into 
 the open drawer of a bureau or dresser, nothing 
 suited him better, and he was often found there 
 long afterwards, coiled up and fast asleep. 
 However we may explain these idiosyncracies, 
 the fact was as I tell it. 
 
 Otherwise Osman Pasha was a dog fond of 
 having his back scratched, would roll over for 
 the process to be repeated upon his stomach, 
 waving his paws in the air; then he would leap
 
 268 A DOMESTIC MENAGERIE. 
 
 up and frantically lick your face, tear about the 
 room, and come back and lie down on the rug 
 to sleep. He did not go to sleep all at once 
 either, but would often blink benevolently 
 around, and even when his eyes had been shut 
 for a time would acknowledge casual references 
 to himself such as, " Nice old Osman Wosman, 
 was he sleepy ? " by appreciative wags of his 
 tail. 
 
 The situation being thus, a number of re- 
 markable series of events took place in the din- 
 ing-room, one day towards the end of March. 
 
 The Man went to his shelves of pottery 
 specimens, as usual. He was adding some 
 small new article of this Longwy faience that 
 has been so much talked of, of late. While so 
 occupied, he became aware, just at his ear, of a 
 series of sweet, ingratiating chirps. He felt 
 sure that on looking around he should find the 
 bird aiming to make his better acquaintance. 
 
 " Pe-e-eep ! tr-r-r che-e-eep ! " chirped Trill. 
 
 But when the Man really turned round to look 
 he was astonished instead to find the case quite 
 otherwise. Trill had assumed a most belliger- 
 ent and threatening demeanor. He had swelled
 
 A DOMESTIC MENAGERIE. 269 
 
 out his round little breast, extended his wings 
 widely, and opened his mouth to such an extent 
 that scarcely anything was visible but this yawn- 
 ing chasm. 
 
 "Hallo!" said the Man, amused, "is that 
 you ? Don't eat a fellow up all at once ; don't 
 now, really ! " 
 
 But Trill only advanced further on his perch, 
 and seemed to say : " Oh, yes, I will indeed. 
 Nothing shall stop me. I am going to do it 
 right now." 
 
 The Man laughed, and even called the Lady 
 from the reception-room to see how the bird 
 was acting. Trill did not abate his ferocity, but 
 had an air of meaning : 
 
 " I have stood this thing about long enough. 
 You can see how you like it yourself. I arn a 
 very much provoked bird, and when I am mad, 
 you can take the consequences." 
 
 Later, the same morning, when the Lady was 
 coming along towards the dining-room again, 
 in slippers, her steps falling noiselessly on the 
 thick hall carpet, she paused to witness a most 
 singular spectacle transacting within. She mur- 
 mured, in a tone of suppressed excitement :
 
 270 A DOMESTIC MENAGERIE. 
 
 " My good gracious me ! Who ever heard 
 of such a thing? " 
 
 She went back on tiptoe, placing a finger on 
 her lips, summoned the Man, and they returned 
 together. A mouse had clambered up the cur- 
 tains and let himself down by the brass chain 
 to Trill's cage, and there he was munching 
 away for dear life at the canary-seed in the 
 cups. 
 
 Trill's manner now was neither blustering 
 nor terrified. It was a compound of distant 
 respect and curiosity. He drew nearer and 
 nearer to his unceremonious visitor, and finally 
 pecked some seeds out of the dish beside him 
 By degrees, hqwever, his curiosity seemed to 
 give place to solicitude, for which there was 
 reason enough. The mouse, by no means con- 
 tented with a dainty peck now and then in 
 bird-fashion, was nibble-nibble-nibbling away 
 without a second's intermission, and what would 
 remain for Trill's share presently wouldn't be 
 worth mentioning. 
 
 The observers held their breaths to see what 
 Trill would do, but all at once was heard the 
 loud bang of the spring-door at the foot of the
 
 A DOMESTIC MENAGEKIE. 271 
 
 basement-stairs, shutting in its usual sudden 
 way. At this alarm, the mouse disappeared in 
 a twinkling, Trill flew excitedly round his cage, 
 Osman Pacha woke up from a nap on the rug 
 and made a random dart or two, as with a 
 vague impression of having missed something 
 particularly good. Peter hove in sight from 
 the stairs, bearing two heavy scuttles of coal, 
 and breathing hard. 
 
 " Peter, how could you ? " cried the Young 
 Lady, stamping her foot as his grimy head ap- 
 peared. "There was a mouse in Trill's cage, 
 and we were just going to see what it 
 would do." 
 
 " God bless all good souls, ma'am," Peter re- 
 sponded. He had a great habit of mumbling 
 to himself. Not being a person of sufficient 
 importance to secure other listeners, as it may 
 be supposed, he made the most of the one 
 he had. He seemed religious, and whatever 
 he said audibly consisted of pious ejaculations. 
 A turning-point in Peter's career, again, was 
 that some man " had not done as he agreed," and 
 of this also he spoke. Who the man was, why 
 he had not done as he had agreed, and what he
 
 272 A DOMESTIC MENAGERIE. 
 
 had agreed to do that he had not done, will 
 now probably never be ascertained. 
 
 " Did you ever hear of such a thing in all 
 your born days, Peter?" the Lady exclaimed 
 again. 
 
 " In Chicago, ma'm, sailin' the lakes, 'n' he 
 says, 'n' I says, 'n' a fowl " mumbled Peter. 
 
 " Was it a canary bird ? " 
 
 " It was a colt, ma'am, one o' them chunky- 
 built ones, so I believe." 
 
 Upon this the old man moved on, without 
 resentment at the short way he had been 
 snapped up ; and his heavy step and stertorous 
 breathing were heard on the parlor floor, and 
 then that above, as he toiled upward with his 
 burdens. 
 
 This might be supposed sensation enough in 
 the house for one day, but, on the contrary, 
 the excitement was only just beginning. 
 
 The man went up to his study, where he 
 had some important matter to occupy him. 
 The Lady put on an ornamental apron and 
 took down Trill's cage to repair the devasta- 
 tions of the gormandizing mouse. She removed 
 the lower or floor-part for this purpose, and set
 
 A DOMESTIC MENAGERIE. 273 
 
 the cage proper, containing the bird, on the 
 table. She talked to Trill while thus engaged, 
 and asked him what he thought of the mouse, 
 whether it ought not to have been ashamed to 
 come unasked and eat up all his provisions, 
 and many similar questions ; to all of which 
 Trill made no reply, but sat with his head on 
 one side, as if lost in profound meditation at 
 the incident. 
 
 Going away a few steps and turning her back, 
 the Lady looked around just in time to see 
 Trill beat strongly against the small door of his 
 cage. It had become unfastened, and, before 
 she could prevent it, he flew out and up to the 
 ceiling. She was frightened to death. There 
 was the grate, with a blazing coal fire in it, for 
 one source of imminent peril. Another was 
 Osman Pasha, who followed the movements of 
 the bird with his eyes, and then began to tear 
 around the room in pursuit of him like mad. 
 Having lost one good thing to-day, he was by 
 no means disposed to lose another. And who 
 could say how many more perils yet there might 
 not be in store for Trill ? 
 
 " Oh ! what shall I do? " moaned the Lady,
 
 274 A DOMESl^IC MENAGERIE. 
 
 clasping her hands. " How can I ever look 
 the Barclays in the face? Oh, that I should 
 have let it happen again." 
 
 The last expression was a little indefinite. 
 It did not mean that the bird had escaped 
 before. It meant that he had once suffered 
 severely from a cold, ceased even to twitter, 
 stayed in the wet sand at the bottom of his 
 cage, and kept opening his mouth with a gap- 
 ing movement. He had been too weak even 
 to sit upon his perch, but had fallen off when 
 he attempted to reach it. They had sent him 
 on that occasion to a bird-fancier's, on Sixth 
 Avenue, where board and medical attendance 
 cost forty cents a week, and, instead of dying 
 on their hands as they expected, he had been 
 restored to health. To think that, having come 
 through such a trial, he should now be reserved 
 for this! 
 
 The Lady flew to the door and screamed to 
 Peter. She hardly dared to call the Young 
 Man again ; he had been interrupted quite 
 enough to-day, and he cared little for Trill at 
 best. Besides, it was doubtful if, in his closed 
 room, he could hear, Then the lady flew to
 
 A DOMESTIC MEXAGE1UE. 275 
 
 the dumb-waiter and screamed to Johanna 
 McKenna, the cook, in the kitchen. These 
 two responded as soon as convenient, prepared 
 to lend their assistance. 
 
 The campaign for the re-capture of the fugi- 
 tive, under these auspices, was not of the most 
 brilliant kind. Johanna armed herself with a 
 broom. Peter made rheumatic dives at the bird 
 with one of his coal-scuttles, grasped in both 
 hands. The Lady, for her part, now aban- 
 doned herself hopelessly to lamentation, now 
 held out the cage alluringly to Trill, and now 
 made ineffectual attempts to stop Osman 
 Pasha. Osman Pasha grew every moment 
 more transported with enthusiasm and beyond 
 the control of ordinary motives. In vain the 
 Lady clapped her hands imperiously and cried : 
 
 " Come and be washed ! Osman Pasha, do 
 you hear what I say ? Come and be washed 
 this instant, sir ! " 
 
 Round and round he went all the same. He 
 jumped over her head when she stooped to 
 catch him ; he even tried in his zeal to scram-" 
 ble up the walls ; and a number of times the 
 bird only escaped his jaws by actual miracles.
 
 2?6 A DOMESTIC MENAGERIE, 
 
 The door-bell rang in the midst of it all, but 
 no one in the dining-room had leisure to an- 
 swer it. Trill followed the cornice of the room, 
 poised upon the picture-frames, the door-casings, 
 the chandelier, and the silverware on the side- 
 board. There his golden body made a decor- 
 ative effect which might have been worth the 
 attention of a jeweler. He dashed among the 
 ornaments on the mantel-piece, and it was a 
 mercy he was not shriveled up in the fire be- 
 fore you could say Jack Robinson. 
 
 The Man now suddenly appeared at the 
 door, with a telegraph messenger behind him. 
 
 " I should like to know if there is nobody 
 to answer the bell any more?" he said. " It 
 made such a din I had to come down myself. 
 Here's a telegram saying the Barclays have just 
 arrived and will send for their bird to-morrow." 
 
 At this the Lady sat down and began to cry. 
 
 " Haifa ! " said the Man ; " what's up ? 
 what's going on here?" 
 
 Then, taking in the situation, he joined ac- 
 tively in the pursuit. He stationed the Lady 
 in front of the fire, with directions to spread 
 her skirts out, so as to act as a screen, since
 
 A DOMESTIC MENAGERIE. 277 
 
 the blower as must needs happen when most 
 desperately wanted could nowhere be found. 
 A happy inspiration for circumventing Osman 
 Pasha next occurred to him. It happened that 
 a baby was visiting the house, and was up-stairs 
 with its nurse at that very time. 
 
 " Bring the baby ! Bring the baby ! " he 
 commanded, with great presence of mind. 
 
 " Q\\, yes, bring the baby! bring the baby! 
 Johanna, run ! " screamed the Lady. 
 
 The baby was brought forthwith. So terri- 
 ble in its might did it prove that Osman Pasha 
 was checked even in the midst of his wild 
 career. He slunk away, and hid his head, 
 ostrich-fashion, under a waist-pattern, fallen out 
 of an overturned work-basket. There he was 
 captured, and he was eliminated from the 
 scene as one of the sources of danger. 
 
 The Man now undertook the chase upon 
 logical principles. He waved Trill into corners, 
 first with a palm-leaf fan, then with a long 
 feather-duster, and had a step-ladder carried 
 around behind him to mount upon at the proper 
 moment. But time after time Trill eluded his 
 grasp. The man began to wear a heated expres-
 
 '278 A DOMESTIC MENAGERIE. 
 
 sion. The lady followed him anxiously around 
 and held up the margin of her apron as if to 
 throw it over a bird fourteen feet up in the ain 
 Peter continued his occasional dives with the 
 coal-scuttle, and Johanna McKenna had se- 
 cured a pair of tongs. 
 
 Poor Trill, frightened by the hue and cry, 
 made such desperate efforts to escape that he 
 seemed likely to do himself an injury. It was 
 pitiful to see his agitation and uncertainty. 
 More than once he threw himself violently 
 against the walls, as if determined to seek the 
 Canary Islands and the road to freedom by the 
 most direct way possible, and he seemed to 
 find it singular he was so withstood. 
 
 " Oh, if he were only mine ! " bewailed the 
 Lady, " I should not care so much. Oh, what 
 will the Barclays say to me ? And they are to 
 send for him to-morrow ! " 
 
 Trill began to show signs of exhaustion. He 
 rested wearily upon a photograph of the Bridge 
 of Mount Blanc and the Island of Jean Jacques 
 Rousseau, but was soon off again to the cabinet 
 of ceramic specimens. He poised upon the 
 topmost plate, the portrait of the Vicenza girl
 
 A DOMESTIC MENAGERIE. 279 
 
 in the crimson dress, fluttered up again, at- 
 tempted to regain it, and slipped "down out of 
 sight, as in a nest, into a small triangular space 
 behind, between the plate and the walls. 
 
 Now, if ever, is the Man's opportunity. He 
 approaches noiselessly with his step-ladder. 
 He mounts. He throws his handkerchief over 
 the top of the enclosing space. Oh ' be joy- 
 ful ! Trill is imprisoned below. He has but 
 to reach down and take the wonder into cus- 
 tody. The man reached down, through the 
 enveloping handkerchief Care-ful-ly C-AU- 
 TIOUSLY 
 
 Oof!!! Poof!!!! 
 
 The man is so startled that he tumbles to 
 the floor, his neck all but dislocated. The bird, 
 uttering a plaintive little cry, had struggled up 
 again with unsuspected vigor, and once more 
 escaped from his very hands. 
 
 The step-ladder falls with the Man. Down 
 comes too the crimson lady with her ebon hair 
 and eyes like sloes, and is smashed to flinders. 
 At least a hundred other pieces are now added 
 to the original hundred. 
 
 But no sooner was the Vicenza sweetheart
 
 280 A DOMESTIC MENAGERIE. 
 
 laid low than Trill, whether repentant for the 
 trouble he had caused or simply rejoicing in 
 his victory, flew of his own accord to his cage, a 
 placed himself on his perch, and began such a 
 caroling as it was a delight to hear. It was 
 melody that the severest stoic could not have 
 refused to listen to, and was poured forth in 
 rapturous floods. The man suffered himself to 
 be attracted by it even under all his sense of 
 discomfiture and loss. 
 
 " I do believe the little rascal did it on pur- 
 pose," he declared. 
 
 This warbling continued at short intervals 
 all day long. It was both remarkable in itself 
 and because they had never before heard Trill 
 sing with any freedom. His manner also 
 changed ; instead of ruffling with indignation 
 at the Man he would now hop from bottom to 
 top of his cage with pleasure, and always break 
 out into music. 
 
 " Either the unusual exercise of his tour 
 around the room did him good," said the Man 
 "and if he were going to stay we should give 
 him a good deal more of that or he distinctly 
 and with malice aforethought intended to get
 
 A DOMESTIC MENAGERIE. 281 
 
 rid of that plate and draw attention to himself. 
 I will wager the latter is so." 
 
 In the sequel, although the Barclays had re- 
 turned, they did not send for Trill next day, as 
 they had proposed. They went off for a visit 
 elsewhere, before settling down ; then the sum- 
 mer vacation came on ; and so, in one way or 
 another, Trill was suffered to remain. 
 
 Both the Man and the Lady, and the former 
 particularly, grew greatly attached to him after 
 the adventure described. They placed him in 
 the Lady's bed-room, where the sunshine came 
 in freely and he became such a different bird 
 from what he had seemed at first that you 
 would hardly have known him. The last that 
 was heard of the Man he was declaring that the 
 Barclays now traveling in California should 
 never have Trill again. He declared that he 
 would pay any price they might ask, but 
 Trill should henceforth be his and nobody 
 else's. 
 
 It was found that the plate could be re- 
 paired after all, in spite of impressions to the 
 contrary ; and if it had once seemed, to the 
 fashionable little old lady, three hundred years
 
 282 A DOMESTIC MENAGERIE. 
 
 of age, it must now have seemed six hundred 
 at least. 
 
 As to Osman Pasha, his absurd aversion to 
 infants, if any thing, increased. It was all very 
 well until a baby came permanently to reside 
 in the house ; but then the Lady thought there 
 must be something the matter with him like 
 softening of the brain. One day Osman Pasha, 
 driven to bay, actually snapped at the baby's 
 nose, and that important feature was only 
 saved from destruction by the bare fact of its 
 non-existence. 
 
 After this nothing remained but to send him 
 away, in charge of the useful Peter, as a pres- 
 ent to some friends on Staten Island. 
 
 THE END.
 
 FACILITY 
 
 A iii