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THE RED BOOK MAGAZINE _ THE GREAT SHOP WINDOW OF AMERICA

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MARCH RED BOOK MAGAZINE

Copyright, 1915, by THE RED BOOK CORPORATION,

Copyright, 1915, by THE RED BOOK CORPORATION in Great Britain and the Colonies, Entered at Stationers’ Hall, london, Eng

PHOTOGRAPHIC ART STUDIES

Beautiful Women of the Stage

THE THREE PACE-SETTING NOVELS OF 1915

The Island of Surprise __-- --__- 7 Kobert Lovell gets a joit and a surprise, and’ meets Miss D eothey Cassilis

Empty Pockets ---- The real novel of New York — Me rry Perry are falling in love with Muriel

Hepsey Burke -_-_- -. ee Hepsey decides to take the management of the Senic into her own hands.

and the doctor both

x Warden

Cyrus Townsend Brady --865

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Rupert Hughes

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Frank N. Westcott-------978

THE BEST SHORT STORIES OF THE DAY

Sauce for the Gander __ - ree

Here is the sort of story Bret Harte would be alive to-day.

The Spirit of Night----------__- -----_-- _—

That was the name they gave the beauty who won all Paris, and this is her story.

Wanted: A Clever, Discreet Young Man

One of the best Miss Evans has written: the story of an ambitious young clerk.

The Adventures of a One-Eyed Doll ---.- ----

The crusty bachelor tinds that his old home isn’t the same any more

The Decision --- --- A sequel to The Happiness of Three Women, ** oelade a lot of discussion.

Joe Peddler and the Lop-Horned I sass

A story for lovers of the wild, told by a man who really knows animals.

a Ee Ree A new story of that boy Percy and his pals —Hen tinds himself in the toils

Heavens of Brass__-_-. The best piece of work Walter Jones has done: the girl who tried to escape

Buried Bones

A new story of that eminent « Philo Gubb.

The Mayor’s Daughter -

A Scotland Yard man comes to t! and strikes a “case.

The Feats of the Poud .....................

A story of human nature. The scenes are laid in Kentucky, but they might be in Europe.

, EE ee em Seen pene

What happened when the coming champion looked into the eyes of the girl.

writing if he were

h stirre a up

story of the

rrespondence-school det ‘teckative,

* United States for a vacation

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ELVILLE Davisson Post

author of “The Stolen Life,” etc., is the latest addition to THE RED BooK MAGAZINE'S list of “big” writers. In the next—the April— issue will appear the first of his new stories of “ Uncle Abner,” the best mystery stories of the day. “Uncle Abner” is a Virginian who uses a fine mixture of legal sense and common sense to unravel tangles which puzzle others. Mr. Post writes of him with a style which has no equal in the

United States. Each story will be complete in one issue. Watch for “THE STRAW MAN,”

in the April number, on the news-stands March twenty-third.

00 o0 oo 00 THE RED BOOK IS SETTING THE PACE IN THE MAGAZINE WORLD

By Peter B. Kyne

Author of “The Handshake Agreement,” etc.

“Well, Father, dear Father, I’ve come home

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“What is sauce for the )

goose 1S Sauce tor the Pe : :

gander.”—Irish proverb.

Ra — - fj oN the “cood Sets wan ] old days.” by

which certain persons con ;

nected directly and_ in ~y directly with the mer ‘chant marine of all

A nations designate that > period in our civilization when a sailor was con-

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to die,” the stranger declared facetiously. (

For

ander

sidered an animal and treated accordingly, Mr. Martin McFadden was the proprictor of a sailor’s boarding house and groggery at the foot of Drumm Strect on the San Francisco water-front. While Mr. McFadden was bad black Irish, two generations re- moved, a certain nice

ILLUSTRATED

BY FRANK B. HOFFMAN

852

consideration for the Scandinavian antecedents of his guests had impelled him to apply to his place of business the title ““Vhe City of Bergen.” Next door to The City of Bergen was a little cubby-hole of an office, over the portal of which appeared the legend: “Mc- Fadden’s Employment Bureau.” This latter bore to the former relatively the same relation as a wart on a red and bulbous nose, which is to state that they both belonged to the same person and while distinctly different were neverthe- less inseparable.

Mart McFadden’s billhead and letter- head proclaimed him a ship’s comprador, but his little world which knew him well, designated his avocation by a shorter and uglier word—crimp. The strata of the maritime world called him other things and with entire justice, for Mart McFadden was a brisk and business-like person whose task it was to supply crews to vessels bound for

low er

deep water, and all was grist that came to his mill.

In the good old days, when California one of the great wheat producing and the United States had no merchant marine to speak of, the crimp- ing business was particularly good in San Francisco. During the salmon fish- ing season in Alaska most of the able bodied seamen ou the north, attracted by the bait of several hundreds of dollars to be earned in the brief fishing season between May and August. That, in Mart MeFadden’s day, as now, created a scarcity of sailors and forced up the bonus or blood money a skipper must pay a crimp for procuring him a crew.

About the home the wheat

was

centers

coast go

time the salmon fleet came crop had begun to move, with a huge fleet of foreign bot- toms lying in the stream waiting for But still there would not be enough sailors to go round, for the re- turning fishermen would be opulent and decline to ship for the succeeding two months at least; and when they did ship they preferred to run coastwise where the pay was higher, the food better, the treatment halfway human and a lapse of thirty days on the average between ports. ;

cTCWS.

THE RED BOOK MAGAZINE

In the fall, therefore, the blood-money often soared to eighty dollars a head, for which reason could scarcely blame Mart McFadden for his frequent slips from the path of rectitude. When the blood money ran that high, with real sailors few and far between, a man was a man to Mart McFadden, regard- age, creed, color or previous condition of servitude. He simply had to keep his business together, and if a man didn’t ship willingly, Mr. McFadden would “shanghai” him if he could. Since he was experienced in this line of endeavor, quite generally he could. The skippers, driven to desperation by the demurrage while waiting for gladly took what Mart’s runner brought aboard unconscious, and never asked em- barrassing questions. After all, the skipper is high and low justice outside the three-mile limit.

one

less of

crews,

IE FORE proceeding with the tale of

Mr. McFadden’s ventures in the gentle art of shanghai, however, it is necessary that we present first a brief sketch of the McFadden family—three generations of it. Beginning with Mart McFadden the first, afterward known as Grandpa, we learn that Grandpa Mc- Fadden was what used to be known in San Franciscan history as a “Sidney duck,” or in other words an escaped convict from the Australian penal col- ony at Bounty Bay. Grandpa was the founder of the McFadden fortune and elevated crimping from a profession to a fine art.

Mart McFadden II was Grandpa’s only son and the joy of the latter’s de- clining years. Fighting came naturally to Mart II, and at twenty-eight he retired from the ring undefeated champion welter-weight of the world. A crass individual with slight pre- tensions to pugilistic ability had given Mart II, the hero of our story, such a terrific battle to a rather one-sided draw, that the champion was shrewd enough to seize upon Grandpa’s death as an excuse to retire with his laurels faded but still on his rather low, slop- ing brow.

Forthwith he had taken over the old

man’s sailor’s boarding house and

SAUCE FOR THE GANDER

grogyery and continued the business at the old stand, with the addition of “MeFadden’s Employment Bureau.” Mart handled his real sailors in ‘The City of Bergen, but the employment bureau was a trap for floating laborers, which are the safest kind of man to shanghai; for when a floater has been kicked ashore at a port on the other side of the world he continues to float. Gen- erally such a person is not a man of de- cided character—otherwise he would not be a floater. Mart McFadden was shrewd enough to realize this, and while there was always the chance that a shanghaied man would some day re- turn and mete out justice red-handed. still, a weak man hates in a_ weak, ineffectual way and time soon blunts the edge of his resentment.

Doubtless many of McFadden’s vic- tims swore to return and settle with the crimp, but of the hundreds of men he had shipped in his day but nine returned to argue the question. Of the nine, four had administered to Mart the kind of beating sailors know how to administer. They caught him foul each time. Sea- boots had staved in three of his ribs; a marlin-spike had broken his right collar bone; a Norse fist had shifted his nose hard a-starboard; and a colored indi- vidual had put him in a hospital, where for many weeks it was an open question whether Mart would retain his internal economy or permit it to escape entirely. Of the remaining five who had protested, one had contented himself with cursing, another had had him arrested but couldn’t prove anything; and the other three, having attacked Mart, had been soundly thrashed and shanghaied again.

[* snaring a sailor, Mart McFadden’s

modus operandi was absurdly simple. He knew ants are attracted by sugar, and experience had taught him that sail- ors are attracted by strong drink. So all Mart McFadden had to do was to fur- nish the right bait, which he did. He called it whisky, which was a libel on John Barleycorn, because Mart made the stuff himself in the basement of the City of Bergen. It consisted of raw alcohol, prune juice, water and sugar, mixed after a formula of Grandpa’s and

853

known locally as “rot-gut,” which was a very excellent and expressive name for it

indeed. One drink would make a sailor dizzy: two would make him drunk; three would make him fight a loco- motive—and four would put him

soundly to sleep and at the mercy of Mart or his runner. 2

When the victim was a green hand, Mart merely enticed him into a sound- proof room with a well-padded floor in the rear of MeFadden’s Employment 3ureau, where he was knocked out in a

most scientific manner, drugged and shipped after dark. In the case of husky young men_ possessed of iron

jaws, however, Mart took no risks. He always used brass knuckles. ‘Two un- fortunates so treated had subsequently died at sea of concussion of the brain, but as nobody was particularly inter- ested, Mart McFadden never heard of this, and, as everybody realizes, the things one doesn’t know never distress one.

THE third generation of McFaddens was our hero’s son, whose mother called him Marty. Marty was the sole issue of a boy-and-girl marriage. At twenty, Mart II had eloped with the daughter of a retail wood and coal dealer in the Mission, and had been a father before his twenty-first birthday. Fortunately for Marty, his mother’s alliance with his father had been predi- cated upon a pre-nuntial stipulation that one member of the McFadden family on the water-front was one too many, and under no circumstances was Mart to ex- pect her to dwell there. To this the prosperous young pugilist had con- sented gladly, and as evidence of his sincerity he had erected a comfortable home for his bride in a very respectable residential section of the city. Casting about for added proof of his desire to please her, he had given her a deed of gift to the home the day before they were married. In consequence of this, Marty had grown up in environs far different from those of his ruthless male parent, and, under the guidance of a good and gentle mother, was, at the age of sixteen, as fine a lad as one could find anywhere.

854

Now, in the nature of things, Mrs. McFadden could not be kept in entire ignorance of Mart’s method of making a living after his retirement from prize fighting. When he first broached the subject of taking over Grandpa’s busi- ness. Mrs. MeFadden, had heard some very definite reports of Grandpa’s past performances, entered a strenuous objection to her husband’s engaging in the liquor business. She was over-ruled. of course but she never despaired, even after Mart, finding argument useless, re- sorted to sterner measures. Eventually, for the sake of peace in the family, the crimp informed her he had sold out the

who

business and would open a regular em- ployment bureau. This gratified his wife—she also being one of the numer ous persons to whom ignorance is bliss. The sign, “MeFadden’s Employment Bureau,” and the sight of Mart at a roll top desk therein was all the proof she required, so Mart took out his liquor license in the name of his runner, and everybody was happy—for a_ while. Then Mr. McFadden, especially during the busy season, began to exhibit evi- dences of recent fistic encounter, and after the third trip to the hospital for repairs, Mrs. McFadden, to whom it was all a sort of wicked Chinese puzzle, gave her husband up, convinced that the water-front was a bad, bad place where her little Marty should never be per mitted to go.

Marty’s father, however, was privately of the opinion that the water-front and the liquor, boarding-house and = crimp business was the natural heritage of his son, and for a great many years had been looking forward to that happy day when Marty, having finished his schooling, should join in his father’s enterprises. He had been too busy to become in timately acquainted with Marty in the latter’s formative years, but he was tre- mendously proud of the boy’s body, which was beautiful, for Mart Me Fadden had acquired the habit of ap- praising a male by his obvious horse- power. Before the boy had reached his sixteenth birthday Mart had taught him all that was to be taught of the manly art of self-defense, and encouraged him to do a little bullying at school.

THE RED BOOK MAGAZINE

The crimp was still on the sunny side of forty. His judgment of distance was not as good as formerly, and his wind and his foot-work had deteriorated, but he was still an athlete and a dangerous man to provoke. Many men considered him as good as he had ever been, but Mart McFadden knew better. He real- ized that age had laid its destroying hand upon him; he was resorting with greater frequency to the use of the brass knuckles, and he longed for the day when Marty would be old enough to join forces with him and shoulder the real burdens of the business, leaving the “soft ones” to Father.

]* was a great shock to Mart Mc-

Fadden to realize that under the law aman cannot begin the degradation of his son until that son acquires some rea- sonable excuse for a weekly shave!

At sixteen Marty was a strapping, handsome, lovable boy, devoted to his mother and a trifle suspicious and afraid of his father. He was as large as the average man and amply able to knock out the average man, but his face was still the innocent, hairless, trustful face of a baby, and Mart knew that even the tardiest of laws for the protection of juveniles frequently takes cognizance of such a face behind a water-front bar. In despair he decided to wait until Marty should be eighteen; after all, there was no use in starting the boy in too young. He confided his plans to Mrs. McFadden, who quivered but said nothing.

This disturbed Mr. McFadden. He had anticipated opposition — and had been met with silence. ‘Well, old woman,” he said playfully, and pinched her arm, leaving a mark that would not depart for weeks, ‘“whatja got t’ say about it?”

“JT was just wondering,” suppressing the tears at that terrible pinch, “what we're to do with Marty in the meantime. He’s finished high school, and unless he has something to do he may get into mischief.”

“He might take a job in an somewhere until he’s ready to come with me.” her husband suggested.

“I’m afraid an office life might stunt

she re] lied,

office

SAUCE FOR THE GANDER

his growth.” she replied — craftily. “Marty is such an athlete. He was cap- tain of the senior football team in the high school, and I know he'd like to go to the state university for a few years.”

“He’s had too much education already,” snapped the crimp.

“He has had sufficient, I admit, and I do not see any sense in spending money sending him to college. I am con- vinced, Mart, he wants to go there to play football, and I fail to see what use football can be to any man.”

“Well, ’taint necessary f’r you to do any thinkin’ on the subject,” Mr. Mc- Fadden replied impressively. “All you know about raisin’ a boy I could put in me eye an’ it wouldn’t blind me. Foot- ball’s the best thing for Marty. It'll keep him in condition an’ out of mis- chief. By gripes, I got half a notion to send him to college for two years.”

“T object,’ Mrs. McFadden began, but Mart promptly pinched her until she writhed in agony.

“I’m runnin’ this show,” he warned her. “Me an’ Marty’ll decide the ques- tion.”

Later he consulted Marty, who de- clared for the life of a bookkeeper.

“You better go to college for a coupla years, kid,” Mart informed him.

“T don’t want to go to college,” Marty answered curlily.

“Just for that you go,” his father roared, and it was even so. Marty and his mother had schemed well, for when- ever they really wanted anything from the head of the house they had but to de- clare against it, whereupon it was thrust upon them. Mrs. McFadden had im- parted to Marty her suspicions as to the impropriety of his father’s avocation, while Marty on his part had confided to his mother his secret ambition to become a doctor. Like his ruthless parent, Marty was vastly interested in the human body. His mother, dazzled at the prospect of breaking the entail of ruffianism in the family, had wept with joy at this an- nouncement. It would be something to have mothered a professional man!

’

OLLOWING, therefore, the paternal mandate, Marty matriculated at the University of California, where he spent

855

two busy, happy years, at the end of which period he was a lovely young light heavy-weight, who looked and bore him- self like a man of twenty-one. His father decided that there could be no sense in waiting longer, so accordingly he asked Marty one morning to accom- pany him to McFadden’s Employment Bureau immediately after breakfast. Marty and his mother exchanged signifi- cant glances.

“What for, Dad?” Marty demanded.

“TH tell you what for when I’m ready,” the crimp replied, and nothing further was said until they reached the employment bureau. The derelict who cleaned out the cuspidors in The City of

Sergen for the sake of the beer in the slop bucket, was sweeping out the little office when they arrived, so Mart Mc- Fadden led his son into the slaughter pen in the rear and brought in two chairs. Then he closed the door, and, from force of habit, locked it, after which he lighted a cigar and proffered one to his son.

Marty declined the cigar politely, ex- plaining that he had discovered tobacco was bad for a man’s wind.

“Suit yourself, kid,’’ the amiable par- ent replied. “J look upon you as a man now, Marty.” He stuck his thumbs in the armholes of his vest, leaned back and blew a_ prodigious cloud of smoke. “Which naturally brings me around to the statement that when a boy has grew inter a man it’s up to him to take up a man’s work. That’s logic, aint it?”

Marty nodded soberly. ‘‘What’s the plan in my case?” he demanded. He was certain he knew it, but desired to appear ignorant.

“I’m going to give you a job with me as runner, Marty,” the crimp began. “You'll go out with Hoodlum Harry to the ships, an’ he'll teach you how to steal crews off the inbound boats an’ ship ’em on the outbound boats—at a fancy figger.”

“Who is Hoodlum Harry, Dad?”

“The Hoodlum’s my present runner, but he’s gettin’ old, an’ of late I been suspectin’ him o’ graftin’ in office. I’m almost certain he shipped two men on the Cardigan Castle last week an’ never turned in the blood money. But he’s

856 THE RED BOOK MAGAZINE

the finest runner on the San Francisco water-front, an’ you'll learn a lot from him. In my line o’ business the best way to begin is on a runnin’ job. Ill pay you fifteen dollars a week, Marty, an’ when you're twenty-one IL take you in as a full partner, open an office in Astoria, Oregon, and place you in charge. There’s good pickin’s at Astoria, with all them big ships loadin’ lumber for China an’ South Africa an’ Aus- tralia, an’ all of ’em_ needin’ crews. Seattle’s got the Puget Sound an’ Gray’s Harbor trade, but a smart young feller at Astoria could horn in an’ take half of it away from ’em sure.”

“T don’t want to be a crimp,” said Marty shortly.

Crimp! Where had Marty learned that word? His father’s face flushed darkly, for he hated the word crimp for the stigma he knew attached to it. His eyes narrowed dangerously.

“Youll be a ship’s comprador, Marty,” he said; “that’s what you'll be. What's been good enough for me is good enough for you. I don’t like this puttin’ on airs.”

“A ship’s comprador is a crimp, and I’m not going to be a ship’s comprador, sir,” said Marty.

“Oh ho,” Mr. McFadden replied, “vou been talkin’ to somebody.”

“T have. I’ve been going to college for two years with Hector McKenzie. His father is a sea captain—”

“Old Angus McKenzie? Why, he was a blackbirder in his day. I’d like to know where old Angus McKenzie’s son gets a license to brag.”

“I’m not prepared to argue that ques- tion. I only know Hector McKenzie told the fellows that my father was a crimp, and he furnished a bill of par- ticulars. It didn’t help me any, and later I investigated and learned it was all true. Father, you have the reputa- tion of being the worst man on the San Francisco water-front.”

“T get the money,” McFadden an- swered doggedly.

“It’s a horrible way of getting it— shanghai-ing every poor, unfortunate, friendless devil that falls into your clutches,” Marty retorted with flashing eyes. “I know all about this crimping

business of yours. and [ tell you, flatly, I shall have nothing to do with it.”

“Youll do what I tell you to do,” his father replied evenly, his voice taking on a low, animal-like tone.

Marty shook his head. “I’m going to be a doctor.” he said.

Mart McFadden sprang up with an oath. “Your mother put that notion in your head,” he charged. “Il ‘tend to her for that—puttin’ notions in your head an’ settin’ a boy against his own father. Ill learn her.”

“You'd better not pinch her any more,” Marty warned him. “I’ve realized for a long time that sooner or later I’d have to have a show-down with my own father, and I’m glad it’s come. I intend to accord you all the respect possible, but I deny your right to be a brute, just because you are my father and I am your son.”

Mart McFadden’ swore horribly. “You're givin’ me orders?” he said.

“Precisely. I’m = giving you orders, Father. Mother is a lady, and hereafter you treat her as such. Now listen while I tell you something. I shall not associ- ate myself, even remotely, in your vil- lainous enterprise, and I shall not accept another cent of your money for my support. And if I catch you abusing Mother—”

He paused. Son of a wolf that he was, the gentle strain that was his heritage from his mother bade him hesitate at the thought of a physical attack upon his own father. On his part, Mart McFadden licked his lower lip and eyed his son appraisingly.

“Marty,” he said quietly, “d’ye know what I’m goin’ to do with you?”

“T can guess. You’re going to beat me up—until I obey.”

“Smart boy. That’s exactly what. I’m goin’ to beat you up, an’ I’m goin’ to beat you in this room.”

“Brass knuckles?” Marty interrogated politely, and Mart McFadden choked with fury.

“I’m goin’ to beat you up—somehow —any way I feel like,” he threatened.

“You're a bigger brute than I gave you credit for being,” his son answered. “However, I think you had better get the idea out of your head; I’m too old to

For tl

| |

For the first time in his eventful career the crimp was caught off his guard—for the first time an antagonist beat him to the punch!

ar a)

be chastised. A moment ago you admit- ted | was a man. [t will not do anv good for you to beat me. I’m the son of a thug, but Ill never be one. Please do not force me to defend myself. Remember, you’re my father.”

The crimp shook his head. and with a cat-like tread advanced upon Marty. The boy looked his fiend of a father over calmly, and into his brain there flashed a line of Mart’s own advice, reiterated through the years: “When you see you're goin’ to have a fight, hit first —hard—an’ aim for the point of the jaw.” It occurred to Marty now that this was most excellent advice. He knew now he was going to have a fight—and even the unspeakable depravity of a fight with his own father did not deprive him of the power to think. He was, for the first time, seeing the animal in Mart McFadden; he knew that justice and mercy wre alien to this man to whom he owed his being; so for his mother’s sake he struck first—hard—and on the point of his parent’s jaw!

For the first time in all his eventful career the crimp was caught off his guard—for the first time an antagonist had beaten him to the punch!

He dropped to the padded floor, sprawling grotesquely on his back. It was a perfect knock-out!

ARTY looked down at the man to

whom he had but that moment been introduced. He was his father’s son. In his blood had been bred the same indom- itable brute courage, the same ruthless- ness and quickness of decision that marked his father; only environment, a gentle if commonplace mother, and education had conspired to ruin one hundred and ninety pounds of the finest raw crimp material on the San Francisco water-front. He had never been fond of his father; on the contrary, he had always feared and distrusted him: when, after receiving the first hint of his father’s traffic in human flesh and blood he had investigated, the blackness of Mart McFadden’s_ reputation had appalled him— the bar sinister had well nigh broken the lad’s proud and sensi- tive nature. The tears flowed freely down his face now, as he gazed at the

8 THE RED BOOK

MAGAZINE

man sprawled out on the floor and re- flected that he was flesh of Mart Mc- Fadden’s flesh, and blood of his blood.

Presently the crimp began to blink and stir, and Marty bethought himself of the safety that lay in flight. When a son strikes his father, the relationship ceases—at least, according to Marty’s code, it did; so he stepped cautiously across the recumbent form of his fero- cious parent and essayed to open the door. It was locked.

While the boy was pondering over his predicament, Mart McFadden sat up. He saw his son and leered at him wick- edly for an instant; then his face relaxed into a cunning and propitiatory grin.

“Well, Son,” he said sheepishly and a tritle thickly, ‘you hung one on the old man that time, didn’t you? Beat me to the punch, eh?”

“T followed the advice you always gave me,” Marty replied coldly. “I shall never forget that I had to do that, sir. It was terrible to have to strike you. But I’m pretty nearly a man now—and you've got to treat me like a son. I mustn’t be beaten up like any friendless unfortunate.”

“Huh!” retorted the crimp. “That was a tough one, kid. Phew! I see them stars yet.”

“Please unlock the door and let me out,” Marty requested. The crimp started. “Oh, yes,” he muttered, “that’s so. The door’s locked.” He sat rubbing his bruised chin reflectively.

“Well, Marty,” he announced pres- ently, “you win. When a man can’t handle his own son I guess his authority ceases. You’re a man. I’ve got to allow that. An’ bein’ a man, suppose me an’ you go to the City o’ Bergen an’ bury the hatchet in a little drink? You're goin’ to forgive the old man, aint you. Marty?” And he held out his hand.

Marty grasped it eagerly. “Do you think you could forget the horrible busi- ness, Dad?” he queried, and there was a sob in his voice. Mart McFadden nodded as the boy helped him to his feet.

“We'll have a little drink together an’ call it square, Marty. You win,” he an- swered. “I need a jolt after the punch you slipped over. Me an’ you aint ever

a

SAUCE FOR THE GANDER 859

had a drink together, man an’ man, have we, Marty?”

“Let’s dispense with the drink,” Marty suggested, but his father was obdurate. “Kid,” he protested, “it’s the custom on the water-front that when two men have mixed it an’ made up, they shake hands an’ have a drink together. This is your first an’ last trip to the water-front, I cuess, so conform to custom.”” And Mart McFadden did what he had not done for many years. He threw his arm across his son’s broad shoulders and gave him a little squeeze. Marty returned the pressure with a grizzly bear hug, and laughed. His father unlocked the door, and they passed around to the City of Bergen, where an alert barkeeper has- tened to learn their pleasure.

“A little o’ the old private stock,” the crimp replied. In answer to the bar- keeper’s inquiring look Marty ordered a short beer; then he touched his glass to his father’s and immediately tossed off the drink.

HEN Marty McFadden awoke he

was in unfamiliar surroundings. The room in which he had slept was filled with a variety of noxious smells, chief among which was an odor of un- clean men and decayed animal matter. The bunk in which he lay seemed to be moving up and down, and all about him the wall timbers gave forth protesting creaks and groans; from somewhere in the distance a bellowing voice was shout- ing: “Out of it! Out of it! I say. Up with you, bully!” while the owner of the voice kneaded Marty’s body much as a baker kneads a mess of bread.

“What’s wanted?” Marty demanded. “Quit mauling me, I say.”

“All hands on deck!” the bellowing voice replied. “Lively now, if you don’t want a bucket of slops over you.”

Marty was clean. ‘Though somewhat groggy and with the feeling that he was somehow detached from himself, he had a vague notion that if he showed the slightest contempt for slops, slops would be his portion. Moreover, the horrid stinks of his surroundings were most nauseating, and the daylight streaming through an opening in the ceiling con- vinced him that in that direction lay

pure air. He crawled out of his bunk, and steered by a firm grip at his collar was shoved up a sort of combination ladder and staircase into the light of day. He was blinded for an instant, and dazedly demanded to be informed where he was.

“Youre aboard the steam whaler Shandon Belle, my son,” the same boom- ing voice informed him, ‘fan’ hereafter say ‘sir? when you go to ask a question o’ me.”

“Who the devil are you—sir >?” Marty demanded, thinking it was all a queer sort of nightmare.

“Pm Mr. Tom Nye, the chief kicker 0’ this packet, an’ don’t you ever forget =.”

“But how did I come to be here, Mr. Nye?”

“You come aboard at the end of a rope, my son, along o’ half a dozen other savages—blind, fighting drunk. The scrapin’s 0’ the beach, they was.”

“But who sent me here?”

“Mart McFadden, of course. Don’t you remember signin’ up for a cruise on the Shandon Belle?” There was an iron- ical note in Mr. Nye’s voice; he laughed unpleasantly.

Marty shook his head and gazed about him, but since there was nothing to see except a greenish expanse of sea, he turned to the man who called himself Tom Nye.

“Well.” he said thickly, “what do you make of it, Mr. Nye?”

“T dunno,” Mr. Nye replied. “If I was you I’d go to the galley an’ ask the cook for about six cups of black coffee. Somebody's been givin’? you knock-out drops, young man. If I was to let go your collar you'd fall.”

“T guess,” said Marty McFadden, “T’ve been shanghaied !”

“T wouldn’t be a bit surprised,” echoed the genial Mr. Nye. “What do you think you're goin’ to do about it, eh?” And he gave Marty a vicious shaking.

“Oh,” said Marty, when he could get his breath, “I7ll do my work and make the best of it, Mr. Nye. I’m a bit of a greenhorn at this game. Also I’m sea- sick. Perhaps if vou’d let me_ lie down a couple of hours I might feel better.”

860 THE RED BOOK MAGAZINE

“Well, now,” replied Mr Nye, “that’s what I call takin’ a sensible view o’ the situation. Hoodlum Harry said you was dangerous an’ to handle you’ with gloves.”

“Oh, no,” Marty answered drearily. “T know when I’m licked. I wont make any trouble, Mr. Nye. I’ve heard about men who were shanghaied, and it never did them any good to protest. What name did they ship me under?”

“Tom Brown,” said Mr. Nye prompt- ly.

“Tom Brown goes,” Marty replied, and Mr. Nye let go his coat collar, whereupon he subsided to the deck and went sound asleep. When he awoke again he had a headache and it was almost dark, and Mr. Nye was drenching his head and face with a bucket of salt water. He had forgotten by this time who Mr. Nve was, so he sprang up and administered to that individual, within the space of half a minute, the most substantial thrashing the capable fellow had ever heard of. He had no sooner polished off Mr. Nye than the second mate was upon him, assisted by the bo’sun. A blow to the jaw of each stretched them beside the unfortunate Nye, and then the third mate and the old man himself, assisted by the cook, closed in on him. Marty was doing nicely, despite his headache and_ the tremendous odds, when the second assist- ant engineer tapped him on the head from behind with a spanner, and the fight was done.

When Marty McFadden awoke for the third time he was in irons. He thought the matter over for two days and then desired the cook to notify the skipper that the war was over, so far as he was concerned. ‘The skipper sent word by Mr. Nye, who came with the key to unlock the irons, that he was de- lighted to hear of it.

“You're a wonderful fighter, ‘Tommy Brown,” Mr. Nye remarked, as he in- serted the key in the leg irons.

“I’m sorry I walloped you, Mr. Nye. Please do not hold it against me,” Marty pleaded.

“Do your work, Brown, an’ I wont. Tackle me again and I'll shoot you an’ feed you to the fishes.”

,, T was a_ beautiful morning in the early fall, three years later, that the proprietor of MecFadden’s Em- ployment Bureau looked up from his roll-top desk. <A tall, sea-bitten

ot We, young giant, with a

a ee SS. er ¥

PSE thick black beard, ie

ited leaned on his el- bows on the coun- ter and returned his look.

“Well, Father, dear Father, I’ve come home to die,” the stranger declared facetiously. “Aren’t you going to say something nice to the returned prodi- gal?”

“Hello, Marty,” the crimp replied. “So you’re back, eh? Bless me, I didn’t know you behind all them black whisk- ers.” And he stepped to the counter and held out his hand. It was seized and warmly shaken, with the additional in- formation from Marty that he was tickled to death to see his father once more.

“Well, well,” said Mart McFadden, “an’ so you're back. How do you like whalin’ ?”

“Three years in the Arctic an’ the South Seas is quite a liberal education, Father,” Marty replied grinning. “It hasn’t hurt me any, although I’ve been through hell, it seems to me. They signed me on ‘lay,’ and I was discharged this morning.”

Mart McFadden grinned. Well he knew the portion of the sailor who ships aboard a whaler “on a lay” of the catch.

“[ suppose Dirty Munro” (for thus was the skipper of the Shandon Belle known to the front) “gave you a dollar for your three years’ cruise and kicked you overside.”

Marty nodded, and the parent rubbed his hands with satisfaction.

“Well, Marty,” he continued. ‘“Now that you’re back, what do you intend doin’ with yourself?”

“Well, I thought perhaps you might be holding that crimpmg job open for me, Father,” the son retorted impudently. “If you're still agreeable, I am. I’ve

. we

SAUCE FOR THE GANDER

learned a lot about the sea and sailors and the money that’s to be made out of them; also I’m broke and I’m not as particular as I used to be. How about it?”

Mart McFadden’s face almost tender as he laid a hand on his boy’s shoulder.

“T had to do it, Marty,” he said. “You was all swelled up, like a skinned horse, with conceit an’ high-toned notions ; you was ashamed of your old man an’ you was foolish enough to knock me out an’ think you could get away with it. I slipped you some chloral in your beer, my son, an’ then I shipped you. Dirty Munro give me fifty dollars for you.” He laughed good humoredly. “Lord,” he said, “there aint nothin’ like a winter on Herschel Island an’ cold work in an open boat to harden a man; an’ there aint nothin’ like Tom Nye an’ the cock- roaches in the fo’castle o’ that stinkin’ Shandon Belle to take the high an’ mighty airs away from him.”

“T’ve admitted it’s a liberal education,” Marty replied. “Don’t rub it in. Give me a hundred dollars and let me get some clothes and a bath and a couple of square meals fit for human consumption. Then make up those partnership papers and I’m with you—on one condition.”

“What’s the condition ?”

“You pay me regular sailor wages for every month of the three years I’ve been aboard the Shandon Belle.”

“An’ if I don’t?”

“T’ll pinch you till you do.”

Mart McFadden laughed aloud. “I'll pay,” he declared. “By Gawd, I got a son after all, not a dude.”

“How’s Mother?” Marty asked.

“Worryin’ a little, I guess, but other- wise well an’ happy. She’s left me— damn her. Sold the house an’ lot I give her for a weddin’ present, an’ went to live with her old man. She’s got me under bonds to keep the peace or I’d—”

“Give me the hundred and _ prepare the partnership papers.’ Marty inter- rupted. “I’ve waited three years. I can’t be a doctor now, and ‘Tom Nye took all the fine notions out of me. I guess crimping isn’t so bad after all.”

The crimp looked at his son with the closest resemblance to affection that was

Was

SOI

possible with one of his wolfish nature: “Gawd!” he muttered absently, “aint he a beauty!’ He continued to admire his splendid son until the latter was once more forced to remind his father of the necessity for civilized rai- ment and food; whereupon the crimp went to his safe and counted out a thou- sand dollars.

“That’s three years wages as wages go on a whaler.” he said. “Fix yourself up, kid, an’ come around when you're ready.”

Marty slapped his father affection- ately across the back, took the money and disappeared. A week later he re- ported at McFadden’s Employment Bureau, and Mart celebrated by taking his son up town to a French dinner. They had a jolly little spree together that night, and the following day Marty went to work as a runner for his father. He was a clever runner, and the first day on the job he stole eleven men out of the German bark Hlans lVinkelried, just arrived, and shipped them out the same night, all thoroughly “pickled,” on another German, the [Vi/lie Rickmers. When Mart commended his activities and suggested that his son fork over the blood money, however, Marty shook his head.

“IT told you I wanted a full partner- ship, Dad,” he explained, “and you haven’t come through with it yet. No probationary period as a runner for me. I’m sailor-wise right now.”

“You ought to work awhile for your partnership, Marty,” the crimp sug- gested.

“Tsn’t the business coming to me in the long run, anyhow?” Marty de- manded. ‘‘Why wait? You can’t handle these tough birds any more, and you ought to realize it. The first thing you know you will be killing a man with those brass knuckles, and then you'll lose the business anyhow. It’s up to me to take over the rough work, and if I’m going to do that I want a partnership. McFadden and Son would look good on a pale blue letterhead.”

“An’ if I don’t agree,” Mart taunted the boy.

Marty grinned. “My name is Martin McFadden,” he replied, ‘‘and if I set up in the crimping business for myself, I'll

862 THE RED BOOK MAGAZINE

cut the ground out from under you in six months, Dad. Everybody knows Martin McFadden, the crimp,”’ he added meaningly.

“You win,” Mart declared, hugely de- lighted, and forthwith they repaired to an attorney’s office, where the partner- ship agreement was drawn up and duly signed and witnessed. From the lawyer’s offic: they went to the bank, where Marty’s signature was registered, in order that he might draw checks against the firm’s account, and from the bank they returned to McFadden’s Employ- ment Bureau.

HEN the day’s business was ac- complished, Mart and his son sat in the Employment Bureau building air castles. The crimp had been so_ busy sketching once more his favorite plan for an office in Astoria that it was seven o’clock and the neighborhood of Drumm and East Streets deserted before he was aware of it. He glanced at his watch. “Let’s go to dinner, Marty,” he sug- gested, and rose to let down the lid of his desk. The moment his back was turned Marty silently threw open the door leading to the sound-proof “slaugh- ter pen” in the rear of the office, and as his father withdrew the key from the desk lock, Marty’s arms closed around him, holding him helpless. In an instant he had backed into the sound-proof room, still carrying his parent, who, thinking his son was wrestling good-naturedly with him, had made no outcry, content- ing himself merely with a half-hearted struggle, the while he marveled at the strength in Martv’s long arms.

The moment he was fairly inside the slaughter pen Marty released his father, and shoved him violently across the room. ‘Then he switched on the light, closed the door and locked it, put the key in his pocket and faced his parent.

“Well,” he said quietly, “what do you think of it now?”

“Whadja mean?” Mart McFadden de- manded. “What you up to, Marty, handlin’ your old man like a common savage ?”

“Well,” said Marty, “three years ago you shanghaied me. You had the un- speakable depravity to shanghai your

own son, and by that act you killed in my heart all the affection and loyalty due you as the author of my being. You sold me for fifty dollars—sold me into slavery and filth and suffering and brutality, because I dared to assert my natural hu- man right to be a gentleman. You have never regarded me as your son but rather as your property—so you shipped me on a whaler to make a man out of me, ac- cording to your formula. You have stolen three years of my precious youth; you have made me old and wicked at twenty- one. You have beaten my mother and broken her heart, as you have broken the heart of every friendless poor devil you could entice into this slaughter pen. You are probably a murderer—and you ought to be punished. You are going to be, and I am going to punish you.”

“How?” demanded Mart McFadden, and in his tones there was an ominous, contemptuous growl.

“I’m going to shanghai you, my de- lectable parent, even as you shanghaied me. I’ve arranged it all with Tom Nye of the Shandon Belle. The Belle has discharged her cargo and outfitted for another cruise in the South Seas, and in the spring she’ll head north for the Arc- tic again. —Tom Nye has promised me that when the Shandon Belle returns from the South Seas you will be mana- cled in that filthy hold until she puts to sea again north bound. You’ve got three years of hell ahead of you, Dad, because I’m going to sell you for fifty dollars to Dirty Munro. I told him who I was and why I had been shipped, and he said that while he’d enjoy the son, his cup of joy would never overflow until he should see ‘Tom Nve driving the father. So I promised I’d accommodate him, for Dirty Munro isn’t so dirty that he hasn’t a rude sense of justice.

“So off you'll go to the Shandon Belle this night, my healthy, youth- ful, athletic father, and I wish you joy of the cruise. While you’re gone in that rotten whaleship I'll be rehabilitating myself. My first act as your partner will be to sell the City of Bergen to Hoodlum Harry. Then I will close up this office, draw from the bank the forty thousand dollars, more or less, you have been accumulating, and keep it for the

oo

SAUCE FOR THE GANDER 863

use of Mother and myself. When you fail to pay the taxes on your real estate and it reverts to the state for non-pay- ment, I shall buy it in: since you will be a pauper when you return (if you ever do) you will not be able to redeem the property, and in due course I shall sell it for Mother’s account. ‘That was a very bad job you did to-day, giving me the right to sign checks on your bank account, although I do not feel any qualms at looting you. I can never for- get how you betrayed me under the guise of fatherly affection. You played the most heartless, terrible game in the world with me—and now I’m going to play it with you. There’s a cleaning job to be done and it ought to be done by a McFadden; I cannot leave the task to a stranger.”

E advanced upon Mart McFadden, and the latter threw himself into an attitude of defense. Marty noticed that the brass knuckles gleamed on_ his father’s right hand, and his attack was cautious. Round and round the sound- proof room they stepped, Marty leading, dodging, cuffing and worrying the crimp, but never hurting him. ‘Try as desper- ately as he would, Mart’s fist could not connect with the boy’s jaw, and pres- ently, what with his futile fanning of the air, his breath began to come in short, gurgling gasps. It was only then that he realized Marty’s plan was to tire him out without hurting him, and with a grunt he rushed into a clinch. He would carry the fight to Marty—make it a real, rough-and-tumble, water-front battle, in the hope that an opportunity would pre- sent itself for him to put home the crash- ing short right-hand jab for which he had been famous in his youth. “T thought you’d do that,” Marty said pleasantly. “In fact, I wanted you to.” He wrapped his long arms around his father, pinning the latter’s arms to his side; then he squeezed. Mart McFad- den’s face grew redder and redder as he struggled furiously to work his arms loose. In vain. Slowly Marty’s grip tightened on his father until it seemed the latter’s ribs must surely be crushed in. The crimp’s tongue began to pro- trude; his eyes rolled in agony and ter-

rible, impotent rage, as slowly, very slowly, Marty bent him backward until he was almost doubled; then suddenly releasing his hold, he permitted the crimp to collapse on the floor.

In an instant Marty had turned him on his face and was kneeling on the mid- dle of his back, holding both hands. Be- fore Mart McFadden could recover his breath, his hands were manacled behind him, his legs were tied securely at knees and ankles, and a bandana handkerchief was thrust into his mouth.

“Foolish to play the game with me, Dad,” Marty remarked pleasantly. “You're getting old, and thanks to my three years on the Shandon Belle I'm as hard as pig-iron. I think now I'll put you to sleep until I can get you aboard and safe under Mr. Nye’s watchful eye.”

He took a small sponge from his pocket, saturated it with a mixture of ether and chloroform, and applied it to Mart McFadden’s nose. Shortly there- after Mr. McFadden slept; whereupon Marty unbound him and removed the handcuffs, after which he stepped to the corner and reconnoitered East Street for a block in each direction. It was quite dark by this time, and from the old wooden sidewalks no footsteps re- sounded ; so Marty picked his parent off the floor and ran with him across East Street to the shadow of Broadway dock, where he lowered Mart into a Whitehall boat that was bumping gently against the piling.

ALF an hour later Dirty Munro, the skipper of the Shandon Belle, was chuckling pleasantly as he watched Mr. Nye and a boat-steerer hauling Mart McFadden in over the rail. A moment later Marty came up the Jacob’s ladder. “Marty,” said Dirty Munro, ‘this is what I call a rich joke on the old man. It’s comin’ to him for the way he treated you—and you as fine a lad as ever put an iron in a whale. I'll see to it that the old skunk gets all the side degrees before he sets foot ashore again.”

“His old man shanghaied me in 772,” said Mr. Nye, as !.e eased Mart to the greasy deck. “Your grandfather was King of the Crimps, Marty. He’s re- sponsible for me bein’ a sailor. If that

864 THE RED BOOK MAGAZINE

old thief! hadn't shanghaied me | might have amounted to somethin’.”

“There’s three men up forrd.” said the boat-steerer, “that’s particular any- ous to meet Mart McFadden on equal terms, ‘They'll try to make the cruise as pleasant for him as possible.”

“Yes—they will,” Tom Nye laughed. “Don't forget this crimp can still thrash any man in this ship except me. “Thanks to that assortment 0’ fancy punches Marty taught me while he was with us, I’m safe.” He turned to Marty. “I don't suppose we'll see you when we come back, will we, son?”

“AG. Marty replied sole rly. “I'm going to Europe to study medicine ; also I think [ll change my name. I’m not proud of it, you know, and neither is Mosier.” He shook hands with them all. “[’m obliged to you for your generous help, boys,” he finished, as he went over the rail. ‘Take good care of Father and make a man out of him.”

“No fear, Marty,” Dirty Munro promised; “he'll be a changed savage when he hits the beach in Frisco town again.”

Which was the truest thing Dir tv Munro ever said, for when

Mart MeFad-

den returned to his old haunts. three vears later and found Hoodlum Harry in charge of the City of Bergen, he leaned on the bar and wept in his misery and wretchedness. Here where he had been king he was now a friendless, pen niless outeast; and when he demanded of Hoodlum Harry an accounting of the business, Hoodlum) Harry threw him bodily into the street, where a little band of Salvation Army people returning from the Mission in Jackson Street found him, sobbing and cursing because his heart was broken and his manhood despr iled.

Mart was very miserable, so miser able, in fact, that he permitted the Salvation Army people to lead him to their barracks and endeavor to make a Christian out of him. Whether they suc ceeded or not is a mystery, although it isa fact that Mart McFadden has been beating the bass drum for the Army along the water-front ever since, and every little while he essays a sermon, taking for his text Luke 1:52: “He hath put down the mighty from their seats and

exalted them of low d«¢

wr oft ‘ ”

gree.

Hoodlum Harry swears Dirty Munro and Tom Nye will get their reward in heaven.

A Complete Resume of the Opening

Chapters of

YRUS TOW NSEND BRADY has begun in “The Island of Surprise” the best of the many fascinating novels that have come from his pen. It is a story of love, adventure and dramatic surprises. Robert Lovell, the chief character, is the son of Godirey Lovell, a Wall Street capitalist. }le has tin-

“THE ISLAND OF SURPRISE”

slips on a rug and is stunned by the fall. When she recovers she is in Lovell’s arms, and he is pouring words of love into her ears.

When Miss Arden reveals Lovell that his father had him to Dorothy Cassilis, Chicago financier who is his ally, in a burst of resentment, decides

that he and Miss Ar-

to young planned to daughter

marry of the Robert,

ished college and spent considerable time in traveling. His father deems it time for him to settle down. The 3} oung man chooses literature —- the writing of novels -for his lite work, rather than a part in any of his parent's va-

den shall be married at once. They hurry to the Little Church Around the Corner, and the ceremony is performed.

rious enterprises. God-

frey Lovell, at first

rather skeptical,

finally enters into the

scheme, and even con-

sents to lend Robert his most confi-

dential secretary, rsa Arden, to

“take” his first novel as it is dictated. Miss Arden is a avetoal ‘na rather

cold, austere way. Her father went

bankrupt in a contest with Godfrey

Lovell in “the street.” Recognizing that Lovell fought fair, she respected him, and after gaining employment in his offices, worked with such faithfulness and ability that she gained his confidence. Secretly she has always been inter- ested in Robert Lovell, but outwardly she has maintained reserve toward him. At the beginning of the dictation of the novel she continues this pose, but as the story progresses it becomes apparent that young Lovell is modeling his hero- ine from her, and his hero from himself. Unconsciously he is making love to her through the pages of the book. On the day the last of the dictated, Miss Arden, swept from her reserve, shows she is in love with the young writer. He believes there is an answering love in his heart. Miss Arden

story is

They return to the office to find that God- frey Lovell has suf- fered a stroke which will necessitate his giviny up all business. At his physician’s or- ders. he will take a cruise to the South Seas in his yacht.

Robert JT.ovell must yxo to Chicago to complete a deal which Godfrey Lovell

and Daniel Cassilis are putting through. He goes, reluctantly, and acquits him- self with credit. Miss Cassilis is not in

Chicago, having gone to Albany to visit friends, so he does not meet her; but he has been thinking of her more than a man wholly in love with another woman would do.

Robert’s father joins him in Chicago, en route to San Francisco, to board the yacht, and insists on the son accompany-

ing him on the cruise. Robert makes a hurried trip to New York to see his wife, but finds her apartment vacant.

The only clue to her whe ae is the

fragments of a telegram, which, when pieced together, make only the words: “Can’t do without.....need yvou.....take

first train.....meet me.”

Young Lovell is stunned. He decides to cngage detectives in Chicago, and on liis return from the cruise, to find the man who sent that telegram and settle with him.

NOW TURN TO THE STORY: IT BEGINS ON THE NEXT PAGE

“NUMBER THREE”

Chapter

Vill

“THE anx ious angry Robert Lovell

————— had not spent any

time at all in his section on the Limited. Phe buffet and dining cars alone were honored by his presence. The first was sacred from the intrusion of women, but in the second his attention had been di- vided between his dinner and his oppo- site. He had gone in to dinner rather late and had found but one seat vacant. his was at one of the tables for two. Ile was in no mood for feminine society. but the young woman who had the other seat was so extraordinarily pretty that he faced her with cheerful resignation at least.

Users of language deplore the fact that, although there are five hundred thousand or more possibilities in the way of words in the latest dictionary, there really of value to the

X

and

are so few

ISLAND

By Cyrus Townsend Brady

Author of “The Island of Regeneration,” ete.

romancer.

Prettiness

does not express the

¥vracious charm, the be

witching appeal, the un-

doubted fascination of the

delightful lady of the dining car.

But what other word is there to

describe her? She was not beau-

‘* tiful. Taking feature by feature

and analyzing them, she fell far short

of classic standards in every detail.

Nothing was absolutely perfect about

her,—not even her nose—and yet there

was a certain fine harmony in the various

features and qualities assembled that

well nigh spelled perfection. The re-

sult defied analysis. Yet Robert Lov-

ell thought he had rarely seen so engag- ing a creature.

She was rather over than under the middle height, he decided, as he respect- fully scrutinized her over the menu- card, and slenderly built, with abundant indications of exquisite grace when in motion. He was vaguely conscious that while her attire was not, in the words of Polonius, in the least gaudy, it was as rich as anybody could properly wear on a train.

The forlorn and distraught Lovell would have been glad indeed of an opportunity to make the acquaintance of this delightful young person who sat opposite him so demurely eating her dinner. Lovely woman is not always

e-

Copyright 1915, by The Red Book Corporation. 866

All rights reserved.

»

*~d

Illustrated by | Walter Tittle

*~7"

}

lovely when she eats. When she is, either a most exquisite refinement of n and a like daintiness of appetite, or an al infatuation on the part of the observer. AN Mr. Lovell could do was to wateh covertly, but this he did with much satisfact

it P i

He had essayed a few pleasant and conve tional civilities, such as gratifying an obviot need for the salt shaker, or the cream

pitcher, or the sugar bow]; receiving in return gracious thanks in a voice sincu larly adjusted in its harmonies to the speaker. It was with genuine regret that he observed the lady finish her delicate and well chosen meal and, with a slight

conventional bow in acknowledgment of his courtesies, leave the table and her new admirer.

At first he intended to follow her into the sleeping car which she had entered, but upon reflection he decided not to do so. In the first place. he recollected just in time that he was a married man, although he was fiercely resentful of that fact and intended to break the tie at the earliest opportunity. Warned by the consequences of his precipitation on a previous occasion, he concluded that the conservative course with regard — to women was the one he ought to follow. Incidentally, although he as op- posed as ever to the attempt to dispose of his own fortune and person, he recog- nized some sort of tie or bond connect- ing him with Miss Cassilis. which fur- ther acted as a restraint.

When he had finished his own dinner he resolutely went back to the buffet car, lighted a cigar and = was plunged in deep thought in which the business deal, the approaching cruise. his run-away wife, his proposed bride

Was

soon

= SUR:

bespeaks

PRISE

xt

v.

lanner

solute

her ion. n- and this de 1s lichtful stranger, whom he whim- sivally called “num- ber three.’ were = curi-

ously mixed. He kept to

himself and his thoughts until a late hour, when he determined to retire. Such had been

the hurry in which he had made arrange ments that he had been unable © to procure a compartment fer himself. Indeed, the best thing available had been a section in the Boston sleeper. “This had not been attached to the train until it reached Albany.

IIe found it difficult to go to sleep. There were too many emotions running hrough his) mind. although cursed himself for a fool, sleep did not any more quickly than it would have to a man. he more he thought of it. the more inexplicable and wrath-provoking was the flight of his wife. If he had leved her as he should he would have been so filled with jeal- wat he could have But the emo- were as much

and he come wiser

ousy and anvicty tl thought of nothing else. tions that overcame him

to wounded pride and affronted mr propre to regret or gricf. These. however, were sufficient to keep him in a white heat of angry passion whenever he thought about what he now definitely concluded was the only expla- nation of the torn telegram—namely that

due

Y/))

Me as

867

868 THE RED BOOK MAGAZINE

she had gone off with some other love and had abandoned him.

That he did not think all the time of his wife was proof of the quality of his sentiments. Imaginations of Dorothy Cassilis and remembrances of the un- known “number three’? would obtrude themselves.

For another thing, he was resentful at being compelled to take that cruise to the South Seas. He decided that if it were possible. he would shirk it. He must find his wife and “the man.” Yet he knew there was little chance to effect his release without an explanation which might kill his father, and he blamed him- self for being unwilling to minister to his father’s needs by going with him. But how could he find his wife’s lover nd punish him if he had to leave the United States? And if Dorothy Cas silis went on the cruise, how could he get along with her under the circum stances, and what would be the result of their association ?

Robert Lovell, since the unexplained departure of his wife, had taken a sud- den cynical view of women, one that he had never entertained before, but he had sense enough to see the possibil- ities of that long cruise on that ship. He had been on ships with girls before. He knew it would be annoying and embarrassing. If he could only have time to get a decrce of annulment, since the marriage was that in name only! Per haps he could delay his father’s depart- ure until—and then ‘number three” would obtrude her pretty face. Dorothy Arden, Dorothy Cassilis and this un- known! He wondered what car she was in and cursed himself again for being a fool to think of any woman in the world after the way he had _ been treated by one.

He saw himself in a very noble light, as having sacrificed everything on a point of honor to marry his father’s stenographer—and that he now so char- acterized her was also important. He could not imagine Miss Cassilis as a stenographer, and he even chuckled aloud at the idea of “number three” undertaking such work. What havoc she would play in an office!

Then his thoughts took another wan-

‘

a

dering turn. Miss Arden had been so absolutely cold; she had never shown, save to his kind, discerning old father and to himself, any human side. She had been “shut up in her own personality as in a prison,” and only he had held the key, at least so he had fondly thought until that day. What was the clue to her disappearance? And did he love her or hate her, after all?

WELL. by and by, with this jumble of confused thoughts stirring in his aching head he fell into a troubled sleep. Late to sleep is generally early to wake, especially if anxiety has delayed the sweet oblivion of the night. When he lifted the curtain the next morning and saw the sun already risen he decided to get up. He had no mind to lie and think the same thoughts that had so per- turbed him the day and night before. He rose, washed and dressed himself, and came back to his berth, which had not, of course, been made up, to leave his toilet-case preparatory to going for- ward to the buffet car.

As he passed through the long aisle there was no evidence of life behind any of the green curtains except those of the section opposite his own. These were bulging in such a way as to indicate that the occupant of the section had left the berth and was standing in the aisle. Instinctively glancing downward, he saw the point of a tiny slipper. ‘The curtain was moving in various ways, as if the person pushing it out in the aisle were putting on some sort of garment over her shoulders. The little slipper told him it was a woman. After a casual glance he reflected that he had enough of women, and turning to his own berth, before which the curtains were flung back, he replaced the toilet-case in his bag, locked it and stood up. Suddenly he was thrown violently forward against the steel partitition that divided the berths. Then he was hurled sideways against the window, which shattered un- der the violent blow of his arm.

Something had happened. The car, which had been running at the usual high rate of speed necessitated by the short schedule of the Limited, ground along the ties, apparently running on tle

sm"

i ——

.

THE ISLAND OF SURPRISE 869

wheels on the right side while the other rose in the air. ‘The speed had been checked with terrible suddenness, and in no time, with a smashing crash, the car went over on the side on which he stood. There was a wild accompaniment of ejaculations, yells and shrieks, succeeded by groans and cries of pain.

There was no man on earth quicker to recover than Robert Lovell; more- over, he had been trained in many a game to keep his feet and—more impor- tant—his head. Although he had been thrown backward and sideways he would have been able. but for one obstacle. to regain his feet without difficulty, as the car came toa stop. ‘Vhat obstruction was a woman partly dressed. wrapped in a silken kimono, who had evidently been standing in the section opposite him and whom the first wild whirl of the car had thrown into his arms. It was fortu- nate for her that he had stood just where he had, for she had been so suddenly hurled upon him that he had caught her as they both went down and. had broken her fall.

She lay in his arms. paralyzed with fear. She had not even uttered a scream. He struggled from beneath her and laid her gently down on the side of the ear, which had now become its floor. He thought for a moment that she had fainted. He bent over her regardless of the fact that his feet crashed through the window where he had stepped on the glass. He brushed the bright hair away from her face and discovered who she was. Her blue eves were wide open: she had not fainted. but had been simply scared speechless. Recognizing her. he thoughtlessly exclaimed :

“Number three!” And then. “Are you hurt ?”

“T don’t know; I belicve not,” came the breathless answer.

“Well then.” he said, lifting her up, “T think we have nothing immediate to fear. This is a steel car; there is no danger of fire.”

But by this time pandemonium raged in the car. Scared men and women gath- ered themselves, and those who were not seriously hurt rushed frantically to the exits. It was all Robert could do to keep himself and the woman from being tram-

pled upon. As soon as he felt free to exert himself. however. he lifted her up. remarking that it was no time to stand on ceremony, as the car appeared to be on the bank of a river. into which it might slide any minute.

He placed her on the arm of the berth from which she had just fallen. He seized his walking stick and broke the windows above her head on her side of the car. which was now the top. He cleared the sash of glass. It was not difeult for him to climb through, and it was not much more of a task to reach down. take her by the shoulders and lift her through also. ‘To get her down to the ground which sloped above the car was quite easy. Still carrving her. although she protested she could walk. he went up the bank across the tracks from whieh the train had been hurled by a broken rail, set her down under a aree and turned to go back.

“Where are vou going? You must not leave me!” the girl besought him.

“There are other people in the car,” answered Lovell. ‘‘See how it is poised on the bank there. It may fall into the river at any moment. [T must do what | can.”

“You wont go into the car again, will you?” pleaded the girl. and there was that in her voice which caused him to look at her quickly.

“Don't worry about me: V1) be back safe and sound in a short time.”

He broke away from her detaining grasp, looked back and saw that she had risen to her feet and was staring at him. He hurried back to the car and ren- dered valuable assistance to the trainmen in getting out the more desperately wounded. He was actually the last man to leave the car, which finally rolled down the bank and fell into the river with a mighty splash. And not till then did he return to the girl under the Tree.

ORTUNATELY, the air brakes had

been quickly applied, and the stout steel cars had withstood the shock. There were few badly injured, and one or two physicians who happened to be on the train were giving them adequate atten- tion. No persons except the train crew

“T will tell you,” he began, “The first woman is some one who—who-—wanted to marry me,” he went on lamely, haughty resentment. ‘The second woman is a girl other people wanted could not fail to detect the relief in

870

opeach rane enn

his face flushing with embarrassment. “Ah!” exclaimed the girl, her face flushing in turn, with a singular look of me to marry,” he continued. “Oh,” breathed the girl, and even he . her voice. ‘And number three is—”

871

872 THE RED BOOK MAGAZINE

and Lovell were fully clothed. Most of the women were even more thinly clad than the young girl he had rescued. She was at least shod and partly dressed.

“T thought you were never coming,” she began. “You can’t think what relief I experienced when I saw your head and shoulders rising out of that window. You have saved my life. I am sure I should have been killed had it not been for you.”

“Nonsense,” said Lovell; “it was nothing; but I’m glad that I happened to be there.”

“Didn't I hurt you when IT plunged down upon you?”

“Not at all. I’m as right as I ever was. It was a flying tackle you made.”

“Ves, wasn’t it? I have seen them at the games but I never expected to make one myself.”

She blushed at the thought of the intimate relationship that had been es- tablished between them, at the recollec- tion that she had been precipitated in his arms, that he had lifted her up, dragged her through the window, low- ered her to the ground and carried her like a helpless baby to the hill.

“T take it that vou are not hurt,” he said, “although I know some brave peo- ple who laugh even when they are suffer- ing with pain.”

She gathered her loose garments about her, almost for the first time conscious of their unconventionalitvy under his di rect if entirely respectful scrutiny.

“T don’t feel very much shaken up,” she answered. “Is anyone seriously wounded 2”

“1 believe not, fortunately,” was the answer, “and it’s a miracle, too, for that was a violent stop and three cars are off the track, two in the river.”

“Oh,” said the girl, suddenly looking down at her kimono, which was of light colors and made of filmy, rich embroid- ered silk, “look at that.”

“That’s blood stain.” he said, follow- ing her gaze. “You must be hurt.”

“No, no, it’s you,” was the answer.

He inspected himself quickly. He had not taken time to think of himself before, and he observed for the first time that his coat sleeve was torn and cov- ered with blood.

“Well by Jove!” he exclaimed, lifting and turning his arm until he could see his elbow. “I’m awfully sorry I spoiled your kimono.”

“Spoiled my kimono!” was the an- swer. “You are wounded!”

“It is nothing. I remember now that when I thrust my elbow through the window I did feel a cut, but it’s only a scratch ; don’t bother about it.”

“Tet me see it.”

She drew her kimono about her and stepped closer to him.

“Look here,” said the man as she seized his arm gently but firmly, “vou’d hetter not. One of the doctors will fix it up presently.”

But she would not be stopped. She slit the sleeve of his coat, which was already torn, and did the same with his shirt sleeves. She turned them both back and discovered an ugly looking gash in his arm.

“Oh,” she said, “how horrible—and for me!”

“T have been worse hurt in play,” he said, not contradicting her, though how it was for her he could not see. “Just let it alone; it will be all right presently. I’m so sorry to have spoiled your pretty dress.”

That did not bulk very large in the young woman’s eyes, apparently, for she immediately rent a long strip from it and approached the wounded arm again.

“T can at least bandage it,” she said. “We learned how to apply first aid ban- dages at college. ‘VThere,”— as she suited action to word.——‘‘now you must go to one of the physicians and have him give it better treatment.”

“Presently,” returned the young man, after gratefully thanking her. “I met you last night in the diner,” he continued. “Am I not to know to whom I am so much indebted for this kindness ?”

“You are Mr. Robert Lovell of New York, are you not?” she asked him sud- denly.

“T am, although how you know it, Stace”

“T knew you would be on this train,” said the girl, ‘and I recognized you from some pictures I have seen in the papers in connection with a big railroad enter- prise you were conducting, and the iui-

.

THE ISLAND OF SURPRISE

tials on your bag confirmed my guess.”

“You have, therefore,” said he, “an advantage over me which I hope you will be willing to surrender.”

“T will on one condition.”

“And what is that ?”

“What did you mean when you said ‘Number three!’ when I feil into your arms in the berth yonder ?”

Now that was a question he could hardly answer.

“Why, I—”

He stared at her in dismay.

“Well,” he stammered, “to tell the truth—’”’ “It is evident that is not what you

intend to do,” said the young lady, and thus challenged, Mr. Lovell spoke boldly.

“Sometimes the life of a man women come.”

“So I have

“And you are—’

He stopped again; it sounded too ab- surd.

“T am the third woman who has some relationship to you, am I not?” She pressed the question.

“You are at least a possibility, after this morning,” he answered gravely.

“And the other two? I know that I have no right to ask, but I am really interested—for reasons which you may discover some day.”

The strangeness of their positions, the sudden intimacy which had arisen be- tween them, the entire unconventional- ity of the situation, perhaps warranted her in asking the explanation of his un- considered remark, he thought.

“T will tell you.” he began. “The first woman is some one who—who—wanted to marry me,” he went on lamely, his face flushing with embarrassment both because his statement was only half true, and because his remark seemed so con- ceited.

“Ah!” exclaimed the girl, her flushing in turn, with a singular look of haughty resentment.

“The second woman is a girl other people wanted me to marry,” he con- tinued.

“Qh,” breathed the girl, and even he could not fail to detect the relief in her voice.

“And number three is—”

into

heard.”

face

“T presume I am she?”

“You have guessed well.”

There was a long pause. Robert Lovell at last lifted his head and looked at her. She was smiling a little. He took heart and repeated his original question thus:

“Now, having complied with your con ditions, may I not have the honor of your acquaintance ?”

“Mr. Robert Lovell,” she instantly responded, gathering her kimono about her and making a little bow as if ac- knowledging an introduction, “allow me to introduce you to Miss Dorothy Cas-

rrr

silis of Chicago! CHAPTER IX

Mr.

M'!ss DOROTHY CASSILIS was

so delighted with the effect of her brilliant cowp that she laughed aloud, and the laugh completed the absolute discomfiture of Robert Lovell. He was a ready man ordinarily, but speech ade- quate to the situation utterly failed him. There had been a haunting suggestive- about her IIe remembered now that he had seen pictures of her in various fashionable papers, and he cursed himself for a fool that he had not ree- ognized her. As it was, he could only stare in astonishment. ‘There was, how- ever, a sufficient tribute to her quality, a sufficient meed of admiration in his bewildered regard, to flatter her pride and at last to make her take pity on him.

“Vou see,’ have been mistaken in your numbering.

“Ves,” answered Lovell, divining her meaning and at last finding his tongue. “You are the girl other people wanted me to marry.”

“Number two, at your service,” said Miss Cassilis.

Instantly realized the possible meaning of her idle phrase. She colored deeply.

“Am I to infer that you are willing to carry out your part of the bargain?” he asked mischievously.

This much. dignation flamed.

LOvELL CHANGES Miss CAssILis’

Minp

ness face.

’ she began, demurely, ‘‘you

”

she

was too The girl’s in-

874

“T suppose.” she replied with cutting severity, “that beeause vou have just saved my life—”’

“Pardon me, 1 oniv helped you out of the car,” he interrupted.

But she went on unheeding.

“vou have the right to say anything to me.”

“T beg your pardon.”

“You may well do so.”

“T spoke idly, thoughtlessly. Let me tell you IT only learned this little plan of our worthy parents accidentally.”

“And so did I. No one could hav been more indignant. It was for that reason alone that I left Chicago last week. I didn’t want to meet you.”

“And now that you have?”

“Without in any way derogating from obviously admirable qualities. Mr. Loy ell, and with no reflection upon your availability as a husband, 1 am of the same opinion still.” she said

“Go on.” he said mournfully. “I de serve it all.”

“And further.” she continued. “last nicht I telegraphed my father positive ly refusing to go on that absurd vachting cruise.”

“Vet vou were homeward bound on this train.” he ventured mildly

The young lady endeavored to stamp her little foot. but it was daintily slip- pered and the ground was muddy. so that the effort was unsuccessful although the purport was unmistakable.

“It is like you to say that. I presume it does not occur to you that a girl might care enough for her father and mother to wish to bid them good-by before they go wandering off to the South Seas.”

“T had not thought of that.’ was the contrite reply. “You have beaten me in every way,” he continued dejectedly. “I haven't a recourse save vour charity to the erring.”

He looked so humble that Miss Cas silis again took pity on him.

“It wasn’t your fault of course.” she began, “‘—that absurd proposition. | mean.

“Indeed, no,” was the prompt and un- expected answer, “and I assure you I was just as resentful of it as you were—” She flashed an indignant look at him; this was going a little too far, but he

THE RED BOOK MAGAZI!

continued equably : “—that is, until just now.

“Of course, I know you had to say that,” she continued but with a rather pleased little laugh nevertheless. “Now that we have expressed ourselves as be- ing thoroughly out of sympathy with the ideas of these fathers of ours. let’s dis- miss the subject.”

“There is still the vachtinge cruise.’ he urged mildly.

“Exactly; vou may go. and I will stay at home.”

“T woul self.” he said craftily. “and let you go. I have been in the South Seas several

do yladly stay at home, my

times. But my poor old father has set his heart on my going with him. Well, } shall be very SOTTY, but of course you ean? be expected to have any particular interest in the welfare of my father. You might. however. go on the cruise. I wont pursue you with unwelcome at tentions: and then no one can say that vou were afraid to put vourself in. the wav of "— he hesitated “shall I say, temptation 2”

“You may sav it if vou wish but there really is none.”

“Exactly, and therefore there is) no real reason why you should not make the cruise. It will be delightful altogether, apart from me. The IVanderer is a beautv. She is really a six-thousand-ton steamer. It will be the vovage of a life time.”

He suddenly smiled at her in the most inviting manner.

“T will think about it.” said Miss Cas- silis after a moments hesitation.

“Meanwhile, in order to give you lei sure to reflect. ] will hunt up the con ductor and find out what T can about the situation.”

THE onductor of the train was a very anxious and busy man, but Robert Lovell’s father was a director of the road and the conductor knew it. “There is a farmhouse just around the cut yonder,” he said. “I’ve tele- phoned division headquarters to send a special down to take the passengers on and clear the wreck. It will be late when we get into Chicago, of course, but we will get you there before night.”

After a satisfactory interview with the farmer’s wife, she appeared clad in the fashion of the year before last.

875

876

“T would like to do a little telephon- ing myself,” said Lovell.

He sprinted up the track to the farm- house. By a liberal expenditure of money he had the farmer hitch up a horse and buggy while he bought from the farmer’s wife a dress, a coat and a hat. her best, for which he paid a price far bevond their value.

When he finished his telephoning he jumped into the buggy, drove back by the road until he came to the scene of the accident, where he found Miss Cassilis standing forlorn and disconsolate under the tree where he left her. He took her to the farmhouse whence. after a satis- factory interview with the farmer's wife, she appeared clad in the fashion of the

year before last.

Five hours later the special drew. in to the headquarters of the division. The train stopped long enough to enabk sundry clerks from the biggest dry-goods shop in the town to board it. Thes ladies, carrying big valises, had an inter esting session with Miss Cassilis in the drawing-room of the car which Lovell had reserved for her. They had brought vats, shoes, underwear. dresses. in per fectly bewildering quantity and quality. It was a touch of imaginative fore- thought on the part of Lovell, who had arranged it all by telephone. Miss Cas silis bought what she wished. marveling how well the things fitted her and how well she looked; and when the train rolled into Chicago six hours late. the two who had sworn that nothing could ever force them into marrving were at least fast friends. Daniel Cassilis met them at the t “Well. Dorothy.” he began. “I am glad you changed your mind at the last minute and decided to go with us.” exclaimed the

rain

“Changed my mind! girl in astonishment.

“Yes; I got vour telegram an hour after the wreck.”

“My telegram?” she said with a sus picious glance at her young companion.

“T sent it,’ said Lovell blandly. “1 wired your father that vou had decided

to go.”

Continued on page

THE RED BOOK MAGAZINE

The girl stared at him, but as she stared, in spite of herself she laughed.

“So your maid packed your trunks,” continued her father. “She is on the train. I had your man bring your things down, too, Lovell. We held the Limited for you. All we have to do is get your trunks—the bayggaye car was _ not wrecked, 1 understand—and we will go straight to the train.”

“How is Father?” asked Robert Lov- ell, seeretly rejoiced that Miss Cassilis did not repudiate his assumption and re- buke him for his assurance.

“Not quite so well, I think. My phy- sician, who has been in communication with Dr. Schenck, says we have yot to get him aboard the vacht at once. Come, Dorothy, give me vour trunk checks.”

“Tf will punish you for that telegram.” said the girl as her father turned away.

“So long as vou go with us you may punish me all you wish.”

“Tyve a great mind to decline eve now.”

“Are you afraid?”

“OF you 2? asked the girl.

“OF yourself -

“Of neither.” was the prompt answer.

“Then yo.”

‘T shall if only te prove to you and everybody that I am afraid of nothing. \nd_ besides. it will please Father an Mother so.”

“Exactly,” returned the voung man with an innocent air.

“There is some imporiant private busi- ness that I really must attend to in Chi eago.” said Lovell. greatly relieved. as Mr. Cassilis came back after having see to the baggage. “I must have two or three hours.”

“T don’t believe the Santa Fe will hold the Limited another minute. even for me or your father.”

“Well.” said Lovell as they went toward the car, “if they wont do it you will have to go on without me. I will order a special and catch you at Kansas City. Vhey ought to be able to make up the short time I will require without dif- ficulty.”

“You will sce your father before you co, wont you?”

1021 of this issue.

_

“What is the matter? Why did you send me that telegram?”

Cho Spirit of Night

. | VIAT was what they called the Princess Michele tn Paris, where she look them all by storm.

oy t.. 3.

‘

Author of

re jEN TLEMEN,”’ G said Prince Villar- | sky, tossing to the ——— Turkey carpet a copy of Le Petit Journal, “there have been whispers lately regarding the disappearance of my wife. It is possible that you have created or echoed these unsubstan- tial surmisings, these curious conjectures. I do not blame you. She has vanished, certainly. Will she return? Listen to me: The Princess Michele will not come back any more than the flowers which die, or the years which are ended.” Even the club waiter, in the act of picking up the fallen paper, started with surprise. In this smoking-room, this sa- lon-fumoir, were seven members who

Beeston

“Pauline March,” etc.

ILLUSTRATED BY heard the abrupt outburst. HENRY A. THIEDE

very one had been reading, and all, with a single ex- ception, turned startled eyes upon the speaker. The single exception did not look over the edge of his Petit Parisien. Ile was absorbed in it.

The Princess Michéle, who had first appeared in Parisian society three months back, had charmed her way along enchanted roads. Exclusive sa/ons had welcomed her beauty; ice-barriers of convention had melted at her loveliness. Jealousy might hint that an excessive reserve masked no great depth of wit or intellectual perception, but jealousy did not count. The caress of her voice, her rare smile shadowed by some melan-

877

g78

choly, were jewels of priceless esteem. That sonnet in the Revue de deux Mondes called “The Spirit of Night”’— “L'Esprit de Nuit’”—was undoubtedly addressed to her.

Suddenly she vanished.

“And if you ask me where she is,” con- tinued Prince Villarsky, her husband, in a calm and deliberate voice, “I reply— look for the snows which fell last win- ter; seck for those stars which endure but a second.”

Theatrical! Also, the circumstances considered, not in the very best of taste. It jarred somewhat the nerves of the six listeners; the seventh was still absorbed, presumably. And the club waiter, in his smart green uniform with large gold but- tons, lingered by one of the tiled tables, whisking off imaginary cigar ash.

What on earth was Prince Villarsky about to say? Que diable! So thought everyone there, uncomfortable, yet poignantly interested, leaning forward in the large, leather-covered chairs, watch- ing the pallid face of the speaker, with cold eves, its

its waxed mustaches, its

high, dome-like brow.

"sy ! ' {-

—_

I found her at that farm eight years ago: an uncut, an unpolished jewel; a clod.

THE RED BOOK MAGAZINE

Their poignant interest overlooked a mis-timed rhetoric and the fact that the hour was late—for the Opera-house, quite close to this fashionable club in the Boulevard Capucines, had closed its doors an hour ago upon its patrons.

“It has been suggested to me,” said Prince Villarsky, “that I owe some ex- planation to society of the absence of my wife, an explanation which courtesy first recommends, which will soon be re- quested by desirability, which must even- tually be demanded by authority. [I pro- pose to speak—now.

“Life, it has been splendidly said, is a great adventure. I am going to give you a chapter on the joy of living—and loving. Toujours Pamour! It is the glory of a Frenchman; and of course I am a Frenchman despite the Russian title which I was obliged to assume when in- heriting my estate in the ‘Trans-haikal.” He turned to the waiter: “Three cigars.” The trained servant hesitated for a frac- tion of a second before darting off on the, errand.

“You may possibly remember that the last time the Princess shewed herself in public was that evening when they pre- ‘La Somnambule’ at the Opera.

That evening I had an appoint- 2 ment to dine with the Countess

sented

;' de Monthéry. It seems that

‘4! evervbody who counts — was

\ / there. at the opera. The Prin- ‘|! cess Michéle wore a gown of

orange-colored silk, with her favorite Malmaison roses, her necklace of Orient pearls, of five hun-

dred pearls) which en- circled her throat and fell, a lustrous shower,

over her bosom; her dia- » mond shoulder straps—of red diamonds; and ‘y gleaming in her hair, which was arranged in bandeaux, a star ay and crescent of ru- _? bies. I mention these - details in no boastful —-..- spirit; they are neces- sary to my story. “T was told that she seemed overshad-

THE SPIRIT OF NIGHT

owed by some sadness, and that the con- clusion of the first act found her on the brink of tears. It was assumed that she was rendered melancholy by the sweet music of the mournful Bellini—his re-it- erated melodies which haunt us for hours after hearing them. Immediately upon the first fall of the curtain she left her box. She did not return to it. Regarding her subsequent movements, which were swift, dramatic, amazing,- something of them I heard from her own lips; as for the rest, the nature of the scenes is per- fectly familiar to me, and I see, even now, with a certain eye, a sure mental vision, precisely what took place.

“Without leaving the building she tel- ephoned for her fastest car. Five minutes later, a cloak over her gown and her thickest furs over her cloak, she had left the river northward. Look for her an hour later: she is already far south; the cry of the powerful engine disturbs only sleeping cattle, and the telegraph posts slip up out of the dark and fling back- wards, unceasing, monotonous, the wind gurgling in their insulators.”

HE narrator paused to take one of

the three cigars which the waiter of- fered to him in a wine-glass. The gargon glided away, but did not leave the fumoir. Doubtless a scene like this did not enliven his usual experience.

“We pass over an interval of many hours,” went on Villarsky, gripping his cigar between his teeth, screwing his shoulders into the padded leather. “We look for the Princess Michéle again. She has completed a long journey upon which an overpowering impulse started her with such great abruptness. A new day declines. An interval of rest she spent at an auberge. And now she is in her car again, which is drawn up under a bank. She is waiting for twilight to deepen. The shadows grow; the dew falls; and from the white marjoram and tufts of sweet southernwood upon the bank rises a delicate fragrance. She in- hales this perfume as if it was a familiar one, and she looks round with a strange, an inexpressible gaze upon the deserted fields, the fields of rye, of colza, of bar- ley, and upon a large pool over which two willow trees hang their festoons of

879 green, slender leaves in a_ beautiful shower of foliage.

“It is now almost dark. The Princess leaves her car. She says to the chauffeur: ‘Wait for me.’

“Where is she? For reasons which will scon be apparent to you, gentlemen, I cannot give exact information. I will say generally that she is in the Périgord country, in the country of the Upper Périgord. She must know this part of it well enough, for she climbs an upland with no hesitation, with a quick and cer- tain step. ‘The reapers have departed and taken their songs with them. The last chirp of a grasshopper has been received and absorbed by the evening quiet, gra- ciously accepted.

“When she reaches the ridge of the upland she perceives, in the distance, reddened lights that gleam behind win- dow panes. A hamlet is down there, and the sight of it sends her right hand to her bosom as if in pain. Behind the ham- let is a forest, so black and forbidding that one would think night had walked out of it. Suddenly a wild shout comes from its recesses; it is the cry of the eagle owl. The harsh scream of the ori- ole replies, and the wrangle of the bull- frogs booms from a marsh.

“The Princess Michéle follows a stony path which leads to a farmhouse at an extremity of the hamlet. On one side of this farm is a livid pool, on the other a wall that is covered with briony and the yellow blooms of celandine. She passes a shed from which the shafts of a cart protrude and against which is piled an immense heap of dung. She glides through a copse of trees, of apple trees which stand amongst tall dandeli- ons. For a moment she pauses, breathing sharply. Suspicious hens clutter uneas- ily, and she goes forward boldly, lifts the latch of the farmhouse door. Her journey is over.

“She is in a kitchen which is also a living-room. A wood fire burns in a wide hearth, and over the fire is an iron pot suspended by a chain. The floor is of red bricks, and from the rafters, grimed with smoke of thousands of fires, hang down long filaments of webs which move spectral-fashion, uneasy in the draught. Pieces of bacon hang there also, and

550

long strings of onions. A huge wooden clock is fastened to one of the walls, and each lic-lace of the ponderous pendulum kills a second of time.

“Ona table a lamp, filled with a crude colza oil, burns with a smoky flare.

“A man sits by this table putting down figures in a greasy account book. and the labor of it distorts his face into a hun- dred creases. He is broad-shouldered, deep-chested, has hair tinged with gray; and his blue blouse, open at the neck, shows the muscles of his bull-throat. IIe looks up quickly as the Princess enters. A questioning frown furrows his forehead. It fades abruptly. In his blue eves a light of bewilderment flashes. He The blood

clenches and = un-

springs to his feet. rushes from his face. Tle clenches his huge fists, red and coarse from their work in the fields. He opens his mouth to say something, but can only make a meaningless exclamation. Fle trembles all over, catches at the table for support. A cold dew bursts upon his forehead. What. strangling convulses him? He has become suddenly afraid; a mortal fear almost makes his heart stop. Who is this woman? “She is his wife, messieurs.”

Fe VERY listener betrayed amazement

by a violent start. Only the man behind the Petit Parisien moved not a muscle. Perhaps he was asleep. And the waiter, hanging about curiously, shrugved his shoulders, and a_ smile lifted his tiny mustache.

“His wife, mes amis,’ continued Prince Villarsky, still biting on his ci- gar, gazing through the blue smoke with dreamy eyes. “That surprises you? It is true. It is also a confession. The love we have for each other is no justifica- tion, but it is something, all the same. I found her at that farm eight years ago: an un-cut, an unpolished jewel of the purest water. Yes, I took her away. She was then wearing a hideous white coif, a canvas skirt, woolen stockings. A peasant girl of Périgord, a clod! You will agree that I have transformed her. I think that one of her ancestors must have been noble. It is an ascension to type. And now she returns to the farm: a lady, you will admit. For five years

emotion so

THE RED BOOK MAGAZINE

I sent her to the best schools. Her hands are delicate as porcelain, as beautiful as fragile porcelain. Her cheeks wear the rose’s flush; her gaze is straight, proud: her carriage is that of a—a prin- cess. She pushes aside, with a mechanical gesture, her heavy sables. Her bosom shows white as a lily. and her jewels break into flame, into points of multi- colored fire.

“She says, in a low not perfectly under control, ‘I heard that Anna, our child. is very ill.’

“The man’s pallor deepens. His limbs twitch as if an ague from his fields, a death-mist from the marshes, had entered his bones. How frightened he is! He is twenty years older than his wife; with a grasp of his sinewy fingers he could crush out her life. What, then, unnerves him in this fashion? He is afraid—for his child. When his wife went away he sent after her a bitter curse or two, and forgot her. But the child which she left became his idol, the apple of his eye, his soul’s jewel; and his one fear was that he might lose it also, by some means, some cruel stroke of fate.

“And now, as you see, the mother comes back, with that question upon her lips. Has she come for her child whom she never has been able to forget, in her heart to abandon, to lovy- ing? The man fears it. He will not part! All the fiends in the pit shall not drag his darling from him! But he is afraid of his transformed wife; her beauty, her grace, her command, daunt him.

“He growls in a voice which has a whimper and a snarl: ‘Go away! You are not wanted here. Go away!’

“He would rather have had a panther slink through his doorway than this beautiful creature.

“Michéle answers in a soothing voice,

voice which is

Cease

in a tone which one uses to a scared child: ‘I have not come to do you anv harm. Will you let me see my little girl ?”

“He pants: ‘No—no—no!’

““T know I wronged you deeply, An- ton. I want to do anything in my power to help. And so much is in my power. Do tell me—is Anna very, very ill?’

“He gurgles: ‘How do you know she is il]?

THE SPIRIT OF NIGHT

‘““*T must not answer that question.’

“What have you come back for?’

“*To see my baby girl. I have suffered, wanting her. She is part of my heart, and I only realized it when I lost her. Do let me do something, Anton. I will send the very best doctors from Paris.”

“*By Heaven, you shall not!’ shouts Anton. ‘I will not be interfered with here! You understand that?’

““Oh, of course I do,’ Michele, very gently. ‘She is yours — heaven forgive me. I only want to know if she is very ill.’

“Well, no.’ Anton replies, after a pause, watching Michele with a search- ing. stealthy gaze as if he feared some treachery. ‘She has been ill, but she is now out of danger.’

“ ‘You swear to me that that is true?’

“Ves, IT am not lying. And now, be off !’

“Tet me see her, Anton: just one look!’ she pleads.

“He makes a furious gesture of re- fusal.

“She draws near him, pushing her furs back so that her shoulders gleam like a white dawn. Her calm eyes meet and beat his down. She puts her gloved fin- gers on his right arm. She smiles in her tender, her caressing way.

“Just one look, Anton—just one,’ she beseeches.

“For a minute he is altogether con- fused so that his senses reel. ‘The trans- formation almost makes him think that he is dreaming. 7/is the farm girl whom he had married in the village church? This cultured, graceful beauty his—his wife’ A subtle perfume emanates from her skin; a wisp of her hair touches his face. For a fraction of a second he medi- tates a mad idea of flinging his huge arms around this radiant presence ; and she, pérhaps divining it, draws back hastily.

“*Go!’ commands flings open the door.

“This time Michéle obeys. The door closes with a crash behind her. And An- ton puts up the bar as if he were shutting a wild beast from his hearth.

“Michele glides away quickly. It is her turn to tremble. A sob makes her beautiful throat quiver. She ascends

answers

Anton; and he

881

swiftly to the ridge of the upland, where she stops, fighting for breath.

“The tranquil night composes her. She perceives the gray tower of the village church. It was the curé of this church who supplied her with news of Anton and of Anna. He is a good man, and his idea is to win her back to that farm. Her leaving it he terms a deadly sin. Perhaps he is right. Yet love, my pro- found affection, won her, and love is its own excuse for worse excesses. ‘Come back,’ the curé often writes. ‘Return, my daughter. as you went. Not with a name and rank which does not belong to you, but empty-handed, in the spirit of sor- row, of repentance, prostrate before God; and I promise you that I have enough influence with Anton to make him receive you and yield you your place again.’

“Can she do it? No, for she loves me. Is her sin so very great? She feels that it is; but then her horizon has been so enlarged, her experience of life so widened, and she, who lived in a mud- hole, reigns in salons. What, go back just as she left, in that hideous coif, that coarse dress, those wooden sabots, to that stagnant existence! To lose her beauty and her youth there! No—no! Only— there is her child which ‘in her heart she has not abandoned.’

“She looks round upon the slumbering fields which are suspiring a pale breath that blurs the stars and reddens the horned moon. And slowly in her bosom rise, also, instincts; through her veins, in which courses the peasant blood which she has inherited from generations and generations of toilers of the fields, now awake ancient longings which are almost dreams: primeval impulses. ‘The perfume of wet earth dilates her nostrils—the odor of the wheat, the smell of hay. She hears again the rain on the land, the trickle of the rills, the majestic voices of oxen, songs of birds, the cry of the trees, the high call of the free winds, the grinding of wains coming home, in the sunset, to where the firelight reddens the cottage window. She sees the blos- soming apple trees holding out their arms covered with beauty, the translu- cent pools in the hollows; the chalice- cups of the flowers, the dew on the

882 THE RED BOOK MAGAZINE

grass, moss round the boles of oaks, the procession of the stars, the ascent of the changing moon: all those wonders which chide so divinely, which mock so sweetly the race and roar of our fevered life in this Paris.

“And then? Why, then she returns to her house in the Avenue de l’Opera., re- turns as swiftly as she started upon that escapade. Anton Grégoire’s wife is the Princess Michéle again; instead of a farmstead, a marble palace. She asks for me, is told that I am out and handed a note which I have left for her. She takes this note into her boudoir, opens it, and reads as follows:

Ma cherie:

Prepare yourself for this letter, which will, I fear, hurt you deeply. We have spent some golden years together, and I thank you passion- ately. How it will grieve you to know that they must now end, that they are finished. You will call me faithless, cruel, monstrous: but the relations between us must now cease, broken by a more conven- tional, if not a more profound claim upon my affections. I will not add to your pain by writing long and useless protestations, extenuations of my decision. Neither did TI feel able to see you in a final parting which could have done us little good. I will see that you are not left penniless. I ask you to forget me, and I bow to your reproaches.

“This letter is mine. It descends on that wrecked heart like a fireball which falls suddenly down the sky and ex- plodes in ruin.”

HE narrator took number two of his three cigars out of the glass. With deliberation he sliced off the tip of one end, and he fixed his gaze steadily upon the man behind the paper, the man who was possibly asleep. But he could not see this man’s face, only the back page of his Petit Parisicn, and the big black let- ters of an advertisement, “Ne Coute Plus arr. hae The gargon had slipped behind a granite-faced pillar. He was decidedly _curious to hear the end of this story, and his eyes gleamed with extraordinary in- terest. The six other listeners did not move

except occasionally to look at one another. They were stupefied. A club- room chosen for the recital of so private a matter? The speaker was mad—fou!

At that moment a supper party from the Café de la Paix went by singing the song of Compardin’s which begins, “La zie est bref; aimens toujours ‘

Prince Villarsky went on, with an abrupt change of tense:

“Twenty minutes after receiving that letter, and while Michéle was still sitting in her chair feeling her heart, which was almost cold and dead, flutter in her bosom, a visitor was announced. His card bore the inscription — ‘Arnaud Dupontel ;’ and in a corner the words— ‘Service de Stireté.” Momentarily startled out of her -despair by the coming of a police officer, Michéle ordered him to be admitted.

“T understand that Arnaud Dupontel is a rising man in our bureau of secret police. He began:

“*T have been charged with a mission of some delicacy, Princess, and not with- out romance. I regret to inform you that your husband Prince Villarsky is, con- trary to his will and knowledge, in a position of some peril. I want you to be quite frank with me, as I will be with you, for only through your assistance can we help him. During the last twenty- four hours I have tried in vain to get in touch with him. Do you know what has become of him? Now that letter in your hand—if you prefer to keep it secret— ?”

“The hot blood poured over Michéle’s face. ‘To show the letter was to reveal the secret of her life with me. She de- murred: “Tell me more.’

“*As you please,’ said Dupontel, shrugging. ‘Listen to me. It is possible that you will neVer see the Prince again. There is a woman in the case. We are searching, not for your husband, but for this woman. It is a matter of sure knowl- edge that he was seen with her about thirty hours ago, in the Avenue des Champs Elysées.’

‘““*Her name?’ asked Michéle with the quickness of a jealous woman.

‘Her latest: the Countess de Mon- théry.’

“ “Her latest?”

~~/

|

i

THE SPIRIT OF NIGHT 883

T

““*She has many. No more dangerous together and save him by finding his

criminal—and scarcely a more charming one,—has preyed upon society in every capital in Europe.’

“«The Countess de Monthéry?’ cried Michéle. ‘I have met her. She arrived in Paris barely a week ago.’ Then. as she saw hope gleam, she panted: ‘And the Prince does not know that she is—what you say?

“ “Of course not,’ answered |upontel. ‘Be assured of that. Yet if she has marked him down as her quarry Come. vou wil] show me that letter?’

“To show the letter was to reveal her

secret. She demurred: ‘Tell

rd

me more.

“Michele shook her head. ‘I cannot,’ she murmured.

“*Then at least tell me if it suggests a woman’s hand concerned in this pro- longed absence of Prince Villarsky,’ in- sisted Dupontel.

“Michéle, with those written words, ‘A more” profound claim) upen my affections,’ branded upon her memory, could only reply, ‘Indeed. I fear it.’

“*Execuse me—it is possible — that Prince Villarsky has left you?’ ques- tioned Dupontel.

Michéle bowed her head.

“*Ah, how sorry I am,’ sympathized the officer. “Thank you for that informa- tion. It will, I think, serve. We will act

companion. Her arrest will cure him of this unfortunate infatuation, you will admit. You perceive now why I am so anxious to locate Prince Villarsky. And in return for your confidence I will im- part one.

* *Fourteen years ago a series of as- tonishing bank robberies occurred in French provincial towns and engaged the utmost attention of a completely baffled police. I need not enter into de- tails: suffice it for me to say that three Frenchmen finally came under observa-

tion. Their names were Livet, d’Apreval, and La Hire. Suddenly they disappeared, after robbing the Three Departments Bank at Havre, of a hundred thousand francs.

“When other means failed, a des- perate police offered a pardon to any one of those three who would betray his confederates. La Hire fell to the tempta- tion, for it turned out that discovery was imminent. The two others received heavy sentences. The affair gripped the atten- tion of the public chiefly because the so- called man, Louis d’Apreval, turned out to be a woman—a girl. It also transpired that when the trio heard of the offer of pardon they met in one of their retreats

—a house in the Rue Bellechasse, and_ ex- changed a vow that, in the event of one turning traitor, the others would not rest until they had killed him.

“*Fortunately for La Hire, he died shortly be- fore the release of his companions. I say for- tunately, for although the girl might have let him go, the man Jules Livet would assuredly have got a knife into him, for hate and vengeance were in- carnate in that ferocious spirit, naturally a_ killer despite his culture and education, and _ trans- formed into a devil by long years of imprison- ment. So much for La Hire.

‘*As for Livet, since his freedom he has retired somewhere into obscurity. Not so the girl, once known as d’Apreval. In her long exile she ma- tured, developed, became beautiful just as a rare flower, an orchid, grows in loveliness in the heart of a foul swamp. Three years ago she was let loose upon society, and we lost sight of — her. Death has closed La Hire’s book; Livet has, presumably, turned down his black chapters; but the woman, under many aliases, continues to add to her stories of fraud, the last of which she committed in Buda. Help me, if you get the chance, to find her—under the name of the Countess de Monthéry.

“*And now,’ added Dupontel, rising and taking his hat and gloves, ‘if you should hear again from Prince Villar- sky, ‘phone me at No. 37 Rue Roche- chouard.’

“He went. And two hours later Mi- chéle received a telegram which ran:

Be on the balcony at the Ambassa- deurs’ café at nine o’clock.

884 THE RED BOOK MAGAZINE

“For two weeks, since that little

“The message bore no name.”

IS throat having suddenly became husky, the narrator paused. He looked round and saw the waiter’s thin face half-concealed by the column. “A glass of cold water,” he ordered. He sipped a little of it, watching, over the rim of the glass, the man behind the newspaper, who had not changed his po- sition. Then he reached out for his third cigar. He placed the leaf to his nostrils, and inhaled, with an apparent and delib- erate enjoyment, the first whiff of blue smoke. “My story moves to an end, mes-

THE SPIRIT OF NIGHT

eee

dinner, I have been avoiding the police.”

sieurs,” he went on. “Who sent that tele- gram to Michcle? I did. She guessed, or rather she hoped as much; and at nine o’clock, as I was seated at a table on the balcony of the big café chantant, and on the stage at the further end, amongst the artificial flowers, the artistes were singing their songs, she—my Mi- chéle appeared. She had come alone, and not wishing to be recognized, therefore, was wearing a simple black cloak and had her face hidden by a thick veil. As soon as she was seated she said in a tense, in a shaking voice:

“What is the matter? Why did you send me that telegram? I know there is

885

some mystery, some » terrible secret. You - would not abandon me—you! Mon Dieu, what is going on?’

“I answered, soothingly, ‘We will, if you please, take the matter quite calmly. First, I will order some dinner.’

“She tried to eat, but her agitation would not be re- pressed. Knife and fork fell from her little hands. She pleaded, with a wild look around, ‘For Gsod’s sake, do not keep me in this sus- pense.’

“At that moment a ‘cello and a clari- net struck up a slow, mournful barcarolle. I leaned across the

table towards Mi- cheéle. ‘I did wrong to send for you,’ I began. ‘But I had to see you once more, just once again. I love you.

We have done wrong together, you and I; but I have loved you truly. Shall I call this my shame or my glory? I am not unfaithful to you. I am incapable of that crime. I had my reasons for leaving you, but you shall know them. ‘Tell me, where have you been since that evening at the opera ?”

“With no hesitation she informed me of her visit ; only at times I had to check her inclination to hurry, to blur over de- tails. It seemed to me then that that ad- venture of hers was not without dramatic contrasts. You have heard of it; I have related it to you to the best of my abil- ity, and without drawing, I believe, in the least upon my imagination. From that she passed to her return to our house

886 THE RED BOOK MAGAZINE

in the Avenue de 1’Opera, to her finding of my letter, to the coming of Arnaud lupontel, to his extraordinary revela- tion. I must confess that that was ex- tremely interesting.

“She stopped. 1 waited for her to ask questions, to make comments, but she maintained silence. In her white throat a pulse was beating quickly.

“IT said to her: ‘Do you believe this story e

“She questioned: ‘Is it true?’

“With the exception of one detail,’ I answered. ‘Dupontel declares that La Hire is dead, and he knows perfectly well that he is living. I am La Hire.’

“I saw her lips move, though no sound came from them. She stiffened in her chair. A girl on the stage suddenly be- gan to sing, in a piercing soprano voice, one of those doubtful songs which one at times hears at the Ambassadeurs.

“T continued: “That is the only name to which I have any right. It is as sure as that the man Livet is alive and that he will kill me, as certain as that I have fooled the police ever since they were imbeciles enough to let me go. Swindler or adventurer—call me as you will, I have made a dozen fortunes, and lost as many. In the restless years of roaming, of perpetual change, which we have spent together, the truth never dawned upon you. And it should not now —only that I have realized the end of my long, long tether. Arrest? I laugh at the word ; but I do not laugh at the name of Jules Livet, that man-killer.

“*Why do I make my confession to you? Because I know perfectly well that Livet will get me, and that the truth will come out. So I want you to go away, Michéle, to disappear eternally; other- wise, suspicion will fasten upon you, and you may suffer for my sins. You know where to go. You were there but a few hours back. Vanish into that obscurity from which I took you. It is your sole refuge from a world which will crush you, else.

“*T am sorry, Michéle, that I brought you to Paris. Yet it was just a luckless chance which sent the Countess here, also. She recognized me. She kill me? Scarcely, because she loved me in those far-ago days before I betrayed her and

Livet, and she loves me still, with a tigress’ affection. Ah, how jealous she was of you! To win me, to get me en tirely to herself, she threatened to put Livet on my track. I yielded to her; I abandoned you in the way you know. Then I was pierced through with anguish. What would you think of me? And I love you! At the last moment | defied the Countess. She was furious. 1 have not the least doubt what she will do; and TI cannot blame her. Livet will get a knife or pistol ball into me before J see a dozen sun-risings.

“*Ge back to Anton, to Anna, in pov- erty, humility. You have the Curé’s word. You must think that you have dreamed what has been, this splendor. I am false in everything but my love for you. That is my only worth.

“*T shall not be arrested. I shall beat Dupontel, who has at last, apparently, discovered La Hire in the Prince Vil- larsky. No doubt he saw me dining with the Countess; but although he was sure of her identity he was, even then, doubt- ful of mine. Afterwards he had no doubt. My letter to you he had probably opened before you got it. He will try to use you as a decoy—that is, if he has not already done so.’

“Michtle answered me, ir a dull, a despairing, a dead voice: ‘He has. I did not tell you because—because—mon Dieu! I felt that all was not right. He asked me to let him know instantly should you write to me. Then came your message. I was to meet you here at nine o'clock.’ :

“*Ah, and he knows that?’ I asked quietly.

“She answered, in that same tone of wrecked happiness, ‘As I said, I feared that something was wrong, and—and I put the hour on: I told him ten o’clock.’

““Thank you for that,’ I responded. ‘I have, therefore, precisely five min utes.’

“She panted: ‘Go—for pity’s sake!’

“When I have settled the bill.’

“TI beckoned the waiter. The matter occupied two minutes.

“ ‘Quick,’ said Michéle.

“T lighted a cigarette. Composure in such moments, gentlemen, has made me —what I am.

=

THE SPIRIT OF NIGHT

“ ‘Adieu. my beloved,’ I murmured, reaching out for her hand to kiss in eter- nal parting. She half extended it, then drew it back. A sob left her lips; her arms fell; she was on the brink of faint- ing.

“And I walked out slowly from the café chantant as the piercing soprano finished her vulgar song and the people broke into a subdued applause. | did not

look back, but 1 knew her eyes followed me. “| PHINK that is all my story, which vou perceive is a confession. You ask, silently. why | saa it in this public

fashion. in this club whose membership- roll IT was supposed to honor, to adorn. ] have answers to that question. The first is that I wanted to clear Michéle, in the most open and convinc- ing way, of the smallest suspicion of being considered as my confederate in any crime save that of leaving her world for mine. .Vimpoerte, the golden apples have turned to ashes in her mouth. I have explained also her disappearance, as I promised. That radiant star has fallen. My princess trudges the fields, the ruts—bends all day over the bare, moist lands, scatters the seeds, pulls up the grown tubers, plods wearily home in the twilight. And my Adventure ends. justly

two

887

ends, though it has been sweet enough, believe me.

“Then as to my second reason. For two weeks, since that little dinner at the Ambassadeurs’, I have been avoiding the police, which was not so difficult, and eluding Jules Livet, which was des- perately hard. Choosing the unexpected, I doubled and came here for a final hour; and I abruptly resolved to speak my mind, seeing no other opportunity either in the near or distant future—be- cause, my friends, it happens that that waiter there, behind the pillar, is Ar- naud Iupontel, very properly engaged in noting my evidence against myself, and to whom I surrender willingly. ea- gerly—because that gentleman who has been hiding his behind Le Petit Paristen is most none other than Jules Livet!”

Every member leaped to his feet. Livet was up first. A pistol gleamed in his hand, and it spat fire with a splitting report, but not before Dupontel with a well-aimed blow had sent the weapon circling to the carved ceiling. In the same moment he whipped round and _ his clutching fingers came down upon the narrator’s shoulder: “I arrest you!”

“Charmed !” mocked La Hire.

And he tossed his third cigar into the open fireplace.

face assuredly

son of democratic America. episode vividly described in—

“The Conspiracy at the CHATEAU”

It all happens right here and now in humdrum (?) America—this duel with sabers in the great hall of a wilderness mansion, glamourous love-affair between a daughter of feudal France and a

You will find the whole remarkable

EDWIN BALMER’S BEST STORY

IN THE APRIL RED BOOK MAGAZINE ON SALE AT ALL NEWS-STANDS MARCH 23RD.

this

“Wanted:

A Clever,

Discreet Young Man”

VIE story of the young man who answered the “ad” and of the results of a terrifying sneeze.

By Ida M. Evans

Author of “ Virginia,” “ Mudpuddles,” etc

PLiavsTFTRAT & OS BY f\- “IF YOU are one of the gray- ] eyed, red-blooded, alert-

brained young men whom

Amcrica and twentieth-century novelists jointly have created as ex- amples of what young men ought to be, you are not likely to shout with joy over selling notions in a department-store basement. Such employment is poor soil whereon to raise the crop of limousines, footmen, bathtubs, diamond-and- Paris-gowned wife and Wall Street affiliations, that every one of such young men plans to harvest somewhere between grammar school and his six-by-two last bedroom.

But—

If you have rubbed shoulders in bread lines with several hundred other men, many of whom are as ambitious and brainy as yourself; or if you have slunk home night after night with rest- lessly lowered eyelids, so as not to see the disappointed home-eyes at your mut- tered “No, I didn’t get a job;” or if you ever have had to acquire the hateful habit of assuming hastily the happy, polite smile which all Booklets of Suc- cess advise young men secking employ- ment to wear—a smile which sits as in- congruously on your gaunt face as a pink chiffon scarf on a fence post— then, a narrow notions counter looms be- fore you as a solace, a meal-ticket, the wall which divides heaven from hell.

There were times when the ten-fifty, cotton-roughed-like-wool blue serge el-

onyx

ROBERT A. GRAEF

bows of Mat Brader, recalling the past, leaned as thankfully on that notions counter as chickens at dark on their own roost. ‘Twelve per! It is a high, sweet financial note when sung surely and regularly after long bread-line and park-bench hoarseness.

But there were other times when Mat kicked at the counter as thanklessly as a rabbit nibbles its protective palings— times when his nostrils, sniffing the tai- lored tweed and the authority of other men, twitched—as a filly, haltered away from the track, twitches at the starting word.

At one of these kicking, twitching times, his eyes, hungering down the “Business Chances” column in his news- paper like a lost pup looking for the home alley, found:

Wanted—A clever, discreet young man who wishes to add materially to present income. Employee of large mercantile house preferred.

Crooked ? Certainly. discreet?

Else why the equivocal

time in the history

of English when = discrect was unequivocal and as respectable as a mourning bonnet. But mourning bonnets followed the suttee out of style. And discrect slid from its respectable place, and became a verbal adventurer, as much an eyesore as the flashy crépe

HERE was a

888

“WANTED: A CLEVER, DISCREET YOUNG MAN” 889

veil flaunted by a bleached, rouged lady For the re-reading and the place of

of adventure. reading, there was Now Mat knew enough to come in- a reason. doors when hailstones were pelting. He Irma

was not one of the trusting souls who Noland order chicken croquettes in strange was the restaurants. Moreover, by instinct and reason training, he was honest. But he cocked f or the newspaper between a dun derby that had seen better days and some draggly purple pseudo-aigrets that had seen worse, so that the column got full benefit from the Lincoln

Avenue car’s economic-

ally faint overhead

bulbs, and re-read 7

se :. i +4 that . dis wm ¢ the re-reading— creet . besides the lesser

reasons of ambi-

tion and_ cotton

blue serge. Sometimes when Mat got to think- ing of Irma, he kicked the notions counter so hard the blacking was scuffed from his shoes. Irma was a ste- nographer. She had dark blue eyes that could be quiz- zical as Foxy Grandpa's, as dreamy as a young. poli- tician’s hope of the White

House, and as practical as that same politician’s office apportionments when he is old and wearily occupying that House.

Her acquaintance with Mat began when she stopped at his counter one day to buy white thread. One night,

two months later, while the moon

white-washed Wilson Beach. and Lake Michigan swished up rhythmic melody to chord with the summer breeze, her eyes dusked into dreamy coals and she told Mat that she loved him, had loved him from that first thread pur- chase, and would love him forever and ever, even on twelve per, Amen.

A year later, in a hot. smelly café that held all the ten- and _ fifteen-cent luncheoners one café can hold without : bursting its windows and spilling beans Sa en casserole and chocolate eclairs out on Sometimes when Mat got to thinking of Irma, he the pavement, her eyes were practical as

kicked the notions counter. she reminded him that she was twenty-

ad.

3g0

five vears old, and since her trousseau needn't, wouldn't and couldn't be ex- tensive, she was willing to buy the thread for it any time he asked.

Mat savagely chewed a ham sandwich. “God knows I wish I could ask you. But—twelve dollars!” he said fiercely.

reaminess and practicality merged in Irma’s blue eves, forming an expres- sion of quizzical tenderness. “I’m get- ting ten.’—crumbling the oily wall of a condensed-milk-and-cornstarch cream puff. “That makes twenty-two.”

“You have your mother to support,” said Mat. “I have mine. And my sis- ter Helen with a tubercular hip. You might as well sign a life contract to run the mangle in a non-union laundry.”

“But [ wouldn't enjoy running a mangle.” objected Irma.

Mat did not say “Woman. donot tempt me.” He was a modern young man. He growled: “Cheese it. I got all the burden I can stand.”

“T wouldn’t be a burden.’’—softly.

Mat cut off further parley by reaching for the soiled navy-blue checks and grunting: “Come on: it’s late and I’ve got to get back to the store.”

This was the reason for the re-read ing. And the reason he read want ads. in the street car, and then, before he got off, carefully refolded the paper with the news pages outermost. was_ his mother, a frail, spiritless woman who regarded the notions counter as a God- lowered raft in poverty’s black sea. If Mat didn’t sit still and hold tight. they might be drowned!

O' the first nine years of his life, Mat

remembered chiefly his inevitable white buckskin shoes, a pony cart, a clean-faced maid and Mr. Felkins, an old-young man with dark brown hair that was short-cropped and napped his narrow head silkily, like sealskin. And Mr. Felkins he remembered chiefly for a remarkable and oft-recurring sneeze, the like of which, Mat was sure, was never heard before on land or sea. It began with a rumble. like a bass viol, swelled to the shrillness of a laundry

whistle; then came a series of tenor

chortles, and finally it died away with the melancholy sweetness of the last

THE RED BOOK MAGAZINE

notes of the Berceuse from “Jocelyn.”

Whenever Mr. Felkins appeared, Mat and Helen (who even then had begun to complain babyishly of an aching hip) hurried in from their play, in the hope of enjoving that wonderful conglomera-

tion of sound. And they enjoyed it often. Felkins nearly always had a cold,

Felkins had charge of their dead

father’s estate. One day he unexpectedly left the small Ohio town. Mrs. Brader waited unenlightened for ten days. ‘Then she learned that he had cared for the estate as a spider cares for a fly. Debt gulped the house, the pony cart, almost Mat and Helen’s white buckskin shoes.

Mrs. Brader had no near relatives. Mat still remembered, achingly, the dazed. stupid look with which she

hunted work. She sold books from door to door, clerked, washed, sewed by the day, and finally they drifted to Chicago, where Helen could be taken to a clinic. There Mrs. Brader kept working, at candy, shoe. box factories, all those places where quantity, not quality, of workers is desired.

The brand of incompetency is harder than Cain’s to bear. Sometimes it is more than a brand; it is a_ birthright. All nature’s legality is lacking in techni- calities with which to evade birthrights. Mary Brader trailed work as fiercely as an old bear trails mutton for its cubs, but somehow she could not learn the

ways or skill of the working clans, though = starvation was her — lashing teacher.

So it was not to be wondered that,

when Mat had landed on the solid, if narrow, notions counter, she should hold it rank ingratitude for him to kick it. W orse—sacrilege !

To avoid argument, Mat read ‘“Busi- ness Chances” in the street car. Now he scowled absently as his neighbor’s hat shifted, shadowing the last line, and he recocked the paper to re-read:

Need not interfere with present work. Call at Room 542 Jawnahan Building.

“ETELLO, Mat! Thought I saw your lean jaw, so I wriggled through the mob on the back platform—and, be-

“WANTED: A CLEVER, DISCREET YOUNG MAN” 891

lieve me, it was like a gopher wriggling through a floor crack. How’s every- body ?”

Mat grinned greeting at a _nattily shabby young man, Clarence Holcomb, who once had graced the notions counter for two and two-sevenths days, till a floorman had remarked that Clarence’s

disposition needed wider stamping ground. “Fair,” said Mat. “How’s yourself—

and Lenora?”

“Both squally,”—airily. “We're speak- ing to each other to-day, but likely we wont to-morrow. Come home with me for supper.”—hospitably. “I'll tell you about a chance I’ve got to make a lot of money, if I can get a chance to utilize the chance—”

But Mat had once supped with the Holcombs when they were not speaking to each other, and another time when they chose to speak their entire unkind opinion of each other. Neither time had been pleasant. So he declined. Sight of Mr. or Mrs. Holcomb always strength- enen Mat’s resolve not to marry Irma and follow in their squabbling footsteps. He was grimly aware that poverty usually breeds squabbling, as filth breeds flies.

Thinking of them, Mat forgot to re- fold the paper and unwarily laid it on the dining table with “Business Chances” outside. ‘'wo minutes later, his mother’s eyes lingered on it, as a teller’s thumb lingers on a too-thin greenback. “You’re not laid off!’ she cried in panic.

“No—no!” Mat spoke impatiently and smiled tolerantly.

The evening was depressive. After months of avoidance of the topic, his mother chose to discuss how different their lives would have been had James Felkins been differently principled. “You could have gone to law school, Matty. When you were six months old, a phrenologist told your father to make a lawyer out of you—”

“Dead wood, Mother,’’—restively. Mat did not enjoy obsequies.

“And Helen could have been oper- ated on in time to save her—her hip!”

“Some day I hope I meet our good friend Mr. Felkins!” said Mat mean- ingly.

T was not a coincidence that the next

morning a prosperous old lady in gray silk should say to a friend, apropos of a four-minute wait for tan twist, “Of course he’s stupid! If he weren’t, he’d be doing other work!” Old ladies and young, prosperous and otherwise, often complained thus.

But at noon Mat cut out lunch and went around to the Jawnahan Building, muttering: “By George, I'll get other work!”

It was a big, busy building. An eleva- tor shot him up to the fifth floor, where several corridors, lined with lettered, frosted glass doors, offered to sell him anything from second-hand clothes to cemetery stock. Door 542 read:

SmitH, Grawn & Co. Realty, Stocks & Bonds.

Mat’s lip curled—‘“T thought so!”’— as he entered. Mr. Smith proved to be a thin, middle-aged gentleman with sleek dark brown hair, a voice as suave as honey and a hand-clasp as energizing as Billy Sunday’s. The too suave voice and the too cordial hand convinced Mat that discreet had been inserted — with thought. Mr. Grawn proved to be a bald, fleshy gentleman with a large, bellicose nose. He was dictating to a pert, stylish stenographer, and he continued to dic- tate while he scowled inquisitively at Mat.

Now Matthew Brader had intended to proffer his services—provided after inspection, he decided to proffer them at all !—in the sad, proud way that a prince might marry a homely princess whom he does not love but will nobly embrace for his country’s good. Mr. Smith’s suavity would have intensified such intention. Mr. Grawn’s scowl upset him.

“You advertised—” he began awk- wardly.

“Ah, yes,” said Mr. Smith. “What ex- perience have you had in our line?”

Not having had any, Mat had not in- tended to claim any. He had planned to say brusquely, in effect, if not in actual words, “See here! I’m hard up! I’m darn near ready for burglary. I’ve got scruples, and I know you're a set of scamps. But I’ve got to have money.

892 THE RED BOOK MAGAZINE

So trot out your proposition. If it isn't too rotten, I'll look it over!”

What he said meekly was: “None, sir, TIT must confess. But I'd like to show what I can do.”

Mr. Grawn shrugged his shoulders.

“I'm afraid a degree of experience is essential.” said Mr. Smitlf deprecatingly. He looked at Mat kindly, though.

“Your ad. said no experience was necessary.” protested Mat.

“Prue.” admitted Smith. “But—”

“Sav! What about this batch of D. & K. bonds?” shouted Grawn. “Did you let those Petersons have ’em? I tell you,’ —fiercely.—“T} wont deal with that bunch! ‘They’re as unreliable as a punc- tured tomato can—”

“Yes — ves. ina moment, Mr. Grawn!” ‘There was impatience in Mr. Smith’s voice, “Now,”

amiably — ae Mir = _’9 “Brader.” “Mr. Brader, I

know we

“Please marry me, Mat!” And when she said again,“ Please!” he said hotly: “I wont!”

advertised that) experience was not exactly necessary.”—pleasantly. “That meant—if the applicant was of extra- ordinary personality. and ability. You are employed ?”

It is one thing to bring yourself to offer your services in the proud, resigned manner of a prince. It is a horse of an- other color to have those services tossed back, undesired, like a box of unripe

raspberries. Mat’s voice was sullen as he told the place and nature of his em- ployment.

“And you think your circle of ac quaintances is such that you could be of use to us?” asked Mr. Smith smil- ingly.

“Guess not.” said Mat shortly, and rose to go.

Smith — inspected him. “You look as though vou ought to be doing some- thing bigver than sell- 4

ing lin-

gerie tape.” — disapprovingly. Grawn sniffed.

“The Lord knows I'd like to!” hufhly remarked Mat.

“Well, I’m busy now, but drop in this afternoon,” genially invited Smith.

“Can’t,”—curtly. “I’m employed, as I said—and as your ad. preferred!—in a large mercantile house which has an odd prejudice against its employees runnins around outside during working hours.”

\—

“WANTED: A CLEVER, DISCREET YOUNG MAN” 893

apologetically.

“Oh, to be sure,” “Some other noon, then.”

On the way back to work Mat en- countered Lenora Holcomb. He recog- nized the elderly man beside her as her employer. ‘Together they passed through the swinging doors of a restaurant where palms were more in evidence than dough- nuts, and silver-banded carafes than cream puffs.

“Bet if I was Clarence, that would stop,” scorned Mat.

That afternoon Clarence himself strolled to the notions counter. “Matty, old grub, let me tell you my scheme. You know that garbage site the city coun- cil is haggling over—”

Mat had to attend to an irritated ol] man whose wife had sent him for olive skirt braid, and so missed Clarence’s next five sentences, although afterward he re- membered having subconsciously sensed a taut undertwang to the free and easy flow. When the braid had been found, Clarence was enthusing, ‘““W—and you see with three thousand for an option, I couldn’t stop myself making thirty thou- sand !”

“Smoke up while the smoking’s good,” laughed Mat. Holcomb most always had schemes and natty cravats—and not much else. He added carelessly: “I saw Lenora at noon.”

Enthusiasm dropped from young Hol- comb’s face, leaving it expressionless. “Did you?” He nervously fingered a bunch of kid curlers in the compartment before him. “I expected to meet her for lunch. But—I missed her. Was she— Where'd you see her?”

“Couple of streets over,”’—evasively.

“T suppose with—” He broke off. Then: “Gee, I gotta make money, Mat! I—there’s reasons.”

N the evening a hurdy-gurdy set Mat’s

mother to reminiscing. “If Felkins had been honest, you might have studied music and been famous, Mat. When you‘ were only four years old, you’d listen to hurdy-gurdies by the hour.”

“‘Never mind,” said Mat.

“But I do mind!’”—with the wild abandon of a weak, tired nature. “I lie awake at night and see his smiling oldish face. And I hear him sneeze; how you

children used to giggle at that sneeze! You were only seven years old when you said his slick brown hair was just like my sealskin coat. Dear me! to think there was a time when I wore sealskin !”

“You might again!”

“No, never,’—sadly. “Oh, Mat, you think I don’t realize how hard it is for you to be tied all your life to poorly paid, monotonous work. But I do—and I ache—and cry.”

“Shucks, Mother,’—comfortingly. “I might get into something better some day.”

“Mat! Don’t you dare!” in panic.

she shrieked

WEEK later Irma asked: ‘Mat, are you ever going to marry me?”

For answer, Mat shook an indignant face over the café’s thick coffee cup.

“Please marry me, Mat!”

“Tf wont,”’—coldly. And when she said again, “Please!” he said hotly, “I wont !”

“Very well. I sha’n’t ask you again. Never.”

“Very well,” said Mat in a tone which he intended to sound relieved.

Silently they ate two cuts of lemon cream pie. When each had _ finished, even to the hard white glaze, Irma said casually, rising: “After this week, I can’t meet you so often at noon. I’m going to work way down on Van Buren—for Bairly, the realty man.”

“That’s the old blue-gilled chap Lenora Holcomb works for!”

“Lenora is leaving—for a better posi- tion. So she sent me word to apply. I get twelve dollars. Lenora’’-—a bit en- viously —“‘gets eighteen at her new place. But she could take dictation from a forest of parrots and never mislay a comma.”

Mat scowled. “I can’t say I fancy the idea of you working for him.”

Irma shrugged her shoulders. And Mat’s scowl faded swiftly, leaving a hurt, sickish look in his eyes. Just so had he often seen Lenora Holcomb shrug her shoulders at Clarence.

HE next noon, he called again upon Smith, Grawn & Company. Grawn and the pert typist were out. Alone with

894 THE RED BOOK MAGAZINE

Smith, Mat felt more at ease. Also he was in a more determined mood than before. So he talked up. and demanded the real meaning of that “discreet” ad.

Mr. Smith first found out how badly Mat needed money. ‘Then he readily un- folded the meaning. Mr. Brader likely had a large circle of acquaintances in the department store where he was em- ployed. If he sold each acquaintance one or more shares of Smith & Grawn Realty Company’s stock, at five dollars a share, keeping forty per cent of each five dollars for himself. he would make a considerable sum. If he sold consid- erable shares, Smith and Grawn would be delighted. And they would always take care of him.

“How much are the shares worth?” blandly demanded Mat, ‘“—outside the printing bill?”

“What do you mean,- young man?”

“What do they represent ?”

Mr. Smith was hurt. Offendedly he put forth a lengthy explanation from which Mat gathered that the shares rep- resented land which the realty company would own when it had sold enough shares to buy it. Then the company would erect—by the mortgage process— modern rentable cottages all over this land. As soon as the cottages drew rent, stockholders would collect dividends—

“Or a bunch of exclamation points!” said Mat rudely. He was disappointed. He had not expected it to be so raw.

Mr. Smith was insulted and pained.

“T don’t like the way you talk,” he protested. ‘But I like your looks and bearing. I think you’re the type that can be of use to us. In two months you'll be wearing an Astrachan-collared overcoat—”

“And in six months maybe stripes,” said the disappointed Mat.

Mr. Smith got nasty. “I’d as soon wear stripes as eight-fifty cotton serge.”

“Ten-fifty,” corrected Mat. “I wouldn’t. Good-day.”

He resolutely put Smith out of his mind for two weeks and ate solitary sandwich-and-pie lunches. ‘Then one noon, while he chanced to be walking two blocks with Lenora, he met Smith. Mat and Lenora had just agreed as to the bitterness of a world wherein some

folks own a string of motors and others have not even a clear title to shank’s mare. Mr. Smith urbanely raised an expensive hat and smiled suavely at them.

The man’s urbanity and smiling pros- perity acted upon Mat as honey acts on dry bread. ‘Twenty-four hours later, Smith was handing him a_ prospectus. “(so a bit slow at first. You'll soon get your speed up,” he advised.

HAT afternoon, when business per-

mitted, Mat conned the prospectus.

“What’s that ?” curiously asked A frick, who worked at the same counter.

“Oh—nothing.”

Africk had the persistence of a weak- ling. “‘Aw, tell me.”

To get rid of him, Mat partly told him.

“And you wasn’t going to let me in on a deal like that?” reproached Africk. “T think you’re mean!” With quick, eager fingers, he pulled a bill from an inner vest pocket. “Here! I was saving this five toward a swell new spring suit, but as long as there’s a chance to invest t—?

“Say, I don’t want it!’ cried Mat. “I’m not sure this firm is square—”

“Aint you mean!” pouted Africk. “You wont let a fellow in—you want to hog it all yourself! I wouldn’t do you such a shabby trick!” He pushed the bill into Mat’s hand.

“I’m not taking candy from babies,” —wrathfully. “You give me a pain! Keep your money if you ever want to see it again—here !”

“Please, Brader!’ ‘There were tears in Africk’s high nasal voice. He pushed the bill into Mat’s hand again. The ubiquitious floorman saw him. The pros- pectus had fallen outside the counter to the floor. A floorman picked it up.

“Qh—ho!” he exclaimed. “So, Mr. Brader! ‘Taking advantage of your posi- tion of trust here to inveigle unwary fellow emplovees—I guess we can dis- pense with your services. You may go and get your time-check.”

After a good and genuine explanation had been unlistened to, Mat, gray around the eyelids and white around the mouth, went and got the time-check.

at, Gnd tee at tte

“WANTED: A CLEVER, DISCREET YOUNG MAN” 895

Then he loitered on State Street until the usual time to go home.

Now, in early morning, State Street is a brisk, musical, feet-tapping overture to the day’s work. At noon, State Street is the spirited, melodic ¢um-tum which introduces the second act. In its hurry- ing, homing six o’clock crush, State Street is the thrilling ensemble which signifies the end of the show. But State Street in mid-afternoon, when you ought to be working and can’t, is a long, loud discord that is agony to your ears.

When Mat met Clarence Holcomb in the street car that evening, his “Hello” was melancholy.

Clarence too had the featural gloom that goes with cirrhosis and a cold in the head. “Come home with me for sup- per,” he invited gloomily.

Mat declined. “Lenora doesn’t want to fuss around cooking for company after working down town all day.”

“Oh,” —savagely,—‘‘we'll cook it our- selves. Lenora has another position. The perquisites include dinners—as well as luncheons.”

But Clarence’s ramparts of reserve were down—kicked out from within. “I’ve gotta make money,’—forlornly. “She thinks I don’t care—or don’t tum- ble. But if I aint a Solomon, I got gump- tion enough to know how it’ll end,” —uiserably oblivious of listeners.

Mat was uncomfortably silent.

“Course I don’t feel like butting in with any husbandly authority of Don’t- touch-his-tainted-planked-steak when the best I can hand the poor kid is a ham sandwich.”

“Let's get off and walk this last mile,” suggested Mat, conscious that the pas- sengers near-by had laid down their papers to listen.

LTHOUGH in consequence of the

walking, Mat was late reaching home, his mother was not there, nor was supper ready. Helen explained that Mrs. Brader had heard an old friend was dy- ing at the county hospital. Mat set the table and made the coffee, then read the paper to Helen—who was not greatly interested in a world she was about to leave—until his mother hurried in. ‘“‘Mat, it’s a shame for you not to find supper

ready after working so hard all day!” Mat flushed, and asked whom she had seen.

“An old man your father knew,” —gently. “And not a soul to sit beside him but me. And that dreary hospital! This is no world for poor folks.”

“T had an idea it was,”—grimly.

He left home in the morning at the usual time, pecked avidly at want ads., as a young pullet pecks at cornflakes, drew back countless times as disap- pointedly as a pullet from sawdust, and at five-thirty found himself—as he knew all day he would find himself !—shoot- ing up in an elevator of the Jawnahan Building.

He feared the office of Smith & Grawn would be closed. But Smith was there alone. He was not so urbane as usual. He explained that he had a cold.

“Darn this lake breeze.” he said irri- tably. “‘What success so far?”

“T sold one share, and I—got fired for selling it.”

A distinct shade of disapproval flitted over Mr. Smith’s face. But it was imme- diately lost in the wry grimace caused by suppressing a sneeze.

“That unfortunate,”’—drily. “Very.”

“But 1 think,’—eagerly.

“1 don’t think you can be of much use to us then,” said Mr. Smith. “We pre- fer men in daily touch with other men.” He paused to cough. “Back Fast we have a climate—not a cold vapor bath.”

“Could you give me other work?” asked Mat meekly.

“Don’t think so. Since you are dis- charged, your presence at the store would not be tolerated. And I daresay you do not know many people outside the store—”’

A sneeze came, which refused to be suppressed: a loud, explosive sneeze. It began with the low rumble of a truck wheel on asphalt; it rose to a screech, fluttered on the air like the whir of many wings, then shrilled plaintively into si- lence. And it shook the frosted glass of the door, wafted the letters from Smith’s desk, jiggled the waste basket at his feet —and shivered the locked doors of mem- ory in Matthew Brader’s mind.

Where and when had he heard just

Was

896 THE RED BOOK MAGAZINE

such a sneeze? Why, that man Felkins, of course. His mother had recalled it, not many evenings before.

He looked at Smith’s sleek dark brown hair. Thinner now, of course, more like well-worn velvet than sealskin. But fif- teen years could not fail to thin a man’s hair. ‘The long, suave profile did not respond so readily to memory, but hair and sneeze were in themselves quite sufficient.

“You!” said Mat.

“Beg pardon?” said Smith, returning his handkerchief to his pocket. “Con- found this cold and this climate.”

“So you can’t use me.” said Mat. He did not crouch physically, but his whole hot soul was ready to leap.

“Don’t think so. Unless you get an- other position.”

“But vou found yourself able once to use something belonging to me!”

Smith looked amazed. “What do you mean ?”

“You know well enough. How much will you pay to escape arrest ?”

“What!”

“Tow much ?”—curtly.

“Why—you—vou—I"ll_ have you ar- rested !”

“T think not. You know who IT am. Don't bluff. You know that I can walk from this office to the nearest police station or “phone.”—grimly—‘“and_ the morning papers will have an item that’ll vellow their front pages brighter than the sun yellows buttercups. But I’ve got sense enough to know that your punishment wouldn’t reimburse me financially—”

“This is blackmail! Whatever you’ve been told, I swear—”

“Swear till you’re resurrected.” said Mat. “Fork up—or be forked over to jail and the newspapers.”

“Jail nothing! Such talk is pre- posterous !”

Mat waved a hand at the safe. He shrewdly calculated that the man might skip before morning.

“W-w-why, I'll pitch you out this win- dow!” Smith lunged at him. They clenched, swayed, snarled, choked, wres- tled, pummeled—until steps passed the outer door. Simultaneously they relaxed ; the older man conscious of his slighter

strength ; the younger anxious for money before anyone interfered.

“Tf it wasn’t for my wife and chil- dren, you scoundrel—” snarled Smith. “Oh, you’ve got me. I'll give you a thousand dollars.”

“And then some.”

“Not a cent more”

In the end, Mat compromised on five thousand dollars, four in cash, the remainder in negotiable securities—not shares of the Smith & Grawn Realty Company. however. In return he signed a promise not to prosecute Smith for any “fancied offense.” The words were Smith’s choice. Mat felt rather coward- ly and said so. His conscience really demanded that Smith be put in prison.

“But the money looks too good,” sneered Smith.

“It does,” didly.

*Bah—you cheap hound!”

acknowledged Mat = can-

AT did not tell is mother the

source of his sudden good fortune. She was too vindictive. and he had given Smith his word that there would be no punishment. [vasively he explained that Clarence Holeomb was a_ versatile schemer. Mrs. Brader was easily de- ceived. She took good fortune as she had taken poor—dazedly, — stupidly. Later Mat substantiated his own evasive story by supplying the three thousand dollars to finance Clarence’s scheme. He found him gloomier than a sick rabbit.

“Lenora lost her position,” he con- fided morosely. “And she accused me of queering her with the man. And | never dreamed of such a thing. Say, where did you get this money? Hold on—don’t tell me. I might not want to take it.” Then he contradicted himself savagely. “What a whopper! I'd take it if you sneaked it in pennies from news- boys. And in fourteen days, I'll give you back—halves all right?—fifteen thousand. And in two months—of course you understand, this is a sure thing, but it might fall through. You can’t lose, but you might—”

“T can afford to lose it.” And Mat went off to meet Irma, who had refused to marry him till she got her clothes ready.

v~

v~—™

The sneeze shook the glass of the door and wafted the letters from Smith’s desk. 897

matters,

898

A! eR marriage and prosperity and happiness had become every-day Mat’s mother timidly asked him: “Matty dear, it’s a good deal to ask, but—could you forgive Felkins?” “Why, I don’t know. Have you seen him ?”—sharply. “Ves. You remember that night I was

late to supper? He died then. I held his hand. He had wandered from place to place, and finally found out where we were, and sent me word. I—I for- gave him. He had suffered. You remem- ber his silky dark hair. It was white.”

“Oh, my Lord!” weakly said her son.

He told Clarence, omitting names. Clarence was much edified. “I’m glad you didn’t find it out till we’d made our

THE RED BOOK MAGAZINE

pile. I wonder what the old gent thought you were accusing him of. He must have done something in his time that lay heavy on his soul.” Then Clarence showed a gold mesh bag. “Swell, hey? As long as I can give Lenora this stuff she don’t accuse me of things I haven't done, like queering her with Smith, Grawn & Co.”

An earnest look came over Mat’s face. “What?” he said. For he remembered once meeting Mr. Smith while Lenora

“Oh, my Lord!” weakly said

her son,

AX

was beside him. At the time he had tak- en Smith’s suave smile all to himself. Was it possible— “T'll send the mously,” said Mat.

money back

Another story by Ida M. Evans will be in the next—the April—issue.

anony-

He experienced all the poign- ant emotions of a man who has stepped on a snake.

ILLUSTRATED BY F. FOX

“Ghe

of a One-Eyed Doll

Vik plain tale of the events which followed is full under the feet of Mr. Maxwell Jenks.

Bergengren

By Ralph

R. MAXWELL JENKS, returning late, but perfectly sober, from brating his forty- third birthday with other bachelors, knew the geogra- phy of 64 Charl- ton Street so well that the utter dark-

lower

cele-

ness of the hallway caused him no hesitation whatever. He had the points of the compass.

He closed the front door. set a straight course for the stairway, and followed it with such undeviating security that he nearly fell over an unexpected impedi- ment to navigation. If the thing hadn’t moved when he struck it, the surprised navigator would have found the stairs with his head instead of his feet.

Mr. Jenks was not a profane man, but he immediately uttered what is often described as a smothered curse. He re-

covered his equilibrium, struck a match, and the tiny flame illuminated his thin, intelligent face, wearing round-rimmed tortoise-shell spectacles and an expres- sion unhappily appropriate to the wicked words he had just been saying. Between himself and the stairs the derelict floated gently on four wheels—a doll’s peram-

Aulater—a ridiculous imitation, as Mr.

Jenks would have described it at a calmer

moment, of the most ridiculous vehicle known to civilization. ‘The match lasted long enough for him to spurn the silly thing out of his way with a disgusted foot: and he repeated the wicked words as he started upstairs in the dark. But he had lost his accustomed confidence. He guided himself by the banisters. Men- tally, if not physically, he had been suc- cessfully upset.

For some weeks past, Mr. Jenks had had to admit, grudgingly, that he was getting too easily upset. His health was all right; but his nervous system was like a chair with three legs, on which people and events were constantly try-

899

goo THE RED BOOK MAGAZINE

ing to sit down. This birthday dinner, for example, had been a fatuous bore from one end to the other. I pisodes in his law practice frequently sat down on that three-legged chair: the fussiness of clients, the stupidity of juries, the irri- tation of dictating your finest thoughts to a fool of a stenographer who stopped you in the middle and made you say them all over from the beginning.

Mr. Jenks (dictating): “I do not ap- peal to sentiment (comma) but I do say this (colon) let us be careful (com- ma) gentlemen (comma) that we do not add to the world’s burden of grief the weight of one unnecessary tear (semi- colon) that we do not—”

Miss Brown: “Beg pardon?”

Even his doctor sat down on it.

“Work all you please and as hard as you please,” said the doctor, “but balance it. Get an interest, something to take you out of yourself. And don’t put it off much longer.”

Really, one might have thought that Mr. Jenks wanted to be a lunatic, and the doctor was trying to persuade him, tactfully, that he wouldn’t enjoy it.

With all his caution, halfway up the stairs Mr. Jenks stepped squarely on

He could hear her plainly — Mr. Jenks shook his cap-

rock —rock— tive viciously and hurled it rock—rock! ’

He felt like a gentleman burglar.

something soft. It wriggled and emitted a faint but piercing squeak almost like human speech. He experienced instantly all the condensed but poignant emotions of a man who has stepped on a snake. His heart, an organ that had never been seriously touched by woman, made a spasmodic jump; his foot stopped going down and came up again as if he had a spring in it; he stood on the other and clung desperately to the banister. ‘There is, as we all know, an_ indescribable horror about unexpected contact with an object at once soft and in- visible; but fortunately a brave man quickly recovers his faculties.

The ascending lawyer struck another match to see what he had stepped on, and discovered the doll that belonged in the per ambulator—a large, untidy creature of French extrac- tion. He had stepped on its stomach. Mr. Jenks picked it up gingerly, and, in the light of his match, one blue eye—he now saw the doll had no other— opened automatically and regarded him with a fixed and serious interest. It seemed to say, “I am only one eye, but I can see as much as most dolls do with a couple. Who are you?”

~~

THE ADVENTURES OF A ONE-EYED DOLL go1

from him to the foot of the stairway.

“Mar-mar!” he said sarcastically.

Maxwell Jenks had lived for twelve years at 64 Charlton Street, but the thirteenth was unlucky. ‘There were signs—and stepping on a doll in the dark was the latest of them—that made him think he would be unable to live there much longer. During these twelve years, 64 Charlton Street, although not so described in the lease, had always been a bachelor apartment-house, and Mr. Jenks had come to take it for granted that it always would be. ‘The house was small, an old-time residence made over into suites, and Mr. Jenks was attached to his own suite with all the confirmed tenacity of a barnacle to a rock. The old-fashioned, wainscoted rooms had an atmosphere (and a kitchen- ette) of their own that he liked far better than the conventional up-to-date- ness of newer and more pretentious apartment houses—your “Duke of Marl- borough,” your “Lucullus Chambers,” your “Prince Regent.” or what not. From the beginning, 64 Charlton Street had exactly suited him—and now, like a barnacle at low water, he felt unseen fingers try- ing to drag him away from his comfortable an- chorage.

He had heard vaguely that the house had changed owners, but as

Brigys & Brigys still remained the con- necting link between owner and tenants, the change had not struck him as mate- rial to his own comfort. Suite 4, directly over his head. had been some time unten- anted, but it had never oceurred to him that Briges & Briggs would ruin the tra- dition of the house simply to rent one suite. They would know better. Nevertheless a female tenant had taken possession—and had brought a child with her. Smash went tradition! Mr. Jenks was no woman-hater, but against these new neighbors he had con- ceived a quick and vivid animosity. Sixty-four Charlton Street was no place

for them. Without meaning to liken 64 Charlton Street to the front

elevation of a pig, a woman in Suite 4 was as out of place as the Bible tells us

a jewel is in a pig’s snout. She was a false note. She ended the delightful in- formality of living at one’s ease in a houseful of bachelors. For example: Mr. Jenks, before he shaved in the morn- ing, had been used to trotting downstairs in his pajamas and getting his paper from the hall table.

So far, he had not seen the new tenants, for he was away all day; but he had heard them at night, talking, talking, talking long past the hour when any sen- sible woman would have put any sensible child to bed. They played games. ‘Twice, when he was dressing to go out to dinner, his door-knob had rattled—a man had to lock his door now, and that was another

In the walk be- fore him stood a doll’s peram- bulator.

and although a feminine voice

erievanee ? had said (with truth), ‘“Vhe gentleman doesn’t want you to call on him, dearie,” Dearie had been difficult to detach from the door-knob.

But when Dearie took to leaving her obnoxious playthings where the gentle- man might fall over them, it seemed to Mr. Jenks that the wormiest worm would express an opinion. Hle put on his dress- ing gown and wrote a letter to Briggs & Briggs.

Briccs & Brices,

999 Columbus Building.

Gentlemen: May I call your atten- tion to the careless and annoying habit of some tenant at 64 Charlton Street of leaving in the hall a doll’s peram- bulator ?

Although physically harmless by day- light, such a vehicle becomes in the

go2

dark a positive menace to other tenants. To be incapacitated by an automobile is one of the necessary risks of mod-

ern civilization, but the constant dan- ger of being incapacitated by an imi- tation baby carriage seems distinctly unnecessary. My lease, unless I am mis- taken, implies a reasonably safe pass age to my apartment.

Will you, therefore, kindly notify this-tenant to keep his perambulator, also his doll, in his own apartment?

Very truly yours, MAXWELL JENKS.

Mr. Jenks was especially pleased with his sarcastic assumption that at 64 Charl- ton Street the tenant with the doll and perambulator must necessarily be mascu- line.

To which Briggs & Briggs replied promptly, but apparently with no sense of humor whatever:

Mr. MAXWELL JENKs,

64 Charlton Street.

Dear Sir: Yours of the twenty- sixth received and contents noted. Be assured that you will have no

further trouble with doll and peram-

bulator.

Respectfully, Briccs & Briacs. (C)

Briggs & Briggs were very business- like gentlemen, and an unknown, heart- less entity called “C” usually attended to their correspondence.

Nevertheless the perambulator re- mained symbolic. Mr. Jenks could not

see it as he came and went, but he dis- covered that it was still there under the stairway, a lurking menace, likely at any time to sneak out and prowl around He purchased an electric

in the dark.

He tried to look like an uncle,

THE RED BOOK MAGAZINE

torch and felt like a gentleman burglar. He had, by the end of a few weeks,

a distinct impression of the woman up-

stairs. An envelope on the hall table, redirected from a neighboring city, told him that her name was ‘Treves—Mrs. John Treves. She got only the one letter, but the ~™ child — Miss An- ue—* toinette ‘Treves— seemed to have a number of corre- spondents.

Mrs. ‘reves, so Maxwell decided, was a large, stout, foolishly-placid woman, who spent al! her spare time inanely rocking herself back and forth in a chair made for that purpose. He could hear her plainly— rock—rock—rock—rock —rock — rock. He got to listening for it; he got so that he seemed to hear it in his office. A heavy woman, with a heavy mind and a heavy “social manner” — just the kind of woman, in short, who would take an apartment in what had always been a bachelor house. Mr. Jenks wished that the rocking-chair habit was fatal, but apparently it was merely insidious: the more one rocked the more one enjoyed it.

But he wouldn’t get out! He felt that it was a battle between them, and that the knowledge of his departure would somehow give pleasure to the woman upstairs. She would rock with a more insane satisfaction than ever.

Then afternoon, while he dressing for dinner, he heard a new sound, an interminable whistling. He went out in the hall and listened.

That night he again wrote to Briggs

& Briggs.

going to find his niece.

one was

Briccs & Briccs, 999 Columbus Building. Gentlemen: May I call your atten- tion to the fact that a tenant at 64 Charlton Street is keeping a canary. This may seem a small matter. But as it is a rule of the house that ten- ants shall not keep dogs, I beg to point out that a canary makes a much more continuous noise than a dog and is pro- portionately more annoying. I trust something wll be done at once to abate this minor nuisance. Very truly yours, MAXWELL JENKS.

THE ADVENTURES OF A ONE-EYED DOLL 903

To which Briggs & Briggs answered:

Mr. MAXWELL JENKs, 64 Charlton Street.

Dear Sir: Yours of the tenth re- ceived and contents noted.

We regret to advise you that canaries are not dogs, and we are therefore powerless in the matter. Kindly in- form us at once if tenant in question sets up a dog.

Respectfully. Briccs & Briccs.

(C)

Canaries fortunately do not sing in the evening.

A week after his latest exchange of polite correspondence with Briggs & Briggs, Maxwell Jenks sat on a bench in the Public Garden finishing his news- paper and cigar before returning to what could no longer fairly be called his home. Charlton Street was just around the corner from the Garden, and the after- noon was one of those early December days when summer seems to have come back for something that she had for- gotten. Here and there, foreign-born parents watched their progeny in pro- cess of amalgamation and chattered volubly in various languages. “Two or three Irish gardeners were clearing up scattered leaves. It what the old fashioned geography books might have called a typical “seene in America,” and Mr. Jenks looked rather out of place in it. He had come across the Garden read- ing his newspaper as he walked, and had sat down and crossed his neatly-creased

]

raising his

Was

tweed trouser legs without eves from it. He wore spats and carried a walking stick.

He finished one column and glanced casually over the top of the paper before

starting another. if

Then he laid down

the paper. RR f -

It seemed as i somebody wes ok shouting. == ©

In the walk before him—and it was a wonder he hadn't fallen over it—stood a perambulator; and in it a one-eyed doll sat up stiffly and regarded him with a fixed expression of hostile recognition. The glare of that one wide, blue eye seemed to say plainly, ““Vhrow me down- stairs again, will you?”

Mr. Jenks changed his seat, selecting one where he could see the doll but the doll could not see him.

Evidently, in their usual fashion, Mrs. ‘Vreves and the Child had left the garden and forgotten the peram- bulator. Whatever else she might be, Mrs. ‘Treves was not one of our citizens- in-process ; and at that moment she and her “dearie” were plainly not in the immediate neighborhood.

Like all men who wear spats, Maxwell Jenks had a profound distaste for per- ambulators. He was a bachelor because, all things had never wanted to take the serious step of matri- mony; put it another way, because he was a He who had never met the corre- sponding Her, Such things happen to cautious natures. He had, nevertheless, an ideal of matrimony, which wept and wrung its hands whenever he saw a man, a woman, and a perambulator. It was as if the group was marked individually :

This ts Father. This ty Mother. This is the Baby.

Mr. Jenks’ ideal of the Married State recoiled from advertising it in this com- mon manner. Nothing, he had often said, would or could ever persuade him to push a baby carriage. Men who wear spats, whatever may be the psychological explanation, are all agreed on the sub- ject of perambulators; and the reader will easily recall that he has never seen a spats-wearer pushing. one of these

careless

considered, he

innocent vehicles.

For some time, nobody but Mr. Jenks noticed the one- eyed doll. Then a short, fat man, with curly black hair, and pushing a real perambulator himself — it is needless to say that he wore no spats—

904

approached the obnoxious center of Mr. Jenks’ undivided attention. ‘The vehicle contained twins and was accompanied by a large, fat female who led two more of these remarkable doubles, each by

one hand, and was preceded, followed, and otherwise surrounded by miscellane- ous progeny. ‘They all looked like their father. ‘They engulfed the one-eyed doll in its baby carriage, and one of the mis- cellaneous progeny took possession of the hated perambulator. “The parents saw her, and after a quick glance around their immediate vicinity, made no objec- tion.

Mr. Jenks sat up straight, folded his newspaper with great deliberation, put it in his pocket, got up, and started with long, determined strides toward the bend in the path. He hated perambulators ; he hated this imitation perambulator in parti ular; he hated the one eved doll ; he hated the make-believe mother of that horrid infant; and he hated the real mother of that make-believe mother— but there was something stronger than all this hatred in Maxwell Jenks. That something said peremptorily: “Maxwell, that unassimilated bunch of American citizenship is stealing the child’s doll, and you’ve got to stop ’em.”

Hurry, spats! He turned the caught up with the family, hooked the crook of his walking stick over the han- dle of the abducted baby carriage, and stopped it with a jerk that made the rescued occupant close her one eye and open it again with what was very much like a wink.

“Hi!” said Mr. Jenks firmly. “Here,

bend,

THE RED BOOK MAGAZINE

BF “T’ve gotcher, you Ss

G4, dollnaper!”’ Co

you! Where are you going with that—”

The family fled and left him alone with it. “The one-eyed doll stared at him with a fixed expression that might have been gratitude, but seemed to Mr. Jenks to be one of selfish amusement. People on near-by benches—and in this part of the Garden more of them looked as if they had been made in America—stared at him also. He could feel them wonder- ing where his little girl was, and whether or not he was a widower. Under the circumstances, with so many observers, Mr. Jenks felt that it would look “queer” if he abandoned the property he had just rescued. He dragged it to an empty bench and sat down beside it, trying to look as much as possible as if there was no tie between them. The thing to do, of course, was to give his treasure trove to a gardener to take care of; but the afternoon was passing, and unless he saw a gardener pretty soon they would all have gone home for the night.

The facts confronted Mr. Jenks that he must find a gardener and that he must take the perambulator with him: he and the one-eyed doll must search together. He got up with considerable dignity, hooked his walking stick over the handle, and started.

Mr. Jenks tried to look like an uncle, going to find his niece.

THE ADVENTURES OF A ONE-EYED DOLL 995

In ten minutes Mr. Jenks had not yet found a gardener, but an_ interested group of observers had found Mr. Jenks. He heard them behind him, footsteps, voices, interested theories about where he was going and what he intended to do

Ww

with the perambulator—but he refused to look back.

“Yer losin’ your doll, Mister,”’ said a voice excitedly at his elbow. ‘She’s fallin’ out.”

“Thank you,” said Mr. Jenks gravely. He put the doll back and resumed his progress. But this time he turned toward the exit from the Garden and quickened his steps. He had given up all hope of finding a gardener, but he remembered that there was a cab-stand just outside the Garden. He would make a dash for it, throw the perambulator into a cab, leap after it, and be driven to 64 Charl- ton Street. He initiated his dash, and knew without looking that all the hope- ful observers were dashing after him. It even seemed as if somebody was shouting. Mr. Jenks was not what could fairly be called running, but he was now moving so rapidly that a hand on his shoulder stopped him with no little loss of personal glignity.

“I’ve gotcher, you dollnaper!” said the man behind the hand coarsely. “Come along easy now, my fine feller!”

Mr. Jenks turned indignantly—the indignation was his own contribution, for the hand turned him with a skillful twist that disordered his necktie—and found himself confronting a fat police- man and a thin lady, both very much out of breath. ‘The policeman had him by the collar, and the lady was examining the perambulator.

“This zs Antoinette,” said the lady, holding up the occupant of the perambu-

=U)

lator for the policeman’s inspection. “You see, as I told you, she has only one eye, but it works perfectly. She’s named after me—” Excitement often em- phasizes unimportant details. “I felt sure it was our perambulator when those people told me a man had gone off with one. And how lucky it was that I met you when I was following him!” And she looked contemptuously at Maxwell Jenks.

Mr. Jenks, although the policeman had him by the collar, was still a gentle- man. He took off his hat. He knew immediately that this mst be the mother of the child that owned the doll that rode in the perambulator that was kept under the stairway—the connecting links of the chain flashed absurdly through his mind as he realized the culminating unpleasantness of his present predica- ment. But, even in the grip of the law, he was keenly surprised by her appear- ance. There are thin women, not nec- essarily young, who are instantly lik- able (even, as in this extreme case, when they are having you arrested), and Mrs. John Treves was one of them. She was

as unlike the Mrs. John ‘reves of his imagination as Mr. Maxwell Jenks was unlike a man who would steal a little girl’s doll. Mrs. ‘reves stared at him, her contempt melting into wonder; and this emotion in turn was swallowed up by an amusement that she politely endeavored to conceal by looking super- humanly serious. But her mouth twitched, and one corner smiled in spite of her. As a lawyer Mr. Jenks was quick to see a possible line of defense.

“T don’t pretend to be a living statue of incorruptible honesty,” he said ear- nestly, “but do I look like a man who would steal a one-eyed doll?”

“You did, from behind,” declared Mrs. Treves. “You were almost running away with it.”

“T beg yer pardon, sir,” said the policeman suddenly, and took his strong hand from Mr. Jenks’ coat collar. “I guess I’ve put my foot in it, sir. Lord! the minute I see yer face I thought I’d seen it before. //e’s all right,”’ he added, turning to Mrs. Treves. “One of our best-known lawyers, fe is!’ Mr. Jenks— Maxwell Jenks.”

906

“Qh!” exclaimed Mrs. Treves. “Oh! Not the Mr. Jenks who lives at 64 Charl- ton Street—”

“IT don’t know where he _ lives, madam,” said the officer, “but I’ve heard him speak in court. ‘There aint many others like him—’”’

“T am that Jenks,” admitted Maxwell, straightening his necktie. “I don’t blame you, Officer, but for Heaven's sake shoo away the populace.” The policeman obediently began shooing. “Now the

truth about this silly business, Mrs. Treves—”

“Miss Treves.” corrected the other. “Mrs. ‘Treves is my sister-in-law.”

“Oh!” said Maxwell. “Oh! Then you don’t live—”

“Ves, I do.” said Miss Treves. ““Tem-

porarily. Beatrice. my niece, Antoinette, her child and myself. We're living there because the other children at home are taking turns coming down with the chicken pox, and the house was quaran- tined while Beatrice and I were away en a visit. Antoinette. fortunately, had been left out in the wood-shed. You see, we came back just as they were putting up the notice on the front door. and as Mrs. ‘Treves owns 64 Charlton Street, we made a bee line for the empty apart- ment. Gracious!’ Miss ‘Treves looked dismayed as she found how much of a necessary before she could reach the handle of the rescued per ambulator. “It’s too low to push, and too heavy to carry! Why didn’t I think to bring Beatrice!”

“That was my_ trouble,” Jenks. “I needed a Beatrice. this perambulator avd Antoinette, Miss ‘Treves, from some young Americans-in- the-making—and I didn’t know what to do with it. I went seeking a gardener ; but the gardeners are all dead. ‘Then | decided—” Here Mr. Jenks glanced toward the cab-stand, hesitated, changed the direction of his remark, and continued: ‘“Then

stoop Was

said Mr I rescued

THE RED BOOK MAGAZINE

home myself. I was beginning to attract attention and | suppose that I hurried involuntarily.”

“The effect,” said Miss Treves, smil- ing at the recollection, ‘was certainly one of haste.”

“The fact is,” continued Mr. Jenks, “that a man—er—alone with a