He had not meant to call Tully that. It rushed out. Tully wriggled uneasily in his chair at the desk, blushed well into his yellow beard, then drew out a kerchief of purest white silk and began nervously to polish his glasses.
"Hoo-shaw-Ha-ha-Hooshway!"
It was Breede, with, for the moment, a second purple face on the Board of Directors. Neither Bean nor Tully ever knew whether he had suppressed a laugh or a sneeze.
"Come, come, come!" broke in the oldest, sweeping the largest director aside with one finger as he pulled a chair to the table.
"This'll never do with us, you know! How much, how much, how much?"
He again poised the chastely wrought fountain pen of gold above the dainty check-book in Morocco leather.
"Have to give 'em up you know; can't allow that sort of underhand work; where'd the world be, where'd it be, where'd it be? Sign an order; tell me what you paid. Take your word for it!"
He was feeling for Bean the contempt which a really distinguished safe-blower is said to feel for the cheap thief who purloins bottles of milk from basement doorways in the gray of dawn.
"Now, now, now, boy!" The pen was still poised.
"Oh, put up your trinkets," said Bean with a fine affectation of weariness.
The old gentleman sat back and exhaled a scented but vicious breath. There was silence. It seemed to have become evident that the unprincipled young scoundrel must be taken seriously.
Then spoke the largest director, removing from his lips a cigarette which his own bulk seemed to reduce to something for a microscope only. He had been silent up to this moment, and his words now caused Bean the first discomfort he had felt.
"You will come here to-morrow morning," he began, slanting his entire facial area toward Bean, "and you will make restitution for this betrayal of trust. I think I speak for these gentlemen here, when I say we will do nothing with you to-night. Of course, if we chose—but no; you are a free man until to-morrow morning. After that all will depend on you. You are still young; I shall be sorry if we are forced to adopt extreme measures. I believe we shall all be sorry. But I am sure a night of sober reflection will bring you to your senses. You will come here to-morrow morning. You may go."
The slow, cool words had told. He tried to preserve his confident front, as he turned to the door. He would have left his banner on the field but for the oldest director, who had too long been silent.
"Snake in the grass!" hissed the oldest director, and instantly the colours waved again from Bean's lifted standard. He did not like the oldest director and he soared into the pure ether of verbal felicity, forgetful of all threats.
He stared pityingly at the speaker a moment, then cruelly said:
"You know they quit putting perfumery on their clothes right after the Chicago fire."
He left the room with faultless dignity.
"Impertinent young whelp!" spluttered the oldest director; but his first fellow-director who dared to look at him saw that he was gazing pensively from the high window, his back to the group.
"No good," said the quiet director to the largest. "A little man's always the hardest to bluff. Bet I could bluff you quicker than you could bluff him!"
"Well, I didn't know what else," answered the largest director, who was already feeling bluffed.
"Why didn't J.B. here assert himself then?"
"'Fraid he'd get mad's 'ell an' quit me," said Breede. "Only st'nogfer ever found gimme minute's peace. Dunno why—talk aw ri'. He un'stan's me; res' drive me 'sane."
"Plug's pulled, anyway," commented the quiet director. "Only thing to do is haul in what we can on a rising market. God knows where she'll stop."
"Pound her down," said the largest director sagely.
"Any pounding now will pound her up."
"Hold off and let it die down."
"Only make it worse. No use; we've got to cut that money up."
"Seven hundred shares, did he say?" asked the large director. "Very pretty indeed! J.B., I'll only give you one guess whether he quits his job or not."
"Thasso!" admitted Breede dejectedly.
"He'll show up all right in the morning, mark me," said the largest director, regaining confidence.
"Sneaking snake in the grass," muttered the oldest director, yet without his wonted vim.
"I'll telephone to McCurdy, right in the next block here," continued the largest director. "Might as well have this chap watched to-night and keep tight to him to-morrow until he shows up. We may find somebody's behind him."
"'S my idea," said Breede, "some one b'ind him."
"Grinning little ape!" remarked the oldest director bitterly.
To Bean in the outer office came the facetious boy.
"Telephone for Perfesser Bunker Hill Monument," he said, but spoiled it by laughing himself. It was extempore and had caught him unawares. The harried Bean fled to the telephone booth.
"I wanted to tell you," began the flapper, "not to eat anything out of cans unless I just perfectly have it on my pure-food list. They poison people, but the dearest grocer gave me a list of all the safe things, made up by a regular committee that tells how much poison each thing has in it, so you can know right off, or alcohol either. Now, remember! Oh, yes, what was I going to say? Granny says the first glamour soon fades, but after that you just perfectly settle down to solid companionship. And oh, yes, I want you to let me just perfectly have my own way about those hangings for the drawing-room, because you see I know, and, oh, I had something else. No matter. Won't I be glad when the deal is adjusted in the interests of all concerned, as poor old Pops says. Why don't you tell me something? I'm just perfectly waiting to hear."
"Uh, of course, of course; you're just perfectly a slinking gazelle. Ha, ha, ha!" answered Bean, laughing at his own jest after the manner of the office-boy.
He was back making a feeble effort to finish the last of Breede's letters. He glanced mechanically at his notes. Above that routine work he had so many things to think about. He'd fixed Tully for good. Tully wouldn't try that "by the way" and "not impossible" stuff with him any more. And that little old man—perfumery not used since the Chicago fire, or had he said the Mexican War? No matter. And talked to Breede about heifers. But there was the big-faced brute, speaking pretty seriously. Let him go free to-night! State's prison offence, maybe! Might be in jail this time to-morrow. Would the flapper telephone to him there? Send him unpoisoned canned food? Would he be disgraced? Breede—directors—glamour wearing off—slinking gazelles with yellow whiskers—rotten perfumery. So rushed the turbulent flood of his mind. But the letter was finished at last.
Two days later a certain traffic manager of lines west of Chicago read a paragraph in this letter many times:
"The cramped conditions of this terminal have been of course appreciably relieved by the completion of the westside cut-off. Nevertheless our traffic has not yet attained its maximum, and new problems of congestion will arise next year. I am engaged to that perfectly flapper daughter of yours, and we are going to marry each other when she gets perfectly good and ready. Better not fuss any. Let Julia do the fussing. To meet this emergency I dare say it will come to four-tracking the old main line over the entire division. It will cost high, but we must have a first-class freight-carrier if we are to get the business."
The traffic manager at first reached instinctively for his telegraphic cipher code. But he reflected that this was not code-phrasing. He read the paragraph again and was obliged to remind himself that his only daughter was already the wife of a man he knew to be in excellent health. Also he was acquainted with no one named Julia.
He copied from the letter that portion of it which seemed relevant, and destroyed the original. He had never heard it said of Breede; but he knew there are times when, under continued mental strain, the most abstemious of men will relax.
XII
When Bean emerged from the office-building that afternoon he was closely scrutinized by an inconspicuous man who, just inside the door by the cigar-stand, had been conversing with Tully. Bean saw Tully, but strode by that gentleman with head erect, chest expanded, and waist drawn in. Tully was cut. And Bean did not, of course, notice the inconspicuous man with whom Tully talked.
This person, however, followed Bean to the street, where he seemed a little taken aback to observe the young man very authoritatively enter a large red touring car and utter a command to its driver with an air of seasoned ownership. The red car moved slowly up Broadway. The inconspicuous man surveyed the passing vehicles, and seemed relieved when he discovered an empty taxi-cab going north. He hailed it and entered, giving directions to its guide that entailed much pointing to the large red touring car now a block distant.
Thereafter, until late at night, the red car was trailed by the taxi-cab. At six o'clock the car stopped at a place of refreshment overlooking the river, where the trailed youth consumed a modest dinner, which he concluded with a radiant raspberry ice. A little later he reëntered the red car and was driven aimlessly for a couple of hours through leafy by-ways. The inconspicuous man became of the opinion that the occupant of the red car was cunningly endeavouring to conceal his true destination.
The car returned to the place of refreshment at nine-thirty, where the young man again ordered a raspberry ice, with which he trifled for the better part of an hour. He betrayed to the alert but inconspicuous person who sat near him, by his expectant manner of scanning newcomers' faces, that he had hoped to meet some one here.
This expectation was disappointed. The watchful person suspected that the youth's confederates might have been warned. The quarry at length departed, in obvious disappointment, and was driven to his abode in a decent neighbourhood. The taxi-cab was near enough to the red car when this place was reached to enable its occupant to hear the young man request it for eight the following morning. The young man entered what a sign at the doorway declared to be "Choice Steam-heated Apartments," and the occupant of the taxi-cab was presently overheard by the janitor of the apartments expostulating with the vehicle's driver about the sum demanded for his evening's recreation. He was heard to denounce the fellow as "a thief and a robber!" and to make a vicious threat concerning his license.
Bean was face to face with Ram-tah, demanding whatever strength might flow to him from that august personage. A crisis had come. Either he was a king, or he was not a king. If a king, he must do as kings would do. If not a king, he would doubtless behave like a rabbit.
But strength flowed to him as always from that calm, strong face. In Ram-tah's presence he could believe no weakness of himself. Put him in jail, would they? A man who had not only once ruled a mighty people in peace, but who had, some hundreds of centuries later, made Europe tremble under the tread of his victorious armies. Ram-tah had been no fighter—but Napoleon! He, Bunker Bean, was a wise king, yet a mighty warrior. Beat him down, would they? Merely because he wanted to become a director in their company! Well, they would find out who they were trying to keep off that Board. What if they did put him in jail? A good lawyer would get him out in a few minutes with a writ of something or other, a stay of proceedings, a demurrer, a legal technicality. He read the papers. Lawyers were always getting Wall Street speculators out of jail by some one of those devices; and if every other means failed a legal technicality did the work. And the papers always called the released man a Napoleon of Finance. It wasn't going to be so bad.
He hauled Ram-tah out of the closet and stood him at the foot of the bed for the night, so that courage might come to him as he slept. The plan proved to be an excellent one after Nap grew quiet. Nap had always been excited in Ram-tah's immediate presence, and now he insisted upon sniffing about the royal cadaver in a manner atrociously suggestive. Being dissuaded from this and consenting to sleep, Bean sank into dreams of mastery beneath Ram-tah's lofty aspect.
He awoke with a giant's strength. He arrayed himself in the newest check suit, and an especially beautiful shirt with a lavender stripe that bore his embroidered initials on one sleeve. He thought he would like to face them in his shirtsleeves, and give Breede and the fussy old gentlemen a good look at that lettered arm. He was almost persuaded to don the entirely red cravat, let the consequences be what they might. His refreshed spirit was equal to this audacity—but the red car. Wearing a red cravat in a very red car was just a little too loud—"different" enough, to be sure, but hardly "dignified." Too advanced, in short. At eight o'clock he went out upon the world, grasping his yellow stick and gloves. Most heroically would he enter the office with stick and gloves. Make Bulger stare! And if they put him in jail he must look right—papers get his picture, of course!
On the curb, before the car that vibrated so excitingly he had a happy thought. Was he to go down there and wait, pallid, perhaps trembling, until they came in and did things with him? Not he! A certain Corsican upstart would let them assemble first, let them miss him—wonder if he would come at all. Then he would saunter in, superbly define the extreme limits of his imagination, and coolly ask them what they were going to do about it. This would irritate them. It would irritate them all, and especially the little oldest director. He would swell up and grow purple. Perhaps he would have a stroke right there on the rug. Good work!
"Can't go to business this early," he said genially to the ever respectful Paul. "Too fine a day. And I got a deal on hand; have to think it over. Go on out that way for a nice little spin."
Paul directed the car out that way, spinning it nicely. It was a monstrous performance, to spin at that hour in a direction quite away from the place where you are expected by all the laws of business and common decency. This seemed to be the opinion of an inconspicuous man who followed discreetly in a taxi-cab. But Bean enjoyed it, thinking that the night might find him in a narrow cell. He looked with new interest on the street-cars full of office-bound people. They were meekly going to their tasks while he was affronting men with more millions than he had checks on the newest suit.
As they left the city and came to outlying villages, he saw that he was going in the direction of Breede's place. He thought it would be a fine thing to get the flapper and go and be just perfectly married. Then he could send a telegram to the office, telling them he could imagine nothing of less consequence, and that they might all go to the devil. It was easy to be "snappy" in a telegram. But he remembered that the flapper just perfectly wished to manage it herself; probably she wouldn't like his taking a hand in the game. Better not be rough with the child at the start.
They were miles away. The person in the taxi-cab might have been observed searching his pockets curiously, and to be counting what money he found therein as he cast anxious glances toward the dial of the taxi-metre.
Bean surveyed the landscape approvingly. Anyway, it was a fine enough performance to keep them waiting there. They would all be enraged. Perhaps the old one would have his stroke before the arrival of the spectator to whom it would give the most pleasure. They might be taking him out to the ambulance, and all the other directors would stand there and say, "This is your work. Officer, do your duty!" Well, it would be worth it. He'd tell them so, too!
Looking ahead, he became aware that an electric car had suffered an accident. The passengers streamed out and gathered around the motorman who was peering under the car. As Paul slowed down and turned aside to pass, the motorman declared, "She's burned out. Have to wait for the next car to push us."
There were annoyed stirrings in the group. A few passengers started for a suburban railway station that could be seen a half-mile distant. Bean looked down upon these delayed people with amused sympathy.
Then, astoundingly, his eye fell upon one of the passengers a little aloof from the group about the motorman. He, too, after a last look at the car, seemed to be resolving on that long tramp to the station. He was a sightly young man, tall, heavily built, and dressed in garments that would on any human form have won Bean's instant respect. But on the form of the Greatest Pitcher the World Has Ever Seen—!!
His mind was at once vacant of all the past, of all the future. There was no more a Breede, male or female, no more directors or shares or jails. There was only a big golden Present, subduing, enthralling, limitless!
"Stop car!" hissed Bean. The car halted three feet from the young man on foot.
"Jump in!" gasped Bean.
"Thanks," said the young man; "I'm going the other way."
"Me, too! I was turning around just here."
The young man hesitated, surveying his interlocutor.
"Well," he said, "if it won't be too much trouble?"
"Trouble!" The word was a caress as Bean uttered it. He pushed a door open, clumsy with excitement, and the World's Greatest Pitcher stepped in to sit beside him.
"Grounds?" asked Bean.
"Yes," said the Pitcher, "if it's convenient."
"Polo Grounds," called Bean to Paul. "Hurry and turn around there, someway." He was afraid his guest might reconsider.
But the guest sat contentedly enough, the car was turned, and presently was speeding back toward town. The person in a taxi-cab which made the same turn a moment later was heard to say, "What the devil now?" with no discernible relevance.
"Living out this way?" asked Bean when he was again certain of his voice-control.
"No; only went out to stay over night with some friends. Had to get back this morning. They told me to take that car and change at—"
"Ought to have one these," said Bean, "then you know where you are."
"This runs well," said the Pitcher affably.
"'S little old last year's car," said Bean with skilled ennui.
He was trying to remember—mustn't talk to a ball-player about ball; they're sick of it.
"Got a busy day ahead of me in the Street," he said brightly. "I was only taking a little spin to get my head cleared out. Have to keep your head clear down there!"
"Say, that's some suit you have on," said the Pitcher with frank admiration. "I like that check."
"Do you?" asked Bean, trying not to choke. Then, "Where'd you get yours? I was noticing that suit the other night; saw you up at Claremont—"
"Couple of pals of mine when I'm in town—"
"That white line against the blue comes out great in the day time. Cut well, too. I see you got one those patent neck-capes that prevents wrinkling below the coat-collar. And extension safety pockets, I suppose?"
"Match pockets, change pockets, pencil pockets, fountain pen pockets, improved secret money pocket, right here; see?" The speaker indicated the last mentioned item. "Flower holder up here under the lapel." He revealed it.
"I have 'em make a vestee," said Bean; "goes on with gold pins; adds dressiness, the man says."
The Pitcher revealed a vestee, adjusted with gold pins.
The red car moved as smoothly as if nothing had happened.
Next was made the momentous discovery that each wore a shirt with the identical lavender stripe.
"Initials!" said Bean, pulling up the sleeve of his coat and rotating his fore-arm under the Pitcher's approving glance.
"Got mine tattooed the same way," said the Pitcher, pulling up the sleeve of his coat in turn.
They discussed shirts.
"Funny thing," said Bean. "Chap down in the office with me, worth about a hundred million if he's worth a cent, wears separate cuffs; fastens 'em on with those nickel jiggers."
"Had a fellow on the team last year did the same thing," said the Pitcher. "He's back to the bush now, though. The hick used to wear a made-up neck tie, too, till the other lads kidded him out of it."
"You must get a lot of those Silases, one time and another," said Bean sympathetically. He was wondering; the fellow had referred at least indirectly to his calling.
"In the box, to-day?" he asked, feeling brazen.
The Pitcher nodded.
"You certainly pitched some air-tight ball last time I saw you. Say, I'll tell you something. If I ever have a kid, you know what's going to happen? Nothing used but his left hand from the cradle up; and, for toys one league ball and a light bat. That's all."
"Right way," said the Pitcher approvingly.
"I'm only afraid the managers will get wise to him and not let him finish out his college course," said Bean. "I don't know, though. I'll be in the business myself by that time; may sign him on myself."
"Like it?" asked the Pitcher, interestedly.
"Like it! Say, what else is there? Like it! I'm only keeping on down there in the Street till I put a certain deal through; then nothing but old Base B. Ball for mine! You'll see. I'll pick up one the big clubs somewhere if money'll do it!"
"Well, it's the one branch of the business where you don't have to treat your arm like a sick baby," said the Pitcher. "Say, you want to come inside a while?"
To Bean's amazement the car had stopped before the players' entrance. He had supposed himself miles back in the country. Did he want to go inside for a while! He was out of the car as quickly as Nap could have achieved it.
"What did you say your name was?" asked the Pitcher.
He was in a long room lined with lockers. He recognized several players lounging there. A big man with a hard face, half in a uniform, was singing, "Though Silver Threads Are 'Mong the Gold, I Love You Just the Same." These men were requested to shake hands with the Pitcher's friend, Mr. Bean. They were also told informally that his new check suit was some suit.
"I'll soon have one coming off the same piece," said the Pitcher.
They went through a little door and out upon the grounds. A few players were idling there, only two of the pitchers being in uniform. The vast empty stands and bleachers seemed to confer privacy upon an informal and friendly gathering.
Several more players shook hands with the Pitcher's friend, Mr. Bean, and the circumstance of his presence was explained.
"I found your twist-paw out in the brush with nothing but a bum trolley car between him and a long walk," said Bean jauntily.
"He's got the prettiest red car that ever made you jump at a crossing," added the Pitcher.
They sat on the bench together.
"He winds up like old Sycamore," said Bean expertly of a young pitcher who was working nearby.
"He does for a fact," testified one of the players. "Did you know old Syc?"
"Chicago," said Bean. "Down and out; coming in from some tank-team and having to wear his uniform for underclothes all winter."
They regarded him with respectful interest.
"Poor Syc could never learn to take water in it," said one.
"He lived in a boarding-house two doors away from me," said Bean. "And when he'd taken about six or seven in at Frank's Place, he'd start singing 'My Darling Nellie Gray,' only he'd have to cry at about the third verse; then he'd lick some man that was laughing at him."
"That's old Syc, all right. You got him, pal!"
The talk went to other stars of the past. Bean mostly listened, but when he spoke they heard one who knew whereof he spoke. He was familiar with the public performance of every player of prominence for ten years. He was at home, among equals, and easy in his mind.
An inconspicuous man who had gained admittance to the grounds, by alleging his need to inspect a sign that was to be "done over," above the fence beyond the outfield, passed closely to Bean and detected the true situation with one sweep of his eagle eyes.
Fifteen minutes later this man was saying over a telephone to the largest director who sat in Breed's office:
"Nothing doing last night but riding around in a big red car that was waiting for him down in front. This morning at eight he starts north and picks up a man just this side Fordham, from a trolley car that breaks down. They turn around and go to the baseball park. He's setting there now, gassing with a lot of the players, telling funny stories and the like. He looks as if he didn't have a trouble on earth. My taxi-cab bill is now, for last night and to-day, forty-six eighty-five. Shall I keep on him?"
"No!" shouted the largest director. "Let him go to—let him alone and come in."
"I forgot to say," added the inconspicuous man, "that the party he picked up on the road and brought back here looks like he might be a ball player himself."
"Come in," repeated the largest director; "on a street-car!"
"Looks to me," ventured the quiet director to the largest, "as if you didn't bluff him quite to death last night."
"Aut'mobile!" said Breede. "Knew he had some one b'ind him."
"Let's get to business. No good putting it off now," said the quiet director.
"Seven hundred shares! My God! This is monstrous!" said the little eldest director, who had been making noises like a heavy locomotive.
Bean would have sat forever on that bench of the mighty, world-forgetting, if not world-forgot. But the departure of several of the men drew his attention to the supreme obligation of a guest.
"Well," he said, rising.
"Look in on us again some day," urged the Pitcher cordially.
"Thanks, I surely will," said Bean. "I like to forget business this way, now and then. Good day!"
They waved him friendly adieus, and he was out where Paul waited.
"Forget business!" He had indeed for two hours forgotten business and people. Not once had he thought of those waiting directors.
Well, they could do their worst, now. He was ripe to laugh at any fate. What was prison? "The prisoner," he seemed to read, "betrayed no consciousness of the enormity of his crime, and had, indeed, spent the morning at the Polo Grounds, chatting with various members of the Giants, with which team he is a great favourite."
Let them bring their gyves. Let the barred door clang shut!
"Office!" he said to Paul. There was no doubt in Paul's mind as to the quality of his patron. He had at once recognized the Greatest Pitcher. He ceased to speculate as to whether this assured young man owned the high office-building. That was now of minor consequence.
On the way downtown he tried to remember what day it was. He thought it was Friday, but again it seemed to be Monday. He stopped the car and bought an afternoon paper to find out.
At the entrance to the big office-building he debated a moment.
"Wait!" he directed Paul.
He was uncertain how long he might be permitted to remain in that building. If he must go to jail, he would ride. He wondered if Paul knew the address of the best jail. He could have things sent in to him—magazines and fruit.
Inside the entrance he paused before the cigar-stand. He must think carefully what he would say to those men of round millions. He must keep up his front. His glance roamed to the beautifully illustrated boxes of cigars. A good idea!
"Gimme one those," he said to the clerk, indicating a box that flaunted the polychrome portrait of a distinguished-looking Spaniard. He was surprised at the price, but he bit the tip off violently and began to mouth it.
"I'm no penny-pincher," he muttered, thinking of the cigar's cost. He tilted the cigar to a fearless angle and slanted his hat over his left eye. He lolled against the cigar-case, gathering resolution for the ordeal.
The door of an elevator down the corridor shot open, and there emerged, in single file, a procession, headed by the little oldest director, who had allowed him to go free overnight. They marched toward the door, looking straight ahead. They must pass in front of him. He felt a sudden great relief. Something in their bearing told him they were powerless to restrict his liberty.
The oldest director deigned him no glance, but snorted accurately in his direction, nevertheless. The quiet one grinned faintly at him, but the two neutral directors passed him loftily, as if they were Virtue scorning Vice in a morality play. The largest director frowned at the stripling who was savagely chewing a fifty-cent cigar at the procession.
The moment was incontestably the stripling's. He was cool and meant to take the fullest advantage of it. He meant to say, contemptuously, "I can imagine nothing of less consequence!"
But the officious cigar-clerk held a lighted match to the choice cigar and the magnificent defiance was smothered by a cough. He was obliged to content himself with glaring at the expansive and well-rounded back of the biggest director.
He was alone on the field, pretending enjoyment of a cigar which was now lighted and loathsome.
Bulger entered from the street and viewed him with friendly alarm.
"Say, where you been?" demanded Bulger. "Old Pussy-foot's got a sore thumb right now from pounding that buzzer of yours all morning. He's hot at every one. I heard him call Tully a slinking something or other; couldn't get the word, but Tully got it. Say, you better get busy—regular old George W. Busy—if you want to hold that job."
"Job!" laughed Bean bitterly, and waved the expensive and lighted cigar in Bulger's face. "Job! Well, I may get busy, and then again I may not. All depends!"
"Gee!" said Bulger, profoundly moved by this admirable spirit of insubordination. "Well, I got to get back; I'm five minutes late myself."
Bean waited until he had gone. Then he strolled out to the street and furtively dropped an excellent and but slightly burned cigar into the gutter. He wished those fellows at cigar-stands would do only what they were put there for. Taking liberties with people!
He decided to go back as if nothing had happened. Let Breede do the talking, and if he talked rough, then tell him very simply that nothing of less consequence could be imagined. Continue to play the waiting game. That was it!
He entered the office, humming lightly. He seemed to be annoyed by the people he found there. He glared at Bulger, at old Metzeger, at the other clerks, and especially at Tully. Tully looked uncomfortable. He wasn't a gazelle after all. He was a startled fawn.
"Telephone for—" began the office boy humourist, but Bean was out of hearing in the direction of the telephone booth before the latest mot could be delivered.
"Been trying to get you all the morning," began the flapper in eager tones. "I should think you would stay there, when I may have to call you any minute. That grocer gave me the nicest little book, 'Why Did Your Husband Fail in Business?' with a picture of the poor man that failed on the cover. It's because he didn't get enough phosphorous to make him 100 per cent. efficient, and if he'd eaten 'Brain-more' mush for breakfast, nothing would have happened. We'll try it, anyway, and there's a triple-plate spoon in every package, so if I order a dozen ... and oh, yes, what was I going to say? Why, I'm perfectly going to pull off the funniest stunt this afternoon; you'd just deliciously die laughing if I told you, but it will be still funnier if you don't know. Are you paying attention? It's because I'd already spent my allowance for three years and seven months ahead—I figured it all out like a statement—and I've perfectly just got to have some money of my real own. I've enough to worry about without bringing money into it, with proper food for you and those patent laundry tubs I told you about, and the man says he wouldn't think of letting it go for less than two seventy-five, but that's five dollars saved. Well, good-bye! I'll manage everything, and Granny says always to conceal little household worries from him, and just perfectly keep the future looking bright and interesting ... she says that's the secret. Good-bye! What am I?"
"Startled fawn," said Bean.
"Well, don't forget."
"I won't. I'll attend to my part all right."
He heard the fateful buzzing even before he opened the door of the telephone booth. Breede was at it again. He walked coolly to his desk for a note-book. Every one else in the office was showing nervousness. He was the only man who could still the troubled waters. He would play the waiting game; keep the future looking "bright and interesting." Breede could do the rest.
"Buzz! Buzz-z-z-z! Buzz-z-z-z-z!" It sounded pretty vicious.
He entered Breede's room with his accustomed air of quiet service. Breede did not glance at him. He began, as usual, to dictate before Bean was seated.
"Letter T.J. Williams 'sistant sup'ntendent M.P. 'n' C. department C. 'n' L.M. rai'way Sh'-kawgo dear sir please note 'closed schej'l car 'pairin' make two copies send one don't take that an' let me have at y'r earles c'nvenience—"
Apparently nothing at all had happened. He was at his old post, and Breede did nothing but explode fragments of words as ever. No talk of jail or betrayal of trust or of his morning's flagrant absence.
One might have thought that Breede himself played the waiting game. Or perhaps Breede only toyed with him. He fastened his gaze on the criminal cuffs. They were his rock of refuge in any cataclysm that might impend. If only he could keep those cuffs within his range of vision he would fear nothing. Patent laundry tubs; five dollars saved; why your husband failed in business; bright and interesting future—
"'Lo! 'Lo!" Breede was detonating into the desk-telephone which had sounded at his elbow.
"'Lo! Well? What? Run off! Stop nonsense! Busy!" He hung up the receiver.
"—also mus' be stipulated that case of div'dend bein' passed—"
The desk telephone again rang, this time more emphatically. Bean was chilled by a premonition that the flapper meant to pull off that funny stunt which was to cause him quite deliciously to die laughing.
Breede grasped the receiver again impatiently.
"Busy, tell you! No time nonsense! What! What. W-H-A-T!!!"
He listened another moment, then lessening his tone-production but losing nothing of intensity, he ripped out:
"Gur—reat Godfrey!"
His eyes, narrowed as he listened, now widened upon Bean who stared determinedly at the cuffs.
"You know what she says?"
"Yes," said Bean doggedly.
Then his eyes met Breede's and gave them blaze for blaze. The Great Reorganizer knew it not, but he no longer looked at Bunker Bean. Instead, he was trying to shrivel with his glare a veritable king of old Egypt who had enjoyed the power of life and death over his remotest subject. Bean did not shrivel. Breede glared his deadliest only a moment. He felt the sway of the great Ram-tah without identifying it. He divined that mere glaring would not shrivel this presumptuous atom. In truth, Bean outglared him. Breede leaned again to the telephone, listening. Bean lowered his eyes to the cuffs. He sneered at them now. The intention of the lifted upper lip was too palpable.
"Gur-reat stars above!" murmured Breede. "She says she's got it all reasoned out!" There was something almost plaintive in his tones; he shuddered. Then he rallied bravely once more.
"Tell you, no time nonsense. Busy."
But he seemed to know he was beaten. He listened again, then wilted.
"What next?" he demanded of Bean.
"Ask her!"
"Nice mess you got me into!"
Bean sneered resolutely at the cuffs. Again the telephone tinkled.
Breede listened and horror grew on his face.
"Now she's told her mother," he muttered. "My God!"
The transmitter was an excellent one, and Bean caught notes of hysteria. Julia was fussing back there.
"Now, now!" urged Breede. "No good. Better lie down. She says she's got it all reasoned out, don't I tell you?" He put a throttling hand over the anguished voice, and looked dumbly at Bean. He noted the evil sneer and traced it to the cuffs. Slowly he hung up the receiver and took one of the cuffs in his hands.
"Wha's matter these cuffs?" he demanded with a show of his true spirit.
"Right enough. Cuffs all right, if you like that kind. But why don't you wear 'em on—like this?" He luminously exposed his left forearm. It was by intention the one that carried the purple monogram.
"Sewed on, like that!" he added almost sharply.
Breede seemed to be impressed by the exhibit.
"Well," he began, awkwardly, as a man knowing himself in the wrong but still defiant, "I won't do it. That's all! Not for anybody."
Still, he seemed to consider that something more than mere apparent perverseness would become him.
"They get down 'round m' hands all the time. Can't think when they get down that way. Bother me. Take m' mind off. I won't do it, that's all. I don't care. Not for anybody't all!" He replaced the cuff beside its mate. He seemed to be saying that he had settled the matter—and no good talking any more about it.
Bean was silent and dignified. His own air seemed to disclose that when once you warned people in plain words, you could no longer be held responsible. For a moment they made a point of ignoring the larger matter.
"Say," Breede suddenly exploded, "I wish you'd tell me just how many kinds of a—no matter! Where was I? This reserve fund may be subject to draft f'r repairs an' betterment durin' 'suin' quarter or 'ntil such time as—"
The telephone again rang its alarm. Breede took the receiver and allowed dismay to be read on his face as he listened.
"Well, well, well," he at length began, soothingly, "go lie down; take something; take something; well, send over t' White Plains f'r s'more. Putcha t' sleep. What can I do?" Again the throttling hand.
He ruefully surveyed his littered desk, then drew the long sigh of the baffled.
"Take telegram m' wife. Sorry can't be home late, 'port'n board meet'n'. May be called out of town."
The telephone rang, but was ignored.
"Send it off," he directed Bean above the bell's clear call. "Then c'mon; go ball game. G'wup 'n subway."
"Got car downstairs," suggested Bean.
"You got your work cut out f'r you; 'sall I got t' say," growled Breede.
"'S little old last year's car," said Bean modestly.
XIII
As the little old last year's car bore them to the north, some long sleeping-image seemed to stir in Breede's mind.
"Got car like this m'self somewheres," he remarked.
Bean was relieved. He didn't want the name of a woman to be brought into the matter just then.
"'S all right for town work," he said. "Good enough for all I want of a car."
"'S awful!" said Breede, obviously forgetting the car for another subject.
"What can I do? She says she's got the right," suggested Bean.
"She'd take it anyway. I know her. Pack a suit-case. Had times with her already. Takes it from her mother."
"Can't be too rough at the start," declared Bean. "Manage 'em of course, but 'thout their finding it out—velvet glove." He looked quietly confident and Breede glanced at him almost respectfully.
"When?" he asked.
"Haven't made up my mind yet," said Bean firmly. "I may consult her, then again I may not; don't believe in long engagements."
Breede's glance this time was wholly respectful.
"You're a puzzle to me," he conceded.
Bean's shrug eloquently seemed to retort, "that's what they all say, sooner or later."
They were silent upon this. Bean wondered if Julia was still fussing back there. Or had she sent to White Plains for some more? And what was the flapper just perfectly doing at that moment? Life was wonderful! Here he was to witness a ball game on Friday!
They were in the grandstand, each willing and glad to forget, for the moment, just how weirdly wonderful life was. A bell clanged twice, the plate was swept with a stubby broom, the home team scurried to their places.
"There he is!" exclaimed Breede; "that's him!" Breede leaned out over the railing and pointed to the Greatest Pitcher the World Has Ever Seen. Bean sat coolly back.
The Pitcher scanned the first rows of faces in the grandstand. His glance came to rest on a slight, becomingly attired young man, who betrayed no emotion, and, in the presence of twenty thousand people, the Pitcher unmistakably saluted Bunker Bean. Bean gracefully acknowledged the attention.
"He know you?" queried Breede with animation.
"Know me!" He looked at Breede almost pityingly, then turned away.
The Pitcher sent the ball fairly over the plate.
"Stur-r-r-r-ike one!" bellowed the umpire.
"With him all morning," said Bean condescendingly to his admiring companion. "Get shirts same place," he added.
His cup had run over. He was on the point of confiding to his companion the supreme felicity in store for Breede as a grandfather. But the batter struck out and the moment was only for raw rejoicing. They forgot. Bean ceased to be a puzzle to any one, and Breede lapsed into unconsciousness of Julia.
The game held them for eleven innings. The Greatest Pitcher saved it to the home team.
"He was saying to me only this morning—" began Bean, as the Pitcher fielded the last bunt. But the prized quotation was lost in the uproar. Pandemonium truly reigned and the scene was unquestionably one of indescribable confusion.
Outside the gate they were again Breede and Bean; or, rather, Bean and Breede. The latter could not so quickly forget that public recognition by the Greatest Pitcher.
"You're a puzzle t'me," said Breede. "Lord! I can't g'ome yet. Have't take me club."
"Can't make y'out," admitted Breede once more, as they parted before the sanctuary he had indicated.
"Often puzzle myself," confessed the inscrutable one, as the little old last year's car started on. Breede stood on the pavement looking after it. For some reason the car puzzled him, too.
Bean was wondering if Julia herself wouldn't have been a little appeased if she could have seen the Pitcher single him out of that throng. Some day he might crush the woman by actually taking the Pitcher to call.
At his door he dismissed the car. He wanted quiet. He wanted to think it all out. That morning it had seemed probable that by this time he would have been occupying a felon's cell, inspecting the magazines and fruit sent to him. Instead, he was not only free, but he was keeping a man worth many millions from his own home, and perhaps he had caused that man's wife to send over to White Plains for some more. It was Ram-tah. All Ram-tah. If only every one could find his Ram-tah—
Cassidy was reading his favourite evening paper, the one that shrieked to the extreme limits of its first page in scarlet headlines and mammoth type. It was a paper that Bean never bought, because the red ink rubbed off to the peril of one's eighteen-dollar suit.
Cassidy, who for thirty years had voted as the ward-boss directed, was for the moment believing himself to be a rabid socialist.
"Wall Street crooks!" he began, in a fine orative frenzy. "Dur-r-rinkin' their champagne whilst th' honest poor's lucky t' git a shell av hops! Ruh-hobbin' th' tax-pay'r f'r' t' buy floozie gowns an' joold bresslets f'r their fancy wives an' such. I know th' kind well; not wan cud do a day's bakin' or windy-washin'!"
He held the noisy sheet before Bean and accusingly pointed a blunt forefinger. "Burly Blonde Divorcée, Routed Society Burglar," across the first two columns, but the proceeding was rather tamely typed and the Burly Blonde's portrait in evening dress was inconspicuous beside the headlines "Flurry in Federal Express! Wild Scenes on Stock Exchange. Millions made by Gentlemen's Agreement."
"Gentlemin!" hissed Cassidy. "The sem agreemint that two gentlemin porch-climbers has whin wan climbs whilst th' other watches t' see is th' cop at th' upper ind av th' beat! Millions med whilst I'm wur-r-kin' f'r twinty per month an' what's slipped me—th' sem not buyin' manny jools ner private steamboats! Millions med! I know th' kind well!" Bean felt his own indignation rise with Cassidy's. He was seeing why they had feared to have him on the board of directors. Apparently they were bent on wrecking the company by a campaign of extravagance. The substance of what he gleaned from Cassidy's newspaper was that those directors had declared a stock dividend of 200 per cent. and a cash dividend of 100 per cent.
They were madly wrecking the company in which he had invested his savings. Such was his first thought. And they were crooks, as Cassidy said, because for two years they had been quietly, through discreet agents, buying in the stock from unsuspecting holders.
"Rascals," agreed Bean with Cassidy, having but slight gifts for character analysis.
"Tellin' th' poor dubs th' stock was goin' down with one hand an' buyin' it in with th' other," said the janitor, lucidly.
Bean was suddenly troubled by a cross-current of thought. When you wrecked a company you didn't buy in the stock—you sold. He viewed the headlines from a new angle. Those directors were undoubtedly rascals, but was he not a rascal himself? What about his own shares?
"Maybe there's something we don't understand about it," he ventured to Cassidy.
"I know th' kind well," persisted Cassidy. "Th' idle rich! Small use have they f'r th' wur-r-r-kin' man! Souls no wider than th' black av y'r nail!"
"Might have had good reasons," said Bean, cautiously.
"Millions av thim," assented Cassidy with a pointed cynicism. "An' me own father dyin' twinty-three years ago fr'm ixposure contracted in County Mayo!"
Bean returned the paper to its owner and went slowly in to Ram-tah. One of the idle rich! Well, that is what kings mostly were, if you came down to it. At least they had to be rich to buy all those palaces. But not necessarily idle. The renewed Ram-tah would not be idle. It was not idleness to own a major-league club.
For the first time in their intercourse he felt that he faced the dead king almost as an equal. He was confronted by problems of administration, as Ram-tah must often have been. He must think.
If the flapper quite madly brought about an immediate marriage they would, for their honeymoon, follow the home club on its Western trip, and the groom would not be idle. He would be "looking over the ground." Then he would buy one of the clubs. If he proved to be not rich enough for that, not quite as rich as one of the idle rich, he would buy stock and become a director. He was feeling now that he knew how to be a director; that his experience with the express company had qualified him. He wondered how rich he would prove to be. Maybe he would have as much as thirty thousand dollars.
And he was a puzzle to Breede. He looked knowingly at Ram-tah when he remembered this. Ram-tah had probably puzzled people, too.
He went to the office in the morning still wondering how rich he might be. The newspaper he read did not enlighten him, though it spoke frankly of "Federal Express Scandal." If the thing was very scandalous, perhaps he had made a lot of money. But he could not be sure of this. It might be merely "newspaper vituperation," which was something he knew to be not uncommon. The paper had declared that those directors had juggled a twenty-million dollar surplus for years, lending it to one another at a low rate of interest, until, alarmed by clamouring stockholders, they had declared this enormous dividend, taking first, however, the precaution to buy for a low price all the stock they could. But the newspaper did not say how rich any one would be that had a whole lot of margins on that stock at Kennedy & Balch's. Maybe you had to hire a lawyer in those cases.
Entering the office, he was rudely shocked by Tully.
"Good-morning, Mr. Bean!" said Tully distinctly.
"Good-morning!" returned Bean, stunned by Tully's "Mr." "Uh! pleasant day," he added.
"Yes, sir!" said Tully, again distinctly.
Bean controlled himself and went to his desk.
"'Mr.' and 'Sir'! Gee! Am I as rich as that??" he thought.
Half an hour later it no longer seemed to him that he was rich at all. He was seated opposite Breede taking letters in shorthand as if he were merely a thirty-dollar-a-week Bunker Bean. Breede was refusing to recognize any change in their relationship. He made no reference to their talk of the day before and his detached cuffs stubbornly occupied their old position on the desk. Was it all a dream—and the flapper, too?
But the flapper soon called him to the telephone.
"Poor old Pops came home late, and he says you're just perfectly a puzzle to him," she began.
"I know," said Bean; "he says he can't make me out."
"And Moms began to say the silliest things about you, until I just had to take her seriously, so I perfectly told her that woman had come into her own in this generation, thanks to a few noble leaders of our sex—it's in Granny's last speech at the league—and that sent her up in the air. I don't think she can be as well as she used to be; and I told Pops he had to give me some money, and he said he knew it as well as I did, so what was the use of talking about it, and so he just perfectly gave me fifty or sixty thousand dollars and told me to make it go as far as I could, but I don't know, that grocer says the cost of living is going up every day because the Senate isn't insurgent enough; and anyway I'll get the tickets and a suite on that little old boat that sails Wednesday. I thought you'd want a day or two; and everything will be very quiet, only the family present, coming into town for it, you know, Wednesday morning, and the boat sails at noon, and I'll be so perfectly glad when it's all over because it's a very serious step for a young girl to take. Granny herself says it should never be taken lightly, unless you just perfectly know, but of course we do, don't we? I think you'll like fumed oak better, after all—and poor old Pops saying you're such a puzzle to him. He says he can't make out just how many kinds of a perfectly swear-word fool you are, but I can, and that's just deliciously enough for anybody. And you're to come out to-morrow and have tea and things in the afternoon, and I'm going to be before sister is, after all. She's perfectly furious about it and says I ought to be put back into short skirts, but I just perfectly knew it the very first time I ever looked at you. Stay around there, in case I think of something I've forgotten. G'bye."
Wednesday—a little old steamer sailing at noon! A steamer, and he couldn't swim a stroke and was always terrified by water. And the trip West with the home team! What about that? Why had he not the presence of mind to cut in and just perfectly tell her where they were going? But he had let the moment pass. It was too late. He didn't want to begin by making a row. And Breede was puzzled by him that way, was he? Couldn't make out how many kinds of perfectly swear-word fool he was?
He regretted that he had not been more emphatic about those cuffs. And Breede had said it after witnessing that salute from the pitcher's box! He must be a hard man to convince of anything. What more proof did he want?
Buzz! Buzz! Buzz!
The man who couldn't make him out was calling for him. For an hour longer he took down the man's words, not sneering pointedly at the cuffs, yet allowing it to be seen that he was conscious of them. A puzzle was he?
"—Hopin' t'ave promp' action accordin' 'bove 'structions, remain yours ver' truly she's got it all reasoned out," concluded Breede.
"She just told me," said Bean; "little old steamer sailing Wednesday."
"Can't make y' out," said Breede.
That thing was getting tiresome.
"You're a puzzle to me, too," said Bean.
"Hanh! Wha's 'at? What kinda puzzle?"
"Same kind," said Bean, brightly.
"Hum!" said Breede, and pretended to search for a missing document. Then he eyed Bean again.
"Know how much you made on that Federal stuff?"
"I was going to ask a lawyer," confessed Bean. "I got a whole lot of margins or whatever you call 'em around at that broker's. Maybe he wouldn't mind letting me know."
"Stock'll be up t' six hundred before week's out; net you 'round four hund' thous'n'," exploded Breede in his most vicious manner.
"Four hundred thousand margins?" He wanted to be cautious.
"Dollars, dammit!" shouted Breede.
Bean was able to remain cool. That amount of money would have meant nothing to him back on the Nile. Why should it now?
"It wasn't the money I was after," he began, loftily.
"Hanh!"
"Principle of the thing!" concluded Bean.
Breede had lost control of his capable under jaw. It sagged limply. At last he spoke, slowly and with awe in his tone.
"You don't puzzle me any more." He shook his head solemnly. "Not any more. I know now!"
"Little old steamer—can't swim a stroke," said Bean.
"'S all," said Breede, still shaking his head helplessly.
At his desk outside Bean feigned to be absorbed in an intricate calculation. In reality he was putting down "400,000," then "$400,000," then "$400,000.00" By noon he had covered several pages of his note-book with this instructive exercise. Once he had written it $398,973.87, with a half-formed idea of showing it to old Metzeger.
As he was going out Tully trod lightly over a sheet of very thin ice and accosted him.
"The market was not discouraging to-day," said Tully genially.
"'S good time to buy heavily in margins," said Bean.
"Yes, sir," said Tully respectfully.
In the street he chanted "four hundred thousand dollars" to himself. He was one of the idle rich. He hoped Cassidy would never hear of it. Then, passing a steamship office, he recalled the horror that lay ahead of him. Little old steamer. But was a financier who had been netted four hundred thousand dollars to be put afloat upon the waters at the whim of a flapper? She was going too far. He'd better tell her so in plain words; say, "Look here, I've just netted four hundred thousand dollars, and no little old steamer for mine. I don't care much for the ocean. We stay on land. Better understand who's who right at the start."
That is what he would tell the flapper; make it clear to her. She'd had her own way long enough. Marriage was a serious business. He was still resolving this when he turned into a shop.
"I want to get a steamer trunk—sailing Wednesday," he said in firm tones to the clerk.
It was midnight of Tuesday. In the steam-heated apartment Bean paced the floor. He was attired in the garments prescribed for gentlemen's evening wear, and he was still pleasantly fretted by the excitement of having dined with the Breede family at the ponderous town house up east of the park.
He tried to recall in their order the events of those three days since he had left the office on Saturday. His coolest efforts failed. It was like watching a screen upon which many and diverse films were superimposing scenes in which he was an actor of more or less consequence, but in which his figure was always blurred. It was confounding.
Yet he had certainly gone out to that country place Sunday for tea and things, taking Nap. And the flapper, with a sinful pride, had shown him off to the family. He and the flapper had clearly been of more consequence than the big sister and the affianced waster, who wouldn't be able to earn his own cigarettes, say nothing of his ties and gloves. Sister and the waster, who seemed to be an agreeable young man, were simply engaged in a prosaic way, and looked prosaically forward to a church wedding. No one thought anything about them, and sister was indeed made perfectly furious by the airs the flapper put on.
Mrs. Breede, from one of the very oldest families of Omaha, had displayed amazing fortitude. She had not broken down once, although she plainly regarded Bean as a malignant and fatal disease with which her latest-born had been infected. "I must be brave, brave!" she had seemed to be reminding herself. And when Nap had chased and chewed her toy spaniel, named "Rex," until it seemed that Rex might pass on, she had summoned all her woman's resignation and only murmured, "Nothing can matter now!"
There had seemed to be one fleeting epoch which he shared alone with the flapper, feeling the smooth yielding of her cheek and expanding under her very proudest gaze of ownership. And a little more about fumed oak panels and the patent laundry tubs.
Monday there had been a mere look-in at the office, with Tully saying "Sir"; with Breede exploding fragments of words to a middle-aged and severely gowned woman stenographer who was more formidable than a panorama of the Swiss Alps, and who plainly made Breede uncomfortable; and with Bulger saying, "Never fooled your Uncle Cuthbert for a minute. Did little old George W. Wisenham have you doped out right or not? Ask me, ask me; wake me up any time in the night and ask me!"
Tuesday afternoon he had walked with the flapper in the park and had learned of many things going forward with solely his welfare in view—little old house surrounded on all sides by just perfectly scenery—little old next year's car—little old going-away rag—little old perfectly just knew it the first moment she saw him—little old new rags to be bought in Paris—and sister only going to Asheville on hers.
And the dinner in town, where he had seemed to make an excellent impression, only that Mrs. Breede persisted in behaving as if the body was still upstairs and she must be brave, brave! And Grandma, the Demon, confiding to him over her after-dinner cigarette that he was in for it now, though she hadn't dared tell him so before; but he'd find that out for himself soon enough if he wasn't very careful about thwarting her. It made her perfectly furious to be thwarted.
Nor did he fail to note that the stricken mother was distinctly blaming the Demon for the whole dreadful affair. Her child had been allowed to associate with a grandmother who had gone radical at an age when most of her sex simmer in a gentle fireside conservatism and die respectably. But it was too late now. She could only be brave, brave!
And he was to be there at nine sharp, which was too early, but the flapper could be sure only after he came that nothing had happened to him, that he had neither failed in business, been poisoned by some article of food not on her list, nor diverted by that possible Other One who seemed always to lurk in the flapper's mental purlieus. She just perfectly wanted him there an hour too early; all there was about it!
These events had beaten upon him with the unhurried but telling impact of an ocean tide. Two facts were salient from the mass: whatever he had done he had done because of Ram-tah; and he was going to Paris, where he would see the actual tomb of that other outworn shell of his.
He thought he would not be able to sleep. He had the night in which to pack that steamer trunk. Leisurely he doffed the faultless evening garments—he was going to have a waistcoat pointed like the waster's, with four of those little shiny buttons, and studs and cuff-links to match—and donned a gayly flowered silk robe.
With extreme discomfort he surveyed the new steamer trunk. Merely looking at a steamer trunk left him with acute premonitions of what the voyage had in store for him. But the flapper was the flapper; and it was the only way ever to see that tomb.
The packing began, the choice garments were one by one neatly folded. A light tan overcoat hung in Ram-tah's closet, back of the case. Ram-tah was dragged forth and for the moment lay prone. He was to be left in the locked closet until a more suitable housing could be provided, and Cassidy had been especially warned not to let the steam-heated apartment take fire.
He found the coat and returned to the half-packed trunk in the bedroom where he resumed his wonderful task, stopping at intervals for always futile efforts at realization of this mad impossibility. It was all Ram-tah. Nothing but that kingly manifestation of himself could have brought him up to the thing. He dropped a choice new bit of haberdashery into the trunk and went for another look at It prone on the floor in that other room.
A long time he gazed down at the still face—his own still face, the brow back of which he had once solved difficult problems of administration, the eyes through which he had once beheld the glories of his court, the lips that had kissed his long dead queen, smiled with rapture upon his first-born and uttered the words that had made men call him wise. It was not strange—not unbelievable. It was sane and true. He was still a king.
He reached down and laid a tender, a fraternal hand upon the brow. The contact strengthened him, as always. He could believe anything wise and good of himself. He could be a true mate to that bewildering flapper, full of understanding kindness. He saw little intimate moments of their life together, her perplexities over fumed oak and patent tubs and marketing for pure food; always her terrific earnestness. Now and then he would laugh at that, but then she would laugh too; sometimes the flapper seemed to show, with an engaging little sense of shame, that she just perfectly knew how funny she was.
But she was staunch; she had perfectly well known the very first moment she saw him. And she had never spoiled it all, like that other one in Chicago, by asking him if he was fond of Nature and Good Music and such things. The flapper was capable but quiet. With his hand still upon Ram-tah's brow in that half-timid, strange caress, he was flooded with a sudden new gladness about the flapper. She was dear, if you came right down to it. And Ram-tah had brought her to him. He erected himself to look down once more. They knew, those two selves; understood each other and life.
It occurred to him for the first time that Ram-tah, too, must have liked dogs, must have been inexpressibly moved by the chained souls that were always trying to speak from their brown eyes. He looked over to Nap, who fiercely battled with a sofa cushion, and was now disembowelling it through a rent in the cover. He wondered what Ram-tah's favourite dog had been like.
He went back to the bedroom to finish his packing. Ram-tah could lie until the moment came to lock him again in the closet, to leave him once more in a seclusion to which he had long been accustomed.
He worked leisurely, stowing those almost advanced garments so that they should show as few wrinkles as possible after their confinement. Occasionally Nap diverted his thoughts by some louder growl than usual in the outer room, or by some noisier scramble.
The trunk was packed and locked for the final time. Thrice had it been unlocked and opened to receive slight forgotten objects. The last to be placed directly under the lid was the entirely scarlet cravat. He was equal to wearing it now, but a sense of the morrow's proprieties deterred him. The stricken mother! In deference to her he laid out for the morning's wear the nearest to a black cravat that he possessed, an article surely unassuming enough to be no offence in a house of mourning.
He fastened the straps of the trunk and sighed in relief. It was a steamer trunk, and he was to sail on a little old steamer, but other people had survived that ordeal. Ram-tah would have met it boldly. Ram-tah!
He stood in the doorway, his attention attracted to Nap, who had for some moments been more than usually vocal. In a far corner Nap had a roundish object between his paws and his sharp teeth tore viciously at it. He looked up and growled in fierce pretence that his master also wished to gnaw this delectable object.
A moment Bean stood there, looking, looking. Slowly certain details cleared to his vision: the details of an unspeakable atrocity. He felt his knees grow weak, and clutched at the doorway for support.
The body of Ram-tah was out of its case and half across the room, yards of the swathed linen unfurled; but, more terrible than all, the head of Ram-tah was not where it should have been.
In the far corner the crouching Nap gnawed at that head, tearing, mutilating, desecrating.
"Napoleon!" It was a cry of little volume, but tense and terrible. Napoleon, destroyer of kings! In this moment he once more put the creature's full name upon him. The dog found the name alarming; perceived that he had committed some one of those offences for which he was arbitrarily punished. He relaxed the stout jaws, crawled slinkingly to the couch, and leaped upon it. Once there, he whimpered protestingly. One of the few clear beliefs he had about a perplexing social system was that nothing hurtful could befall him once he had gained that couch. It was sanctuary.
Bean's next emotion was sympathy for the dog's fright. He tottered across to the couch, mumbling little phrases of reassurance to the abject Nap. He sat down beside him, and put a kindly arm about him.
"Why, why, Nappy! Yes, 'sall right, yes, he was—most beautiful doggie in the whole world; yes, he was."
He hardly dared look toward the scene of the outrage. The calamity was overwhelming, but how could dogs know any better? Timidly, at length, he raised his eyes, first to where the fragmentary head lay, then to the torn body.
Something about the latter electrified him. He leaped from the couch and seized an end of the linen that bound the mummy. He pulled, and the linen unwound. He curiously surveyed something at his feet. It was a tightly rolled wad of excelsior. The swathing of linen—he had unwound it to where the hands should have been folded on the breast—had enclosed excelsior.
Dazedly he looked into the empty case. Upon one of the new boards he saw marked with the careless brush of some shipping-clerk, "Watkins & Co., Hartford, Conn."
Again, as with the unstable lilac-bushes, his world spun about him; it drew in and darkened. He had the sensation of a grain of dust sucked down a vast black funnel.
Outside the quiet room, the city went on its ruthless, noisy way. In there where dynasties had fallen and a monarch lay prone, a spotted dog sporting with a papier-mâché something, came suddenly on a cold hand flung out on the rug. Nap instantly forsook the sham for the real, deserted the head of Ram-tah, and laved Bean's closed eyes with a lolloping pink tongue.