IN THE HOUSE OF RIMMON
Conover swung down the hill toward the valley in whose centre twinkled
the lights of the Arareek Country Club. He was still buoyed up by the
curious elation that was always his after an hour with Desirée. For
perhaps the first time in his life the thousand soft odors of the June
dusk carried for him a meaning; and in every nerve he was aware of the
mild glory of the night. He took deep breaths of the scented air and
squared his mighty shoulders as he strode down the slope. It was good
to be alive; to feel the easy play of one’s perfect muscles; to be
tireless, victorious, and still in the early thirties.
A girl in a white dress was walking a short distance ahead of him as he
neared the Clubhouse. Each long step brought Conover nearer to her. At
her side walked a man. The couple were in no haste, but seemed bent on
enjoying the beauty of the night in leisurely fashion before reaching
their destination. As Caleb came alongside, a few rods from the Arareek
gates, the man hailed him. It was Caine. Conover, barely remembering
himself in time to imitate the other’s salute, pulled off his hat and
slouched toward the two.
“Miss Standish,” said Caine, after greeting the Fighter, “May I present
Mr. Conover?”
The girl held out her hand shyly. Caleb, as he took it, looked down at
her with considerable interest. He was curious to see what manner of
woman the fastidious Caine had so long idolized; and to whom, in face
of much rumored family opposition, he had recently become engaged.
The lights of the open Clubhouse door shone full upon Letty Standish,
and Caleb’s first curiosity changed to something like astonishment.
She was a plump little creature, with a pretty, slack face. Caleb,
versed in reading physiognomy, saw in her upturned countenance much
amiability,--of the sort that tends to turn gently sub-acid under
the right provocation,--a charmingly, complete lack of any sort of
resolution; and an intellect as profound as that of an unusually
sagacious guinea pig. Large, delft-blue eyes, a quivering button of
a nose, a pouting little mouth; profuse light brown hair piled high
above a narrow forehead. Pretty with the inherent comeliness of extreme
youth, but--
“Looks like a measly rabbit!” thought Conover in amused contempt, “An’
_that’s_ what Amzi Nicholas Caine’s been workin’ all his life to win,
is it? Gee, but it’s queer what kinks a sane man’s brain’ll take, where
a woman’s concerned.”
Outwardly he was listening with stony immobility to Letty’s timid words
of salutation. As she paused, he pulled his wits together.
“Pleased to meet you,” said he. “I’m to have the pleasure of takin’
dinner at your house Friday night, I b’lieve. Thanks for askin’ me. I
hope we’ll see more of each other.”
“My aunt and I are always glad to meet Father’s business friends,”
returned Letty, ill at ease. She had wondered, and her aunt had
protested loudly, at Standish’s curt announcement that Blacarda’s
vacated place at the table must be taken by this unknown outsider. Nor,
as she looked at the stocky, heavy-jowled man and heard his uncouth
speech, did the mystery grow clearer.
“You seemed in a hurry,” observed Caine, relieving the girl’s
embarrassment by taking Conover off her hands, “I think we’ll be in
plenty of time to hear all of the speeches we care to. There’s the same
pleasing likeness about them that there is about a string of street
cars. If you miss one, you can get the next and nothing worth while is
lost by the omission. At stag dinners of course it’s different. Then it
is always interesting to note the inverse ratio between eloquence and
sobriety. But at these ‘Celebration’ dinners the speeches are warranted
to contain nothing of dangerous interest. Shall we go in?”
For lack of a gallery, the guests who had come to hear the speeches,
sat in the double ranks of chairs which lined the large dining room.
Conover and the two others arrived during a momentary lull between
speeches. Letty was greeted cordially by such people as she passed on
her way to her seat. Caleb, as one of her escort, found himself the
object of more courtesy than had ever before been his portion at the
Arareek.
This new warmth of manner on the part of his fellow-members pleased
Caleb tremendously. Incidentally, it gave him the germ of an
idea,--vague, nebulous, yet of promising growth. The burgeoning
germ found mental expression during the next after-dinner speech.
Caleb allowed his shrewd gaze to rest on Letty Standish, more
critically--with less of humorous depreciation--than before. She sat
next him, one plump hand pillowing her slightly receding chin; her wide
blue eyes fixed on the speaker in polite attention; her small mouth
pursed in a smile of almost labored interest.
“She’s better-lookin’ than I thought,” mused Conover, “An’ she’s a good
dresser. Maybe her face ain’t really so foolish. Starin’ at Dey so much
may have spoiled me for other girls. Everybody here seems glad to see
this Standish person; an’ some of their gladness has slopped over onto
me. If I’d a wife like that I’d strut right into the gold-shirt crowd
an’ they’d hang up a ‘Welcome, Little Stranger!’ sign for me. If Dey
can get into the right set by marryin’ one of ’em, I guess the same
rule ought to work with me. I’ll talk it over sometime with Caine. He
ought to know.”
A ripple of hand-clapping roused Caleb from his disjointed reflections,
and he joined with vigor in applauding the speech he had not heard.
“What an easy speaker Mr. Vroom is!” said Letty. “Don’t you envy such
men, Mr. Conover? Don’t you think it must be wonderful to make a speech
without being frightened to death? To stand up before so many people
and just talk to them as if--”
“Easiest thing in the world!” announced Caleb, dully irritated at her
praise, “Anyone can do it. All a man needs is to say to himself: ‘I’m
a blame sight better, cleverer, bigger man than any of this bunch I’m
talkin’ down to.’ _Then_ he won’t be afraid of ’em. Because he despises
’em. That’s the way _I_ always do when I’ve got a speech to make. It’s
lots easier to stand up in an open-face suit an’ talk like Vroom did to
a friendly crowd, than to try and persuade one grouchy grocer to handle
your special brand of washin’ soda. _There’s_ where reel el’quence
comes in.”
“Yes?” rejoined Letty, with her wavering little smile. “How clever of
you to put it in such an original way! I never thought of that, before.”
“Of what?” demanded Caleb, inquisitorially.
“Of--of--why, of what you said, of course. Now, shan’t we listen to the
toastmaster? He’s always so funny, I think. Do you know him?”
“No, ma’am,” said Caleb. “He’s a novelty to me. But we’ll listen if you
like.”
He folded his arms, leaned back in his camp chair and turned a look of
ponderous gravity upon the toastmaster. The latter, swaying back and
forth on his toes, his hands in his pockets, was lengthily introducing
the next speaker. At every third sentence his eye would sweep the room
with a roguish twinkle as who should say: “Make ready now for the
newest of my irresistible quips!” And the listeners would obediently
prepare to roar. Letty’s pleasant giggle at each sally annoyed Caleb.
He could not say why. But involuntarily he glanced toward her with
a frown. She chanced to be looking at him, at the same moment, for
companionship in her appreciation of the latest witticism. Meeting
the scowl, her nose quivered and her smile froze into pitiful,
half-appealing lines that added to Caleb’s senseless irritation. But,
by an effort, he sought awkwardly to nullify any unpleasant impression
of him that she might have gained.
“What was that joke?” he whispered, to explain his frown. “I didn’t
quite catch it.”
“Why,” faltered Letty, “he said--he said--‘the man who hesitates,
foozles.’ I _think_ that was it. Something like that. Or,--was it--‘the
man who--’? Oh, listen! He’s going to tell that lovely story about the
minister who had to give up golf or the pulpit. I do want to hear that!”
The murmur of joyous anticipation, as the toastmaster hoisted
preliminary warnings for this classic, showed that Letty was by no
means unique in her choice of rechauffèe humor. Caleb sat glum under
the salvo of merriment. Letty glanced sideways, in dawning uneasiness,
at his set face.
“And,” beamed the toastmaster, “as the Irish caddie said to the--”
The door leading from the butler’s pantry burst open. Through the
aperture into the bright-lit dining hall scurried a red-faced,
bald-headed man; two club servants close at his heels. The fugitive
was clad in a soiled waiter-jacket and a pair of patched overalls.
Both garments had evidently been intended for someone much larger.
Their present wearer seemed lost in their voluminous folds. Yet, even
thus hampered, he dodged his pursuers with an agility little short of
incredible in so old a man.
Darting forward into the full blaze of light, he fled around the table.
The two servants had checked their pursuit near the door; and now
stood irresolute, at a loss whether or not to continue the chase into
the sacred precincts of the dining room. They looked for instructions
to a stout, pompous personage who, following them up from the pantry,
now blocked the doorway and stared balefully at the little old man.
The latter in his flight had come into violent contact with one of the
slender pillars near the toastmaster’s chair. Wrapping both arms about
this, he slid to the floor and crouched there; still clinging to the
pillar; making horrible simian faces over his shoulder at the trio
beside the pantry door.
At the apparition, several diners had jumped excitedly to their feet,
(with the world-old instinct which taught prehistoric man to meet
danger or surprise, standing); others had craned their necks or shouted
confused queries. One woman had cried out. Every eye in the room was
upon the grotesque, couchant little figure huddled against the centre
pillar. The toastmaster turned in lofty severity upon the big man in
the doorway.
“Steward!” he declaimed. “What does this mean?”
“I--I am extremely sorry, Mr. Dillingham!” answered the steward,
venturing forward. “I’m sure I apologize most sincerely. I wouldn’t
have had such a thing happen for worlds. We were short of men in the
kitchen, to-night, sir. That--that old panhandler over there, sir,”
pointing an abhorring finger at the refugee, “came around looking for
an odd job. So I set him to washing dishes. He said he’d stopped off a
train on his way from the West. He got at some of the wines, sir, when
we wasn’t looking. He’s in a disgusting state, sir. Then one of my men
caught him pocketing some forks and I told two of the waiters to search
him and send for the police. They grabbed him, but he slipped away and
ran in here. So I--”
“That will do! That will _do_!” thundered the toastmaster, succeeding,
after divers trials, in breaking in upon the narrative. “Remove him. At
once! And as quietly as you can.--I am more sorry than I can say,” he
went on urbanely, addressing the guests, “that such a disgraceful scene
should have--”
A howl from the man on the floor cut short the apology. Two servants
had approached to do the toastmaster’s bidding. As the first of them
seized him by the shoulder the little man screamed like a mad cat.
Locking his legs about the pillar, he turned upon his assailants with
fists and teeth, fighting with the deadly, unscientific fury of a
cornered wild thing. The scrimmage that followed set the room in dire
confusion. To end which, the toastmaster so far unbent as to rush
among the combatants and order back his myrmidons. The attendants drew
away, disheveled, bleeding, robbed of the spruce neatness that was the
Arareek’s pride. The defender’s jacket had been torn off. There was a
slight cut on his forehead. But his little bloodshot eyes glared with
undiminished drunken defiance; nor had his opponents’ best efforts
dislodged his legs from about the pillar.
“Oh, the sacred Arareek!” muttered Caine, leaning across toward
Conover. “Dillingham will be in hysterics in another minute. The
sanctity of his state dinner shattered just when he was at his asinine
best! See, some of the women are starting to go. If they leave, it’ll
break his heart.”
But Caleb did not hear. Almost alone of all those in the room, he had
shown no excitement. Fights were no novelty to him. Bent forward, yet
emotionless, his eyes had never once left the distorted face of the
drunken interloper.
“Leave me be!” the latter was demanding in a squealing hiccough, as
the cessation of attack left him breath for words. “Leave me be, can’t
yer? Fine lot--swellsh you are, to pick on one poor old man what never
harmed none of you! Lemme ’_lone_!” as Dillingham with thoughts of
diplomacy, edged closer. “That--that feller called me--p--panhandler!
’S a lie! I’m honesh, ’spectible workin’ man. Fought for m’ country
in S-S-Shivil war. Got m’ hon’rable-dishcharge. Fought for m’ country
while the most of you was in--in y’r cradles. I’m drunk too,” he
confided squinting up at the unnerved Dillingham. “Drunk--or I wouldn’t
a’ stholen thoshe thingsh. Perfec’ly shquare when I’m shober. Perf’ly.
Learned t’drink while I was d--d’fendin’ m’ country. I’m--”
His voice scaled a note or two, broke, and then meandered on, in time
to prevent Dillingham’s interruption. His tone had shifted once more
from the explanatory to the pugnacious.
“If I had had my--my rightsh!” he bellowed, shrilly, glaring about
him. “I’d be ridin’ in my carr’ge--m’own carr’ge! Yesh! Thash right.
Own carr’ge. Got a boy whoshe rich--rich man. Whatsh’e do for me?
Noshin’t’all! Don’t ev’n know I’m ’live. Till I struck Granite t’night,
I didn’t know _he_’sh ’live. Firsh time been here in twenty yearsh.
They shent m’t’ jail, lasht time, dammem! Poor ol’ Saul Con’ver!”
He broke into senile, weak sobbing. And, from all over the room rose a
confused whispering, a rustle, an indefinable electric thrill. Women
whose escorts had led them to the door, halted and looked back in crass
interest. Men glanced at one another, muttering queries that found no
answer. Even Dillingham forgot at last his faint hope of restoring the
shattered function to its former banal calm.
Pair by pair, all eyes slowly focussed on Caleb Conover. But the most
imaginative gazer could not descry emotion--whether of surprise,
chagrin or fear--on the heavy mask of the Fighter’s face. For a moment
there was a hush. The old man on the floor still sobbed in maudlin
fashion. But no one heeded him. Then Caine arose.
“I think,” he began, his pleasant, low-pitched voice breaking in like
a dash of cool water on his hearers’ superheated senses, “I think
there is no need for any of us to magnify this trifling break in our
jolly evening; nor to allow it to mar in any way our spirit of good
fellowship. May I propose that we--?”
“Hold on,” interposed Caleb, quietly. He got to his feet and laid a
detaining hand on Caine’s arm.
“You mean well,” he said, “an’ I thank you. But I think this is where
_I_ do the talkin’, an’ not you. I’ve never made a speech here before,”
he went on, raising his voice, “An’ I never expected to. But I’ll
ask you people to have patience with me for a minute or two. Because
there’s one or two things that’s got to be said here an’ now. An’ I’m
the one that’s got to say ’em.”
He glanced about him. Never before in the Arareek Club had orator
enjoyed so rapt an audience. The quiet, heavy voice, the brute
magnetism of the man, no less than curiosity as to how he would handle
so impossible a situation, had already caught everyone’s attention. His
wholly masterful manner, his latent strength, lent a force of their own
to his rough words as he went on:
“Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that man doubled up on the floor there is
my father--I didn’t know till five minutes ago that he was still alive.
I hadn’t seen nor heard of him in near twenty-five years; till he came
in here, crazy drunk, just now, an’ broke up your party. I’m sorry for
what he’s done. If I could make any kind of rep’ration to you for the
bother he’s caused, I’d do it. I guess you know that. But I can’t. All
I can do is to try to make you look at him less like he was a mangy dog
in a fit, an’ more as if he was a human like yourselves. That’s why I’m
takin’ the liberty to speak to you now. Will you hear me?”
The unconscious buzz and murmur that all at once swept the room served
him for answer; and he continued:
“My father,” with another nod toward the mumbling figure on the floor,
“was a risin’, hard workin’ man. He come of decent people, an’ he was
a promisin’ young chap that ev’rybody liked. That was the trouble.
Too many folks liked him; which is pretty near as bad as bein’ liked
by nobody. Nothin’ pers’nal intended. When the Civil War broke out he
went to the front. There he learned to starve, to loaf, to forget his
business trainin’. An’ he wasn’t the only one, I guess. There’s where
he learned to drink, too. When men have to go supperless to bed on the
wet ground after an all-day march, a swig of whiskey’s a blessin’.
It’s a blessin’, too, when it dulls the mem’ry of the comrade at your
side that was blowed to pieces by a shell or ripped open by a bay’net.
Can you blame the soldiers if they let the whiskey bless ’em so often
that it gets to be a habit?
“After the war my father come home. There’d been bands of music an’
women wavin’ handkerchi’fs an’ noospapers to call him an’ his fellers
a lot of hot-air names when they marched off in their bloo uniforms to
the war. When the boys came slouchin’ back, footsore, ragged, an’ so
thin they looked like walkin’ embalmer advertisements, there wasn’t
quite so much cheerin’. My father’d gone away a brisk, fine set-up lad,
leavin’ good work behind him. He come back like a good many thousand
others, none the better for a four-year course in shiftlessness, booze
an’ no reg’lar work.
“The folks who’d cheered him when he went to fight for ’em had cheered
away a lot of their spare patri’tism by that time. There wa’nt enough
of it left in Granite to give my father a fair start in the world
again. Because he’d learned to drink, to loaf, to be uneasy an’
unreliable when he worked, they forgot he’d picked up those tricks
while he was defendin’ their country. Heroes was a drug in the market.
If any of you fellers know how it feels to get down to work the day
after your fortnight’s vacation, maybe you can understand what it meant
to him to settle down to a job after four years in the open.”
Conover glanced again at his father. The old man had ceased to mumble
and was trying to follow the Fighter’s speech. The slack jaw had
tightened; and the huddled form was struggling slowly to its feet.
“He tried to work,” resumed Conover, “but younger, smarter folks with
steadier business trainin’ was grabbin’ all the good jobs. Yet he got
what he could, an’ for awhile he did the best he knew how. Then he saw
a chance to make things easier for my mother an’ me. He’d been used to
seein’ his off’cers in the army paddin’ expense accounts an’ gettin’
graft on fodder bills an’ such. He’d seen contractors grow rich by
sellin’ the Gov’ment shoddy blankets an’ rotten food. Was it any worse
for _him_ to scamp weights on the coal scales? That’s what he done. Not
in big quantities as if he was a financier; but a few cents a day as he
got the chance.
“That was his mistake. If he’d stole a million he’d a’ been a big man
in Granite. But he hadn’t the brain to do more’n foller, a long way
off, the example of the men he’d been taught to obey for four years.
Because he stole so little an’ so stoopidly, they found him out. They
didn’t stop to ask if he’d used the miser’ble little sums of pilfered
money to make his home happier an’ buy things for his sick wife. Those
arguments don’t cut much ice in law. He was just a common thief. An’
they sent him to States prison. Me an’ my mother could starve, for
all the law cared. The bread winner was locked up. That was all holy
Justice asked for. _We_ could die of hunger if we wanted to, now that
the law had taken away the man who had stole to keep us alive.
“I guess you folks has read of the way men get treated in those places
where the State gives ’em a chance to repent of their sins. For five
years my father lived in a stone cubbyhole an’ had for chums a choice
c’lection of the Devil’s Own Brigade. Not a soul in all that time to
speak a decent word to him,--to say ‘Please,’ in givin’ him his orders.
It sounds like a small thing to have no one say ‘Please’ to you. But
try it some time.
“After five years of herdin’ with beasts,--only bein’ treated worse’n
the S. P. C. A. would let any beast be treated,--they turned my father
loose. They’d set the prison mark on him; they’d taught him to keep
comp’ny with blackguards; they’d made him callous to everything decent,
an’ taken away his citizenship. Havin’ done which, they gen’rously sets
him free an’ gives him a chance to be a Godfearin’, upright man in
future. Who’ll hire a convict? Who’ll give him a show? No one--You know
that as well as I do. How can he hold up his head among men who haven’t
had the bad luck to be caught? What was left for my father to do? To
’sociate with the only class that’d take him as an equal. To turn
to the drink that made him forget they’d branded him as an outcast.
That’s what he did. I ain’t sayin’ it’s right. I ain’t sayin’ that
Saul Conover’s a noble lookin’ work of God as he slinks against that
post there. The drink that comforted him so long has knocked out his
manhood. The hard luck an’ starvin’ has turned him old and ugly an’
bad-shaped. In short, he’s what S’ciety an’ a lovin’ Paternal Gov’ment
has made him. An’--he’s my father, God help him! An’ the man who says
I’m ashamed of him, lies!”
Amid the oppressed silence, Caleb Conover crossed over to where his
father stood cowed and half-sobered. As gently as a woman, he put his
arm about the old man’s twisted shoulders and drew him toward the door.
A lane was made for their passage. From somewhere in the crowd came
the sound of a woman’s stifled sob. Jack Hawarden impulsively clapped
his hands together. There was an instant’s shocked silence. Then--no
one could afterward explain why--the lad’s example was followed from
all quarters of the dining hall; and a rattle of incongruous applause
re-echoed through the place.
As Conover, half-leading, half-supporting the wizened form, neared the
door, young Hawarden barred his path. With boyish hero-worship shining
in his eyes, Jack thrust out his hand. Caleb gripped it in silence and
passed on, out into the darkness. None followed the strange pair as
they left the clubhouse.
Neither father nor son spoke a word until they were alone in the
starlit road, far beyond earshot of the club. Then Caleb stopped,
glancing back as though fearful lest some inquisitive guest might have
come out to witness the sequel to the banquet hall scene. The night
air had still further cleared the drink-fog from the old man’s brain.
Clutching his son by the sleeve, and tremblingly patting the Fighter’s
big hand, he whimpered:
“Gawd bless you, boy! It’s a proud man I am this night. You’re not
ashamed of your poor old father what worked so hard for you an’ loves
you so an’--”
With a gesture of loathing, Caleb shook off the weak clasp.
“You measly old crook!” he snarled. “Keep your dirty hands off me!
Here!” thrusting a roll of bills upon him. “Take this an’ get out of
town by the next train. Write me where to forward money an’ I’ll see
you get enough to keep you drunk till you die. But if you ever set
foot in Granite again I’ll have you railroaded to jail for life. An’,
after this, don’t spring that Civil War yarn again. Civil War hard-luck
stories are played out. Besides, you were never within two hundred
miles of the war; and you know you weren’t. Don’t lie when you don’t
have to. It spoils your skill for nec’ssary lies. Now, get away from
here! Chase!”