BEARDING THE LION
Nancy Nelson's hopes ran high. She was going out into a new world--the
world of Pinewood Hall. The girls would all be strangers to her there;
not one of them would know her history--or, rather, her lack of a
history.
But as to the latter, the girl was determined to learn all there was to
know about herself before she arrived at Pinewood.
In two hours the train would be in Cincinnati. She had but half an
hour--or less--to wait for the train on the other road to Clintondale.
But she had studied the time-table and she knew that, by waiting four
hours in Cincinnati, she could get another train to her destination.
She was to telegraph back to Miss Prentice when she arrived at
Cincinnati. At the same time she was supposed to telegraph ahead to the
principal of Pinewood Hall,--Madame Schakael. This had all been arranged
beforehand; Nancy had been thoroughly instructed by Miss Prentice.
But the girl had made up her mind not to send the dispatch on to
Pinewood Hall until she was ready to leave Cincinnati. There should be
no telegraphing back and forth between the two schoolmistresses if she
could help it.
In the interim Nancy proposed to find Mr. Gordon's office and have the
long-wished-for interview with the man whom she called her guardian. All
the guardians she had ever read of seemed to have a much deeper interest
in their wards than this lawyer had shown in her.
The cab driver checked her trunk and then spoke a word to the conductor
of the train that would take the girl to Cincinnati. But Nancy felt
quite independent and "grown up."
She asked the conductor about stopping over at the big city until the
later train and he assured her that she would need no stop-over check
for that. She spent a good part of the time until she got to Cincinnati
inventing speeches which she would make to Mr. Gordon when she reached
his office.
She filed the telegram to Miss Prentice as soon as she got off the
train; then she checked her handbag at the parcel counter and walked out
of the station.
Of course, she had no idea in which direction South Wall Street lay; but
she knew a policeman when she saw one, and believed those minions of the
law to be fountains of information.
She told the officer exactly what she wanted to do--to go to the
lawyer's office and return to the station in time for the afternoon
train to Clintondale.
"It's quite a little walk, Miss, and you might get turned around.
Suppose I put you into a taxi and take the man's number, and he can
bring you back, if you like?"
Nancy had some few dollars in her pocketbook; but she was careful to
have the policeman estimate the cost of her cab-ride, which he kindly
did. She would have sufficient to pay for this, and a luncheon, as well,
if she got back in season. So the girl bravely entered the taxi-cab and
was whirled through the unfamiliar streets to the lawyer's office.
Then she began to quake. She was to beard a lion in his den--and she
knew very little about lions!
Number 714 South Wall Street was a big office building; there were, too,
taxis passing all the time; so Nancy paid off her chauffeur and entered
the building with more boldness in her carriage than she really felt in
her heart.
She was studying the building directory when the hall-man came to her
assistance.
"Who are you looking for, Miss?" he asked.
"Mr. Henry Gordon."
"Gordon? Is that Gordon & Craig, architects?"
"Mr. Gordon is a lawyer."
"Oh! That's Mr. Gordon, of Ambrose, Necker & Boles. Twelve-forty-four.
This way, Miss. Number 6--going up!"
She was hustled into the elevator with a crowd of other people and the
car almost immediately began to ascend.
"Floor! Floor!" the boy who manipulated the lever kept calling, and the
passengers began to thin out rapidly after the fourth floor was passed.
"What floor, Miss?" he snapped at her.
"Mr. Gordon," stammered Nancy, more than a little confused by the rush
of it all. "Twelve-forty-four, the--the gentleman said."
"Twelfth! Here you are!" and the car stopped with a jerk while the boy
opened the sliding door with a flourish.
"Forty-four, to the right!" advised the youth, and immediately the car
shot up the well out of sight.
The clang of the cage-door echoed through the empty corridor. There were
rows of doors, with ground-glass panes, all painted in black or gold
with the name of firms, or with the single word, "_Private._"
For a minute Nancy hesitated. Somehow, her ears rang and she had to
wink fast to keep back the tears. Yet it was merely nervousness. She
knew of no reason why she should be frightened.
Surely her guardian must wish to see her! He probably was a very busy
man--perhaps a man without a family. Maybe he lived at a hotel where he
could not have his ward come to see him. That was why she had had to
spend her vacations heretofore at Malden. Nancy thought of these things,
and began to take courage.
She glanced along the corridor. "To the right," the elevator boy had
said. She took a few uncertain steps and came opposite Room 1231. Room
1244 must be near.
She persevered, walking almost on tiptoe so as not to awaken the echoes
of the lofty corridor, and quickly came before the door numbered 1244.
Stenciled upon it was the firm name: "Ambrose, Necker & Boles,
Attorneys."
There was nothing about Mr. Gordon. His name did not appear, and she was
not sure now that she had reached the goal.
She turned the knob with a flutter at her heart, and stepped into the
office. She found herself immediately in a sort of fenced-off stall,
with a glass partition on one hand, through which she saw many desks
and typewriter tables, at which a score of men and girls were busy.
Directly before her, however, was a gate in the railing and beside the
gate--and evidently the Cerberus of the way--was a small, thin boy
sitting at a small desk, with his legs wound around his chair legs like
immature pythons with blue worsted bodies.
He was supposed to be doing something with a pile of papers and long
envelopes; but the truth was he had rigged, with rubber bands, a
closely-printed, "smootchy" looking paper-backed storybook before him on
the desk, so that on the instant Nancy approached, the rubbers snapped
the book back under the desk lid out of sight.
He looked up with little, red-lidded eyes, grinning queerly at her.
"Gee!" he gasped under his breath. "I thought it was the boss." Then
aloud he demanded, with hauteur: "Who do you wish to see, lady?"
Now Nancy had not been used to being addressed in so cavalier a manner,
and for a moment she did not know how to reply. But in that moment she
took a mental picture of the boy that she was not likely to forget.
Besides being diminutive and fleshless, his features were very small
and very, very sharp. The generous hand of Nature had sprinkled freckles
across his nose. He had lost a front tooth, which fact made his smile
perfectly "open."
His watery blue eyes twinkled with mischief. His grin wrinkled up his
preternaturally old face in a most remarkable way. His shock of hair was
flame-colored--and exactly matched the tie he wore.
"Say!" this youngster said. "You'll know me again; eh? My name's
'Scorch' O'Brien. What's yours?"
"I--I'm Nancy Nelson," confessed the girl, but beginning to smile at him
now. He _was_ too funny for anything. "And I've come to see Mr. Gordon."
"Not Old Gudgeon? He never had a lady come to see him before," announced
the office boy, explosively. "Sure it's him you want?"
"Mr. Henry Gordon," declared Nancy, in some doubt.
"Henery is his front name," admitted Scorch, rumpling his red top-knot.
"But I guess I'd better ask first if he'll have you in."
"Just tell him it's me, please," said Nancy, faintly.
"What did you say the name was, Miss?"
"Nancy Nelson. He'll know. I'm his ward."
"Aw, no! You ain't?"
"Yes, I am," said Nancy, nodding.
"Never knowed he had one. So he is yer guardeen?" grunted the red-haired
boy, unwinding his legs.
The girl thought she had chatted quite enough with this very bold youth,
so made no further reply.
"Ain't he the sly one?" proceeded "Scorch" O'Brien, shaking his head.
"Him a guardeen--an' I never knowed it before."
Evidently the fact that anything of such moment had escaped him rasped
the temper of the boy. He went off muttering, and came back again, in a
minute, grinning.
"Say! he must have robbed you of the estate. It sure scared him when I
announced your name. Never seen him turn a hair before; but he wasn't
looking for no 'Nancy Nelson' ter come up and confront him like this."
Nancy, rather offended at this "fresh" youth, swept by him through the
gateway and approached the door to which she had seen the flame-haired
"Scorch" go in his quest of Mr. Gordon.
Yes! "Mr. Henry Gordon" was painted upon the door. She opened it slowly
and looked in.
There was a great, broad table-desk, piled high with books and papers--a
veritable wilderness of books and papers. In a broad armchair, with his
back to the door, sat "Old Gudgeon," as "Scorch" had disrespectfully
called Mr. Henry Gordon.
He was as broad as his chair. Indeed, he seemed to have been forced into
it between the arms, by hydraulic pressure. Nancy did not see how he
ever _could_ get out of it!
He had enormous shoulders, fairly "humped" with layers of fat. His head
was thrust forward as he wrote, and his shaven neck was pink, and bare,
and overlapped his collar in a most astonishing way.
"Ahem!" said Nancy, clearing her throat a little. She had come inside
and closed the door, and it seemed that Mr. Gordon was giving her no
attention.
Then she chanced to look up and, on the wall beyond the desk, was a
broad mirror tilted so that the lawyer needed but to raise his eyes to
see reflected in the glass all that went on behind him.
And in that glass Nancy got her first glimpse of Henry Gordon's face.
It was really something more than a glimpse. The lawyer was evidently
staring at her--had been doing so for some seconds. His great, broad,
unwrinkled countenance seemed to have paled on her first appearance, for
now the color was washing back into it in a wave of faint pink--a ruddy
hue that was natural to so full-bodied a man.
"Come here, girl!"
The voice that rumbled out of Mr. Gordon's throat was commensurate with
his bulk. He slowly turned his chair upon its pivot. Trembling, Nancy
made her way across the rug to the corner of his desk.
All of a sudden every bit of courage she had plucked up, was swept away.
She felt a queer emptiness within her. And in her throat a lump had
risen so big that she could not swallow.