AN UNEXPECTED MEETING
If Bar Vernon’s companion in the carriage during his ride up-town
that morning had been Judge Danvers, instead of Dr. Manning, he
would doubtless have been subjected to a sort of conversational
“cross-examination.”
Indeed, he had half expected something of the sort, but the worthy
doctor having fairly got rid of his pecuniary load and the troubles
connected with it, had mentally gone back to his patients and was not a
whit more talkative than his inborn politeness demanded of him.
Indeed, on arriving at the house, the doctor only waited to introduce
Bar to Mrs. Manning, after a very brief talk with that lady in an
inner room, and tell her to “send for Val,” and then he was off to the
reception of his long-delayed “callers” and the performance of his
daily routine of healing duty.
Bar’s previous experiences had led him into all sorts of places, good
and bad, but never before had he seen the interior of a home like
that, so full of all the appliances which modern invention and the
refinements of human art have provided for wealth and culture.
It was a sort of new world to him, and he found its unaccustomed
atmosphere more than a little oppressive at first.
Even Mrs. Manning, with her gentle face, her beautiful gray hair and
her kindly, easy, perfectly well-bred manners, seemed to him so like a
being from another sphere, that her presence made him uneasy.
She understood him better than he imagined, however, and although she
had plenty of questions in her mind, she considerately postponed them
for a more convenient season.
“It’s very wonderful,” thought Bar. “To think of that pocketbook
business bringing about all this! But I wonder who Val is?”
It was some little time before his curiosity was gratified, and then
Mrs. Manning left him alone in the library, for a few minutes, to
wonder at the multitude of elegant books, the folios of maps and
engravings, and the rarely beautiful pictures. When she returned
she was accompanied by a young gentleman of about Bar’s age, though
scarcely so strongly built, whom she introduced as:
“My son Valentine, Mr. Vernon. I shall have to put you in his care for
the rest of the day. I hope, and so does Dr. Manning, that you will be
very good friends.”
Valentine Manning was not only lighter built than Barnaby Vernon, he
was a good deal lighter in the color of his hair, and the complexion of
his face. His eyes were gray instead of the brownish-black of Bar’s,
and he was in every respect a good deal more of a “boy,” at least to
all outward appearances. He had never had the severe experiences which
had so steadied and sobered his new acquaintance.
There was little danger that Bar would long feel as much shyness in his
presence as in that of his mother, though he was a little awkward at
first.
“Mother says you’re to visit with me,” said the doctor’s son, after
they found themselves alone, “and that then you’re going out to
Ogleport to school.”
“Yes,” said Bar, reservedly.
“Ever been at the Academy before?” asked his new friend. “I never heard
of you. What’s your first name?”
“Barnaby. Bar Vernon.”
“Bar? That’s a good handle. Mine’s Val. You can’t expect a fellow to be
saying mister all the time. Did you say you’d been to Ogleport?”
“No,” said Bar, with an effort. “I was never at school in all my life.”
“Whew!” whistled Val. “What an ignoramus you must be! Did you ever
study algebra?”
“Never.”
“Nor geometry?”
“I saw the word in a newspaper, once,” said Bar, “but I don’t know what
it means.”
“Then won’t you have a high old time with Dr. Dryer, that’s all,”
exclaimed Val. “Can’t you read?”
“Oh, yes,” said Bar, eager to come up in something; “I can read and
write, and all that. Let me show you.”
Bar took up a pen, but, before he had written a half dozen lines, Val
stopped him with:
“There, now, that’ll do. You can beat me all hollow with a pen. Pity
you don’t know French, or something.”
“Oh,” exclaimed Bar, “I can talk French, and German, too, and a little
Spanish. It’s easy enough to pick up such things. What I don’t know is
what you learn at school.”
“Well,” replied Val, “I wish I could pick up as much as that. Anyhow, I
s’pose there’s lots of things I can teach you. Did you ever go fishing?”
“Never had a chance.”
“Nor hunting, nor skating?”
“Never,” said Bar, “but I can shoot. I had to learn that.”
“I’d like to know where you’ve lived all your life,” remarked Val.
“Maybe I’ll tell you some day,” said Bar, seriously, “but I’d rather
not just now.”
Val Manning was a gentleman, boy as he was; and he colored to his ears
as he replied:
“There, now, beg your pardon. Mother told me I mustn’t ask you any
questions. Come on into the billiard-room and I’ll teach you how to
play. Father never wants me to go to a public billiard-hall, you know,
so he has a tip-top table here at home. Plays himself sometimes, when
the sick people give him a chance. Come on.”
Bar followed his young host into the neat and cozy apartment in the
third story to which he led the way, and he felt a species of awe come
over him as he passed one evidence after another of what plenty of
money can do for the home of such a man as Dr. Manning.
Val picked up a cue and Bar listened in silence to the very clear and
practical sort of lecture that followed on the rudiments of the game.
“Suppose we play one now,” said Bar, “and you can tell me more as we go
along.”
Val assented, with hearty good-will, and he really showed a good deal
of dexterity, for a boy of his age, in the noble art of knocking the
ivory balls about.
He made a very good “run” before he missed, and then drew back with:
“There, Barnaby, the balls are in an awful bad position. I couldn’t
make that carrom myself. Not many men could, but you’ll never learn if
you don’t try. This is the shot. See?”
Bar had been leisurely chalking his cue. Some things Val had said had
unintentionally nettled him, and he had hardly been as frank as he
should have been.
Now, however, he stepped quietly forward, made the impossible shot with
an ease and quickness which altogether electrified Val, and followed it
up with a dozen others of almost equal difficulty, ending by running
the two red balls into a corner and scoring a clean fifty before he
made a miss-cue and lost control of them.
Val had stood watching him in silence to the end, but when Bar turned
to him with:
“Your turn again now!” he exclaimed.
“My turn? I should say so. Well, I’ll play the game out, but billiards
isn’t one of the things that I have to teach you. You can give me
lessons all the while.”
So it looked, indeed, but poor Bar had paid dearly enough for that
useless bit of an accomplishment, and he would gladly have traded
it with Val for a few of the things the latter probably valued very
lightly.
After the billiards, Val suggested a visit to the gymnasium, not a
great many blocks away, but there he was even more astonished than he
had been in the billiard-room.
“If you only knew a little algebra and geometry!” he exclaimed,
enthusiastically, “you’d be a treasure to the Academy. Won’t we have
fun!”
“How’s that?” asked Bar.
“Why, of course you don’t know,” said Val. “Wait till we get there,
though. I just want some of those country fellows to try on their games
again. I was almost alone last term, and they were too much for me. Got
awfully thrashed twice, and I’m just dying to try ’em on again. Been
training for it all vacation. But you’re worth three of me.”
“I’ll back you,” shouted Bar. “But then,” he added, “I thought we were
going to the Academy to study?”
“So we are,” said Val, “and I wouldn’t disappoint my mother for
anything, nor my father, either, but you can’t study all the while, and
there’s any quantity of fun in the country.”
They were coming down the stairs from the gymnasium into the street,
while they were talking, and just then, as they reached the sidewalk,
Bar grasped his friend’s arm with:
“Val--Val--let’s hurry. There’s a man I don’t want to have see me.”
Val moved quickly enough, but he should not have looked at the
same time, for he thereby attracted the attention of a large,
showily-dressed man, seemingly some sort of a gentleman whose eyes they
might otherwise have avoided.
“Aha! my young fellow! Have I found you? What have you done with my
valise? Come right along with me, now. I’ve been hunting you for a
week. Come along, Mr. Jack Chills.”
Bar’s cheeks had turned a trifle pale at first, but they were blazing
red now. It seemed to him as if all his “new time” were suddenly in
peril, and he determined not to lose it without an effort.
“You are mistaken in the man,” he firmly replied. “My name is not
Chills, but Vernon--Barnaby Vernon. If you annoy me I shall call the
police at once. Take away your hand, sir.”
“Police, indeed? Do you mean to say I’m not your guardian, Major
Montague? And do you mean to say you’re not my nephew, and that you
did not run away with my valise and all my valuable papers? Come right
along. I shan’t give you up, now I’ve got you.”
“Police!” shouted Bar, stoutly, and:
“Police! police!” echoed Val, with a boyish resolve to stand by his
friend.
It was not a quarter of the city in which the police are most
plentiful, or it may be Major Montague would have hesitated, anxious
as he was, for reasons of his own, to amend the errors of his fit of
maudlin penitence, but, just for that once, the shout of the two boys
fell on the right pair of ears, and the Major was actually brought
face to face with a “very intelligent-looking cop,” as Val afterwards
described him.
“Who are you?” was his first and somewhat rough question, addressed to
the two boys.
“Who am I?” exclaimed Val, proudly. “I’m Valentine Manning, son of Dr.
Randall Manning, and this is Mr. Barnaby Vernon, who is visiting with
me.”
“And this,” added Bar, pointing at Major Montague, “is a very
well-known bad character. I believe he is a professional pickpocket;
but I couldn’t make a charge against him, except for assault on me now.”
“I don’t know if I’d better take you in charge,” began the policeman;
but just then the proprietor of the gymnasium came down the stairs.
“Anything the matter, Mr. Manning?” he said to Val. “I thought you and
your friend were up in the room. Policeman, what is that fellow up to?”
“Some game or other, I don’t quite understand what. My man,” he added
to the Major, “you’ve missed it this time. I’ll remember you, though.
Move on, now, and don’t let me see you loafing on my beat. Move!”
Major Montague’s face was purple with wrath, but he saw very clearly
that it was not his day. How on earth Bar should so soon have found
friends, and strange ones, and become a recognized member of “society,”
instead of a homeless and wandering vagabond, was a puzzle that
surpassed his utmost guessing.
There was no doubt about it, however, for there stood the gymnasium
proprietor, one of the best known men in the city, and there was the
policeman.
Dreadfully positive and practical looked the latter, to be sure; and
the Major had no choice but to give the matter up for a bad job and
“move on.”
He determined, however, to get at the bottom of the mystery some day,
cost what it might.
Bar thanked the policeman very pleasantly, as he and Val turned away,
but he felt as if there would be a load of fear on his heart until
he could get off somewhere, away beyond the danger of any more such
meetings.
Not but that he felt sure of protection from any real harm, but he
wanted his deliverance from his “old time” to be absolute and complete,
and it could hardly be so with Major Montague in the immediate
neighborhood.
“I don’t want to ask any questions, Bar,” said Val, “but does my father
know anything about that fellow?”
“You’ve a right to ask that,” said Bar. “Yes, he does, and so does
Judge Danvers. I meant every word I said to him or about him. He’s a
miserable fellow, and I don’t mean he shall bother me at all. Let’s go
somewhere and get a lunch. I’ll stand treat.”
“No, you can’t,” exclaimed Val. “You’re my guest, you know. Come on. I
know where we can get a tip-top one.”
Of course he did, for he took Bar at once to a fashionable up-town
restaurant of the very first class.
The way to it was in the opposite direction from the one Major Montague
had taken, and Bar experienced a feeling of relief at finding himself
at one of the little marble-topped tables, with so many well-appearing
ladies and gentlemen around him. A moment later, however, Val asked him:
“What’s the matter, Bar, my boy? You look pale.”
“Nothing,” replied Bar; “only do you see that tall, French-looking
party, three tables away down the aisle, there on the right?”
“I see him,” said Val. “You can never tell anything by the looks of
those foreigners. I took one for a gambler a while ago, and he turned
out to be a Count somebody. Maybe that’s a Count. Do you know him?”
“Wait and see if he stays to finish his dinner,” said Bar. “I don’t
want him to speak to me.”
The stranger, if his exterior had been reärranged to suit, might have
resembled a gentleman by the name of Prosper, but, just then and there,
he was managing a very different character, for his former plans, as we
have seen, had been badly broken up, and he was for the present, not
only alone in the world, but anxious to remain so.
His position was “sidewise” to that of the two friends, and there was
no one between them.
Suddenly it seemed to him as if a voice close to his ear exclaimed:
“Russia leather, eh?”
He cast a quick and startled glance around him, but failed to discover
the source of the remark.
“It’s a bad fit,” said the voice again, but this time the stranger
merely shrugged his shoulders.
“Nothing else in it,” was the next remark of his mysterious neighbor. A
moment more and he heard:
“Then he made nothing by it?”
“No, the doctor got it back.”
“Do such fellows come here?”
One after another the words, in varying tones and seemingly close
beside him, added their harrowing suggestions, and the cold sweat was
beginning to stand out on the forehead of the unfortunate “foreigner.”
He would not have looked around him for the world, but he stealthily
reached out to the hat-rack for his hat and cane, and was swiftly
gliding out of the front door, when a watchful waiter intercepted him
with the polite suggestion that he had better pay for his dinner first.
He was glad enough to do that, nor did he once look back from the
“pay-desk.” It was not likely he would soon again venture into that
precise restaurant.
“Bar, my boy,” said Val, “who was it talking with that chap?”
“Anything more, sir?” suddenly inquired the voice of the waiter, who
had attended them, just behind Val’s chair. “You mustn’t make a pig of
yourself.”
Val wheeled angrily, to find that not a soul was standing near him.
“Bar!” he exclaimed, turning back, “did you hear that? Did he mean me?”
“Oh, hush, and take a pill.”
It was the waiter’s voice again, closer than before, and Val sprang to
his feet indignantly.
“Don’t step on me! Here I am, down here. Take your foot off. Oh, what a
mouth!”
Val had lifted his feet quickly enough, but involuntarily, but now he
gazed earnestly in the motionless face of his new friend.
“Bar Vernon, are you a ventriloquist!”
“Of course he is,” exclaimed the voice on the floor. “Don’t you see how
long his ears are? Take your foot off. There, now I can die in peace.
Good-bye!”
A long, choking sort of gurgle followed, but Val’s face was all one
radiance of triumphant fun.
“Bar, is that so? Hurrah for that! Won’t we have larks up in Ogleport,
and everywhere else? Let’s go home now. You’re just the sort of chum
I’d have asked for. Why, we’ll have some fun at the house this very
evening. Come on.”