Doctor Vardaman's house wore something of a festive look on Friday
night when the "all-star cast," as some ribald jeerer had christened
them, of "William Tell," began to arrive. It was partly due to the
appearance of Huddesley in his worn evening-clothes, carefully brushed
and pressed. How he contrived to get the dinner--and it was a good
dinner--cooked and ready for serving, and yet present himself in the
doctor's little oil-clothed entry to open the door whenever the bell
tinkled, clean, cool, and unhurried, ready to take charge of overcoats
and hats--how Huddesley did all that, I say, would have been a mystery
to any woman. Even some of the young men spoke of it afterwards with
enthusiasm. As I have already stated, it happened that I never saw
Huddesley except once, later in this same fateful Friday evening, as
we shall presently hear, so that I am unable to describe him; but he
achieved a certain measure of immortality in much better-known and more
widely-read columns than mine will ever be. And in fact there could not
have been much about him to describe; I think he was undersized and
lean, a decent-looking, temperate, capable creature. But nothing in his
appearance, they tell me, would have moved one to a second glance at
him; and perhaps it was that very neutrality of face and figure that
adapted him so well to his position. That, and his manners, prudently
balanced between respectful reticence and respectful interest. He had
contributed in no small share to the coaching of everybody in the
all-star cast; he knew these young men as well as any subordinate
can know his superiors--yet he took their coats in sedate silence,
recognising them only by his grave "yes, sir," and "no sir," and
retiring to his kitchen as soon as his services were no longer needed.
Just once did J. B. imagine that he detected a faint flavour of--call
it irony or covert impudence in the man's bearing; and he presently
dismissed the idea from his mind as too fantastic. It was when
Huddesley was hanging up Teddy Johns' coat alongside the others on the
old-fashioned iron hat-rack, wrought in the semblance of a grapevine
with tendrils and bunches of fruit that decorated the hall between two
life-size oil-paintings of the doctor's "big-bugs."
"Who's that, Huddesley?" asked Teddy affably, indicating by a nod the
one to the right. "The respectable-looking party in the knee-breeches,
I mean."
"That's Doctor Vardaman's grandhuncle, I believe, sir; 'e's dead."
"No, you don't say? Tst, tst! Too bad! That's the first I've heard of
it. When?"
"Habout heighteen-twelve, Hi hunderstand, Mr. Theodore," said
Huddesley, paying the tribute of a deferential smile to the other's
jocularity.
"Well, well, in the midst of life--the doctor's bearing up tolerably,
however, I see. Do you suppose it was a good likeness? What a terrific
big red nose the old boy had, didn't he?"
"Hi'm hafraid 'e was haddicted to the bottle, sir," said Huddesley
respectfully. "That's what comes of the 'abit hoften."
"Hey? The bottle?"
"Yes, sir--'e took a drop too much, I dessay," said Huddesley without
the slightest change of expression. "But a great many gents did in
those days compared to what does now, Hi'm told. Heverybody's very
temperate _now_, sir, as you must 'ave noticed. 'E probably began
hearly, the hold gent yonder; you might say 'e was brought hup on the
bottle."
J. B. eyed the man as Teddy, colouring a little, turned hastily into
the parlour; but Huddesley's face was guileless. It was impossible
to guess how much the fellow knew or meant to hint, though, indeed,
it would have required no great penetration to discover poor Teddy's
weakness. The wonder was that Huddesley, the silent, the discreet,
should have allowed himself to touch upon the subject at all. It struck
J. B. that he was almost too innocently humorous; he wondered if they
had spoiled Huddesley, as Colonel Pallinder had predicted, by their
unthinking familiarity. Muriel's words recurred uncomfortably to the
young man's mind: "You think he's English, but you don't _know_."
"He's no more like a servant at home than our stage-Yankees are like
you." But the idea of his being anything else, of his perpetrating an
elaborate hoax extending over two months and involving disagreeable
manual labour, for no conceivable end, was too preposterous. The
thought, hardly more than half-formed, floated across J. B.'s mental
horizon, and vanished like a shred of cloud before the wind. Yet his
confidence in Huddesley was oddly shaken; he halted, wavering at the
fulfilment of a plan he had had in mind but a moment earlier. To say:
"Look here, Huddesley, I wish you'd not fill Mr. Johns' glass as often
as the rest of us, and never quite full anyhow"--surely that would
have been a small matter, and no disloyalty to his friend, rather a
kindness. And Huddesley was discreet--yes, that was just it, confound
his wooden-faced discretion! All at once it savoured to J. B. of
slyness. This uncertain mood was new to him, and while he hesitated in
a kind of irritated wonder at his own lack of resolution----
"Beg parding, Mr. Breckinridge, sir, did you want to speak to me?" said
Huddesley.
That settled it. J. B. felt as if those respectful eyes had bored
through into his thoughts.
"No," he said shortly; and followed Teddy into his host's presence.
Doctor Vardaman's guests sat down some ten or twelve strong, the
doctor at the head of his table, in a dress-coat the fashion of which
antedated even Huddesley's, with his iron-grey hair brushed forward in
a tuft over each ear; with a black stock such as he had worn since the
year '40; his eyeglass on a black ribbon aslant across his shirt-front
like an order; and a pair of Labrador-stone buttons in his cuffs, dark
watery-green with a crumb of fire eerily visible in the depths of them.
These cuff-buttons signalised the dinner as a gala-occasion; the doctor
marked the day with a Labrador-stone. He only wore them when the event
was of enough importance to justify such a display--a queer sentimental
tribute to certain queer sentimental recollections. They had been given
him who knows how long ago, and by whom? So do we all in secret offer
some absurd and pathetic oblation before the shrines of the past. I
dare say when the doctor opened the top drawer of his high-shouldered
mahogany bureau and took his Labrador-stone buttons out of their dingy
little green morocco case, for one moment the breath of a vanished
spring saluted him, and the roses still bloomed by the calm Bendemeer.
Thus did the old gentleman preside, invested with the kind dignity
of his age and character, and of his noble and beautiful profession;
and I have no doubt his ancient bachelor heart warmed a good deal at
this exercise of hospitality, at the brave sight of the double row of
young men's faces before him, and the deep and pleasant sound of their
laughter. The other end of the table was held by Mr. J. Breckinridge
Taylor, as the journals persisted in reporting him; and Huddesley
brought in the soup. The doctor served it himself from a tub of a
tureen, with a silver ladle not less than a yard long, both of which
had graced the tables of his mother and grandmother--there were giants
in those days!--as had all the other furnishings of this memorable
dinner.
"There was one of those three-story-high cut-glass things, with tiers
of cups on circular platforms--I don't know what you call 'em--filled
with shaky jelly stuff and cream all foamy on top of it," one more
than commonly observant young man told me afterwards. "That was in
the middle of the table. And two silver castors with red Bohemian
glass bottles full of vinegar and oil and things like that, you know,
on each side of it; you could whirl 'em around, and pick out the
bottle you wanted. And there were shallow glass dishes with jelly and
two tall ones like big champagne-glasses, with kind of thick sticky
preserves--they had lids, the tall ones. After the soup, everything
came on at once, game, prairie-chicken, at the doctor's end, and just
plain John Smith chicken roasted, about the middle, and boiled leg of
mutton with this white sauce that has hard-boiled egg and little green
things like pickled shoe-buttons"--he meant capers--"all through it,
for J. B. to carve, and oysters and a ham, and four or five vegetables
all over the table. There were the funniest old steel knives with
ivory handles, and thin old silver forks and spoons with the doctor's
crest, and a motto, '_Foy tiendrai_,' whatever that may mean, on the
backs. Everybody had half-a-dozen wine-glasses; and to begin with there
were four decanters of sherry, one at each corner of the table, and
when we'd finished those--well, you _had_ to have a lot of liquor to
get through a dinner like that, you know--Huddesley brought out three
other kinds."
J. B. conscientiously carving the joint at his end of the table,
viewed the shrinkage in the decanters with considerable uneasiness.
There was nothing prim or kill-joy about J. B. He had no idea of
affecting the virtue that denies to another man his cakes and ale.
But he was a hard-headed young fellow, not given to self-indulgence
of any kind; and although in the State of his birth and earlier years
over-drinking was anything but uncommon, he confessed to a sort of
contemptuous impatience with the man who did not know when he had
enough. It seemed as if one or two of the present company had nearly
reached that desirable condition; and still Huddesley travelled about
the table, impartial as Fate herself, leaving no glass unfilled; or
even half-full. J. B. could see Doctor Vardaman's face but imperfectly
around the erection of custard-cups in the centre, but he thought an
anxiety equal to his own appeared and vanished there by turns. Once
or twice the old gentleman seemed on the edge of signalling Huddesley
to hold his hand, but some feeling rooted, most probably in his
old-fashioned notions of hospitality, must have restrained him.
"Tell you what," said J. B.'s next neighbour confidentially, "Johns is
about as full as I like to see him; it don't take much, you know. He's
just good and jolly now, but if he gets much more----" He shook his
head dubiously. "Say, have you heard anything more about the colonel? I
saw Gwynne Peters on the street to-day----"
"Hock or madeira, sir?" said Huddesley in J. B.'s ear. "Hock, sir? Yes,
sir."
"It seems the Pallinders--I don't care, hock, I guess. What's the
difference anyhow? I don't know one of these wines from the other."
"What about the Pallinders _now_?" asked J. B.
At that very moment, the length of the table away, Archie Lewis was
saying, "Suppose you've heard that about Gwynne Peters, Doctor?"
Doctor Vardaman set down his glass with unusual emphasis. "That's the
third or fourth time this week that I've heard 'that about Gwynne
Peters,'" said he. "And in spite of it, I've never found out yet what
'that about Gwynne Peters' is!"
"_What!_ Didn't you _know_? Why, I thought somehow you knew all about
the Gwynnes. Haven't you heard about the fuss with Pallinder and all?"
The doctor shook his head, and motioned to Huddesley for fresh glasses.
"Never saw anything like the way the boys are getting through the
wine," was his inward comment. "And how warm they all look!" Then
aloud: "So _that's_ the reason Gwynne dropped out of the play; I
thought it a little odd when he declined my dinner," he said, fixing a
thoughtful gaze on Archie. "There's been a fuss with the Colonel, has
there? What was it about?" He fully expected to hear Archie say, "Why,
you know old Steven Gwynne----" had done this or that. But the young
man only looked at him inquiringly.
"I thought you always knew all there was to know about the Gwynnes,"
he repeated. "Templeton, their agent, has a desk with us--do you know
_him_?"
"No--yes, I've seen him. He's short and stout and wears spectacles,
doesn't he?"
"Yes, that's Templeton. You must have heard father's stories about him
and the Gwynnes; he has this little real-estate business, and scratches
along somehow, I believe the Gwynne estate's the biggest part of it.
Father says it's no trouble at all now compared to what it was before
Gwynne Peters took hold; father says there were two or three years
when Gwynne was away, before he got through Harvard, you know, when
Templeton's life wasn't worth living."
"Well, I never understood that Gwynne managed the estate personally,"
said the doctor, recalling, however, a recent scene in his library with
considerable interest.
"No, he don't. He--well, he manages the family--I guess that's about
the size of it. Gwynne's getting a pretty good law-practice, you
know; he couldn't take his time to run around looking at roofs and
down-spouts. That's Templeton's job. When he leased the house to
Colonel Pallinder, you ought to have seen Templeton! I'll bet he was
the happiest man in Washington County. He's a nervous, excitable little
fellow anyhow. He said Pallinder leased it for three years at a hundred
and fifty a month, and it was a perfect miracle; the house is awfully
old, and it was all out of repair and hadn't any modern improvements,
except a furnace. Why, you remember what it was like, Doctor. Well,
then, the question of repapering and putting it in order came up,
and he told the Colonel flat he couldn't allow but just so much (one
month's rent, I think) for repairs. It was too funny, Doctor, to hear
him telling father about it. 'You know there's about twenty of the
Gwynne heirs, Judge Lewis,' says he, 'and nobody's got any money, and
everybody's got a say; and I simply _couldn't_ promise to do all the
Colonel wanted. Every time I paint a porch or fix somebody's sink,
those two old Miss Gwynnes take to their beds!' You just ought to
have seen Templeton telling all this, doctor, with those big glasses
shining, and his Adam's apple kind of working up and down the way
it does with nervous men. I guess it's not all pie attending to the
Gwynnes' affairs, even now. They're all so queer--except Gwynne Peters,
_he's_ all right. Finally the Colonel said he rather expected to buy
the house anyhow, and if they had no objection he'd go ahead and fix
it to suit himself, _at his own expense_. This is Templeton's side I'm
giving you, you know; I guess it's as near the truth as we'll ever
get. Seems to me Templeton was pretty careless, not to have it all in
writing. Anyhow, you know what they did, Doctor; built that little
conservatory, and put in all new plumbing, and had the house painted
and papered and grained from top to bottom--the Lord knows what all the
bills will come to--the Lord knows and He won't tell! But somebody else
will," said Archie with a grin.
"Well, what's happened?"
"Everything," said Archie concisely. "The wonder is, it didn't happen
before. In the first place, the plumber turns up in our office the
other day with his unpaid bill for six hundred and sixty-four dollars
and eight cents. He can't get anything out of Pallinder--Pallinder
cannily refers him to the owners of the property. He comes in with fire
in his eye, wanting to sue Templeton or the estate--father says he's
got a case, too. The plumber's a German, and pretty excitable, and I
told you Templeton was excitable, so you can imagine what it was like.
We tried to smooth 'em down, but we all got so full of laugh, we made
it worse, I think. One of the boys in the office says: 'Oh, come now,
Mr. Scheurmann, let him down easy, knock off the eight cents, won't
you?' 'I vill nodt gompromise! I vill haf my money! I vill nodt knock
off von pfennig!' I tell you the office was a lively place for about
two minutes, with Scheurmann jumping up and down and shaking his fists
on one side, and Templeton jumping up and down shaking his on the
other!"
"Well, but what's all this got to do with Gwynne?"
"Why, he came in after a while with some papers that I'd taken over
to his office a day or so before, when I found that old Gwynne fellow
that lives out on the farm, you know, and the two little old Gwynne
twins sitting around like crows waiting for Gwynne to come in--I told
you about that, didn't I? I was pretty sure right then that there was
going to be some kind of trouble. Anyway Gwynne came into our office,
and Templeton and the plumber left off jumping on each other to light
into him. As if Gwynne had had anything to do with it! I never felt so
sorry for a man in my life; he's the kind that always shoulders all
the responsibility and gets blamed for everything, somehow. He takes
the whole business terribly to heart; he'd been to see Pallinder, and
I guess they'd had it hot and heavy. He was all broken up over it. He
told father there was a poor devil of a gardener that had done some
work about the greenhouse, and came to him with a bill for twelve
dollars; his wife was sick, and he wanted Gwynne to see if he couldn't
get the money out of the colonel. Gwynne didn't say so, but I know he
paid that fellow out of his own pocket--he's that sort. He told father
if he could he'd rake and scrape and pay the whole thing himself
rather than have such a miserable scandal connected with the family. He
seems to feel as if it all kind of came back on him--over sensitive,
_I_ call it. You'd think it was all his fault."
"I think I can understand the feeling," said the doctor. "I'm afraid
we've all bowed ourselves in the house of Rimmon."
"Hey? The house? Oh, yes, I was going to tell you about that, it all
comes out now, the rent hasn't been paid, not one cent, since the
first six months! Gwynne's going to bring suit. He said he wouldn't
do it on his own account, but he's Sam's guardian--you knew about Sam
being out at the asylum, or whatever Sheckard calls his place?--and he
was responsible for Sam's money. I guess he had a devil of a row with
Pallinder--he wouldn't talk about it. You'd think anyone could have
seen all along that the colonel was nothing but an old bunco-steerer,
but I suppose Gwynne actually thought he was all right until this came
up!"
"The idea of accepting the Pallinders' hospitality doesn't sit heavy
on your conscience at any rate," said the doctor. Archie looked up,
surprised; then he flushed a little and laughed.
"Why, no, why should it? Pallinder's debts aren't worrying me any. And
as for talking about him, why, Doctor, it's been all over town the last
three days."
The doctor's wine and the Pallinder's affairs circulated in about
equal proportion; and there was a good deal of speculation as to how
long the present state of things would last--how long the colonel
could hold out. "I hope nothing's going to happen--not while that Miss
Baxter, that nice English girl is here, that's all--the papers always
go for anything of that kind tooth-and-nail," said J. B.'s neighbour.
"And you know, after all, in his way, he's been kind of pleasant to
know--I've had some awfully good times up there."
"So have I. It seems low-down talking this way, but everybody does,"
said J. B.
The other let his eyes rest on J. B. a moment, half-amused,
half-inquisitive. "I wonder--I do wonder what she thinks of us anyway."
"She? Who?"
"Why, Miss Baxter."
"Pretty small potatoes, I guess," said J. B. absently, one eye on Teddy.
"She thinks _you're_ all right, old man."
"Bosh!" said J. B., resenting the tone more than the words.
"She told me the other day she thought Breckinridge was a beautiful
name. 'Why, Miss Baxter,' I said, 'you ought to go to Kentucky; that's
J. B.'s old home. It's so full of Breckinridges, you can't throw a
stone without hitting one of 'em!' 'Really?' she says, just like that.
'Really?' She thought I was in earnest!"
"Every Breckinridge you hit would have a gun in one hip-pocket and a
flask in the other," said J. B., turning the talk from Muriel as best
he could. "Bad men to throw stones at, on the whole----"
"Champagne, sir?"
"No! Good Heavens, do you suppose the doctor expects us to eat all
that pudding and jelly stuff, and fruit and nuts and cheese into the
bargain? It's--what d'ye call it?--Homeric, that's what it is--a
Homeric feast!"
"Whash savin' up for, J. B.?" Teddy shouted from his seat; and J.
B.'s face darkened. He directed a meaning look at Teddy's nearest
neighbours; but by this time all the young men were beginning to be
somewhat flushed, whether from too much eating or too much drinking,
and there was an amazing amount of loud talk and hilarity. Teddy
repeated his question: "Why'n't you drinkin', J. B.? Huddesley, you've
lef' out Mr. Taylor. Mr. Taylor's _my_ frien', Huddesley. All my frenge
here----" He made a sweeping gesture, and knocked over a preserve-dish
with a stunning clatter, gazed at the ruin a minute, then burst into a
yell of laughter, in which, sad to relate, he was joined by more than
one at the table. Teddy suddenly straightened up and looked around
with profound gravity. "Somebody's makin' great deal noise!" said he,
with elaborate distinctness of utterance. And then returned to the
charge: "Why'n't you take some champagne, J. B.? Free's air, doctor's
champagne. You do' wan' hurt doctor's feelingsh, J. B.?" he inquired
pathetically.
"I want to be so I can sing my part," said J. B. good-humouredly. "It's
hard to sing on top of a big dinner like this, you know, Ted. Better
look out, hadn't you?--For Heaven's sake, somebody tell Huddesley
not to give him any more!" he added in a whisper to his neighbours,
and tried to catch the servant's eye. But Huddesley was bending all
his energies to scooping up with exemplary method and expedition
the mess of syrup and broken glass; it seemed impossible to attract
his attention. And in another tour of the table he filled Teddy's
glass again, no one remembering, or perhaps noticing at all, J. B.'s
telegrams of consternation. "Well, damn it, I'm not his keeper!" said
the latter to himself, in a rage. "Everybody's forgotten that Ted's
pretty near the whole show, and they're letting him drink himself
blind drunk. He won't be able to stand up after this--I've done _my_
best anyhow," and in a spirit of savage recklessness, he swallowed his
own champagne at one gulp, and turned to find Huddesley at his elbow
with another bottle. Caution returned upon him.
"Say, Huddesley, didn't you see me shake my head when you gave Mr.
Johns that last glass? He's had all that's good for him already. Now
you quit it, you hear me?" said J. B., conscious of some confusion in
his own head where _his_ last glass was apparently hurrying to and fro
uneasily. He spoke with huge severity; the more as Huddesley met his
eye with disconcerting intelligence.
"Oh, Lord love you, Mr. Breckinridge, 'e ain't 'ad enough to 'urt,"
said he soothingly. "Hi won't let 'im get hout o' hand, sir."
J. B. all at once found himself standing up. Why was he standing up?
The occasion somehow seemed to require it.
"You mind what I tell you. He's got a very impartont
port--I mean a perry veportant imp--I say a very
important-part-in-the-play-and-I-don't-want-him-to-be-too-drunk
-to-speakstinctly," said J. B. painstakingly.
"That's all right, Mr. Taylor, you just sit right down in your
chair--it's a nice chair; you just sit right down, now won't you?" said
Huddesley still soothingly--too soothingly by far to suit J. B.
"Don't you give me any impudence," he said darkly. He sat down
surveying the assembly with scorn shading into pity. _He_ wasn't drunk,
anyhow. But now Doctor Vardaman had risen in his place at the head of
the table, and was asking silence at the top of his lungs--not the
best way in the world of getting it, to the mind of a disinterested
onlooker, but, as nobody was so far gone yet as not to heed the host
of the evening, he was finally obeyed, after Teddy, under the mistaken
impression that he was being called on to give his justly famous
rendition of the farmer about to kill a turkey, had been quelled.
"Gentlemen," said the doctor, casting a look of some anxiety over his
table-full, "let us not forget, that, however much we may be enjoying
the present hour--I speak for myself"--here a number of voices assured
him heartily, "So are we! You bet!" and so on--"I say, gentlemen,
we must not forget that time is passing, and we are due for the
entertainment of our friends at nine o'clock. It would never do, I
think, to keep the ladies waiting. And, having their convenience in
view, I propose that we drink a final glass--" said the doctor, unable
to avoid a slight stress on the adjective--"a _final_ glass to the
success of the performance and adjourn. Reversing what seems to have
been the practice of Scriptural times, I will offer you a very rare and
choice old vintage--you will pardon the conceit that calls attention to
its excellence--a wine that was laid down by my father, gentlemen, in
eighteen-fifteen, the year of the battle of New Orleans, the Waterloo
year, and, as it happens, the year of my birth. He obtained it--for it
has its history--of a Dutch merchant in Cadiz, and we have since called
it, not knowing in truth what its real name should be, Mynheer Van der
Cuyp's wine. Huddesley----"
Here Huddesley stepped forward, and set before the doctor with
something of a flourish two thick black bottles, dusty as to the
shoulders, with the corks drawn, and a tray of the smallest variety of
glasses--rather miserly provision, it might appear, for such a company,
but Doctor Vardaman, not without considerable show of embarrassment,
proceeded to explain: "I--I find myself obliged to warn you, gentlemen,
inhospitable as it seems, that Mynheer Van der Cuyp's wine, what with
age and the richness of its ingredients, is of an unexampled potency.
It is at once smooth and heady, and--and I would not have you taken at
unawares. In short, boys," he added earnestly, abandoning his formal
manner, "it's the very deuce to go to one's head, and you all have
to be careful. Huddesley----" Again that invaluable person began to
circulate.
Doctor Vardaman did not get through his little speech (which he
delivered in a style quaintly reminiscent of the after-dinner orators
of his youth, in an attitude with one hand beneath his coat-tails)
without some uproarious interruptions; the momentary pause that
followed had the surprising effect of clearing the brain of at least
one in his audience. Whatever the others felt, J. B. suddenly realised,
as he afterwards put it, that "he had reached his limit." He knew when
_he'd_ had enough, and the trepidation visible in the doctor's face as
Mynheer Van der Cuyp's wine went on its devastating way, was repeated
in his own. If the truth were known, the old gentleman had been
congratulating himself on bringing off what he considered a tolerably
clever _coup_ to end a sitting which promised disaster to some of the
company; and doing it without offence. But alas! for the best-laid
plans of mice and men! The catastrophe had occurred; some, perhaps most
of the men were a little the worse for liquor; a few minutes of cool
night air would cure them; but Teddy Johns, their prime performer, the
peg upon which hung all their hopes of success, Teddy was hopelessly
drunk. No night air, no applications of crushed ice and wet towels
would cure _him_. Teddy was very good-natured; he sang, he winked, he
joked, he told stories, he lavished endearments on his "frenge." Even
in his worry, the doctor found time for the reflection that wine in,
truth out is the most solid of maxims; liquor puts nothing into a man's
nature that was not there already, it can but reveal him naked; and if
he will be a brute in his cups, it is odds but you shall find him a
brute at heart out of them. There was nothing brutal about poor Teddy;
you could no more be angry with him than with a child. Too late the
doctor regretted his hospitality, too late he lamented the love of good
cheer and youthful company that had prompted him to this inordinate
abundance. He was in the frame of mind to write a temperance tract;
and a sarcastic grin fled across his features as he pictured what that
celebrity of his earlier years, Mr. T. S. Arthur, would have made of
the scene--the moral he would have drawn therefrom.
Once I myself had the privilege of tasting the wine of Mynheer Van der
Cuyp. It was a dark and heavy liquor, pouring like oil, rich of aroma,
searching the veins with subdued fire. Perhaps few of Doctor Vardaman's
guests could appreciate that marvellous flavour; at any rate Teddy was
the only one to express a clamorous approval:
"Pretty goo' for ol' Chickencoop! Give us s'more, Huddesley!"
And Huddesley stolidly gave him some more, oblivious to signs. It
is with great reluctance that this historian enters a record of the
disgraceful scene--but the thing must be done. The horrid tale of
Mynheer Van der Cuyp's wine cannot be omitted. Of course, no man who
reads about Doctor Vardaman's banquet has ever so far forgot himself as
to get drunk, not even when he was a boy; he always had the strength
of character to resist that beastly temptation. And any woman knows
very well that instead of an assemblage of fairly decent and manly
young fellows, the doctor's guests were all low, swilling louts and
boors. So be it; it is true that they turned out, as years went on, to
be tolerable citizens most of them, good husbands, fathers of families
for whom they toiled honestly and provided handsomely--but all that has
nothing to do with the matter in hand.
J. B. bounced up with great, even unnecessary vigour, crying out: "Oh,
this has got to be stopped--one of you fellows take it away from him!"
"No use now, Breck," said Archie dolefully. "That jag will last till
morning."
"Jag yourself!" said Teddy epigrammatically, if somewhat indistinctly.
"Take away his glass, I say!"
"Shan't either," said Teddy, grasping it unsteadily. "J. B., for shame!
You're drunk----" He got to his feet wavering; everybody was up by this
time. "Doc' Vardaman, 'pol'gise--J. B.'s condition--sorry----" He tried
to carry the glass to his lips, failed, and it crashed on the floor.
Teddy stood swaying, he smiled benevolently upon the doctor, "Sorry,"
he murmured.
"Look out! Hold him up!"
"Huddesley----"
"Here--hold on----!" A chair went over. Huddesley sprang to the rescue.
"Sorry," repeated Teddy sleepily, "lead horsh to water--can't make him
stop drinkin'--sorry." He drooped on Huddesley's shoulder.
"'Old hup, Mr. Theodore," said the latter amiably. "Lord! 'E 'as 'ad a
leetle too much, ain't 'e? Never mind, gents, Hi'll get 'im hupstairs,
Hi've 'andled 'em before."
"Here's a nice how-de-do, now what's to be done?" said J. B.
despairingly as Teddy was dragged off. He looked around on the suddenly
sobered and very shame-faced group. Mr. T. S. Arthur could not have
pointed a moral half so well as did the spectacle of that drunken lad;
for somehow every man there felt himself at fault.
Dr. Vardaman was not a little downcast; he saw himself in the
unenviable posture of an old Silenus, leading boys astray. "I am to
blame for this, boys," he said, glancing about in genuine distress.
"I--I----"
"No, you aren't, Doctor, we were all taking too much," somebody said.
"And we're old enough to know better. We ought to have looked out for
Ted."
"What I want to know is, what are we going to do now?" repeated J. B.
And in the silence of blank looks that followed, Huddesley came back.
"'E'll do nicely now, gents," he announced cheerfully. "Hi'll go hup
and get the rest of 'is clothes hoff hafter a while. 'E was a _leetle_
fractious habout being' hundressed, but Hi persuaded 'im 'e was goin'
to put on 'is costoom for 'William Tell,' and 'e let me take 'is coat
like a lamb."
"'William Tell,' hey?" said Archie grimly. "It's all up with 'William
Tell' now."
"Sir?" said Huddesley aghast.
"Worse than that--it's all up with 'Mrs. Tankerville,' too."
"Five minutes to nine! We ought to be there now."
"Well, we'll just have to tell them that he's been taken sick----"
"Everybody knows what that means," said J. B. impatiently. "Might as
well tell the truth."
"Good Lord! What will the girls think? And Miss Baxter, too--what will
_she_ think? What will everybody say? We'll never hear the last of it!
Can't anybody--can't one of you fellows take his part? Here, Ollie
Hunt--or you, Joe?"
Vain hope! "I'm doing Gwynne Peters' part as it is," said Joe,
helplessly. A hurried canvass revealed the dire fact that the one
or two men who were of a size to wear the dress either were already
provided with parts of too much importance to be left out, or could
not sing the music allotted to _Mrs. Gessler_. Nobody remembered the
dialogue in either play; but that was a small matter, if only someone
could be found, a dummy, a straw man, anybody to appear on the stage
and read the lines. Things looked black--and already the carriages of
prompt arrivals were beginning to roll into the Pallinder gate.
"Couldn't you give him some stuff--something strong that would bring
him around, Doctor?" it was asked as the old gentleman returned from a
look at his guest. "They won't be surprised at an amateur performance
being late--and an hour might straighten him out."
The doctor shook his head. "Nothing I know of in the whole range of
medicine," said he briefly. "He's sound asleep, stupefied, dead drunk,
or whatever you choose to call it--as if he'd been drugged. Mynheer Van
der Cuyp's wine was the last straw--terribly strong stuff."
"I guess there's no way out of it--we'll have to give the thing up or
postpone it," said Archie gloomily. "Nice job for the Pallinders, isn't
it? Think of the staging and lights----"
"And the house all floor-clothed and decorated----"
"And the orchestra----"
"_I'm_ waiting to hear what old Botlisch will say, that's all!"
"We'll have to stand from under when _she_ begins, I guess."
"Can't be helped now, fellows, we'll have to take our medicine. But
who's going to tell 'em?"
"Beg parding, Mr. Breckinridge, sir, but you ain't goin' to give hup
the plays on haccount of Mr. Theodore, are you?" Huddesley inquired
with a face of consternation.
"Have to, Huddesley," said the doctor. "There's no one to take his
place, you know."
"But, beg parding, sir, 'ow'll you hexplain?"
"Why, somehow--anyhow--get up some kind of story."
"Doctor Vardaman, sir," said Huddesley, wagging his head solemnly.
"Murder will hout. Wotever story you get hup, you'll 'ave--if you'll
hexcuse my saying it--you'll 'ave the devil's own time."
"Well, we've thought of that, but----"
"You 'aven't thought hof heverything, sir," said Huddesley in a
melodramatic undertone. "THE PAPERS, sir!" (and nothing but the largest
capitals will express the curdling whisper with which he brought out
the words). "'HAWFUL HORGIES HAMONG THE FOUR 'UNDRED! PRIVATE LIFE OF
HEMINENT PHYSICIAN REVEALED! DAYS HOF HANCIENT ROME RECALLED! HEXTRY!
HALL HABOUT THE SCANDAL IN 'IGH LIFE!' That's what it will be sir, as
sure as fate!" His face and gestures were vividly pictorial; headlines
such as he suggested in letters half-a-foot high on the first page
of the morning journals loomed upon everyone's mental vision. J. B.
looked at the man and again suspicion awoke within him.
"Any editor that publishes lies like that will get a horse-whipping,"
said he deliberately (J. B. was not born a Kentuckian for nothing).
"And if any story of the kind gets out, the man that starts it will get
another. If you want to be bought off, Huddesley, you've come to the
wrong people."
"I wasn't thinking of that, Mr. Breckinridge," said Huddesley,
cringing. "I only wanted to save trouble."
"Save trouble how?"
"Why, if it isn't presuming too much, sir, I--I could do Mr. Johns'
parts, I've heard him often. I don't want to be putting myself forward,
sir, but I gave him some suggestions about the _business_, and you
yourself were so kind as to say that they were good ones."
J. B. and the doctor stared at first incredulously, then with a glimmer
of relief. The servant was plainly in desperate earnest. His forehead
was wet, there was colour in his sallow cheeks, he twisted the napkin
in his hands. But J. B., as he afterwards confessed, paid little enough
attention to the changes in Huddesley's manner, singular as they
were; he was too much occupied with this possible way out of their
difficulty. If Huddesley _could_ do it, the day might yet be saved.
No one but the performers need know it; in the _Mrs. Gessler_ make-up
Teddy was unrecognisable from the front, as also when he appeared as
_Jenks the butler_ in mutton-chop sidewhiskers. They were all men in
"William Tell"; in the second play, his rôle would not bring Huddesley
into offensive contact with the girls; they would have to be told, but
trust Mazie Pallinder to carry off a situation like that! If Huddesley
could manage to get through, some excuse could be found for his
non-appearance afterwards; nobody would suspect anything, and when the
truth did come out, gossip would have been staved off for a little
while at least, and people rarely halloo long on a cold scent. J. B.
questioned the doctor with a glance; then called to the others:
"I say, you fellows, come here a minute, I want to talk about
something!"