A GENTLEMAN OF LEISURE
P. G. WODEHOUSE
First published by Herbert Jenkins Ltd 1921
Copyright 1921 by P. G. Wodehouse
All rights reserved
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. JIMMY MAKES A BET 7
II. THE NEW PYRAMUS AND THISBE 15
III. MR. McEACHERN 21
IV. MOLLY 26
V. A THIEF IN THE NIGHT 30
VI. AN EXHIBITION PERFORMANCE 36
VII. GETTING ACQUAINTED 42
VIII. AT DREEVER 48
IX. A NEW FRIEND AND AN OLD ONE 53
X. JIMMY ADOPTS A LAME DOG 60
XI. AT THE TURN OF THE ROAD 65
XII. MAKING A START 74
XIII. SPIKE’S VIEWS 82
XIV. CHECK, AND A COUNTER MOVE 87
XV. MR. McEACHERN INTERVENES 95
XVI. A MARRIAGE HAS BEEN ARRANGED 101
XVII. JIMMY REMEMBERS SOMETHING, AND HEARS SOMETHING ELSE 110
XVIII. THE LOCHINVAR METHOD 118
XIX. ON THE LAKE 124
XX. A LESSON IN PIQUET 131
XXI. LOATHSOME GIFTS 138
XXII. HOW TWO OF A TRADE DID NOT AGREE 141
XXIII. FAMILY JARS 147
XXIV. THE TREASURE-SEEKER 157
XXV. EXPLANATIONS AND AN INTERRUPTION 164
XXVI. STIRRING TIMES FOR SIR THOMAS 171
XXVII. A DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 176
XXVIII. SPENNIE’S HOUR OF CLEAR VISION 185
XXIX. THE LAST ROUND 190
XXX. CONCLUSION 198
TO
DOUGLAS FAIRBANKS
WHO
MANY YEARS AGO
PLAYED
“JIMMY”
IN THE DRAMATIZED VERSION
OF THIS NOVEL
★ 1 ★
_Jimmy Makes a Bet_
The main smoking-room of the Strollers’ Club had been filling for the
last half-hour, and was now nearly full. In many ways the Strollers’,
though not the most magnificent, is the pleasantest club in New York.
Its ideals are those of the Savage Club—comfort without pomp—and it is
given over after eleven o’clock at night mainly to the Stage. Everybody
is young, clean-shaven, and full of conversation—and the conversation
strikes a purely professional note.
Everybody in the room on this July night had come from the theatre. Most
of those present had been acting, but a certain number had been to the
opening performance of the latest better-than-“Raffles” play. There had
been something of a boom that season in dramas whose heroes appealed to
the public more pleasantly across the footlights than they might have
done in real life. In the play which had opened tonight Arthur Mifflin,
an exemplary young man off the stage, had been warmly applauded for a
series of actions which, performed anywhere except in the theatre, would
certainly have debarred him from remaining a member of the Strollers’ or
any other club. In faultless evening dress, with a debonair smile on his
face, he had broken open a safe, stolen bonds and jewellery to a large
amount, and escaped without a blush of shame via the window. He had
foiled a detective through four acts and held up a band of pursuers with
a revolver. A large audience had intimated complete approval throughout.
“It’s a hit all right,” said somebody through the smoke.
“These imitation ‘Raffles’ plays always are,” grumbled Willett, who
played bluff fathers in musical comedy. “A few years ago they would have
been scared to death of putting on a show with a criminal hero. Now, it
seems to me, the public doesn’t want anything else. Not that they know
what they do want,” he concluded mournfully.
_The Belle of Boulogne_, in which Willett sustained the role of Cyrus K.
Higgs, a Chicago millionaire, was slowly fading away on a diet of free
passes, and this possibly prejudiced him.
Raikes, the character-actor, changed the subject. If Willett once got
started on the wrongs of the ill-fated _Belle_, general conversation
would become impossible. Willett, denouncing the stupidity of the
public, was purely a monologue artiste.
“I saw Jimmy Pitt at the show,” said Raikes. Everybody displayed
interest.
“Jimmy Pitt? When did he come back? I thought he was in England?”
“He came on the _Mauretania_, I suppose. She docked this morning.”
“Jimmy Pitt?” said Sutton, of the Majestic Theatre. “How long has he
been away? Last I saw of him was at the opening of _The Outsider_, at
the Astor. That’s a couple of months ago.”
“He’s been travelling in Europe, I believe,” said Raikes. “Lucky beggar
to be able to. I wish I could.”
Sutton knocked the ash off his cigar.
“I envy Jimmy,” he said. “I don’t know any one I’d rather be. He’s got
much more money than any man, except a professional plute, has any right
to. He’s as strong as an ox. I shouldn’t say he’d ever had anything
worse than measles in his life. He’s got no relations. And he isn’t
married.”
Sutton, who had been married three times, spoke with some feeling.
“He’s a good chap, Jimmy,” said Raikes. “Which considering he’s an
Englishman——”
“Thanks,” said Mifflin.
“How’s that? Oh, beg pardon, Arthur; I keep forgetting that you’re one,
too.”
“I’ll tattoo a Union Jack on my forehead tomorrow.”
“It’ll improve you,” said Raikes. “But about Jimmy. He’s a good chap,
which—considering he’s an Englishman—is only what you might have
expected. Is that better, Arthur?”
“Much,” said Mifflin. “Yes, Jimmy is a good chap—one of the best. I’ve
known him for years. I was at school and Cambridge with him. He was
about the most popular man at both. I should say he had put more
deadbeats on their legs again than half the men in New York put
together.”
“Well,” growled Willett, whom the misfortunes of _The Belle_ had soured,
“what’s there in that? It’s mighty easy to do the philanthropist act
when you’re next door to a millionaire.”
“Yes,” said Mifflin warmly; “but it’s not so easy when you’re getting
thirty dollars a week on a newspaper. When Jimmy was a reporter on the
_News_ there used to be a whole crowd of fellows just living on him. Not
borrowing an occasional dollar, mind you, but living on him—sleeping on
his sofa and staying to breakfast. It made me mad. I used to ask him why
he stood it. He said there was nowhere else for them to go, and he
thought he could see them through all right. Which he did, though I
don’t see how he managed it on thirty dollars a week.”
“If a man’s fool enough to be an easy mark——” began Willett.
“Oh, stop it,” said Raikes. “We don’t want anybody knocking Jimmy here.”
“All the same,” said Sutton, “it seems to me that it was darned lucky
that he came into that money. You can’t keep open house for ever on
thirty a week. By the way, Arthur, how was that? I heard it was his
uncle.”
“It wasn’t his uncle,” said Mifflin. “It was by way of being a romance
of sorts, I believe. Fellow who had been in love with Jimmy’s mother
years ago. Went to Australia, made a fortune, and left it to Mrs. Pitt
or her children. She had been dead some time when that happened. Jimmy,
of course, hadn’t a notion of what was coming to him, when suddenly he
got a solicitor’s letter, asking him to call. He rolled round, and found
that there was about five hundred thousand dollars waiting for him to
spend it.”
Jimmy Pitt had now definitely ousted _Love, the Cracksman_, as a topic
of conversation. Everybody present knew him. Most of them had known him
in his newspaper days; and though every man there would have perished
rather than admit it, they were grateful to Jimmy for being exactly the
same to them now that he could sign a cheque for half a million as he
had been on the old thirty-a-week basis. Inherited wealth, of course,
does not make a young man nobler or more admirable; but the young man
does not always know this.
“Jimmy’s had a queer life,” said Mifflin. “He’s been pretty nearly
everything in his time. Did you know he was on the stage before he took
up newspaper work? Only in touring companies, I believe. He got tired of
it, and dropped it. That’s always been his trouble. He wouldn’t settle
down to anything. He studied Law at the ’Varsity, but he never kept it
up. After he left the stage he moved all over the States without a cent,
picking up any odd job he could get. He was a waiter once for a couple
of days, but they sacked him for breaking plates. Then he got a job in a
jeweller’s shop. I believe he’s a bit of an expert on jewels. And
another time he made a hundred dollars by staying three rounds against
Kid Brady, when the Kid was touring the country after he got the
championship away from Jimmy Garwin. The Kid was offering a hundred to
anyone who could last three rounds with him. Jimmy did it on his head.
He was the best amateur of his weight I ever saw. The Kid wanted him to
take up scrapping seriously. But Jimmy wouldn’t have stuck to anything
long enough in those days. He’s one of the gipsies of the world. He was
never really happy unless he was on the move, and he doesn’t seem to
have altered since he came into his money.”
“Well, he can afford to keep on the move now,” said Raikes. “I wish I——”
“Did you ever hear about Jimmy and——” Mifflin was beginning, when the
Odyssey of Jimmy Pitt was interrupted by the opening of the door and the
entrance of Ulysses in person.
Jimmy Pitt was a young man of medium height, whose great breadth and
depth of chest made him look shorter than he really was. His jaw was
square and protruded slightly; and this, combined with a certain
athletic jauntiness of carriage and a pair of piercing brown eyes very
much like those of a bull-terrier, gave him an air of aggressiveness
which belied his character. He was not aggressive. He had the good
nature as well as the eyes of a bull-terrier. He also possessed, when
stirred, all the bull-terrier’s dogged determination.
There were shouts of welcome.
“Holloa, Jimmy!”
“When did you get back?”
“Come and sit down. Plenty of room over here.”
“Where is my wandering boy to-night?”
“Waiter! What’s yours, Jimmy?”
Jimmy dropped into a seat and yawned.
“Well,” he said, “how goes it? Halloa, Raikes! Weren’t you at _Love, the
Cracksman_? I thought I saw you. Halloa, Arthur! Congratulate you. You
spoke your piece nicely.”
“Thanks,” said Mifflin. “We were just talking about you, Jimmy. You came
on the _Mauretania_, I suppose?”
“She didn’t break the record this time,” said Sutton.
A somewhat pensive look came into Jimmy’s eyes.
“She came much too quick for me,” he said. “I don’t see why they want to
rip along at that pace,” he went on hurriedly. “I like to have a chance
of enjoying the sea air.”
“I know that sea air,” murmured Mifflin.
Jimmy looked up quickly.
“What are you babbling about, Arthur?”
“I said nothing,” replied Mifflin suavely.
“What did you think of the show to-night, Jimmy?” asked Raikes.
“I liked it. Arthur was fine. I can’t make out, though, why all this
incense is being burned at the feet of the cracksman. To judge by some
of the plays they produce now, you’d think that a man had only to be a
successful burglar to become a national hero. One of these days we shall
have Arthur playing Charles Peace to a cheering house.”
“It is the tribute,” said Mifflin, “that boneheadedness pays to brains.
It takes brains to be a successful cracksman. Unless the grey matter is
surging about in your cerebrum, as in mine, you can’t hope——”
Jimmy leaned back in his chair and spoke calmly, but with decision.
“Any man of ordinary intelligence,” he said, “could break into a house.”
Mifflin jumped up and began to gesticulate. This was heresy.
“My dear old son, what absolute——”
“I could,” said Jimmy, lighting a cigarette.
There was a roar of laughter and approval. For the past few weeks,
during the rehearsals of _Love, the Cracksman_, Arthur Mifflin had
disturbed the peace at the Strollers’ with his theories on the art of
burglary. This was his first really big part, and he had soaked himself
in it. He had read up the literature of burglary. He had talked with
detectives. He had expounded his views nightly to his brother Strollers,
preaching the delicacy and difficulty of cracking a crib till his
audience had rebelled. It charmed the Strollers to find Jimmy, obviously
of his own initiative, and not to be suspected of having been suborned
to the task by themselves, treading with a firm foot on the expert’s
favourite corn within five minutes of their meeting.
“You!” said Arthur Mifflin, with scorn.
“Me—or, rather, I!”
“You! Why, you couldn’t break into an egg unless it was a poached one.”
“What’ll you bet?” said Jimmy.
The Strollers began to sit up and take notice. The magic word “bet”,
when uttered in that room, had rarely failed to add a zest to life. They
looked expectantly to Arthur Mifflin.
“Go to bed, Jimmy,” said the portrayer of cracksmen. “I’ll come with you
and tuck you in. A nice, strong cup of tea in the morning, and you won’t
know there has ever been anything the matter with you.”
A howl of disapproval rose from the company. Indignant voices accused
Arthur Mifflin of having a yellow streak. Encouraging voices urged him
not to be a quitter.
“See! They scorn you!” said Jimmy. “And rightly. Be a man, Arthur.
What’ll you bet?”
Mr. Mifflin regarded him with pity.
“You don’t know what you’re taking on, Jimmy,” he said. “You’re half a
century behind the times. You have an idea that all a burglar needs is a
mask, a blue chin, and a dark lantern. I tell you he requires a highly
specialised education. I’ve been talking to these detective fellows, and
I know. Now, take your case, you worm. Have you a thorough knowledge of
chemistry, physics, toxicology——?”
“Of course I have.”
“Electricity and microscopy?”
“You have discovered my secret.”
“Can you use an oxyacetylene blow-pipe?”
“I never travel without one.”
“What do you know about the administration of anaesthetics?”
“Practically everything. It is one of my favourite hobbies.”
“Can you make soup?”
“Soup?”
“Soup,” said Mr. Mifflin firmly.
Jimmy raised his eyebrows.
“Does an architect make bricks?” he said. “I leave the rough,
preliminary work to my corps of assistants. They make my soup.”
“You mustn’t think Jimmy’s one of your common cracksmen,” said Sutton.
“He’s at the top of his profession. That’s how he made his money. I
never did believe that legacy story.”
“Jimmy,” said Mr. Mifflin, “couldn’t crack a child’s money-box. Jimmy
couldn’t open a sardine-tin.” Jimmy shrugged his shoulders.
“What’ll you bet?” he said again. “Come on, Arthur; you’re earning a
very good salary. What’ll you bet?”
“Make it a dinner for all present,” suggested Raikes, a canny person who
believed in turning the wayside happenings of life, when possible, to
his personal profit.
The suggestion was well received.
“All right,” said Mifflin. “How many of us are there? One, two, three,
four. Loser buys a dinner for twelve.”
“A good dinner,” interpolated Raikes softly.
“A good dinner,” said Jimmy. “Very well. How long do you give me,
Arthur?”
“How long do you want?”
“There ought to be a time limit,” said Raikes. “It seems to me that an
expert like Jimmy ought to be able to manage it at short notice. Why not
to-night? Nice, fine night. If Jimmy doesn’t crack a crib to-night, it’s
up to him. That suit you, Jimmy?”
“Perfectly.”
Willett interposed. Willett had been endeavouring to drown his sorrows
all the evening, and the fact was a little noticeable in his speech.
“See here,” he said; “how’s J-Jimmy going to prove he’s done it?”
“Personally, I can take his word,” said Mifflin.
“That be h-hanged for a tale. Wha-what’s to prevent him saying he’s done
it, whether he has or not?”
The Strollers looked uncomfortable. However, it was Jimmy’s affair.
“Why, you’d get your dinner in any case,” said Jimmy. “A dinner from any
host would smell as sweet.”
Willett persisted with muddled obstinacy.
“Thash—thash not point. It’s principle of thin. Have thish thing square
and ’bove-board, I say. Thash what I say.”
“And very creditable to you being able to say it,” said Jimmy cordially.
“See if you can manage ‘Truly rural.’”
“What I say is this. Jimmy’s a fakir. And what I say is, what’s prevent
him saying he’s done it when hasn’t done it?”
“That’ll be all right,” said Jimmy. “I’m going to bury a brass tube with
the Stars and Stripes in it under the carpet.”
“Thash quite shfactory,” said Willett, with dignity.
“Or, a better idea,” said Jimmy, “I’ll carve a big J on the inside of
the front door. Well, I’m off home. Anybody coming my way?”
“Yes,” said Mifflin. “We’ll walk. First nights always make me as jumpy
as a cat. If I don’t walk my legs off I shan’t get to sleep to-night at
all.”
“If you think I’m going to help you walk your legs off, my lad, you’re
mistaken. I propose to stroll gently home and go to bed.”
“Every little helps,” said Mifflin. “Come along.”
“You want to keep an eye on that man Jimmy, Arthur,” said Sutton. “He’d
sand-bag you and lift your watch as soon as look at you. I believe he’s
Arsène Lupin in disguise.”
★ 2 ★
_The New Pyramus and Thisbe_
The two men turned up the street. They walked in silence. Arthur Mifflin
was going over in his mind such outstanding events of the evening as he
remembered—the nervousness, the relief of finding that he was gripping
his audience, the growing conviction that he had made good—while Jimmy
seemed to be thinking his own private thoughts. They had gone some
distance before either spoke.
“Who is she, Jimmy?” asked Mifflin.
Jimmy came out of his thoughts with a start.
“What’s that?”
“Who is she?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Yes, you do! The sea air. Who is she?”
“I don’t know,” said Jimmy simply.
“You don’t know? Well, what’s her name?”
“I don’t know.”
“Doesn’t the _Mauretania_ still print a passenger list?”
“She does.”
“And you couldn’t find out her name in five days?”
“No.”
“And that’s the man who thinks he can burgle a house!” said Mifflin
despairingly.
They had arrived now at the building on the second floor of which was
Jimmy’s flat.
“Coming in?” said Jimmy.
“Well, I was rather thinking of pushing on as far as the park. I tell
you, I feel all on wires.”
“Come in and smoke a cigar. You’ve got all night before you if you want
to do Marathons. I haven’t seen you for a couple of months. I want you
to tell me all the news.”
“There isn’t any. Nothing happens in New York. The papers say things do,
but they don’t. However, I’ll come in. It seems to me that you’re the
man with the news.”
Jimmy fumbled with his latch-key.
“You’re a bright sort of burglar,” said Mifflin disparagingly. “Why
don’t you use your oxyacetylene blow-pipe? Do you realise, my boy, that
you’ve let yourself in for buying a dinner for twelve hungry men next
week? In the cold light of the morning, when Reason returns to her
throne, that’ll come home to you.”
“I haven’t done anything of the sort,” said Jimmy, unlocking the door.
“Don’t tell me you really mean to try it.”
“What else did you think I was going to do?”
“But you can’t. You would get caught for a certainty. And what are you
going to do then? Say it was all a joke? Suppose they fill you full of
bullet-holes? Nice sort of fool you’ll look appealing to some outraged
householder’s sense of humour, while he pumps you full of lead with a
Colt!”
“These are the risks of the profession. You ought to know that, Arthur.
Think what you went through to-night.”
Arthur Mifflin looked at his friend with some uneasiness. He knew how
entirely reckless he could be when he had set his mind on accomplishing
anything. Jimmy, under the stimulus of a challenge, ceased to be a
reasonable being, amenable to argument. And in the present case he knew
that Willett’s words had driven the challenge home. Jimmy was not the
man to sit still under the charge of being a “fakir,” no matter whether
his accuser had been sober or drunk.
Jimmy, meanwhile, had produced whisky and cigars, and was lying on his
back on the lounge, blowing smoke rings at the ceiling.
“Well?” said Arthur Mifflin at length.
“Well? What?”
“What I meant was, is this silence to be permanent, or are you going to
begin shortly to amuse, elevate, and instruct? Something’s happened to
you, Jimmy. There was a time when you were a bright little chap, a
fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. Where be your gibes
now, your gambols, your songs, your flashes of merriment that were wont
to set the table in a roar when you were paying for the dinner? You
remind me more of a deaf-mute celebrating the Fourth of July with
noiseless powder than anything else on earth. Wake up, or I shall go.
Jimmy, we were boys together. Tell me about this girl—the girl you loved
and were idiot enough to lose.”
Jimmy drew a deep breath.
“Very well,” said Mifflin complacently; “sigh if you like—it’s better
than nothing.”
Jimmy sat up.
“Yes, dozens of times,” said Mifflin.
“What do you mean?”
“You were just going to ask me if I had ever been in love, weren’t you?”
“I wasn’t, because I know you haven’t. You have no soul. You don’t know
what love is.”
“Have it your own way,” said Mifflin resignedly.
Jimmy bumped back on to the sofa.
“I don’t either,” he said. “That’s the trouble.”
Mifflin looked interested.
“I know,” he said. “You’ve got that strange premonitory fluttering, when
the heart seems to thrill within you like some baby bird singing its
first song, when——”
“Oh, shut up!”
“When you ask yourself timidly, ‘Is it? Can it really be?’ and answer
shyly, ‘No. Yes. I believe it is.’ I’ve been through it dozens of times.
It is a recognised early symptom. Unless prompt measures are taken it
will develop into something acute. In these matters stand on your Uncle
Arthur. He knows.”
“You make me tired,” said Jimmy briefly.
“You have our ear,” said Mifflin kindly. “Tell me all.”
“There’s nothing to tell.”
“Don’t lie, James.”
“Well, practically nothing.”
“That’s better.”
“It was like this.”
“Good!”
Jimmy wriggled himself into a more comfortable position and took a sip
from his glass.
“I didn’t see her till the second day out.”
“I know that second day out. Well?”
“We didn’t really meet at all.”
“Just happened to be going to the same spot, eh?”
“As a matter of fact, it was like this. Like a fool, I’d bought a
second-class ticket.”
“What? Our young Rockerbilt Astergould, the boy millionaire, travelling
second-class! Why?”
“I had an idea it would be better fun. Everybody’s so much more cheery
in the second cabin. You get to know people so much quicker. Nine trips
out of ten I’d much rather go second.”
“And this was the tenth?”
“She was in the first cabin,” said Jimmy.
Mifflin clutched his forehead.
“Wait!” he cried. “This reminds me of something—something in
Shakespeare. Romeo and Juliet? No. I’ve got it!—Pyramus and Thisbe.”
“I don’t see the slightest resemblance.”
“Read your _Midsummer Night’s Dream_. ‘Pyramus and Thisbe,’ says the
story, ‘did talk through the chink of a wall,’” quoted Mifflin.
“We didn’t.”
“Don’t be so literal. You talked across a railing.”
“We didn’t.”
“Do you mean to say you didn’t talk at all?”
“We didn’t say a single word.”
Mifflin shook his head sadly.
“I give you up,” he said. “I thought you were a man of enterprise. What
did you do?”
Jimmy sighed softly.
“I used to stand and smoke against the railing opposite the barber’s
shop, and she used to walk round the deck.”
“And you used to stare at her?”
“I would look in her direction sometimes,” corrected Jimmy, with
dignity.
“Don’t quibble! You stared at her. You behaved like a common
rubber-neck, and you know it. I am no prude, James, but I feel compelled
to say that I consider your conduct that of a libertine. Used she to
walk alone?”
“Generally.”
“And now you love her, eh? You went on board that ship happy, careless,
heart-free. You came off it grave and saddened. Thenceforth for you the
world could contain but one woman, and her you had lost.”
He groaned in a hollow and bereaved manner, and took a sip from his
glass to buoy him up.
Jimmy moved restlessly on the sofa.
“Do you believe in love at first sight?” he asked fatuously. He was in
the mood when a man says things the memory of which makes him wake up
hot all over for nights to come.
“I don’t see what first sight’s got to do with it,” said Mifflin.
“According to your own statement, you stood and glared at the girl for
five days without stopping for a moment. I can quite imagine that you
might glare yourself into love with anyone by the end of that time.”
“I can’t see myself settling down,” said Jimmy thoughtfully. “And until
you feel that you want to settle down, I suppose you can’t be really in
love.”
“I was saying practically that about you at the club just before you
came in. My somewhat neat expression was that you were one of the
gipsies of the world.”
“By George, you’re quite right!”
“I always am.”
“I suppose it’s having nothing to do. When I was on the _News_ I was
never like this.”
“You weren’t on the _News_ long enough to get tired of it.”
“I feel now I can’t stay in a place more than a week. It’s having this
money that does it, I suppose.”
“New York,” said Mifflin, “is full of obliging persons who will be
delighted to relieve you of the incubus. Well, James, I shall leave you.
I feel more like bed now. By the way, I suppose you lost sight of this
girl when you landed?”
“Yes.”
“Well, there aren’t so many girls in the United States. Only twenty
million. Or is it forty million? Something small. All you’ve got to do
is to search about a bit. Good night.”
“Good night.”
Mr. Mifflin clattered down the stairs. A minute later the sound of his
name being called loudly from the street brought Jimmy to the window.
Mifflin was standing on the pavement below, looking up.
“Jimmy?”
“What’s the matter now?”
“I forgot to ask. Was she a blonde?”
“What?”
“Was she a blonde?” yelled Mifflin.
“No,” snapped Jimmy.
“Dark, eh?” bawled Mifflin, making night hideous.
“Yes,” said Jimmy, shutting the window.
“Jimmy! I say, Jimmy!”
The window went up again.
“Well?”
“I prefer blondes myself.”
“Go to bed!”
“Very well. Good night.”
“Good night.”
Jimmy withdrew his head, and sat down on the chair Mifflin had vacated.
A moment later he rose and switched off the light. It was pleasanter to
sit and think in the dark. His thoughts wandered off in many channels,
but always came back to the girl on the _Mauretania_. It was absurd, of
course. He didn’t wonder that Arthur Mifflin had treated the thing as a
joke. Good old Arthur! Glad he had made a success. But was it a joke?
Who was it said that the point of a joke was like the point of a
needle—so small that it is apt to disappear entirely when directed
straight at oneself? If anybody else had told him such a limping romance
he would have laughed himself. Only when you are the centre of a
romance, however limping, you see it from a different angle. Of course,
told baldly, it was absurd. He could see that. But something right at
the back of his mind told him that it was not altogether absurd. And
yet—— Love didn’t come like that—in a flash. You might just as well
expect a house to spring into being in a moment. Or a ship. Or an
automobile. Or a table. Or a—— He sat up with a jerk. In another instant
he would have been asleep.
He thought of bed, but bed seemed a long way off—the deuce of a way.
Acres of carpet to be crawled over, and then the dickens of a climb at
the end of it. Besides undressing. Nuisance—undressing. That was a nice
dress that girl had worn on the fourth day out. Tailor-made. He liked
tailor-mades. He liked all her dresses. He liked her. Had she liked him?
So hard to tell if you don’t get a chance of speaking. She was dark.
Arthur liked blondes. Arthur was a fool! Good old Arthur! Glad he had
made a success! Now he could marry if he liked. If he wasn’t so
restless. If he didn’t feel that he couldn’t stop more than a day in any
place. But would the girl have him? If they had never spoken it made it
so hard to——
At this point he fell asleep.
★ 3 ★
_Mr. McEachern_
At the time when Jimmy slept in his chair, previous to being aroused
from his slumbers by the invasion of Spike, a certain Mr. John
McEachern, Captain of Police was seated in the parlour of his up-town
villa, reading. He was a man built on a large scale. Everything about
him was large—his hands, his feet, his shoulders, his chest, and
particularly his jaw—which even in his moments of calm was aggressive,
and which stood out, when anything happened to ruffle him, like the ram
of a battleship. In his patrolman days, which had been passed mainly on
the East Side, this jaw of his had acquired a reputation from Park Row
to Fourteenth Street. No gang-fight, however absorbing, could retain the
undivided attention of the young blood of the Bowery when Mr.
McEachern’s jaw hove in sight, with the rest of his massive person in
close attendance. He was a man who knew no fear, and he had gone through
disorderly mobs like an east wind.
But there was another side to his character. In fact, that other side
was so large that the rest of him, his readiness in combat and his zeal
in breaking up public disturbances, might be said to have been only an
offshoot. For his ambition was as large as his fist and as aggressive as
his jaw. He had entered the Force with the single idea of becoming rich,
and had set about achieving his object with a strenuous vigour that was
as irresistible as his mighty locust-stick. Some policemen are born
grafters, some achieve graft, and some have graft thrust upon them. Mr.
McEachern had begun by being the first, had risen to the second, and for
some years now had been a prominent member of the small and
hugely-prosperous third-class, the class which does not go out seeking
graft, but sits at home and lets graft come to them.
Though neither his name nor his financial methods suggested it, Mr.
McEachern was by birth an English gentleman. His complete history would
take long to write. Abridged, it may be told as follows. His real name
was John Forrest, and he was the only son of one Eustace Forrest, at one
time a major in the Guards. His only other relative was Edward,
Eustace’s elder brother, a bachelor. When Mrs. Eustace died, four years
after the marriage, the widower, having spent eighteen months at Monte
Carlo working out an infallible system for breaking the bank, to the
great contentment of M. Blanc and the management in general, proceeded
to the gardens, where he shot himself in the orthodox way, leaving many
liabilities, no assets, and one son.
Edward, by this time a man of substance in Lombard Street, adopted John,
and sent him to a series of schools, beginning with a kindergarten and
ending with Eton.
Unfortunately, Eton had demanded from John a higher standard of conduct
than he was prepared to supply, and a week after his eighteenth birthday
his career as an Etonian closed prematurely. Edward Forrest thereupon
delivered his ultimatum. John could choose between the smallest of small
posts in his uncle’s business and £100 in bank-notes, coupled with the
usual hand-washing and disowning. John had reached out for that money
almost before the words had left his uncle’s mouth. He left for
Liverpool that day and for New York on the morrow.
He spent his hundred pounds, tried his hand without success at one or
two odd jobs, and finally fell in with a friendly policeman, who,
observing the young man’s physique, which even then was impressive,
suggested that he should join the Force. The policeman, whose name was
O’Flaherty, having talked the matter over with two other policemen whose
names were O’Rourke and Muldoon, strongly recommended that he should
change his name to something Irish, the better to equip him for his new
profession. Accordingly, John Forrest ceased to be and Patrolman J.
McEachern was born.
In his search for wealth he had been content to abide his time. He did
not want the trifling sum which every New York policeman acquires. His
object was something bigger, and he was prepared to wait for it. He knew
that small beginnings were an annoying but unavoidable preliminary to
all great fortunes. Probably Captain Kidd had started in a small way.
Certainly Mr. Rockefeller had. He was content to follow in the footsteps
of the masters.
A patrolman’s opportunities of amassing wealth are not great. Mr.
McEachern had made the best of a bad job. He had not disdained the
dollars which came as single spies rather than in battalions. Until the
time should arrive when he might angle for whales he was prepared to
catch sprats.
Much may be done, even on a small scale, by perseverance. In those early
days Mr. McEachern’s observant eye had not failed to notice certain
pedlars who obstructed the traffic, divers tradesmen who did the same by
the pavement, and restaurant-keepers not a few with a distaste for
closing at one o’clock in the morning. His researches in this field were
not unprofitable. In a reasonably short space of time he had put by the
$3,000 which were the price of his promotion to detective-sergeant. He
did not like paying $3,000 for promotion, but there must be sinking of
capital if an investment is to prosper. Mr. McEachern “came across”, and
climbed one more step up the ladder.
As detective-sergeant he found his horizon enlarged. There was more
scope for a man of parts. Things moved more rapidly. The world seemed
full of philanthropists anxious to “dress his front” and do him other
little kindnesses. Mr. McEachern was no churl. He let them dress his
front; he accepted the little kindnesses. Presently he found that he had
$15,000 to spare for any small flutter that might take his fancy.
Singularly enough, this was the precise sum necessary to make him a
captain.
He became a captain. And it was then that he discovered that El Dorado
was no mere poet’s dream, and that Tom Tiddler’s Ground, where one might
stand picking up gold and silver, was as definite a locality as Brooklyn
or the Bronx. At last, after years of patient waiting, he stood like
Moses on the mountain, looking down into the Promised Land. He had come
to where the big money was.
The book he was reading now was the little note-book in which he kept a
record of his investments, which were numerous and varied. That the
contents were satisfactory was obvious at a glance. The smile on his
face, and the reposeful position of his jaw were proof enough of that.
There were notes relating to house property, railroad shares, and a
dozen other profitable things. He was a rich man.
This was a fact which was entirely unsuspected by his neighbours, with
whom he maintained somewhat distant relations, accepting no invitations
and giving none. For Mr. McEachern was playing a big game. Other eminent
buccaneers in his walk of life had been content to be rich men in a
community where moderate means were the rule. But about Mr. McEachern
there was a touch of the Napoleonic. He meant to get back into
society—the society of England. Other people have noted the fact—which
had impressed itself very firmly on the policeman’s mind—that between
England and the United States there are 3,000 miles of deep water. In
the United States he would be a retired police-captain; in England an
American gentleman of large and independent means with a beautiful
daughter.
That was the ruling impulse in his life—his daughter Molly. Though, if
he had been a bachelor, he would certainly not have been satisfied to
pursue a humble career aloof from graft; on the other hand, if it had
not been for Molly he would not have felt, as he gathered in his
dishonest wealth, that he was conducting a sort of Holy War. Ever since
his wife had died, in his detective-sergeant days, leaving him with a
year-old daughter, his ambitions had been inseparably connected with
Molly.
All his thoughts were on the future. This New York life was only a
preparation for the splendours to come. He spent not a dollar
unnecessarily. When Molly was home from school they lived together
simply and quietly in the small house which Molly’s taste made so
comfortable. The neighbours, knowing his profession and seeing the
modest scale on which he lived, told each other that here, at any rate,
was a policeman whose hands were clean of graft. They did not know of
the stream that poured week by week and year by year into his bank, to
be diverted at intervals into the most profitable channels. Until the
time should come for the great change, economy was his motto. The
expenses of his home were kept within the bounds of his official salary.
All extras went to swell his savings.
He closed his book with a contented sigh and lit another cigar. Cigars
were his only personal luxury. He drank nothing, ate the simplest food,
and made a suit of clothes last for quite an unusual length of time; but
no passion for economy could make him deny himself smoke.
He sat on, thinking. It was very late, but he did not feel ready for
bed. A great moment had arrived in his affairs. For days Wall Street had
been undergoing one of its periodical fits of jumpiness. There had been
rumours and counter-rumours, until finally from the confusion there had
soared up like a rocket the one particular stock in which he was most
largely interested. He had unloaded that morning, and the result had
left him slightly dizzy. The main point to which his mind clung was that
the time had come at last. He could make the great change now at any
moment that suited him.
He was blowing clouds of smoke and gloating over this fact when the door
opened, admitting a bull-terrier, a bulldog, and in the wake of the
procession a girl in a kimono and red slippers.
★ 4 ★
_Molly_
“Why, Molly,” said the policeman, “what are you doing out of bed? I
thought you were asleep.”
He placed a huge arm round her and drew her on to his lap. As she sat
there his great bulk made her seem smaller than she really was. With her
hair down, and her little red slippers dangling half a yard from the
floor, she seemed a child. McEachern, looking at her, found it hard to
realise that nineteen years had passed since the moment when the
doctor’s raised eyebrows had reproved him for his monosyllabic reception
of the news that the baby was a girl.
“Do you know what the time is?” he said. “Two o’clock.”
“Much too late for you to be sitting here smoking,” said Molly severely.
“How many cigars do you smoke a day? Suppose you had married some one
who wouldn’t let you smoke!”
“Never stop your husband smoking, my dear. That’s a bit of advice for
you when you’re married.”
“I’m never going to marry. I’m going to stop at home and darn your
socks.”
“I wish you could,” he said, drawing her closer to him. “But one of
these days you’re going to marry a prince. And now run back to bed. It’s
much too late——”
“It’s no good, father dear. I couldn’t get to sleep. I’ve been trying
hard for hours. I’ve counted sheep till I nearly screamed. It’s Rastus’s
fault; he snores so.”
Mr. McEachern regarded the erring bulldog sternly.
“Why do you have the brutes in your room?”
“Why, to keep the boogaboos from getting me of course. Aren’t you afraid
of the boogaboos getting you? But you’re so big, you wouldn’t mind.
You’d just hit them. And they’re not brutes—are you, darlings? You’re
angels, and you nearly burst yourselves with joy because auntie had come
back from England, didn’t you? Father, did they miss me when I was gone?
Did they pine away?”
“They got like skeletons. We all did.”
“You?”
“I should say so.”
“Then why did you send me away?”
“I wanted you to see the country. Did you like it?”
“I hated being away from you.”
“But you liked the country?”
“I loved it.”
McEachern drew a breath of relief. The only possible obstacle to the
great change did not exist.
“How would you like to go back to England, Molly?”
“To England. When I’ve just come home?”
“If I went, too?”
Molly twisted round so that she could see his face better.
“There’s something the matter with you, father. You’re trying to say
something, and I want to know what it is. Tell me quick, or I’ll make
Rastus bite you!”
“It won’t take long, dear. I’ve been lucky in some investments while you
were away, and I’m going to leave the Force, and take you over to
England and find a prince for you to marry—if you think you would like
it.”
“Father! It’ll be perfectly splendid!”
She kissed him.
“What are you looking so thoughtful about, father?”
“Molly, I want to tell you something I have never told you before. I am
English. I only took the name McEachern because they thought it would
help me in the Force. Our real name is Forrest.”
“Father! But why haven’t you ever told me before?”
“I was afraid you might ask questions and find out things.”
She looked quickly at him.
“I was sent to America,” he went on, “because I was expelled from school
for stealing.”
There was a silence. She caught the arm that was round her waist and
gave it a little squeeze.
“What does it matter what you did when you were only a boy?” she said.
He did not look at her. There was a dull flush on his cheeks.
“We’ll go home, Molly,” he said. “I had a place in society over there
till I threw it away, and, by Heaven, I’m going to get it back for you.
You shall have a fair show, whatever I may have done. We shall not take
the old name again. None of the return of the black sheep for me! I
won’t have people looking down on you because your father——”
“But, father dear, it was so long ago. What does it matter? Who would
remember?”
“Never mind. I couldn’t risk it. They might say what they pleased about
me, but you’re going to start fair. Who’s to recognise me after all
these years? I’m just John McEachern from America, and if anybody wants
to know anything about me, I’m a man who has made money on Wall
Street—and that’s no lie—and has come over to England to spend it.”
Molly gave his arm another squeeze. Her eyes were wet.
“Father dear,” she whispered, “I believe you’ve been doing it all for
me. You’ve been slaving away for me ever since I was born, stinting
yourself and saving money just so that I could have a good time later
on.”
“No, no!”
“It’s true,” she said. She turned on him with a tremulous laugh. “I
don’t believe you’ve had enough to eat for years. I believe you’re all
skin and bone. Never mind. To-morrow I’ll take you out and buy you the
best dinner you’ve ever had out of my own money. We’ll go to the Ritz,
and you shall start at the top of the menu and go straight down till
you’ve had enough.”
“That will make up for everything. And now don’t you think you ought to
be going to bed? You’ll be losing all that color you got on the ship.”
“Soon. Not just yet. I haven’t seen you for such ages.” She pointed at
the bull-terrier. “Look at Tommy, standing there and staring. He can’t
believe I’ve really come back. Father, there was a man on the
_Mauretania_ with eyes exactly like Tommy’s—all brown and bright—and he
used to stand and stare just like Tommy’s doing.”
“If I had been there,” said her father wrathfully, “I’d have knocked his
head off.”
“No, you wouldn’t, because I’m sure he was really a very nice young man.
He had a chin rather like yours, father. Besides, you couldn’t have got
at him to knock his head off, because he was travelling second-class.”
“Second-class? Then you didn’t talk with him?”
“We couldn’t. You wouldn’t expect him to shout at me across the railing!
Only whenever I walked round the deck he seemed to be there.”
“Staring?”
“He may not have been staring at me. Probably he was just looking the
way the ship was going, and thinking of some girl in New York. I don’t
think you can make much of a romance out of it, father.”
“I don’t want to, my dear. Princes don’t travel in the second cabin.”
“He may have been a prince in disguise.”
“More likely a commercial traveller,” grunted Mr. McEachern.
“Commercial travellers are often quite nice.”
“Princes are nicer.”
“Well, I’ll go to bed and dream of the nicest one I can think of. Come
along, dogs. Stop biting my slipper, Tommy. Why can’t you behave like
Rastus? Still, you don’t snore, do you? Aren’t you going to bed soon,
father? I believe you’ve been sitting up late and getting into all sorts
of bad habits while I’ve been away. I’m sure you have been smoking too
much. When you’ve finished that cigar you’re not even to think of
another till to-morrow. Promise!”
“Not one!”
“Not one. I’m not going to have my father getting like the people you
read about in the magazine advertisements. You don’t want to feel sudden
shooting pains, do you?”
“No, my dear.”
“And have to take some awful medicine?”
“No.”
“Then promise.”
“Very well, my dear. I promise.”
As the door closed he threw away the stump he was smoking, and remained
for a few moments in thought.
Then he drew another cigar from his case, lit it, and resumed the study
of the little note-book.
★ 5 ★
_A Thief in the Night_
How long the light had been darting about the room like a
very-much-enlarged firefly Jimmy did not know. It seemed to him like
hours, for it had woven itself into an incoherent waking dream of his;
and for a moment, as the mists of sleep passed away from his brain, he
fancied that he was dreaming still. Then sleep left him, and he realised
that the light, which was now moving slowly across the bookcase, was a
real light.
That the man behind it could not have been there long was plain, or he
would have seen the chair and its occupant. He seemed to be taking the
room step by step. As Jimmy sat up noiselessly, and gripped the arms of
the chair in readiness for a spring, the light passed from the bookcase
to the table. Another foot or so to the left, and it would have fallen
on Jimmy.
On it came. From the position of the ray Jimmy could see that the
burglar was approaching on his side of the table. Though, until that
day, he had not been in the room for two months, its geography was
clearly stamped on his mind’s eye. He knew almost to a foot where his
visitor was standing. Consequently when, rising swiftly from the chair
he made a football dive into the darkness, it was no speculative dive.
It had a conscious aim, and it was not restrained by any uncertainty as
to whether the road to the burglar’s knees was clear or not.
His shoulder bumped into a human leg. His arms closed instantaneously on
it and pulled. There was a yelp of dismay and a crash. The lantern
bounced away across the room and wrecked itself on the roof of the
steam-heater. Its owner collapsed in a heap on top of Jimmy.
Jimmy, underneath at the fall, speedily put himself uppermost with a
twist of his body. He had every advantage. The burglar was a small man,
and had been taken very much by surprise, and any fight there might have
been in him in normal circumstances had been shaken out of him by the
fall. He lay still, not attempting to struggle.
Jimmy half rose and, pulling his prisoner by inches to the door, felt up
the wall till he found the electric-light button.
The yellow glow which flooded the room disclosed a short, stocky youth
of obviously Bowery extraction. A shock of vivid red hair was the first
thing about him that caught the eye. A poet would have described it as
Titian. Its proprietor’s friends and acquaintances probably called it
“carrots”. Looking up at Jimmy from under this wealth of crimson was a
not unpleasing face. It was not handsome certainly, but there were
suggestions of a latent good-humour. The nose had been broken at one
period of its career, and one of the ears was undeniably of the
cauliflower type; but these are little accidents which may happen to any
high-spirited young gentleman. In costume the visitor had evidently been
guided rather by individual taste than by the dictates of fashion. His
coat was of rusty-black, his trousers of grey, picked out with stains of
various colours. Beneath the coat was a faded red-and-white sweater. A
hat of soft felt lay on the floor by the table.
The cut of the coat was poor, and the sit of it spoiled by a bulge in
one of the pockets. Diagnosing this bulge correctly, Jimmy inserted his
hand and drew out a dingy revolver.
“Well?” he said, rising.
Like most people, he had often wondered what he should do if he were to
meet a burglar; and he had always come to the conclusion that curiosity
would be his chief emotion. His anticipations had proved perfectly
correct. Now that he had abstracted his visitor’s gun he had no wish to
do anything but engage him in conversation. A burglar’s life was
something so entirely outside his experience. He wanted to learn the
burglar’s point of view. Incidentally, he reflected with amusement, as
he recalled his wager, he might pick up a few useful hints.
The man on the floor sat up and rubbed the back of his head ruefully.
“Gee!” he muttered. “I t’ought some guy had t’rown de building at me.”
“It was only little me,” said Jimmy. “Sorry if I hurt you at all. You
really want a mat for that sort of thing.”
The man’s hand went furtively to his pocket. Then his eye caught sight
of the revolver, which Jimmy had placed on the table. With a sudden dash
he seized it.
“Now den, boss!” he said, between his teeth.
Jimmy extended his hand towards him and unclasped it. Six cartridges lay
in the palm.
“Why worry?” he said. “Sit down and let us talk of life.”
“It’s a fair cop, boss,” said the man resignedly.
“Away with melancholy,” said Jimmy. “I’m not going to call the police.
You can go whenever you like.”
The man stared.
“I mean it,” said Jimmy. “What’s the trouble? I’ve no grievance. I wish,
though, if you haven’t any important engagement, you would stop and talk
awhile first.”
A broad grin spread itself across the other’s face. There was something
singularly engaging about him when he grinned.
“Gee! If youse ain’t goin’ to call de cops, I’ll talk till de chickens
roost again.”