JOHN B. McKINNEY, Attorney and Counselor
at Law, as his sign read, was, for many reasons,
a fortunate man. For many other reasons he was
not. He was chiefly fortunate in being, as certain
opponents often strove witheringly to designate
him, "the son of his father," since that sound old
gentleman was the wealthiest farmer in that section;
with but one son and heir to supplant him, in
time, in the role of "county god," and haply
perpetuate the prouder title of "the biggest taxpayer on
the assessment list." And this fact, too, fortunate
as it would seem, was doubtless the indirect occasion
of a liberal percentage of all John's misfortunes.
From his earliest school-days in the little
town, up to his tardy graduation from a distant
college, the influence of his father's wealth invited
his procrastination, humored its results, encouraged
the laxity of his ambition, "and even now," as John
used, in bitter irony, to put it, "it is aiding and
abetting me in the ostensible practise of my chosen
profession, a listless, aimless undetermined man of
forty, and a confirmed bachelor at that!" At the
utterance of his self-depreciating statement, John generally
jerked his legs down from the top of his
desk; and rising and kicking his chair back to the
wall he would stump around his littered office till
the manila carpet steamed with dust. Then he
would wildly break away, seeking refuge either in
the open street, or in his room at the old-time
tavern, The Eagle House, "where," he would say, "I
have lodged and boarded, I do solemnly asseverate,
for a long, unbroken, middle-aged eternity of ten
years, and can yet assert, in the words of the more
fortunately-dying Webster, that 'I still live'!"
Extravagantly satirical as he was at times, John
had always an indefinable drollery about him that
made him agreeable company to his friends, at
least; and such an admiring friend he had constantly
at hand in the person of Bert Haines. Both
were Bohemians in natural tendency, and, though
John was far in Bert's advance in point of age, he
found the young man "just the kind of a fellow to
have around;" while Bert, in turn, held his senior
in profound esteem--looked up to him, in fact, and
even in his eccentricities strove to pattern himself
after him. And so it was, when summer days were
dull and tedious, these two could muse and doze the
hours away together; and when the nights were long,
and dark, and deep, and beautiful, they could drift
out in the noonlight of the stars, and with "the soft
complaining flute" and "warbling lute," "lay the
pipes," as John would say, for their enduring
popularity with the girls! And it was immediately
subsequent to one of these romantic excursions, when
the belated pair, at two o'clock in the morning, had
skulked up a side stairway of the old hotel, and
gained John's room, with nothing more serious happening
than Bert falling over a trunk and smashing
his guitar,--just after such a night of romance and
adventure it was that, in the seclusion of John's
room, Bert had something of especial import to
communicate.
"Mack," he said, as that worthy anathematized
a spiteful match, and then sucked his finger.
"Blast the all-fired old torch!" said John, wrestling
with the lamp-flue, and turning on a welcome flame
at last. "Well, you said 'Mack'! Why don't you
go on? And don't bawl at the top of your lungs,
either. You've already succeeded in waking every
boarder in the house with that guitar, and you want
to make amends now by letting them go to sleep
again!"
"But my dear fellow," said Bert with forced
calmness, "you're the fellow that's making all the
noise--and--"
"Why, you howling dervish!" interrupted John,
with a feigned air of pleased surprise and
admiration. "But let's drop controversy. Throw the
fragments of your guitar in the wood-box there, and
proceed with the opening proposition."
"What I was going to say was this," said Bert,
with a half-desperate enunciation; "I'm getting
tired of this way of living--clean, dead-tired, and
fagged out, and sick of the whole artificial business!"
"Oh, yes!" exclaimed John, with a towering
disdain, "you needn't go any further! I know just
what malady is throttling you. It's reform--reform!
You're going to 'turn over a new leaf,' and
all that, and sign the pledge, and quit cigars, and
go to work, and pay your debts, and gravitate back
into Sunday-school, where you can make love to
the preacher's daughter under the guise of religion,
and desecrate the sanctity of the innermost pale of
the church by confessions at Class of your 'thorough
conversion'! Oh, you're going to--"
"No, but I'm going to do nothing of the sort,"
interrupted Bert resentfully. "What I mean--if
you'll let me finish--is, I'm getting too old to be
eternally undignifying myself with this 'singing of
midnight strains under Bonnybell's window-panes,'
and too old to be keeping myself in constant
humiliation and expense by the borrowing and stringing
up of old guitars, together with the breakage of the
same, and the general wear-and-tear on a constitution
that is slowly being sapped to its foundations
by exposure in the night-air and the dew."
"And while you receive no further compensation
in return," said John, "than, perhaps, the coy turning
up of a lamp at an upper casement where the
jasmine climbs; or an exasperating patter of
invisible palms; or a huge dank wedge of fruit-cake
shoved at you by the old man, through a crack in
the door."
"Yes, and I'm going to have my just reward, is
what I mean," said Bert, "and exchange the lover's
life for the benedict's. Going to hunt out a good
sensible girl and marry her." And as the young
man concluded this desperate avowal he jerked the
bow of his cravat into a hard knot, kicked his hat
under the bed, and threw himself on the sofa like
an old suit.
John stared at him with absolute compassion.
"Poor devil," he said half musingly, "I know just
how he feels--
"Ring in the wind his wedding chimes,
Smile, villagers, at every door;
Old churchyards stuffed with buried crimes,
Be clad in sunshine o'er and o'er.--"
"Oh, here!" exclaimed the wretched Bert, jumping
to his feet; "let up on that dismal recitative. It
would make a dog howl to hear that!"
"Then you 'let up' on that suicidal talk of
marrying," replied John, "and all that harangue of
incoherency about your growing old. Why, my dear
fellow, you're at least a dozen years my junior,
and look at me!" and John glanced at himself in the
glass with a feeble pride, noting the gray sparseness
of his side-hair, and its plaintive dearth on
top. "Of course I've got to admit," he continued,
"that my hair is gradually evaporating; but for all
that, I'm 'still in the ring,' don't you know; as
young in society, for the matter of that, as yourself!
And this is just the reason why I don't want
you to blight every prospect in your life by marrying
at your age--especially a woman--I mean the
kind of woman you'd be sure to fancy at your age."
"Didn't I say 'a good sensible girl' was the kind
I had selected?" Bert remonstrated.
"Oh!" exclaimed John, "you've selected her,
then?--and without one word to me!" he ended,
rebukingly.
"Well, hang it all!" said Bert impatiently; "I
knew how YOU were, and just how you'd talk me
out of it; and I made up my mind that for once, at
least, I'd follow the dictations of a heart that--
however capricious in youthful frivolities--should
beat, in manhood, loyal to itself and loyal to its
own affinity."
"Go it! Fire away! Farewell, vain world!"
exclaimed the excited John.--"Trade your soul off for
a pair of ear-bobs and a button-hook--a hank of
jute hair and a box of lily-white! I've buried not
less than ten old chums this way, and here's another
nominated for the tomb."
"But you've got no REASON about you," began
Bert,--"I want to"--
"And so do _I_ 'want to,' " broke in John finally,
--"I want to get some sleep.--So 'register' and
come to bed.--And lie up on edge, too, when you
DO come--'cause this old catafalque-of-a-bed is just
about as narrow as your views of single blessedness!
Peace! Not another word! Pile in! Pile
in! I'm three-parts sick, anyhow, and I want
rest!" And very truly he spoke.
It was a bright morning when the slothful John
was aroused by a long vociferous pounding on the
door. He started up in bed to find himself alone--
the victim of his wrathful irony having evidently
risen and fled away while his pitiless tormentor
slept--"Doubtless to accomplish at once that
nefarious intent as set forth by his unblushing
confession of last night," mused the miserable John.
And he ground his fingers in the corners of his
swollen eyes, and leered grimly in the glass at the
feverish orbs, blood-shot, blurred and aching.
The pounding on the door continued. John
looked at his watch; it was only eight o'clock.
"Hi, there!" he called viciously. "What do you
mean, anyhow?" he went on, elevating his voice
again; "shaking a man out of bed when he's just
dropping into his first sleep?"
"I mean that you're going to get up; that's what!"
replied a firm female voice. "It's eight o'clock, and I
want to put your room in order; and I'm not going
to wait all day about it, either! Get up and go
down to your breakfast, and let me have the room!"
And the clamor at the door was industriously renewed.
"Say!" called John querulously, hurrying on his
clothes, "Say, you!"
"There's no 'say' about it!" responded the
determined voice: "I've heard about you and your
ways around this house, and I'm not going to put
up with it! You'll not lie in bed till high noon
when I've got to keep your room in proper order!"
"Oh, ho!" bawled John intelligently: "reckon
you're the new invasion here? Doubtless you're
that girl that's been hanging up the new window-
blinds that won't roll, and disguising the pillows
with clean slips, and hennin' round among my
books and papers on the table here, and aging me
generally till I don't know my own handwriting by
the time I find it! Oh, yes, you're going to
revolutionize things here; you're going to introduce
promptness, and system, and order. See you've
even filled the wash-pitcher and tucked two starched
towels through the handle. Haven't got any tin
towels, have you? I rather like this new soap, too!
So solid and durable, you know; warranted not to
raise a lather. Might as well wash one's hands with
a door-knob!"
And as John's voice grumbled away into the
sullen silence again, the determined voice without
responded: "Oh, you can growl away to your
heart's content, Mr. McKinney, but I want you
to understand distinctly that I'm not going to humor
you in any of your old bachelor, sluggardly,
slovenly ways, and whims and notions. And I
want you to understand, too, that I'm not hired
help in this house, nor a chambermaid, nor anything
of the kind. I'm the landlady here; and I'll give you
just ten minutes more to get down to your breakfast,
or you'll not get any--that's all!" And as
the reversed cuff John was in the act of buttoning
slid from his wrist and rolled under the dresser, he
heard a stiff rustling of starched muslin flouncing
past the door, and the quick italicized patter of
determined gaiters down the hall.
"Look here," said John to the bright-faced boy
in the hotel office, a half hour later. "It seems the
house here's been changing hands again."
"Yes, sir," said the boy, closing the cigar case,
and handing him a lighted match. "Well, the new
landlord, whoever he is," continued John, patronizingly,
"is a good one. Leastwise, he knows what's
good to eat, and how to serve it."
The boy laughed timidly,--"It ain't a 'landlord,'
though--it's a landlady; it's my mother."
"Ah," said John, dallying with the change the
boy had pushed toward him. "Your mother, eh?
And where's your father?"
"He's dead," said the boy.
"And what's this for?" abruptly asked John,
examining his change.
"That's your change," said the boy: "You got
three for a quarter, and gave me a half."
"Well, YOU just keep it," said John, sliding back
the change. "It's for good luck, you know, my boy.
Same as drinking your long life and prosperity.
And, oh yes, by the way, you may tell your mother
I'll have a friend to dinner with me to-day."
"Yes, sir, and thank you, sir," said the beaming
boy.
"Handsome boy!" mused John, as he walked
down street. "Takes that from his father, though,
I'll wager my existence!"
Upon his office desk John found a hastily written
note. It was addressed in the well-known hand of
his old chum. He eyed the missive apprehensively,
and there was a positive pathos in his voice as he
said aloud, "It's our divorce. I feel it!" The note,
headed, "At the Office, Four in Morning," ran like
this:
"Dear Mack--I left you slumbering so soundly
that, by noon, when you waken, I hope, in your
refreshed state, you will look more tolerantly on my
intentions as partially confided to you this night. I
will not see you here again to say good-by. I
wanted to, but was afraid to 'rouse the sleeping
lion.' I will not close my eyes to-night--fact is, I
haven't time. Our serenade at Josie's was a
prearranged signal by which she is to be ready and at
the station for the five morning train. You may
remember the lighting of three consecutive matches
at her window before the igniting of her lamp.
That meant, 'Thrice dearest one, I'll meet thee at
the depot at four-thirty sharp.' So, my dear Mack,
this is to inform you that, even as you read, Josie
and I have eloped. It is all the old man's fault, yet
I forgive him. Hope he'll return the favor. Josie
predicts he will, inside of a week--or two weeks
anyhow. Good-by, Mack, old boy; and let a fellow
down as easy as you can. Affectionately,
"BERT."
"Heavens!" exclaimed John, stifling the note in
his hand and stalking tragically around the room.
"Can it be possible that I have nursed a frozen
viper? An ingrate? A wolf in sheep's clothing?
An orang-outang in gent's furnishings?"
"Was you calling me, sir?" asked a voice at the
door. It was the janitor.
"No!" thundered John; "Quit my sight! get out
of my way! No, no, Thompson, I don't mean
that," he called after him. "Here's a half-dollar
for you, and I want you to lock up the office, and
tell anybody that wants to see me that I've been
set upon, and sacked and assassinated in cold blood;
and I've fled to my father's in the country, and am
lying there in the convulsions of dissolution, babbling
of green fields and running brooks, and thirsting
for the life of every woman that comes in gunshot!"
And then, more like a confirmed invalid
than a man in the strength and pride of his prime,
he crept down into the street again, and thence back
to his hotel.
Dejectedly and painfully climbing to his room, he
encountered, on the landing above, a little woman
in a jaunty dusting-cap and a trim habit of crisp
muslin. He tried to evade her, but in vain. She
looked him squarely in the face--occasioning him
the dubious impression of either needing shaving
very badly, or having egg-stains on his chin.
"You're the gentleman in Number II, I believe?
Why, Mr. McKinney, are you ill?"
He nodded confusedly.
"Mr. McKinney is your name, I think," she
queried, with a pretty elevation of the eyebrows.
"Yes, ma'am," said John rather abjectly. "You
see, ma'am--But I beg pardon," he went on
stammeringly, and with a very awkward bow--"I beg
pardon, but I am addressing--ah--the--ah--the--"
"You are addressing the new landlady," she
interpolated pleasantly. "Mrs. Miller is my name. I
think we should be friends, Mr. McKinney, since I
hear that you are one of the oldest patrons of the
house."
"Thank you--thank you!" said John, completely
embarrassed. "Yes, indeed!--ha, ha. Oh, yes--
yes--really, we must be quite old friends, I assure
you, Mrs.--Mrs.--"
"Mrs. Miller," smilingly prompted the little
woman.
"Yes, ah, yes,--Mrs. Miller. Lovely morning,
Mrs. Miller," said John, edging past her and backing
toward his room.
But as Mrs. Miller was laughing outright, for
some mysterious reason, and gave no affirmation
in response to his proposition as to the quality of
the weather, John, utterly abashed and nonplused,
darted into his room and closed the door, "Deucedly
extraordinary woman!" he thought; "wonder
what's her idea!"
He remained locked in his room till the dinner-
hour; and, when he promptly emerged for that occasion,
there was a very noticeable improvement in
his personal appearance, in point of dress, at least,
though there still lingered about his smoothly-
shaven features a certain haggard, care-worn,
anxious look that would not out.
Next his own at the table he found a chair tilted
forward, as though in reservation for some honored
guest. What did it mean? Oh, he remembered
now. Told the boy to tell his mother he would have
a friend to dine with him. Bert--and, blast the fellow!--
was, doubtless, dining then with a far preferable
companion--his wife--in a palace-car on the
P., C. & St. L., a hundred miles away. The thought
was maddening. Of course, now, the landlady
would have material for a new assault. And how
could he avert it? A despairing film blurred his
sight for the moment--then the eyes flashed daringly.
"I will meet it like a man!" he said, mentally--
"yea, like a State's Attorney,--I will invite
it! Let her do her worst!"
He called a servant, giving some message in an
undertone.
"Yes, sir," said the agreeable servant, "I'll go
right away, sir," and left the room.
Five minutes elapsed, and then a voice at his
shoulder startled him:
"Did you send for me, Mr. McKinney? What
is it I can do?"
"You are very kind, Mrs.--Mrs.--"
"Mrs. Miller," said the lady, with a smile that he
remembered.
"Now, please spare me even the mildest of
rebukes. I deserve your censure, but I can't stand it
--I can't positively!" and there was a pleading
look in John's lifted eyes that changed the little
woman's smile to an expression of real solicitude.
"I have sent for you," continued John, "to ask of
you three great favors. Please be seated while I
enumerate them. First--I want you to forgive and
forget that ill-natured, uncalled-for grumbling of
mine this morning when you awakened me."
"Why, certainly," said the landlady, again smiling,
though quite seriously.
"I thank you," said John with dignity. "And,
second," he continued--"I want your assurance that
my extreme confusion and awkwardness on the occasion
of our meeting later were rightly interpreted."
"Certainly--certainly," said the landlady with the
kindliest sympathy.
"I am grateful--utterly," said John, with newer
dignity. "And then," he went on,--"after informing
you that it is impossible for the best friend I
have in the world to be with me at this hour, as
intended, I want you to do me the very great honor
of dining with me. Will you?"
"Why, certainly," said the charming little
landlady--"and a thousand thanks besides! But tell me
something of your friend," she continued, as they
were being served. "What is he like--and what is
his name--and where is he?"
"Well," said John warily,--"he's like all young
fellows of his age. He's quite young, you know--
not over thirty, I should say--a mere boy, in fact,
but clever--talented--versatile."
"--Unmarried, of course," said the chatty little
woman.
"Oh, yes!" said John, in a matter-of-course tone
--but he caught himself abruptly--then stared intently
at his napkin--glanced evasively at the side-
face of his questioner, and said,--"Oh, yes! Yes,
indeed! He's unmarried.--Old bachelor like myself,
you know. Ha! Ha!"
"So he's not like the young man here that
distinguished himself last night?" said the little woman
archly.
The fork in John's hand, half-lifted to his lips,
faltered and fell back toward his plate.
"Why, what's that?" said John in a strange
voice; "I hadn't heard anything about it--I mean
I haven't heard anything about any young man.
What was it?"
"Haven't heard anything about the elopement?"
exclaimed the little woman in astonishment.--
"Why it's been the talk of the town all morning.
Elopement in high life--son of a grain-dealer, name
of Hines, or Himes, or something, and a preacher's
daughter--Josie somebody--didn't catch her last
name. Wonder if you don't know the parties--
Why, Mr. McKinney, are you ill?"
"Oh, no--not at all!" said John: "Don't mention
it. Ha--ha! Just eating too rapidly, that's all.
Go on with--you were saying that Bert and Josie
had really eloped."
"What 'Bert'?" asked the little woman quickly.
"Why, did I say Bert?" said John, with a guilty
look. "I meant Haines, of course, you know--
Haines and Josie.--And did they really elope?"
"That's the report," answered the little woman,
as though deliberating some important evidence;
"and they say, too, that the plot of the runaway
was quite ingenious. It seems the young lovers
were assisted in their flight by some old fellow--
friend of the young man's--Why, Mr. McKinney,
you ARE ill, surely?"
John's face was as ashen.
"No--no!" he gasped painfully: "Go on--go
on! Tell me more about the--the--the old fellow
--the old reprobate! And is he still at large?"
"Yes," said the little woman, anxiously regarding
the strange demeanor of her companion. "They
say, though, that the law can do nothing with him,
and that this fact only intensifies the agony of the
broken-hearted parents--for it seems they have, till
now, regarded him both as a gentleman and family
friend in whom"--
"I really am ill," moaned John, waveringly rising
to his feet; "but I beg you not to be alarmed. Tell
your little boy to come to my room, where I will
retire at once, if you'll excuse me, and send for
my physician. It is simply a nervous attack. I am
often troubled so; and only perfect quiet and
seclusion restores me. You have done me a great
honor, Mrs."--("Mrs. Miller," sighed the
sympathetic little woman)--"Mrs. Miller,--and I thank
you more than I have words to express." He bowed
limply, turned through a side door opening on a
stair, and tottered to his room.
During the three weeks' illness through which he
passed, John had every attention--much more, indeed,
than he had consciousness to appreciate. For
the most part his mind wandered, and he talked of
curious things, and laughed hysterically, and serenaded
mermaids that dwelt in grassy seas of dew,
and were bald-headed like himself. He played
upon a fourteen-jointed flute of solid gold, with
diamond holes, and keys carved out of thawless ice.
His old father came at first to take him home; but
he could not be moved, the doctor said.
Two weeks of John's illness had worn away,
when a very serious-looking young man, in a traveling
duster, and a high hat, came up the stairs to
see him. A handsome young lady was clinging to
his arm. It was Bert and Josie. She had guessed
the very date of their forgiveness. John awoke
even clearer in mind than usual that afternoon. He
recognized his old chum at a glance, and Josie--
now Bert's wife. Yes, he comprehended that. He
was holding a hand of each when another figure
entered. His thin white fingers loosened their clasp,
and he held a hand toward the newcomer. "Here,"
he said, "is my best friend in the world--Bert, you
and Josie will love her, I know; for this is Mrs.--
Mrs."--"Mrs. Miller," said the radiant little woman.
--"Yes,--Mrs. Miller," said John, very proudly.