THREE OF A KIND.
"I've got him! I've got him! Take his other arm, Toot!"
"Let go; she's tipping!"
"Will I let go and see the bloke drownded? You're a spunky feller, Toot
Watts. Anybody'd think you never rocked a dory before yourself. Get up
in the stern, Turkey. Now pull her in to the bridge and hold on to the
logs. That'll balance her."
With one hand the Whistler held the drowning man's arm, while with the
other he lifted his chin out of the water. It was a dangerous position,
leaning over the bow in this manner, but the man in tow was unconscious
and could not struggle. In a half-dozen strokes Turkey had brought the
dory's stern up against one of the piles of the pier. This support he
clasped with might and main, while Toot and the Whistler drew the body
over the bow. Both were breathing hard when it was finally boarded.
"Turn him over," cried the Whistler. "You take the oars, Turkey, and row
like fury for the beach. Get the bloke's head around, Toot, up against
the bow. That's it. Now work his left arm up and down; I'll take the
right--not so fast--about like this. That'll make him breathe."
"Do you think he's dead?" asked Toot in an awestruck whisper.
"He ain't dead. I felt of his heart."
"I seen a bloke at the bath-house that was in the water half an hour and
they brought him round," said Turkey, panting at the oars.
"Keep the arm going, Toot. Never mind if you're tired."
"Are we near the beach?" asked Toot. He was the youngest of the trio,
not much more than a child, in fact, and even the slum child, precocious
in many kinds of knowledge, does not peep without tremors behind the
veil of the mystery of mysteries. No one answered his query. An answer
was not necessary, for over his shoulder the white line of the surf
could be seen. When they got near the Whistler jumped to Turkey's side,
seized the right oar and gave the added impetus of his lithe young arms
to the headway of the boat. The water hardly rippled the glorious ribbon
of moonlight behind them and wind and tide were set toward shore. Under
these favoring circumstances the dory was carried high and dry upon the
sands.
"Lift him out," cried the Whistler. Shagarach's body was laid upon the
beach, dripping and disheveled. "You run up to the refectory, Toot, and
tell the cop there to bring some whisky. Turn him over, Turkey, and let
the water run out. Now slap his cheeks. Slap them hard."
"He's breathing."
"How did he tumble in, I wonder? Gee, didn't he come down flopping?"
"P'raps he was loaded."
"Lucky he didn't hit on them rocks there."
"He would if the tide was dead low."
Neither the Whistler nor Turkey had checked their vigorous efforts to
resuscitate the limp body. Even the catching of their boat on a
high-crested wave did not seduce them from their work.
"I'll swim after her," said the Whistler, watching the dory drift slowly
off the sands.
Soon Shagarach's eyes opened and his lips muttered indistinctly.
Presently he moved his arms. How cool the air was! He had often longed
to lie like this on a soft, white sand, and let the shallow water play
over him, while he pierced with his gaze the deep blue sky. But the
stars were above him now--not pendulous tongues of flame such as
throbbed in the oriental heavens of his childhood, but the smoldering
embers of the northern night, paling in the moonlight. And whose were
those two strange faces thrust darkly over the golden disk?
"Are you better, mister?" It was unmistakably an earthly tone, the voice
and accent of the city gamin, but warm with that humaneness of heart
which a ragged jacket shelters as often as a velvet one.
"Take my coat, mister. You're shivering," said the Whistler, suiting
action to word, so that Shagarach found himself embraced by a garment,
not dry by any means, but more grateful than the soaked apparel which
was chilling his skin.
"If you can get up, mister, and run around, it'll warm you. Toot'll be
here soon with some whisky."
Shagarach gathered his strength to rise, but the effort was fruitless.
"How did I come here?" he gasped.
"You fell over the bridge, right near us. We were fishing for smelts and
rowed over and saved you."
"That was fortunate. I thank you," murmured Shagarach.
"Can't yer swim?" asked Turkey in a pitying tone, but Shagarach was
preoccupied with his recollections. He had made a mistake of judgment.
He should have declined the rendezvous. But who and what was the
assailant, the leering oaf he had passed on the pier? Was it some agent
of the Arnolds? The anonymous letters pointed to that source. They were
all seamed with allusions to the trial of Robert Floyd. And they formed
his only clew. Stay, the hat he still clutched in his hand. He raised it
feebly--for the mental energies of the lawyer were more elastic than the
physical--and his teeth were still chattering though his brain was
clear. It was a round, rimless cap of a common pattern.
"Here comes Toot." The Whistler, who was all eyes, had been the first to
espy him, running at the top of his speed. Out of the darkness behind
him loomed the powerful form of a policeman.
"The cop's comin', fellers. Here he is," cried Toot.
"Gimme the whisky," said the Whistler. "Take a swig, mister. It'll warm
you up."
Shagarach applied his lips to the bottle and took a sparing draught.
"Well, how is the gentleman?" sang out the policeman, cheerily.
"He's all right now," answered the Whistler, a strange uneasiness coming
over him.
The officer stooped down to the man's face.
"Why, Mr. Shagarach----" Surprise prevented him from saying more and
Shagarach looked up at hearing his name.
"You're not on the old beat now?" he said.
"No, I'm on the park force till I get strong again. This is a bad
accident. Coming round all right, though, by the look o' things."
"Yes, give me a hand and I'll try to rise."
Officer Chandler's great hand swung Shagarach on his feet. For a moment
his knees sunk. Then he shook himself like a draggled dog. The liquor
was working its way to his marrow and banishing the deep-seated chill.
"I owe my life to these boys," he said.
"Hello, what are you stripping for?" asked the officer, turning around.
"My dory," answered the Whistler. He had already reduced himself to the
minimum of wearing apparel and stood ankle-deep in the surf.
The dory was twenty yards out, showing a dark broadside against the
moonlit waves.
"Oh, all right," laughed Chandler. "Give me your arm, Mr. Shagarach.
We'll furnish you a new outfit at the refectory. How did it all happen?"
"One moment, till the boy comes back." Shagarach knew that his assailant
had had time to escape and that search for the present would be useless,
but he saw no advantage in keeping the incident to himself. So he
sketched the story of the letters, the rendezvous and the struggle, in
his curt, forcible style.
"Find the head that cap fits and you'll do me a service," he concluded,
showing Chandler the headgear.
"There was nobody on the bridge?"
"Nobody but the oaf I described."
"Wade out, Turkey," the Whistler was calling to his barefoot companions.
He seemed shy of putting his boat ashore. Since the arrival of the
officer all three urchins had become singularly distant and distressed.
Was this only the natural awe which slum children feel in the presence
of the police? Or was it conscience that made cowards of them all?
"Come ashore, young feller. The gentleman wants to thank you," said
Chandler.
"We must look for the fishing-pole under the pier," answered the
Whistler. It was true that he had thrown his rod away when they heard
the loud splash of Shagarach's body in the water. But his manner
indicated that while what he said might be true, it was not the fact.
Turkey and Toot also had shown unseemly haste in wading out to the dory
with the Whistler's outer raiment. The Whistler was digging the blade in
for his first stroke when Shagarach addressed him in a tone that made
him pause.
"My young friends, I am too weak to thank you to-night. To-morrow is
Saturday. Could you call at my office in the morning, 31 Putnam street?
Mr. Shagarach. Can you come?"
"Yes, sir," answered the boys, with more submission than gladness in
their voices. All the gamin's impudence melts at a touch of true
kindness. The boys waited a moment, then disappeared into the night,
while Shagarach, with the policeman's assistance, made his way through
the gathering crowd to the refectory.
It was the misfortune of Jacob, Shagarach's office boy, to be the owner
of a most preposterous nose, the consciousness of which led him to fear
society and shun the mannerless multitude. Boys of his own age in
particular he dreaded, as a tame crow is said to fear nothing so much as
a wild one. So when our three mischiefmakers entered the office the next
morning and seated themselves till Mr. Shagarach should return, the poor
lad began squirming by anticipation in his chair as if its seat were a
pin cushion with the points of the pins protruding. As a matter of
defensive tactics, this was the worst possible attitude to take, as it
courted assault. But Jacob was not a strategist.
Before long his torture began, first by side comments and giggles,
suppressed in deference to the decorum of the surroundings. Then he was
subjected to a running fire of personal questions, the tone of which
speedily began to mimic the muffled nasals of his own richly accented
responses. This would have been acute torment to a sensitive lad and a
spirited one would have ended the comedy by an appeal to arms. But poor
Jacob was stolid and peaceable. So his tormenters had things their own
way. The Whistler especially seemed to have neither conscience nor
reason in his make-up, but an enormous funny-bone which usurped the
functions of both. It was not until Aronson came in that Jacob was able
to make his escape.
Saul Aronson was not a musical young man. If he yawned down the major
chord twice or thrice at bedtime this was the nearest he ever got to
singing. But when the Whistler raised his flexible pipe, at first
softly, then loudly, with wonderful trills, breaking into still more
wonderful tremolos, with staccato volleys, and ascending arpeggios that
would have put a mocking-bird to shame, it is no wonder that he gave up
the attempt to insert the metes and bounds correctly in a quit-claim
deed and contented himself with furtively watching the o-shaped orifice
from which this flood of melody issued. This was his occupation when
Shagarach's form, crossing the threshold, sent him back to his copying
and checked the Whistler in the full ecstasy of an improvised cadenza.
"You have saved my life," said Shagarach to the boys when they had
followed him into the inner room. He used the plural number, but his
gaze seemed to be attracted to the Whistler, whose neatly brushed hair
told of a mother's hand, and whose restless blue eyes, fringed with
heavy dark lashes, centered a face oval, high-born and sweet, which gave
out in every contour the glad emanation of a youth which was natural and
pure. There was less in the others to make them distinctive. Turkey
seemed to be a hulking clod and Toot was wizened and shrill-voiced and
sharp.
"You have saved my life. How can I repay you?"
"I don't want any pay," spoke up Whistler. "I on'y came here to tell you
about the fire."
"What fire?"
"Turkey said you was defending the bloke that set fire to the house on
Cazenove street."
"Do you know something about that?"
"We seen a blo--a man coming out of the house," answered the Whistler.
"Then you come to make me still more obliged to you. But you must let me
discharge a part of my other debt first I have just come from the bank.
Here are fifteen double eagles. You will each give me your mother's name
and address and I will send her five."
Turkey and Toot showed no reluctance in doing this, but the Whistler
still held back.
"My mother doesn't want any reward," he said. All three of the boys had
just graduated from the Phillips grammar school, and could place their
negatives correctly when they chose.
"This is not a reward. I only ask you to allow me to be your friend. At
your age I had never seen this amount of money."
But still the Whistler blushed and shook his head till Shagarach
perceived the boy's principle could not be shaken.
"You will give me your mother's address? Perhaps I may be able to get
you work. Wouldn't you like to go to work?"
"Oh, yes, sir." The Whistler's face, which obstinate refusal, even for
so honorable a scruple, had clouded with a trace of sullenness,
brightened at once and his blue eyes smiled. Shagarach copied the
address carefully and determined not to lose sight of the boy who knew
how to say no so decidedly.
"And now----" he pushed the memorandum book aside. "I am defending
Floyd. What did you wish to tell me?"
"We was the first at the fire," said Toot, eagerly.
"And we found the body of the servant," added Turkey.
But Shagarach's eyes never left the Whistler.
"Just when the fire broke out," said the Whistler, "we were coming
through the alleyway side of the house."
"Yes."
"A big bloke--I mean a tall man--was running down the alleyway into
Broad street. I noticed him, because the alley was narrow and he knocked
me down."
"Where?"
"In the alleyway."
"Near Broad street?"
"Yes, sir."
"Ran against you and knocked you down?"
"Yes, sir, and said: 'Darn it, get out of the way.'"
"Was he running?"
"Well, half-running."
"We was running," added Toot; "'cause we heard them yelling 'Fire!'"
"What kind of a looking man was it?"
"A big, brown man, with a black mustache."
"He looked like a dood," added Toot.
"You didn't know him?"
"No, sir."
"Would you know him again?"
"Oh, yes," answered the Whistler. "I seen--I saw him last week pulling a
single scull up the river."
Shagarach remembered having seen a portrait of Harry Arnold displayed in
a fashionable photographer's showcase--shaggy cape-coat and fur cap
setting off his splendid beauty. Immediately he wrote the address on a
card, and, summoning Aronson, bade him obtain a half-dozen copies of the
photograph.
"He was a handsome young man, then? About how old?"
The three guesses varied from 21 to 27. Either of these ages seems
fabulously advanced from the standpoint of 14.
"Did you notice anything about his hands? Were they bare or did he wear
gloves?"
"His right hand was bare," answered the Whistler, "'cause his fingernail
scratched me when he thrun me--when he threw me down."
Shagarach drew forth the glove which Chandler had brought him and was
studying it profoundly. Apparently he forgot the presence of the boys,
so deep was his meditation. Then at last he started out of the reverie,
thanked them again and with kind assurances of friendship shook their
hands in parting at the door.
"Ain't he a dandy bloke?" whispered Turkey on the stairs.
"Why didn't yer take it, Whistler?" said Toot.
But the Whistler held his peace.