Any man who knows the first thing about housekeeping, who has gone deep
enough into it to bring in wood or light a lamp, ought to know that the
upper story of a double boiler is not the thing to fry eggs in. How any
man with the faintest glimmering of a suspicion that he can cook an egg
should hit upon a tool as unhandy as that, is beyond me. A double boiler
is a telescopic arrangement used by first-class cooks for boiled
puddings. I understand that they prefer them because the raisins do not
get frightened and all huddled up at the bottom trying to escape, like
they do if boiled in the New England fashion in a towel. Jim Hosley knew
nothing of this, never having read the _Gentleman's Home Journal_ to any
extent. One night when I came in--one of the big nights in our history,
all right--I found him frying two eggs with this back-handed device. Of
course it made no difference to me if he fried them right on the coals
and lost everything except the fun of doing it; at the same time I felt
called upon to point out the skillet as the appropriate kitchen
furniture for the occasion. It was certainly a peculiar notion and
hinted to me that another woman had arrived and would soon be everywhere
in that flat.
"Jim, you don't know enough about frying eggs," said I, "to deserve them
at six for a quarter. You ought to eat canned goods or something you
can't damage by fire."
"This thing suits me better than your flat pan," said he. "You see how I
can take off the lid and jam it right down on the coals and have it all
over while you are waiting to warm up on top. Never used to cook eggs up
home--always sucked them; down here, been pulling at this pipe so long,
or eating brass goods in the restaurants, I seem to have lost the liking
for them. Tried them when up there last summer, but it warn't no use;
they didn't taste the same."
"Same with me," I sadly admitted, with my mind on the girl. "There
didn't seem to be enough nicotine in them to suit."
"Ben, chase yourself and find the pepper and salt, and be good enough to
tell me whose funeral it is down-stairs to-night," interrupted Jim,
changing the subject.
"I didn't know there was one," said I. "How far down is it?"
"One flight."
"Think of that," said I. "When the world gets crowded it seems to grow
careless and unneighborly. We don't either of us know who lives there,
and here we have been coming and going for about three years in this
place. Still, we are only here nights. Yet it's a strange world. Think
of living within ten feet of anybody in Oswegatchie County and not
knowing them--especially if they have a vote."
"It is a queer place here in New York," said Jim, quietly. "It keeps
getting busier all the time. Even the women hustle." I think now he
sighed there, but I am not certain. "We don't get time to get acquainted
with ourselves, let alone our neighbors ten feet away. A man might have
his own funeral here and never know it. Never thought I'd have to live
in such a place," he continued. "This will be a lonesome world when
there are no country folks."
"Jim, you're getting to be a philosopher," said I. "In you that is a
sure sign a woman's picture is focusing on your brain. I've never known
you to drop into sentiment while using the double boiler. Is it that
girl down-town?" (I had heard her name from others, Gabrielle
Tescheron, for I kept close watch of him, but he did not know that I
knew it.) "You know the one I mean--the girl who sticks her tongue out
to straighten her veil."
"No, no," said Jim, laughing. "I made it plain to her that she'd have to
marry both of us."
"A kind of matrimonial sandwich, eh? But say, Jim, come to think of it,
I have heard you tell several times lately just what bad weather we have
been having on Sundays for the past three months. It's a clincher. No?"
Jim began to pound the bottom of the inverted boiler with the lid lifter
to secure a release of the eggs, which he earnestly hoped would let go
and land on the plate.
"Did you grease that thing?" I asked, as he tum-tummed in vain, for the
eggs had glued into a fresco showing a rising and setting sun on
opposite sides of the bottom.
"No; didn't know where you kept the grease. What would you recommend in
a case of this kind?"
But before I could advise, Jim had made fair headway in transferring the
eggs directly without the intervention of a plate, an economy we
practiced frequently. The meal was served in the kitchen to save steps
and progressed with customary smoothness, each getting up a dozen times
or so to bring things from the shelves or the stove. While we were
slicking up the dishes I got to chuckling and Jim began to blush and
look foolish. I could see that he knew I had found him out. We made
short work of the chores. I wound the alarm clock and sent down the milk
bottle via the dumb waiter, which you can't tip with a dime, but have to
push or pull clean to or from the cellar, unless it happens to be en
route just as you get there and can chuck your load aboard.
We then stretched out in the cosy front room, and lighting our pipes
warmed to the task of being comfortable. I was pained to feel that the
day must come when woman would part us, but I said nothing more,
determined to let time and Jim's confiding nature reveal the tender
secrets of his heart now melting for that girl with the dancing brown
eyes, the mass of filmy dark hair straying in wisps from a harness of
braid, ribbon and pins, to Jim's utter distraction and the poor girl's
despair.
All my efforts in Jim's behalf had been lost apparently, or Jim, having
won the prizes in each case, became disenchanted for one reason or
another. Perhaps like my love letters, the girls were works of art and
would not bear too close an inspection. The coming case would make one
more failure, I imagined; still, I was sorry I had remarked how she had
coaxed her veil into shape; but with that wanton hair, a hat which was a
department to manage in itself, a tailor-made primness of figure to
superintend and the curvatures of Jim's conversation to follow, I could
understand that she needed the help of all her senses to keep her
pretty, light-hearted poise. I sighed to think of the trouble in store
for Mrs. Jim, not in the least knowing what a remarkable woman she was;
in my estimation of her at that time I think I was about as far off the
track as I got at any subsequent turn.
Jim had been uninterested so long (nearly three years), I felt love was
now a proposition which wouldn't find a crevice in his heart to trickle
into and widen until it split him asunder. But with the clever young
woman of business, in the rush and turmoil of the down-town hustle, it
is such a gentle humidity it seems to work its corrosion unseen in the
broad daylight. Thermometer readings don't show it. You have to keep
close to the barometer of eyes and sighs to know anything definite of
its ups and downs--unless it passes into fog or pours, then everybody
can see it dropping through the air. I began to feel that it would pour
soon around Jim, and I shuddered, for I thought I already heard the
patter of light feet in the hall. Some of the gray poetry of loneliness
began to spread around my disturbed and anxious soul for fear no
drippings like that would ever fall on me. Race suicide conscientiously
practiced is a hard game. Nature abhors a vacuum, and especially human
nature. Perhaps this girl had a sister. A comfortable introspection
began to take the contract of illuminating my mind. Agreeable family
scenery was thrown around by the magic of the thought. It scattered
about six kids for Jim and the same-sized bunch for me--enough to prove
that human nature abhors the inter-marrying of men as Jim and I had
tried it.
We naturally drifted away from the subject we were both thinking about
and got around to talking on old home matters--the day's doings and the
state of the country; graft, buying and selling law, and what it all had
to do with harming the government and the likelihood of losing our jobs.
It was about 8:30 o'clock as near as I can remember, when a timid knock
on the front door startled both of us. I answered the call, expecting
to find that fairy Miss Tescheron ready to pop in and oust me like a
Republican hold-over on a Tammany Happy New Year's. I peeped out as
charily as a jailer. The dim light revealed a tiny messenger
boy--something awful had probably happened up home! A messenger boy was
enough to startle both of us, for no one in the world would spend half a
dollar to tell us anything unless they were scared into it. I swung the
door open and the boy took off his cap and removed from its sweat-band
stronghold a neat-looking note.
"Say, boss, does Mr. Benjamin Hopkins live up here?" he asked between
breaths, for the five flights had tuckered him.
"That's me," said I, reaching for the note and carefully scanning the
typewritten address, for upon second thought I believed love and not
fright might have sent a note to Jim. But it was for me, so I opened it
and leaning toward the lamp read in diplomatically suppressed wonder:
"Mr. Benjamin Hopkins,
"97 East Eighteenth Street, New York.
"Dear Sir: Do not mention this matter to Hosley, but I wish to see
you at once at the Fifth Avenue Hotel. I have instructed the clerk
to send you to my room immediately. Please come right away, as the
matter cannot wait."
"Yours truly,
"ALBERT TESCHERON."
"Her pa," thought I; but I didn't let on. A stale actor in a play couldn't
have pulled himself together in a more unconcerned-I-do-this-every-night
fashion than I signed for the note, tipped the poor little shaver and
closed the door.
Jim eyed me in surprise, but it was nothing to my own astonishment. What
did old Tescheron want of me? No matter.
"Jim, I've got to run up-town for a few minutes about some work," was
the wording of my deception, eased by the thought that it was in his
behalf. I slipped on my hat and coat and started for the door, taking in
at a glance that Jim was smoking hard and squirming uneasily.