I MEET GRINGO AGAIN
It was a very pleasant room. Old Mrs. Resterton hadn’t expected
callers, so the fire was very low in order to save the coal. However,
she was poking it, and it soon would be cheerful. There were plenty of
books in long, low cases, and a nice old-rose carpet on the floor, and
big easy chairs. And standing before one of those chairs was a very
remarkable-looking man.
He did look like Napoleon. He was proud, and quiet and
determined-looking, and his hair lay in a little wave on his forehead,
just the way Napoleon’s does in his pictures. When he spoke, his voice
was beautiful--low and resonant like a bell. My! my! what a look he
had--like a man that had seen everything. I saw that no matter what his
position in life had been, he was enormously clever.
Miss Stanna was very cool, and yet gracious with him, but her
grandmother, worldly old stager as she was, could not conceal her
satisfaction at his unexpected visit.
She gushed when she saw my master. “Oh! Rudolph, how opportune. I have
been hoping you would drop in. How are you, and how is dear Clossie?”
He assured her that Clossie was well, and then she said, “Mr. Bonstone,
this is our friend of whom I was speaking the other day--Mr. Granton.”
The two men shook hands, and looked at each other with sizing-up
glances, like two dogs that may fight and may not, just as the fancy
strikes them.
Gringo went under the sofa with me, and Walter Scott lay by the fire.
My! what a gossip we had. “Ain’t master the curly-headed boy,” said
Gringo admiringly. “Just up and leaves the Bowery, and comes in among
the swells, as cool as a cucumber. Picks the downiest peach of the lot.”
“But, Gringo,” I said uneasily. “You’ll not be at home in these higher
circles. You don’t understand.”
“Don’t understand,” he growled. “Don’t I understand? Can you spring at
a bull’s head, hold him, and pin him down without sweating? That’s what
my ancestors used to do. I’m thoroughbred--I am. But what they went
through is nothing to what I’ve gone through with these upper-crust
dogs. It’s enough to break your heart. At first I took their nonsense;
then I got my ginger up and just squared up to them. I don’t see any
use in their darned old politeness--forever scraping and bowing, and
doing the pretty. Yah! it makes me sick.”
“How does your master get on?” I asked curiously.
“Never turns a hair outside, but he’s hot under the collar--wears four
a day. This indoor life wilts him, and makes him sweat like a butcher.”
“But, Gringo, I thought your master was a saloon-keeper?”
“So he is, or was. He’s given up all his saloons, and gone into real
estate. He never stood behind a bar himself. He hired other men for it.
He was always running the streets, making or dropping money.”
“He looks interesting,” I said, poking my nose further out from under
the sofa to look at him.
“Interesting,” said Gringo scornfully, “he’s a whole bag full of men in
one. Watch that eyelid of his.”
Mr. Bonstone had very fine eyes. They seemed to talk without the aid of
his lips. I noticed that though he appeared to be taking his part in
the conversation, he scarcely opened his mouth.
“He’s a most intelligent listener,” I said, “but why doesn’t he talk
himself? Can’t he?”
“He’s afraid of making a break,” said Gringo with a sigh. “Used to
gabbing with men. If he kept his mouth open, something might slip out
that would frighten those two fashion-plates.”
“Does he really like Miss Stanna, or is he marrying for social
position?”
“He wants her,” said Gringo emphatically, “and he wishes she was a
barmaid.”
“Oh! I see--he’s a man that doesn’t want to shine in society.”
“If sassiety had one head, and master had a gun, I wouldn’t leave him
alone in the room with it,” remarked Gringo shortly.
“Don’t say ‘sassiety,’ Gringo,” I corrected. “Say ‘society.’”
He growled it over in his throat several times, and at last got it
right.
I was intensely interested in this affair, so I pushed my enquiries
further. “Does Miss Stanna know that your master likes her for herself
alone, and not because she belongs to a good old New York family?”
“Can you fool a woman?” said Gringo scornfully. “She knows all about
it, and more too--but poor mister, he’s in the dark. He thinks she’s
marrying him for his money, and he’s wondering whether she’ll ever be
willing to leave her gang for him.”
“Why doesn’t she tell him?”
“He wouldn’t believe her now. You just hold on, she’ll work that out
for herself--I wish they’d get married. I’m having the dickens of a
time in an uptown hotel. The dogs are enough to make you sick.”
“Are you coming to live in this Sweeney house after the wedding?”
“You bet, and I’ll be glad to get up where it’s open, but I say, old
fellow, give us a helping hand with these dogs up here, will you? Are
they very stuck-up?”
“Some of them--I’ll get you good introductions.”
“You’re a nobby fellow,” said poor Gringo with a roll of his eyes at
me. “You know the ropes, and I don’t. Mister’s got to be in society for
a while, and I’d like to get one paw in anyway.”
“You’ll get your four feet in,” I said, rising, for I saw master
bending over Mrs. Resterton’s hand. “I’ll run you as an eccentric dog
of distinguished lineage.”
“You might tell them my record,” said Gringo anxiously. “I licked
Blangney Boy in 1912, and Handsome Nick in 1913 and----”
“I don’t believe the fighting will count much up here,” I replied.
“It will be more your manners, and how much you are worth. You’ve got
to run on your master’s philanthropy, and his English ancestry. Don’t
mention his barmaid mother though.”
“Barmaids and barmen are just as good as anybody,” said Gringo stoutly.
“Yes, yes, I know, but there’s a lot of temperance sentiment up here,
and if you just have to talk along drinking lines, the wholesale
brewery or distillery act would take better than your retail trade.
Just you wait for your cue from me.”
Gringo’s eyes watered. “’Pon my word, I’m glad I met you,” he said. “If
ever you want a friend just reckon on my jaws.”
“Try to make it up with Sir Walter Scott,” I said anxiously. “He’s
a leader in dog society about here, though not a great favourite
personally. It wasn’t really etiquette for me to force you in, but I
just had to see your master.”
“I’ll not knuckle under to any dog,” said Gringo decidedly. “Take every
blow like a thoroughbred is my motto, but when you once tackle, never
give up till they come in and pick you up.”
“But you haven’t had any quarrel with him. Come now, go over to him and
say you’ve had a pleasant call, and hope he may come to see you some
day.”
Gringo hesitated, then he shuffled over to the hearth-rug.
Walter got up as he saw him approaching and presently I saw him lifting
his upper lip in a dog smile. He was satisfied.
“He will be a splendid friend to you,” I whispered in Gringo’s ear, as
they both approached me. “Cultivate him, cultivate him.”
For a wonder, and to my disappointment, master didn’t want to go for a
further walk that evening. I was a little troubled about him, as I ran
home after him. He was talking to himself, and sometimes he smiled, and
sometimes he frowned.
Arrived in our apartment, where his wife received him with uplifted
eyebrows, he did what he rarely did--sat down beside her for a talk.
There they were each side of the little table, the electric light
between them.
“Clossie,” he said, “I believe Stanna is going to be married.”
Phlegmatic as she was, the news of an engagement always excited Mrs.
Granton.
“To be married,” she repeated, “to whom?”
“To a fellow called Penny Nap--he used to keep a saloon.”
“Penny Nap--is that all the name he has?”
“That is his nickname, his whole name is Norman Bonstone.”
“Stanna--Penny Nap,” echoed Mrs. Granton in a bewildered way.
“I don’t like it,” said my master crossly. “I believe the girl is
being coerced. I can’t make her out; perhaps you could. Clossie, will
you go to see her?”
Mrs. Clossie’s eyelids narrowed, as she stared at her husband. “Oh!
certainly. You think I can find out whether she is happy about it? It’s
a great thing to have Stanna happy.”
Master didn’t say anything. He was dreaming, and gazing into the fire.
The matter must have made an impression on Mrs. Granton, for the next
afternoon she announced her intention of going to see the Restertons.
Master telephoned, found that they would be at home, then he set out
with his wife to walk the short distance to their house.
Something was the matter with the car, and it had been sent to the
repair shop, unfortunately, oh! most unfortunately.