On a certain bleak day in the month of March, J. Addison Hammond, Jr.,
tenaciously at work upon certain plans and drawings that were destined
at a not far distant date to bring him a measure of fame and fortune,
started impatiently from his seat and cursed that "gosh-ding-danged
telephone."
Jerry at this stage of his picturesque career occupied what is known in
New York City, and possibly other equally enlightened cities, as a
duplex studio. Called "duplex" for no very clear reason. It consists of
one very large room (called "atelier" by artistic tenants and those who
have lived or wanted to live in France). This room is notable not merely
for its size, but its height, the ceiling not unsimilar to the vaulted
one of a church, or a glorified attic. Adjustable skylights lend the
desired light. About this main room, and midway of the wall, is a
gallery which runs on all four sides, and on this gallery are doors
opening into sundry rooms designated as bedrooms. The arrangement is an
excellent one, since it gives one practically two floors. That, no
doubt, is why we call it "duplex." We have a weakness for one floor
bungalows when we build houses these days, but for apartments and
studios the epicure demands the duplex.
In this especial duplex studio there also abode one t, or as he was
familiarly known to the friends of Jerry Hammond, "Hatty." Hatty, then,
was the valet and man of all work in the employ of Jerry. He was a
marvellous cook, an extraordinary house cleaner, an incomparable valet,
and to complete the perfections of this jewel, possessed solely by the
apparently fortunate Jerry, his manners, his face and his form were of
that ideal sort seen only in fiction and never in life. Nevertheless the
incomparable Hatton, or Hatty, was a visible fact in the life and studio
of Jerry Hammond.
Having detailed the talents of Hatty, it is painful here to admit a flaw
in the character of the otherwise perfect valet. This flaw he had very
honestly divulged to Jerry at the time of entering his employ, and the
understanding was that upon such occasions when said flaw was due to
have its day, the master was to forbear from undue criticism or from
discharging said Hatton from his employ. Hatton, at this time, earnestly
assured the man in whose employ he desired to enter, that he could
always depend upon his returning to service in a perfectly normal state,
and life would resume its happy way under his competent direction.
It so happened upon this especial night, when that "pestiferous"
telephone kept up its everlasting ringing--a night when Jerry hugged his
head in his hands, calling profanely and imploringly upon Christian and
heathen saints and gods to leave him undisturbed--that Hatton lay on his
bed above, in a state of oblivion from which it would seem a charge of
dynamite could not have awakened him.
For the fiftieth or possibly hundredth time Jerry bitterly swore that he
would fire that "damned Englishman" (Hatton was English) on the
following day. He had had enough of him. Whenever he especially needed
quiet and service, that was the time the "damned Englishman" chose to
break loose and go on one of his infernal sprees. For the fourth time
within half an hour Jerry seized that telephone and shouted into the
receiver:
"What in hades do you want?"
The response was a long and continuous buzzing, through which a
jabbering female tongue screeched that it was Y. Dubaday talking. It
sounded like "Y. Dubaday," but Jerry knew no one of that name, and so
emphatically stated, adding to the fact that he didn't know anyone of
that name and didn't want to, and if this was their idea of a joke----"
He hung up at this juncture, seized his head, groaned, walked up and
down swearing softly and almost weeping with nervousness and
distraction. Finally with a sigh of hopelessness as he realised the
impossibility of concentrating on that night, Jerry gathered up his
tools and pads, packed them into a portfolio, which he craftily hid
under a mass of papers--Jerry knew where he could put his hands on any
desired one--got his pipe, pulled up before the waning fire, gave it a
shove, put on a fresh log, lit his pipe, stretched out his long legs,
put his brown head back against the chair, and sought what comfort there
might be left to an exasperated young aspirant for fame who had been
interrupted a dozen times inside of an hour or so. Hardly had he settled
down into this comparative comfort when that telephone rang again. Jerry
was angry now--"hopping mad." He lifted that receiver with ominous
gentleness, and his voice was silken.
"What can I do for you, fair one?"
Curiously enough the buzzing had completely stopped and the fair one's
reply came vibrating clearly into his listening ear.
"Mr. Hammond?"
"Well, what of it?"
"Mr. Hammond, manager of some corporation or company in Japan?"
"What are you talking about?"
"If you'll hold the wire long enough to take a message from a friend
I'll deliver it."
"Friend, eh? Who is he? I'd like to get a look at him this moment. Take
your time."
"Well, I've no time to talk nonsense. This is the Y. W. C. A. speaking,
and there's a young lady here, who says she--er--belongs to you.
She----"
"What? Say that again, please."
"A young lady that appears to be related to you--says you are her
guardian or manager or something of the sort. She was delivered to the
Y. by the Reverend Miss Miriam Richardson, in whose care she was placed
by the Mission Society of--er--Naggysack, Japan. One minute, I'll get
her name again."
A photograph of Jerry at this stage would have revealed a young man
sitting at a telephone desk, registering a conflict of feelings and
emotions indicative of consternation, guilt, tenderness, fear, terror,
compunction, meanness and idiocy. When that official voice came over the
wire a second time, Jerry all but collapsed against the table, holding
the receiver uncertainly in the direction of that ear that still heard
the incredible news and confirmed his fears:
"Name--Miss Sindicutt."
Silence, during which the other end apparently heard not that
exclamation of desperation: "Ye gods and little fishes!" for it resumed
complacently:
"Shall we send her up to you?"
"No, no, for heaven's sake don't. That is, wait a bit, will you? Give me
a chance to get over the----" Jerry was about to say "shock," but
stopped himself in time and with as much composure as he could muster he
told the Y. W. C. A. that he was busy just now, but would call later,
and advise them what to do in the--under his breath he said
"appalling"--circumstances.
Slowly Jerry put the receiver back on the hook. He remained in the chair
like one who has received a galvanic shock. That Japanese girl, of a
preposterous dream, had actually followed him to America! She was
here--right in New York City. It was fantastic, impossible! Ha, ha! it
would be funny, if it were not so danged impossible. In the United
States, of all places! She, who ought to be right among her heathens,
making good converts. What in the name of common sense had she come to
the States for? Why couldn't she let Jerry alone, when he was up to his
neck in plans that he fairly knew were going to create an upheaval in
the architectural world? Just because he had befriended her in his
infernal youth, he could not be expected to be responsible for her for
the rest of her days. Besides, he, Jerry, was not the only one in that
comic opera Syndicate. The thought of his partners in crime, as they now
seemed to him, brought him up again before that telephone, seizing upon
it this time as a last straw.
He was fortunate to get in touch with all three of the members of the
former Sunny Syndicate Limited. While Monty and Bobs rushed over
immediately, Jinx escaped from the Appawamis Golf Club where for weeks
he had been vainly trying to get rid of some of his superfluous flesh by
chasing little red balls over the still snow bound course, flung himself
into his powerful Rolls Royce, and went speeding along the Boston Post
Road at a rate that caused an alarm to be sent out for him from point to
point. Not swift enough, however, to keep up with the fat man in the
massive car that "made the grade" to New York inside of an hour, and
rushed like a juggernaut over the slick roads and the asphalt pavements
of Manhattan.
Jerry's summons to his college friends had been in the nature of an S.
O. S. call for help. On the telephone he vouchsafed merely the
information that it was "a deadly matter of life and death."
The astounding news he flung like a bomb at each hastily arriving member
of the late Syndicate. When the first excitement had subsided, the
paramount feeling was one of consternation and alarm.
"Gosh!" groaned Jinx, "what in the name of thunderation are you going to
do with a Japanese girl in New York City? I pity you, Jerry, for of
course you are mainly responsible----"
"Responsible nothing----" from the indignant Jerry, wheeling about with
a threatening look at that big "fathead." "I presume I was the _only_
member of that--er--syndicate."
"At least it was your idea," said Monty, extremely anxious to get back
to the hospital, where he had been personally supervising a case of
Circocele.
"You might have known," suggested Bobs, "that she was bound to turn out
a Frankenstein. Of course, we'll all stand by you, old scout, but you
know how I am personally situated."
Jerry's wrathful glare embraced the circle of his renegade friends.
"You're a fine bunch of snobs. I'm not stuck myself on having a Jap girl
foisted on to my hands, and there'll be a mess of explanations to my
friends and people, and the Lord only knows how I'll ever be able to put
my mind back on my work and---- At the same time, I'm not so white
livered that I'm going to flunk the responsibility. We
encouraged--invited her to join us out here. I did. You did, so did you,
and you! I heard you all--every last one of you, and you can't deny it."
"Well, it was one thing to sentimentalise over a pretty little Jap in
Japan," growled Bobs, who was not a snob, but in spite of his profession
at heart something of a stickler for the conventions, "but it's another
proposition here. Of course, as I said, we fellows all intend to stand
by you." (Grunts of unwilling assent from Monty and Jinx.) "We aren't
going to welch on our part of the job, and right here we may as well
plan out some scheme to work this thing properly. Suppose we make the
most of the matter for the present. We'll keep her down there at that
'Y.' Do you see? Then, we can each do something to--er--make it--well
uncomfortable for her here. We'll freeze her out if it comes down to
that. Make her feel that this U. S. A. isn't all it's cracked up to be,
and she'll get home-sick for her gods and goddesses and at the
psychological moment when she's feeling her worst, why we'll just slip
her aboard ship, and there you are."
"Great mind! Marvellous intellect you got, Bobs. In the first place, the
'Y' informed me on the 'phone that they are sending her here. They are
waiting now for me to give the word when to despatch her, in fact. Now
the question is"--Jerry looked sternly at his friends--"which one of
your families would be decent enough to give a temporary home to Sunny?
My folks as you know are out of the reckoning, as I'm an outlaw from
there myself."
Followed a heated argument and explanations. Monty's people lived in
Philadelphia. He himself abode at the Bellevue Hospital. That, so he
said, let him out. Not at all, from Jerry's point of view. Philadelphia,
said Jerry, was only a stone's throw from New York. Monty, exasperated,
retorted that he didn't propose to throw stones at his folks. Monty, who
had made such warm promises to Sunny!
Bobs shared a five-room bachelor flat with two other newspaper men.
Their hours were uncertain, and their actions erratic. Often they played
poker till the small hours of the morning. Sunny would not fit into the
atmosphere of smoke and disorder, though she was welcome to come, if she
could stand the "gaff." Bobs' people lived in Virginia. His several
sisters, Bobs was amusedly assured, would hardly put the girl from Japan
at her ease.
Jinx, on whom Jerry now pinned a hopeful eye, blustered shamelessly, as
he tried to explain his uncomfortable position in the world. When not at
his club in New York, he lived with a sister, Mrs. Vanderlump, and her
growing family in the Crawford mansion at Newport. Said sister dominated
this palatial abode and brother Jinx escaped to New York upon occasions
in a true Jiggsian manner, using craft and ingenuity always to escape
the vigilant eye and flaying tongue of a sister who looked for the worst
and found it. It was hard for Jinx to admit to his friends that he was
horribly henpecked, but he appealed to them as follows:
"Have a heart about this thing. I ask you, what is a fellow to do when
he's got a sister on his back like that? If she suspects every little
innocent chorus girl of the town, what is she going to say to Sunny when
that kid goes up before her in tights?"
It is extraordinary how we think of people we have not seen in years as
they were when first we saw them. In the heat of argument, no one
troubled to point out to Jinx that the Sunny who had come upon the tight
rope that first night must have long since graduated from that
reprehensible type of dress or rather undress.
Finally, and as a last resort, a night letter was despatched to
Professor Timothy Barrowes. All were now agreed that he was the one most
competent to settle the matter of the disposition of Sunny, and all
agreed to abide by his decision.
At this juncture, and when a sense of satisfaction in having "passed the
buck" to the competent man of archæology had temporarily cheered them, a
tapping was heard upon the studio door. Not the thumping of the goblin's
head of the Italian iron knocker; not the shriek of the electric buzzer
from the desk below, warning of the approach of a visitor. Just a soft
taptapping upon the door, repeated several times, as no one answered,
and increasing in noise and persistence.
A long, a silent, a deadly pause ensued. At that moment each found
himself attributing to that girl they had known in Japan, and whom they
realised was on the other side of that door, certain characteristic
traits and peculiarities charming enough in Japan but impossible to
think of as in America. To each young man there came a mental picture of
a bizarre and curious little figure, adorned with blazingly bright
kimona and obi--a brilliant patch of colour, her bobbed hair and
straight bangs seeming somehow incongruous and adding to her fantastic
appearance. After all, in spite of her hair, she was typical of that
land of crooked streets, and paper houses, and people who walked on the
wrong side and mounted their horses from the front. The thought of that
girl in New York City grated against their sensibilities. She didn't
belong and she never could belong was their internal verdict.
It may have been only a coincidence, but it seemed weird, that Hatton,
lately so dead to the world, should appear at that psychological moment
on the steps of the gallery, immaculate in dress and with that cool air
of superiority and efficiency that was part of his assets, descend in
his stately and perfect way, approach the door as a butler should, and
softly, imperturbably fling that door open. His back retained its stiff
straight line, that went so well with the uniform Hatton insisted upon
donning, but his head went sideways forward in that inimitable bow that
Hatton always reserved for anything especially attractive in the female
line.
Upon the threshold there looked back at Hatton, and then beyond him, a
girl whom the startled young men took at first to be a perfect stranger.
She wore a plain blue serge suit, belted at the waist, with a white
collar and jabot. A sailor hat, slightly rolled, crushed down the hair
that still shone above the face whose remarkable beauty owed much to a
certain quaintness of expression. She stood silently, without moving,
for what seemed a long moment to them all, and then suddenly she spoke,
breathlessly and with that little catch in her voice, and her tone, her
look, her words, her quick motions so characteristic of the little girl
they had known, broke the spell of silence and let loose a flood of such
warm memories that all the mean and harsh and contemptible thoughts of
but a moment since were dissipated forever.
They crowded about her, hanging upon and hungry for her unabashed and
delighted words, and dazzled by the girl's uncanny loveliness.
"Jinx! Thad are you! I know you by your so nize fat!"
She had not lost her adorable accent. Indeed, if they could but have
realised it, Sunny had changed not at all. She had simply grown up.
Jinx's soft hands were holding the two little fragrant ones thrust so
joyously into his own. The fat fellow fought a sudden maddening desire
to hug like a bear the girl whose bright eyes were searching his own so
lovingly.
"Monty! Oh, you have grow into whole mans. _How_ it is nize. And you
still smile on me troo those glass ad you eye."
Smile! Monty was grinning like the proverbial Cheshire cat. That case of
Circocele at Bellevue hospital had vanished into the dim regions of
young Monty's mind. Anyway there were a score of other Internes there,
and Monty had his permit in his pocket.
"Bobs! Is thad youself, wiz those fonny liddle hair grow om your mout'.
_How_ it is grow nize on you face. I lig' him there."
Any doubt that Bobs had experienced as to the desirability of that
incipient moustache vanished then and there.
And Jerry! Jerry, for the last, to be looked at with shining eyes, till
something tightened in his throat, and his mind leaped over the years
and felt again that dizzy, tingling, electrical sensation when Sunny had
asked him to kiss her.