When Marion De Lorme first moved into the big, forbidding house
facing the monument at Confederate Circle, he was no doubt the
loneliest and most friendless boy in all of Louisville. He had no
remembrance of his mother other than a little snapshot of a small and
frightened looking woman with a bouncing baby in her arms. As for
his father, silent, stooped and almost blind, he knew little of and
seemed to care less for the stalwart, handsome lad whom he
occasionally used as a staff but more frequently sent out of his
presence. One thing Mr. De Lorme required of the boy, and that was
regularity in his school attendance and good rating in his studies.
Marion was the star student wherever he went, but with all his
application he knew that he could not offer a report to his father
that would wholly meet with his approval.
When Marion heard him railing over a percentage of ninety-eight and
declaring that the boys of the present day were no good, and Marion
the worst of the lot, his son was sometimes tempted to bring him a
percentage of about sixty, just to see the result.
Mr. De Lorme was a chemist. He had long since explained his business
or profession to his son. He was an analytical chemist, and his work
was all done in his private laboratory, for big firms, corporations,
and sometimes even for nations. It was a strange business. Marion
had long ceased feeling any curiosity concerning the queer looking,
whiskered persons who came to the house, usually during the evening,
any more than he hoped to have any acquaintance with the suave,
perfectly-dressed gentlemen who drove up in taxis during the day.
All these visitors, clients or customers called but rarely. All day
long Mr. De Lorme, shut up in his laboratory, worked away with his
strange and delicate instruments, leaving Marion to his own devices,
with two ironclad rules: the first, that he should stand always at
the head of his classes; the second, that no other boys should ever
be permitted to enter the house.
Every morning, early, before school time, leaning heavily on his
son’s arm, Mr. De Lorme made the round of the park three times.
Every night after dark he repeated the journey. Marion dreaded these
walks. His father, stumbling and nearly blind, attracted a good deal
of sympathetic attention.
One thing puzzled Marion a great deal, and that was how his father,
handicapped by his blindness, could put through laboratory tests that
called for the most exquisite accuracy of sight as well as touch and
judgment. He decided that the young assistant who worked always with
his father must supply in himself the needed vision.
Marion hated the assistant, a greasy, dark-browed, long-haired fellow
named Zipousky, but who answered cheerfully enough to Zip. Zip was a
strange mixture of youth and age. Marion doubted if there was much
of anything that he did not know, yet the fellow showed an almost
pathetic eagerness to be with Marion.
When the De Lormes moved to Louisville from Chicago, Marion
determined to make some friends. He spent many evenings walking up
and down the block, his eyes seeking the uncurtained windows where he
could catch glimpses of the family life he so longed for. But the
silence of the De Lorme household seemed to throw a spell over the
boy. Other boys felt it and made few advances. And Marion did not
know how to come half way.
Eddie Rowland did not mind that at all. He was willing to go half
way, and able to go the rest of the way if necessary. A stranger to
Eddie meant a territory to explore, a new country to travel. So he
proceeded to explore Marion, to that young man’s great surprise. He
liked it. He liked the way Eddie scorned the name Marion and called
him Dee, introducing him as such to the other fellows in the
neighborhood. He liked the incidental way in which Eddie treated
Marion’s halting excuses for not asking any of the boys to his great
gloomy house.
“I should worry!” said Eddie airily. “Beats the deuce how a fellow’s
folks cut up sometimes! Wish you could have seen my father once when
I brought home a goat. Dandy little one, just a baby. I was going
to feed it with a bottle. I only paid a quarter for it, and a dime
for the bottle. I got the bottle cheap off Skinny Tweeters. It was
one their baby had, but Skinny said she had two, three other ones, so
he let me have it cheap. Well, say, Dee, you would have thought I
had brought an elephant the way dad cut up! I had to give it away,
and lost the quarter, and Skinny wouldn’t take the bottle back
either. Said their baby wouldn’t eat after a goat. Such airs! What
would she know about it? Huh? Gee, I think you are lucky, myself,
to get out all you want to except being home to take your dad out for
a walk. Just you come along with me, and you will get to know all
the fellows in two shakes. It’s a dandy crowd up here on Confederate
Place. Why, trouble is the boys think you are proud.”
“Proud!” said Dee with a groan. “Why, Rowland, I am crazy to know
the fellows.”
“Then that’s all there is about it,” said Eddie. “Can you play
tennis?”
Dee could and would play tennis, and showed himself such a general
good sort that Eddie sang his praises loudly.
It was nearly supper time on the great day of the founding of the
Wireless Club before Eddie had time to go down to Dee’s house and
whistle. Dee came out immediately, cap and slicker in hand.
“That’s right!” Eddie sang out. “Got something important to tell
you.” He hurried him up the street to Bill’s and they went running
up to the club room, looking better than ever in the fading light.
Dee was crazy over the idea.
“What are you going to do for lights?” he asked.
“Don’t know,” said Bill. “I suppose we will have to meet in the
house at night, because I don’t think dad will like the idea of a
coal oil lamp.”
“Well, here is where _I_ come in,” said Dee with a sigh of genuine
pleasure. “If there is one thing I can do, it is wire for
electricity. In Chicago I had a license.”
“Well, if this isn’t falling on the soft side of the fence!” chortled
Eddie. “What will it cost us?”
“I don’t think it will cost us anything,” said Dee. “I think I
brought enough wire and fittings along with me.”
“Let’s go get ’em now,” said Bill, beaming.
“All right,” said Dee. “They are pretty bulky.”
The boys went down the street, Skinny and Fat trailing along behind.
When they reached the house, the boys, at Eddie’s suggestion, sat in
a row on the step, while Dee went in to find his wires. Eddie took
the opportunity to tell the boys about Dee’s peculiar father. They
were not particularly interested because as Eddie had said, you never
can tell what a fellow’s folks are apt to do.
Fatty Bascom was on the end of the line and as he sat there he became
conscious of an odor that filled him with a great longing. He was
minded to hurry off to his own home and call for supper, but the
fragrance that trailed around the corner of the house was too good to
leave. It seemed to be a mixed smell. Perhaps fried chicken and
tarts, and fruit cake, and prune soufflé and plum pudding could make
it, but there was a palate-tickling tang besides that Fatty had never
known. He hitched himself over, and lifted a keen nose in the air.
It was a hot smell, too. Something for Dee’s supper put out on the
pantry window to cool; that was it.
Fatty could not endure it. He felt that he owed it to himself to see
what it was. He knew if he could tell his mother about it, she would
make him one. Quietly, without ostentation, he slid down and
followed his nose around toward the back of the house. Passing
through a high trellised gate, he gained the back yard and the
bricked porch outside the kitchen. Something was steaming on the
sill of the window--a window just too high for Fatty to reach. He
was all honest boy. He would not have taken a crumb, he would not
have touched the _edge_ even of the mysterious dish, but he could not
resist a look. The light from the kitchen streamed out, making the
porch quite light. From within, Fatty heard an old voice singing
something in a strange, guttural tongue. It made Fatty feel very
queer. He looked around for something to stand on. There were three
small boxes, quite new, standing on end against the house. Fatty
noiselessly piled them under the window, then regardless of his muddy
feet, mounted and received the shock of his life. While he had
stooped to fix the boxes, someone had removed the dish! It was
_gone_! Fatty ground a heel into the soft pine box in his rage, then
sulkily betook himself back to his mates.
No one had seen him; no one had missed him. He resumed his seat, and
soon Dee appeared, piled high with all sorts of things for wiring the
club room. He made three trips before he was ready to take the
things up to Bill’s and, each one accepting a share of the load, they
carried their treasure and put it carefully in Bill’s attic.
Then Dee had to hurry home to supper, and Fatty thought with anguish
of the mysterious dish. He signalled to Skinny Tweeters, and they
walked down with Dee.
“Got a good cook?” asked Fatty.
“I suppose so,” said Dee. “I never thought much about it. She gives
us plenty.”
“I thought I smelt something cooking when we were down there
tonight,” remarked Fatty. “Made me wonder if she was a good cook.”
“I guess she is all right,” said Dee.
Fatty held his breath, but nothing more was said. No offer to find
out what it was, no suggestion that Dee would go _get_ a piece for
Fatty. There was nothing, absolutely _nothing_ to do but say
good-night and go home; which Fatty did, marvelling at the stupidity
of Marion De Lorme.
Dee found his father waiting for him, and as they walked slowly
around the little park, Mr. De Lorme asked Dee what he had been doing
with himself. Dee told him briefly and then, growing enthusiastic,
told his father that six of the neighborhood boys were starting a
club. He was about to add that it was a wireless club, but his
father interrupted.
“A club, eh?” he snarled disagreeably. “Um! Well, you are about the
age to take that disease. All boys want to form a club. Go ahead;
but see that you don’t get into mischief.”
“I do not intend to get into any scrapes,” said Dee. “I never have,
have I?”
“Not yet,” said Mr. De Lorme. “I just warned you. I am a busy man,
an important man and I must not be disturbed.”
“I should think some of the cut-throat looking people who come to the
house would disturb you,” said Dee. “A lot of them look like
Bolsheviki, and a lot of them like plain tramps.”
Mr. De Lorme was silent for a moment. “You can’t judge a man by his
looks, young man. Some day you may be glad to be included in the
circle with just such men. The efforts of those very men will be
felt as long as the nation stands.”
“I should think they might shave,” objected Dee.
“Stop criticizing!” ordered his father, bringing his cane down with a
stroke as though it was a sword. “But there! What does it matter?
If you are worthy of knowledge, some day we will see. In the
meantime, amuse yourself. What do the boys think of your father?”
Dee sensed that this apparently trivial question was really an
important one.
“They think you are about like most everybody’s father, only they are
sorry you can’t see better.”
Mr. De Lorme nodded and sighed. “That’s so,” he said. “I am glad
they are so sympathetic. Tell them that your poor old father is
almost blind; almost blind, Marion.”
“I have,” said Marion, wondering at his father’s whining tone. “And
tell them I must have peace, peace and quiet for my studies: that is
why you cannot entertain them.” He shuddered. “Why, Marion, a jar
in that house, a heavy fall sometimes, well, it would upset some of
my finest and most difficult calculations.”
“I know, father,” said Dee gently. “You have always told me that. I
would not injure your work for the world. I am sure it is important.
I don’t see, though, why you never let me come into the laboratory.
What harm could I do?”
Mr. De Lorme shook his head.
“Not yet!” he said. “Get your schooling, get through your play, and
then you will be ready for what I have in mind for you.”
They had made the third round of the Park and as they approached the
house Zip ran out and bought an extra from a passing, yelling newsie.
He glanced at the headlines, smiled and as Mr. De Lorme made his way
up the steps, spoke to him rapidly in Russian.
“Good, good!” said Mr. De Lorme. “Sooner than I expected!”
“And so neatly; with such power!” said Zip, breaking into English.
“I congratulate you, sir.”
“It is nothing, Zip; nothing!” said Mr. De Lorme, looking pleased
however.
He dropped Dee’s arm, and placing his hand affectionately on Zip’s
shoulder walked upstairs. Zip had dropped the paper. Dee picked it
up and carefully looked it over. He could not find a single word
about chemistry or anything else that might have a bearing on his
father’s work.
He refolded the paper, and for the first time noticed running across
the front page, in enormous letters:
ANOTHER BOMB DELIVERED
TO MAYOR SCUDDER OF CHICAGO
SAVED BY THE QUICK WIT OF HIS SECRETARY
Dee threw the paper on the floor.
“Every one of those fellows mixed up in these bomb plots ought to be
hanged!” he said to himself.