III

The sun never shone more brightly and the air was never more clear and

bracing than when Sinclair helped his wife off the train at Pawnee

Junction. The station-master's face fell as he saw the lady, but he

saluted the engineer with as easy an air as he could assume, and

watched for an opportunity to speak to him alone. Sinclair read the

despatches with an unmoved countenance, and after a few minutes'

reflection simply said: "All right. Be sure to keep the matter

perfectly quiet." At breakfast he was _distrait_--so much so that his

wife asked him what was the matter. Taking her aside, he at once showed

her the telegrams.

"You see my duty," he said. "My only thought is about you, my dear

child. Will you stay here?"

She simply replied, looking into his face without a tremor:

"My place is with you." Then the conductor called "All aboard," and the

train once more started.

Sinclair asked Foster to join him in the smoking compartment and tell

him the promised story, which the latter did. His rescue at Barker's,

he frankly and gratefully said, _had_ been the turning point in his

life. In brief, he had "sworn off" from gambling and drinking, had

found honest employment, and was doing well.

"I've two things to do now, Major," he added; "first, I must show my

gratitude to you; and next"--he hesitated a little--"I want to find

that poor girl that I left behind at Barker's. She was engaged to marry

me, and when I came to think of it, and what a life I'd have made her

lead, I hadn't the heart till now to look for her; but, seeing I'm on

the right track, I'm going to find her, and get her to come with me.

Her father's an--old scoundrel; but that ain't her fault, and I ain't

going to marry _him_."

"Foster," quietly asked Sinclair, "do you know the Perry gang?"

The man's brow darkened.

"Know them?" said he. "I know them much too well. Perry is as ungodly a

cutthroat as ever killed an emigrant in cold blood, and he's got in his

gang nearly all those hounds that tried to hang me. Why do you ask,

Major?"

Sinclair handed him the despatches. "You are the only man on the train

to whom I have shown them," said he.

Foster read them slowly, his eyes lighting up as he did so. "Looks as

if it was true," said he. "Let me see! Fort ----. Yes, that's the --th

infantry. Two of their boys were killed at Sidney last summer by some

of the same gang, and the regiment's sworn vengeance. Major, if this

story's on the square, that crowd's goose is cooked, and _don't you

forget it_! I say, you must give me a hand in."

"Foster," said Sinclair, "I am going to put responsibility on your

shoulders. I have no doubt that, if we be attacked, the soldiers will

dispose of the gang; but I must take all possible precautions for the

safety of the passengers. We must not alarm them. They can be made to

think that the troops are going on a scout, and only a certain number

of resolute men need be told of what we expect. Can you, late this

afternoon, go through the cars, and pick them out? I will then put you

in charge of the passenger cars, and you can post your men on the

platforms to act in case of need. My place will be ahead."

"Major, you can depend on me," was Foster's reply. "I'll go through the

train and have my eye on some boys of the right sort, and that's got

their shooting-irons with them."

Through the hours of that day on rolled the train, still over the crisp

buffalo grass, across the well-worn buffalo trails, past the

prairie-dog villages. The passengers chatted, dozed, played cards,

read, all unconscious, with the exception of three, of the coming

conflict between the good and the evil forces bearing on their fate; of

the fell preparations making for their disaster; of the grim

preparations making to avert such disaster; of all of which the little

wires alongside of them had been talking back and forth. Watkins had

telegraphed that he still saw no reason to doubt the good faith of his

warning, and Sinclair had reported his receipt of authority and his

acceptance thereof. Meanwhile, also, there had been set in motion a

measure of that power to which appeal is so reluctantly made in time of

peace. At Fort ------, a lonely post on the plains, the orders had that

morning been issued for twenty men under Lieutenant Halsey to parade at

4 p. M., with overcoats, two days' rations, and ball cartridges; also

for Assistant Surgeon Kesler to report for duty with the party. Orders

as to destination were communicated direct to the lieutenant from the

post commander, and on the minute the little column moved, taking the

road to the station. The regiment from which it came had been in active

service among the Indians on the frontier for a long time, and the

officers and men were tried and seasoned fighters. Lieutenant Halsey

had been well known at the West Point balls as the "leader of the

german." From the last of these balls he had gone straight to the

field, and three years had given him an enviable reputation for

_sang-froid_ and determined bravery. He looked every inch the soldier

as he walked along the trail, his cloak thrown back and his sword

tucked under his arm. The doctor, who carried a Modoc bullet in some

inaccessible part of his scarred body, growled good-naturedly at the

need of walking, and the men, enveloped in their army-blue overcoats,

marched easily by fours. Reaching the station, the lieutenant called

the agent aside, and with him inspected, on a siding, a long platform

car on which benches had been placed and secured. Then he took his seat

in the station and quietly waited, occasionally twisting his long blond

mustache. The doctor took a cigar with the agent, and the men walked

about or sat on the edge of the platform. One of them, who obtained a

surreptitious glance at his silent commander, told his companions that

there was trouble ahead for somebody.

"That's just the way the leftenant looked, boys," said he, "when we was

laying for them Apaches that raided Jones's Ranch and killed the women

and little children."

In a short time the officer looked at his watch, formed his men, and

directed them to take their places on the seats of the car. They had

hardly done so when the whistle of the approaching train was heard.

When it came up, the conductor, who had his instructions from Sinclair,

had the engine detached and backed on the siding for the soldiers' car,

which thus came between it and the foremost baggage car when the train

was again made up. As arranged, it was announced that the troops were

to be taken a certain distance to join a scouting party, and the

curiosity of the passengers was but slightly excited. The soldiers sat

quietly in their seats, their repeating rifles held between their

knees, and the officer in front. Sinclair joined the latter, and had a

few words with him as the train moved on. A little later, when the

stars were shining brightly overhead, they passed into the express car,

and sent for the conductor and other trainmen, and for Foster. In a few

words Sinclair explained the position of affairs. His statement was

received with perfect coolness, and the men only asked what they were

to do.

"I hope, boys," said Sinclair, "that we are going to put this gang

to-night where they will make no more trouble. Lieutenant Halsey will

bear the brunt of the fight, and it only remains for you to stand by

the interests committed to your care. Mr. Express Agent, what help do

you want?" The person addressed, a good-natured giant, girded with a

cartridge belt, smiled as he replied:

"Well, sir, I'm wearing a watch which the company gave me for standing

off the James gang in Missouri for half an hour, when we hadn't the

ghost of a soldier about. I'll take the contract, and welcome, to hold

_this_ fort alone."

"Very well," said Sinclair. "Foster, what progress have you made?"

"Major, I've got ten or fifteen as good men as ever drew a bead, and

just red-hot for a fight."

"That will do very well. Conductor, give the trainmen the rifles from

the baggage car and let them act under Mr. Foster. Now, boys, I am sure

you will do your duty. That is all."

From the next station Sinclair telegraphed "All ready" to the

superintendent, who was pacing his office in much suspense. Then he

said a few words to his brave but anxious wife, and walked to the rear

platform. On it were several armed men, who bade him good-evening, and

asked "when the fun was going to begin." Walking through the train, he

found each platform similarly occupied, and Foster going from one to

the other. The latter whispered as he passed him:

"Major, I found Arizona Joe, the scout, in the smokin' car, and he's on

the front platform. That lets me out, and although I know as well as

you that there ain't any danger about that rear sleeper where the madam

is, I ain't a-going to be far off from her." Sinclair shook him by the

hand; then he looked at his watch. It was half-past eight. He passed

through the baggage and express cars, finding in the latter the agent

sitting behind his safe, on which lay two large revolvers. On the

platform car he found the soldiers and their commander sitting silent

and unconcerned as before. When Sinclair reached the latter and nodded,

he rose and faced the men, and his fine voice was clearly heard above

the rattle of the train.

"Company, 'ten_tion_!" The soldiers straightened themselves in a

second.

"With ball cartridge, _load_!" It was done with the precision of a

machine. Then the lieutenant spoke, in the same clear, crisp, tones

that the troops had heard in more than one fierce battle.

"Men," said he, "in a few minutes the Perry gang, which you will

remember, are going to try to run this train off the track, wound and

kill the passengers, and rob the cars and the United States mail. It is

our business to prevent them. Sergeant Wilson" (a gray-bearded

non-commissioned officer stood up and saluted), "I am going on the

engine. See that my orders are repeated. Now, men, aim low, and don't

waste any shots." He and Sinclair climbed over the tender and spoke to

the engine-driver.

"How are the air-brakes working?" asked Sinclair.

"First-rate."

"Then, if you slowed down now, you could stop the train in a third of

her length, couldn't you?"

"Easy, if you don't mind being shaken up a bit."

"That is good. How is the country about the --xth mile-post?"

"Dead level, and smooth."

"Good again. Now, Lieutenant Halsey, this is a splendid head-light, and

we can see a long way with my night glass. I will have a--"

"--2d mile-pole just past," interrupted the engine-driver.

"Only one more to pass, then, before we ought to strike them. Now,

lieutenant, I undertake to stop the train within a very short distance

of the gang. They will be on both sides of the track, no doubt; and the

ground, as you hear, is quite level. You will best know what to do."

The officer stepped back. "Sergeant," called he, "do you hear me

plainly?" "Yes, sir."

"Have the men fix bayonets. When the train stops, and I wave my sword,

let half jump off each side, run up quickly, and form line _abreast of

the engine_--not ahead."

"Jack," said Sinclair to the engine-driver, "is your hand steady?" The

man held it up with a smile. "Good. Now stand by your throttle and your

air-brake. Lieutenant, better warn the men to hold on tight, and tell

the sergeant to pass the word to the boys on the platforms, or they

will be knocked off by the sudden stop. Now for a look ahead!" and he

brought the binocular to his eyes.

The great parabolic head-light illuminated the track a long way in

advance, all behind it being of course in darkness. Suddenly Sinclair

cried out:

"The fools have a light there, as I am a living man; and there is a

little red one near us. What can that be? All ready, Jack! By heaven!

they have taken up two rails. Now _hold on, all_! STOP HER!!"

The engine-driver shut his throttle-valve with a jerk. Then, holding

hard by it, he sharply turned a brass handle. There was a fearful

jolt--a grating--and the train's way was checked. The lieutenant,

standing sidewise, had drawn his sword. He waved it, and almost before

he could get off the engine the soldiers were up and forming, still in

shadow, while the bright light was thrown on a body of men ahead.

"Surrender, or you are dead men!" roared the officer. Curses and

several shots were the reply. Then came the orders, quick and sharp:

"_Forward! Close tip! Double-quick! Halt!_ FIRE!" . . . It was speedily

over. Left on the car with the men, the old sergeant had said:

"Boys, you hear. It's that ------ Perry gang. Now, don't forget Larry

and Charley that they murdered last year," and there had come from the

soldiers a sort of fierce, subdued _growl_. The volley was followed by

a bayonet charge, and it required all the officer's authority to save

the lives even of those who "threw up their hands." Large as the gang

was (outnumbering the troops), well armed and desperate as they were,

every one was dead, wounded, or a prisoner when the men who guarded the

train platforms ran up. The surgeon, with professional coolness, walked

up to the robbers, his instrument case under his arm.

"Not much for me to do here, Lieutenant," said he. "That practice for

Creedmoor is telling on the shooting. Good thing for the gang, too.

Bullets are better than rope, and a Colorado jury will give them plenty

of that."

Sinclair had sent a man to tell his wife that all was over. Then he

ordered a fire lighted, and the rails relaid. The flames lit a strange

scene as the passengers flocked up. The lieutenant posted men to keep

them back.

"Is there a telegraph station not far ahead, Sinclair?" asked he. "Yes?

All right." He drew a small pad from his pocket, and wrote a despatch

to the post commander.

"Be good enough to send that for me," said he, "and leave orders at

Barker's for the night express eastward to stop for us, and bring a

posse to take care of the wounded and prisoners. And now, my dear

Sinclair, I suggest that you get the passengers into the cars, and go

on as soon as those rails are spiked. When they realize the situation,

some of them will feel precious ugly, and you know we can't have any

lynching."

Sinclair glanced at the rails and gave the word at once to the

conductor and brakemen, who began vociferating, "All aboard!"' Just

then Foster appeared, an expression of intense satisfaction showing

clearly on his face, in the firelight.

"Major," said he, "I didn't use to take much stock in special

Providence, or things being ordered; but I'm darned if I don't believe

in them from this day. I was bound to stay where you put me, but I was

uneasy, and wild to be in the scrimmage; and, if I had been there, I

wouldn't have taken notice of a little red light that wasn't much

behind the rear platform when we stopped. When I saw there was no

danger there I ran back, and what do you think I found? There was a

woman in a dead faint, and just clutching a lantern that she had tied

up in a red scarf, poor little thing! And, Major, it was Sally! It was

the little girl that loved me out at Barker's, and has loved me and

waited for me ever since! And when she came to, and knew me, she was so

glad she 'most fainted away again; and she let on as it was her that

gave away the job. And I took her into the sleeper, and the madam, God

bless her!--she knew Sally before and was good to her--she took care of

her and is cheering her up. And now, Major, I'm going to take her

straight to Denver, and send for a parson and get her married to me,

and she'll brace up, sure pop."

The whistle sounded, and the train started. From the window of the

"sleeper" Sinclair and his wife took their last look at the weird

scene. The lieutenant, standing at the side of the track, wrapped in

his cloak, caught a glimpse of Mrs. Sinclair's pretty face, and

returned her bow. Then, as the car passed out of sight, he tugged at

his mustache and hummed:

"Why, boys, why,

Should we be melancholy, boys,

Whose business 'tis to die?"

In less than an hour, telegrams having in the meantime been sent in

both directions, the train ran alongside the platform at Barker's; and

Watkins, imperturbable as usual, met Sinclair, and gave him his

letters.

"Perry gang wiped out, I hear, Major," said he. "Good thing for the

country. That's a lesson the 'toughs' in these parts won't forget for a

long time. Plucky girl that give 'em away, wasn't she? Hope she's all

right."

"She is all right," said Sinclair with a smile.

"Glad of that. By the way, that father of her'n passed in his checks

to-night. He'd got one warning from the Vigilantes, and yesterday they

found out he was in with this gang, and they was a-going for him; but

when the telegram come, he put a pistol to his head and saved them all

trouble. Good riddance to everybody, I say. The sheriff's here now, and

is going east on the next train to get them fellows. He's got a big

posse together, and I wouldn't wonder if they was hard to hold in,

after the 'boys in blue' is gone."

In a few minutes the train was off, and its living freight--the just

and the unjust, the reformed and the rescued, the happy and the

anxious. With many of the passengers, the episode of the night was

already a thing of the past. Sinclair sat by the side of his wife, to

whose cheeks the color had all come back; and Sally Johnson lay in her

berth, faith still, but able to give an occasional smile to Foster. In

the station on the Missouri the reporters were gathered around the

happy superintendent, smoking his cigars, and filling their note-books

with items. In Denver, their brethren would gladly have done the same,

but Watkins failed to gratify them. He was a man of few words. When the

train had gone through, and a friend remarked: "Hope they'll get

through all right, now," he simply said: "Yes, likely. Two shots don't

'most always go in the same hole." Then he went to the telegraph

instrument. In a few minutes, he could have told a story as wild as a

Norse _saga_, but what he said, when Denver had responded, was only--

"_No. 17, fifty-five minutes late_."

JAUNE D'ANTIMOINE

--------------------

BY THOMAS ALLIBONE TANVIER

_Thomas Allibone Janvier (born in Philadelphia in 1849) began work as a

journalist in his native city in 1870. In 1881 he went to spend several

years in Colorado, and New and Old Mexico--sojourns which left their

impression upon his literary work, A well-known writer of short

stories, Janvier is especially skilled in the delineation of the

picturesque foreign life of New York._

JAUNE D'ANTIMOINE

BY THOMAS ALLIBONE JANVIER

[Footnote: By permission of Charles Scribner's Sons. From "Color

Studies and a Mexican Campaign," copyright, 1891.]

Down Greenwich way--that is to say, about in the heart of the city of

New York--in a room with a glaring south light that made even the

thought of painting in it send shivers all over you, Jaune d'Antimoine

lived and labored in the service of Art.

By all odds, it was the very worst room in the whole building; and that

was precisely the reason why Jaune d'Antimoine had chosen it, for the

rent was next to nothing: he would have preferred a room that rented

for even less. It certainly was a forlorn-looking place. There was no

furniture in it worth speaking of; it was cheerless, desolate. A lot of

studies of animals were stuck against the walls, and a couple of

finished pictures--a lioness with her cubs, and a span of stunning

draught-horses--stood in one corner, frameless. There was good work in

the studies, and the pictures really were capital--a fact that Jaune

himself recognized, and that made him feel all the more dismal because

they so persistently remained unsold. Indeed, this animal painter was

having a pretty hard time of it, and as he sat there day after day in

the shocking light, doing honest work and getting no return for it, he

could not help growing desperately blue.

But to-day Jaune d'Antimoine was not blue, for of a sudden he had come

to be stayed by a lofty purpose and upheld by a high resolve: and his

purpose and resolve were that within one month's time he would gain for

himself a new suit of clothes! There were several excellent reasons

which together served to fortify him in his exalted resolution. The

most careless observer could not fail to perceive that the clothes

which he wore--and which were incomparably superior to certain others

which he possessed, but did not wear--were sadly shabby; and Vandyke

Brown had asked him to be best man at his wedding; and further--and

this was the strongest reason of all--Jaune d'Antimoine longed, from

the very depths of his soul, to make himself pleasing in the eyes of

Rose Carthame.

How she managed it none but herself knew; but this charming young

person, although the daughter of a widowly exile of France who made an

uncertain living by letting lodgings in the region between south and

west of Washington Square, always managed to dress herself

delightfully. It is true that feminine analysis might reveal the fact

that the materials of which her gowns were made were of the cheapest

product of the loom; yet was feminine envy aroused--yea, even in the

dignified portion of Fifth Avenue that lies not south but north of

Washington Square--by the undeniable style of these same gowns, and by

their charming accord with the stylish gait and air of the trig little

body who wore them. Therefore it was that when Monsieur Jaune

graciously was permitted to accompany Mademoiselle Rose in her jaunts

into the grand quarter of the town, the propriety of her garments and

the impropriety of his own brought a sense of desolation upon his

spirit and a great heaviness upon his loyal heart.

For Jaune loved Rose absolutely to distraction. To say that he would

have laid his coat in the mud for her to walk over does not--the

condition of the coat being remembered--imply a very superior sort of

devotion. He would have done more than this; he would have laid himself

in the mud, and most gladly, that he might have preserved from

contamination her single pair of nice shoes. Even a cool and

unprejudiced person, being permitted to see these shoes--and he

certainly would have been, for Rose made anything but a mystery of

them--would have declared that such gallant sacrifice was well

bestowed.

The ardor of Jaune's passion was increased--as has been common in love

matters ever since the world began--by the knowledge that he had a

rival; and this rival was a most dangerous rival, being none other than

Madame Carthame's second-story-front lodger, the Count Siccatif de

Courtray. Simply to be the second-story-front lodger carries with it a

most notable distinction in a lodging-house; but to be that and a count

too was a combination of splendors that placed Jaune's rival on a

social pinnacle and kept him there. Not that counts are rare in the

region between west and south of Washington Square; on the contrary,

they are rather astonishingly plentiful. But the sort of count who is

very rare indeed there is the count who pays his way as he goes along.

Now, in the matter of payments, at least so far as Madame Carthame was

concerned, the Count Siccatif de Courtray was exemplary.

That there was something of a mystery about this nobleman was

undeniable. Among other things, he had stated that he was a relative of

the Siccatifs of Harlem--the old family established here in New

Amsterdam in the early days of the Dutch Colony. Persons disposed to

comment invidiously upon this asserted relationship, and such there

were, did not fail to draw attention to the fact that the Harlem

Siccatifs, without exception, were fair, while the Count Siccatif de

Courtray was strikingly dark; and to the further fact that, if the

distinguished American family really was akin to the Count, its several

members were most harmoniously agreed to give him the cold shoulder.

With these malicious whisperings, however, Madame Carthame did not

concern herself. She was content, more than content, to take the Count

as he was, and at his own valuation. That he was a proscribed

Bonapartist, as he declared himself to be, seemed to her a reasonable

and entirely credible statement; and it certainly had the effect of

creating about him a halo of romance. Though not proscribed, Madame

Carthame herself was a Bonapartist, and a most ardent one; a fact, it

may be observed, concerning which the Count assured himself prior to

the avowal of his own political convictions. When, on the 2Oth of

April, he came home wearing a cluster of violets in his buttonhole, and

bearing also a bunch of these imperial flowers for Madame Carthame, and

with the presentation confessed his own imperialistic faith and touched

gloomily upon the sorry reward that it had brought him--when this event

occurred, Madame Carthame's kindly feelings toward her second-floor

lodger were resolved into an abiding faith and high esteem. It was upon

this auspicious day that the conviction took firm root in her mind that

the Count Siccatif de Courtray was the heaven-sent husband for her

daughter Rose.

That Rose approved this ambitious matrimonial project of her mother's

was a matter open to doubt; at least her conduct was such that two

diametrically opposite views were entertained in regard to her

intentions. On the one hand, Madame Carthame and the Count Siccatif de

Courtray believed that she had made up her mind to live in her mother's

own second-story front and be a countess. On the other hand, Jaune

d'Antimoine, whose wish, perhaps, was father to his thought, believed

that she would not do anything of the sort. Jaune gladly would have

believed, also, that she cherished matrimonial intentions in quite a

different, namely, an artistic, direction; but he was a modest young

fellow, and suffered his hopes to be greatly diluted by his fears. And,

in truth, the conduct of Rose was so perplexing, at times so

atrociously exasperating, that a person much more deeply versed in

women's ways than this young painter was, very well might have been

puzzled hopelessly; for if ever a born flirt came out of France, that

flirt was Rose Carthame.

Of one thing, however, Jaune was convinced: that unless something of a

positive nature was done, and done speedily, for the improvement of his

outward man, his chance of success was gone forever. Already, Madame

Carthame eyed his seedy garments askance; already, for Rose had

admitted the truth of his suspicions in this dismal direction, Madame

Carthame had instituted most unfavorable comparisons between his own

chronic shabbiness and the no less chronic splendor of the Count

Siccatif de Courtray. Therefore, it came to pass--out of his abstract

need for presentable habiliments, out of his desire to appear in

creditable form at Vandyke Brown's wedding, and, more than all else,

out of his love for Rose--that Jaune d'Antimoine registered a mighty

oath before high heaven that within a month's time a new suit of

clothes should be his!

Yet the chances are that he would have gone down Christopher Street to

the North River, and still further down, even into a watery grave--as

he very frequently thought of doing during this melancholy period of

his existence--had not his fortunes suddenly been irradiated by the

birth in his mind of a happy thought. It came to him in this wise: He

was standing drearily in front of a ready-made clothing store on

Broadway, sadly contemplating a wooden figure clad in precisely the

morning suit for which his soul panted, when suddenly something gave

him a whack in the back. Turning sharply, and making use of an

exclamation not to be found in the French dictionaries compiled for the

use of young ladies' boarding-schools, he perceived a wooden framework,

from the lower end of which protruded the legs of a man. From a cleft

in the upper portion of the framework came the apologetic utterance,

"Didn't mean ter hit yer, boss," and then the structure moved slowly

away through the throng. Over its four sides, he observed, were

blazoned announcements of the excellences of the garments manufactured

by the very clothing establishment in front of which he stood.

The thought came idly into his mind that this method of advertising was

clumsy, and not especially effective; followed by the further thought

that a much better plan would be to set agoing upon the streets a

really gentlemanly-looking man, clad in the best garments that the

tailoring people manufactured--while a handsome sign upon the man's

back, or a silken banner proudly borne aloft, should tell where the

clothes were made, and how, for two weeks only, clothes equally

excellent could be bought there at a tremendous sacrifice. And then

came into his mind the great thought of his life: he would disguise

himself by changing his blond hair and beard to gray, and by wearing

dark eye-glasses, and thus disguised he would be that man! Detection he

believed to be impossible, for merely dressing himself in respectable

clothes almost would suffice to prevent his recognition by even the

nearest of his friends. With that prompt decision which is the sure

sign of genius backed by force of character, he paused no longer to

consider. He acted. With a firm step he entered the clothing

establishment; with dignity demanded a personal interview with its

proprietor; with eloquence presented to that personage his scheme.

"You will understand, sare," he said, in conclusion, "that these

clothes such as yours see themselves in the best way when they are

carried by a man very well made, and who 'as the air _comme il faut_. I

'ave not the custom to say that I am justly that man. But now we talk

of _affaires_. Look at me and see!" And so speaking, he drew himself up

his full six feet, and turned slowly around. There could not be any

question about it: a handsomer, a more distinguished-looking man was

not to be found in all New York. With the added dignity of age, his

look of distinction would be but increased.

The great head of the great tailoring establishment was visibly

affected. Original devices in advertising had been the making of him.

He perceived that the device now suggested to him was superior to

anything that his own genius had struck out. "It's a pretty good plan,"

he said, meditatively. "What do you want for carrying it out?"

"For you to serve two weeks, I ask but the clothes I go to wear."

For a moment the tailor paused. In that moment the destinies of Jaune

d'Antimoine, of Rose Carthame, of the Count Siccatif de Courtray, hung

in the balance. It was life or death. Jaune felt his heart beating like

a trip-hammer. There was upon him a feeling of suffocation. The silence

seemed interminable; and the longer it lasted, the more did he feel

that his chances of success were oozing away, that the crisis of his

life was going against him. Darkness, the darkness of desolate despair,

settled down upon his soul. Mechanically he felt in his waistcoat

pocket for a five-cent piece that he believed to be there--for the

stillness, the restful oblivion of the North River were in his mind.

His fingers clutched the coin convulsively, thankfully. At least he

would not be compelled' to walk down Christopher Street to his death:

he could pay his way to eternity in the one-horse car. Yet even while

the blackness of shattered hope seemed to be closing him in

irrevocably, the glad light came again. As the voice of an angel

sounded the voice of the tailor; and the words which the tailor spake

were these:

"Young man, it's a bargain!"

But the tailor, upon whom Heaven had bestowed shrewdness to an

extraordinary degree, perceived in the plan proposed to him higher,

more artistic possibilities than had been perceived in it by its

inventor. There was a dramatic instinct, an appreciation of surprise,

of climax, in this man's mind that he proceeded to apply to the

existing situation. With a wave of his hand he banished the suggested

sign on the walking advertiser's back, and the suggested silken banner.

His plan at once was simpler and more profound. Dressed in the highest

style of art, Jaune was to walk Broadway daily between the hours of 11

A. M. and 2 P. M. He was to walk slowly; he was to look searchingly in

the faces of all young women of about the age of twenty years; he was

to wear, over and above his garments of price, an air of confirmed

melancholy. That was all.

"But of the advertisement? 'Ow ----"

"Now, never you mind about the advertisement, young man. Where that is

going to come in is my business. But you can just bet your bottom

dollar that I don't intend to lose any money on you. All that you have

to do is just what I've told you; and to be well dressed, and walk up

and down Broadway for three hours every day, and look in all the girls'

faces, don't strike me as being the hardest work that you might be set

at. Now come along and be measured, and day after to-morrow you shall

begin."

As Jaune walked slowly homeward to his dismal studio, he meditated

deeply upon the adventure before him. He did not fancy it at all; but

it was the means to an end, and he was braced morally to go through

with it without flinching. For the chance of winning Rose he would have

stormed a battery single-handed; and not a bit more of moral courage

would have been needed for such desperate work than was needed for the

execution of the bloodless but soul-trying project that he had in hand.

For the life and spirit of him, though, he could not see how the tailor

was to get any good out of this magnificent masquerading.

In one of the evening papers, about a week later, there appeared a

half-column romance that quite took Jaune d'Antimoine's breath away. It

began with a reference to the distinguished elderly gentleman who,

during the past week, had been seen daily upon Broadway about the hour

of noon; who gazed with such intense though respectful curiosity into

every 'young woman's face; who, in the gay crowd, was conspicuous not

less by the elegance of his dress than by his air of profound

melancholy. Then briefly, but precisely, the sorrowful story of the

Marquis de ------ ("out of consideration for the nobleman's feelings"

the name was withheld) was told: how, the son of a peer of France, he

had married, while yet a minor, against the wishes of his stern father;

how his young wife and infant daughter had been spirited away by the

stern father's orders; how on his death-bed the father had confessed

his evil deed to his son, and had told that mother and child had been

banished to America, where the mother speedily had died of grief, and

where the child, though in ignorance of her noble origin, had been

adopted by an enormously rich American, about whom nothing more was

known than the fact that he lived in New York. The Marquis, the article

stated, now was engaged in searching for his long-lost daughter, and

among other means to the desired end had hit upon this--of walking New

York's chief thoroughfare in the faith that should he see his child his

paternal instinct would reveal to him her identity.

"I calculate that this will rather whoop up public interest in our

performance," said the tailor, cheerfully, the next day, as he handed

the newspaper containing the pleasing fiction to Jaune. "That's my

idea, for a starter. I've got the whole story ready to come out in

sections--paid a literary feller twenty dollars to get it up for me.

And you be careful to-day when you are interviewed" (Jaune shuddered)

"to keep the story up--or" (for Jaune was beginning a remonstrance)

"you can keep out of it altogether, if you'd rather. Say you must

refuse to talk upon so delicate a subject, or something of that sort.

Yes, that's your card. It'll make the mystery greater, you know--and

I'll see that the public gets the facts, all the same."

The tailor chuckled, and Jaune was unutterably wretched. He was on the

point of throwing up his contract. He opened his mouth to speak the

decisive words--and shut it again as the thought came into his mind

that his misery must be borne, and borne gallantly, because it was all

for the love of Rose.

That day there was no affectation in his air of melancholy. He was

profoundly miserable. Faithful to his contract, he looked searchingly

upon the many young women of twenty years whom he met; and such of them

as were possessors of tender hearts grew very sorrowful at sight of the

obvious woe by which he was oppressed. His woe, indeed, was keen, for

the newspaper article had had its destined effect, and he was a marked

man. People turned to look at him as people had not turned before; it

was evident that he was a subject of conversation. Several times he

caught broken sentences which he recognized as portions of his

supposititious biography. His crowning torture was the assault of the

newspaper reporters. They were suave, they were surly, they were

insinuatingly sympathetic, they were aggressively peremptory--but all

alike were determined to wring from him to the uttermost the details of

the sorrow that he never had suffered, of the life that he never had

lived. It was a confusing sort of an experience. He began to wonder, at

last, whether or not it were possible that he could be somebody else

without knowing it; and if it were, in whom, precisely, his identity

was vested. Being but a simple-minded young fellow, with no taste

whatever for metaphysics, this line of thought was upsetting.

While involved in these perplexing doubts and the crowd at the Fifth

Avenue crossing, he was so careless as to step upon the heel of a lady

in front of him. And when the lady turned, half angrily, half to

receive his profuse apologies, he beheld Mademoiselle Carthame. The

face of this young person wore an expression made up of not less than

three conflicting emotions: of resentment of the assault upon the heel

of her one pair of good shoes, of friendly recognition of the familiar

voice, of blank surprise upon perceiving that this voice came from the

lips of a total stranger. She looked searchingly upon the smoked

glasses, obviously trying to pry into the secret of the hidden eyes.

Jaune's blood rushed up into his face, and he realized that detection

was imminent. Mercifully, at that moment the crowd opened, and with a

bow that hid his face behind his hat he made good his retreat. During

the remaining half hour of his walk, he thought no more of metaphysics.

The horrid danger of physical discovery from which he had escaped so

narrowly filled him with a shuddering alarm. Nor could he banish from

his mind the harrowing thought that perhaps, for all his gray hair and

painted wrinkles and fine clothes, Rose in truth had recognized him.

That night an irresistible attraction drew him to the Carthame abode.

In the little parlor he found the severe Madame Carthame, her adorable

daughter, and the offensive Count Siccatif de Courtray. Greatly to his

relief, his reception was in the usual form: Madame Carthame conducted

herself after the fashion of a well-bred iceberg; Rose endeavored to

mitigate the severity of her parent's demeanor by her own affability;

the Count, as much as possible, ignored his presence. Jaune could not

repress a sigh of relief. She had not recognized him.

But his evening was one of trial. With much vivacity, Rose entertained

the little company with an account of her romantic adventure with the

French nobleman who had come to America in quest of his lost daughter;

for she had read the newspaper story, and had identified its hero with

the assailant of her heel. She dwelt with enthusiasm upon the

distinguished appearance of the unhappy foreigner; she ventured the

suggestion, promptly and sternly checked by her mamma, that she herself

might be the lost child; she grew plaintive, and expressed a burning

desire to comfort this stricken parent with a daughter's love, and,

worst of all, she sat silent, with a far-away look in her charming

eyes, and obviously suffered her thoughts to go astray after this

handsome Marquis in a fashion that made even the Count Siccatif de

Courtray fidget, and that filled the soul of Jaune d'Antimoine with a

consuming jealousy--not the less consuming because of the absurd fact

that it was jealousy of himself! As he walked home that night through

the devious ways of Greenwich to his dismal studio, he seriously

entertained the wish that he never had been born.

The next day all the morning papers contained elaborate "interviews"

with the Marquis: for each of the several reporters who had been put on

the case, believing that he alone had failed to get the facts, and

being upheld by a lofty determination that no other reporter should

"get a beat on him," had evolved from his own inner consciousness the

story that Jaune, for the best of reasons, had refused to tell. The

stories thus told, being based upon the original fiction, bore a family

resemblance to each other; and as all of them were interesting, they

stimulated popular curiosity in regard to their hero to a very high

pitch. As the result of them, Jaune found himself the most conspicuous

man in New York. During the three hours of his walk he was the centre

of an interested crowd. Several benevolent persons stopped to tell him

of fatherless young women with whom they were acquainted, and to urge

upon him the probability that each of these young women was his

long-lost child. The representatives of a dozen detective bureaus

introduced themselves to him, and made offer of their professional

services; a messenger from the chief of police handed him a polite note

tendering the services of the department and inviting him to a

conference. It was maddening.

But worst of all were his meetings with Rose. As these multiplied, the

conviction became irresistible that they were not the result of chance;

indeed, her manner made doubt upon this head impossible. At first she

gave him only a passing glance, then a glance somewhat longer, then a

look of kindly interest, then a long look of sympathy; and at last she

bestowed upon him a gentle, almost affectionate, smile that expressed,

as plainly as a smile could express, her sorrow for his misery and her

readiness to comfort him. In a word, Rose Carthame's conduct simply was

outrageous!

The jealous anger which had inflamed Jattne's breast the night before

swelled and expanded into a raging passion. He longed to engage in

mortal combat this stranger who was alienating the affection that

should be his. The element of absurdity in the situation no longer was

apparent to him. In truth, as he reasoned, the situation was not

absurd. To all intents and purposes he was two people and it was the

other one of him, not himself at all, who was winning Rose's interest,

perhaps her love. For a moment the thought crossed his mind that he

would adjust the difficulty in his own favor by remaining this other

person always. But the hard truth confronted him that every time he

washed his face he would cease to be the elderly Marquis, with the

harder truth that the fabulous wealth with which, as the Marquis, the

newspapers had endowed him was too entirely fabulous to serve as a

basis for substantial life. And being thus cut off from hope, he fell

back upon jealous hatred of himself.

That night the evening paper in which the first mention of the

mysterious French nobleman had been made contained an article cleverly

contrived to give point to the mystery in its commercial aspect. The

fact had been observed, the article declared, that the nobleman's

promenade began and ended at a prominent clothing establishment on

Broadway; and then followed, in the guise of a contribution toward the

clearing up of the mystery, an interview with the proprietor of the

establishment in question. However, the interview left the mystery just

where it found it, for all that the tailor told was that the Marquis

had bought several suits of clothes from him; that he had shown himself

to be an exceptionally critical person in the matter of his wearing

apparel; that he had expressed repeatedly his entire satisfaction with

his purchases. In another portion of the paper was a glaring

advertisement, in which the clothing man set forth, in an animated

fashion, the cheapness and desirability of "The Marquis Suit"--a suit

that "might be seen to advantage on the person of the afflicted French

nobleman now in our midst who had honored it with his approval, and in

whose honor it had been named." Upon reading the newspaper narrative

and its advertisement pendant, Jaune groaned aloud. He was oppressed by

a horror of discovery, and here, as it seemed to him in his morbidly

nervous condition, was a clew to his duplex identity sufficiently

obvious to be apparent even to a detective.

The Count Siccatif de Courtray, as has been intimated, went so far as

to fidget while listening to Mademoiselle Carthame's vivacious

description of her encounter with the handsome Marquis. Being regaled

during the ensuing evening with a very similar narrative--a materially

modified version of the events which had aroused in so lively a manner

the passion of jealousy in the breast of Jaune d'Antimoine--the Count

ceased merely to fidget and became the prey to a serious anxiety. He

determined that the next day, quite unobtrusively, he would observe

Mademoiselle Carthame in her relations with this unknown but

dangerously fascinating nobleman; and also that he would give some

attention to the nobleman himself. This secondary purpose was

strengthened the next morning, while the Count was engaged with his

coffee and newspaper, by his finding in the "Courrier des Etats-Unis" a

translation of the paragraph stating the curious fact that the daily

walk of the Marquis began and ended at the Broadway tailor shop.

Having finished his breakfast, the Count leisurely betook himself to

Broadway. As he slowly strolled eastward, he observed on the other side

of the street Jaune d'Antimoine, in his desperately shabby raiment,

hurriedly walking eastward also. The Count murmured a brief panegyric

upon M. d'Antimoine, in which the words "cet animal" alone were

distinguishable. They were near Broadway at this moment, and to the

Count's surprise M. d'Antimoine entered the clothing establishment from

which the Marquis departed upon his daily walk. Could it be possible,

he thought, that fortune had smiled upon the young artist, and that he

was about to purchase a new suit of clothes? The Count entertained the

charitable hope that such could not be the case.

It was the Count's purpose, in order that he might follow also the

movements of Mademoiselle Carthame, to follow the Marquis from the

beginning to the end of his promenade. He set himself, therefore, to

watching closely--for the appearance of the grief-stricken foreigner,

moving carelessly the while from one shop-window to another that

commanded a view of the field. At the end of half an hour, when the

Count was beginning to think that the object of his solicitude was a

myth, out from the broad portal of the clothing establishment came the

Marquis in all his glory--more glorious, in truth, than Solomon, and

more melancholy than the melancholy Jaques. And yet for an instant the

Count Siccatif de Courtray was possessed by the absurd fancy that this

stately personage was Jaune d'Antimoine! Truly, here was the same tall,

handsome figure, the same easy, elegant carriage, the same cut of hair

and beard. But the resemblance went no further, for beard and hair were

gray almost to whiteness, the face was pale and old, and the clothes,

so far from being desperately seedy, were more resplendent even than

the Count's own. No, the thought was incredible, preposterous, and yet

the Count could not discharge it from his mind. He stamped his foot

savagely; this mystery was becoming more interesting than pleasing.

In the crowd that the Marquis drew in his wake, as he slowly, sadly

sauntered up Broadway, the Count had no difficulty in following him

unobserved. The situation was that of the previous day, only it was

intensified, and therefore, to its hero, the more horrible. The

benevolent people with stray fatherless young women to dispose of were

out in greater force; the detectives were more aggressive; the

newspaper people were more persistent; the general public was more

keenly interested in the whole performance. And Rose--most dreadful of

all--was more outrageous than ever! The Count grew almost green with

rage during the three hours that he was a witness of this young woman's

scandalous conduct. A dozen times she met the Marquis in the course of

his walk, and each time that she met him she greeted him with a yet

more tender smile. A curious fact that at first surprised, then

puzzled, then comforted the Count was the very obvious annoyance which

these flattering attentions caused their recipient. Evidently, he

persistently endeavored to evade the meetings which Rose as

persistently and more successfully endeavored to force upon him. Within

the scope of M. de Courtary's comprehension only one reason seemed to

be sufficient to explain the determination on the part of the Marquis

to resist the advances of a singularly attractive young woman, whose

good disposition toward him was so conspicuously, though so

irregularly, manifested: a fear of recognition. And this reason

adjusted itself in a striking manner to the queer notion that had come

into his mind that the Marquis was an ideal creation whose reality was

Jeaune d'Antimoine. The thought was absurd, irrational, but it grew

stronger and stronger within him--and became an assured conviction

when, shortly after the promenade of the Marquis had ended, Jaune came

forth from the clothing store in his normal condition of shabbiness and

youth. The Count was not in all respects a praiseworthy person, but

among his vices was not that of stupidity. Without any very tremendous

mental effort he grasped the fact that his rival had sold himself into

bondage as a walking advertisement, and, knowing this, a righteous

exultation filled his soul. Jaune's destiny, so far as Mademoiselle

Carthame was concerned, he felt was in his power: and he was perplexed

by no nice doubts as to the purpose to which the power that he had

gained should be applied.

Untroubled by the knowledge that his secret was discovered, Jaune

entered upon the last day of his martyrdom. It was the most agonizing

day of all. The benevolent persons, the reporters, the detectives, the

crowd surging about him, drove him almost to madness. He walked as one

dazed. And above and over all he was possessed by a frenzy of jealousy

that came of the offensively friendly smiles which Rose bestowed upon

him as she forced meetings upon him again and again. It was with

difficulty that he restrained himself from laying violent hands upon

this bogus Marquis who falsely and infamously had beguiled away from

him the love for which he gladly would have given his life. Only the

blood of his despicable rival, he felt, would satisfy him. He longed to

find himself with a sword in his hand on a bit of smooth turf, and the

villanous Marquis over against him, ready to be run through. The

thought was so delightful, so animating, that involuntarily he made a

lunge--and had to apologize confusedly to an elderly gentleman whom he

had poked in the back with his umbrella.

At last the three hours of torture, the last of his two weeks of

hateful servitude, came to an end. Pale beneath his false paleness,

haggard beyond his false haggardness of age, he entered the clothing

store and once more was himself. With a gladness unspeakable he washed

off his wrinkles and washed out the gray from his hair and beard; with

a sense of infinite satisfaction that, a fortnight earlier, he would

not have believed possible, he resumed his shabby old clothes. Had he

chosen to do so, he might have walked away in the new and magnificent

apparel which he now fairly had earned; but just at present his

loathing for these fine garments was beyond all words.

The tailor fain would have had the masquerade continue longer, for, as

he frankly stated, "The Marquis Suit" was having a tremendous sale. But

Jaune was deaf not only to the tailor's blandishments, but to his

offers of substantial cash. "Not for the millions would I be in this

part of the Marquis for one day yet more," he said firmly. And he

added, "I trust to you in honor, sare, that not never shall my name be

spoken in this affair."

"Couldn't speak it if I wanted to, my dear boy. It's a mystery to me

how you're able to say it yourself! Well, I'd like you to run the

'Marquis' for another week; but if you won't, you won't, I suppose, so

there's an end of it. I'm sorry you haven't enjoyed it. I have. It's

been as good a thing as I ever got hold of. Now give me your address

and I'll have your clothes sent to you. Don't you want some more? I

don't mind letting you have a regular outfit if you want it. One good

turn, you know--and you've done me a good turn, and that's a fact."

But Jaune declined this liberal offer, and declined also to leave his

address, which would have involved a revelation of his name. It was a

comfort to him to know that his name was safe--a great comfort. So the

garments of the forever departed Marquis were put up in a big bundle,

and Jaune journeyed homeward to his studio in Greenwich--bearing his

sheaves with him--in a Bleecker Street car.

"Well, you are a cheeky beggar, d'Antimoine," said Vandyke Brown,

cheerfully, the next morning, as he came into Jaune's studio with a

newspaper in his hand. "So you are the Marquis who has been setting the

town wild for the last week, eh? And whom did you bet with? And what

started you in such a crazy performance, anyway? Tell me all about it.

It's as funny--Good heavens! d'Antimoine, what's the matter? Are you

ill?" For Jaune had grown deathly pale and was gasping.

"I do not know of what it is that you talk," he answered, with a great

effort.

"Oh, come now, that's too thin, you know. Why, here's a whole column

about it, telling how you made a bet with somebody that you could set

all the town to talking about you, and yet do it all in such a clever

disguise that nobody would know who you really were, not even your most

intimate friends. And I should say that you had won handsomely. Why,

I've seen you on Broadway a dozen times myself this last week, and I

never had the remotest suspicion that the Marquis was you. I must say,

though," continued Brown, reflectively, and looking closely at Jaune,

"that it was stupid of me. I did think that you had a familiar sort of

look; and once, I remember, it did occur to me that you looked

astonishingly like yourself. It--it was the clothes, you see, that

threw me out. Where ever did you get such a stunning rig? I don't

believe that I'd have known you dressed like that, even if you hadn't

been gray and wrinkled. But tell me all about it, old man. It must have

been jolly fun!"

"Fun!" groaned Jaune; "it was the despair!" And then, his heart being

very full and his longing for sympathy overpowering, Jatine told Brown

the whole story. "But what is this of one bet, my dear Van," he

concluded, "I do not of the least know."

"Well, here it all is in the paper, anyway. Calls you 'a distinguished

animal-painter,' and alludes to your 'strikingly vigorous "Lioness and

Cubs" and powerful "Dray Horses" at the last spring exhibition of the

Society of American Artists.' Must be somebody who knows you, you see,

and somebody who means well by you, too. There's nothing at all about

your being an advertisement; indeed, there's nothing in the story but a

good joke, of which you are the hero. It's an eccentric sort of

heroism, to be sure; but then, for some unknown reason, people never

seem to believe that artists are rational human beings, so your

eccentricity will do you no harm. And it's no end of an advertisement

for you. Whoever wrote it meant well by you. And, by Jove! I know who

it is! It's little Conte Crayon. He's a good-hearted little beggar, and

he likes you ever so much, for I've heard him say so; but how he ever

got hold of the story, and especially of such a jolly version of it, I

don't see."

At this moment, by a pleasing coincidence, Conte Crayon himself

appeared with the desired explanation. "You see," he said, "that beast

of a Siccatif de Courtray hunted me up yesterday and told me the yarn

about you and the slop-shop man. He wanted me to write it up and

publish it, 'as a joke,' he said; but it was clear enough that he was

in ugly earnest about it. And so, you see, I had to rush it into print

in the way I chose to tell it--which won't do you a bit of harm,

d'Antimoine--in order to head him off. The blackguard meant to get you

into a mess, and if I'd hung fire he'd have told somebody else about

it, and had the real story published. Of course, you know, there's

nothing in the real story that you need be ashamed of; but if it had

been told, you certainly would have been laughed at, and nasty people

would have said nasty things about it. And as there wasn't any time to

lose, I had to print it first and then come here and explain matters

afterward. And what I've got to say is this: Just you cheek it out and

say that it was a bet, and that you won it! Brown and I will back you

up in it, and so will the slop-shop man. I've been to see him this

morning, and he is so pleased with the way that 'The Marquis Suit' is

selling, and with the extra free advertisement that he has got out of

my article, that he's promised to adopt the bet version in his

advertisement in all the papers. He is going to advertise that The

Marquis Suit is so called because everybody who wears it looks like a

marquis--just as you did. This cuts the ground right from under the

Count's feet, you see; for nobody'd believe him on his oath if they

could help it.

"And now I must clear out. I've got a race at Jerome Park at two

o'clock. It's all right, d'Antimoine; I assure you it's all right--but

I should advise you to punch the Count's head, all the same."

Vandyke Brown thought it was all right, too, as he talked the matter

over with Jaune after little Conte Crayon had gone. But Jaune refused

to be comforted. So far as the public was concerned he admitted that

Conte Crayon's story had saved him, but he was oppressed by a great

dread of what might be the effect of the truth upon Rose. For Juane

d'Antimoine was too honest a gentleman even to think of deceiving his

mistress. He must tell her the whole story, without reserve, and as she

approved or disapproved of what he had done must his hopes of happiness

live or die.

"Better have it out with her to-day, and be done with it," counseled

Brown.

"Ah! it is well for you to speak of a 'urry, my good Van; but it is not

you who go to execute your life. No, I 'ave not the force to go to-day.

To-day I go to make a long walk. Then this night I sleep well.

Tomorrow, in the morning, do I go to affront my destiny." And from this

resolution Jaune was not to be moved.

Yet it was an unfortunate resolution, for it gave the Count Siccatif de

Courtray time and opportunity for a flank movement. In the Count's

breast rage and astonishment contended for the mastery as he

contemplated the curious miscarriage of his newspaper assault. He had

chosen this line of attack partly because his modesty counseled him to

keep his own personality in the background, partly because the wider

the publicity of his rival's disgrace the more complete would that

disgrace be. But as his newspaper ally failed him, he took the campaign

into his own hands; that is to say, he hurried to tell the true story,

and a good deal more than the true story, to Rose and Madame Carthame.

Concerning its effect upon Rose, he was in doubt; but its effect upon

Madame Carthame was all that he could desire. This severe person

instantly took the cue that the Count dexterously gave her by affecting

to palliate Jaune's erratic conduct. He urged that, inasmuch as M.

d'Antimoine was a conspicuous failure as an artist, for him to engage

himself to a tailor as a walking advertisement, so far from being a

disgrace to him, was greatly to his credit. And Madame Carthame

promptly and vehemently asserted that it wasn't. She refused to regard

what he had done in any other light than that of a crime. She declared

that never again should his offensive form darken her door. Solemnly

she forbade Rose from recognizing him when in the future they should

chance to meet. And then she abated her severity to the extent of

thanking the Count with tears in her eyes for the service that he had

done her in tearing off this viper's disguise. Naturally, the Count was

charmed by Ma-dame Carthame's energetic indignation. He perceived that

his unselfish investigations of the actions of Monsieur Jaune were

bearing excellent fruit. Already, as he believed, the way toward his

own happiness was smooth and clear. As the Count retired from this

successful conference, he laughed softly to himself: nor did he pause

in his unobtrusive mirth to reflect that those laugh best who laugh

last.

And thus it came to pass that when Jaune, refreshed by sound slumber

and a little cheered by hope, presented himself the next morning at

Madame Carthame's gates, fate decreed that Rose herself should open the

gates to him--in response to his ring--and in her own proper person

should tell him that she was not at home. In explanation of this

obviously inexact statement she announced to him her mother's stern

decree. Being but a giddy young person, however, and one somewhat

lacking in fit reverence of maternal authority, she added, on her own

account, that in half an hour or so she was going up Fourth Street to

the Gansevoort market, and that Fourth Street was a public

thoroughfare, upon which M. d'Antimoine also had a perfect right to

walk.

In the course of this walk, while Jaune gallantly carried the

market-basket, the story that Rose already had heard from the Count

Siccatif de Courtray was told again--but told with a very different

coloring. For Mademoiselle Carthame clearly perceived how great the

sacrifice had been that Jaune had made for her sake, and how bravely,

because it was for her sake, it had been made. There was real pathos in

his voice; once or twice he nearly broke down. Possibly it was because

she did not wish him to see her eyes that she manifested so marked an

interest in the shop windows as they walked along.

"And so that adorable Marquis was unreal?" queried Mademoiselle

Carthame sadly, and somewhat irrelevantly, when Jaune had told her all.

"He was not adorable. He was a disgusting beast!" replied M.

d'Antimoine savagely.

"I--I loved him!" answered Rose, turning upon Jaune, at last, her black

eyes. They did not sparkle, as was their wont, but they were

wonderfully lustrous and soft.

Jaune looked down into the market-basket and groaned.

"And--and I love him still. I think, I--I hope, that he will live

always in my heart."

The voice of Mademoiselle Carthame trembled, and her hand grasped very

tightly the bag of carrots that they had been unable to make a place

for in the basket: they were coming back from the market now.

Jaune did not look up. For the life of him he could not keep back a

sob. It was bitter hard, he felt, that out of his love for Rose should

come love's wreck; and harder yet that the rival who had stolen her

from him should be himself! Through the mist of his misery he seemed to

hear Rose laughing softly. Could this be so? Then, indeed, was the

capstone set upon his grief!

"Jaune!"

He started, and so violently that a cabbage, with half a dozen potatoes

after it, sprang out of the basket and rolled along the pavement at her

feet. His bowed head rose with a jerk, and their eyes met full. In hers

there was a look half mocking, that as he gazed changed into

tenderness; into his, as he saw the change and perceived its meaning,

there came a look of glad delight.

"As though you could deceive _me_! Why, of course, I knew you from the

very first!"

Then they collected the potatoes and the cabbage and walked slowly on,

and great happiness was in their hearts.

The world was a brighter world for Jaune d'Antimoine when he gave into

Rose's hand the market-basket on her own doorstep, and turned

reluctantly away. But there still were clouds in it. Rose had admitted

that two things were necessary before getting married could be thought

of at all seriously: something must be done by which the nose of the

Count Siccatif de Courtray would be disjointed; something must be done

to assure Madame Carthame that M. d'Antimoine, in some fashion at least

a little removed from semi-starvation, could maintain a wife.

It was certain that until these things were accomplished Madame

Carthame's lofty resolution to transform her daughter into a countess,

and her stern disapprobation of Jaune as a social outcast, never would

be overcome!

As events turned out, it was the second of these requirements that was

fulfilled first.

Mr. Badger Brush was a very rich sporting man, whose tastes were

horsey, but whose heart was in the right place. It was his delight to

make or to back extraordinary wagers. Few New Yorkers have forgotten

that very queer bet of his that resulted in putting high hats on all

the Broadway telegraph poles. When Mr. Brush read the story of Jaune

d'Antimoine's wager, therefore, he was greatly pleased with its

originality; and when, later in the day, he fell in with little Conte

Crayon at Jerome Park, he pressed that ingenious young newspaper man

for additional particulars. And knowing the whereabouts of Mr. Badger

Brush's heart, Conte Crayon did not hesitate to tell the whole story--

winding up with the pointed suggestion that inasmuch as the hero of the

story was an animal-painter of decided, though as yet unrecognized,

ability, Mr. Brush could not do better than manifest his interest in a

practical way by giving him an order. The sporting man rose to the

suggestion with a commendable promptness and warmth.

"I don't care a blank if it wasn't a bet," he said, heartily. "That

young man has pluck, and he deserves to be encouraged. I'll go down and

see him to-morrow, and I'll order a portrait of Celeripes; a life-size,

thousand-dollar portrait, by Jove! Celeripes deserves it, after the pot

of money he brought me at Long Branch, and your friend deserves it too.

And I have some other horses that I want painted, and some dogs--he

paints dogs, I suppose? And I know a lot of other fellows who ought to

have their horses painted, and I'll start them along at him. I'll give

him all the painting he can handle in the next ten years. For it _was_

a bet, you see, after all. Didn't he back his cleverness in disguise

against the wits of the whole town? And didn't the slop-shop man put up

the stakes? And didn't he just win in a canter? I should rather think

he did! Of course it was a bet, and a mighty good one at that. Gad!

Crayon, it's the best thing that's been done in New York for years.

It's what I call first-class cheek. I couldn't have done it better,

sir, myself!"

Thus it fell out that half an hour after Jaune got back to his studio

from that memorable walk to the Gansevoort market, he had the

breath-taking-away felicity of booking a thousand-dollar order, and of

receiving such obviously trustworthy assurances of many more orders

that his wildest hopes of success in a moment were resolved into

substantial realities. When he was alone again he certainly would have

believed that he had been dreaming but for the fact that Mr. Badger

Brush had insisted upon paying half the price of the picture down in

advance; for whatever this good-hearted, horsey gentleman did, he did

thoroughly well. The crisp notes, more than Jaune ever had seen

together in all his life before--save once, when he took a dealer's

check for ten dollars to a bank and looked through the wire screen

while the bank man haughtily cashed it--lay on the table where Mr.

Badger Brush had left them; and their blissful presence proved that his

happiness was not a dream, but real.

From the corner into which, loathingly, he had kicked it, he drew forth

the bundle containing "The Marquis Suit." With a certain solemnity he

resumed these garments of price in which he had suffered so much

torture, and, being clad, boldly presented himself to Madame Carthame

with a formal demand for her daughter's hand. And in view of the sudden

and prodigious change that had come over M. d'Antimoine's fortunes,

almost was Madame Carthame persuaded that the matrimonial plans which

she had laid out for her daughter might be changed. Yet did she

hesitate before announcing that their Median and Persian quality might

be questioned: for the hope that Rose might be a countess lay very

close to Madarne Carthame's heart. However, her determination was

shaken, which was a great point gained.

And presently--for Jaune's star was triumphantly in the ascendant--it

was completely destroyed. The instrument of its destruction was Mr.

Badger Brush's groom, Stumps.

Stumps was a talkative creature, and whenever he came down to Jaune's

studio, as he very often did while the portrait of Celeripes was in

progress, he had a good deal to say over and above the message that he

brought, as to when the horse would be free for the next "sitting" in

the paddock at Mr. Brush's country place, where Jaune was painting him.

And Jaune, who was one of the best-natured of mortals, usually suffered

Stumps to talk away until he was tired.

"You might knock me down with a wisp of hay, you might, indeed, sir,"

said the groom one morning a fortnight after the picture had been

begun--the day but one, in fact, before that set for Vandyke Brown's

wedding. "Yes, sir," he continued, "with a wisp of hay, or even with a

single straw! Here I've been face to face with my own father's

brother's son, and I've put out my hand to him, and he's turned away

short and pretended as he didn't know me and went off! And they tells

me at his lodgin', for I follered him a-purpose to find him out, that

he calls hisself a Frenchman, and says as how his name--which it is

Stumps, and always has been--is Count Sikativ de Cortray!"

Jaune's palette and brushes fell to the floor with a crash. "Is it

posseeble that you do tell me of the Comte Siccatif de Courtray? Are

you then sure that you do not make one grand meestake? Is it 'im truly

that you 'ave seen?"

"Him, sir? Why, in course it's him. Haven't I knowed him ever since he

wasn't higher'n a hoss's fetlock? Don't I tell you as me and him's fust

cousins? Him? In course it's him--the gump!"

"Then, my good Stump, you will now tell me of this wonder all."

It's not much there is to tell, sir, and wat there is isn't to his

credit. His father was my father's brother. My father was in the hoss

line out Saint John's Wood way--in Lunnon, you know, sir--and his

father lived in our street and was a swell barber. Uncle'd married a

French young 'ooman as was dressmakin' and had been a lady's maid; it's

along of his mother that he gets his Frenchness, you see. He was an

only son, he was, and they made a lot of him--dressin' him fine, and

coddlin' him, and sendin' him to school like anythink. Uncle was doin'

a big trade, you see, and makin' money fast. Then, when he was a young

fellow of twenty or so, and after he'd served at barberin' with his

father for a couple of years, he took service with young Lord Cadmium--

as had his 'cousin' livin' in a willa down our way and came to uncle's

to be barbered frequent. And wen Lord Cadmium went sudden-like over to

the Continent, wishin' to give his 'cousin' the slip, havin' got sick

of her, Stumps he went along. That's a matter of ten years ago, sir,

and blessed if I've laid eyes on him since until I seed him here in New

York to-day. Uncle died better'n two year back, aunt havin' died fust,

and he left a tidy pot of money to Stumps; and I did hear that Stumps,

who'd been barberin' in Paris, had giv' up work when he got the cash

and had set up to be a gentleman, but I didn't know as he'd set up to

be a count too. The like of this I never did see!"

"And you are then sure, you will swear, my good Stump, that this are

the same man?"

"Swear, sir! I'll swear to it 'igh and low and all day long! But I must

be goin', sir. You will please to remember that the hoss will be ready

for you at ten o'clock to-morrow mornin', sharp."

Jaune rushed down to Vandyke Brown's studio for counsel as to whether

he should go at once to the Count's lodgings and charge him with fraud

to his face, or should make the charge first to Madame Carthame. But

Brown was out. Nor was he in old Madder's studio, though about this

time he was much more likely to be there than in his own. Old Madder

said that Brown had taken Rose over to Brooklyn, to the Philharmonic,

and he believed that they were going to dinner at Mr. Mangan Brown's

afterward, and would not be in till late; and he seemed to be pretty

grumpy about it.

Jaune fumed and fretted away what was left of the afternoon and a good

part of the evening. At last Brown and Rose came home, and Brown, with

a very bad grace, suffered himself to be led away from old Madder's

threshold. To do him justice, though, when he had heard the story that

Jaune had to tell, he was all eagerness. His advice was to make the

attack instantly; and without more words they set off together, walking

briskly through the chill air of the late October night.

As they were passing along Macdougal Street--midway between Bleecker

and Houston, in front of the row of pretty houses with verandas all

over their fronts--Jaune suddenly gripped Brown's arm and drew him

quickly within one of the little front yards and into the shadow of the

high iron steps.

"Look!" he said.

On the other side of the street, in the light of the gas-lamp that

stands in the centre of the block, was the Count himself. For the

moment that he was beneath the gas-lamp they saw him clearly. His face

was set in an expression of gloomy sternness; his rapid, resolute walk

indicated a definite purpose; he carried a little bundle in his hand.

"What a villain he looks!" whispered Brown. "Upon my soul, I do believe

that he is going to murder somebody!"

"Ah, the vile animal! We will pursue," answered Jaune, also in a

whisper.

Giving the Count a start of a dozen house fronts, they stepped out from

their retreat and followed him cautiously. He walked quickly up

Macdougal Street until he came out on Washington Square. For a moment

he paused--by Sam Wah's laundry--and then turned sharply to the left

along Fourth Street. At a good pace he crossed Sixth Avenue, swung

around the curve that Fourth Street makes before beginning its

preposterous journey northward, went on past the three little balconied

houses whose fronts are on Washington Place, and so came out upon the

open space where Washington Place and Barrow Street and Fourth Street

all run into each other. It was hereabout that Wouter Van Twiller had

his tobacco farm a trifle less than two centuries ago.

The Count stopped, as though to get his bearings, and while they waited

for him to go on Brown nudged Jaune to look at the delightfully

picturesque frame house, set in a deep niche between two high brick

houses, with the wooden stair elbowing up its outside to its third

story. It came out wonderfully well in the moonlight, but Jaune was too

much excited even to glance at it.

At the next group of corners--where Fourth Street crosses Grove and

Christopher Streets at the point where they go sidling into each other

along the slanting lines of the little park--the Count halted again.

Evidently, the exceeding crookedness of Greenwich Village puzzled him--

as well it might. Presently a Christopher Street car came along and set

him straight; and thus guided, he started resolutely westward, as

though heading for the river.

"Is it posseeble that he goes 'imself to drown?" suggested d'Antimoine.

"No such good luck," Brown answered shortly.

Coming out on what used to be called "the Strand"--West Street they

call it now--the Count bore away from the lights of the Hoboken Ferry

and from the guarded docks of the White Star and Anchor lines of

steamers, skirted the fleet of oyster boats, and so came to the quiet

pier at the foot of Perry Street, where the hay barges unload. This

pier runs a long way out into the river, for it is a part of what was

called Sapo-kamikke Point in Indian times. The Count stopped and looked

cautiously around him, but his pursuers promptly crouched behind a dray

and became invisible.

As he went out upon the pier, though, they were close upon his heels--

walking noiselessly over the loose hay and keeping themselves hidden in

the shadow of the barges and behind the piles of bales. At the very end

of the pier he stopped. Jaune and Brown, hidden by a bale of hay, were

within five feet of him. Their hearts were beating tremendously. There

had been no tragical purpose in their minds when they started, but it

certainly did look now as though they were in the thick of a tragedy.

In the crisp October moonlight the Count's face shone deathly pale;

they could see the fingers of his right hand working convulsively; they

could hear his labored breathing. Below him was the deep, black water,

lapping and rippling as the swirl of the tide sucked it into the dark,

slimy recesses among the piles. In its bosom was horrible death. The

Count stepped out upon the very edge of the pier and gazed wofully down

upon the swelling waters. His dismal purpose no longer admitted of

doubt. Involuntarily the two followed him until they were close at his

back. Little as they loved him, they could not suffer him thus

despairingly to leave the world.

But instead of casting himself over the edge of the pier, the Count

slowly raised the hand that held the bundle, with the obvious intention

of throwing the bundle and whatever was the evil secret that it

contained into the river's depths. Quick as thought, Brown had seized

the upraised arm, and Jaune had settled upon the other arm with a grip

like a vise.

"No, you don't, my boy! Let's see what it is before it goes overboard.

Hold fast, d'Antimoine!"

The Count struggled furiously, but hopelessly.

"It's no use. You may as well give in, Stumps!"

As Brown uttered this name the Count suddenly became limp. The little

bundle that he had clutched tightly through the struggle dropped from

his nerveless hand, and fell open as it struck the ground. And there,

gleaming in the moonlight, a brace of razors, a stubby brush, a stout

pair of shears, lay loosely in the folds of a barber's jacket!

And this was the sorry climax to the brilliant romance of the

proscribed Bonapartist, the Count Sicca-tif de Courtray!

Jaune, who was a generous-hearted young fellow, was for setting free

his crestfallen rival at once, and so having done with him. Brown took

a more statesmanlike view of the situation. "We will let him go after

he has owned up to Madame Carthame what a fraud he is," he said. The

Count winced when this sentence was pronounced, but he uttered no

remonstrance. The shock of the discovery had completely demoralized

him.

It was after midnight when they reached Madame Carthame's dwelling, and

Rose herself, with her hair done up in curl papers, opened the door for

them, When she recognized the three visitors and perceived that the

Count was in custody, and at the same moment remembered her curl

papers, on her face the gaze of astonishment and the blush of maidenly

modesty contended for the right of way.

Madame Carthame fairly was in bed--as was evident from the spirited

conversation between herself and her vivacious daughter that was

perfectly audible through the folding doors which separated the little

parlor from her bedroom. It was evident, also, that she was indisposed

to rise. However, her indisposition was overcome and in the course of

twenty minutes or so she appeared arrayed in a frigid dignity and a

loose wrapper. Rose, meanwhile, had taken off her curl papers, and

Jaune regarded her tumbled hair with ecstasy.

The tribunal being assembled, the prisoner was placed at the bar and

the trial began. It was an eminently irregular trial, looking at it

from a legal point of view, for the verbal evidence all was hearsay.

But it also was extra-legal in that it was brief and decisive. Brown

gave his testimony in the shape of a repetition of the story that Jaune

had told him had been told by Mr. Badger Brush's groom; and when this

was concluded, Jaune produced the jacket, razors, shears, and shaving

brush, and stated the circumstances under which they had been found.

Then the prosecution rested.

Being questioned by the court--that is to say, by Madame Carthame--in

his own defence, the Count replied gloomily that he hadn't any. "When I

saw that horse fellow," he said, "I knew that I was likely to get into

trouble, and that was the reason why I wanted to get rid of these

things. And now the game is up. It is all true. I was a barber. I am

not a count. My real name is Stumps."

Then it was that Madame Carthame, blissfully ignorant of the fact that

she had neglected to remove her nightcap, stood up in her place, with

her wrapper gathered about her in a statuesque fashion, and in a tragic

tone uttered the single word:

"Sortez!"

And the Count went!

Out, out into the chill and gloom of night went the false Count, never

to return; and with him went Madame Carthame's fond hope that her

daughter would be a countess, which also was the last barrier in the

way of Jaune d'Antimoine's love. Perceiving that the force of fate

inexorably was pressing upon her, Madame Carthame--still in her

night-cap--bestowed upon Rose and Jaune the maternal blessing in a

manner that, even allowing for the nightcap, was both stately and

severe.

As at Vandyke Brown's wedding Jaune d'Antimoine was radiantly

magnificent in "The Marquis Suit," adding splendor to the ceremony and

rendering himself most pleasing in the eyes of Rose Carthame; so, a

month later, he was yet more radiant when he wore the famous suit

again, in the church of Saint Vincent de Paul, and was himself married.

Conte Crayon brought Mr. Badger Brush down to the wedding, and the

groom came too, and the tailor got wind of it and came without being

asked--and had to be implored not to work it up into an advertisement,

as he very much wanted to do. Mrs. Vandyke Brown, just home from her

wedding journey, was the first--after the kiss of Madame Carthame had

been sternly bestowed--to kiss the bride; and Mr. Badger Brush

irreverently whispered to Conte Crayon that he wished, by gad! he had

her chance!

OLE 'STRACTED

---------------

BY THOMAS NELSON PAGE

_Thomas Nelson Page (born in Oakland, Virginia, April 23, 1853)

represents the generation of Southerners who were too young to fight

but not to feel during the Civil War. In the middle eighties he

published a number of stories in the "Century Magazine" which presented

with loving sympathy charming views of the old aristocratic regime that

it had become a literary fashion sweepingly to condemn. These tales of

courtly ideals on the part of the masters, and affecting loyalty on the

side of the slaves, were gathered together and published in 1887 in a

volume entitled "In Ole Virginia." "Marse Chan," "Meh Lady" and "Ole

'Stracted" the present selection, are the favorites of the collection._

OLE 'STRACTED

BY THOMAS NELSON PAGE

[Footnote: This story is reprinted, by permission, from the book

entitled "In Ole Virginia." Copyright, 1887, by Charles Scribner's

Sons.]

"Awe, little Ephum! _awe_ little E-phum! ef you don' come 'long heah,

boy, an' rock dis chile, I'll buss you haid open!" screamed the

high-pitched voice of a woman, breaking the stillness of the summer

evening. She had just come to the door of the little cabin, where she

was now standing, anxiously scanning the space before her, while a

baby's plaintive wail rose and fell within with wearying monotony. The

log cabin, set in a gall in the middle of an old field all grown up in

sassafras, was not a very inviting-looking place; a few hens loitering

about the new hen-house, a brood of half-grown chickens picking in the

grass and watching the door, and a runty pig tied to a "stob," were the

only signs of thrift; yet the face of the woman cleared up as she gazed

about her and afar off, where the gleam of green made a pleasant spot,

where the corn grew in the river bottom; for it was her home, and the

best of all was she thought it belonged to them.

A rumble of distant thunder caught her ear, and she stepped down and

took a well-worn garment from the clothes-line, stretched between two

dogwood forks, and having, after a keen glance down the path through

the bushes, satisfied herself that no one was in sight, she returned to

the house, and the baby's voice rose louder than before. The mother, as

she set out her ironing table, raised a dirge-like hymn, which she

chanted, partly from habit and partly in self-defence. She ironed

carefully the ragged shirt she had just taken from the line, and then,

after some search, finding a needle and cotton, she drew a chair to the

door and proceeded to mend the garment.

"Dis de on'ies' shut Ole 'Stracted got," she said, as if in apology to

herself for being so careful.

The cloud slowly gathered over the pines in the direction of the path;

the fowls carefully tripped up the path, and after a prudent pause at

the hole, disappeared one by one within; the chickens picked in a

gradually contracting circuit, and finally one or two stole furtively

to the cabin door, and after a brief reconnaissance came in, and

fluttered up the ladder to the loft, where they had been born, and yet

roosted. Once more the baby's voice prevailed, and once more the woman

went to the door, and, looking down the path, screamed, "Awe, little

Ephum! awe, little Ephum!"

"Ma'm," came the not very distant answer from the bushes.

"Why 'n't you come 'long heah, boy, an' rock dis chile?"

"Yes'm, I comin'," came the answer. She waited, watching, until there

emerged from the bushes a queer little caravan, headed by a small brat,

who staggered under the weight of another apparently nearly as large

and quite as black as himself, while several more of various degrees of

diminutiveness struggled along behind.

"Ain't you heah me callin' you, boy? You better come when I call you.

I'll tyah you all to pieces!" pursued the woman, in the angriest of

keys, her countenance, however, appearing unruffled. The head of the

caravan stooped and deposited his burden carefully on the ground; then,

with a comical look of mingled alarm and penitence, he slowly

approached the door, keeping his eye watchfully on his mother, and,

picking his opportunity, slipped in past her, dodging skilfully just

enough to escape a blow which she aimed at him, and which would have

"slapped him flat" had it struck him, but which, in truth, was intended

merely to warn and keep him in wholesome fear, and was purposely aimed

high enough to miss him, allowing for the certain dodge.

The culprit, having stifled the whimper with which he was prepared,

flung himself on to the foot of the rough plank cradle, and began to

rock it violently and noisily, using one leg as a lever, and singing an

accompaniment, of which the only words that rose above the noise of the

rockers were "By-a-by, don't you cry; go to sleep, little baby"; and

sure enough the baby stopped crying and went to sleep.

Eph watched his mammy furtively as she scraped away the ashes and laid

the thick pone of dough on the hearth, and shoveled the hot ashes upon

it. Supper would be ready directly, and it was time to propitiate her.

He bethought himself of a message.

"Mammy, Ole 'Stracted say you must bring he shut; he say he marster

comin' to-night."

"How he say he is?" inquired the woman, with some interest.

"He ain' say--jes say he want he shut. He sutny is comical--he layin'

down in de baid." Then, having relieved his mind, Eph went to sleep in

the cradle.

"'Layin' down in de baid?'" quoted the woman to herself as she moved

about the room. "I 'ain' nuver hern 'bout dat befo'. Dat sutny is a

comical ole man anyways. He say he used to live on dis plantation, an'

yit he al'ays talkin' 'bout de gret house an' de fine kerridges dee

used to have, an' 'bout he marster comin' to buy him back. De 'ain'

nuver been no gret house on dis place, not sence I know nuttin 'bout

it, 'sep de overseer house whar dat man live. I heah Ephum say Aunt

Dinah tell him de ole house whar used to be on de hill whar dat gret

oak-tree is in de pines bu'nt down de year he wuz born, an' he ole

marster had to live in de overseer house, an' hit break he heart, an'

dee teck all he niggers, an' dat's de way _he_ come to blongst to we

all; but dat ole man ain' know nuttin 'bout dat house, 'cause hit bu'nt

down. I wonder whar he did come from?" she pursued, "an' what he sho'

'nough name? He sholy couldn' been named 'Ole 'Stracted,' jes so; dat

ain' no name 'tall. Yit ef he ain' 'stracted, 'tain' nobody is. He ain'

even know he own name," she continued, presently. "Say he marster'll

know him when he come--ain' know de folks is free; say he marster gwi

buy him back in de summer an' kyar him home, an' 'bout de money he

gwine gi' him. Ef he got any money, I wonder he live down dyah in dat

evil-sperit hole." And the woman glanced around with great complacency

on the picture-pasted walls of her own by no means sumptuously

furnished house. "Money!" she repeated aloud, as she began to rake in

the ashes, "He ain' got nuttin. I got to kyar him piece o' dis bread

now," and she went off into a dream of what they would do when the big

crop on their land should be all in, and the last payment made on the

house; of what she would wear, and how she would dress the children,

and the appearance she would make at meeting, not reflecting that the

sum they had paid for the property had never, even with all their

stinting, amounted in any one year to more than a few dollars over the

rent charged for the place, and that the eight hundred dollars yet due

on it was more than they could make at the present rate in a lifetime.

"Ef Ephum jes had a mule, or even somebody to help him," she thought,

"but he ain' got nuttin. De chil'n ain big 'nough to do nuttin but eat;

he 'ain' not no brurrs, an' he deddy took 'way an' sold down Souf de

same time my ole marster whar dead buy him; dat's what I al'ays heah

'em say, an' I know he's dead long befo' dis, 'cause I heah 'em say

dese Virginia niggers earn stan' hit long deah, hit so hot, hit frizzle

'em up, an' I reckon he die befo' he ole marster, whar I heah say die

of a broked heart torectly after dee teck he niggers an' sell 'em befo'

he face. I heah Aunt Dinah say dat, an' dat he might'ly sot on he ole

servants, spressaly on Ephum deddy, whar named Little Ephum, an' whar

used to wait on him. Dis mus' 'a' been a gret place dem days, 'cordin'

to what dee say." She went on: "Dee say he sutny live strong, wuz jes

rich as cream, an' weahed he blue coat an' brass buttons, an' lived in

dat ole house whar was up whar de pines is now, an' whar bu'nt down,

like he owned de wull. An' now look at it; dat man own it all, an'

cuttin' all de woods off it. He don't know nuttin 'bout black folks,

ain' nuver been fotch up wid 'em. Who ever heah he name 'fo' he come

heah an' buy de place, an' move in de overseer house, an' charge we all

eight hundred dollars for dis land, jes 'cause it got little piece o'

bottom on it, an' forty-eight dollars rent besides, wid he ole stingy

wife whar oon' even gi' 'way buttermilk!" An expression of mingled

disgust and contempt concluded the reflection.

She took the ash-cake out of the ashes, slapped it first on one side,

then on the other, with her hand, dusted it with her apron, and walked

to the door and poured a gourd of water from the piggin over it. Then

she divided it in half; one half she set up against the side of the

chimney, the other she broke up into smaller pieces and distributed

among the children, dragging the sleeping Eph, limp and soaked with

sleep, from the cradle to receive his share. Her manner was not rough--

was perhaps even tender--but she used no caresses, as a white woman

would have done under the circumstances. It was only toward the baby at

the breast that she exhibited any endearments. Her nearest approach to

it with the others was when she told them, as she portioned out the

ash-cake, "Mammy ain't got nuttin else; but ntiver min', she gwine have

plenty o' good meat next year, when deddy done pay for he land."

"Hi! who dat out dyah?" she said, suddenly. "Run to de do', son, an'

see who dat comin'," and the whole tribe rushed to inspect the

new-comer.

It was, as she suspected, her husband, and as soon as he entered she

saw that something was wrong. He dropped into a chair, and sat in moody

silence, the picture of fatigue, physical and mental. After waiting for

some time, she asked, indifferently. "What de matter?"

"Dat man."

"What he done do now?" The query was sharp with suspicion.

"He say he ain' gwine let me have my land."

"He's a half-strainer," said the woman, with sudden anger. "How he

gwine help it? Ain' you got crap on it?" She felt that there must be a

defence against such an outrage.

"He say he ain' gwine wait no longer; dat I wuz to have tell Christmas

to finish payin' for it, an' I ain' do it, an' now he done change he

min'."

"Tell dis Christmas comin'," said his wife, with the positiveness of

one accustomed to expound contracts.

"Yes; but I tell you he say he done change he min'." The man had

evidently given up all hope; he was dead beat.

"De crap's yourn," said she, affected by his surrender, but prepared

only to compromise.

"He say he gwine teck all dat for de rent, and dat he gwine drive Ole

'Stracted 'way too."

"He ain' nuttin but po' white trash!" It expressed her supreme

contempt.

"He say he'll gi' me jes one week mo' to pay him all he ax for it,"

continued he, forced to a correction by her intense feeling, and the

instinct of a man to defend the absent from a woman's attack, and

perhaps in the hope that she might suggest some escape.

"He ain' nuttin sep po' white trash!" she repeated. "How you gwine

raise eight hundred dollars at once? Dee kyarn nobody do dat. Gord

mout! He ain' got good sense."

"You ain' see dat corn lately, is you?" he asked. "Hit jes as rank! You

can almos' see it growin' ef you look at it good. Dat's strong land. I

know dat when I buy it."

He knew it was gone now, but he had been in the habit of calling it his

in the past three years, and it did him good to claim the ownership a

little longer.

"I wonder whar Marse Johnny is?" said the woman. He was the son of her

former owner; and now, finding her proper support failing her, she

instinctively turned to him. "He wouldn' let him turn we all out."

"He ain' got nuttin, an' ef he is, he kyarn get it in a week," said

Ephraim.

"Kyarn you teck it in de co't?"

"Dat's whar he say he gwine have it ef I don' git out," said her

husband, despairingly.

Her last defence was gone.

"Ain' you hongry?" she inquired.

"What you got?"

"I jes gwine kill a chicken for you."

It was her nearest approach to tenderness, and he knew it was a mark of

special attention, for all the chickens and eggs had for the past three

years gone to swell the fund which was to buy the home, and it was only

on special occasions that one was spared for food.

The news that he was to be turned out of his home had fallen on him

like a blow, and had stunned him; he could make no resistance, he could

form no plans. He went into a rough estimate as he waited.

"Le' me see: I done wuck for it three years dis Christmas done gone;

how much does dat meek?"

"An' fo' dollars, an' five dollars, an' two dollars an' a half last

Christmas from de chickens, an' all dem ducks I done sell he wife, an'

de washin' I been doin' for 'em; how much is dat?" supplemented his

wife.

"Dat's what I say!"

His wife endeavored vainly to remember the amount she had been told it

was; but the unaccounted-for washing changed the sum and destroyed her

reliance on the result. And as the chicken was now approaching

perfection, and required her undivided attention, she gave up the

arithmetic and applied herself to her culinary duties.

Ephraim also abandoned the attempt, and waited in a reverie, in which

he saw corn stand so high and rank over his land that he could scarcely

distinguish the bulk, and a stable and barn and a mule, or maybe two--

it was a possibility--and two cows which his wife would milk, and a

green wagon driven by his boys, while he took it easy and gave orders

like a master, and a clover patch, and wheat, and he saw the' yellow

grain waving, and heard his sons sing the old harvest song of "Cool

Water" while they swung their cradles, and--

"You say he gwine turn Ole 'Stracted out, too?" inquired his wife,

breaking the spell. The chicken was done now, and her mind reverted to

the all-engrossing subject.

"Yes; say he tired o' ole 'stracted nigger livin' on he place an'

payin' no rent."

"Good Gord A'mighty! Pay rent for dat ole pile o' logs! Ain't he been

mendin' he shoes an' harness for rent all dese years?"

"'Twill kill dat ole man to tu'n him out dat house," said Ephraim; "he

ain 'nuver stay away from dyah a hour since he come heah."

"Sutny 'twill," assented his wife; then she added, in reply to the rest

of the remark, "Nuver min'; den we'll see what he got in dyah." To a

woman, that was at least some compensation. Ephraim's thoughts had

taken a new direction.

"He al'ays feared he marster'd come for him while he 'way," he said, in

mere continuance of his last remark.

"He sen' me wud he marster comin' to-night, an he want he shut," said

his wife, as she handed him his supper. Ephraim's face expressed more

than interest; it was tenderness which softened the rugged lines as he

sat looking into the fire. Perhaps he thought of the old man's

loneliness, and of his own father torn away and sold so long ago,

before he could even remember, and perhaps very dimly of the beauty of

the sublime devotion of this poor old creature to his love and his

trust, holding steadfast beyond memory, beyond reason, after the

knowledge even of his own identity and of his very name was lost.

The woman caught the contagion of his sympathy.

"De chil'n say he mighty comical, an' he layin' down in de baid," she

said.

Ephraim rose from his seat.

"Whar you gwine?"

"I mus' go to see 'bout him," he said, simply.

"Ain' you gwine finish eatin'?"

"I gwine kyar dis to him."

"Well, I kin cook you anurr when we come back," said his wife, with

ready acquiescence.

In a few minutes they were on the way, going single file down the path

through the sassafras, along which little Eph and his followers had

come an hour before, the man in the lead and his wife following, and,

according to the custom of their race, carrying the bundles, one the

surrendered supper and the other the neatly folded and well-patched

shirt in which Ole 'Stracted hoped to meet his long-expected loved

ones.

As they came in sight of the ruinous little hut which had been the old

man's abode since his sudden appearance in the neighborhood a few years

after the war, they observed that the bench beside the door was

deserted, and that the door stood ajar--two circumstances which neither

of them remembered ever to have seen before; for in all the years in

which he had been their neighbor Ole 'Stracted had never admitted any

one within his door, and had never been known to leave it open. In mild

weather he occupied a bench outside, where he either cobbled shoes for

his neighbors, accepting without question anything they paid him, or

else sat perfectly quiet, with the air of a person waiting for some

one. He held only the briefest communication with anybody, and was

believed by some to have intimate relations with the Evil One, and his

tumble-down hut, which he was particular to keep closely daubed, was

thought by such as took this view of the matter to be the temple where

he practiced his unholy rites. For this reason, and because the little

cabin, surrounded by dense pines and covered with vines which the

popular belief held "pizenous," was the most desolate abode a human

being could have selected, most of the dwellers in that section gave

the place a wide berth, especially toward nightfall, and Ole 'Stracted

would probably have suffered but for the charity of Ephraim and his

wife, who, although often wanting the necessaries of life themselves,

had long divided it with their strange neighbor. Yet even they had

never been admitted inside his door, and knew no more of him than the

other people about the settlement knew.

His advent in the neighborhood had been mysterious. The first that was

known of him was one summer morning, when he was found sitting on the

bench beside the door of this cabin, which had long been unoccupied and

left to decay. He was unable to give any account of himself, except

that he always declared that he had been sold by some one other than

his master from that plantation, that his wife and boy had been sold to

some other person at the same time for twelve hundred dollars (he was

particular as to the amount), and that his master was coming in the

summer to buy him back and take him home, and would bring him his wife

and child when he came. Everything since that day was a blank to him,

and as he could not tell the name of his master or wife, or even his

own name, and as no one was left old enough to remember him, the

neighborhood having been entirely deserted after the war, he simply

passed as a harmless old lunatic laboring under a delusion. He was

devoted to children, and Ephraim's small brood were his chief delight.

They were not at all afraid of him, and whenever they got a chance they

would slip off and steal down to his house, where they might be found

any time squatting about his feet, listening to his accounts of his

expected visit from his master, and what he was going to do afterward.

It was all of a great plantation, and fine carriages and horses, and a

house with his wife and the boy.

This was all that was known of him, except that once a stranger,

passing through the country, and hearing the name Ole 'Stracted, said

that he heard a similar one once, long before the war, in one of the

Louisiana parishes, where the man roamed at will, having been bought of

the trader by the gentleman who owned him, for a small price, on

account of his infirmity.

"Is you gwine in dyah?" asked the woman, as they approached the hut.

"Hi! yes; 'tain' nuttin' gwine hu't you; an' you say Ephum say he be

layin' in de baid?" he replied, his mind having evidently been busy on

the subject.

"An' mighty comical," she corrected him, with exactness born of

apprehension.

"Well? I 'feared he sick."

"I ain' nuver been in dyah," she persisted.

"Ain' de chil'n been in dyah?"

"Dee say 'stracted folks oon hu't chil'n."

"Dat ole man oon hu't nobody; he jes tame as a ole tomcat."

"I wonder he ain' feared to live in dat lonesome ole house by hisself.

I jes lieve stay in a graveyard at once. I ain' wonder folks say he

sees sperrits in dat hanty-lookin' place." She came up by her husband's

side at the suggestion. "I wonder he don' go home."

"Whar he got any home to go to sep heaven?" said Ephraim.

"What was you mammy name, Ephum?"

"Mymy," said he, simply.

They were at the cabin now, and a brief pause of doubt ensued. It was

perfectly dark inside the door, and there was not a sound. The bench

where they had heretofore held their only communication with their

strange neighbor was lying on its side in the weeds which grew up to

the very walls of the ruinous cabin, and a lizard suddenly ran over it,

and with a little rustle disappeared under the rotting ground-sill. To

the woman it was an ill omen. She glanced furtively behind her, and

moved nearer her husband's side. She noticed that the cloud above the

pines was getting a faint yellow tinge on its lower border, while it

was very black above them. It filled her with dread, and she was about

to call her husband's notice to it, when a voice within arrested their

attention. It was very low, and they both listened in awed silence,

watching the door meanwhile as if they expected to see something

supernatural spring from it.

"Nem min'--jes wait--'tain so long now--he'll be heah torectly," said

the voice. "Dat's what he say--gwine come an' buy me back--den we gwine

home."

In their endeavor to catch the words they moved nearer, and made a

slight noise. Suddenly the low, earnest tone changed to one full of

eagerness.

"Who dat?" was called in sharp inquiry.

"'Tain' nobody but me an' Polly, Ole 'Stracted," said Ephraim, pushing

the door slightly wider open and stepping in. They had an indistinct

idea that the poor deluded creature had fancied them his longed-for

loved ones, yet it was a relief to see him bodily.

"Who you say you is?" inquired the old man, feebly.

"Me an' Polly."

"I done bring you shut home," said the woman, as if supplementing her

husband's reply. "Hit all bran' clean, an' I done patch it."

"Oh, I thought--" said the voice, sadly.

They knew what he thought. Their eyes were now accustomed to the

darkness, and they saw that the only article of furniture which the

room contained was the wretched bed or bench on which the old man was

stretched. The light sifting through the chinks in the roof enabled

them to see his face, and that it had changed much in the last

twenty-four hours, and an instinct told them that he was near the end

of his long waiting.

"How is you, Ole 'Stracted?" asked the woman.

"Dat ain' my name," answered the old man, promptly. It was the first

time he had ever disowned the name.

"Well, how is you, Ole--What I gwine to call you?" asked she, with

feeble finesse.

"I don' know--he kin tell you."

"Who?"

"Who? Marster. He know it. Ole 'Stracted ain' know it; but dat ain'

nuttin. _He_ know it--got it set down in de book. I jes waitin' for 'em

now."

A hush fell on the little audience--they were in full sympathy with

him, and, knowing no way of expressing it, kept silence. Only the

breathing of the old man was audible in the room. He was evidently

nearing the end. "I mighty tired of waitin'," he said, pathetically.

"Look out dyah and see ef you see anybody," he added suddenly.

Both of them obeyed, and then returned and stood silent; they could not

tell him no.