Legal employment is susceptible of almost indefinite expansion. Thus
ruminated Judge Enderby, rising early with a brisk appetite for romance,
as he fingered the two five-dollar bills received from his newest
client.
For that client he was jovially minded to do his best. The young fellow
had taken a strong hold upon his liking. Moreover, the judge was a
confirmed romantic, though he would have resented being thus catalogued.
He chose to consider his inner stirrings of sentimentalism in the
present case as due to a fancy for minor diplomacies and delicate
negotiations. One thing he was sure of: that he was enjoying himself
unusually, and that the Tyro was like to get very good value for his
fee.
To which end, shortly after breakfast he broke through the cordon
surrounding Miss Cecily Wayne and bore her off for a promenade.
"But it's not alone for your _beaux yeux_," he explained to her. "I'm
acting for a client."
"How exciting! But you're not going to browbeat me as you did poor papa
when you had him on the stand?" said Miss Wayne, exploring the gnarled
old face with soft eyes.
"Browbeat the court!" cried the legal light (who had frequently done
that very thing). "You're the tribunal of highest jurisdiction in this
case."
"Then I must look very solemn and judicial." Which she proceeded to do
with such ravishing effect that three young men approaching from the
opposite direction lost all control of their steering-gear and were
precipitated into the scuppers by the slow tilt of a languid
ground-swell.
"If you must, you must," allowed the judge, "though," he added with a
glance at the struggling group, "it's rather dangerous. I'm approaching
you," he continued, "on behalf of a client suddenly stricken dumb."
Miss Wayne's shapely nose elevated itself to a marked angle. "I don't
think I want to hear about him," she observed coldly.
"He's in dire distress over his affliction."
"I have troubles of my own. I'm deaf."
"Then suppose I should express to you in the sign language that my
client--"
"I don't want to hear it--see it--know anything about it." The amount of
determination which Miss Wayne's chin contrived to express seemed quite
incompatible with the adorable dimple nestling in the center thereof.
"Must I return the fee, then?"
"What fee?"
"The victim of this sudden misfortune has retained me--"
"To act as go-between?"
"Well, no; not precisely. But to represent him in all matters of import
on this voyage. On two occasions he has paid over the sum of five
dollars. I never work for nothing. Would you deprive a superannuated
lawyer of the most promising chance to earn an honest penny which has
presented itself in a year?"
"Poor old gentleman!" she laughed. "Far be it from me to ruin your
prospects. But if Mr. Daddle--if your client," pursued the girl with
heightened color, "has anything to say to me, he'd best say it himself."
"As I have already explained to the learned court, he can't. He's dumb."
"Why is he dumb?"
"Ah! What an ally is curiosity! My unhappy client is dumb by order."
"Whose order?"
"The captain's."
"Has the captain told him he mustn't speak?"
"To you."
All of Miss Wayne's dimples sprang to their places and stood at
attention. "How lovely! What for? I'll make him."
"Ah! What an ally is opposition," sighed the astute old warrior. "But I
fear you can't."
"Can't I! Wait and see."
"No. He is afraid."
"He doesn't look a victim of timidity."
"Not for himself. But unpleasant things will happen to a friend--well,
let us say an acquaintance for whom he has no small regard--if he
disobeys."
"Oh, dealer in mysteries, tell me more!"
"Thou art the woman."
"I? What can possibly happen to me?"
"Solitary confinement."
"I don't think that's a very funny joke," said she contemptuously.
"Indeed, it's no joke. Your eyes will grow dim, your appetite will wane,
your complexion will suffer, that tolerable share of good looks which a
casual Providence has bestowed upon you--"
"Please don't tease the court, Judge Enderby. What is it all about?"
"In words of one syllable: if the boy speaks to you once more, you're to
be sentenced to your stateroom."
"How intolerable!" she flashed. "Who on this ship has the right--"
"Nobody. But on shore you possess a stern and rockbound father who,
thanks to the malevolent mechanism of an evil genius named Marconi, has
been able to exert his authority through the captain, acting _in loco
parentis_, if I may venture to employ a tongue more familiar to this
learned court than to myself."
"And that's the reason Mr. Daddleskink," she got it out, with a brave
effort, "wouldn't speak to me yesterday?"
"The sole and only reason! Being a minor--"
"Gracious! Isn't he twenty-one?"
"If the court will graciously permit me to conclude my sentence--being a
minor, you still--"
"I'm not a minor."
"You're not?"
"Certainly not. I was twenty-one last month."
"Your father gave the captain to understand that you were under age."
"Papa's memory sometimes plays tricks on him," said the maiden demurely.
"Or on others. I noticed that in the Mid & Mud Railroad investigation.
You're sure you're over twenty-one?"
"Of course I'm sure."
"But can you prove it?"
"Gracious! How are such things proved? Is it necessary for me to prove
it?"
"It would be helpful."
"What am I to do?"
"Give me five dollars," said the judge promptly.
"I haven't five dollars with me."
"Get it, then. I never work for nothing."
The ranging eye of Miss Wayne fell upon a figure in a steamer-chair, all
huddled up behind a widespread newspaper. There was something
suspiciously familiar about the figure. Miss Wayne bore down upon it.
The paper--five days old--trembled. She peered over the top of it.
Behind and below crouched the Tyro pretending to be asleep.
"Good-morning," said Miss Wayne.
A delicate but impressive snore answered her.
"Mr. Daddleskink!"
No answer. But the face of the victim twitched painfully. It is but
human for the bravest martyr to wince under torture.
"Wake up! I know you're not asleep. I _will_ be answered!" She stamped
her small but emphatic foot on the deck. The legs of the Tyro curled up
under as instinctively as those of an assailed spider.
"There! You see! You needn't pretend. Won't you please speak to me?" The
tormentor was having a beautiful time with her revenge.
"Go away," said a hoarse whisper from behind the newspaper.
"I'm in trouble." The voice sounded very childlike in its plea. The Tyro
writhed.
"Even if you don't like me"--the Tyro writhed some more--"and don't
consider me fit to speak to"--the Tyro's contortions were fairly
Laocoönish--"would you--couldn't you lend me five dollars?"
The Tyro blinked rapidly.
"I need it awfully," pursued the malicious maiden.
Desperation marked itself on his brow. He scrambled from his chair,
plunged his hand into his pocket, extracted a bill, transferred it to
her waiting fingers, and hustled for the nearest doorway. He didn't
reach it. The august undulations of Mrs. Charlton Denyse's form
intercepted him.
"This is shameless!" she declared.
For once the abused youth was almost ready to agree with her.
[Illustration: "COULDN'T YOU LEND ME FIVE DOLLARS?"]
"What?" he said weakly.
"Don't quibble with me, sir. I saw, if I did not hear. You passed Miss
Wayne a note. I am astonished!" she said, in the tone of a scandalized
Sunday-School teacher.
The Tyro rapidly reflected that she would have been considerably more
astonished could she have known the nature of the "note." From the tail
of his eye he saw the recipient in close conversation with Judge
Enderby. Remembering his own dealings with that eminent fee-hunter he
drew a rapid conclusion.
"Would you like to know what was in that note?" he inquired.
"As a prospective connection of Miss Wayne's--"
"If so, ask Judge Enderby."
"Why should I ask Judge Enderby?"
"Because, unless I'm mistaken, he's got the note now."
"I shall not ask Judge Enderby. I shall report the whole disgraceful
affair to the captain."
"Don't do that!" cried the Tyro in alarm.
"Perhaps that will put an end to your vulgar persecution of an
inexperienced young girl."
"O Lord!" groaned the Tyro, setting out in pursuit of the lawyer as the
protector of social sanctities turned away. "Now I _have_ done it!"
He caught up with the judge and his companion at the turn of the deck.
"May I have a word with you, Judge?" he cried.
"I'm busy," said the lawyer gruffly. "I'm engaged in an important
consultation."
"But this can't wait," cried the unfortunate.
"Anything can wait," said the old man. "But youth," he added in an
undertone.
"You've got to listen!" The Tyro planted himself, a very solid, set bulk
of athletic young manhood, in the jurist's path.
"In the face of force and coercion," sighed the other.
"I've been seen speaking to Miss--Miss--"
"Grouch," supplied the indicated damsel sweetly.
"Mrs. Denyse saw us. She has gone to report to the captain."
"Lovely!" said the lawyer. "Beautiful! Enter the Wicked Godmother. The
fairy-tale is working out absolutely according to Grimm."
"But Miss--"
"Grouch," chirped the young lady melodiously.
"--will be locked up--"
"In the donjon-keep," chuckled the lawyer. "Chapter the seventh. Who
says that romance has died out of the world?"
"But if Mrs. Denyse carries out her threat and tells the captain--"
"The Wicked Ogre, you mean. If you love me, the Wicked Ogre. And he will
lock the Lovely Princess in the donjon-keep until the dumb but devoted
Prince arrives in time--just in the nick of time--to effect a rescue.
That comes in the last chapter. And then, of course, they were mar--"
"I'm tired of fairy-tales," said Little Miss Grouch hastily. "It won't
be a bit funny to be locked up--"
"With three grains of corn per day and a cup of sour wine. Hans
Christian Andersen never did anything like this!" crowed the enchanted
lawyer.
"Meantime," observed the Tyro, with the calm of despair, "Mrs. Denyse
has found the captain."
"Presto, change!" said Judge Enderby, catching each by an arm and
hurtling them around the curve of the cabin. "We come back to the dull
reality of facts, retainers and advice. Fairy Prince,--young man, I
mean,--you go and watch for icebergs over the port bow until sent for.
Miss Wayne, you come with me to a secluded spot where the captain can't
discover us for an hour or so. I have a deep suspicion that he isn't
really in any great haste to find you."
As soon as they were seated in the refuge which the old gentleman found,
he turned upon her.
"What are you trying to do to that young man?"
"Nothing," said she with slanted eyes.
"Don't look at me that way. It's a waste of good material. Remember,
he's my client and I'm bound to protect his interests. Are you trying to
drive him mad?"
Little Miss Grouch's wrongs swept over her memory. "He said I was
homely. And red-nosed. And had a voice like a sick crow. And he called
me Little Miss Grouch. I'm getting even," she announced with delicate
satisfaction.
The old man cackled with glee. "Blind as well as dumb! There's a little
godling who is also blind and--well, you know the proverb: 'When the
blind lead the blind, both shall fall in the ditch.' Look well to your
footsteps, O Princess."
"Is that legal advice?"
"Oh, that reminds me! You don't chance to have any documentary proof of
your birth, do you?"
"With me? Gracious, no! People don't travel with the family Bible, do
they?"
"They ought to, in melodrama. And this is certainly some
ten-twenty-thirty show! Wise people occasionally have passports."
"Nobody ever accused me of wisdom. Besides, I left in a hurry."
"To escape the false prince. More fairy-tale."
"But I _am_ twenty-one and I've got the very watch that papa gave me on
my birthday."
"Let me see it."
She drew out a beautiful little diamond-studded chronometer of foreign
and very expensive make.
"Most inappropriate for a child of your age," commented the other
severely. "Ha! Here we are. Fairy Godfather--that's me--to the rescue."
He read from the inner case of the watch. "'To my darling Cecily on her
21st birthday, from Father.' Not strictly legal, but good enough," he
observed. "We shall now go forth and kill the dragon. That is to say,
tell the captain the time of day."
"What fun! But--Judge Enderby."
"Well?"
"Don't tell Mr.--your other client, will you?"
"Why not?"
"I don't want him to know."
"But, you see, my duty to him as his legal adviser certainly demands
that--"
"You're _my_ legal adviser, too. Isn't my five dollars as good as his?
Particularly when it really is his five dollars?"
"Allowed."
"Well, then, my age is a confidential communication and--what do you
call it?--privileged."
"Oh, wise young judge! But, fair Portia, don't let me perish of
curiosity. Why?"
"My revenge isn't complete yet."
"Look out for the inner edge of that tool," he warned.
With the timepiece in his hand, Judge Enderby bearded the autocrat of
the Clan Macgregor on his own deck to such good purpose that Miss Cecily
Wayne presently learned of the end of her troubles so far as prospective
incarceration went. The knowledge, preserved intact for her own uses,
put in her hand a dire weapon for the discomfiture of the Tyro.
Thereafter the ship's company was treated to the shameful spectacle of a
young man hunted, harried, and beset by a Diana of the decks; chevied
out of comfortable chairs, flushed from odd nooks and corners, baited
openly in saloon and reading-room, trailed as with the wile of the
serpent along devious passageways and through crowded assemblages, hare
to her hound, up and down, high and low, until he became a byword among
his companions for the stricken eye of eternal watchfulness. Sometimes
the persecutress stalked him, unarmed; anon she threatened with a
five-dollar bill. Now she trailed in a deadly silence; again, when there
were few to hear, she bayed softly upon the spoor, and ever in her eyes
gleamed the wild light and wild laughter of the chase.
Once she penned him. He had ensconced himself in a corner behind one of
the lifeboats, where, with uncanny instinct, she spied him. Before he
could escape, she had shut off egress.
"How do you do?" she said demurely.
He took off his cap, but with a sidelong eye seemed to be measuring the
jump to the deck below.
"You've forgotten me, I'm afraid. I'm Little Miss Grouch. Would this
help you to remember?"
She extended a five-dollar bill. He took it with the expression of one
to whom a nice, shiny blade has just been handed for purposes of
hara-kiri.
"I have missed you," she pursued with diabolical plaintiveness. "Our
child--our adopted child," she corrected, the pink running up under her
skin, "has been crying for you."
"Go away!" said the Tyro hoarsely.
"Are these the manners of a Perfect Pig?" she reproached him. And with
adorable sauciness she warbled a nursery ditty:--
"Lady once loved a pig.
'Honey,' said she,
'Pig, will you marry me?'
'Wrrumph!' said he.
"I can't grunt very nicely," she admitted. "_You_ do it."
"Go away," he implored, gazing from side to side like a trapped animal.
"Somebody'll see you. They'll lock you up."
"Me? Why?" Her eyes opened wide in the loveliness of feigned surprise.
"Much more likely you. I doubt whether you really should be at large.
Such a queer-acting person!"
"I--I'll write and explain," he said desperately.
"If you do, I'll show the letter to the captain."