enter into the spirit of the thing. It is only ten per cent., you
know, and it all goes into Bobberts' education fund."
Billy sat in silent thought awhile.
"I wonder," he said at length, "how it would do if I just put a few
things into my suit-case--enough to last me a few days at a
time--and left my trunk over here. I don't need everything I brought
in that trunk. I was perfectly reckless about putting things in that
trunk. I put into that trunk nearly everything I own in this world,
just because the trunk was so big that it would hold everything, and
it seemed a pity to bring a big trunk like that with nothing in it
but air. Now, I could take my suit-case and put into it the things I
will really need--"
"Certainly," said Mr. Fenelby. "You can do that if you want to, and
it would be perfectly fair to Bobberts. All Bobberts asks is to be
paid a duty on what enters the house. He don't say what shall be
brought in, or what shall not. Personally, Billy, I would call the
duty off, so far as you are concerned, but I don't think Laura would
like it. We started this thing fair, and we are all living up to it.
Laura made Kitty live up to it and you can see it would not be right
for me to make an exception in your case just because you happen to
be my brother."
"No," agreed Billy, "it wouldn't. I don't ask it. I will play the
game and I will play it fair. All I ask is: If I bring a suit-case,
do I have to pay on the case? Because if I do, I won't bring it. I
can wrap all I need in a piece of paper, and save the duty on the
suit-case. I believe in playing fair, Tom, but that is no reason why
I should be extravagant."
"I think," said Tom, doubtfully, "suit-cases should come in free. Of
course, if it was a brand new suit-case it would have to pay duty,
but an old one--one that has been used--is different. It is like
wrapping-paper. The duty is assessed on what the package contains
and not on the package itself. If it is not a new suit-case you
will not have to pay duty on it."
"Then my suit-case will go in free," said Billy. "It is one of the
first crop of suit-cases that was raised in this country, and I
value it more as a relic than as a suit-case. I carry it more as a
souvenir than as a suit-case."
"Souvenirs are different," said Mr. Fenelby. "Souvenirs are classed
as luxuries, and pay thirty per cent. If you consider it a souvenir
it pays duty."
"I will consider it a suit-case," said Billy promptly. "I will
consider it a poor old, worn-out suit-case."
"I think that would be better," agreed Mr. Fenelby. "But we will
have to wait and see what Laura considers it."
As on the previous evening the ladies were on the porch, enjoying
the evening air, when Mr. Fenelby reached home, with Billy in tow,
and Billy greeted them as if he had never wished anything better
than to meet Miss Kitty.
"Where is this custom house Tom has been telling me about?" he
asked, as soon as the hand shaking was over. "I want to have my
baggage examined. I have dutiable goods to declare. Who is the
inspector?"
[Illustration: "'I declare one collar'"]
"Laura is," said Kitty. "She is the slave of the grinding system
that fosters monopoly and treads under heel the poor people."
"All right," said Billy, "I declare one collar. I wish to bring one
collar into the bosom of this family. I have in this suit-case one
collar. I never travel without one extra collar. It is the
two-for-a-quarter kind, with a name like a sleeping car, and it has
been laundered twice, which brings it to the verge of ruin. How much
do I have to pay on the one collar?"
"Collars are a necessity," said Mrs. Fenelby, "and they pay ten
per--"
"What a notion!" exclaimed Kitty. "Collars are not a necessity.
Collars are an actual luxury, especially in warm weather. Many very
worthy men never wear a collar at all, and would not think of
wearing one in hot weather. They are like jewelry or--or something
of that sort. Collars certainly pay thirty per cent."
"I reserve the right to appeal," said Billy. "Those are the words of
an unjust judge. But how much do I take off the value of the collar
because two thirds of its life has been laundered away? How much is
one third of twelve and a half?"
"Now, that is pure nonsense," Kitty said, "and I sha'n't let poor,
dear little Bobberts be robbed in any such way. That collar cost
twelve and a half cents, and it has had two and a half cents spent
on it twice, so it is now a seventeen and a half cent collar, and
thirty per cent. of that is--is--"
"Oh, if you are going to rob me!" exclaimed Billy. "I don't care. I
can get along without a collar. I will bring out a sweater
to-morrow."
"Sweaters pay only ten per cent.," said Kitty sweetly. "What else
have you in your suit-case?"
"Air," said Billy. "Nothing but air. I didn't think I could afford
to bring anything else, and I will leave the collar out here. I
open the case--I take out the collar--I place it gently on the porch
railing--and I take the empty suit-case into the house. I pay no
duty at all, and that is what you get for being so grasping."
Mr. Fenelby shook his head.
"You can't do that, Billy," he said. "That puts the suit-case in
another class. It isn't a package for holding anything now, and it
isn't a necessity--because you can't need an empty suit-case--so it
doesn't go in at ten per cent., so it must be a luxury, and it pays
thirty per cent."
"That suit-case," said Billy, looking at it with a calculating eye,
"is not worth thirty per cent. of what it is worth. It is
worthless, and I wouldn't give ten per cent. of nothing for it. It
stays outside. So I pay nothing. I go in free. Unless I have to pay
on myself."
"You don't have to," said Kitty, "although I suppose Laura and Tom
think you are a luxury."
"Don't you think I am one?" asked Billy.
"No, I don't," said Kitty frankly, "and when you know me better, you
will not ask such a foolish question. Where ever I am, there a young
man is a necessity."
V
THE PINK SHIRT-WAIST
The morning after Billy Fenelby's arrival at the Fenelby home he
awakened unusually early, as one is apt to awaken in a strange bed,
and he lay awhile thinking over the events of the previous evening.
He was more than ever convinced that Kitty was not the kind of girl
he liked. He felt that she had made a bare-faced effort to flirt
with him the evening before, and that she was just the kind of a
girl that was apt to be troublesome to a bachelor. She was the kind
of a girl that would demand a great deal of attention and expect it
as a natural right, and then, when she received it, make the man
feel that he had been attentive in quite another way, and that the
only fair thing would be to propose. And he felt that she was the
kind of girl that no man could propose to with any confidence
whatever. She would be just as likely to accept him as not, and
having accepted him, she would be just as likely to expect him to
marry her as not. He felt that he was in a very ticklish situation.
He saw that Kitty was the sort of girl that would take any air of
rude indifference he might assume to be a challenge, and any comely
polite attention to be serious love making. He saw that the only
safe thing for him to do would be to run away, but, since he had
seen Kitty, that was the last thing in the world that he would have
thought of doing. He decided that he would constitute her bright
eyes and red lips to be a mental warning sign reading "Danger" in
large letters, and that whenever he saw them he would be as wary as
a rabbit and yet as brave as a lion.
He next felt a sincere regret that he had refused to pay the duty on
the clean collar he had brought with him, and that he had left on
the railing of the porch. He got out of bed and looked at the collar
he had worn the day before, and frowned at it as he saw that it was
not quite immaculate. Then he listened closely for any sound in the
house that would tell him Mr. or Mrs. Fenelby were up. He heard
nothing. He hastily slipped on his clothes, and tip-toed out of the
room and down the stairs. This tariff for revenue only was well
enough for Thomas and Laura, and assessing a duty of ten per cent.
on everything that came into the house (and thirty per cent. on
luxuries) might fill up Bobberts' bank, and provide that baby with
an education fund, but it was an injustice to bachelor uncles when
there was an unmarried girl in the house. If this Kitty girl was
willing to so forget what was due to a young man as to appear in one
dress the whole time of her stay, that was her look-out, but for his
part he did not intend to lower his dignity by going down to
breakfast in a soiled collar. If creeping down to the porch in his
stockings, and bringing in that collar surreptitiously, was
smuggling, then--
Billy stopped short at the screen door. From there he could see the
spot on the railing where he had put the collar, and the collar was
not there! No doubt it had fallen to the lawn. He opened the screen
door carefully and stepped outside. The early morning air was cool
and sweet, and an ineffable quiet rested on the suburb. He tip-toed
gently across the porch and down the porch steps, and hobbled
carefully across the painful pebble walk and stepped upon the lawn.
There was dew on the lawn. The lawn was soaked and saturated and
steeped in dew. It bathed his feet in chilliness, as if he had
stepped into a pail of ice water, and the vines that clambered up
the porch-side were dewy too. As he kneeled on the grass and pawed
among the vines, seeking the missing collar, the vines showered down
the crystal drops upon him, and soaked his sleeves, and added a
finishing touch of ruin to the collar he was wearing. The other
collar was not there! It was not among the vines, it was not on the
lawn, it was not on the porch, and soaked in socks and sleeves he
retreated. He paused a minute on the porch to glance thoughtfully at
the moist foot-prints his feet left on the boards, and wondered if
they would be dry before Tom or Laura came down. At any rate there
was no help for it now, and he went up the stairs again.
The most uncomfortable small discomfort is wet socks, whether they
come from a small hole in the bottom of a shoe or from walking on a
lawn in the early morning, and Billy wiggled his toes as he slowly
and carefully climbed the stairs. As he turned the last turn at the
top he stopped short and blushed. Kitty was standing there awaiting
him, a smile on her face and his other collar in her hand. She laid
her finger on her lip, and tapped it there to command silence, and
raised her brows at him, to let him know that she knew where he had
been and why.
"I thought you would want it," she said in the faintest whisper, "so
I smuggled it in last night. I had no idea _you_ would stoop to
such a thing, but--but I felt so sorry for you, without a collar."
"Thanks!" whispered Billy. It was a masterpiece of whispering, that
word. It was a gruff whisper, warding off familiarity, and yet it
was a grateful whisper, as a whisper should be to thank a pretty
girl for a favor done, but still it was a scoffing whisper, with a
tinge of resentfulness, but resentfulness tempered by courtesy.
Underlying all this was a flavor of independence, but not such crude
independence that it killed the delicate tone that implied that the
hearer of the whisper was a very pretty girl, and that that fact
was granted even while her interference in the whisperer's affairs
was misliked, and her suspicions of dishonest acts on his part
considered uncalled for. If he did not quite succeed in getting all
this crowded into the one word it was doubtless because his feet
were so wet and uncomfortable. Billy was rather conscious that he
had not quite succeeded, and he would have tried again, adding this
time an inflection to mean that he well understood that her object
was to get him into a quasi conspiracy and thus draw him irrevocably
into confidential relations of misdemeanor from which he could not
escape, but that he refused to be so drawn--I say he would have
repeated the word, but a sound in one of the bed-rooms close at hand
sent them both tip-toeing to their rooms.
They had hardly reached safety when the door of Mr. Fenelby's room
opened and Mr. Fenelby stole out quietly, stole as quietly down the
stairs and out upon the porch. He looked at the railing where Billy
had left the collar, and then he peered over the railing, and as
silently stole up the stairs again. He paused at Billy's door and
tapped on it. Billy opened it a mere hint of a crack.
"What is it?" he whispered.
"That collar," whispered Mr. Fenelby. "I thought about it all night,
and I didn't think it right that you should be made to do without
it. I just went down, to get it, but it isn't there."
"Never mind," whispered Billy. "Don't worry, old man. I will wear
the one I have."
Mr. Fenelby hesitated.
"Of course," he whispered, "you won't--That is to say, you needn't
tell Laura I went down--"
"Certainly not," whispered Billy. "It was awfully kind of you to
think of it. But I'll make this one do."
Mr. Fenelby waited at the door a moment longer as if he had
something more to say, but Billy had closed the door, and he went
back to his room.
It was with relief that Bridget heard the door close behind Mr.
Fenelby. She had been standing on the little landing of the
back-stairs, where he had almost caught her as she was coming up. If
she had been one step higher he would have seen her head. Usually
she would not have minded this, for she had a perfect right to be on
the back-stairs in the early morning, but this time she felt that it
was her duty to remain undiscovered. Now that Mr. Fenelby was gone
she softly stepped to Billy's door and knocked lightly.
"Misther Billy, sor, are ye there?" she whispered. Billy opened the
door a crack and looked out.
"Mornin' to ye," she said in a hoarse whisper. "I'm sorry t'
disthurb ye, but Missus Fenelby axed me t' bring up th' collar ye
left on th' porrch railin', an' t' let no wan know I done it, an' I
just wanted t' let ye know th' reason I have not brung it up is
because belike someone else has brang it already, for it is gone."
"Thank you, Bridget," whispered Billy. "It doesn't matter."
She turned away, but when he had closed the door she paused, and
after hesitating a moment she tapped on his door again. He opened
it.
"I have put me foot in it," she said, "like I always do. W'u'd ye be
so good as t' fergit I mentioned th' name of Missus Fenelby, that's
a dear man? I raymimber now I was not t' mention it t' ye."
"Certainly, Bridget," said Billy, and he closed the door and went
again to the window, where he was turning his socks over and over in
the streak of sunlight that warmed a part of the window sill.
It took the socks a little longer to dry than he had thought it
would, and they were still damp enough to make his feet feel
anything but comfortable when he heard the breakfast bell tinkle
faintly. He hurried the rest of his toilet and went down the stairs,
assuming as he went the air of unsuspected innocence that is the
inborn right of every man who knows he has done wrong. The bodily
Billy was more conscious of the discomfort of his feet, but the
mental Billy was all collar. He had never known a collar to be so
obtrusive. He felt that he must seem all collar, even to the most
casual eye, but he was upheld by the belief that no one would dare
to mention collar to him in public. If he had sinned he was not the
only sinner, for he was but a partner in conspiracy. He walked down
the stairs boldly.
"And to think that his vanity should be the cause of robbing poor
little Bobberts," he heard a clear voice say as he neared the
dining room door. "It is too mean! I can never look up to man with
the faith I have always had in man, after this. But I know they were
his foot-prints, Laura."
"Are you so sure, Kitty?" asked Mrs. Fenelby. "Mightn't they
be--mightn't they be Bridget's?"
"They were not," said the voice of Kitty, and Billy paused where he
was and stood still. "Bridget does not go about in the wet grass in
her stocking feet. Those were Billy's tracks on the porch. I am no
Sherlock Holmes, but I can tell you just what he did. He stole down
before we were awake, to look for that collar, and he did not find
it on the railing where he had left it. Then he saw it where it had
fallen and he went down on the wet lawn and got it. Watch him when
he comes in to breakfast. He will be wearing a collar, and it will
not be the one he wore last night."
Billy turned and tip-toed softly up the stairs again, undoing his
tie as he went. When he came down his neck was neatly, but
informally swathed in a white handkerchief. Three pairs of eyes
watched him as he entered, but he faced them unflinchingly. Mr. and
Mrs. Fenelby let their eyes drop before his glance, but Kitty met
his gaze with a challenge. There was nothing of treachery in her
face, and yet she had sought to betray him. He looked at her with
greater interest than he had ever known himself to feel regarding
any girl, and as he looked he had a startled sense that she was
fairer than she had been, and he caught his breath quickly and began
to talk to Mrs. Fenelby.
"Tom," he said, after breakfast, as Mr. Fenelby was getting ready
to leave to catch his train, "I think I'll walk over to the station
with you. I have something I want to say to you."
"Come along," said Mr. Fenelby. "But you will have to walk quickly.
I have just time to catch my train."
"Did you notice anything peculiar about Miss Kitty this morning?"
asked Billy, when they had left the house.
"Peculiar?" said Mr. Fenelby. "No, I don't think so."
"Well, I don't want to make trouble, Tom," said Billy, "but I think
I ought to speak about this thing. If it wasn't serious I wouldn't
mention it at all, but I think you ought to know what is going on in
your own house. I think you ought to know what kind of a girl Miss
Kitty is, so that you can be on your guard. Now, you went down to
get that collar for me, didn't you?"
"I wish you wouldn't mention that," said Mr. Fenelby with some
annoyance.
"Oh, I know all about that," said Billy, warmly. "You say that
because you don't like to be thanked for all these nice, thoughtful
things you do for a fellow. But I do thank you--just as much as if
you had found the collar and had brought it up to me. That was all
right. You would have paid the duty on it, and that would have been
all right. But what do you think Miss Kitty did? Why do you think
you could not find that collar? Do you know what she did? She
brought that collar into the house--smuggled it in--and she had the
nerve, the actual nerve, to give it to me. And I took it. I couldn't
do anything else, could I, when a girl offered it to me? I couldn't
say I wouldn't take it, could I? I had to be a gentleman about it.
And then she tried to get me into trouble by telling you I would
come down to breakfast wearing that collar. She tried to make out
that I was a smuggler."
"I suppose it was just a bit of fun," said Mr. Fenelby. "Girls are
that way, some of them."
"Well, I want it understood that that collar is in the house, and
that I didn't bring it in," said Billy, "and that if this Domestic
Tariff business is to be carried out fairly it is Miss Kitty's
business to pay the duty on it. I want to set myself right with you.
But the thing I wanted to speak about was far more serious. Do you
know what she had on this morning?"
"What she had on?" asked Mr. Fenelby. "What did she have on?"
"She had on a pink shirt-waist," said Billy fiercely. "That is what
she had on. Right at breakfast there, in plain sight of everyone. A
pink shirt-waist!"
"Well, that's all right, isn't it?" asked Mr. Fenelby, doubtfully.
"It's proper to wear a pink shirt-waist at breakfast, isn't it? I
think Laura wears shirt-waists at breakfast sometimes. I'm sure it's
all right. An informal home breakfast like that."
"But it was pink," insisted Billy. "I looked right at it, and I
know. Real pink. You wouldn't notice it, because you are so honest
yourself, and so confiding, but I noticed it the first thing. Now
what do you think of your Miss Kitty? What do you say to that--a
girl coming right down to breakfast in a pink shirt-waist, right
before the whole family?"
"I--I don't know what to say," faltered Mr. Fenelby, and this was
the truth, for he did not.
"Well, what would you say if I told you that she had on a white
shirt-waist last evening--a white one with fluffy stuff all around
the collar?" asked Billy. "Wouldn't you say that that proved it?"
"I don't see anything wrong in that," said Mr. Fenelby. "What does
it prove?"
"It proves that she has two shirt-waists," said Billy, seriously,
"that is what it proves. Two shirt-waists, a white one and a pink
one, one for dinner and one for breakfast. I don't blame you for not
noticing it, but I am strong that way. I notice colors and trimmings
and all that sort of thing. And I tell you she has two. I saw them
both and I know it. If that isn't serious I don't know what is."
"Well?" said Mr. Fenelby.
"Well," echoed Billy, "she is only supposed to have one. She only
paid duty on one, and she has two. That is what I call real
smuggling. And nobody knows how many more she has. Dozens for all I
know. Imagine her talking about my one poor old last year's collar,
and then flaunting around in two shirt-waists right before our eyes.
I call that pretty serious. I'm going to watch her. You can't be
here all day to do it, but I haven't anything else to do, and I'm
going to stay right around her all day and find out about this
thing."
"If you don't want to--" began Mr. Fenelby, remembering Billy's
protestations of dislike for girls.
"I'll do my duty by you and Bobberts, old man," said Billy,
generously.
"I was only going to say that Laura could look out for that sort of
thing," said Mr. Fenelby. "I might say a word to her."
"Well, now, I didn't like to bring that part of it up," said Billy,
"but since you mention it, I guess I had better say the whole thing.
It isn't natural that a woman shouldn't notice what another woman
has on, is it? They are all keen on that sort of thing. I don't say
Laura is standing in with Kitty on this shirt-waist smuggling. I
suppose it worries her terribly to see Kitty smuggling clothes in
right under her nose, but how can Laura say anything about it? Kitty
is her guest, isn't she? You leave it to me!"
Just then they reached the station and the train arrived and Mr.
Fenelby jumped aboard, and as it pulled out Billy turned and walked
back to the house.
VI
BRIDGET
When the Commonwealth of Bobberts had adopted the Fenelby Domestic
Tariff it had been Mrs. Fenelby's duty to inform Bridget of it, and
to explain it to her, and for two days Mrs. Fenelby worried about
it. It was only by exercising the most superhuman wiles that a
servant could be persuaded to sojourn in the suburb. To hold one in
thrall it was necessary to practice the most consummate diplomacy.
The suburban servant knows she is a rare and precious article, and
she is apt to be headstrong and independent, and so she must be
driven with a tight rein and strong hand, and yet she is so apt to
leave at a moment's notice if anything offends her, that she must be
driven with a light rein and a hand as light and gentle as a bit of
thistledown floating on a zephyr. This is a hard combination to
attain. It is like trying to drive a skittish and headstrong horse,
densely constructed of lamp-chimneys and window glass, down a rough
cobble-stoned hill road. If given the rein the glass horse will dash
madly to flinders, and if the rein is held taut the horse's glass
head will snap off and the whole business go to crash. No juggler
keeping alternate cannon-balls and feathers in the air ever
exercised greater nicety of calculation than did Mrs. Fenelby in her
act of at once retaining and restraining Bridget.
To go boldly into the kitchen and announce to Bridget that she would
hereafter be expected to pay into Bobberts' bank ten per cent. of
the value of every necessity and thirty per cent. of the value of
every luxury she brought into the house was the last thing that Mrs.
Fenelby would have thought of doing. There were bits in that rough
sketch of human nature known as Bridget's character that did not
harmonize with the idea. There had been nothing said, when Bridget
had been engaged, about a domestic tariff. Paying one is not usually
considered a part of a general house-worker's duties, and Mrs.
Fenelby felt that it would be poor policy to break this news to
Bridget too abruptly. She used diplomacy.
"Bridget," she said, kindly, "we are very well satisfied with the
way you do your work. We like you very well indeed."