"Didn't they call me a swindler down there at your museum?" he
demanded.
I admitted that I had heard the term applied. Then I made a clean
breast of the matter, telling him that it was I who had doubted; that
my chief, Professor Farrago, had sent me against my will, and that I
was ready and glad to admit that he, Mr. Halyard, was a benefactor of
the human race.
"Bosh!" he said. "What good does a confounded wobbly, bandy-toed bird
do to the human race?"
But he was pleased, nevertheless; and presently he asked me, not
unamiably, to punish his claret again.
"I'm done for," he said; "good things to eat and drink are no good to
me. Some day I'll get mad enough to have a fit, and then--"
He paused to yawn.
"Then," he continued, "that little nurse of mine will drink up my
claret and go back to civilization, where people are polite."
Somehow or other, in spite of the fact that Halyard was an old pig,
what he said touched me. There was certainly not much left in life for
him--as he regarded life.
"I'm going to leave her this house," he said, arranging his shawls.
"She doesn't know it. I'm going to leave her my money, too. She
doesn't know that. Good Lord! What kind of a woman can she be to stand
my bad temper for a few dollars a month!"
"I think," said I, "that it's partly because she's poor, partly
because she's sorry for you."
He looked up with a ghastly smile.
"You think she really is sorry?"
Before I could answer he went on: "I'm no mawkish sentimentalist, and
I won't allow anybody to be sorry for me--do you hear?"
"Oh, I'm not sorry for you!" I said, hastily, and, for the first time
since I had seen him, he laughed heartily, without a sneer.
We both seemed to feel better after that; I drank his wine and smoked
his cigars, and he appeared to take a certain grim pleasure in
watching me.
"There's no fool like a young fool," he observed, presently.
As I had no doubt he referred to me, I paid him no attention.
After fidgeting with his shawls, he gave me an oblique scowl and asked
me my age.
"Twenty-four," I replied.
"Sort of a tadpole, aren't you?" he said.
As I took no offence, he repeated the remark.
"Oh, come," said I, "there's no use in trying to irritate me. I see
through you; a row acts like a cocktail on you--but you'll have to
stick to gruel in my company."
"I call that impudence!" he rasped out, wrathfully.
"I don't care what you call it," I replied, undisturbed, "I am not
going to be worried by you. Anyway," I ended, "it is my opinion that
you could be very good company if you chose."
The proposition appeared to take his breath away--at least, he said
nothing more; and I finished my cigar in peace and tossed the stump
into a saucer.
"Now," said I, "what price do you set upon your birds, Mr. Halyard?"
"Ten thousand dollars," he snapped, with an evil smile.
"You will receive a certified check when the birds are delivered," I
said, quietly.
"You don't mean to say you agree to that outrageous bargain--and I
won't take a cent less, either--Good Lord!--haven't you any spirit
left?" he cried, half rising from his pile of shawls.
His piteous eagerness for a dispute sent me into laughter impossible
to control, and he eyed me, mouth open, animosity rising visibly.
Then he seized the wheels of his invalid chair and trundled away, too
mad to speak; and I strolled out into the parlor, still laughing.
The pretty nurse was there, sewing under a hanging lamp.
"If I am not indiscreet--" I began.
"Indiscretion is the better part of valor," said she, dropping her
head but raising her eyes.
So I sat down with a frivolous smile peculiar to the appreciated.
"Doubtless," said I, "you are hemming a 'kerchief."
"Doubtless I am not," she said; "this is a night-cap for Mr.
Halyard."
A mental vision of Halyard in a night-cap, very mad, nearly set me
laughing again.
"Like the King of Yvetot, he wears his crown in bed," I said,
flippantly.
"The King of Yvetot might have made that remark," she observed,
re-threading her needle.
It is unpleasant to be reproved. How large and red and hot a man's
ears feel.
To cool them, I strolled out to the porch; and, after a while, the
pretty nurse came out, too, and sat down in a chair not far away. She
probably regretted her lost opportunity to be flirted with.
"I have so little company--it is a great relief to see somebody from
the world," she said. "If you can be agreeable, I wish you would."
The idea that she had come out to see me was so agreeable that I
remained speechless until she said: "Do tell me what people are doing
in New York."
So I seated myself on the steps and talked about the portion of the
world inhabited by me, while she sat sewing in the dull light that
straggled out from the parlor windows.
She had a certain coquetry of her own, using the usual methods with an
individuality that was certainly fetching. For instance, when she lost
her needle--and, another time, when we both, on hands and knees,
hunted for her thimble.
However, directions for these pastimes may be found in contemporary
classics.
I was as entertaining as I could be--perhaps not quite as entertaining
as a young man usually thinks he is. However, we got on very well
together until I asked her tenderly who the harbor-master might be,
whom they all discussed so mysteriously.
"I do not care to speak about it," she said, with a primness of which
I had not suspected her capable.
Of course I could scarcely pursue the subject after that--and, indeed,
I did not intend to--so I began to tell her how I fancied I had seen a
man on the cliff that afternoon, and how the creature slid over the
sheer rock like a snake.
To my amazement, she asked me to kindly discontinue the account of my
adventures, in an icy tone, which left no room for protest.
"It was only a sea-otter," I tried to explain, thinking perhaps she
did not care for snake stories.
But the explanation did not appear to interest her, and I was
mortified to observe that my impression upon her was anything but
pleasant.
"She doesn't seem to like me and my stories," thought I, "but she is
too young, perhaps, to appreciate them."
So I forgave her--for she was even prettier than I had thought her at
first--and I took my leave, saying that Mr. Halyard would doubtless
direct me to my room.
Halyard was in his library, cleaning a revolver, when I entered.
"Your room is next to mine," he said; "pleasant dreams, and kindly
refrain from snoring."
"May I venture an absurd hope that you will do the same!" I replied,
politely.
That maddened him, so I hastily withdrew.
I had been asleep for at least two hours when a movement by my bedside
and a light in my eyes awakened me. I sat bolt upright in bed,
blinking at Halyard, who, clad in a dressing-gown and wearing a
night-cap, had wheeled himself into my room with one hand, while with
the other he solemnly waved a candle over my head.
"I'm so cursed lonely," he said--"come, there's a good fellow--talk to
me in your own original, impudent way."
I objected strenuously, but he looked so worn and thin, so lonely and
bad-tempered, so lovelessly grotesque, that I got out of bed and
passed a spongeful of cold water over my head.
Then I returned to bed and propped the pillows up for a back-rest,
ready to quarrel with him if it might bring some little pleasure into
his morbid existence.
"No," he said, amiably, "I'm too worried to quarrel, but I'm much
obliged for your kindly offer. I want to tell you something."
"What?" I asked, suspiciously.
"I want to ask you if you ever saw a man with gills like a fish?"
"Gills?" I repeated.
"Yes, gills! Did you?"
"No," I replied, angrily, "and neither did you."
"No, I never did," he said, in a curiously placid voice, "but there's
a man with gills like a fish who lives in the ocean out there. Oh, you
needn't look that way--nobody ever thinks of doubting my word, and I
tell you that there's a man--or a thing that looks like a man--as big
as you are, too--all slate-colored--with nasty red gills like a
fish!--and I've a witness to prove what I say!"
"Who?" I asked, sarcastically.
"The witness? My nurse."
"Oh! She saw a slate-colored man with gills?"
"Yes, she did. So did Francis Lee, superintendent of the Mica Quarry
Company at Port-of-Waves. So have a dozen men who work in the quarry.
Oh, you needn't laugh, young man. It's an old story here, and anybody
can tell you about the harbor-master."
"The harbor-master!" I exclaimed.
"Yes, that slate-colored thing with gills, that looks like a
man--and--by Heaven! _is_ a man--that's the harbor-master. Ask any
quarryman at Port-of-Waves what it is that comes purring around their
boats at the wharf and unties painters and changes the mooring of
every cat-boat in the cove at night! Ask Francis Lee what it was he
saw running and leaping up and down the shoal at sunset last Friday!
Ask anybody along the coast what sort of a thing moves about the
cliffs like a man and slides over them into the sea like an otter--"
"I saw it do that!" I burst out.
"Oh, did you? Well, _what was it?_"
Something kept me silent, although a dozen explanations flew to my
lips.
After a pause, Halyard said: "You saw the harbor-master, that's what
you saw!"