THE BROKEN CIRCUIT RE-UNITED.
Mr. Stanwood sat down at the table where Nattie was looking over Cyn's
album, and seemed to have become very thoughtful; Cyn meanwhile busied
herself in dressing an ugly gash the ever-unfortunate Quimby had managed
to inflict on his hand.
Suddenly Nattie was disturbed by Mr. Stanwood drumming with a pencil on
the marble top of the table, and glancing up casually, observed his eyes
fixed upon her with a peculiar expression, and at the same moment her
ear seemed to catch a familiar sound. With a slight start she listened
more attentively to his seemingly idle drumming. Yes--whether knowingly,
or by accident, he certainly was making dots and dashes, and what is
more, was making N's!
"I will soon ascertain if he means it or not!" thought Nattie, and
seizing a pair of scissors, the only adaptable instrument handy, she
drummed out, slowly, on account of the imperfectness of her impromptu
key--pretending all the while to be entirely absorbed in the album,
"Are you an operator?"
Mr. Stanwood, in his turn, seemingly deeply engaged in the contents of a
book, immediately drummed in response,
"Yes."
Nattie felt the color come into her face.
"Oh, dear!" she thought, "and Cyn told him that ridiculous story! Every
operator in town will know it now." Then with the scissors she asked,
"Why didn't you say so? Where is your office?"
"I have none now," the pencil answered, while Cyn, glancing across the
room, wondered to see the two so studious, and unsuspiciously asked
Quimby if he supposed they were practicing for a drum corps? After a few
meaningless dots, the pencil went on,
"A little girl at B m was dreadfully sold one day!"
The album Nattie held fell from her hands as she stared petrified at her
_vis-a-vis_, who kept his eyes on his book with the most innocent
expression imaginable, one that even a Chinaman could not have equaled.
Where could he have heard those words, once so familiar? A moment's
thought gave her the most probable key.
"You are in the main office of this city, and have heard me talking with
'C'!" she wrote, as fast as the scissors would let her.
"No, to the first of your surmise," came from the pencil, "and yes to
the last."
"What office were you in?" the scissors asked.
"X n," responded the pencil.
"What! with 'C'?" asked the scissors, and if ever there was a pair of
excited scissors, these were the ones.
"Well--yes," replied the pencil with provoking slowness. "Don't you
'_C_' the point? Can't you 'C' that you did not 'C' the 'C' you thought
you did 'C' that day?"
Nattie's breath came fast, and her hand trembled so she could not hold
the scissors. With a crash they dropped on the table, making one loud,
long dash. But the imperturbable pencil went on calmly,
"It was all a mistake. I am--'C'!"
Disdaining scissors and pencil, Nattie started up, exclaiming
vehemently,
"What do you mean? it can't be possible!"
The consternation of Cyn, who was just informing Quimby that his wound
would do very well now, the horror of the patient, and the surprise of
Jo Norton at this emphatic and unaccountable outburst from the hitherto
so silent Nattie was indescribable.
"Good gracious, Nat! what in the world is the matter?" cried Cyn,
starting up and bringing the bottle of liniment she held in violent
contact with Quimby's head, a circumstance that even the victim did not
notice, so absorbed was he in amazement.
At Nattie's exclamation, Mr. Stanwood threw aside his book, pencil, and
innocent countenance together, and regardless of any one but her, sprang
to his feet, advanced with both hands extended, and shining eyes,
saying,
"I mean just what I said, it is possible!"
Hardly knowing what she did, utterly confused and bewildered, Nattie
placed her hand in the two that clasped it, while Cyn stared with
distended eyes, Quimby with wide-open mouth, and Jo gave a long whistle.
Cyn was first to recover, and began to scold.
"Well," she exclaimed, "this _is_ a pretty piece of business, never yet
played on any stage, I should think! Nat, will you, or will somebody
have the goodness to explain this sudden and extraordinary scene?"
"I--I don't understand!" Nattie murmured faintly, and looking
half-frightened, and half-beseechingly at Mr. Stanwood, who in response
smiled and said, with a firmer clasp of the hand he still held,
"I will explain in a very few moments how it is possible that I am the
real 'C'!"
"What!" screamed Cyn.
"What!" shouted Jo.
"What!!" absolutely yelled Quimby.
"There has been a mistake!" Mr. Stanwood said, now looking at Cyn.
"A mistake!" she repeated excitedly, "what _do_ you mean? YOU 'C,' our
'C,' of the wire? Nonsense! You are joking!"
"Yes, he is joking!" Quimby reiterated, but his teeth chattered as he
spoke. "He is a dreadful fellow to joke, Clem is!"
"Clem!" cried Cyn and Nattie, in the same breath.
"Do you begin to believe me?" said the gentleman who had caused all this
disturbance, and looking at Nattic, who now, becoming conscious that her
hand was yet in his, withdrew it hastily, with a deep blush.
"I don't know what to think!" cried Cyn.
"Do explain something, quick, or I shall burst a blood-vessel with
impatience; I know I shall!" exclaimed Jo.
Mr. Stanwood complied, by saying,
"The fact of the case is simply this. That red-haired young man, so
graphically described by you girls, that 'odious creature,' was the
operator I went to substitute for that day!"
"Oh!" said Nattie, a light beginning to break upon her.
"But how--" commenced Cyn.
"I will tell you how, if you will be patient," Mr. Stanwood interrupted,
smiling. "His office, as you," looking at Nattie, "remember, had once
been on our wire. He had heard 'N' and I talking, and in fact had often
annoyed us by breaking. So, as he was at the city, he took the
opportunity to pass himself off for me; perhaps for the sake of a joke,
perhaps from more malicious motives. I recognized his description at
once, from your story to-day, and I remember, too, his telling me on his
return, that he knew the best joke of the season; a remark I did not
notice, never supposing it concerned me."
"Yes!" said Nattie, eagerly, "and he was very particular to ask me not
to mention his call, on the wire."
"I do not suppose he imagined but we would eventually discover the
fraud, however; and so we should, had not you," looking rather
reproachfully at Nattie, "in your haste to drop so undesirable an
acquaintance, avoided the least hint of the true cause. How the dickens
was I to know what was the matter? I puzzled my brains enough over it, I
assure you."
"And that red-headed impostor has been chuckling in his sleeve ever
since, I suppose," said Cyn, indignantly; then seizing. Mr. Stanwood by
the arms, she cried, in a transport of delight, "and it really is true?
you are our 'C?'"
"What! am I not yet believed?" he questioned, laughing; "what more shall
I do to convince you of my identity? you accepted our red-headed friend
readily enough!"
"Oh! I believe you!" cried Nattie, eagerly; then stopped, and colored,
abashed at her own so plainly shown delight.
But Mr. Stanwood looked at her with a gratified expression in his brown
eyes.
"And you will not snub me any more, will you?" he said, pleadingly;
"because I never use bear's grease or musk, and my hair isn't red a
bit!"
"I will try and make amends," Nattie answered, shyly; adding, "I ought
to have known there was some mistake. I never could reconcile that
creature and--and 'C'!"
"Then I may flatter myself that I am an improvement?" asked Mr.
Stanwood, merrily; at which Nattie murmured something about fishing for
compliments, and Cyn replied gayly,
"Yes; because you have curly hair! You remember what I said on the wire,
_via_ Nat?"
"Could I forget?" he replied, gallantly.
"And it isn't a dream! You are 'C', the real 'C,'" replied Cyn, pinching
herself, and then seizing Nattie, who, from the suddenness of it all was
yet in a semi-bewildered state--there was not a bit of unhappiness in
it, though--waltzed ecstatically around the room, crying, "Oh! I am so
glad! I am so glad!"
At this point Quimby, who, during the preceding explanation had listened
with a face illustrating every variety of consternation and dismay,
attracted attention to himself by an audible groan, observing which, he
muttered something about his "wound"--the word had a double meaning for
him then, poor fellow!--and rising, came forward, took his friend by the
shoulder, and asked, solemnly,
"Now, Clem--I--I beg pardon--but is it--is this all true, and--and not
one of your jokes, you know? Honestly, are you that--that 'C'?"
"Here is a doubting Thomas for you!" cried Clem, gayly. "But, upon my
word of honor, old boy, I truly and honestly am 'that C,' and I suppose
you were the 'other visitor of no consequence,' who called with Miss
Archer that day I was favored by an introduction to her. How little I
thought it then!"
"How little _I_ thought it!" groaned Quimby, as his hand fell dejectedly
from Clem's shoulder. "But I--I am used to it, you know!" So saying he
sank into a chair. That _he_ had brought about such a result as
this--that _he_ had resurrected the dreaded "C" from the grave of musk
and bear's grease was too much.
"But now that all is explained, I am really not sorry for the mistake,"
Clem said, utterly unconscious of his friend's state of mind. "For, had
it not been for that I should never have learned, as I have to-day, from
you two ladies, what a very interesting and agreeable fellow I am!" and
he bowed profoundly, with a twinkle of merriment in his eyes.
"Over the wire," Nattie added, pointedly.
"Of course, over the wire!" he said, with another bow. "But it shall be
my endeavor to make good my reputation, minus the wire!"
"You will have to work very hard to place Mr. Stanwood where 'C' was in
our good graces!" said Cyn, archly.
"Then suppose we drop the Mr. Stanwood, and take up Clem, who already
was somewhat advanced!" he said, adroitly.
"Ah! Clem sounds more natural, doesn't it, Nat?" questioned Cyn
laughing; "we knew Clem and 'C,' but Mr. Stanwood is a stranger!"
"Then let us drop him by all means! and now say you are glad to see your
old friend!" said Clem, gayly.
"We are transported with delight at beholding our Clem, so lately given
up as lost forever!" Cyn replied with equal gayety; and Clem, then
looking at Nattie, as if he expected her to say something also, she
murmured,
"I am very glad to meet 'C,'" a remark that sounded cold beside that of
enthusiastic Cyn. But in fact Nattie was so confused, so happy, and so
strangely timid, that she longed to get away by herself and think it all
over and quietly realize it; and besides, in her secret heart, Nattie
felt a growing conviction that Cyn used the plural pronoun we more than
previous circumstances actually warranted.
"But Nat," said Cyn, all unconscious of her friend's jealous criticism,
"you have not yet told me how you found him out?"
"He telegraphed to me with a pencil on the table, and coolly informed me
that he was 'C,'" Nattie explained.
"And then you jumped up and threw us uninitiated ones into a great state
of alarm," said Cyn; "and instead of practicing for a drum corps, as I
supposed, you were talking secretly, you sly creatures!" then turning to
Clem, she asked, laughing, "what did you think when Nat dropped you so
suddenly and completely?"
"What could I think, except that it was a caprice of hers," he answered,
laughing. "At first I thought she was vexed at my having gone to B a,
but she denied that, and finally I believe I became angry myself, and
concluded to let her have her own way. Nevertheless, I could not resist
calling to see her, when I came to the city, and had I met with any
encouragement, I should probably have declared myself, but I was
annihilated without ceremony."
"You would not have been, perhaps, had you been honest in the first
place, instead of asking unnecessary questions about tariffs," replied
Nattie.
"Yes, but you were to recognize me by intuition you know, and I wanted
to give you a chance," responded Clem, quickly.
Nattie looked a trifle abashed.
"But I am quite sure I should have suspected it was you, had I not given
you up as hopelessly red-headed," she persisted; "why, almost the very
first question the creature asked was, 'do you see that twinkle?'"
"So he heard and treasured that remark to some purpose," he said; "well,
I will not dispute your intuition theory, since your last words assure
me that I do not fall so far short of your imaginary 'C,' as did my
personator. I imagine your expression of countenance, on learning the
intelligence, was hardly flattering to his vanity."
Nattie, who had colored at the first of his remark, replied
contemptuously,
"His self-conceit was too great to attribute my very uncordial reception
to anything except, as he said, 'my bashfulness.' I presume it has
afforded him great enjoyment to think how successfully he stepped into
your shoes, and what a joke he had played upon me."
"Upon _us_, you mean," corrected Clem.
"Certainly; upon _us_," Nattie replied, with another flush of color. "I
remember how indifferent he seemed when I hinted that now we had met the
chief pleasure of talking on the wire was gone. And I believe he didn't
actually say in so many words that he was 'C,' but left me to understand
it so."
"And I am indebted to him for being such a lonesome, miserable fellow
the latter part of my telegraphic career," said Clem, rather savagely.
Nattie murmured something about the time passing pleasanter when there
was some one to talk with, and Cyn asked, curiously,
"Then you have left the dot and dash business, have you?"
"Oh, yes. It was merely temporary with me," Clem replied; then seating
himself on the sofa beside Nattie, and drawing a chair up for Cyn,
between himself and Jo--Quimby being at the other end of the room, a
prey to his emotions--Clem continued;
"The truth of the matter is simply this, my father, with a
pig-headedness worthy of Eugene Wrayburn's M. R. F. in 'Our Mutual
Friend,' determined to make a doctor of me, not on account of any
qualifications of mine, but for the simple reason that a doctor is a
good thing to have in a family. But I, having an intense dislike to the
smell of drugs, a repugnance to knowing anything more than absolutely
necessary about the 'ills that flesh is heir to,' and decided objections
to having the sleep of my future life disturbed, declined, and at the
same time expressed a desire to go into the store with him, and become a
merchant. Upon which my most immediate ancestor waxed wroth, called me,
in plain, unvarnished words, a fool; and a pretty one I was to set
myself up against his will! I, who couldn't earn my salt without him to
back me! Being of a contrary opinion myself, I determined to test my
abilities in the salt line. I began," looking at Nattie, merrily, "by
salting you!"--then explaining to Cyn, Jo, and the silent Quimby,
"'Salt' is a term operators use, when one tries to send faster than the
other can receive. I began my acquaintance with N by trying to 'salt'
her. To go on with my narrative, I had learned to telegraph at college,
where the boys had private wires from room to room, and being acquainted
with one of the managers in our city, succeeded in obtaining that very
undesirable office down there at X n, where I remained until my stern
parent relented, concluded to hire a doctor instead of making one, and
offered me the control of a branch of the firm here in your city. And
here I am!"
"And isn't it strange how you should have stumbled upon us, feast and
all?" said Cyn, laughing.
Nattie was again disturbed by the plural pronoun, and also angry at
herself for observing it.
"Isn't it?" Clem answered merrily; "what a lucky fellow I am! You see,
not being at all acquainted in the city, I hunted up my old college
friend Quimby, who asked me to call on some lady friends of his,
mentioning no names, which of course I was only too glad to do! Imagine
my surprise and delight when I discovered who those friends were! But I
don't know as I should have dared to reveal myself, having been so often
snubbed,"--With a roguish glance at Nattie-- "if that story had not been
told and the mystery solved. Imagine my dismay, though, at being called
an 'odious creature,' and the surprise with which I listened to my own
description! So earnest were you, that I actually, for a moment, thought
my hair must have turned red!" and he ran his fingers through his curly
locks with a rueful face.
The girls laughed, and Cyn exclaimed,
"What a pity it is you tore up that picture, Nat!"
"Yes," acquiesced Nattie, adding, in explanation, to Clem-- "You
remember that pen and ink sketch? My first act of vengeance was to
destroy it!"
"Never mind, Jo will do another, will you not?" asked Clem, turning to
that gentleman, who, upon being thus appealed to, arose, laid down the
nutcracker he held, and said with the utmost solemnity,
"Jo is ready to draw anything. _But_ Jo is aghast and horrified at being
mixed even in the slightest degree with anything so near approaching the
romantic, as the affair in question. What is the use of a fellow shaving
off his hair, I would like to know, if such things as these will
happen?"
"It is no use fighting against Nature!" laughed Cyn. "Romance always has
been since the world was, and always will be, I suppose. Your turn will
come, Jo! I have no doubt we shall see you a long haired, cadaverous,
sentimental artist yet!"
"Never!" cried Jo heroically. "But you must confess that this affair is
taking undue advantage of a fellow. A _wired_ romance is something
entirely unexpected!"
"And besides, viewed telegraphically, there is nothing at all romantic
in the whole affair!" said Nattie, who, between her confusion at the
turn the conversation had taken, and her alarm lest something should be
said about that chubby Cupid--whom it will be remembered she had
suppressed in her former description to "C "--was decidedly embarrassed.
Before Jo could express his satisfaction at this statement, Clem
exclaimed, reproachfully,
"Oh! do not say that! not even to spare our friend's feelings can I deny
the romance of our acquaintance."
"I quite agree with you," said Cyn; "I really believe Nat is going over
to Jo's ideas. Never mind! just wait until your turn comes, you
unsentimental Jo."
"Madam!" cried Jo, "when I find myself in the condition you describe, I
will come and place the disposal of myself in your hands!" and he made
her a profound bow.
There is many a true word spoken in jest, and none of the little party
there assembled imagined how true, indeed, these words were to prove, as
Cyn gayly answered,
"It is a bargain, Jo, and I shall have no mercy on you, I can assure
you."
"And we must not forget that we are indebted to Quimby for the
unraveling of all this mystery," said Nattie. She smiled on him where he
sat, in his dismayed isolation, as she spoke, and although it was the
warmest smile she had ever yet bestowed upon him, he was rendered no
happier by its warmth.
"Yes, how fortunate it was, Clem, that you looked him up!" said Cyn.
Nattie wondered that she could pronounce the familiar name so easily.
She was quite sure she herself could not.
"Was it not?" exclaimed Clem, delightedly; "and what is better than all,
I am coming here to room with him!" At this Jo shook him cordially by
the hand, Cyn and Nattie gave exclamations of pleasure, and Quimby
suddenly started into life. "I--I beg pardon," he said, hastily, "but
I--I really--I though you said you had rather be farther down town, you
know."
"Yes, that was my first inclination, but as you urged me so much, and as
I find so many old friends here, I have concluded to accept your offer,
my boy, so consider the matter settled," replied Clem.
And in his own entire satisfaction and unconsciousness, Clem did not
observe but what Quimby looked as happy as might be expected, at this
intelligence.
"'Oh, won't we have a jolly time,"' sang Cyn, and Clem, Nattie and
Jo--but not Quimby--took up the chorus.
And obtuse as he was, Quimby could not but observe that Nattie's eyes
were shining in a way he had never seen them shine before, that the
ever-coming and going flush on her cheeks was very becoming, and that
there was an expression in her face, when she looked at Clem, that face
had never held for _him_. Nor could he fail to think, that the romantic
commencement of the acquaintance of these two, even the episode of the
musk-scented impostor all now enhanced the interest Nattie had once felt
for the invisible "C" neither did he need a prophet to tell him that the
two girls would sit up half the night, talking confidentially over this
unexpected and happy _denouement_, or even that Nattie's sleep would not
be quite as sound as usual.
Love, it is said, is blind. So, to some things, perhaps, it is, but
never to a rival.
And when at last Clem tore himself away, with the remark,
"What a fortunate day this has been! Quimby, my dear boy, how can I
thank you? I shall take possession of my half of your apartment at once,
to be sure no one shall again usurp my place; until then, _au revoir_!"
and, in parting, perceptibly held Nattie's hand longer than was
absolutely necessary, Quimby followed him with dejected mien, fully
aware that of all the mistakes he had ever made he committed the worst,
when he asked his old chum to call on some lady friends of his!