[Illustration: THE DREAMERS DINE]
You can't always tell what kind of a day you are going to have in town
in October just because you happen to have been in town on previous
October days, and Van Squibber, for that reason, was not surprised when
his man, on waking him, informed him that it was cold out. Even if he
had been surprised he would not have shown it, for fear of demoralizing
his man by setting him a bad example. "We must take things as they
come," Van Squibber had said to the fellow when he engaged him, "and I
shall expect you to be ready always for any emergency that may arise.
If on waking in the morning I call for a camel's-hair shawl and a bottle
of Nepaul pepper, it will be your duty to see that I get them without
manifesting the slightest surprise or asking any questions. Here is your
next year's salary in advance. Get my Melton overcoat and my box, and
have them at the Rahway station at 7.15 to-morrow morning. If I am not
there, don't wait for me, but come back here and boil my egg at once."
This small bit of a lecture had had its effect on the man, to whom
thenceforth nothing was impossible; indeed, upon this very occasion he
demonstrated to his employer his sterling worth, for when, on looking
over Van Squibber's wardrobe, he discovered that his master had no
Melton overcoat, he telegraphed to his tailor's and had one made from
his previous measure in time to have it with Van Squibber's box at the
Rahway station at the stipulated hour the following morning. Of course
Van Squibber was not there. He had instructed his man as he had simply
to test him, and, furthermore, the egg was boiled to perfection. The
test cost Van Squibber about $150, but it was successful, and it was
really worth the money to know that his man was all that he should be.
"He's not half bad," said Van Squibber, as he cracked the egg.
"It's wintry," said Van Squibber's man on the morning of the 5th of
October.
"Well," Van Squibber said, sleepily, "what of that? You have your
instructions as to the bodily temperature I desire to maintain. Select
my clothing, as usual--and mark you, man, yesterday was springy, and you
let me go to the club in summery attire. I was two and a half degrees
too warm. You are getting careless. What are my engagements to-day?"
"University settlement at eleven, luncheon at the Actors' at one, drive
with the cynical Miss Netherwood at three, five-o'clock tea at four--"
"What?" cried Van Squibber, sharply.
"At fuf--five, I should say, sir," stammered the embarrassed man.
"Thought so," said Van Squibber. "Proceed, and be more careful. The very
idea of five-o'clock tea at four is shocking."
"Dinner with the Austrian ambassador at eight, opera at eleven--"
"In October? Opera?" cried Van Squibber.
"Comic," said the man. "It is Flopper's last night, sir, and you are to
ring down the curtain."
"True," said Van Squibber, meditatively--"true; I'd forgotten. And
then?"
"At midnight you are to meet Red Mike at Cherry Street and Broadway to
accompany him to see how he robs national banks, for the _Sunday
Whirald_."
"What bank is it to be?"
"The Seventeenth National."
"Gad!" cried Van Squibber, "that's hard luck. It's my bank. Wire Red
Mike and ask him to make it the Sixteenth National, at once. Bring me my
smoking-jacket and a boiled soda mint drop. I don't care for any
breakfast this morning. And, by-the-way, I feel a little chilly. Take a
quinine pill for me."
"Your egg is ready, sir," said the man, tremulously.
"Eat it," said Van Squibber, tersely, "and deduct the Cafe Savarin price
of a boiled egg from your salary. How often must I tell you not to have
my breakfast boiled until I am boil--I mean ready until I am ready for
it?"
The man departed silently, and Van Squibber turned over and went to
sleep.
An hour later, having waited for his soda mint drop as long as his
dignity would permit, Van Squibber arose and dressed and went for a walk
in Central Park. It was eccentric of him to do this, but he did it
nevertheless.
"How Travers would laugh if he saw me walking in Central Park!" he
thought. "He'd probably ask me when I'd come over from Germany," he
added. And then, looking ahead, a thing Van Squibber rarely did,
by-the-way--for you can't always tell by looking ahead what may happen
to you--his eyes were confronted by a more or less familiar back.
"Dear me!" he said. "If that isn't Eleanor Huyler's back, whose back is
it, by Jove?"
Insensibly Van Squibber quickened his pace. This was also a thing he
rarely did. "Haste is bad form," he had once said to Travers, who, on
leaving Delmonico's at 7.20, seemed anxious to catch the 7.10 train for
Riverdale. Insensibly quickening his pace, he soon found himself beside
the owner of the back, and, as his premonitions had told him, it was
Eleanor Huyler.
"Good-morning," he said.
"Why, Mr. Van Squibber!" she replied, with a terrified smile. "You
here?"
"Well," returned Van Squibber, not anxious to commit himself, "I think
so, though I assure you, Miss Huyler, I am not at all certain. I seem to
be here, but I must confess I am not quite myself this morning. My
man--"
"Yes--I know," returned the girl, hastily. "I've heard of him. He is
your _alter ego_."
"I had not noticed it," said Van Squibber, somewhat nonplussed. "I think
he is English, though he may be Italian, as you suggest. But," he added,
to change the subject, "you seem disturbed. Your smile is a terrified
smile, as has been already noted."
"It is," said Miss Huyler, looking anxiously about her.
"And may I ask why?" asked Van Squibber, politely--for to do things
politely was Van Squibber's ambition.
"I--I--well, really, Mr. Van Squibber," the girl replied, "I am always
anxious when you are about. The fact is, you know, the things that
happen when you are around are always so very extraordinary. I came here
for a quiet walk, but now that you have appeared I am quite certain that
something dramatic is about to occur. You see--you--you have turned up
so often at the--what I may properly call, I think, the nick of time,
and so rarely at any other time, that I feel as though some disaster
were impending which you alone can avert."
"And what then?" said Van Squibber, proudly. "If I am here, what bodes
disaster?"
"That is the question I am asking myself," returned Miss Huyler, whose
growing anxiety was more or less painful to witness. "Can your luck hold
out? Will your ability as an averter of danger hold out? In short, Mr.
Van Squibber, are you infallible?"
The question came to Van Squibber like a flash of lightning out of a
clear sky. It was too pertinent. Had he not often wondered himself as to
his infallibility? Had he not only the day before said to Travers, "You
can't always tell in advance just how a thing you are going into may
turn out, even though you have been through that thing many times, and
think you do."
"I do lead a dramatic life," he said, quietly, hoping by a show of
serenity to reassure her. "But," he added, proudly, "I am, after all,
Van Squibber; I am here to do whatever is sent me to do. I am not a
fatalist, but I regard myself as the chosen instrument of fate--or
something. So far, I have not failed. On the basis of averages, I am not
likely to fail now. Fate, or something, has chosen me to succeed."
"That is true," said Eleanor--"quite true; but there are exceptions to
all rules, and I would rather you would fail to rescue some other girl
from a position of peril than myself."
That Miss Huyler's words were prophetic, the unhappy Van Squibber was to
realize, and that soon, for almost as they spoke the cheeks of both were
blanched by a dreadful roar in the bushes beside the path upon which
they walked.
"Shall I leave you?" asked Van Squibber, politely.
[Illustration: "'REMEMBER TO BE BRAVE'"]
"Not now--oh, not now, I beg!" cried Miss Huyler. "It is too late. The
catastrophe is imminent. You should have gone before the author
brought it on. Finding me defenceless and you gone, he might have spared
me. As it is, you are here, and must fulfil your destiny."
"Very well," returned Van Squibber. "That being so, I will see what this
roaring is. If it is a child endeavoring to frighten you, I shall get
his address and have my man chastise his father, for I could never
strike a child; but if it is a lion, as I fear, I shall do what seems
best under the circumstances. I have been told, Miss Huyler, that a show
of bravery awes a wild beast, while a manifestation of cowardice causes
him to spring at once upon the coward. Therefore, if it be a lion, do
you walk boldly up to him and evince a cool head, while I divert his
attention from you by running away. In this way you, at least, will be
saved."
"Noble fellow!" thought Eleanor to herself. "If he were to ask me, I
think I might marry him."
Meanwhile Van Squibber had investigated, and was horror-struck to find
his misgivings entirely too well founded. It was the lion from the park
menagerie that had escaped, and was now waiting in ambush to pounce upon
the chance pedestrian.
"Remember, Eleanor," he cried, forgetting for the moment that he had
never called her by any but her last name with its formal
prefix--"remember to be brave. That will awe him, and then when he sees
me running he will pursue me."
[Illustration: "'ELEANOR HUYLER HAS DISAPPEARED'"]
Removing his shoes, Van Squibber, with a cry which brought the hungry
beast bounding out into the path, started on a dead run, while Miss
Huyler, full of confidence that the story would end happily whatever she
might do, walked boldly up to the tawny creature, wondering much,
however, why her rescuer had removed his shoes. It was strange that,
knowing Van Squibber as well as she did, she did not at once perceive
his motive in declining to run in walking-shoes, but in moments of peril
we are all excusable for our vagaries of thought! You never can tell,
when you are in danger, what may happen next, for if you could you
would know how it is all going to turn out; but as it is, mental
disturbance is quite to be expected.
For once Van Squibber failed. He ran fast enough and betrayed enough
cowardice to attract the attention of ten lions, but this special lion,
by some fearful idiosyncrasy of fate, which you never can count on, was
not to be deceived. With a louder roar than any he had given, he pounced
upon the brave woman, and in an instant she was no more. Van Squibber,
turning to see how matters stood, was just in time to witness the final
engulfment of the fair girl in the lion's jaws.
"Egad!" he cried. "_I have failed!_ And now what remains to be done?
Shall I return and fight the lion, or shall I keep on and go to the
club? If I kill the lion, people will know that I have been walking in
the park before breakfast. If I continue my present path and go to the
club, the fellows will all want to know what I mean by coming without
my shoes on. What a dilemma! Ah! I have it; I will go home."
And that is what Van Squibber did. He went back to his rooms in the
Quigmore at once, hastily undressed, and when, an hour later, his man
returned with the soda mint drop, he was sleeping peacefully.
That night he met Travers at the club reading the _Evening Moon_.
"Hello, Van!" said Travers. "Heard the news?"
"No. What?" asked Van Squibber, languidly.
"Eleanor Huyler has disappeared."
"By Jove!" cried Van Squibber, with well-feigned surprise. "I heard the
boys crying 'Extra,' but I never dreamed they would put out an extra for
her."
"They haven't," said Travers. "The extra's about the lion."
"Ah! And what's happened to the lion?" cried Van Squibber, nervously.
"He's dead. Got loose this morning early, and was found at ten o'clock
dying of indigestion. It is supposed he has devoured some man, name
unknown, for before his nose was an uneaten patent-leather pump, size
9-3/4 B, and in his throat was stuck the other, half eaten."
"Ha!" muttered Van Squibber, turning pale. "And they don't know whose
shoes they were?" he added, in a hoarse whisper.
"No," said Travers. "There's no clew, even."
Van Squibber breathed a sigh of relief.
"Robert!" he cried, addressing the waiter, "bring me a schooner of
absinthe, and ask Mr. Travers what he'll have." And then, turning, he
said, _sotto voce_, to himself, "Saved! And Eleanor is revenged. Van
Squibber may have failed, but his patent-leather pumps have conquered."