IN WHICH THE PARTY RECEIVES A NEW IMPETUS.
An hour later, when the little party of four, weary and dusty, walked up
to the hotel at Yonkers, they perceived Tybalt Smith in his
shirt-sleeves, with his hat tipped over his eyes as a protection from
the rays of the declining sun, lying fast asleep in a large garden chair
which was tilted back on its hind legs against the side of the house.
Spotts lost no time in poking him in the ribs with his cane, whereupon
the tragedian, rousing himself from slumber, hastily assumed a more
upright position, bringing the chair down on its front legs with a bang.
Having thus been fully awakened, he became at once the master of the
situation.
"We are here," he said.
"So I see," replied Spotts, "and a pretty show you've made of yourself.
There's nothing private or retiring about your methods. Now where are
the rest of the party?"
Mr. Smith at once assumed an air of mysterious solemnity.
"Mrs. Mackintosh," he said in a stage whisper, "is above. I reserved an
apartment for her and the Leop--Miss Arminster, I mean, and a private
sitting-room for us all. Mrs. Mackintosh is disturbed. Mrs. Mackintosh
requires an explanation. Mrs. Mackintosh," turning to Banborough, "is a
woman of great character, of great force, and she requires an
explanation of _you_!"
"Ha!" said Spotts, casting a look of mock commiseration at the
Englishman.
"Perhaps it might be better," suggested the tragedian, "if Miss
Arminster saw her first."
"Perhaps it might," acquiesced Spotts.
"All right, I'll go," said Violet; adding to Cecil, as she passed him:
"Don't be frightened; her bark's worse than her bite." And she entered
the house laughing.
"But where are the others?" asked the author.
"Sh!" whispered the tragedian, casting a suspicious glance at the
Quaker. "We're not alone."
"Yes," said Spotts, "the Bishop's got a new convert."
"Oh," returned Banborough, "I forgot you hadn't met this gentleman. We
inadvertently rescued him, and since then he's done us a similar service
twice over. I really don't know what he's called. The clothes belong to
Spotts."
"I thought I recognised the costume," said Smith. Then, turning to the
stranger, he demanded, abruptly: "What's your name?"
"I have been known by many," came the suave tones of the Quaker, "but
for the purposes of our brief acquaintance thee mayst call me Friend
Othniel."
The tragedian gave a grunt of disapproval.
"I think he can be trusted," remarked Spotts. "He's certainly stood by
us well, so far. Now tell us about Kerrington and Mill."
"Yes, I'm most anxious to know what's become of them," said the
Englishman. And the three drew nearer together, while the Quaker,
turning to the road, stood basking in the sunshine, his broad flabby
hands clasped complacently before him.
Tybalt Smith, after casting another furtive glance in Friend Othniel's
direction, murmured the words:
"Shoe-strings and a sandwich!"
"Eh? What?" queried Banborough.
"Our two friends," continued the tragedian, "through the powerful aid of
a member of our fraternity, whose merits the public have hitherto failed
to recognise, have sought refuge in the more humble walks of life to
escape the undesirable publicity forced upon them by _you_! Mr.
Kerrington, disguised as a Jew pedlar, is now dispensing shoe-strings
and collar-buttons on lower Broadway, while Mr. Mill is at present
taking a constitutional down Fifth Avenue encased in a sandwich frame
calling attention to the merits of Backer's Tar Soap. He is, if I may
so express it, between the boards instead of on the boards--a little
pleasantry of my own, you will observe."
The tragedian paused, but failing to elicit the desired laugh, continued
his narration:
"Mrs. Mackintosh, though having been offered a most desirable position
to hawk apples and chewing-gum on Madison Square, has preferred to share
the rigours of an unknown exile, that she might protect the youthful
innocence of our leading lady."
"All of which means," said Spotts shortly, "that Mill and Kerrington
chose to fake it out in town, while you and the old girl bolted."
"Our friend," remarked Smith, casting an aggrieved look at the last
speaker, "is lamentably terse. But let us join Mrs. Mackintosh. She
will support my remarks, not perhaps in such chaste diction, but--"
"Oh, shut it off!" interrupted Mr. Spotts. "Come along, Othniel. I guess
you're in this, too." And he led the way into the house.
When they entered the private parlour they found Mrs. Mackintosh and
Miss Arminster waiting to receive them, the old lady with mingled
feelings of righteous indignation and amusement at the ludicrous
position in which they were placed, which latter she strove hard to
conceal.
"Well, Bishop," she began, as soon as Banborough was fairly in the room,
"you've carried off an innocent and unsuspecting young lady in a Black
Maria, imprisoned an officer of the law, deceived his agents, reduced
two of the members of our company to walking the streets, forced us to
consort with thieves and criminals," pointing to the bland form of the
Quaker, who had just appeared in the doorway, "laid us all under the
imputation of plotting against our country, exiled us from our native
land, brought me away from New York in my declining years, with only the
clothes I stand up in, and deposited me in a small room on the third
floor of a second-class hotel, which is probably full of fleas! And now
I ask you, sir, in the name of Christian decency, which you're supposed
to represent, and common sense, of which you've very little, what
you're going to do with us?"
Banborough sat down suddenly on the nearest available chair, made a weak
attempt at a smile, gave it up, and blurted out:
"Well, I'm blessed if I know! But permit me to decline the declining
years," he murmured gallantly.
"I have," continued the lady, with a twinkle in her eye, "for the past
thirty years played blameless parts on the metropolitan stage, and I'm
too old to assume with any degree of success the role of a political
criminal."
"Madam," said the author, making a desperate effort to compose himself,
"I'm the first to admit the lack of foresight on my part which has
placed us in this deplorable predicament; but the fact remains that
we're suspected of a serious crime against this Government, and until we
can prove ourselves innocent it's necessary to protect our liberties as
best we may. I fortunately have ample funds, and I can only say that it
will be a duty as well as a privilege to take you all to a place of
safety, and keep you there, as my guests, till happier times."
"Hear, hear!" said the tragedian from the back of the room, while the
Quaker settled himself into the most comfortable armchair with a sigh of
contentment.
"Very nicely spoken, young man," replied the older lady, whose
suspicions were only partially allayed, "but words aren't deeds, and
Canada, where I'm informed we're to be dumped, is a long way off; and if
you imagine you can go cavorting round the country with a Black Maria
for a whole afternoon without bringing the police down on you, you're
vastly mistaken!"
"Thee speaketh words of wisdom, but a full stomach fortifieth a stout
heart," said Friend Othniel.
"Yes," replied Smith, who took this remark to himself. "I ordered dinner
at six, thinking you'd be in then, and if I'm not mistaken it's here
now." And as he spoke the door opened and a waiter entered to lay the
table.
Conversation of a private nature was naturally suspended forthwith, and
the members of the A. B. C. Company sat in silence, hungrily eyeing the
board.
"Thee mayst lay a place for me, friend," said the Quaker to the waiter,
as he watched the preparations with bland enjoyment.
"Did you order any drinks?" asked Banborough of the tragedian.
"No, Bishop, I didn't," replied the latter. "As you're paying for the
show, I thought I'd leave you that privilege."
"Order six soda lemonades," said Banborough to the waiter, adding behind
his hand to Spotts, as he noted the gloom spread over the company: "No
liquor to-night. We need to keep our wits about us."
"Stop, friend," came the unctuous tones of the Quaker, arresting the
waiter as he was about to leave the room. "For myself I never take
strong waters, but thee forgettest, Bishop," giving Banborough the title
he had heard the others use, "thee forgettest that our revered friend,"
with a wave of his hand in Mrs. Mackintosh's direction, "hath an
affection of her lungs which requires her to take a brandy and soda for
her body's good before meals. Let it be brought at once!"
"Why, you impudent upstart!" gasped the old lady, as the door closed
behind the waiter. "How dare you say I drink!"
"Shoo!" returned Friend Othniel, lapsing from the Quaker into the tramp;
"I ain't orderin' it for youse. I've a throat like a Sahara."
Then turning to the other members of the company, he continued:
"Now seein' as we've a moment alone, and bein' all criminals, I votes we
has a session o' the committee o' ways and means."
A chorus of indignant protest arose from every side.
"Youse ain't criminals, eh? What's liberatin' prisoners, an' stealin'
two hosses an' a kerridge, an' the driver's hat an' coat, with a
five-dollar bill in the pocket?"
Banborough rose to deny vehemently the last assertion.
"Oh, yes, ther' was," continued the tramp. "I got that." And he
produced a crisp note at the sight of which the Englishman groaned, as
he realised the damning chain of evidence which circumstance was
building up around them.
"An' lockin' up officers of the law," Friend Othniel went on, "an'
runnin' off with prisoners, specially a tough like me, one o' your pals,
what's wanted particular." And he winked villainously.
"I do not see," began Banborough, who was fast losing his temper, "that
there's any need of discussing the moral aspect of this affair. You,"
turning to the tramp, "will have your dinner and your drink, and a
certain sum of money, and you'll then kindly leave us. Though your
nature may be incapable of appreciating the difference between a crime
knowingly committed and one innocently entered into, a difference
exists, and renders further association between us undesirable, to say
the least."
"Oh, it does, does it?" said Friend Othniel. "Well, that's where youse
blokes is mistook. This mornin' my dearest ambition was to blow up
Madison Square Garden, but what's that to wreckin' a whole nation? No,
Bishop, I'm a political conspirator from this time on, and I'll stand by
yer through thick and thin! Why, you people ain't no more fitted to run
a show o' this sort than a parcel of three-weeks-old babies. I wouldn't
give yer ten hours to land the whole crowd in jail; but you just trust
to me, and I'll see yer safe, if it can be done. I tell yer, it ain't
the fust time I ben in a hurry to view Niagary Falls from the Canadian
side."
Just then the door opened, and the waiter entered with the brandy and
soda in a long glass.
"Thee mayst put it here, friend, till the lady is ready to take it,"
said Othniel, indicating the table at his side.
"Nothing of the kind," snapped Mrs. Mackintosh. "I guess I'm as ready to
take it now's I ever shall be." And she grasped the glass and, setting
her face, proceeded to drain the tumbler to the amusement of the
company.
"There," she said, wiping her lips with her handkerchief, as the waiter
left the room, "that tasted about as bad as anything I've had for a long
time; but if it had been castor oil, I'd have drunk every drop rather
than that you'd had it."
A general laugh greeted this sally, and the tramp remarked sheepishly
that he guessed he'd know it the next time he ran up against her.
Then, waxing serious, he resumed his former topic.
"We ain't got no time to waste in frivolity," he said, "and if we're to
get out of this hole, the sooner we makes our plans the better, and
perhaps, as I know more about this business than youse, I'll do the
talking."
Receiving the silent assent of the company, he continued: "I remembers
in the days o' my innocent youth, before I burgled my first watch,
a-playin' of a Sunday-school game, where we went out of the room, and
the bloke what teached us put a quarter somewhere in plain sight, and
when we come in again not one on us could find it, 'cause it was just
under our noses; which the same is the game I'm proposing to play."
"I think I see what you mean," said Banborough. "I've heard it said that
the destruction of most criminals is their cleverness."
"That's just what I'm a-tryin' to point out," replied the tramp. "The
cops gives you the credit of allus tryin' to do the out-o'-the-way
thing, so as to put 'em off the track, while if yer only acted as yer
naturally would if yer hadn't done nothin' to be cotched for, yer could
walk before their eyes and they'd never see yer."
"That sounds all right," said Spotts. "Now what's your advice?"
"To go back to New York," replied the tramp shortly.
"But," objected Miss Arminster, "we can't stay in the United States."
"Who said we could?" retorted the tramp. "Don't yer see, the cops'll
reckon on our takin' some train along hereabouts for the North, and
they'll watch all the little stations on the up line, but they won't
trouble 'bout the down line, 'cause they know we've left the city. So
all we has to do, after we've had our dinner comfortable-like, is to
take a local back to town, and catch the White Mountain Express for
Montreal."
"Why the White Mountain Express?" asked Mrs. Mackintosh.
"'Cause it's the longest route," replied the tramp, "an' they'll reckon
on our takin' the shortest. Besides which, we'll cross the border in the
early morning, havin' the baggage, which we ain't got, examined on
arrival."
The company expressed hearty approval of the plan, and it was easy to
see, in the case of the ladies at least, that Friend Othniel's sagacity
had won him a much-improved position in their estimation.
The waiter now came bustling in and out of the room, and Mrs. Mackintosh
drew Cecil apart into the embrasure of a window.
"You mustn't think I'm too hard on you, young man," she said, "though I
can talk like a house afire when I once get r'iled. I know you didn't
mean to get us into this scrape. You're a good-hearted chap, or you
wouldn't have given us all a breakfast when you didn't need to, and I
want you to understand that I'll stand by you whatever happens. I've
taken a real liking to you, because you can look me straight in the eye,
and I know you're worth a dozen of those chaps one sees hanging round a
theatre; and if you behave yourself nicely, you won't find you've got a
better friend than Betsy Mackintosh." And she squeezed his hand with an
honest fervour that many a man might have envied.
Cecil thanked her for her confidence in him, and turned to have a few
words with Miss Arminster, who had been constantly in his mind. When she
had admitted to the Justice of the Peace that she was a married woman,
he felt as if somebody had poured a pitcher of ice-water down his back.
Of course he hardly considered his sentiment for her as serious, but he
was at the age when a young man feels it a personal grievance if he
discovers that a pretty girl is married. Indeed, the fact that the
little actress had been so blind to her own interests as not to keep her
heart and hand free till he came along first caused him to realise how
hard he was hit.
"I do hope you've not been too much fatigued?" he said, sitting down
beside her.
"Oh, you mustn't bother about that," she replied, raising her eyes to
his in a decidedly disconcerting manner. "I'm afraid you must have
thought me very selfish and ungrateful for seeming to care so much about
my own appearance and so little about all you've done for me."
"Oh, don't speak of that," he protested.
"But I must speak of it," she insisted. "I can't begin to tell you how I
appreciated it. It was plucky and just splendid, and some day or other I
want you to take me out driving again, in another sort of trap. You're
the best whip I ever knew."
He flushed under her praise, and began to say pretty things which he had
better have omitted; but she presently became absent-minded in the face
of his attentions, and interpreting this as an unfavourable sign, he
ventured to ask her why she was so pensive.
"I'm afraid you must think me awfully rude," she said, "and really I've
listened to all the nice things you've been saying, half of which I
don't deserve, but the fact is, this place, and even this very room, are
full of sweet associations for me. It was in that little church, just
across the road, that I was married four years ago."
"But I thought," he began, "that the Justice of the Peace said that he
married you."
"So he did," she returned softly, "but that was different--it was
later."
"Eh? What!" he said, "later?"
"Yes," she replied dreamily, not noticing the interruption. "But it was
here that the few sweet days of my first honeymoon were passed. 'Twas
here I became the bride of the only man I've ever loved, the bride of--"
"Hist!" cried the tramp, who had been looking out of the window. "The
house is watched!" And with this announcement Banborough's tete-a-tete
came to an abrupt close.
"Are you sure?" cried Spotts.
"Positive. There are three cops fooling round in front now."
"What shall we do?" cried Smith.
"Git," rejoined the tramp.
"But how?" queried Banborough.
"Oh, I'll fix that all right," said the Quaker. "I bagged a plated
tea-service here five years ago, and if they ain't changed the
arrangements of the house, this side door leads into an unused passage,
which, barrin' the climbin' of a picket fence, is very handy for
escape."
"But how about the waiter?" suggested Mrs. Mackintosh, who was always
practical.
"Right you are," said Friend Othniel. "We'll lock the door before we get
out. They'll waste time enough over trying to open it, to give us a
chance."
To speak was to act, and the tramp softly turned the key and slipped it
into his pocket.
"As a memento," he said. "It's all I'm likely to git. They don't even
use plate now." And he fingered the spoons and forks on the table
regretfully.
"Come," said Spotts shortly. "We've no time to lose."
"Look here," said Banborough to the company, "I may be a criminal, but
I'm not a sneak, and I don't order meals and apartments without paying
for them. How much ought I to leave behind?"
Spotts laughed.
"If you put it that way, I guess ten dollars'll cover it," he said.
The Englishman threw a bill on the table.
"Now," cried Smith, "let's be off!"
"Out this way," said the tramp, opening a side door. "You others go
first, and I'll wait here till I sees you're all safe."
"Not if I know it," said Cecil. "You go first, or you'll get kicked."
The tramp looked longingly at the crisp note, and led the way,
remarking:
"Thee castest thy pearls before swine, friend."
"Ah, that's just what I'm trying to avoid," said Banborough cheerfully,
bringing up the rear.