MR. GOLDBERG, the manager and proprietor of the Parade Drug Store, was
a man who possessed neither a sense of imagination nor the spirit of
romance. He sent peremptorily for Timothy, and Timothy came with a
feeling that all was not well.
“Mr. Anderson,” said Goldberg in his best magisterial manner, “I took
you into my shop because I was short of a man and because I understood
that you had had some business experience.”
“I have business experience,” said Timothy carefully, “of a kind.”
“I gave you particular instructions,” said Mr. Goldberg solemnly, “on
one very vital point. We carry a full line of all the best proprietorial
medicines, and our customers can always get them upon application. Each
of those medicines we duplicate, as you know, providing the same
constituents and charging some sixpence to a shilling less—in fact, we
are out to save the public from being robbed.”
“I understand you,” said Timothy, “but I don’t see much difference
between robbing the public and robbing the patent medicine proprietors,
and all that just-as-good stuff never did impress me, anyway. It stands
to reason,” he said, leaning over the desk and speaking with the
earnestness of a crusader, “that the advertised article must be more
even in quality and it must be good all round. You can’t advertise a bad
article and get away with it, except on the first sale, and that doesn’t
pay the advertiser. The goods sell the goods, and the advertisement is
only to make you take the first lick.”
“I do not want a lecture on advertising or on commercial morality,” said
Mr. Goldberg with ominous calm. “I merely want to tell you that you were
overheard by my chief assistant telling a customer not to ‘take a
chance’ on one of my own pills.”
“That’s right,” said Timothy, nodding his head vigorously. “Guilty, my
lord. What about it?”
“I have had a further complaint,” said Mr. Goldberg, consulting with
elaborate ceremony a little notebook. “I understand that you have
initiated the awful practice of offering to toss customers for their
change. People have written me strong letters of complaint about it.”
“Because they lost,” said the indignant Timothy; “what’s wrong about
that, anyway, Mr. Goldberg? I don’t pocket the money, and I win twice
out of every three times. If a fellow likes to take a chance as to
whether he gets sixpence or we get a shilling, why worry?”
The outraged Mr. Goldberg brindled.
“That sort of thing may be all right at a country fair or even in a
country shop,” he said, “but it is not good enough for the Parade Drug
Store, Bournemouth, and I’ll dispense with your services as from this
morning.”
“You’re losing a good man,” said Timothy solemnly, but Mr. Goldberg did
not seem to take that loss to heart.
All “Take A Chance Anderson’s” jobs ended violently. He never conceived
of them ending in any other way, and invariably regarded the sum of
money which was received in lieu of notice, or as compensation for
breach of contract, as being something in the nature of a nest-egg which
a kindly Providence had foreordained, and he was neither cast down nor
elated by the crisis in his affairs when, by a fortunate accident, he
met Mary Maxell—the fortune was apparent, but the accident belonged to
the category which determined the hour at which trains leave stations.
Hitherto, on the girl’s part, these meetings had been fraught with a
certain amount of apprehension, if not terror. They had begun when
Timothy had stopped her on the morning after his quarrel with Lady
Maxell, and had made bland inquiries as to that lady’s condition. Then
she had been in a panic and frantically anxious to end the interview,
and it required all her self-restraint to prevent her flying at top
speed from this wicked young man who had been so abominably rude.
At their second meeting he had greeted her as an old friend, and she had
left him with the illusion of a life-time acquaintance. Hereafter
matters went smoothly, and they went so because Timothy Anderson was
unlike any of the other boys she had ever met.
He paid her no compliments, he did not grow sentimental, he neither
tried to hold her hand nor kiss her, nor was he ever oppressed by that
overwhelming melancholy which is the heritage and pride of youth.
Not once did he hint at an early decline or the possibility of his going
away to die in far lands. Instead he kept her in screams of laughter at
his interpretation of movie plays in the making. He did not ask for a
keepsake; the only request he made of her in this direction was one
which first took her breath away. Thereafter she never met him unless
she had in the bag which slung from her wrist one small box of matches;
for “Take A Chance” Anderson had never possessed or carried the means of
ignition for his cigarette for one whole hour together.
Timothy told her most of what the proprietor of the Parade Drug Store
had told him. The girl thought it was a joke, because that was exactly
the way Timothy presented the matter.
“But you won’t be going away soon?” she asked.
“Not till I go abroad,” replied Timothy calmly.
“Are you going abroad too?” she asked in surprise.
He nodded.
“I’m going to Paris and Monte Carlo—especially to Monte Carlo,” he
said, “and afterwards I may run across to Algeria or to Egypt.”
She looked at him with a new respect. She was less impressed by the
great possessions which his plans betrayed than by his confident
independence, and dimly she wondered why he was working at a drug-store
for low wages and wondered, too, whether he was——
“What are you blushing about?” asked Timothy curiously.
“I wasn’t blushing,” she protested; “I was just wondering whether I
could ever afford a trip like that.”
“Of course you can,” said the young man scornfully. “If I can afford it,
you can, can’t you? If I go abroad and stay at the best hotels, and go
joy rides in the Alps and plan all this when I haven’t got fifteen
shillings over my rent——”
“You haven’t fifteen shillings over your rent!” she repeated, aghast.
“But how can you go abroad without money?”
Timothy was genuinely astounded that she could ask so absurd a question.
“Why, I’d take a chance on that,” he said. “A little thing like money
doesn’t really count.”
“I think you’re very silly,” she said. “Oh, there was something I wanted
to tell you, Mr. Anderson.”
“You may call me Timothy,” he said.
“I don’t want to call you Timothy,” she replied.
He shook his head with a pained expression.
“It’ll be ever so much more sociable if you call me Timothy and I call
you Mary.”
“We can be very sociable without that familiarity,” she said severely.
“I was just going to tell you something.”
They sat on the grass together, on the shadow fringe of a big oak and
the spring sunshine wove its restless arabesques on her lap.
“Do you know,” she said after a pause, “that last night I had two queer
experiences and I was scared; oh, scared to death!”
“Eating things at night,” said Timothy oracularly, “especially before
you go to bed——”
“I wasn’t dreaming,” she said indignantly, “nor was it a nightmare. I
won’t tell you if you’re so horrid.”
“I’m only speaking as an ex-chemist and druggist,” said Timothy gravely;
“but please forgive me. Tell me what it is, Mary.”
“Miss Maxell,” she said.
“Miss Mary Maxell,” he compromised.
“First I’ll tell you the least worst,” she began. “It happened about one
o’clock in the morning. I had gone to bed awfully tired, but somehow I
couldn’t sleep, so I got up and walked about the room. I didn’t like
putting on the light because that meant drawing down the blinds which I
had let up when I went to bed, and the blinds make such a noise that I
thought the whole of the house would hear. So I put on my dressing-gown
and sat by the window. It was rather chilly, but my wrap was warm, and
sitting there I dozed. I don’t know how long, but it was nearly an hour,
I think. When I woke up I saw a man right in the centre of the lawn.”
Timothy was interested.
“What sort of a man?”
“That is the peculiar thing about it,” she said. “He wasn’t a white
man.”
“A coon?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“No, I think it must have been a Moor. He wore a long white dress that
reached down to his ankles, and over that he had a big, heavy black
cloak.”
Timothy nodded.
“Well?”
“He went round the corner of the house towards uncle’s private stairway
and he was gone quite a long time. My first thought was to awaken uncle
and tell him, but then I remembered that Sir John had spent a long time
in Morocco and possibly he knew that the man was about the house. You
see, we have had Moorish visitors before, when ships have come to Poole.
Once we had a very important man, a Kaid, and Sir John made queer tea
for him in glasses with mint and stuff. So I just didn’t know what to
do. Whilst I was wondering whether I ought not at least to wake Lady
Maxell, he reappeared, walked across the lawn and went down the path
which leads to the back entrance—you’re laughing at me,” she said
suddenly.
“What you mistake for a laugh,” said Timothy solemnly, “is merely one
large smile of pleasure at being in your confidence.”
She was in two minds as to whether she would be angry or pleased, but
his tone changed to a more serious one.
“I don’t like the idea of the gaudy East wandering loose under your
bedroom window in the middle of the night,” he said. “Did you tell Lady
Maxell this morning?”
The girl shook her head.
“No, she was up very early and has been out all day. I have not seen
her—in fact, she was not at breakfast. Now I’ll tell you the really
serious thing that happened, and I do hope, Mr. Anderson, that you won’t
be flippant.”
“Trust me,” said Timothy.
The girl had no reason to complain of his attitude when she had
described the shooting incident. He was aghast.
“That is terrible!” he said vigorously. “Why, it might have hit you!”
“Of course it might have hit me,” she said indignantly. “That’s the
whole point of my story, so far as you are concerned—I mean, so far as
I am concerned,” she added hastily.
“So fax as I am concerned too,” said Timothy quietly. “I just hate the
idea of anything even frightening you.”
She rose hurriedly.
“I am going to shop now,” she said.
“What’s the hurry?” grumbled Timothy.
“Mr. Anderson,” she said, ignoring his question, “I don’t want you to
think that uncle is feeling badly about you because of what has happened
in the house. He spoke to me of you last night, and he spoke very
nicely. I am worried to death about Sir John. He has made enemies in his
life, and I am sure that this shooting affair is the sequel to some old
feud.”
Timothy nodded.
“I should say that is so,” he said.
He looked down at the grass very thoughtfully and then:
“Well, I’ll go home,” he said. “I had better sleep this afternoon if I
am to be up all night.”
“Up all night?” she said in surprise. “What is happening? Is there a
ball or something?”
“There will be something livelier than a ball,” he said grimly, “if I
find anybody in your garden to-night. And Miss Maxell, if you look out
of your window and you see a solitary figure on sentry-go don’t shoot,
because it will be me.”
“But you mustn’t,” she gasped. “Please don’t do it, Mr. Anderson. Uncle
would be——”
He stopped her with a gesture.
“Possibly nobody will come to-night,” he said, “and as likely as not I
shall be pinched by the police as a suspicious character. But there’s a
chance that somebody will come, and that’s the chance I’m going to
take.”