Tracy went to bed happy once more, at rest in his mind once more. He
had started out on a high emprise—that was to his credit, he argued; he
had fought the best fight he could, considering the odds against
him—that was to his credit; he had been defeated—certainly there was
nothing discreditable in that. Being defeated, he had a right to retire
with the honors of war and go back without prejudice to the position in
the world’s society to which he had been born. Why not? even the rabid
republican chair-maker would do that. Yes, his conscience was
comfortable once more.
He woke refreshed, happy, and eager for his cablegram. He had been born
an aristocrat, he had been a democrat for a time, he was now an
aristocrat again. He marveled to find that this final change was not
merely intellectual, it had invaded his feeling; and he also marveled
to note that this feeling seemed a good deal less artificial than any
he had entertained in his system for a long time. He could also have
noted, if he had thought of it, that his bearing had stiffened, over
night, and that his chin had lifted itself a shade. Arrived in the
basement, he was about to enter the breakfast room when he saw old
Marsh in the dim light of a corner of the hall, beckoning him with his
finger to approach. The blood welled slowly up in Tracy’s cheek, and he
said with a grade of injured dignity almost ducal:
“Is that for me?”
“Yes.”
“What is the purpose of it?”
“I want to speak to you—in private.”
“This spot is private enough for me.”
Marsh was surprised; and not particularly pleased. He approached and
said:
“Oh, in public, then, if you prefer. Though it hasn’t been my way.”
The boarders gathered to the spot, interested.
“Speak out,” said Tracy. “What is it you want?”
“Well, haven’t you—er—forgot something?”
“I? I’m not aware of it.”
“Oh, you’re not? Now you stop and think, a minute.”
“I refuse to stop and think. It doesn’t interest me. If it interests
you, speak out.”
“Well, then,” said Marsh, raising his voice to a slightly angry pitch,
“You forgot to pay your board yesterday—if you’re _bound_ to have it
public.”
Oh, yes, this heir to an annual million or so had been dreaming and
soaring, and had forgotten that pitiful three or four dollars. For
penalty he must have it coarsely flung in his face in the presence of
these people—people in whose countenances was already beginning to dawn
an uncharitable enjoyment of the situation.
“Is _that_ all! Take your money and give your terrors a rest.”
Tracy’s hand went down into his pocket with angry decision. But—it
didn’t come out. The color began to ebb out of his face. The
countenances about him showed a growing interest; and some of them a
heightened satisfaction. There was an uncomfortable pause—then he
forced out, with difficulty, the words:
“I’ve—been robbed!”
Old Marsh’s eyes flamed up with Spanish fire, and he exclaimed:
“Robbed, is it? _That’s_ your tune? It’s too old—been played in this
house too often; everybody plays it that can’t get work when he wants
it, and won’t work when he can get it. Trot out Mr. Allen, somebody,
and let _him_ take a toot at it. It’s _his_ turn next, _he_ forgot,
too, last night. I’m laying for him.”
One of the negro women came scrambling down stairs as pale as a sorrel
horse with consternation and excitement:
“Misto Marsh, Misto Allen’s skipped out!”
“What!”
“Yes-sah, and cleaned out his room _clean;_ tuck bofe towels en de
soap!”
“You lie, you hussy!”
“It’s jes’ so, jes’ as I tells you—en Misto Summer’s socks is gone, en
Misto Naylor’s yuther shirt.”
Mr. Marsh was at boiling point by this time. He turned upon Tracy:
“Answer up now—when are you going to settle?”
“To-day—since you seem to be in a hurry.”
“_To-day_ is it? Sunday—and you out of work? I like that. Come—where
are you going to get the money?”
Tracy’s spirit was rising again. He proposed to impress these people:
“I am expecting a cablegram from home.”
Old Marsh was caught out, with the surprise of it. The idea was so
immense, so extravagant, that he couldn’t get his breath at first. When
he did get it, it came rancid with sarcasm.
“A _cablegram_—think of it, ladies and gents, he’s expecting a
cablegram! _He’s_ expecting a cablegram—this duffer, this scrub, this
bilk! From his father—eh? Yes—without a doubt. A dollar or two a
word—oh, that’s nothing—_they_ don’t mind a little thing like
that—_this_ kind’s fathers don’t. Now his father is—er—well, I reckon
his father—”
“My father is an English earl!”
The crowd fell back aghast-aghast at the sublimity of the young
loafer’s “cheek.” Then they burst into a laugh that made the windows
rattle. Tracy was too angry to realize that he had done a foolish
thing. He said:
“Stand aside, please. I—”
“Wait a minute, your lordship,” said Marsh, bowing low, “where is your
lordship going?”
“For the cablegram. Let me pass.”
“Excuse me, your lordship, you’ll stay right where you are.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I mean that I didn’t begin to keep boarding-house yesterday. It means
that I am not the kind that can be taken in by every hack-driver’s son
that comes loafing over here because he can’t bum a living at home. It
means that you can’t skip out on any such—”
Tracy made a step toward the old man, but Mrs. Marsh sprang between,
and said:
“Don’t, Mr. Tracy, please.” She turned to her husband and said, “_Do_
bridle your tongue. What has he done to be treated so? Can’t you _see_
he has lost his mind, with trouble and distress? He’s not responsible.”
“Thank your kind heart, madam, but I’ve not lost my mind; and if I can
have the mere privilege of stepping to the telegraph office—”
“Well, you can’t,” cried Marsh.
“—or sending—”
“Sending! That beats everything. If there’s anybody that’s fool enough
to go on such a chuckle-headed errand—”
“Here comes Mr. Barrow—he will go for me. Barrow—”
A brisk fire of exclamations broke out—
“Say, Barrow, he’s expecting a cablegram!”
“Cablegram from his father, you know!”
“Yes—cablegram from the wax-figger!”
“And say, Barrow, this fellow’s an earl—take off your hat, pull down
your vest!”
“Yes, he’s come off and forgot his crown, that he wears Sundays. He’s
cabled over to his pappy to send it.”
“You step out and get that cablegram, Barrow; his majesty’s a little
lame to-day.”
“Oh stop,” cried Barrow; “give the man a chance.” He turned, and said
with some severity, “Tracy, what’s the matter with you? What kind of
foolishness is this you’ve been talking. You ought to have more sense.”
“I’ve not been talking foolishness; and if you’ll go to the telegraph
office—”
“Oh; don’t talk so. I’m your friend in trouble and out of it, before
your face and behind your back, for anything in _reason;_ but you’ve
lost your head, you see, and this moonshine about a cablegram—”
“_I’ll_ go there and ask for it!”
“Thank you from the bottom of my heart, Brady. Here, I’ll give you a
Written order for it. Fly, now, and fetch it. We’ll soon see!”
Brady flew. Immediately the sort of quiet began to steal over the crowd
which means dawning doubt, misgiving; and might be translated into the
words, “Maybe he _is_ expecting a cablegram—maybe he _has_ got a father
somewhere—maybe we’ve been just a little too fresh, just a shade too
‘previous’!”
Loud talk ceased; then the mutterings and low murmurings and
whisperings died out. The crowd began to crumble apart. By ones and
twos the fragments drifted to the breakfast table. Barrow tried to
bring Tracy in; but he said:
“Not yet, Barrow—presently.”
Mrs. Marsh and Hattie tried, offering gentle and kindly persuasions;
but he said;
“I would rather wait—till he comes.”
Even old Marsh began to have suspicions that maybe he had been a trifle
too “brash,” as he called it in the privacy of his soul, and he pulled
himself together and started toward Tracy with invitation in his eyes;
but Tracy warned him off with a gesture which was quite positive and
eloquent. Then followed the stillest quarter of an hour which had ever
been known in that house at that time of day. It was so still, and so
solemn withal, that when somebody’s cup slipped from his fingers and
landed in his plate the shock made people start, and the sharp sound
seemed as indecorous there and as out of place as if a coffin and
mourners were imminent and being waited for. And at last when Brady’s
feet came clattering down the stairs the sacrilege seemed unbearable.
Everybody rose softly and turned toward the door, where stood Tracy;
then with a common impulse, moved a step or two in that direction, and
stopped. While they gazed, young Brady arrived, panting, and put into
Tracy’s hand,—sure enough—an envelope. Tracy fastened a bland
victorious eye upon the gazers, and kept it there till one by one they
dropped their eyes, vanquished and embarrassed. Then he tore open the
telegram and glanced at its message. The yellow paper fell from his
fingers and fluttered to the floor, and his face turned white. There
was nothing there but one word—
“_Thanks_.”
The humorist of the house, the tall, raw-boned Billy Nash, caulker from
the navy yard, was standing in the rear of the crowd. In the midst of
the pathetic silence that was now brooding over the place and moving
some few hearts there toward compassion, he began to whimper, then he
put his handkerchief to his eyes and buried his face in the neck of the
bashfulest young fellow in the company, a navy-yard blacksmith,
shrieked “Oh, pappy, how _could_ you!” and began to bawl like a
teething baby, if one may imagine a baby with the energy and the
devastating voice of a jackass.
So perfect was that imitation of a child’s cry, and so vast the scale
of it and so ridiculous the aspect of the performer, that all gravity
was swept from the place as if by a hurricane, and almost everybody
there joined in the crash of laughter provoked by the exhibition. Then
the small mob began to take its revenge—revenge for the discomfort and
apprehension it had brought upon itself by its own too rash freshness
of a little while before. It guyed its poor victim, baited him, worried
him, as dogs do with a cornered cat. The victim answered back with
defiances and challenges which included everybody, and which only gave
the sport new spirit and variety; but when he changed his tactics and
began to single out individuals and invite them by name, the fun lost
its funniness and the interest of the show died out, along with the
noise.
Finally Marsh was about to take an innings, but Barrow said:
“Never mind, now—leave him alone. You’ve no account with him but a
money account. I’ll take care of that myself.”
The distressed and worried landlady gave Barrow a fervently grateful
look for his championship of the abused stranger; and the pet of the
house, a very prism in her cheap but ravishing Sunday rig, blew him a
kiss from the tips of her fingers and said, with the darlingest smile
and a sweet little toss of her head:
“You’re the only man here, and I’m going to set my cap for you, you
dear old thing!”
“For shame, Puss! How you talk! I _never_ saw such a child!”
It took a good deal of argument and persuasion—that is to say, petting,
under these disguises—to get Tracy to entertain the idea of breakfast.
He at first said he would never eat again in that house; and added that
he had enough firmness of character, he trusted, to enable him to
starve like a man when the alternative was to eat insult with his
bread.
When he had finished his breakfast, Barrow took him to his room,
furnished him a pipe, and said cheerily:
“_Now_, old fellow, take in your battle-flag out of the wet, you’re not
in the hostile camp any more. You’re a little upset by your troubles,
and that’s natural enough, but don’t let your mind run on them anymore
than you can help; drag your thoughts away from your troubles by the
ears, by the heels, or any other way, so you manage it; it’s the
healthiest thing a body can do; dwelling on troubles is deadly, just
deadly—and that’s the softest name there is for it. You must keep your
mind amused—you must, indeed.”
“Oh, miserable me!”
“_Don’t!_ There’s just pure heart-break in that tone. It’s just as I
say; you’ve got to get right down to it and amuse your mind, as if it
was salvation.”
“They’re easy words to say, Barrow, but how am I going to amuse,
entertain, divert a mind that finds itself suddenly assaulted and
overwhelmed by disasters of a sort not dreamed of and not provided for?
No—no, the bare idea of amusement is repulsive to my feelings: Let us
talk of death and funerals.”
“No—not yet. That would be giving up the ship. We’ll not give up the
ship yet. I’m going to amuse you; I sent Brady out for the wherewithal
before you finished breakfast.”
“You did? What is it?”
“Come, this is a good sign—curiosity. Oh, there’s hope for you yet.”