JASPER J. MORTON AGAIN
“MAXIM for travelers: Always begin your first trip to France
at Saint Malo,” announced Betty Wales, after they had explored the
quaint old town a little. Babbie and Madeline, the traveled contingent,
agreed that it was “just as dear and almost as dirty” as anything in
Italy, which was Madeline’s standard of real charm. Babe, being in a
state of subdued and pensive melancholy, said nothing and thought a
great deal--but not about Saint Malo. Madeline and Babbie supposed she
was missing John until Babe, unable to endure their constant chaffing
any longer, informed them curtly that she never wished to see him again
as long as she lived. Having freed her mind, she felt a little better;
but she sternly rejected sympathy, even from Betty, refused to confide
in Babbie, though the B’s had always told one another everything, and
spent most of her time on the hotel piazza facing the sea, sitting
in one of the hooded beach chairs that abound at all the continental
watering-places. The hood of this particular one was lined with pink
flowered cretonne, and it was so becoming that Babbie declared it was a
perfect shame the effect should be lost.
“John would do anything she wanted if he could see her in that chair,”
she declared. “As for her not wanting to see him, she’s simply dying
to this very minute. Won’t it be interesting watching them make up in
Paris?”
“Almost as interesting as it is watching Betty buy post-cards in
French,” laughed Madeline.
“I don’t care if I am funny,” declared Betty stoutly. “I’m learning.
I can say almost anything I want to now, only I have to look up some
words in my dictionary. I’ve written my family that you can learn more
French here in a week than you do in a year at Harding.”
“That’s a base slander on Harding,” returned Madeline promptly. “Here
you are engaging the entire time of two excellent tutors,--meaning
me and Miss Hildreth,--besides getting incidental instruction from
nearly every inhabitant of the town. You ought to be learning a little
something, my child.”
“You never bought a dictionary either, at Harding,” put in Babbie. “You
used to borrow Nita’s.”
Betty’s diminutive French dictionary had been her first purchase in
Saint Malo. In the crowd of porters and custom-house officials on the
landing-wharf she had discovered that she knew even less French than
she had supposed, and Madeline’s and Babbie’s easy intercourse with the
hotel servants and shop-keepers filled her with envy and despair.
“I will learn,” she declared. “I never wanted to particularly before,
but now I want to more than anything. I won’t be carried along on this
trip like a piece of baggage, having to call one of you whenever I want
to ask for hot water or buy a postage stamp.”
So she bought her dictionary and carried it with her everywhere,
bringing it out on all occasions, to the intense amusement of Babbie
and Madeline, who criticised her accent mercilessly, taught her the
most complicated idioms they could remember, and assisted her progress
by making her inquire the way about the town, do their shopping as
well as her own, and even flounder through protracted interviews with
the fat and obtuse old woman who rented bath-houses and suits on the
rocks just below the wall that encircled the town. With such strenuous
practice it was certainly no wonder, as Madeline had pointed out, that
Betty’s progress was rapid.
Saint Malo is a tiny, sleepy town, shut in by a great wall. Its narrow,
crooked streets are lined with tall stone houses, there is a lovely
old church towering over everything, and on all sides, when the tide
is high, is the sea. At low tide there are great stretches of ugly
yellow sand flats, where it is not safe to walk because of treacherous
quicksands, and over which the incoming sea rushes “faster than a horse
can gallop,” so the natives tell you proudly. But there are small
bathing beaches close to the wall; there is the wall to promenade on;
there are the dark, stuffy little shops in the town where one buys
Brittany ware and Cluny lace, all “très bon marché,” of bright-eyed
peasant women in caps and sabots; and everywhere there is the
fascinating foreign atmosphere that is, after all, the crowning feature
in the charm of traveling.
“I’m so glad we aren’t automobiling this time!” sighed Babbie. “James
wouldn’t have let us come here. He’d have fussed about the roads or the
garages or something of that sort. I hope we shall have time for some
more little out-of-the-way villages.”
“There are dozens in this neighborhood,” the “man from Cook’s” assured
her. “We ought to be energetic and take some side-trips. We can go to
Dinard----”
“That’s where I want to go,” broke in Mrs. Hildreth. “I’ve heard so
much about what a gay, pretty little place it is. Is it hard to get
there, Madeline?”
“Not a bit,” responded Madeline, “only if we’re going to-day we ought
to start in a few minutes and have lunch there, because the tide is low
about noon, and at low tide the ferry-boat doesn’t run, or if it does
it starts from some inconvenient place.”
“Then if Dinard is dressy, I can’t go,” said Betty sadly. “Every one of
my thin waists is torn, and it takes ages to mend them nicely.”
“Then why don’t you come over in the afternoon and meet us there?”
suggested Madeline. “The pretty French girl who sits opposite us at
table d’hôte says that there is a Casino where they have music in the
afternoons. People motor in from the châteaux, and it’s great fun
sitting on the piazzas and watching the gaiety. I’ll wait and come with
you, if you like.”
But Betty insisted that she could go perfectly well alone. “I can
say, ‘Ou est le casino?’ beautifully,” she declared, “and if I don’t
understand a word of the answer why I can just watch which way they
point. The lovely thing about French people is that they always point.
I’ll mend all my waists and take the ferry about four, or whenever the
tide is right, and meet you at the Casino.”
And so at half-past three,--because, to tell the truth, it was
easier to be a little early than to ask the hotel clerk about the
tide,--Betty, dressed in her prettiest white suit and her hat with
the pink roses, came out of the hotel and started down the road to
the ferry landing. It was a hot day and the road was dusty, and she
hurried as fast as possible to get into the shelter of the little park
just back of the landing. But before she reached it she heard a shout
from the bottom of the landing-steps, and the next minute she realized
that somebody was calling her,--a stout gentleman, who, having detached
himself from the little crowd that had gathered there, was laboriously
climbing the steps to meet her, still calling and beckoning frantically
as he came. But instead of using her name he was shouting, “Miss B. A.!
Miss B. A.!” And this, before he was near enough to be recognized, gave
Betty the clue to his identity. It was Jasper J. Morton, of course.
His coat was off, he carried his hat in his hand, and his face was red
with heat and indignation.
“Do you speak English?” he demanded, when he was near enough to be
heard. “I mean do you speak French? I’ve been tearing around asking
people if they speak English until I’m hoarse.”
“I’m very glad to see you again,” said Betty, holding out her hand
and trying not to smile at the absurd figure he cut. “I speak only a
little bit of French, but fortunately I have my dictionary along,”--she
pulled the little book out of a pocket in her linen coat--“and with
that I can generally manage pretty well.”
“The point is,” Mr. Morton broke in impatiently, “do you speak French
enough to ascertain what has happened to this confounded ferry? I came
over here this morning from a place called Dinard. I came by ferry. I
climbed those identical steps.” He waved his hand dramatically toward
the landing. “I lunched and strolled around the town until it was
nearly time for me to meet my chauffeur in Dinard. Then I came back
here. The ferry is gone. The ocean is gone. Am I out of my senses, or
what’s happened?” He mopped his brow and glowered darkly at Betty.
“The ferry hasn’t gone for good,” she assured him soothingly, “nor the
ocean. In a few minutes they’ll both be back and we can go to Dinard
together. I’m waiting for the ferry too.” And she explained about the
tides, which necessitated the intermittent service.
[Illustration: “I HAVE MY DICTIONARY”]
Jasper J. Morton stared out across the great stretch of bare sand. “Do
you mean to tell me that in a few minutes all that will be under water
enough to float a good-sized ferry-boat? Well, these tides must be
French, like all the rest of it. In that case it’s lucky I didn’t try
to walk out to the edge of the water to see if I couldn’t find a boat
there.” He looked at his watch. “I’m two hours late now. I’m never late
for my appointments. My chauffeur won’t know what to make of it. He
can’t speak French either, so he won’t be able to ask any questions.”
Betty laughed. “You ought to get a dictionary like mine. It’s very
useful. Can I do anything else for you, Mr. Morton?”
Mr. Morton looked at her sharply. “You can. You can come down the steps
with me and tell the man who insists on holding my coat that I don’t
want a guide, philosopher and friend, or whatever else he’s trying
to be to me, but that I do want my coat. Pay him off with these.” He
handed her some silver.
With some difficulty Betty made the man understand that “le monsieur
Anglais” did not want a guide for the afternoon, nor a boatman, nor a
porter.
“And now,” said Jasper J. Morton briskly, “comes the real business of
the moment. I’ve got to send some telegrams to Dol, where I’m stopping
and where I was to meet two friends on business at five o’clock. I
shan’t be there at five. Is your French equal to finding a telegraph
office?”
Betty looked up several words in her dictionary, asked a question or
two, and they started off. At the telegraph office Mr. Morton wrote two
messages just alike: “Unavoidably detained. Back in evening. Clef d’Or
best hotel.”
“That will fix them,” he said, smiling cheerfully at Betty. “They’ll
spend the afternoon in the sulks, thinking I’ve changed my mind and
won’t come in to their game. Now see that he reads them right and tell
him to hurry them off, and then we can talk English for a while.
“I’ve done everything to-day that my doctor ordered me not to,” he
told her when they were on their way back to the ferry. “I’ve worried
about business, I’ve got overexcited and overheated, I’ve lost my
temper, and to-night I’m going to do business--the biggest deal I ever
put through. You’ve been a Benevolent Adventurer this time all right,
Miss--Miss----”
“Wales,” Betty supplied.
“Think I’ll have to call you Miss B. A.,” he laughed. “By the way, how
did you find out my name?”
Betty had to think a minute. “Why, we met a man in London who knows
you, and then we know your son.”
“You know John?” repeated Mr. Morton irritably.
Betty nodded. “Don’t you remember I told you when we met before what a
good time we had in Oban? Well, he was the one we had it with--he and
Mr. Dwight. Only I didn’t know it then--I didn’t know he was your son,
I mean. And then in London we met him again.”
“You did, eh?” Mr. Morton eyed her sharply. “Met him again in London?
Are you at the bottom of this new leaf of his that Dwight wrote me
about, Miss B. A.?”
“Oh, no,” said Betty quickly, “but I think Babe is,--at least they got
to be awfully good friends, and she hates a shirk.”
“Babe--that’s the little tomboy who stood up for you against me.” Mr.
Morton laughed at the recollection. “She’d be a match for John. She’d
make something of him if any one could. But what she can see in him
beats me. Oh, he’s a pleasant fellow enough, but he’ll never amount to
that, Miss B. A.” Jasper J. Morton snapped his fingers derisively.
They had come out on the water-front and Betty, happening to look
ahead, saw that the tide had come in, and with it the ferry-boat, which
at that very moment gave a warning whistle.
“Oh, dear, we’ve missed the boat!” she said, “and they only go once an
hour.”
“No, we haven’t,” cried Mr. Morton. “What’s the French for ‘Wait’? You
tell me and I’ll shout it.” Which he did with such effect that the
captain reversed his engines and put back for them.
“Attendez,” repeated Mr. Morton, when he had settled himself on board
and caught his breath. “Hope I can remember that. It will be sure to
come in handy somewhere. I haven’t any head for languages--never had.
Can’t talk to one of my foreign agents without an interpreter.”
“It’s queer that your son should be so fine at languages,” said Betty,
glad to get in a word in John’s favor. “We’ve always thought that
Madeline Ayres was perfectly remarkable, but she says he is any amount
more so.”
“Really?” Mr. Morton’s tone was unpleasantly sceptical. “Well, I don’t
know that I ever paid a bill for a tutor in languages, as far as that
goes.”
“Oh, these aren’t the kinds you study at college,” Betty explained, “or
at least he knows them too, I suppose; but I was thinking of Dutch and
Danish and Russian and those queer kinds. He speaks ten different ones,
I think he said, and he can understand a few words of some others.”
“This is all news to me,” said Jasper J. Morton drily. “How’d he learn
them?”
“Down on some wharves that you own, he said. You do own some wharves,
don’t you?”
Mr. Morton puckered his lips into a queer smile. “Well, I’m surprised
for once in my life--agreeably surprised. I didn’t suppose John had
any useful accomplishments.”
Betty smiled engagingly. “Well, as long as you didn’t know about this
one, don’t you suppose he has lots of others that you don’t know about,
either?”
Mr. Morton laughed good-naturedly. “So you think I’m inclined to look
on the dark side of things, do you, Miss B. A.? Well, I’ll write
the boy to-night, after I’ve scalped those two railroad presidents,
and tell him that I hear good accounts of him. I say, here we are
at Dinard, and actually there’s my chauffeur waiting for me. Waited
because it was the easiest thing to do, I suppose. Now you must let me
take you to your friends, only you’ll have to ask the way, because I
can’t.”
As Betty waved him a good-bye from the steps of the Casino she thought
sadly of a great many things she might have said about John and hadn’t.
“It’s so difficult when you’ve been confided in and have to remember
what you mustn’t tell,” she thought. “Oh, dear, I meant to explain
about Mr. Blake and what I told him. I forgot that too. I hope Mr.
Morton won’t forget to write the letter to his son.”
Her eyes followed Mr. Morton’s big red car as it turned a corner, and
there, walking briskly toward her, his eyes absently fixed on the
ground, his cynical expression even more pronounced than usual, was Mr.
Richard Blake himself.