was practical Christian Science. He tried Smokey with therapeutic
treatment. He gave him a cone of strawberry ice-cream. When Smokey ate
only half of it, Jimmy knew it was a grave case and that something ought
to be done about it.
That night after Smokey had crawled into the packing case where he was
in the habit of sleeping--usually with the lid on--Jimmy talked over the
crisis with the organ-grinder and the janitor. The janitor thought corn
whiskey was good and went out to get some. He didn't come back that
night and brought no whiskey when he turned up two days later. The
organ-grinder, embittered by the loss of his monkey, had little faith in
the medical profession; and in this Jimmy concurred. The newsboy,
however, read the papers he sold, and was under the impression that
Jimmy ought to get out into the country. Also, he wasn't sure that it
was the best thing for Smokey to sleep in that packing-case with the lid
on. Lacking funds, however, they were compelled to table the motion that
Smokey be sent to the woods. Meanwhile Smokey got thinner and weaker and
finally he hadn't the strength to push the lid off when he needed more
air. It was then that the Lord provided.
One of Smokey's patrons was Pat Mulcahy, who drives the engine of the
Montreal Express out of Grand Central every evening at 6.55. Smokey had
been in the habit of taking a latest evening edition through to Pat in
his engine cab. Mulcahy didn't get his paper one night, but next evening
Jimmy turned up alongside the big locomotive and said:
"Here's yer paper, Mister Mulcahy. Smokey's down an' out. I tink he's
got de Ol' Con. He worried hisself near stiff last night 'cos he fergot
t' tell me youse was partic'lar 'bout gettin' de final. But don't youse
worry, Mister, I'm runnin' the whole biz till Smokey's to rights
again--see?"
Mulcahy was a good fellow. He'd bought from Smokey because--well,
perhaps he liked the little fellow. He questioned Jimmy, and next night
he cross-questioned him, about Smokey, and on the third night, when
Jimmy reported the patient in a bad way, the engineer said:
"Now, lookee here, Jimmy. Can Smokey walk? Do you think he can stand a
trip?"
"It couldn't make him no wuss, anyhow," says Jimmy.
"All right," said Mulcahy. "You get his things together. . . . Well just
as he is, then . . . and bring him along here about 6.45 sharp to-morrow
night--Hear?"
"I get yuh," said Jimmy. "Youse gonna give Smoky a free ride up to the
country."
"You betcher life, Jimmy."
Smokey, when informed of this new turn of his destiny, didn't care much
whether he went or stayed in his box; but Jimmy said he was to go, and
of course that was all there was to it.
Next evening, when Smokey, the most washed-out little nigger that ever
wobbled on weak knees, turned up at the station with Jimmy, the whole
gang was there to give him a send-off. The guards let them all through
the gates after the conductor of the Adirondack section had passed a
wink, and the group of youngsters escorted Smokey to the big, wheezing
engine. Jimmy first presented Mulcahy with his final, refusing the usual
cent for it.
"Dat's on de house dis time," said Jimmy.
"Here--you--beat it!" said he. "Do you want to make me trouble?"
Smokey's eyes were full of tears as he said:
"So long, fellahs. You-all's a moughty good bunch."
Then he whispered something to Jimmy, who said, "Aw, fudge!" and went
away, much embarrassed.
The engineer turned Smokey over to the conductor of the Adirondack
section, and when the Montreal Express got under way he was comfortable
on a pile of straw in a corner of the baggage car. At Poughkeepsie the
conductor bought him a bottle of "pop." At Albany he fell heir to an
orange and a chicken sandwich. At Utica he was sound asleep and a
colored porter came through and spread a perfectly good Pullman blanket
over the boy.
The train was wheezing at Tupper Lake when Smokey opened his eyes next
morning. The baggage car door was opened and Smokey looked out. It was a
big country, covered with trees and surrounded with great mountains. The
sun was just rising and Smokey felt sure that this was the place where
they made the movies. The golden east reminded him of his orange, and he
ate it,--the orange.
The colored porter came through and told the boy to stay where he was
until ordered to get out. Smokey was disappointed to learn that his
friend Mulcahy had gone off duty at Utica, where his wife lived. Ten
minutes later the porter came back again. He had a glass tumbler in his
hand and it was half full of quarters and fifty-cent pieces.
"You is shuah a lucky kid," said the porter. "Some o' de gents in de
Lake Placid smoker heerd 'bout you an' chipped in all dis."
"Dey's shuah-all a good bunch--folks is," said Smokey, his eyes big as
he totaled three dollars and twenty-five cents.
The Adirondacks section was switched off the main line at Lake Clear
junction, and less than half an hour later Smokey found himself in the
main street of Saranac Lake. He made straight for the belt of woods that
fringes the river below the falls of the power station, and sat down
beneath a big pine. He felt that he could sit there forever and listen
to the gossipy river and the whispering trees. It was very restful. He
ate some of his accumulated grub and went to sleep, his last thought a
wish that Jimmy could be there.
Mr. Commissioner (the Scoutmaster continued), that little nigger was in
town about six weeks before our boys got on to him. He was lucky enough
to get a job delivering newspapers for Tom Daley and, luckier still, the
little fellow began to get well.
So long as the nights were still summery he slept beneath that same pine
below the falls, but when the Autumn snap set in he had to find shelter.
It was Tolman, the undertaker--a good sort--good as they make 'em--who
picked him up, asked a few questions and got him the loft of Fred
Smith's paintshop. A ladder ascended to a trap door and the garret was
full of old truck; but Smokey thought it was a mansion with a marble
staircase. He fixed up a couple of boxes for seats, and there was an old
two-legged sofa that he propped up for a couch. He scurried around town,
got hold of several burlap bags, stuffed them with hay and made himself
a comfortable bed. Between this and improving health and the delivery
business, Smokey felt that he was prospering in the world.
Then he got a letter. It was from Jimmy, to whom he had sent
picture-postcards without getting a word in reply. But Jimmy's
misspelled letter now explained everything.
_"Dere smoke"_ (it ran--or something like that--I
read it), "I hate tu tell ya for I dident think it
was annything but I got the old Con too an im
awful sick and duno whatin bleazes im gone do, say
is there anny chanst up there where yu ar, but don
you worry bout me. _Jimmy._"
It was a terrible blow to Smokey, but right away the optimism that seems
to breed itself in these woods bolstered him to action. He promptly sent
a picture-postcard, and on it he wrote:
"yu se the injiner mr. Milcay, an come on up its
fine an I got a swel plaze to liv and lots ov
work, no selin jist deliverin. _Smokey._"
But that was only the beginning of Smokey's discharge of obligation. He
interviewed the Pullman conductor. The conductor passed the word to
Mulcahy at Utica, and two days later the porter brought back word to the
tense, waiting little figure at the Saranac Lake station that it was
all fixed and Jimmy was coming on by next night's train.
All that evening and all next day Smokey was mighty busy. He bolted the
delivery of the New York papers, but at every house he stopped long
enough to gasp:
"Please lady, has you-all got any ole pitcher supplements?"
In the evening he had a pile of them. He had begged leave of Mat Munn,
the grocer, to extract nails from discarded boxes. With these, and a
brick for a hammer, he covered the sloping roof walls of the garret
mansion with stage beauties, art supplements, Buster Browns, Happy
Hooligans, baseball giants and magazine covers. This art paneling
covered every draughty hole or crack. Flour sacks draped Jimmy's
sofa-couch. All that last night, while the Montreal Express brought
Jimmy into the hills, there sounded the persistent tap-tapping of
Smokey's brick hammer.
But in the morning when Jimmy, pale and sickly, climbed down from the
baggage-car, there was no Smokey to meet or greet him. Jimmy wandered
around, weakness of body conspiring with disappointment to sap his
courage. He had no idea where Smokey lived and, being a New Yorker with
a metropolitan turn of thought, in that circumstance he felt himself and
Smokey completely lost to each other.
Presently, as Jimmy sat disconsolate on a baggage truck, an individual
in shirt sleeves and savoring of paint halted before him. After a
moment's study he said:
"Hallo, Jimmy!"
Jimmy started, hope returning; but neither the man nor the savor of
paint conveyed anything profitable.
"Aw, can the bunk stuff," said he wearily. "I'm f'm Forty-second
Street--see?"
Fred the painter was able to extricate himself from suspicion, however.
At the words "Smokey's all to the bad," Jimmy forgot everything,
particularly himself and his own illness.
"Where izze?" he asked breathlessly. "I wanna see'm right away. D'yuh
get me? Aw, don't you tell me that li'l nigger's gone an' croaked?"
"Naw, he ain't croaked," said Fred Smith, the painter, "but he's awful
bad, and he sent me to meet you, Jimmy, and tell you to come right on
just the same, 'cause everything's ready."
"He's up there," said Fred when they got to the shack. Jimmy, short of
breath as he was, went up that ladder like a streak. At first he could
see little, the garret was so dark, but a faint voice said from some
burlap bags in the corner:
"Is dat youse, Chimmy?"
"What's de matter, Smoke?" Jimmy's voice was shaky and a short sharp
cough punctuated his question.
"Bles' if Ah knows," said Smokey. "Ah was hammerin' a nail in Christy
Mat'ewson when somet'in esploded in ma chiss. But say, Chimmy, light de
can'le an' pipe de livin' room. Some--swell--Chimmy!--an' Ah done it
a-all ma-se'f!"
Jimmy found the candle and lighted it. He surveyed Smokey lying in the
corner, his eyes and head seeming a misfit for his frail body. The
candle illumined the comic supplements and art sections on the sloping
roof walls and the sofa with its flour-sack bedding turned down as for a
guest. Lastly Jimmy's eyes encountered several dark red spots on the
floor.
"Swell, ain't it, Chimmy?" said Smokey. "Why don't you-all say
something?"
For answer Jimmy blew out the candle somewhat hastily, and Fred at the
foot of the ladder heard some one sobbing in the mansion above.
The Scoutmaster turned to fumble with some papers on his desk. The
Commissioner sat silent, his eyes wide and a bit shiny. He said nothing
for at least half a minute, then, clearing his throat:
"And what then?"
"Oh, the rest is simple enough," said the Scoutmaster. "One of our
Scouts got wind of it and told his patrol leader and they investigated.
Then they got the other Scouts of the patrol together, went into the
woods and cut some fuel, got a basket of grub and provisions from their
mothers and a delegation of two called on Dr. Trudeau--you've heard of
him--died just the other day--the Grenfell of the hills--and the doctor
sent a nurse and then moved Jimmy and Smokey to a hospital, and----"
The Scoutmaster broke off, chuckling.
"Funny thing," he said, "when the great doctor climbed the ladder to
where the two boys were lying sick, Jimmy, remembering the doctor who
wouldn't attend the monkey, got suspicious and he said to Dr. Trudeau:
'There's just wan thing you got to un'stand right away, Doc. Smokey may
be a li'l nigger, but _he ain't no monk_! D'yuh get me?'
"They both got well, and they got work, too. Then one evening they came
down to look over this Scout business that had helped them for not so
much as a 'thank you' and--well, Jimmy's a good little Scout. As for
Smokey, he's the Troop Mascot, but--he still thinks Jimmy is God's
little brother; and I don't know that I blame him."
"Fine!" said the Commissioner, and a few seconds later he repeated with
even more emphasis, "FINE!"
FOOTNOTE:
[N] Reprinted from "The Boy Scouts' Year Book." Copyright, 1918, by D.
Appleton and Company.
[Illustration]
XVI.--The Lion's Smile[O]
_By Thomas W. Hanshew_
_Cleek, the Master Detective of Scotland Yard, or
"the Man of Forty Faces," as he was sometimes
called, solved the riddles that proved too much
for his friend, Mr. Maverick Narkom,
Superintendent of Police. I am confident boys will
enjoy meeting "Cleek" and will, with keen delight,
follow him as he unravels the threads of the great
mystery of the "lion's smile."_--THE EDITOR.
IT was on the very stroke of five when Cleek, answering an urgent
message from headquarters, strolled into the bar parlor of "The Fiddle
and Horseshoe," which, as you may possibly know, stands near to the
Green in a somewhat picturesque by-path between Shepherd's Bush and
Acton, and found Narkom in the very act of hanging up his hat and
withdrawing his gloves preparatory to ordering tea.
"My dear Cleek, what a model of punctuality you are," said the
superintendent, as he came forward and shook hands with him. "You would
put Father Time himself to the blush with your abnormal promptness. Do
make yourself comfortable for a moment or two while I go and order tea.
I've only just arrived. Shan't be long, old chap."
"Pray don't hurry yourself upon my account, Mr. Narkom," replied Cleek,
as he tossed his hat and gloves upon a convenient table and strolled
leisurely to the window and looked out on the quaint, old-fashioned
arbor-bordered bowling green, all steeped in sunshine and zoned with the
froth of pear and apple blooms, thick-piled above the time-stained brick
of the enclosing wall. "These quaint old inns, which the march of what
we are pleased to call 'progress' is steadily crowding off the face of
the land, are always deeply interesting to me; I love them. What a day!
What a picture! What a sky! As blue as what Dollops calls the 'Merry
Geranium Sea.' I'd give a Jew's eye for a handful of those apple
blossoms, they are divine!"
Narkom hastened from the room without replying. The strain of poetry
underlying the character of this strange, inscrutable man, his amazing
love of Nature, his moments of almost womanish weakness and sentiment,
astonished and mystified him. It was as if a hawk had acquired the
utterly useless trick of fluting like a nightingale, and being himself
wholly without imagination, he could not comprehend it in the smallest
degree.
When he returned a few minutes later, however, the idealist seemed to
have simmered down into the materialist, the extraordinary to have
become merged in the ordinary, for he found his famous ally no longer
studying the beauties of Nature, but giving his whole attention to the
sordid commonplaces of man. He was standing before a glaringly printed
bill, one of many that were tacked upon the walls, which set forth in
amazing pictures and double-leaded type the wonders that were to be seen
daily and nightly at Olympia, where, for a month past, "Van Zant's Royal
Belgian Circus and World-famed Menagerie" had been holding forth to
"Crowded and delighted audiences." Much was made of two "star turns"
upon this lurid bill: "Mademoiselle Marie de Zanoni, the beautiful and
peerless bare-back equestrienne, the most daring lady rider in the
universe," for the one; and, for the other, "Chevalier Adrian di Roma,
king of the animal world, with his great aggregation of savage and
ferocious wild beasts, including the famous man-eating African lion,
Nero, the largest and most ferocious animal of its species in
captivity." And under this latter announcement there was a picture of a
young and handsome man, literally smothered with medals, lying at full
length, with his arms crossed and his head in the wide-open jaws of a
snarling, wild-eyed lion.
"My dear chap, you really do make me believe that there actually is
such a thing as instinct," said Narkom, as he came in. "Fancy your
selecting that particular bill out of all the others in the room! What
an abnormal individual you are!"
"Why? Has it anything to do with the case you have in hand?"
"Anything to do with it? My dear fellow, it _is_ 'the case.' I can't
imagine what drew your attention to it."
"Can't you?" said Cleek, with a half smile. Then he stretched forth his
hand and touched the word "Nero" with the tip of his forefinger. "That
did. Things awaken a man's memory occasionally, Mr. Narkom, and---- Tell
me, isn't that the beast there was such a stir about in the newspapers a
fortnight or so ago, the lion that crushed the head of a man in full
view of the audience?"
"Yes," replied Narkom, with a slight shudder. "Awful thing, wasn't it?
Gave me the creeps to read about it. The chap who was killed, poor
beggar, was a mere boy, not twenty, son of the Chevalier di Roma
himself. There was a great stir about it. Talk of the authorities
forbidding the performance, and all that sort of thing. They never did,
however, for on investigation---- Ah, the tea at last, thank fortune.
Come, sit down, my dear fellow, and we'll talk whilst we refresh
ourselves. Landlady, see that we are not disturbed, will you, and that
nobody is admitted but the parties I mentioned?"
"Clients?" queried Cleek, as the door closed and they were alone
together.
"Yes. One, Mlle. Zelie, the 'chevalier's' only daughter, a slack-wire
artist; the other, Signor Scarmelli, a trapeze performer, who is the
lady's fiance."
"Ah, then our friend the chevalier is not so young as the picture on the
bill would have us believe he is."
"No, he is not. As a matter of fact, he is considerably past forty, and
is, or rather, was, up to six months ago, a widower, with three
children, two sons and a daughter."
"I suppose," said Cleek, helping himself to a buttered scone, "I am to
infer from what you say that at the period mentioned, six months ago,
the intrepid gentleman showed his courage yet more forcibly by taking a
second wife? Young or old?"
"Young," said Narkom in reply. "Very young, not yet four-and-twenty, in
fact, and very, very beautiful. That is she who is 'featured' on the
bill as the star of the equestrian part of the program: 'Mlle. Marie de
Zanoni.' So far as I have been able to gather, the affair was a love
match. The lady, it appears, had no end of suitors, both in and out of
the profession; it has even been hinted that she could, had she been so
minded, have married an impressionable young Austrian nobleman of
independent means who was madly in love with her; but she appears to
have considered it preferable to become 'an old man's darling,' so to
speak, and to have selected the middle-aged chevalier rather than some
one whose age is nearer her own."
"Nothing new in that, Mr. Narkom. Young women before Mlle. Marie de
Zanoni's day have been known to love elderly men sincerely: young Mrs.
Bawdrey, in the case of The Nine-fingered Skeleton,' is an example of
that. Still, such marriages are not common, I admit, so when they occur
one naturally looks to see if there may not be 'other considerations' at
the bottom of the attachment. Is the chevalier well-to-do? Has he
expectations of any kind?"
"To the contrary; he has nothing, but the salary he earns, which is by
no means so large as the public imagines; and as he comes of a long line
of circus performers, all of whom died early and poor, 'expectations,'
as you put it, do not enter into the affair at all. Apparently the lady
did marry him for love of him, as she professes and as he imagines;
although, if what I hear is true, it would appear that she has lately
outgrown that love. It seems that a Romeo more suitable to her age has
recently joined the show in the person of a rider called Signor Antonio
Martinelli; that he has fallen desperately in love with her, and
that----"
He bit off his words short and rose to his feet. The door had opened
suddenly to admit a young man and a young woman, who entered in a state
of nervous excitement. "Ah, my dear Mr. Scarmelli, you and Miss Zelie
are most welcome," continued the superintendent.
"My friend and I were this moment talking about you."
Cleek glanced across the room, and, as was customary with him, made up
his mind instantly. The girl, despite her association with the arena,
was a modest, unaffected little thing of about eighteen; the man was a
straight-looking, clear-eyed, boyish-faced young fellow of about
eight-and-twenty, well, but by no means flashily, dressed, and carrying
himself with the air of one who respects himself and demands the respect
of others. He was evidently an Englishman, despite his Italian _nom de
theatre_, and Cleek decided out of hand that he liked him.
"We can shelve 'George Headland' in this instance, Mr. Narkom," he said,
as the superintendent led forward the pair for the purpose of
introducing them, and suffered himself to be presented in the name of
Cleek.
The effect of this was electrical; would, in fact, had he been a vain
man have been sufficient to gratify him to the fullest, for the girl,
with a little "Oh!" of amazement, drew back and stood looking at him
with a sort of awe that rounded her eyes and parted her lips, while the
man leaned heavily upon the back of a convenient chair and looked and
acted as one utterly overcome.
"Cleek!" he repeated, after a moment's despairful silence. "You, sir,
are that great man? This is a misfortune indeed."
"A misfortune, my friend? Why a 'misfortune,' pray? Do you think the
riddle you have brought is beyond my powers?"
"Oh, no; not that--never that!" he made reply. "If there is any one man
in the world who could get at the bottom of it, could solve the mystery
of the lion's change, the lion's smile, you are that man, sir, you. That
is the misfortune: that you could do it, and yet I cannot expect it,
cannot avail myself of this great opportunity. Look! I am doing it all
on my own initiative, sir, for the sake of Zelie and that dear, lovable
old chap, her father. I have saved fifty-eight pounds, Mr. Cleek. I had
hoped that that might tempt a clever detective to take up the case; but
what is such a sum to such a man as you?"
"If that is all that stands in the way, don't let it worry you, my good
fellow," said Cleek, with a smile. "Put your fifty-eight pounds in your
pocket against your wedding-day and good luck to you. I'll take the case
for nothing. Now then, what is it? What the dickens did you mean just
now when you spoke about 'the lion's change' and 'the lion's smile'?
What lion--Nero? Here, sit down and tell me all about it."
"There is little enough to tell, Heavens knows," said young Scarmelli,
with a sigh, accepting the invitation after he had gratefully wrung
Cleek's hand, and his fiancee, with a burst of happy tears, had caught
it up as it slipped from his and had covered it with thankful kisses.
"That, Mr. Cleek, is where the greatest difficulty lies, there is so
little to explain that has any bearing upon the matter at all. It is
only that the lion, Nero, that is, the chevalier's special pride and
special pet, seems to have undergone some great and inexplicable change,
as though he is at times under some evil spell, which lasts but a moment
and yet makes that moment a tragical one. It began, no one knows why nor
how, two weeks ago, when, without hint or warning, he killed the person
he loved best in all the world, the chevalier's eldest son. Doubtless
you have heard of that?"
"Yes," said Cleek. "But what you are now telling me sheds a new light
upon the matter. Am I to understand, then, that all that talk, on the
bills and in the newspapers, about the lion being savage and a dangerous
one is not true, and that he really is attached to his owner and his
owner's family?"