Of awe-encumbered men,
Each bearing his Hare and Baedeker,
Had passed the Stairs since then.
We made our way through crowded thoroughfares to the Pantheon and were
in the thicket of vast columns when some one touched my arm. Who was
this man with a blue monocle over his right eye, whose look was so
familiar? Ah, to be sure, it was Muggs.
[Illustration: 0133]
Again his mustache had disappeared, as had my hat and coat and the old
suit of clothes, and how that blue monocle and the new attire and the
smooth upper lip had changed the whole effect of Muggs! Evidently the
man was prosperous and entering a new career. How does it happen that he
has come in my way again, I asked myself, and then I remembered that he
knew that I was to be there. What was I to expect now?--violence or----
He smiled.
“Charming day, isn't it?” he said, in his most agreeable tone.
He had neatly and deliberately removed his monocle as he spoke.
“Very! I suppose that stained-glass window of yours is a memorial to
Wilton?”
He only smiled.
“As a European you're a great success,” I went on.
“Beginning a new life from the ground up,” said he, and added, with a
glance at the great bronze doors, “Isn't this a wonderful place?”
“Yes, it was intended for a mammoth safe where reputations could be
stored and embellished and kept, but it didn't work.”
“They cracked it and got away with the reputations,” said he, with a
smile.
“Exactly! In my opinion every man should have his own private pantheon,
and see that his reputation is as strong as the safe. It's the
discrepancy that's dangerous. People won't allow a reputation to stay
where it does not belong.”
He stepped closer and said, in a confidential tone, “I'm trying to
improve mine, and I wish you would help me.”
“How?”
“Come to a little dinner that I am giving and say a good word for me
when you can.”
“Are you trying to marry Mrs. Mullet?”
“Yes, I've fallen in love, and, as God's my witness, I'm living honest.”
“Muggs, I'll help you to get a reputation, but I won't help you to get a
wife,” I said. “You must get the reputation first, and it will take you
a long time. You'll have to try to pay back the money you've taken and
keep it up long enough to prove your good faith.”
Muggs's plan was quite apparent. He wanted an all-around treaty of
peace. He was still levying blackmail; the thing he demanded was not
cash, but a character.
“That's exactly what I hope to do,” he explained. “I shall have all kinds
of money, and I propose to square every account.”
“That's all right, provided Mrs. Mullet knows the whole plan and is
willing to undertake the responsibility.”
He looked into my eyes, and said clearly in his smile: “You're the worst
ass of a lawyer that I ever saw in my life. I've tried to be decent, and
you've wiped your boots on me. Wait and see what happens now.”
All that seemed to be in his smile, but not a word of it passed his
lips. He neatly adjusted the blue monocle and lifted his hat and said
“Good afternoon,” and walked away.
I, too, had my smile, for I could not help thinking how this biter was
being bitten, and how his old friends, the ghosts of the past, were now
bearing down upon _him_.
We tramped to St. Peters, where squads of tourists seemed to be reading
prayers out of red prayer-books and where a learned judge from Seattle,
who had lost his pocket-book in a crowd near the statue of St. Peter,
was delivering impassioned and highly prejudiced views of church and
state to the members of his party.
We lunched at Latour's, where a long and limber-looking blond lady, who
sat beside a Pomeranian poodle with a napkin tucked under his collar,
consumed six cups of coffee and a foot and a half of cigarettes while we
were eating. She was one of the most engaging ruins of the feudal world.
What a theme for an artist was in the painted face and the sign of
the dog! The head waiter told us that she was an American who had been
studying art in Italy for years.
She ought to be mentioned in the guidebooks, I thought, as we were
leaving.
We tramped miles to an old barracks of a building called the
Cancellaria, which, according to Baedeker, was clothed in “majestic
simplicity.”
“Baedeker is the Barnum of Europe,” I said, as we went on, “but he is
generally more conservative.”
We arrived at the Grand Hotel a little before six. I went with Forbes
to the Norris's apartments. Gwendolyn opened the door for us and greeted
the young man with enthusiasm and led him to the parlor. Betsey was
there, and we went at once to our own room.
“There's a new count in the game,” she remarked, as soon as we had
sat down together--“the Count Raspagnetti, whom we met to-day at Mrs.
Dorsey's. He's the grandest thing in Rome--six feet tall, with a monocle
and a black beard, and is very good-looking. He's no down-at-the-heel
aristocrat, either; has quite a fortune and two palaces in good repair,
and has passed the guitar-and-balcony stage. He's about thirty-two, and
seems to be very nice and sensible. Mrs. Dorsey calls him the dearest
man in the world, and she has invited us to dinner to meet him again.
It was a dead set for Gwendolyn, and the child was deeply impressed. It
isn't surprising; these Italian men are most fascinating.”
“I suppose so,” I said, wearily. “The countless counts of Italy are
getting on my nerves. Counts are a kind of bug that gets into the brains
of women and feeds there until their heads are as empty as a worm-eaten
chestnut.”
“Not at all,” said Betsey; “but if she must have a title--”
“She mustn't,” I said.
“You can't stop her.”
“That remains to be seen,” was my answer.
“Richard had better get a move on him,” said Betsey. “He can't dally
along as you did.”
“Let him get his breath--he's only just landed.”
According to my custom I dined with Norris in his suite. Forbes went
with the ladies to the dining-room.
“Aren't you about ready to go back?” I asked, as I thought of Muggs's
smile.
“I should like to,” he said, “but the girls are having the time of their
lives, and this air is making a new man of me. Then the young count
seems to have let go; he doesn't annoy us any more. I'm hoping that
Forbes will settle this count business.”
While we were eating a telegram was put in my hands which read as
follows:
_I am stopping at the Bristol in Florence and must have your
professional advice immediately._
_I cannot go to Rome, so will you kindly come here._
_I am in serious trouble. If I am not at hotel look for me third
corridor of paintings, Uffizi Gallery. Please regard this as strictly
confidential. M. Mullet._