eager. Brown is coy. That’s the reason that Brown is in the boat and
you are on the cold, cold shore, talking to Little Sister. Now if
Little Sister jumps at you, why, she’s simply taking Big Sister’s
leavings; it’s all in the family, any way, and there’s no jealousy,
and Pauline can devote her whole mind to Brown. There, _don’t_ look so
limp. You men are simply childish. Now, after you’ve asked me to marry
you—“
“Oh, I’m to ask you to marry me?”
“Certainly. You needn’t look frightened, now. I won’t accept you. But
then you are to go around like a wet cat, and mope, and hang on worse
then ever. Then Big Sister will see that she can’t afford to take that
sort of thing from Little Sister, and then—there’s your chance.”
“Oh, there’s my chance, is it?” said Mr. Morpeth. He seemed to have
fallen into the habit of repetition.
“There’s your _only_ chance,” said Miss Flossy, with decision.
Mr. Morpeth meditated. He looked at the lake, where there was no longer
sign or sound of the canoe, and he looked at Miss Flossy, who sat calm,
self–confident and careless, on the string–piece of the dock.
“I don’t know how feasible—” he began.
“It’s feasible,” said Miss Flossy, with decision. “Of course Pauline
will write to Mama, and of course Mama will write and scold me. But
she’s got to stay in New York, and nurse Papa’s gout; and the Miss
Redingtons are all the chaperons we’ve got up here, and they don’t
amount to any thing—so I don’t care.”
“But why,” inquired the young man; and his tone suggested a complete
abandonment to Miss Flossy’s idea: “why should you take so much trouble
for _me_?”
“Mr. Morpeth,” said Miss Flossy, solemnly, “I’m two years behind the
time–table, and I’ve got to make a strike for liberty, or die. And
besides,” she added, “if you are _nice_, it needn’t be such an _awful_
trouble.”
Mr. Morpeth laughed.
“I’ll try to make it as little of a bore as possible,” he said,
extending his hand. The girl did not take it.
[Illustration]
“Don’t make any mistake,” she cautioned him, searching his face with
her eyes; “this isn’t to be any little–girl affair. Little Sister
doesn’t want any kind, elegant, supercilious encouragement from Big
Sister’s young man. It’s got to be a _real_ flirtation—devotion no end,
and ten times as much as ever Pauline could get out of you—and you’ve
got to keep your end ’way—’—’way up!”
The young man smiled.
“I’ll keep my end up,” he said; “but are you certain that you can keep
yours up?”
“Well, I think so,” replied Miss Flossy. “Pauline will raise an awful
row; but if she goes too far, I’ll tell my age, _and hers, too_.”
Mr. Morpeth looked in Miss Flossy’s calm face. Then he extended his
hand once more.
“It’s a bargain, so far as I’m concerned,” he said.
This time a soft and small hand met his with a firm, friendly, honest
pressure.
“And I’ll refuse you,” said Miss Flossy.
* * * * *
Within two weeks, Mr. Morpeth found himself entangled in a flirtation
such as he had never dreamed of. Miss Flossy’s scheme had succeeded
only too brilliantly. The whole hotel was talking about the outrageous
behavior of “that little Belton girl” and Mr. Morpeth, who certainly
ought to know better.
Mr. Morpeth had carried out his instructions. Before the week was out,
he found himself giving the most life–like imitation of an infatuated
lover that ever delighted the old gossips of a Summer–resort. And yet
he had only done what Flossy told him to do.
He got his first lesson just about the time that Flossy, in the privacy
of their apartments, informed her elder sister that if she, Flossy,
found Mr. Morpeth’s society agreeable, it was nobody’s concern but her
own, and that she was prepared to make some interesting additions to
the census statistics if any one thought differently.
The lesson opened his eyes.
“Do you know,” she said, “that it wouldn’t be a bit of a bad idea to
telegraph to New York for some real nice candy and humbly present it
for my acceptance? I _might_ take it—if the bonbonnière was pretty
enough.”
He telegraphed to New York and received, in the course of four or five
days, certain marvels of sweets in a miracle of an upholstered box. The
next day he found her on the verandah, flinging the bonbons on the lawn
for the children to scramble for.
[Illustration]
“Awfully nice of you to send me these things,” she said languidly,
but loud enough for the men around her to hear—she had men around her
already: she had been discovered—“but I never eat sweets, you know.
Here, you little mite in the blue sash, don’t you want this pretty box
to put your doll’s clothes in?”
And Maillard’s finest bonbonnière went to a yellow–haired brat of three.
But this was the slightest and lightest of her caprices. She made him
send for his dog–cart and his horses, all the way from New York, only
that he might drive her over the ridiculous little mile–and–a–half of
road that bounded the tiny peninsula. And she christened him “Muffets,”
a nickname presumably suggested by “Morpeth”; and she called him
“Muffets” in the hearing of all the hotel people.
And did such conduct pass unchallenged? No. Pauline scolded, raged,
raved. She wrote to Mama. Mama wrote back and reproved Flossy. But Mama
could not leave Papa. His gout was worse. The Miss Redingtons must act.
The Miss Redingtons merely wept, and nothing more. Pauline scolded;
the flirtation went on; and the people at the big hotel enjoyed it
immensely.
And there was more to come. Four weeks had passed. Mr. Morpeth
was hardly on speaking terms with the elder Miss Belton; and with
the younger Miss Belton he was on terms which the hotel gossips
characterized as “simply scandalous.” Brown glared at him when they
met, and he glared at Brown. Brown was having a hard time. Miss Belton
the elder was not pleasant of temper in those trying days.
“And now,” said Miss Flossy to Mr. Morpeth, “it’s time you proposed to
me, Muffets.”
[Illustration]
They were sitting on the hotel verandah, in the evening darkness. No
one was near them, except an old lady in a Shaker chair.
“There’s Mrs. Melby. She’s pretending to be asleep, but she isn’t.
She’s just waiting for us. Now walk me up and down and ask me to marry
you so that she can hear it. It’ll be all over the hotel inside of half
an hour. Pauline will just _rage_.”
With this pleasant prospect before him, Mr. Morpeth marched Miss Flossy
Belton up and down the long verandah. He had passed Mrs. Melby three
times before he was able to say, in a choking, husky, uncertain voice:
“Flossy—I—I—I _love_ you!”
Flossy’s voice was not choking nor uncertain. It rang out clear and
silvery in a peal of laughter.
“Why, of course you do, Muffets, and I wish you didn’t. That’s what
makes you so stupid half the time.”
“But—” said Mr. Morpeth, vaguely; “but I—“
“But you’re a silly boy,” returned Miss Flossy; and she added in a
swift aside: “_You haven’t asked me to marry you!_”
“W–W–W–Will you be my wife?” stammered Mr. Morpeth.
“No!” said Miss Flossy, emphatically, “I will not. You are too utterly
ridiculous. The idea of it! No, Muffets, you are charming in your
present capacity; but you aren’t to be considered seriously.”
They strolled on into the gloom at the end of the great verandah.
“That’s the first time,” he said, with a feeling of having only the
ghost of a breath left in his lungs, “that I ever asked a woman to
marry me.”
“I should think so,” said Miss Flossy, “from the way you did it. And
you were beautifully rejected, weren’t you. Now—look at Mrs. Melby,
will you? She’s scudding off to spread the news.”
And before Mr. Morpeth went to bed, he was aware of the fact that
every man and woman in the hotel knew that he had “proposed” to Flossy
Belton, and had been “beautifully rejected.”
* * * * *
Two sulky men, one sulky woman, and one girl radiant with triumphant
happiness started out in two canoes, reached certain fishing–grounds
known only to the elect, and began to cast for trout. They had
indifferent luck. Miss Belton and Mr. Brown caught a dozen trout; Miss
Flossy Belton and Mr. Morpeth caught eighteen or nineteen, and the day
was wearing to a close. Miss Flossy made the last cast of the day, just
as her escort had taken the paddle. A big trout rose—just touched the
fly—and disappeared.
“It’s this wretched rod!” cried Miss Flossy; and she rapped it on
the gunwale of the canoe so sharply that the beautiful split–bamboo
broke sharp off in the middle of the second–joint. Then she tumbled it
overboard, reel and all.
“I was tired of that rod, any way, Muffets,” she said; “row me home,
now; I’ve got to dress for dinner.”
Miss Flossy’s elder sister, in the other boat, saw and heard this
exhibition of tyranny; and she was so much moved that she stamped her
small foot, and endangered the bottom of the canoe. She resolved that
Mama should come back, whether Papa had the gout or not.
Mr. Morpeth, wearing a grave expression, was paddling Miss Flossy
toward the hotel. He had said nothing whatever, and it was a noticeable
silence that Miss Flossy finally broke.
“You’ve done pretty much everything that I wanted you to do, Muffets,”
she said; “but you haven’t saved my life yet, and I’m going to give you
a chance.”
[Illustration]
It is not difficult to overturn a canoe. One twist of Flossie’s supple
body did it, and before he knew just what had happened, Morpeth was
swimming toward the shore, holding up Flossy Belton with one arm, and
fighting for life in the icy water of a Maine lake.
The people were running down, bearing blankets and brandy, as he
touched bottom in his last desperate struggle to keep the two of them
above water. One yard further, and there would have been no strength
left in him.
He struggled up on shore with her, and when he got breath enough, he
burst out:
“Why did you do it? It was wicked! It was cruel!”
“There!” she said, as she reclined composedly in his arms, “that will
do, Muffets. I don’t want to be scolded.”
A delegation came along, bringing blankets and brandy, and took her
from him.
* * * * *
At five o’clock of that afternoon, Mr. Morpeth presented himself at the
door of the parlor attached to the apartments of the Belton sisters.
Miss Belton, senior, was just coming out of the room. She received his
inquiry after her sister’s health with a white face and a quivering lip.
“I should think, Mr. Morpeth,” she began, “that you had gone far enough
in playing with the feelings of a m–m–mere child, and that—oh! I have
no words to express my _contempt_ for you!”
And in a most unladylike rage Miss Pauline Belton swept down the hotel
corridor.
She had left the door open behind her. Morpeth heard a voice, weak, but
cheery, addressing him from the far end of the parlor.
“You’ve got her!” it said. “She’s crazy mad. She’ll make up to you
to–night—see if she don’t.”
Mr. Morpeth looked up and down the long corridor. It was empty. He
pushed the door open, and entered. Flossy was lying on the sofa, pale,
but bright–eyed.
[Illustration]
“You can get her,” she whispered, as he knelt down beside her.
“Flossy,” he said, “don’t you know that that is all ended? Don’t you
know that I love you and you only? Don’t you know that I haven’t
thought about any one else since—since—oh, Flossy, don’t you—is it
possible that you don’t understand?”
Flossy stretched out two weak arms, and put them around Mr. Morpeth’s
neck.
“Why have I had you in training all Summer?” said she. “Did you think
it was for Pauline?”
[Illustration]
ZOZO.
[Illustration: “_‘Yes, Mother, you’d oughter’ve seen that place
burn’._”]
ZOZO.
[Illustration]
Through a thickly falling snow, on the outskirts of one of New York’s
suburban towns, (a hamlet of some two hundred thousand population,)
walked a man who had but one desire in the world ungratified. His name
was Richard Brant, and he was a large, deep–chested, handsome man—a
man’s man; hardly a woman’s man at all: and yet the sort of man that is
likely to make a pretty serious matter of it if he loves a woman, or if
a woman loves him.
Mr. Richard Brant came from the West, the Western–born child of
Eastern–born parents. He made his fortune before he was thirty–five,
and for five years he had been trying to find out what he wanted to do
with that fortune. He was a man of few tastes, of no vices, and of a
straight–forward, go–ahead spirit that set him apart from the people
who make affectation the spice of life. He wanted only one thing in the
world, and that one thing money would not buy for him. So he was often
puzzled as to how he might best spend his money; and he often spent it
foolishly. As he walked through the suburban streets of the suburban
city, this sharp Winter’s night, he was reflecting on the folly of
spending money on a fur coat. He was wearing the coat—a magnificent
affair of bearskin and sable.
[Illustration]
“South of Canada,” he said to himself, “this sort of thing is vulgar
and unnecessary. _I_ don’t need it, any more than a cow needs a
side–pocket. It’s too beastly hot for comfort at this moment. I’d carry
it over my arm, only that I should feel how absurdly heavy it really
is.”
Then he looked ahead through the thick snow, and, although he was a man
of strong nerves, he started and stepped back like a woman who sees a
cow.
“Great Cæsar’s Ghost!” said he.
He was justified in calling thus upon the most respectable spook of
antiquity. The sight he saw was strange enough in itself: seen in the
squalid, commonplace sub–suburban street, it was bewildering. There,
ahead of him, walked Mephistopheles—Mephistopheles dressed in a red
flannel suit, trimmed with yellow, all peaks and points; and on the
head of Mephistopheles was an old, much worn, brown Derby hat.
Brant caught Mephisto by the shoulder and turned him around. He was a
slight, undersized man of fifty, whose moustache and goatee, dyed an
impossible black, served only to accentuate the meagre commonness of
his small features.
[Illustration]
“Who are you?” demanded Brant.
“Sh–h–h!” said the shivering figure, “lemme go! I’m Zozo!”
Brant stared at him in amazement. What was it? A walking
advertisement—for an automatic toy or a new tooth–powder?
“It’s all right,” said the slim man, his teeth chattering, “lemme
get along. I’m most freezing. I’m Zozo—the astrologer. Why—don’t you
know?—on Rapelyea Street?”
Brant dimly remembered that there was a Rapelyea Street, through which
he sometimes passed on his way to the railroad station, and he had some
faint memory of a gaudily painted shanty decked out with the signs of
the zodiac in gilt _papier maché_.
“My orfice got a–fire this evening,” explained Zozo, “from the bakery
next door. And I had to light out over the back fence. Them people
in that neighborhood is kinder superstitious. They ain’t no idea of
astrology. They don’t know it’s a Science. They think it’s some kind of
magic. And if they’s to see me drove out by a common, ordinary fire,
they’d think I was no sort of an astrologer. So I lit out quiet.”
His teeth chattered so that he made ten syllables out of “quiet.”
“They don’t understand the Science of it,” he continued, “and the fire
got at my street clo’es before I knew it, and so I had to light out
mighty quick. Now, jes’ lemme get home, will you? This here flannel
ain’t no fur coat.”
Brant’s coat came off his shoulders in an instant.
“Put this on,” he said. “Confound you!—” as the man resisted,—“_put it
on!_”
The astrologer slipped into the coat with a gasp of relief.
“Cracky!” he cried, “but I was freezin’!”
“Do you live far from here?” Brant inquired.
“Just a bit up the road. I’m ’most home, now,” replied Zozo, still
chattering as to his teeth.
As they walked along the half–built street, Zozo told his tale. He had
been in the astrology business for thirty years, and it had barely
yielded him a living. Yet he had been able, by rigorous economy, to
save up enough money to build himself a house—“elegant house, sir,” he
said; “‘tain’t what you may call _large_; but it’s an elegant house. I
got the design out of a book that cost a dollar, sir, a dollar. There
ain’t no use in trying to do things cheap when you’re going to build a
house.”
But his joy in his house was counterbalanced by his grief for the loss
of his “orfice.” He had taken the ground–rent of the city lot, and had
erected the “orfice” at his own cost. Three hundred and twenty–seven
dollars he had spent on that modest structure. No, he had not insured
it. And now the bakery had caught fire, and his “orfice” was burned to
the ground, and his best suit of street–clothes with it—his only suit,
as he owned after a second’s hesitation.
In ten minutes’ walk they arrived at Zozo’s house. It was quite the
sort of house that might have come out of a dollar book, with a great
deal of scroll–work about it, and with a tiny tower, adorned with
fantastically carved shingles. As they stood on the porch—nothing
would content Zozo but that his new friend should come in and warm
himself—Mr. Brant looked at the name on the door–plate.
“Zozo’s only my name in the Science,” the astrologer explained. “My
real name—my born name—is Simmons. But I took Zozo for my business
name. ‘Zs’ seem to kinder go with the astrology business, somehow—I
don’t know why. There’s Zadkiel, and Zoroaster, and—oh, I don’t
know—they’re ‘Zs’ or ‘Xs’, most of ’em; and it goes with the populace.
I don’t no more like humoring their superstition than you would; but
a man’s got to live; and the world ain’t up to the Science yet. Oh,
that’s you, Mommer, is it?” he concluded, as the door was opened by a
bright, buxom, rather pretty woman. “Mother ain’t to bed yet, is she?
Say, Mommer, the orfice is burnt down!”
“Oh, Popper!” cried the poor woman; “you don’t reelly say!”
“True’s I live,” said the astrologer, “and my street–clo’es, too.”
“Oh, Popper!” his wife cried, “what’ll we do?”
“I don’t know, Mommer, I don’t know. We’ll have to think. Jes’ let this
here gentleman in, though. I’d most ’a’ froze if he hadn’t lent me the
loan of his overcoat. My sakes!” he broke out, as he looked at the
garment in the light of the hall–lamp, “but that cost money. Mommer,
this here’s Mr.—— I ain’t caught your name, sir.”
“Brant,” said the owner of the name.
“Band. And a reel elegant gentleman he is, Mommer. I’d ‘a’ froze
stiff in my science clo’es if’t hadn’t been for this coat. My sakes!”
he exclaimed, reverently, “never _see_ the like! That’d keep a
corpse warm. Shut the door, Mommer, an’ take the gentleman into the
dining–room. He must be right cold himself. Is Mother there?”
“Yes,” said Zozo’s wife, “and so’s Mamie. You was so late we all got a
kinder worried, and Mamie come right down in her nighty, just before
you come in. ‘Where’s Popper?’ sez she; ‘ain’t he came in yet to kiss
me good night? ’Tain’t mornin’, is it?’ sez she. _And_ the orfice
burned down! Oh, my, Popper! I thought our troubles was at an end. Come
right in, Mr.—Mr.—I ain’t rightly got your name; but thank you kindly
for looking after Popper, and if you had an _i_dee how easy he takes
cold on his chist, you’d know how thankful I am. Come right into the
dinin’–room. Mother, this is Mr. Band, and he lent Simmons the loan of
his coat to come home with. Wa’n’t it awful?”
“What’s that?” croaked a very old woman in the corner of the
dining–room. It was a small dining–room, with a small extension–table
covered with a cheap red damask cloth.
“Simmons’s orfice is burned up, and his best suit with it,” explained
Mrs. Simmons. “Ain’t it awful!”
“It’s a jedgement,” said the old lady, solemnly. She was a depressing
old lady. And yet she evidently was much revered in the family. A
four–year–old child hung back in a corner, regarding her grandmother
with awe. But when her father entered, she slipped up to his knee, and
took his kisses silently, but with sparkling eyes.
“Only one we’ve got,” said Zozo, as he sat down and took her on his
knee. “Born under Mercury and Jupiter—if that don’t mean that she’ll
be on top of the real–estate boom in this neighborhood, I ain’t no
astrologer. Yes, Ma,” he went on, addressing the old woman, who gave no
slightest sign of interest, “the orfice burned down, and I had to get
home quick. Wouldn’t ’a’ done for them Rapelyea Street folks to see me,
scuttin’ off in my orfice clo’es.”
He had shed Brant’s huge overcoat, and his wife was passing her hand
over his thin flannel suit.
“Law, Simmons!” she said, “you’re all wet!”
“I’ll dry all right in these flannels,” said Zozo. “Don’t you bother to
get no other clo’es.”
He had forgotten that he had told Brant that the suit in his office was
his only suit. Or perhaps he wished to spare his wife the humiliation
of such an admission.
“I’m dryin’ off first–rate,” he said, cheerfully; “Mamie, Popper ain’t
wet where you’re settin’, is he? No. Well, now, Mommer, you get out
the whiskey and give Mr.—Mr. Band—a glass, with some hot water, and
then he won’t get no chill. We’re all pro’bitionists here,” he said,
addressing Brant, “but we b’lieve in spirits for medicinal use. Yes,
Mother, you’d oughter’ve seen that place burn. Why, the flames was on
me before I know’d where I was, and I jist thought to myself, thinks I,
if these here people see me a–runnin’ away from a fire, I won’t cast
no horoscope in Rapelyea Street after _this_; and I tell _you_, the
way I got outer the back window and over the back fence was a caution!
There’s your whiskey, sir: you’ll excuse me if I don’t take none
myself. We ain’t in the habit here.”
Brant did not greatly wonder at their not being in the habit when he
tasted the whiskey. It was bad enough to wean a toper on. But he sipped
it, and made overtures to the baby. And after a while she showed an
inclination to come and look at his wonderful watch, that struck the
hour when you told it to. Before long she was sitting on his knee. Her
father was telling the female members of the family about the fire, and
she felt both sleepy and shut out. She played with Brant’s watch for a
while, and then fell asleep on his breast. He held her tenderly, and
listened to the astrologer as he told his pitiful tale over and over
again, trying to fix the first second when he had smelled smoke.
He was full of the excitement of the affair: too full of the
consciousness of his own achievement to realize the extent of the
disaster. But his wife suddenly broke down, crying out:
“Oh, Simmons! where’ll you get three hundred dollars to build a new
orfice?”
Brant spoke up, but very softly, lest he might wake the baby, who was
sleeping with her head on his shoulder.
“I’ll be happy to—to advance the money,” he said.
Zozo looked at him almost sourly.
“I ain’t got no security to give you. This is a Building Society house,
and there’s all the mortgage on it that it’s worth. I couldn’t do no
better,” he concluded, sullenly.
Brant had been poor enough himself to understand the quick suspicion of
the poor. “Your note will do, Mr. Simmons,” he said; “I think you will
pay me back. I sha’n’t worry about it.”
But it was some time before the Simmons family could understand that a
loan of the magnitude of three hundred dollars could be made so easily.
When the glorious possibility did dawn upon them, nothing would do but
that Mr. Brant should take another drink of whiskey. It was not for
medicinal purposes this time; it was for pure conviviality; and Brant
was expected, not being a prohibitionist, to revel vicariously for the
whole family. He drank, wondering what he had at home to take the taste
out of his mouth.
Then he handed the baby to her mother, and started to go. But Simmons
suddenly and unexpectedly turned into Zozo, and insisted on casting his
benefactor’s horoscope. His benefactor told him the day of his birth,
and guessed at the hour. Zozo figured on a slate, drawing astronomical
characters very neatly indeed, and at last began to read off the
meaning of his stellar stenography, in a hushed, important voice.
He told Brant everything that had happened to him, (only none of it
_had_ happened; but Brant did not say him nay.) Then he told him
various things that were to happen to him; and Zozo cheered up greatly
when his impassive and sleepy guest sighed as he spoke of a blonde
woman who was troubling his heart, and who would be his, some day.
There was a blonde woman troubling Brant’s heart; but there was small
probability of her being his some day or any day. And then Zozo went on
to talk about a dark woman who would disturb the course of true love;
but only temporarily and as a side issue, so to speak.
“She ain’t serious,” he said. “She may make a muss; but she ain’t reel
serious.”
“Good night!” said Brant.