before it, thumbing over the pages of the latest adjutant-general’s
report. “The first lieutenant of _‘C’, Fourth_, is here put down as one
Wilkins,” he said, turning towards us. “I don’t seem to find the name
of Erwin anywhere in the register.”
Woodleigh calmly looked over at him, and then addressed the rest of us.
“You’ll have to excuse him. He hasn’t been with us long, and doesn’t
quite understand my ways,” he explained. “Very likely he thought I’d
have the bad taste to lug real names into a personal story of that
sort. Come back here, Poore, and sit down. You must learn to save
yourself all un-necessary trouble.” Poore put away his book, and
returned to his place in the family circle.
“Care to hear anything more about my adventures, up there with The
Fourth?” inquired Woodleigh, rising and taking up a more congenial
position, with his back to the crackling fire. “Because, if you do,
there was another odd thing that happened that evening. After my heart
had been broken, in the way that I’ve told you, Tileson, the Q.M. of
The Fourth, ran up against me. He noticed that I wasn’t quite in gear.
‘You’re looking faint,’ says he. ‘Come along with me, and I’ll see if
something can’t be done for you. This ball business is all childish
folly.’ Tileson, you know, isn’t a dancing man.
“Well, he took me away from the armory, and over to the club--you
fellows remember that club they have up there?--and we played billiards
and other games for a while. Tileson also fixed me up with restoratives
until I felt quite like myself again; for he ranks high as a scientific
quartermaster. Finally we sat down to smoke, and while we were smoking
we got to talking shop.
“I don’t remember just what led up to it, but we drifted along from one
thing to another until we got into a discussion on athletics. Well, you
know how it goes: Tileson began to yarn about what he used to do in
that line, when he was younger; and that, of course, started me into
recalling certain feats of my own long-gone youth; and so we had it,
back and forth, until Tileson ended up by wanting to make some fool-bet
or other. And right at that point I conceived an idea.
“You see, it was growing late, and I found that I was becoming sleepier
than a stewed owl. Besides, that club was full of men, and thick with
smoke; and I wanted to get away from the confounded noise and chatter.
I’d engaged a room at the hotel, and had left my bag there; for I’d
made my plans to stay in town all night--but, as I said, I was attacked
by an idea.
“‘Tileson,’ says I, after the idea in all its beauty had paraded itself
before my mind’s eye, ‘I’m not a betting man. And least of all will I
bet money. Playing for money invariably leads to hard feelings. His
Imperial Majesty, the Emperor of Germany, and likewise I, Woodleigh,
Q.M. of The Third, frown down upon all gambling among officers, both of
us holding that it is detrimental to the best interests of the service.
But I’ll tell you what I’ll do for your amusement: I’ll make you a
wager of a small dinner. _That’s_ not gambling, because we both have to
eat dinner, every day in the week, for which somebody has to pay. Am I
correct?’
“Tileson had to admit that a daily dinner was of the nature of
a necessity, and that it wouldn’t be gambling to risk one. So I
proceeded to spread out the details of my proposition. ‘It is a
bright, moon-lighted night,’ says I, after taking a peek at my watch
for certain reasons of my own; ‘there’s no snow on the ground, and
there’s not a breath of wind: therefore a paper trail would lie
beautifully--which is something that I personally can’t do. Why
wouldn’t it be an educated scheme to arrange a hare-and-hounds chase,
as a means of settling this speed question?’
“This seemed to strike Tileson as a grand thought, and so I went right
along with my remarks. ‘Of course,’ says I, ‘I’ll be handicapped by
not knowing the country, but I’m reasonably certain that I can start
out from this club with two minutes lee-way, and lead you a chase for
forty-five minutes, without being caught. I’ll carry a basketful of
paper, and drop a handful of it, every twenty yards, as long as it
lasts. I’ll also agree not to enter any house or building during that
three-quarters of an hour; my time shall be entirely devoted to going
cross-country. Moreover, after leaving the club, and making one turn,
I’ll lay my course in a crow-line--I mean, as the bee flies--for a
distance of at least a half-mile, thereby giving you a chance to run me
down by a straightaway sprint. Now, what do you say?’
“‘It’s a go!’ says Tileson, gobbling down the bait, without a thought
for any hook that might be hidden inside it. ‘Well,’ says I; ‘that’s
all I wanted to know. Now I’ll just slide over to the hotel, and shift
out of these togs. I’m not going to travel cross-country in a brand-new
dress uniform. Can’t afford it. I shall have to insist on entering for
the event in citizen’s dress. I’ll be back in a minute, and we’ll draw
up final articles.’
“Naturally, Tileson claimed the same privilege, and made a break
for home, to change his outfit; while I tooled across to the hotel,
to look after a few arrangements of my own. First, I rushed up to my
room, stripped off my full-dress, and packed it into my travelling
bag, strapping my overcoat on the outside, with my sword snugly tucked
underneath it. Then I went down to the office, explained that I had
made other plans for the night, paid my bill, and asked for the night
porter. I bought him outright with a shining half-dollar, took him into
a corner, and carefully coached him in the part I’d laid out for him
to play in my programme. Furthermore, I grabbed a sheet of paper, and
wrote out exactly what I wished him to do, so that there could be no
possible slip-up. And then, having given him my bag and his written
orders, I went back to the club.
“I got there just before Tileson. When he came in, the fellows sent up
a yell that opened great cracks in the plastering, for he appeared in
the most marvellous get-up that ever was seen outside of comic opera.
I hadn’t believed it, but it seems that, in his day, he really used
to be something of an amateur athlete. Well, he’d gone down into his
old-clothes box, and had fished out all the sporty duds that he could
lay hand to: and there he stood, after he’d thrown off his ulster,
in a pair of spiked running shoes, his legs bare to the knee, a pair
of white flannel knickerbockers coming next, a striped sweater a-top
of that, and a faded old rowing cap crowning the whole crazy-quilt
combination. It was very obvious that he hadn’t appeared in his
nondescript regalia for some time previously, for the billiard-room
reeked like an apothecary shop with the odor of camphor.
“Wasn’t he a gaudy object! I had to sit down to laugh, and it really
was quite a time before I got into shape enough to put in a protest
against his turning up in such light marching order as that. But it
was no use. He maintained that his rig was citizen’s dress and nothing
else, and the rest of the fellows backed him up in his claim. So I
gracefully yielded the point. ‘If this isn’t citizen’s dress, what _is_
it?’ says he. He certainly had me there.
“By this time the excitement in that club was quoted at a high figure.
It was after two o’clock in the morning, and the men were beginning
to drop in from the ball in squads. At least a dozen of The Fourth’s
officers were there, besides a lot from out of town. All the odds
were on Tileson--nobody had the nerve to bet against that fearful and
wonderful rig of his.
“Well, we sent a select committee into the reading-room, and set them
at work tearing up the old papers on the files for the ‘scent’ that
was to be left along my trail. And they worked with a will, until
they’d filled a waste-basket heaping full. Then we selected judges,
and umpires, and referees, and time-keepers, until about everybody
in the place had some office or other. And all the while I kept one
eye on the clock that stood in the corner of the billiard-room. It
was an old-fashioned, tall clock, and I’d noted the fact that it was
eleven minutes slow. This, I’ll state, made it necessary for me to
perform some wonderful problems in mental arithmetic; and trying to
figure, in the midst of the row that was going on up there, wasn’t any
intellectual picnic. I managed it, though.
“Now, the billiard-room was at the rear, and in the third story, of
the club-house, and we’d agreed that the start should be made from
it. This, of course, was because I didn’t care to have anybody know
just what I was up to during the first two minutes of the race. I
also had stipulated that Tileson and all hands should stay in that
room until my time-limit had expired. Well, when the venerable clock
alleged that it was two-thirty-nine, I tucked the waste-paper basket
under my arm, shook hands with Tileson, and got on my marks at the
head of the stairway. ‘Start me at two-forty,’ says I, scooping up a
fistful of paper, and nodding up towards the clock. ‘_’Tention!_’ sang
out Major Brayton, whom we’d made head time-keeper. ‘By the numbers:
one--two--_go_!’ And at that I pitched a bunch of torn paper up into
the air, so that Tileson wouldn’t have any trouble in finding where my
trail began, and then bundled myself down those stairs like a thousand
of brick.
“But as soon as I landed on the sidewalk, I took it more easily; for
two minutes’ start was ample for my requirements. I lighted a cigar,
and then headed down the street at an ordinary gait, conscientiously
dropping paper at every twenty yards. You may bet that I didn’t run:
I wasn’t planning to have any country policeman scoop _me_ in for a
suspicious character. Wherein I displayed great brain-power.
“Now, the club up there, you’ll remember, is located on the main street
of the town. Very likely you’ll remember also that the railway station
lies only about a hundred yards down the street from the club-house.
Furthermore, the tracks of the railway run across that street at grade,
in the comfortably reckless way that they have in towns of that size.
Well, now you have the whole situation, and you can see, of course,
what my plan of campaign was like.
“I’d recalled the fact, while I was talking with Tileson, that
the down mail-train from Canada was due to strike the town at
two-forty-eight, and was scheduled to continue its run to the eastward
at two-fifty-three. I happened to know, too, that it seldom picked up
any passengers at that hour of the night: that, in fact, it stopped
mainly for the purpose of watering the engine and juggling mail-bags.
So I felt fairly confident that nobody would suspect me of having any
designs on _that_ particular method of performing a cross-country run.
And events proved that I was right.
“Well, after I’d cleared the club, I strolled down the street and took
up my position alongside the track, just as the locomotive gave a
warning snort and came slowly pulling out from the station. I looked at
my watch. It showed two-fifty-three, to a second. I turned and glanced
towards the club, and saw a white figure come shooting out into the
moonlight, followed by a running accompaniment of darker shapes. And
then, as the engine went puffing past, I faced towards the train.
“It gathered headway slowly, and the first cars seemed to crawl by
me. But by the time the baggage-car, mail-car, and a pair of ordinary
coaches had gone lumbering past, the whole outfit was making pretty
fair speed; and when I grabbed the handrail of the Pullman which came
along as rear guard to the whole procession, I had to hop like a monkey
with Saint Vitus’ dance. I got aboard all right, though, and brought my
paper-basket with me, without spilling more than a reasonable amount of
its contents. And then I looked back, and saw things happening.
“Now, while I was standing by the track, waiting for the Pullman to
get within boarding distance, I’d heard, above the roar of the train,
a perfect pandemonium of other sounds. But I hadn’t had the nerve to
look behind me, because I knew that I’d have to make pretty close
connections with my handrail, when it came along. I was painfully aware
that I should have a narrow squeak in getting away; for the distance
from the club was so short that Tileson stood a very brilliant show of
covering it before the train could gather headway enough to save me
from being run down. And, if it hadn’t been for a providential miracle,
I’m inclined to think that I should have had to pay for that dinner,
after all. But the miracle got there just in the nick of time.
“It seems that it’s the custom of the one policeman on night duty in
that town to go to the station to meet all trains, whereby he keeps
himself awake and exercises a sort of general supervision over the
in-comings and out-goings of the populace. Well, as the train left the
station, the policeman sauntered out upon the main street, just in time
to see coming tearing towards him a wild man in indecent garments,
followed by a mob of panting pursuers. Naturally enough he saw before
him the chance of a lifetime; and so he pulled himself into shape,
tackled Tileson, and down they went in a wild snarl of arms and legs
and bad language. And that’s what I saw as I stood there on the rear
platform; for it was a bright, moonlight night, and everything was
as plain as print. The show didn’t last long for me, though, because
the train was humming along on a straight stretch of track, and in
a little while the smoke and dust streamed out in its wake, like a
curtain falling on the last act of a tragedy. Did I laugh? _Did_ I? I
did--until I came perilously near rolling off the car! I kept my wits
about me, though, and religiously dealt out torn paper, every twenty
yards, until it was all gone. I didn’t forget that I’d made a solemn
agreement to leave behind me a plain and continuous trail.
“At the rate at which we were spinning along it didn’t take a great
while to exhaust my supply of ‘scent.’ When the last of it was gone, I
kicked the basket overboard, and went inside the car. And there I found
my luggage waiting me, and a berth all engaged; for my man from the
hotel had followed his orders to the letter.
“Now, I’d like to ask you if that wasn’t quite an event in amateur
athletics? I hold that the cross-country championship belongs to The
Third; and I also claim that I scored on Tileson and his suit of many
colors.” On which points the sentiment of the meeting seemed to be with
Woodleigh.
A day or two afterwards one of us happened to run across Whateley.
“That man Woodleigh, of yours, is a corker!” said he. “After I left
the ball, the other night, I went up to that club where The Fourth’s
fellows hang out. Got there just after Woodleigh had gone sailing off
in a chariot of fire, like old what’s-his-name. Well, it was worth
a four-cornered gold brick to hear ’em rubbing it into Tileson! Did
you know he came within an inch of being pulled in for assaulting a
constable? Oh, he’ll never hear the last of it! I’d like to go you five
that he sends in his papers before next camp. Old Woodleigh didn’t
cut a very wide swath at the dance, though. Did he tell you about it?
He was paired off with a little, stumpy, freckle-faced girl, and had
to tramp nine laps ’round the hall with her in the ‘Grand March,’
so called. Perhaps he wasn’t the picture of misery! He and Tileson
escaped, right after the march; sneaked for the club before the music
struck up for the first waltz. Really, you fellows ought to send
somebody else besides Woodleigh to represent you on occasions of that
sort. He doesn’t do his duty.”
THE KERWICK CUP.
Elsewhere in the annals of The Third it has been stated--and the
statement proven--that Major Pollard can shoot. Here it will be shown
that he can shoot not only well, but also most thoughtfully.
It was the night before Christmas. Pollard was walking slowly along the
street, on his way home from the theater. He felt at peace with himself
and with all the rest of the world; for that afternoon, by a despairing
and truly heroic effort, he had managed to dispatch a half-dozen neat
parcels conveying to the immediate members of his family the greetings
appropriate to the season. And this was an achievement of no small
magnitude; for everybody knows how difficult it is to pick out various
sorts of gifts for various sorts of people, especially when certain of
those people are women, and the giver of the gifts has the misfortune
to be a man--and a single one. Which will explain, it may be, why so
many men get themselves married, and then straightway delegate to their
wives full authority in the matter of selecting presents.
The air was keen. A light, powdery snow came lazily drifting down, only
to find its whiteness quickly lost upon the much traveled pavement. A
red-cheeked newsboy, whining the old, old story about being “stuck,”
placed himself in Pollard’s path; and the major, in the true spirit of
Christmastide, was exploring his pocket in search of the necessary bit
of silver--when, full in the glare of an electric lamp, there came into
sight a figure that somehow seemed familiar.
Stopping short in his hunt for a dime, Pollard stared hard at the
approaching form; and then, tossing to the expectant urchin the first
coin upon which his fingers chanced to close, he started in pursuit of
his man, who already had passed him, and was going at a rate of speed
that made it probable that in another minute he would be lost to view
in the midst of the theater crowd upon the sidewalk.
A few rapid strides brought the major to his side, and a last, quick
glance satisfied him that he had not been mistaken. “Hello, Kerwick,”
said he, laying his hand upon the shoulder of the other. “Thought I
couldn’t be wrong. Well, well! I’m more than glad to see you back
again.”
At the sound of Pollard’s voice the man stopped and shrank away. He had
been walking rapidly along, with head lowered and eyes fixed upon the
ground, as if to avoid any chance recognition. He wore no overcoat,
and the collar of his shiny, black cutaway was turned up to protect
his throat from the biting night air. Taken as a whole, he was not a
cheerful object to contemplate.
“Ah, it’s you, Pollard, is it?” he said, with a side glance at the
major. “How are you? I’m just back from the West today. Nasty night,
isn’t it?”
“Yes,” assented Pollard, noting that his ill-conditioned friend could
with difficulty keep from shivering; “too nasty for making visits on
the curbstone. I’m just going to raid some place for oysters and other
hot things. You’ll join me, Captain?”
At the sound of this title the other drew himself up a bit; but in
an instant he fell back a pace, flushing painfully. “Join you?” he
said bitterly, thrusting his benumbed hands deeply into his trousers’
pockets; “join _you_! Good God, Pollard, look at me!”
“Well, I _am_ looking at you,” said the major, allowing his gaze
to travel slowly up and down the shrinking figure before him. “You
certainly look terribly seedy, and not much like the Captain Kerwick
under whom I used to serve. But if that’s any reason for your refusing
to sit down to half-a-dozen Blue-Points with me, why, I simply fail to
see it.”
“I’ll not do it,” said the other doggedly. “No, Pollard, I’ll not do
it. I’m out of your world, and you’re out of mine. That’s the long
and short of it. Possibly you noticed that I didn’t say I was glad to
see you? Well, I’m not. I’m confoundedly sorry I set eyes on you; or,
rather, that you set eyes on me. Will you let me go _now_? Good night.”
Without a word in reply to this outbreak, Pollard slipped an arm under
that of his friend, and used the other to aid his voice in attracting
the attention of a passing cab. When the vehicle pulled up beside
the curbing, he wrenched open the door, good-naturedly pushed in his
prisoner, and followed, after having given to the driver the address of
his cosey bachelor rooms in an up-town hotel.
“My dear man,” said he, drawing up the heavy robe and carefully tucking
it around his thinly clad companion, “it’s useless for you to protest.
There’s been a change since you were lord high autocrat of ‘M’ Company.
I’ve climbed up from lieutenant to captain, and then from captain
to major; so you can see the utter folly of trying to dispute my
commands. You’ll have to submit, Kerwick, and you’ll do well to submit
gracefully.”
“And now,” said Pollard, twenty minutes later, after he had settled his
captive in a big arm-chair before the glowing coal fire in his rooms,
“now we’ll consider the question of supper, first. Other matters may
wait their turn. You may bring up,” to the neatly uniformed colored boy
who had appeared in answer to his vigorous assault upon the electric
bell, “two half-dozens of oysters on the shell, and a small tenderloin
steak, fairly well-done, and a bottle of--” He gave a side glance at
the man seated before his fire. “And a pot of coffee,” he amended.
“That last was well thought of,” said Kerwick, as the bell boy left
the room. “You’re still observant, I see. Well, you’ve guessed it; the
bottle has held altogether too prominent a place in my recent history.”
The ruins of the supper had been cleared away. Kerwick was again
installed before the fire, with a cigar. Pollard lighted his old black
briar, pulled a chair towards the hearth, and said, as he seated
himself, “We’re not to have a green Yuletide, this year, after all.
It’s snowing in earnest now.”
“H’m! tomorrow’s Christmas,” murmured Kerwick, with something like a
sigh. “So it is. I hadn’t thought much about it. Well, Pollard, you
haven’t asked me yet--but I suppose you’re waiting for me to give an
account of myself.”
The major nodded, and smoked on in silence while his friend told the
story of the past few years: How he had broken away from all his early
associations in order to grasp at what had seemed a chance for making
rapid fortune in the West; how reverses had come quickly, one upon
another, until--baffled and beaten at every point--he had yielded under
the repeated blows, and finally had staggered and gone down beneath the
weight of discouragement.
“And here I am, back again,” Kerwick wound up, flinging into the fire
his half finished cigar, as if its flavor brought to him some of the
bitterness of recent disappointment; “here I am, at forty-five, in what
should be the prime of my life--homeless, hopeless, penniless, and out
of the game.”
“Yes?” said Pollard, as the other finished. “Now, old man, see here:
you’re not to throw away my cigars in the same careless way in which
you’ve thrown away your chances. They’re too choice, if I do say it, to
be handled disrespectfully. Take another, and _smoke_ it.” He pushed
the box across the table towards Kerwick. “These weeds were made to be
burned--but not in open grates.”
Kerwick laughed shortly, picked a fresh cigar from the box, and lighted
it. “You’ll have to pardon me,” said he. “That was temporary insanity.
I haven’t smoked a decent cigar, before these, in nobody knows how
many months.”
“Now, as for your croaking,” resumed Pollard, giving emphasis to his
remarks by an occasional thump of his heavy fist upon the arm of his
chair; “I’m going to make the only comment that seems to fit the
case. Which is, ‘_Stuff!_’ For you’re playing now with nothing to
lose and everything to win. Why, Kerwick, you _must_ see it! Nothing
from nothing leaves nothing; but nothing plus something may amount to
almost anything. Confound you, old man! I used to look up to you as the
embodiment of grit and push--and I’ll not let you tumble down in my
estimation, nor in your own.”
“Too late, Polly,” answered Kerwick in a low tone, half unconsciously
letting fall a nickname of the old days. “You mean well, but it’s too
late--it’s too late now.”
“Blessed if it isn’t!” exclaimed the major, putting upon the words of
the other a construction of his own. “It’s quarter to twelve, and high
old time for us to be sliding into bed. There’s a good day’s work cut
out for both of us tomorrow. I dare say you haven’t forgotten the bit
of silverware that used to go by the name of ‘The Kerwick Cup’? Well,
tomorrow we shoot for it.”