The highbrows of Number 10 were having an argument as they sat in the
dim light of the veranda of the big bachelor house.
It was Saturday night, and the less intellectual inmates were in the
city seeing the sights.
“I guess I’ll play a tune,” said Higgins, who was one of the group.
That was just what had happened every Saturday night since fate had
brought the men together.
Iky Gillstein, who had formerly been a Jew, but who now read
Schopenhauer and quoted him on every occasion, and John Hogan, who read
such books as A. Kempis’ “Life of Christ,” and who quoted him whenever
Iky quoted his favorite philosopher, had the argument, as was their
custom, and when Higgins found that it had gone far enough he played his
violin until the Celtic and Semetic tempers had cooled down to normal.
In the gang were Bill Wiley, who had been disappointed in love, and,
later, in marriage, and had taken to reading deep books as an antidote
for the poison of love, and George Toby, who read the books that John
Hogan read, in order to criticize and argue about them; then there was
Fuller, who stepped in with a final word that always put an end to the
argument.
Fuller was, according to John Hogan, the “most knowledgable” man on the
Isthmus of Panama, except, of course, the Colonel himself.
The men of Number 10 were nicknamed “The Highbrows” because of their
studious habits and intellectual conversation. Higgins had reorganized
that bachelor house and brought peace and harmony out of chaos. The
clerks, or penpushers, he had segregated to one end of the building, and
the men who were engaged in work of a more strenuous nature he placed
farthest from the dude clerks, and because of this there was less
ill-feeling than in most other habitations of the kind on the Isthmus.
As I said before, the highbrows were smoking on the dimly lit veranda,
and Higgins had just started to play the violin.
“I’m glad to see you all, boys,” said a voice from somewhere outside.
“Who’s that?” asked John Hogan, peering through the wire netting.
“‘Tis only me, boys,” answered the voice.
“It’s that damm fool Percy again,” said Iky, under his breath.
“Come in, Percy,” said Higgins, in a cordial tone.
“Well, she’s gone for good this time, boys, and I’m all in.” The
listeners groaned.
“Have you tried to get her back?” asked Higgins.
“I’ve tried in every way, but she hides from me, and says she hates me.
Oh, God! What shall I do? I can’t get along without my queen. I love
her, boys. I love her more than my soul, and God knows I treated her
well,” said Percy, dropping into a chair and mopping his brow; “but I
won’t live long, boys. I feel the last string of my heart giving way.
I’m a goner. I don’t want to live. I have a little bottle of poison in
my pocket right now, and if my heart don’t break soon, I’ll take it and
shuffle off.”
“How long have you been married to the lady?” asked John Hogan.
“Three years,” said Percy, with a long-drawn sigh.
“You ought to be pretty tired of her by this time,” said Iky Gillstein.
“If I had a woman around the house with me for three years I’d be darned
glad to get rid of her.”
“You’re a brute, Iky,” said Bill Wiley, “and you ain’t got no more heart
than a woman. I kin put myself in your place, Percy; I’ve been through
it, boy. Why, when that lady that I married throwed me down, two years
ago, I couldn’t eat, sleep, nor think. If it hadn’t been for Higgins an’
Hogan, I’d ‘a’ gone mad, an’ took poison, an’ God knows I had poison
enough in my system. What’s love but poison?”
“Love is a loco germ, Bill,” said Percy dramatically, “an’ when it
enters a fellow’s system it ain’t any use squirmin’. He might as well
take his medicine.”
“Love left many a man in a darned bad stew,” said John Hogan, “an’ a guy
that ’ud fall in love twice ought to be put in the bughouse.”
“I’ve been there many a time,” said Percy. “That time I was in the
Jameson raid in South Africa. I wouldn’t have been in it if I hadn’t
been bad stuck on a girl that threw me down.” The listeners coughed and
exchanged glances. They had heard many times of the Jameson raiders from
Percy, and they had even seen the marks on his feet where he had been
tied up by his heels.
“Schopenhauer says that women are--” “Shut up about that old Dutch
heathen, for God’s sake,” said John Hogan, testily.
“There is a good deal of truth in what he says about women,” put in
Toby.
“How in God’s name could a heathen tell the truth?” asked Hogan, as he
refilled his pipe.
“Do you know,” said Fuller, “that I’ve been reading A. Kempis’ ‘Life of
Christ,’ and it is the best life of Him that I ever read. He was a
humorist, wasn’t He?”
“He was that, as well as every other thing,” said John Hogan,
approvingly.
“I have never heard Him spoken of as a humorist before,” put in Higgins.
Iky Gillstein grunted.
“Wasn’t it humorous of Him that time the Sheenies were going to stone
that Merry Widow to death, when He said, ‘Prepare,’ and they all got
ready with their little pile of rocks, and they stood scratching their
heads, waiting for Christ to speak, and when He spoke He said, as the
Merry Widow knelt at His feet, ‘Let ye that are without fault throw the
first stone,’ and the devil a rock they threw, and the Merry Widow went
her way in peace and behaved herself ever after?”
“The Merry Widow gave the gang the wink,” said Iky, cynically.
“That’s like something the Colonel would do,” said Percy. “In fact, he
done something slick like that to me once. It was when I was living at
Empire with my first wife, before she got the divorce and I married my
darling that has just left me.
“I was an inspector then, and my job was to look after women that were
supposed to be a little bit shady. My wife was jealous of me, and I had
to pretend that I didn’t like the work.
“Well, anyway, there was one particular woman who was a little beauty,
and I got kind of stuck on her, but there was nothing doing with me. She
loved the guy that her husband was suspicious of, but she gave me an
introduction to a woman who was almost as good-looking, but who didn’t
have her charms.
“About this time her husband went on night duty, and he sent in to
Culebra to have his wife watched, so I was sent out to do the watching.
I prolonged the case all I could, and reported that I couldn’t find any
clew, while all the time I was havin’ a howling time at her house
nights. She used to have stuff to drink, and she and the guy I was
supposed to shadow and the woman that she introduced me to would eat and
drink, play cards and love.
“Finally the neighbors began to catch on, and I was afraid that they
might come around with some other gumshoe man who’d report, and then the
jig would be up, so I sent in a report that there was nothing wrong in
the conduct of the woman.
“A copy of this letter was sent to her husband, and he was so tickled
and so sorry that he had suspected her that he told her that she might
have a vacation for three months, and he gave her five hundred dollars,
and she went away to her home in the South; and the petted gink who
didn’t have a cent to his name went on the next boat, met her in Kansas
City, and they went to Quebec and stayed there till the five hundred was
used up. Then she wrote to her husband that she couldn’t live any longer
away from him, so he sent her a couple of hundred more to bring her back
to the Isthmus.
“Meantime my affair was hot stuff with the other one, and I used to meet
her in town three times a week. I was kept pretty busy, because the
women were cutting up scandalously all along the line, and we deported a
lot of them.
“To make a long story shorter, I had made a date to meet my loving kid
in town one Saturday, but my wife said that she wanted to come in with
me. I telephoned a guy who knew everything about me, a friend he was,
and he sent me a telegram and signed it with the name of the Captain of
Police. When my wife saw that she said she’d wait and go some other day,
because she didn’t want to interfere with my duty.
“Right then a message came from the Colonel stating that he wanted to
see me. I suspected that it was another case for me to go out on, so I
hurried down to the station, jumped on to a hand-car and got to Culebra
in time to have the interview over and catch the 1 p. m. train for
Panama.
“I’ll never forget the look in the Colonel’s eyes when I went in and
stood before him.
“‘What cases have you on hand now?’ says he, looking me over, from the
crown of my head to the tops of my shoes.
“‘Women cases, Colonel,’ says I.
“‘That’s well,’ says he, kind of mild, and he gave me that funny look
again. ‘You like to hunt them down?’
“I didn’t like his voice, but he turned away and began to sign some
papers. He had said it, however, in that calm, even tone of his, and I
thought he meant it, so I said, ‘I try to do my duty, Colonel.’
“Then he gave me a very funny look, and, says he, with awful calmness,
as he picked up a big, fat envelope from the desk, ‘Take this and report
to me Monday afternoon.’
“He turned again to his papers, and I tiptoed out. There was something
strange about the atmosphere of that office that affected me, but I put
the envelope in my inside pocket, and as I had to run like mad to catch
the train, I forgot all about it.
“It wouldn’t be fair to the woman to tell about the good time I had in
town that afternoon, and I didn’t get back home that night till the
last train. The wife was waiting up for me, and she had some good grub
ready for me to eat, a club sandwich, some salad and a bottle of cold
beer. She chatted and laughed and said she was getting a new dress made
and she wanted a couple of dollars to buy some lace for the sleeves and
neck, but I told her I couldn’t give her any more money until after next
pay day. When I told her that she gave me a funny look that made me feel
like I felt when the Colonel looked at me in such a queer way that
forenoon. She didn’t say another word, but went off to bed, and I took
the envelope from my pocket and tore it open. I was going to read what
was inside that night, but the lights went out and didn’t come on again,
so I laid it on the sideboard in the dining-room, and turned in myself.
“In the morning I got up to eat my breakfast, but there was no breakfast
ready, no wife in sight, and no fire. Thinks I, I’ll go to the mess hall
an’ get my breakfast, so I went to put on my coat, and I found the big
envelope pinned to the sleeve. When I opened it my wife’s wedding ring
fell out. Tied to this was a bit of paper, and on this was written, in
my wife’s handwriting, ‘If you had been honorable about the secrets of
others, your own secrets would not have been betrayed to me.’
“I sat down then and read the papers. Everything that I had ever done on
the Isthmus since I came was known to the Colonel.
“‘My God!’ says I to myself, ‘what am I going to do? There’s going to be
about ten husbands around with shotguns, so I’d better get away.’
“I went to Culebra on Monday, though I hated to do it. I saw it was all
over with me, so I put on a bold front when I went into the Colonel’s
office. ‘Well,’ I says, when I was inside the door, ‘I guess I’m
through.’
“‘Yes,’ says the Colonel calmly, ‘your wife will go to-morrow afternoon.
Better prepare to follow her soon.’
“Well the wife went, and I have not seen her since. She got a divorce
from me, and then I married my queen, who is gone astray now.”
The listeners coughed, and Gillstein, who had listened attentively
during the whole of the recital, said: “But you didn’t tell us how you
got back here.”
“I never went away,” said Percy. “I resigned from the Commission, but
after a time I went to the Colonel again and told him I was hard up and
my wife was sick in the States, and he gave me, for her sake, the dump
foreman’s job. It was after that that I married again.”
“Where did you meet your second wife?” asked John Hogan.
“Suppose we change the subject,” said Higgins quickly.
Gillstein winked at Hogan, and there was a pause, which was finally
broken by Percy, who said calmly: “I met her in a resort on Cash Street,
Colon, and I’m afraid she’ll go back there now, and that’s what’s eatin’
my heart out.... Well, I must go out to Panama now. It’s nearly ten
o’clock. I spend my nights watching her. Good night, fellows. Thanks for
talking to me and trying to cheer me up.”
“Good night,” said the Highbrows in chorus.
Percy tiptoed out softly, and his stealthy footsteps had died away in
the distance before the silence was broken, again by Gillstein, who
said: “It can’t be true, after all, that all men are just dead, and that
there’s no more about ’em. There’s a special little Hell somewhere for
Percy Beckle.”
“Now you’re talking like a Christian,” said John Hogan. “Play us ‘The
Wearing of the Green,’ Higgins.”