"It was while we were standing together at the parlor window."
Emily's face flushed, and had any one been looking at her intently he
might have had his doubts whether or not that was the time. She did not
answer, however, and before any one had begun the conversation anew,
Wobbles entered with a card upon his tray which he delivered to Mr.
Maddledock.
"Since your Honor is so indulgent," said Mr. Maddledock, as he glanced
at the scrawl upon the bit of cardboard and bowed to his daughter, "and
with the approval of the prosecutor, I am constrained to ask the Court's
consent to a further violation of the Prandial Code. I don't know
whether the punishment for leaving the table before the dinner is
concluded is greater or less than for a tardy appearance, but I fear I
must risk it."
"I suggest, in view of this prisoner's previous good character," said
Linden, "that your Honor suspend the sentence."
Mr. Maddledock bowed himself out and walked directly to a little room
just off the hall which he used as a private office. A timid young man
was waiting for him.
"Well, sir?" said Mr. Maddledock.
"I am an orderly, sir, if you please, at the Bellevue Hospital. A man
was brought there, this evening, sir, pretty well done up by a runaway.
After he'd been fixed a bit he asked me for his coat, and when I fetched
it he took out this bundle of papers and put them under his pillow. The
doctors didn't bother him much, for they saw he was a goner, and when
he asked if he could live they told him no. He didn't say no more, but
when we was alone he asked me to take out the papers from under his
pillow. I did it, and he asked me if he died to fetch them here and give
them to you in your own hands, and said you'd give me ten dollars for my
trouble. So as soon as I was off duty I fetched 'em, and here they are,
sir."
"Yes," said Mr. Maddledock, adjusting his eyeglasses and examining them
slowly one by one. "Yes. They appear to be all here. Ten dollars, did he
say? Well, here it is. Good-night."
"Good-night, sir."
"And the man? Wait a bit. What became of him?"
"Oh, he's dead, sir. The horse done him up. He's dead and in the Morgue
by this time. Good-night."
The orderly went out, and Mr. Maddledock stood quietly with the bundle
of papers in his hands until he heard the click of the vestibule door.
Then he struck a match and fired them one by one, watching each until it
was entirely consumed.
"In the Morgue," he said, as the last pale flame flickered and died
away. "Well, that's the best place for him. There's no doubt in my
mind, not the least, but that that amiable horse saved me from being the
central figure in a murder trial. What an odd world it is, to be sure!"
XI.
MR. WRANGLER.
On your way to the Cortlandt Street Ferry, which is on everybody's way
to everywhere, and on the left-hand side of the street when you turn out
of Broadway, and not very far from the ferry-house itself, there is a
little old, low brick building which has stood there a good many years
and is going to stand a good many more if Billy Warlock knows himself,
and he thinks he does. You may talk about progress all you please, but
Billy will soon give you to understand that the only kind of progress
which will take that house from him, or him from it, is the progress
toward the stars, and that, while he hopes to take it in the Lord's good
time, he isn't ready for just yet. Billy Warlock owns that house and
lives in it and does business there, and the great big heart that thumps
in Billy's great big body and gives strength to Billy's great big arm,
loves every individual square inch of brick and earth and planking and
plaster in that old house from cellar to scuttle. Part with it!
Speculate on it! Sacrifice it to progress! Well, scarcely. Not if you
were to offer him its weight in solid gold. Not if its neighbor on one
side were a Mills Building and its neighbor on the other an Equitable.
Not if you were to build an elevated railroad around it and run ten
trains per minute, day and night. So long as Billy Warlock can keep
himself above ground, so long will that old house keep him company, and
so long will his forges blow fiery sparks in the cellar, while he
hammers and hums and hums and hammers on the anvil by his side.
It was just twelve years ago on Christmas Eve that Billy Warlock bought
the smithy in the cellar of that little old house. Billy had been
working for the man who owned it, and the man who owned it, being a
little short of wind and a trifle weak in his legs, had decided to sell
and retire. Billy had become the purchaser, and not without many qualms
and doubts as to the wisdom of assuming such heavy responsibilities.
Billy knew he was a good mechanic, and could put a tire on a wheel or a
shoe on a horse as quickly and as well as the next man. But it took a
good big pile of dollars, as Billy counted dollars, to get those forges,
and before he turned them over to his late employer Billy scratched his
head a good many times and did a power of thinking. But at last he let
go the dollars, and laid his big fist on the biggest forge and blew a
blast through the coals that made them glow brighter than ever they
glowed before. For it was the master and not the man who sent the
draught through them.
He bade the men good-night and wished them a Merry Christmas, closed the
doors, locked them tight, and looked his property over. It was worth
being proud of, make no mistake. It was all any man need wish for. It
was well stocked and in prime condition. The house, in the cellar of
which his smithy stood, was mainly let in lodgings. On the first floor,
raised just far enough above the street to give his customers a fair
passage out, there was a saloon and eating-room. Back of these were
Billy's own rooms, two nice big rooms where his mother took care of him
and cooked his meals and washed his clothes and aired his bed as only
good old mothers can. Over this floor were two others, let, as I have
said, in lodgings--to whom, who knows? Who ever knows to whom lodgings
are let in this big, crowded city?
Billy finished his dinner and drew up his chair and one for his mother
by the stove, and filled his huge mug with beer, and his huge pipe with
tobacco, and talked it all over with his mother. She was a fine woman,
was Billy's mother, and she drew a straight, steady rein over her big,
burly, good-natured boy. She was Billy's best friend, and he knew it,
and when she told him she would stand by and help him, and save for him
and look out after him, Billy reached forth his brawny arm, and drew her
over on his knee and danced her up and down, smoothing back her gray
hair and kissing her old cheeks as if she were a baby.
Then, when the clock struck nine, she got up to wash the dishes, and
Billy took his lantern to go down among his forges again. Not that he
had anything particular to do, though there never was a time when Billy
couldn't find something, but the novelty of owning a business was strong
with him, and he wanted to hammer just for the fun of hammering. He
descended into the cellar through a side-door which opened from the back
hall upon a short ladder. The street doors were barred and bolted. He
set his lantern on the ladder steps and lit an oil lamp that hung over
his anvil, picked up his iron and his hammer, thrust the one into the
coals and laid the other on his anvil, and blew away. Oh, what an arm
that was of Billy's! How it made the bellows bulge and the wind roar up
the great chimney! How the black coals reddened and flamed and blazed!
How the iron glowed and whitened with the heat, and when Billy drew
his great hammer down upon it with a hoarse grunt accompanying each blow
as if to give it effectiveness, how the sparks scampered about in a
furious effort to escape!
[Illustration: OH, WHAT AN ARM WAS THAT OF BILLY'S!]
Billy was hammering and grunting at a great rate, and the forge fire was
throwing upon the ceiling fantastic illuminations and causing a thousand
still more fantastic shadows, when, wholly without preliminary warning
or greeting, Billy felt a slight touch on his arm. It was a slight
touch, as I said, but a cold one, a very cold one indeed. Billy turned
swiftly around with his hammer in one hand and his red-hot iron in the
other. Standing almost beside him, with the glare of the fire working a
curiously weird effect upon one-half of him, while the other half was
almost hidden in the dense shadow beyond, was a tall, spare, angular man
with queer little snappy eyes that flashed like diamonds in the light of
the forge. His hand was stretched out in a friendly way, and a bland
smile stretched across his face, following the lines of his wide,
extended lips.
"Aha!" he said cheerily, "how d'ye do? But I forgot! You don't know me
and I don't know you. Awkward, eh? But soon fixed, soon fixed. My name's
Wrangler, and yours is--er--what by the way, is yours?"
"Warlock," said Billy, laying down his iron and his hammer, and gazing
amiably at the stranger--"Billy Warlock."
"Warlock," Mr. Wrangler repeated. "Exactly. Well, then, Warlock,
Wrangler. Wrangler, Warlock. And now the formalities have been observed.
I don't know how it is with you, Warlock, but I'm a great stickler for
the formalities. 'Pon my life, I consider them the web upon which the
social fabric hangs together. They're not to be dispensed with upon any
account whatever. While I was abroad recently, the American Minister and
I were walking along the Mall together. 'Ah,' he suddenly said, 'My dear
Wrangler, here comes the Prince. Of course you know him.' Now, it so
happened that H. R. H. and I had never met. I didn't have time to reply,
for just as I was about to speak the Prince stopped us, and, after
greeting the Minister, utterly regardless of the formalities, he told me
that he hoped he saw me well. I gave him a look, Warlock, my boy, that
he will never forget, and coldly replying, 'Sir, I have not the pleasure
of your acquaintance,' I walked on. That afternoon the Minister sent me
an apology, but for which damme if I'd ever have spoken to him again."
[Illustration: "AHA!" HE SAID CHEERILY, "HOW D'YE DO?"]
During this speech, to which Billy listened with great attention and
some little awe, he examined Mr. Wrangler carefully. Mr. Wrangler's
clothes were harmoniously seedy. In the degree of their wornness his hat
was a match for his coat, and his coat a match for his trowsers, and his
trowsers a match for his boots. Although the weather was desperately
cold, and a heavy Christmas snow had fallen, he had on neither overcoat
nor overshoes. He did not appear to notice Billy's inspecting glances,
but having caught his breath, he went cheerily on.
"I am glad and proud to know you, Warlock, old fellow, and I want you to
be glad and proud to know me. And you shall be; you shall be; 'gad you
sha'n't be able to help it. And you'll find as you know me better that
while you won't know any great good of me, you won't know any great
harm."
Billy contemplated Mr. Wrangler for a few moments more, and then amiably
replied: "Well, that's all right. What more could a man ask?"
"Precisely so," answered Mr. Wrangler, dusting off the anvil and sitting
down upon it. "That, I take it, is quite enough. I have not broken in
upon your privacy, Warlock, old fellow, without serious occasion. In
fact, I'm troubled--sorely troubled."
"I'm sorry for that," said Billy.
"Of course you are, dear boy, and well you may be. The trouble I'm in is
a sad one--sad and novel. Not that trouble in itself is a strange
experience to me, for I've had my ups and downs. My life hasn't been one
of unmixed gayety, I assure you, not by a long shot. But, you see, I
have a habit of bowing to the inscrutable will of Providence. Some
people experience a great deal of difficulty finding out what the
inscrutable will of Providence is. That doesn't bother me in the least.
Having ascertained what my own will is, I know the chances are ten to
one that the Providential will is exactly the reverse. That is simple
and direct enough, isn't it?"
Billy was very much interested in this glib but melancholy stranger, and
he resolved, if it came in his way, that he would do the man a favor. So
he turned his hammer with the handle to the ground, sat himself upon the
head of it, and remarked: "It's right enough, Mr. Wrangler, to make the
Lord's will yours. I try to do my best in that line too. But still,
there is a point, you know, where it comes hard."
"True, dear boy, very true; and how much harder it is to find yourself
in a situation which you did nothing to bring about, for which you are
in no sense responsible, which is wholly in conflict with your own
will, and to the best of your belief with the will of Providence also!
This is my unparalleled situation at this particular moment, and it all
comes of being the uncle of a little girl baby."
"No?" said Billy inquiringly, "you don't mean it?"
"I knew you'd be surprised," said Mr. Wrangler, edging up to the forge,
which Billy had kept going at a gentle heat to warm their hands now and
then. "It ought to be an occasion of unalloyed happiness to be the uncle
of a little girl baby. But I was not intended for such a position. It
was clearly a mistake to thrust me into it."
"I don't scarcely see how you could help it," said Billy.
"No, I couldn't, could I? It came upon me suddenly and without my
knowing it. I had no time for preparation. My brother, who was one of
the evils to which, under the will of Providence, I have bowed, called
me to him recently, and without so much as a drop of brandy to break the
force of the blow, he said: 'Cephas,' said he, 'you are the uncle of a
little girl baby!'
"Pale and for a moment speechless, I leaned against the wall and shook
with emotion. 'Courage, old man!' said he, 'bear up! bear up!' At first
I refused to believe him. 'It is false, Orlando,' I said, 'it can't be
so.' But he shook his head sadly. 'It is true, Cephas,' he replied, 'and
I guess I ought to know.' That argument was of course conclusive. It
admitted of no reply. I only asked him how could he so have wronged me.
He said nothing in defense of himself. He could say nothing. He simply
bent his head and cried for pardon."
"Well, well," said Billy, "this is queer. It seems to me like a big
to-do over a very little matter."
Mr. Wrangler looked up with an expression of dismay. "Little!" he cried.
"Little! May I ask, Mr. Warlock, if you have ever been the uncle of a
little girl baby?"
"No," said Billy, "I never was."
"Ah, well, that explains it. Then you can't know the bitterness of that
hour. You can't put yourself in my place. I forgave him. I told him with
a sob that it was all right. Then, in the name of our mother, he
implored me to do him a favor. The infant was in California. He had left
it there to--er--learn the language, I reckon. He bade me go and fetch
it. At first I hesitated--all but refused. But who can withstand an
appeal made in the name of his mother? I pressed his hand in silent
acquiescence and took the next train West. I found the child and folded
it to my heart. I bought it a milk bottle with a fancy nozzle, a bull's
eye, and a rattle. It wept, and I dried its tears. Then I brought it
back with me. Fancy my feelings, Warlock; picture to yourself my
lacerated, bleeding heart, when upon reaching town this afternoon I
learned that my brother was dead! Yes, Warlock, old man, dead and buried
and cold in his grave, and another party living in his flat. It was all
in vain that the tears streamed from my eyes--all in vain that I begged
him at least to take the child. I called him brother, kinsman, royal
Wrangler, and bade him remember that this was a matter of honor between
him and me. I begged him to think of the situation he had placed me in,
for I feared the laugh of callous cynics as much as the cry of the
innocent child, but the ungrateful dead answered not."
Mr. Wrangler paused and touched his handkerchief to his eyes, while
Billy gazed at him in amazement, uncertain to what category of disease
his case should be assigned. "I don't know as I ever heard a queerer
tale than this," he said at length. "What did you do about it?"
"I'm doing now," answered Mr. Wrangler. "It is on a special mission that
I'm seeking you. Warlock, dear boy, you don't happen to have a bottle
of paregoric with you, do you, now?"
"Paregoric!" exclaimed Billy. "Why, is the child sick?"
"Hanged if I know!" Mr. Wrangler replied, with evident sincerity. "I'm
not what you'd call a connoisseur in infantile disorders, but I guess
she's sick. Anyhow, something's the matter. It may be malaria, or
chills, or measles, or whooping-cough, or Bright's disease. But whatever
it is, it keeps her very wakeful at night. It disturbs her rest sadly.
That might, perhaps, be overlooked; but as an intimate consequence it
also disturbs mine. At first I supposed it was because she did not get
enough nourishment, so, as she wouldn't drink any more milk from her
bottle, I bought a syringe, and filling it with milk, I played it down
the little darling's throat."
"Great Scott!" cried Billy, "it's a wonder she didn't choke to death!"
"Is it?" asked Mr. Wrangler innocently. "Well, to tell the truth, she
did come dev'lish near it, and so I inferred that I hadn't correctly
diagnosed the case. After she had got done coughing her spirits seemed
more than ever depressed. I went to bed in the vain hope that her supply
of tears would in time become exhausted. As the hours drew along and
that hope died away, I concluded she must have headache. I had one, and
I thought it only natural that she should, too. The question was, what
remedy should I apply? In a happy moment paregoric occurred to me. I
seemed indistinctly to remember that when I was a child paregoric did
the business. How fortunate one is, dear boy, in such moments as that to
have the memories of his boyhood to fall back on. I got up, dressed, and
went out to hunt a drug-store. Unfortunately, the only two I came across
were closed. I returned disconsolate, but as I entered I heard the sound
of your hammer and saw the glimmer of the lantern on your ladder. I
descended hither. I looked upon you and said: 'Here is a friend.'
Warlock, old fellow, find me some paregoric!"
"I don't know much about babies, Mr. Wrangler," said Billy, slowly and
rather sternly, "for I never had one, and I never was throwed with 'em.
But I think the chances is that you'll kill your'n before morning."
Mr. Wrangler was standing in the shadows where Billy couldn't see him
very well, but his snappy little eyes were shining in a way that Billy
didn't like.
"How old is the baby?" asked Billy.
"I haven't an idea--not one," answered Mr. Wrangler, laughing merrily,
as if his not knowing were a monstrous joke. "But she can walk and
talk."
"And you trying to feed her on milk in a bottle?" exclaimed Billy.
"How'd you like to be fed on iron filings? I rather think they'd make a
good diet for you!" Billy was indignant, and he fetched his hammer down
on a log that lay near with a blow that split it through and through.
Mr. Wrangler stepped back into the shadows still further, and his little
eyes glowed in the darkness like a cat's.
"Ha! ha!" he laughed; "good, very good. But you mustn't make fun of me,
old fellow. It isn't fair, now, really."
"Where is the child, anyhow?"
"Upstairs."
"Here, in this house?"
"Precisely."
"Come on, then; take me to her, and let's see what the matter is."
"That's a good fellow!" cried Mr. Wrangler. "As soon as I saw you I knew
you would prove to be my deliverer. Come."
The forge fire had now gone out, and directing Mr. Wrangler to stand on
top of the ladder, Billy took the lantern, blew out the hanging lamp,
and both ascended from the smithy into the hall of the house. Billy
locked the door behind him and followed Mr. Wrangler upstairs into the
third story. They paused before the hall bedroom and bent forward to
listen. Not a sound broke the night's stillness, and softly Mr. Wrangler
turned the key and opened the door. Billy moved noiselessly ahead and
lit the dull gas.
Upon the bed, with one hand under her cheek and the other one, small and
dotted with dimples, resting lightly on her plump neck, lay as pretty a
child as he had ever seen. Her eyes were closed, for she was sleeping
heavily, as if repose had come to her only when her little frame was
utterly worn out. A great mass of thick, tangled curls clustered on the
pillow about her head. A dark line down her flushed cheek marked the
course of the tears she had been shedding, and the pillow that supported
her was still wet with them.
Billy stooped down and kissed her parted lips and her white forehead,
while Mr. Wrangler, leaning jauntily against the door, hummed in low
strains a melodious lullaby.
"Nothing ails this child," said Billy, when the sound of Mr. Wrangler's
voice had died away. "Nothing at all."
[Illustration: UPON THE BED LAY AS PRETTY A CHILD AS HE HAD EVER SEEN.]
"Warlock, dear boy," replied Wrangler, "I think you told me you had
never been an uncle. The man who has not drank the bitter waters of an
uncle's experience for himself is--pardon me, but I must say it--wholly
incompetent to speak as to the woes of childhood. How often have you
wooed sleep amid the wailings of an infant voice? I'm disappointed in
you, Warlock!"
"Don't talk so loud, you'll waken her."
"Spare us that. Let me have my hat and stick. I'll get that paregoric if
I have to commit burglary!" and Mr. Wrangler started back as if fully
prepared to carry out his threat.
"Be quiet," said Billy, "and look here. My rooms are downstairs where I
live with my mother. It's too cold in here for the child. That's one
thing that ails her. I'll take her down with me, and when she's had her
breakfast in the morning, you can come for her."
Mr. Wrangler seized Billy's hand and shook it fervently. "Dear boy," he
said, "you're the kind of a friend to have. Take her and give her a good
night's rest."
Billy leaned over the bed, lifted the soundly sleeping child tenderly in
his big arms and, followed by Mr. Wrangler, he carried her down to his
own room and deposited her upon the bed. Then he turned to Wrangler.
"You'll come for her in the morning, you know?" he said.
[Illustration: HE CARRIED HER DOWN TO HIS OWN ROOM.]
"Certainly, old fellow. Good-night, I must get some sleep."
"Good-night," said Billy, "and a Merry Christmas to you."
Mr. Wrangler waved his hand with a grand farewell flourish, blew a kiss
toward the little form upon the bed, and passed out into the hall. He
waited there an instant, as if undecided what course to pursue. Then he
ran upstairs to the hall room, hurriedly crowded his personal effects
that lay scattered around the room into his valise, and ran down again
into the street. The front door closed with a sharp bang behind him, and
he quickly disappeared in the snowy night.
Billy could not help confessing to a sense of relief when his curious
new acquaintance left him. Not that he felt any definite fear of Mr.
Wrangler. The human being had yet to be born of whom Billy Warlock was
afraid. But there was a something about Mr. Wrangler that he didn't
fancy. "It's them eyes," said Billy "and he don't make no noise when he
walks." His own bed being occupied by the child, he piled a lot of
blankets on the floor, stretched himself upon them, and was soon asleep.
The Christmas sun was peeping obliquely into Billy's room and making,
with the aid of his shaving-glass, all sorts of fantastic colors on the
wall, when a slight tug at the blankets which covered him moved him to
start, turn over, open his eyes, stare blankly before him, shut them,
open them again, rub them desperately, and finally gaze with awakened
consciousness up at the object which had disturbed his slumbers. She was
leaning half over the bed, her little fat arms, shoulders, and throat
all bare, her bright, tangled hair knotted in bewildering confusion all
about her head, and her big blue eyes looking down upon him with a
curious interest. How long she had been awake he could only conjecture,
but evidently her patience had at last been exhausted, and she had set
about premeditatedly to arouse him. Billy was charmed by the
little-picture above him, and smiled a cheery greeting. She smiled too,
right merrily, and said, "What's your name?"
"Billy," said he. "What's yours?"
The smile straightway faded from her face like the color from a withered
blossom, and she glanced hurriedly and anxiously around the room.
"Where's the black man!" she whispered.
"The black man!" cried Billy. "What black man, my dear?"
"Don't you know him? He's had me ever so long."