were all right, his fortune untouched and no motive anywhere apparent
why he should have taken so reckless a step. The police could get no
trace of him. Fat and bow-legged men were encountered here, there and
everywhere, were seized and sharply questioned, but from none of these
incidents of the search was the slightest hope extracted. Two days
passed, and still another, but the mystery continued to be dark and
impenetrable and Mrs. Cinch was wrapped in an envelope of grief.
* * * * *
Bob's story about Miss Beeks and her novel views had profoundly
impressed Mr. Cinch, and being so constituted that when he got hold of
an idea he had to give himself up to its consideration, Miss Beeks and
the possible effect of her conversation upon his legs kept revolving
before his eyes all the morning. He was not able to form any very
definite idea of what she might be expected to do, but he thought it
quite within the possibilities for her to improve the situation. The
notion that in ailments of all kinds there was a large element of
imagination had occurred to him frequently when listening to Mrs.
Cinch's accounts of her numerous physical tribulations, and he was by no
means sure that his legs were as bad as they had been represented. He
thought it might well be that he had obtained an exaggerated notion of
their deformity, and if Miss Beeks merely succeeded in convincing him of
that the gain would be something. He picked up the address-book during
the morning and ascertained that she lived in a large apartment-house in
Broadway, distant from his stables less than a block. While Bob was at
luncheon he got upon his feet, went to the door and looked down the
street at the big flat. An irresistible desire to go and talk the matter
over with Miss Beeks took possession of him, and almost before he knew
it he was seated in a little reception-room waiting for the appearance
of the remarkable young woman who professed to be able to talk away a
boil.
She did not keep him waiting long, and when she held out her hand and
wished him "Good-morning," he was quite captivated with her cheery voice
and smile.
Mr. Cinch proceeded directly to business. First he took from his
pocket-book one of his large and profusely illustrated business cards
and delivered it with something of pride by way of introduction. Then he
remarked that he had heard of her and of her way of doctoring and he
thought he'd just drop around and see what she could do in his case.
"Why, what ails you?" she asked. "You look very comfortable."
"So I be," replied Mr. Cinch, much gratified, "but it's all along of my
legs."
"And what of them?"
"Well you see, they're bowed, and--"
"Don't say what I see, Mr. Cinch. We see with our minds and only through
our eyes. My mind is healthy, and as I see your legs there's nothing the
matter with them."
"You don't say so!"
"To be sure I do. At the same time if you say your legs are bowed, there
is, of course, trouble somewhere."
"Of course," assented Mr. Cinch.
"The question is, where? Some people would say, in the legs. They would
try to make you believe that your legs, mere combinations of flesh and
blood, could go off by themselves and get bowed, or knock-kneed, or long
or short, or slim or fat, or gouty, or palsied, or paralyzed, or
rheumatic, or shriveled or anything else just as they wanted to and all
of their own option, as though they were a living soul with a living
will and not simply so many square inches of inanimate matter. Now, Mr.
Cinch, that's all nonsense. Don't you believe a word of it!"
[Illustration: "OUR BODIES ARE BUT GHOSTS," SAID THE SCIENTIST.]
"Well, now," replied the old man slowly, "I never thought of it
that-away. It don't seem as if they could go and get bowed all of
themselves. But," and he looked down toward them dubiously, "they do
'pear to be bowed, now, don't they?"
"Maybe they do. We'll come to that presently. But first let me prove
that, if they are bowed, they didn't do it. Suppose you were to have
them cut off at your hips, would they go on and bow more?"
"Why, no."
"Of course not," said the Scientist, triumphantly. "That shows they
didn't bow themselves. Then who did bow them? I'll tell you. You have
done it, Mr. Cinch, you, yourself."
"Mebbe I did, mebbe I did. I won't deny it. But this I will say--that I
didn't go for to do it."
"Perhaps not. But, consciously or unconsciously, your mind became--well,
for want of a better word, sick. In that sick condition it began to look
around for a place in your body to reflect its trouble upon. It chose
your legs, and straightway your eyes, prompted by your diseased mind,
began to tell you that your legs were bowed."
"Well, really!" cried Mr. Cinch, "how very plain you make it."
"It's plain enough to such as will see. Matter, Mr. Cinch, does not
act. Matter has no will. It doesn't feel, or get tired, or wear out or
do any of the things attributed to it by thoughtless people. Matter is
inanimate and takes form only as the mind, the soul, the Vital Force,
wills that it shall. It responds to the soul. Therefore, if your legs
are bowed, your mind is at fault."
"What a very uncomfortable thing your mind must be!" said Mr. Cinch.
"It's 'most as well not to have none!"
"Better," exclaimed the Scientist, earnestly, "if it is to be out of
harmony with the Mind Universal. And now we come to the real point. The
thing to cure is the thing that is sick. The bowness of your legs is the
reflection of your bowed mind. Straighten your mind and your legs will
be as straight as your walking-stick. Shut your eyes, Mr. Cinch, and
think only of what I say. Nothing is real except the ideal. The
corporeal realm of created being corresponds precisely to the condition
of the ideal. Do you see the point?"
"Sorter," replied Mr. Cinch, feebly, "but I b'lieve I could see it
better if I was to open my eyes."
"No, no, no!" cried the Scientist. "It is highly necessary to keep them
shut and turned inwards."
"I don't b'lieve I can come that, mum," Mr. Cinch rejoined,
apologetically. "My eyes is getting a bit old."
"Sink them far into your soul! Look there to find your bad and ugly
ideals! Give me your hand, Mr. Cinch. Thus, with our hands clasped, will
our spiritual understandings commune. Together we will pursue our
investigations into the recesses of your ethereal nature, and with the
clean new broom of inspired reason, will we sweep away the dusty cobwebs
of bad ideals!"
Mr. Cinch heaved a huge sigh! But he shut his eyes vigorously, and
received into his big hard fist the Scientist's little white one, and
murmured, "All right, mum; whip up lively."
"Our bodies are but ghosts," said the Scientist, "combinations of
symbols. The combinations change as the soul that they symbolize
changes. I look at your body and it tells me of your soul. I see a soul
full of doubt and darkness, and the doubt and darkness are symbolized in
the curved and ugly form of your legs. Brush away the doubt! Dispel the
darkness! Aspire toward the Life of the Spirit, and as your aspirations
are tenacious they will draw your legs into the shape which, like the
spirit it typifies, will be all beauty. Does your soul respond, Mr.
Cinch?"
"Well, mum, I dunno. I'm trying hard, but--"
"Ah, there is unbelief there. I see it--a black mountain-cloud of
unbelief. Faith, Mr. Cinch, is the ethical law of gravitation. You
already feel its influence. It draws you to the Spiritual Center of
Essence. Your soul still walks in the shadow, but toward the light. You
are being drawn away from the doubt. Don't you feel yourself being
drawn, Mr. Cinch?"
"I b'lieve I do, mum; I really b'lieve I do. That left leg give a kinder
twitch just as you spoke."
"Of course it did! Of course it did! You are in the sea of Infinite
Thought, floating, floating like a chip on the water. The evil ways of
falsehood, doubt and unbelief are trying to beat you away from the
Current of Truth,--but no! it shall not be! I will stand by to fight
them back, and to urge on those other waves that will bear you into the
current. One is approaching now--the Wave of Harmony. It touches you
gently, lifts you on its crystal bosom, and, ere it leaves to do the
same duty to another floating chip, it moves you many paces nearer to
the current. And now, as you rest, another comes. Lo, it is intercepted
by the discordant ripples of suspicion, and a struggle ensues! But,
look! Oh, prythee look! From the white caps of conflict the wave,
larger, purer than ever, emerges, and comes on apace. It is the Wave of
Joy! It moves quickly! It takes you upon its sparkling crest! Whence the
diamond lights of happiness flash! Merrily flash! It heaves you swiftly
on! On! On! Ah! Yes! Nearer! Nearer still! One more impulse and you are
there! It lifts its glittering form again! And NOW!--Oh, Mr. Cinch! you
are in the Current! the CURRENT! Do you not feel its swift influence?
The Current of Truth! Brightly, joyously, swiftly does this Spiritual
Gulf Stream bear you toward the Great Central Calm! Ah!--ah!"
The Scientist was evidently in a great state of excitement. Her voice
had risen to a keen soprano key, and her eyes sparkled wildly. When she
had finally succeeded in getting Mr. Cinch into the Current, she fell
back in her chair, quite exhausted.
Neither spoke for several minutes, and then Miss Beeks finally said:
"Open your eyes, Mr. Cinch!" The old man looked at her with evident
curiosity. "You talk beautiful," he said, earnestly, "and I really think
I feel better!"
[Illustration: "IT WAS A GOOD DEAL, MR. GROANER."]
"Don't say 'feel,' Mr. Cinch. Cultivate thought and not sensation. I
know you are better and that means, of course, that the supposititious
curvature of your limbs, never real, is less apparent. You must put
yourself under my treatment from this moment. The advantage gained
already must not be lost. You must not go home, or to business, or out
of this room until your mind is thoroughly healed. You must not get out
of the Current until you are safely in the Calm Centre."
* * * * *
It was the fourth day after her husband's strange disappearance, and
Mrs. Cinch was seated in the back parlor of her desolate house,
receiving spiritual consolation from an elderly clerical gentleman. "Oh,
sir," she was saying, "he was such a good man, so gentle and easy to get
along with. He had no harsh words, no matter how much he had to bear.
And I'm fearful it was a good deal, Mr. Groaner, I'm fearful it was a
good deal."
Mr. Groaner sighed with much feeling, and said she must not repine,
adding in a comforting way that the world was full of sorrow.
"Yes," said Mrs. Cinch, as though greatly consoled by that fact, "I know
it. We all have our burdens and I s'pose we need 'em."
"Indeed we do, Sister Cinch," Mr. Groaner replied, "but for our burdens
we should grow vain and worldly."
This disastrous result being in Mrs. Cinch's case rendered less menacing
through the supposed death of her partner, the good man proceeded to
show her the necessity of "bearing up," and of counting all things good,
and of drawing from these mournful visitations the valuable lesson that
earthly affections are empty and void. Much had been accomplished toward
reconciling her to the unhappy situation when a familiar click was heard
in the front door latch.
Mrs. Cinch started.
The click was repeated and then the door was flung open, and a heavy
footfall sounded in the hallway.
"William!" cried Mrs. Cinch. "It's William, Brother Groaner! Help me up!
Help me to run and meet him! William, my dear, good, sweet, bow-legged
old William! O, Brother Groaner, I shall go crazy with happiness! Hear
his old feet, stuck on them dear bow-legs of his, making a sound that
I'd know 'mong ten thousand! Come along, Brother Groaner, come long."
They got into the hall with as much speed as possible, and there, coming
toward them was Mr. Cinch, his round face lighted with a peaceful smile.
He paused, and there was something in his manner and attitude that
caused them to pause as well. He brought his pudgy feet closely together
and straightened his figure to its loftiest possibility, as if to call
attention to its perfect beauty.
"Maria, my dear," he said, in deep, low tones, "I float in the Calm
Centre of Infinite Truth."
A look of profound alarm came upon Mrs. Cinch's face, and she glanced at
the Rev. Mr. Groaner. He shook his head sadly.
Mr. Cinch observed the dubious looks and he hastened to dispel them.
"I am in harmony with the Universal Mind," he said. "Look at them legs!"
They looked. "Yes, William," answered Mrs. Cinch, profoundly disturbed,
"I see them legs, and dear, sweet, precious old legs they are, William,
and if I ever said they wasn't, I told a story and goodness knows I've
suffered enough for it in the last three days and nights. I love them
cunning old legs, William, better'n all the rest of you put together,
and I don't care where you're floating nor what you're in harmony with,
I only just know you're back again with the same beautiful, chubby,
round old legs you took away, and I'm downright crying happy, and the
rounder they gets the more I'll love them!"
And, unable longer to restrain herself, the good old lady rushed upon
him and hugged him black and blue.
Mr. Cinch may still be floating in the Calm Centre of Infinite Truth,
or he may not. He may still be in harmony with the Universal Mind or he
may not. He hasn't mentioned lately. But this is sure truth--that
wherever he floats, Mrs. Cinch is floating with him, and whatever else
he may be in harmony with he is certainly in harmony with her. He
wobbles and toddles up and down just as he used to do, but never a word
does he hear to the prejudice of his legs. And whether they be as
crooked as a ram's horn or as straight as a rifle-barrel, he can't see
them and she won't--so what's the odds, anyhow?
[Illustration]
XIII.
GRANDMOTHER CRUNCHER.
Tony Scollop's great point was enterprise. When he looked at anything it
was always with the query running through his mind, how can this be
turned to account? The beauty of utility was the beauty which Tony's
eyes detected and which his heart valued.
There may be a want of true and pure sentiment in this way of
considering the world and its contents, but Tony's lot had been cast in
a sphere where necessity encroaches upon sentiment. Bread was dear and
babies cheap in the tenement where Tony was born, and his character was
greatly affected by this circumstance.
And yet Tony was not unmindful of the fact that sentiment is a powerful
stimulant. As such, he prized it. His acute perception disclosed to him
that people would pay freely to have their sentiments fed, and Tony was
willing to do almost anything not specifically mentioned in the Criminal
Code, for pay. It had been early impressed upon his mind that the
profitable sentiments of a great proportion of mankind were reached
through their curiosity. This lesson was first enforced upon Tony by a
Monkey.
The monkey was a particularly clever knave. He was in the retinue
consisting, besides himself, of a woman, two babies, a hand-organ and a
tin-cup, appertaining to a dusky Neapolitan who infested the tenement
district in which Tony's boyhood was spent. That monkey had on several
occasions seduced a penny from Tony's unwilling hand. Thereby he had
earned Tony's respect and had caused Tony's reflections to dwell upon
him. That monkey had a large place in the circumstances which led Tony
to go into the dime-museum business.
As a dime-museum manager, to which exalted station Tony finally arose
and in which he was now engaged, he was a remarkable success. He seemed
to have found just the field for his talents. They led him into a great
variety of speculations, but from one and all he emerged plethoric with
dimes. His museum had grown until it now occupied the three floors of
one of the largest buildings in the Bowery.
It was in the very height of his great career, when his enterprise was
most conspicuous, his curiosities most numerous, his patronage most
extensive, and his self-appreciation most complete and complacent, that
he was called upon to face a singular emergency.
A gentleman in Hoboken had boiled his mother-in-law. It is of no moment
now why he had boiled his mother-in-law, though at the time the
consideration of this question had filled columns upon columns of the
daily newspapers. There had been a controversy between the gentleman and
his mother-in-law, prolonged and distracting, and the long and short of
a very painful conjunction of circumstances is that the gentleman had
felt himself reduced to the necessity of doing something serious to his
mother-in-law, and, thus moved, he had boiled her. It would have been
wiser, doubtless, had he taken some other course, though that is a
matter of judgment into which I refrain from going. The only fact
needful to be mentioned here is that the event had taken up a vast
amount of space in the papers, which had printed large maps of the room
wherein the boiling had occurred, together with striking pictures of the
gentleman, the mother-in-law, the kettle in which the boiling had been
done, the cat which usually slept in the kettle, and other important
accessories of the event.
Among these was the gentleman's grand-mother, a venerable lady living in
Wisconsin, who, upon being informed that her grandson was in jail for
boiling his mother-in-law, had come on to Hoboken to comfort him. She
was met at the depot by a considerable company of reporters, and by Mr.
Tony Scollop, who, with an enterprise all his own, provided a coach for
her, went with her to the jail, remained during the sad interview that
took place with her unhappy grandson, and gave her a gorgeous bouquet
with which to assuage her grief. He took her to a hotel, and did not
leave her until she had signed a ten weeks' contract to appear in his
dime museum. These, with many other facts illustrative of Tony's
generosity and gentle sympathy, appeared in many of the newspapers the
next day.
Whatever may have been their general effect, there were bosoms in which
they produced disagreeable sensations, and among these was the bosom of
Billy O'Fake, the Wild Man from Borneo. Indeed Mr. O'Fake was positively
angry when he saw that Grandmother Cruncher was to be exhibited from the
same platform with himself. He stuck his pipe in his mouth, his hat on
his head, and his feet on the footboard of his bed, and said
emphatically that he be domned if he'd shtand the loikes av this
gran'mother business any more at all. It had gone the laste bit too fur,
an', bedad, he'd lay the hull matter before the Brotherhood and
Sisterhood of Animated Frakes that blissid marnin'!
The more Mr. O'Fake thought it over the more outraged his feelings
became. At last, unable longer to contain himself, he strode from his
room, descended into the Bowery, passed into East Broadway, and
clambered aloft to the fifth story of a rickety flat. There he knocked
loudly at a door and responded in something of violent haste to the
invitation to enter.
Seated in one corner of the room, over a small, red-hot stove, was a
queer-looking little man. There was a tin plate on the stove from which
the odor of melting cheese arose, and mingling with the odor of burning
tobacco, contributed from the little man's pipe, burdened the atmosphere
with dense and by no means delightful fumes. The little man had a fork
in one hand and a mug of beer in the other and he was snatching the
cheese from the plate, shoving it into his mouth and washing it down
with the beer at a rate and with a disregard of heat and cold that were
wonderful to observe.
[Illustration: "SIT, IS IT? WHERE?" SAID BILLY.]
He was anything but a pretty little man. His head was big and his body
small and his legs very short and very thick. He sat upon a keg, the top
of which he quite amply covered, but his feet came scarcely half-way
to the floor. His gray eyes twinkled from holes sunk far into his head,
and twinkled so brightly that you had to look at them, but so sharply
that you wouldn't if you could have helped it. He peeked quickly at Mr.
O'Fake, and cried in a shrill voice:
"Hi! hi! Billy! Come in an' sit down!"
"Sit, is it? Where?" said Billy.
"Vhere?" repeated the queer little man. "If I vos to tell you vhere,
Billy, your hingenuity vouldn't be drored out. Von o' the uses of
hexperience, Billy, is to dror hout the hingenuity. You're lookin'
summat doleful, Billy. Cheer hup, me boy, cheer hup! I'd like to inwite
you to this 'ere feast, but there's honly von 'elp o' cheese left, an'
honly von svaller of beer. But pull hout yer pipe an'--vot's on yer
mind, Billy?"
Mr. O'Fake was standing with his back against the door, his arms folded,
his hat on the side of his head, and an ominous expression on his face.
"Have ye seen the marnin' papers, Runty?" he inquired.
"Papers, Billy, papers? Vot do I vant wid the papers. No, Billy, I shuns
'em. No man can be a 'abitchual reader huv the papers, Billy, vidout
comin' to a bad hend."
Mr. O'Fake drew from his pocket a copy of "The Daily Bazoo," and
pointing at a certain paragraph, said: "Rade thot, Runty!"
The queer little man stuck his fork under the tin plate and flipped it
off the stove upon the floor, heedless of Mr. O'Fake's wishes. "Hexcuse
me, Billy," he said, "I never wiolate my princerples. I 'ave no use for
papers an' I never reads 'em. Wot's it say?"
"Bedad, I'll tell ye pwhat it says. It says outrage. It says another wan
o' thim ould women has come bechune me an' me daily bread. It says that
Tony Scollop's been and hired some ould hag av a gran'mother to shtep in
an' discredit the perfession. I was a lad av tin years, sor, when I
furst shtepped upon the boords av a doime moosaum in the well-known
characther av the Son av the Cannibal King. From that day to this, sor,
I have exhibited my charrums to the deloighted eyes av the populus fer
tin cints per look. I have been a Zulu Chafetain, a Tattooed Grake, a
Noted Malay Pirate, a Bushman from Australier, an' afther a public
career which there ben't no better, I am to this day, sor, to this day a
Wild Man from Barneo. Widout the natcheral advantages which a ginerous
Heaven has besthowed upon you, sor, or upon my honored frind, Misther
Kwang, the Chinaze Giant, or upon Maddlemerzelle Bristelli, the bearded
Woman, or upon Ko-ko, the T'ree-Headed Girrul,--widout sich natcheral
advantages, sor, for to raise me at wanst to the front rank av Frakes,
my coorse has been wan av worruk, sor. That worruk has been done; my
name as the greatest living Wild Man from Barneo is writ, sor, in
letthers av goold upon fame's highest pin--er, pinister! There, sor, it
is to-day, and shall I now--"
"Billy," replied the queer little man, "you shall not. Your vords is
werry booterful an' werry true. This 'ere bizness of bringin' in Nurse
Connellys, an' Marie Wan Zandts, an' the huncles an' hants an' neffies
an' nieces an' gran'mothers belonging to influential murderers an' Young
Napoleons uv Finance an' sich, is a-puttin' the persitions uv
legitermate Freaks in peril. I speaks as the Gran' Worthy Sublime an'
Mighty Past High Master uv the Brother'ood an' Sister'ood uv Hanimated
Freaks, an' I says hit vont' do! Our rights an' liberties is not thus to
be er--is they, Billy?"
"Sor, they air not. They--"
"Vell, then, Billy, you shall come before the Brother'ood an' say so.
You shall say it this werry mornin' vith your best langwidge. Vith that
tongue o' yours, Billy, an' that 'ere himposin' presence, ef you honly
ad' a crook in yer back or ef yer heye vos honly in the middle uv yer
'ed, Billy, you'd be the leadin' Freak on herth!"
[Illustration: "HEXCUSE ME, BILLY," HE SAID, "I NEVER WIOLATE MY
PRINCERPLES."]
With this genial and deserved tribute, which Mr. O'Fake received most
graciously, the dwarf tumbled from his keg, which tumbled also in its
turn, raked a heavy overcoat and a rough fur cap from a dark closet, and
having got himself into them, he begged Billy to accompany him without
delay.