AN AFFABLE ROGUE
The carriage containing the gentleman with the reversible cuffs drew up
at the side entrance. Instantly the Arab guides surged and eddied round
him; but their clamor broke against a composure as effective as granite.
The roar was almost directly succeeded by a low gurgle, as of little
waves receding. The proposed victim had not spoken a word; to the Arabs
it was not necessary; in some manner, subtle and indescribable, they
recognized a brother. He carried a long, cylindrical bundle wrapped in
heavy paper variously secured by windings of thick twine. His regard for
this bundle was one of tender solicitude, for he tucked it under his
arm, cumbersome though it was, and waved aside the carriage-porter, who
was, however, permitted to carry in the kit-bag.
The manager appeared. When comes he not upon the scene? His quick,
calculating eye was not wholly assured. The stranger's homespun was
travel-worn and time-worn, and of a cut popular to the season gone the
year before. No fat letter of credit here, was the not unreasonable
conclusion reached by the manager. Still, with that caution acquired by
years of experience, which had culminated in what is known as Swiss
diplomacy, he brought into being the accustomed salutatory smile and
inquired if the gentleman had written ahead for reservation, otherwise
it would not be possible to accommodate him.
"I telegraphed," crisply.
"The name, if you please?"
"Ryanne; spelled R-y-a double-n e. Have you ever been in County Clare?"
"No, sir." The manager added a question with the uplift of his eyebrows.
"Well," was the enlightening answer, "you pronounce it as they do
there."
The manager scanned the little slip of paper in his hand. "Ah, yes; we
have reserved a room for you, sir. The French style rather confused me."
This was not offered in irony, or sarcasm, or satire; mining in a Swiss
brain for the saving grace of humor is about as remunerative as the
extraction of gold from sea-water. Nevertheless, the Swiss has the
talent of swiftly substracting from a confusion of ideas one point of
illumination: there was a quality to the stranger's tone that decided
him favorably. It was the voice of a man in the habit of being obeyed;
and in these days it was the power of money alone that obtained
obedience to any man. Beyond this, the same nebulous cogitation that had
subdued the Arabs outside acted likewise upon him. Here was a brother.
"Mail?"
"I will see, sir." The manager summoned a porter. "Room 208."
The porter caught up the somewhat collapsed kit-bag, which had in all
evidence received some rough usage in its time, and reached toward the
roll. Mr. Ryanne interposed.
"I will see to that, my man," tersely.
"Yes, sir."
"Where is your guest-list?" demanded Mr. Ryanne of the manager.
"The head-porter's bureau, sir. I will see if you have any mail." The
manager passed into his own bureau. It was rather difficult to tell
whether this man was an American or an Englishman. His accent was
western, but his manner was decidedly British. At any rate, that tone
and carriage must be bastioned by good English sovereigns, or for once
his judgment was at fault.
The porter dashed up-stairs. Mr. Ryanne, his bundle still snug under his
arm, sauntered over to the head-porter's bureau and ran his glance up
and down the columns of visiting-cards. Once he nodded with approval,
and again he smiled, having discovered that which sent a ripple across
his sleeping sense of amusement. Major Callahan, room 206; Fortune
Chedsoye, 205; George P. A. Jones, 210.
"Hm! the Major smells of County Antrim and the finest whisky in all the
isle. Fortune Chedsoye; that is a pleasing name; tinkling brooks, the
waving green grasses in the meadows, the kine in the water, the fleeting
shadows under the oaks; a pastoral, a bucolic name. To claim Fortune for
mine own; a happy thought."
As he uttered these poesy expressions aloud, in a voice low and not
unpleasing, for all that it was bantering, the head-porter stared at
him with mingling doubt and alarm; and as if to pronounce these emotions
mutely for the benefit of the other, he permitted his eyes to open their
widest.
"Tut, tut; that's all right, porter. I am cursed with the habit of
speaking my inmost thoughts. Some persons are afflicted with insomnia;
some fall asleep in church; I think orally. Beastly habit, eh?"
The porter then understood that he was dealing not with a species of
mild lunacy, but with that kind of light-hearted cynicism upon which the
world (as porters know it) had set its approving seal. In brief, he
smiled faintly; and if he had any pleasantry to pass in turn, the
approach of the manager, now clothed metaphorically in deferentialism,
relegated it to the limbo of things thought but left unsaid.
"Here is a letter for you, Mr. Ryanne. Have you any more luggage?"
"No." Mr. Ryanne smiled. "Shall I pay for my room in advance?"
"Oh, no, sir!" Ten years ago the manager would have blushed at having
been so misunderstood. "Your room is 208."
"Will you have a boy show me the way?"
"I shall myself attend to that. If the room is not what you wish it may
be exchanged."
"The room is the one I telegraphed for. I am superstitious to a degree.
On three boats I have had fine state-rooms numbered 208. Twice the
number of my hotel room has been the same. On the last voyage there were
208 passengers, and the captain had made 208 voyages on the
Mediterranean."
"Quite a coincident."
"Ah, if roulette could be played with such a certainty."
Mr. Ryanne sighed, hitched up his bundle, which, being heavy, was
beginning to wear upon his arm, and signified to the manager to lead the
way.
As they vanished round the corner to the lift, the head-porter studied
the guest-list. He had looked over it a dozen times that day, but this
was the first instance of his being really interested in it. As his chin
was freshly shaven he had no stubble to stroke to excite his mental
processes; so he fell back, as we say, upon the consoling ends of his
abundant mustache. Curious; but all these persons were occupying or
about to occupy adjacent rooms. There was truly nothing mysterious
about it, save that the stranger had picked out these very names as a
target for his banter. Fortune Chedsoye; it was rather an unusual name;
but as she had arrived only an hour or so before, he could not
distinctly recall her features. And then, there was that word bucolic.
He mentally turned it over and over as physically he was wont to do with
post-cards left in his care to mail. He could make nothing of the word,
except that it smacked of the East Indian plague.
Here he was saved from further cerebral agony by a timely interruption.
A man, who was not of bucolic persuasion either in dress or speech,
urban from the tips of his bleached fingers to the bulb of his bibulous
nose, leaned across the counter and asked if Mr. Horace Ryanne had yet
arrived. Yes, he had just arrived; he was even now on his way to his
room. The urban gentleman nodded. Then, with a finger slim and
well-trimmed, he trailed up and down the guest-list.
"Ha! I see that you have the Duke of What-d'ye-call from Germany here.
I'll give you my card. Send it up to Mr. Ryanne. No hurry. I shall be in
again after dinner."
He bustled off toward the door. He was pursy, well-fed, and decently
dressed, the sort of a man who, when he moved in any direction, created
the impression that he had an important engagement somewhere else or was
paring minutes from time-tables. For a man in his business it was a
clever expedient, deceiving all but those who knew him. He hesitated at
the door, however, as if he had changed his mind in the twenty-odd paces
it took to reach it. He stared for a long period at the elderly
gentleman who was watching the feluccas on the river through the window.
The white mustache and imperial stood out in crisp relief against the
ruddy sunburn on his face. If he was aware of this scrutiny on the part
of the pursy gentleman, he gave not the least sign. The revolving door
spun round, sending a puff of outdoor air into the lounging-room. The
elderly gentleman then smiled, and applied his thumb and forefinger to
the waxen point of his imperial.
In the intervening time Mr. Ryanne entered his room, threw the bundle on
the bed, sat down beside it, and read his letter. Shadows and lights
moved across his face; frowns that hardened it, smiles that mellowed
it. Women hold the trick of writing letters. Do they hate, their
thoughts flash and burn from line to line. Do they love, 'tis lettered
music. Do they conspire, the breadth of their imagination is without
horizon. At best, man can indite only a polite business letter, his
love-notes were adjudged long since a maudlin collection of loose
sentences. In this letter Mr. Ryanne found the three parts of life.
"She's a good general; but hang these brimstone efforts of hers. She
talks too much of heart. For my part, I prefer to regard it as a mere
physical function, a pump, a motor, a power that gives action to the
legs, either in coming or in going, more especially in going." He
laughed. "Well, hers is the inspiration and hers is the law. And to
think that she could plan all this on the spur of the moment, down to
the minutest detail! It's a science." He put the letter away, slid out
his legs and glared at the dusty tips of his shoes. "The United Romance
and Adventure Company, Ltd., of New York, London, and Paris. She has the
greatest gift of all, the sense of humor."
He rose and opened his kit-bag doubtfully. He rummaged about in the
depths and at last straightened up with a mild oath.
"Not a pair of cuffs in the whole outfit, not a shirt, not a collar. Oh,
well, when a man has to leave Bagdad the way I did, over the back fence,
so to speak, linen doesn't count."
He drew down his cuffs, detached and reversed them, he turned his
folding collar wrong-side out, and used the under side of the foot-rug
as a shoe-polisher. It was the ingenius procedure of a man who was used
to being out late of nights, who made all things answer all purposes.
This rapid and singularly careless toilet completed, he centered his
concern upon the more vital matter of finances. He was close to the
nadir: four sovereigns, a florin, and a collection of battered coppers
that would have tickled the pulse of an amateur numismatist.
"No vintage to-night, my boy; no long, fat Havana, either. A bottle of
stout and a few rags of plug-cut; that's the pace we'll travel this
evening. The United Romance and Adventure Company is not listed at
present. If it was, I'd sell a few shares on my own hook. The kind Lord
knows that I've stock enough and to spare." He laughed again, but
without the leaven of humor. "When the fool-killer snatches up the last
fool, let rogues look to themselves; and fools are getting scarcer every
day.
"Percival Algernon! O age of poets! I wonder, does he wear high collars
and spats, or has she plumbed him accurately? She is generally right.
But a man changes some in seven years. I'm an authority when it comes to
that. Look what's happened to me in seven years! First, Horace, we shall
dine, then we'll smoke our pipe in the billiard-room, then we'll softly
approach Percival Algernon and introduce him to Sinbad. This independent
excursion to Bagdad was a stroke on my part; it will work into the
general plan as smoothly as if it had been grooved for the part. Sinbad.
I might just as well have assumed that name: Horace Sinbad, sounds well
and looks well." He mused in silence, his hand gently rubbing his chin;
for he did possess the trick of talking aloud, in a low monotone, a
habit acquired during periods of loneliness, when the sound of his own
voice had succeeded in steadying his tottering mind.
What a woman, what a wife, she would have been to the right man! Odd
thing, a man can do almost anything but direct his affections; they
must be drawn. She was not for him; nay, not even on a desert isle.
Doubtless he was a fool. In time she would have made him a rich man.
Alack! It was always the one we pursued that we loved and never the one
that pursued us.
"I'm afraid of her; and there you are. There isn't a man living who has
gone back of that Mona Lisa smile of hers. If she was the last woman and
I was the last man, I don't say." He hunted for a cigarette, but failed
to find one. "Almost at the bottom, boy; the winter of our discontent,
and no sun of York to make it glorious. Twenty-four hundred at cards,
and to lose it like a tyro! Wallace has taught me all he knows, but I'm
a booby. Twenty-four hundred, firm's money. It's a failing of mine, the
firm's money. But, damn it all, I can't cheat a man at cards; I'd rather
cut his throat."
He found his pipe, and a careful search of the corners of his
coat-pockets revealed a meager pipeful of tobacco. He picked out the
little balls of wool, the ground-coffee, the cloves, and pushed the
charge home into the crusted bowl of his briar.
"To the devil with economy! A pint of burgundy and a perfecto if they
hale us to jail for it. I'm dead tired. I've seen three corners in hell
in the past two months. I'm going as far as four sovereigns will take
me.... Fortune Chedsoye." His blue eyes became less hard and his mouth
less defiant. "I repeat, the heart should be nothing but a pump.
Otherwise it gets in the way, becomes an obstruction, a bottomless pit.
Will-power, that's the ticket. I can face a lion without an extra beat,
I can face the various countenances of death without an additional
flutter; and yet, here's a girl who, when I see her or think of her,
sends the pulse soaring from seventy-seven up to eighty-four. Bad
business; besides, it's so infernally unfashionable. It's hard work for
a man to keep his balance 'twixt the devil and the deep, blue sea;
Gioconda on one side and Fortune on the other. Gioconda throws open
windows and doors at my approach; but Fortune locks and bars hers, nor
knocks at mine. That's the way it always goes.
"If a man could only go back ten years and take a new start. Ass!"
balling his fist at the reflection in the mirror. "Snivel and whine over
the bed of your own making. You had your opportunity, but you listened
to the popping of champagne-corks, the mutter of cards, the inane drivel
of chorus-ladies. You had a decent college record, too. Bah! What a
guileless fool you were! You ran on, didn't you, till you found your
neck in the loop at the end of the rope? And perhaps that soft-footed,
estimable brother of yours didn't yank it taut as a hangman's? You heard
the codicil; into one ear and out the other. Even then you had your
chance; patience for two short years, and a million. No, a thousand
times no. You knew what you were about, empty-headed fool! And to-day,
two pennies for a dead man's eyes."
He dropped his fist dejectedly. Where had the first step begun? And
where would be the last? In some drab corner, possibly; drink, morphine,
or starvation; he'd never have the courage to finish it with a bullet.
He was terribly bitter. Everything worth while seemed to have slipped
through his fingers, his pleasure-loving fingers.
"Come, come, Horace; buck up. Still the ruby kindles in the vine. No
turning back now. We'll go on till we come bang! against the wall. There
may be some good bouts between here and there. I wonder what Gioconda
would say if she knew why I was so eager for this game?"
He went down to dinner, and they gave him a table in an obscure corner,
as a subtle reminder that his style was _passé_. He didn't care; he was
hungry and thirsty. He could see nearly every one, even if only a few
could see him. This was somewhat to his vantage. He endeavored to pick
out Percival Algernon; but there were too many high collars, too many
monocles. So he contented himself with a mild philosophical observance
of the scene. The murmur of voices, rising as the wail of the violins
sank, sinking as the wail rose; the tinkle of glass and china, the
silver and linen, the pretty women in their rustling gowns, the delicate
perfumes, the flash of an arm, the glint of a polished shoulder: this
was the essence of life he coveted. He smiled at the thought and the
sure knowledge that he was not the only wolf in the fold. Ay, and who
among these dainty Red Riding Hoods might be fooled by a vulpine
grandmother? Truth, when a fellow winnowed it all down to a handful,
there were only fools and rogues. If one was a fool, the rogue got you,
and he in turn devoured himself.
He held his glass toward the table-lamp, moved it slowly to and fro
under his nose, epicureanly; then he sipped the wine. Something like! It
ran across his tongue and down his throat in tingling fire, nectarious;
and he went half way to Olympus, to the feet of the gods. For weeks he
had lived in the vilest haunts, in desperate straits, his life in his
open hands; and now once more he had crawled from the depths to the
outer crust of the world. It did not matter that he was destined to go
down into the depths again; so long as the spark burned he was going to
crawl back each time. Damnable luck! He could have lived like a prince.
Twenty-four hundred, and all in two nights, a steady stream of gold into
the pockets of men whom he could have cheated with consummate ease, and
didn't. A fine wolf, whose predatory instincts were still riveted to
that obsolete thing called conscience!
"Conscience? Rot! Let us for once be frank and write it down as caution,
as fear of publicity, anything but the white guardian-angel of the
immortality of the soul. Heap up the gold, Apollyon; heap it up, higher
and higher, till not a squeak of that still small voice that once awoke
the chap in the Old Testament can ever again be heard. Now; no more
retrospection, Horace; no more analysis; the vital question simmers down
to this: If Percival Algernon balks, how far will four sovereigns go?"