before, "a man in my business has to be careful. Now, there are rubies
and rubies. I only handle the Oriental stones, which are a variety of
the hyaline corindus. They are found in Ceylon, in Thibet, and in Burmah
among the crumblings of primordial rock. But I have seen beauties that
were picked from waste lands in China from which the granite had
presumably disappeared. They are the most brilliant and largest of all.
There is another kind, which looks like a burned topaz: it is found in
Brazil and Massachusetts. Then there is the Bohemian ruby, which is
nothing but quartz reddened by the action of manganese; and there are
also imitations so well made that only an expert can tell them from the
real. I keep a few of the latter on hand so as to be able to gauge a
customer. Well, gentlemen, the Russian picked up two of them, which I
placed before him, and put them to one side. He knew the false article
at a glance. Your friend, Jones, that simpleton Nicholas Manhattan,
would have taken one of the imitation if I had not prevented him, but
this fellow was so clever about it that he won my immediate respect."
"Jones, indeed!" Alphabet muttered. "Why, the brute is as familiar as a
haberdasher's advertisement!" He looked at him again: his face was like
a brandied peach that had fallen into the fire, and his head was set on
his shoulders like an obus on a cannon. "Bah!" he continued, "what is
the use in being irritated at a beggar who is as ugly as a high hat at
the seashore?"--"When you do me the honor to address me, sir," he said,
aloud, "I shall be obliged if you will call me _Mr._ Jones."
"Tut, tut!" the little man answered, and then, without further attention
to Alphabet, he continued his tiresome tale:
"When the Russian had examined the rubies very carefully a second time,
he said, half to me and half to himself, 'I think they will do.' Then,
looking up at me, he added, 'Mr. Fairbanks, you do not make a
hundred-thousand-dollar sale every day, do you?' 'No, your Excellency,'
I answered,--you see, I made a dash at Excellency; Prince seemed sort of
abrupt, don't you think?'--'No, your Excellency, it does not happen
over once a week.' He smiled at that, and well he might, for the biggest
sale I had previously made amounted to but nine thousand dollars. 'Mr.
Fairbanks,' he continued, 'the grand duke is rich, as you well know. I
am not. You will understand me the better when I tell you that at
present, unless cholera has visited Russia since I left (and I hope it
has), there are exactly twenty-nine people in Petersburg who bear the
same name and title as myself. Now, if the grand duke purchases these
rubies, what will my commission be?' 'That is squarely put, your
Excellency,' I answered--'squarely put. Will his Imperial Highness pay
cash for the rubies?'"
"You might have asked him if his Imperial Highness would pay _rubis sur
l'ongle_. But I remember you don't approve of wit."
This interjection came, of course, from Jones. Mr. Fairbanks, however,
let it pass unnoticed. It may be that he did not understand.
"'Necessarily,' he replied. 'A recent ukase of the Czar's inhibits any
member of the Imperial family from purchasing so much as a brass samovar
on credit.' I bowed. 'A very proper and wise ukase that is, your
Excellency. Under such circumstances I think I see my way to giving you
one per cent.' He laughed at that, as though I had made a remark of
great brilliance."
"I like that," Jones exclaimed, in spite of himself. "Why, you wouldn't
be brilliant in a calcium light."
But this remark, like the former, passed unheeded. For the first time
since his memory ran not to the contrary it seemed to Jones that he was
being ignored; and to ignore Jones! _Allons donc!_
"'Look at me,' said the Russian," Mr. Fairbanks continued. "'The grand
duke will not buy these rubies except on my recommendation, and I value
that recommendation at not a kopeck less than ten thousand dollars. It
is to take or to leave. Choose, sir, choose.' And with that he picked up
his hat. 'I cannot, your Excellency, I cannot.' He turned away and made
for the door. 'Excellency,' I cried, 'I will give you five.' He wheeled
about. 'If,' he said, 'you offer one per cent when you can give five and
three-fifths, you are just as well able to give nine and two-thirds."
"He was a lightning calculator, wasn't he?"
"'On my conscience,' I answered, 'I cannot give more than seven.' 'Ah!'
he replied, 'I do not know how to haggle.' He reflected a moment. 'It is
well,' he said; 'I accept.' Gentlemen, when he said that, I felt that I
had done a good day's work. Apart from the commission I had a clean
profit of eighteen thousand dollars; and eighteen thousand dollars is a
tidy sum--not to you, gentlemen, nor to Jones there, but to me."
"Ged, the little cad is getting sarcastic." And Jones laughed quietly to
himself and finished his brandy-and-soda.
Mr. Fairbanks waved his arms and pounded the table so excitedly that he
roused a waiter from a nap.
"Yes, bring the same," he cried. "Now, gentlemen, I am coming to the
point. I insist on your attention. _Mr._ Jones, I will thank _you_ not
to interrupt--unless it happens that you care to aid me with the
details. Yes, sir, I said details,--d-e-t-a-i-l-s. Now wait a minute,
will you? Gentlemen, I appeal to you. He shall wait. Beat it into his
head--can't you?--that I am coming to the point, and very interesting, I
promise, you will all find it to be."
"_Tu te vantes, mon bonhomme, tu te vantes._ Here's to you."
"Here's to you. Well, gentlemen, it was then one o'clock. I always lunch
at that hour, and I asked the Russian if he would let me offer him a
bite. 'I would very much like to try a Sam Ward,' he said, 'and I might
take some tea and a bit of toast.' 'That,' I replied, 'would be tasty
with a little caviare.' I wanted to show him that, though a dealer in
precious stones, I was first and foremost a man of the world."
Alphabet Jones rolled over in spasms of delight. "Divinities of Pindar,"
he shouted, "listen to that!"
"Gentlemen, gag that man--gag him: I will be listened to. There, now,
_will_ you be quiet? You make me lose the thread. Where was I? Oh, yes:
the Russian seemed to reflect a moment, and looked at his watch. 'I
think,' he said, 'it would be better to go straight to the Brevoort
House.' (The grand duke, I knew, was stopping there.) 'My prince is to
go out this afternoon between two and three, and if you do not see him
to-day it may be hard to manage it to-morrow.' 'I am at your orders,
Excellency,' I answered; 'business before pleasure.' 'Good, then,' he
returned; 'we will take a droschky, or, better even, your railway that
is in the air.' 'The elevated, you mean,' I said--'the elevated. Yes, of
course.' Inwardly I was well pleased that the suggestion should have
come from him, for I am not over-fond of riding in a cab with a hundred
and ten thousand dollars' worth of rubies in my pocket and a stranger
for sole companion. For he was a stranger--wasn't he?--and, by his own
account, not well-to-do. But that Russian had a knack of disarming
suspicion. And, besides, how was it possible for me to have any doubts
about a man who fought as he had over the percentage? It would have been
nonsensical. So I did the rubies up in cotton, put them in a box, and
off we went. On the way to the elevated you ought to have seen how the
people stared at that coat. All the time he kept up a delightful flow of
conversation. He told me any number of interesting things about his
country, and when I asked if he had read 'The Journey Due North' he told
me that he had, and that when Sala was in Russia his father had
entertained him at his country-house a few versts from Moscow. Think of
that, now! Altogether, he made himself most agreeable. I asked him on
the way if he thought that inasmuch as I was to have the honor of seeing
the grand duke it would not be more in accordance with etiquette for me
to put on a dress-coat. But he laughed, and said, no, the grand duke
would never notice. Then he told me some very curious anecdotes about
him--how, for instance, he fainted dead away at the sight of an apple,
and yet kept a balloon and an aeronaut, just as Jones there might keep a
dogcart and a groom. He told me, among other things, that at Petersburg
the grand duke had a pet tiger, which would accept food from no one but
him, and on my asking how the tiger got along when the grand duke was
away, he said that the grand duke had him stuffed. Oh, he was very
entertaining, and spoke English better than you would have imagined. We
walked over from Eighth Street to the hotel, and when we reached it he
took me straight upstairs to his own room. 'If you will sit a minute,'
he said, 'I will see if his Highness can receive you.' He went away, and
I looked about me. The room into which I had been shown was a
sitting-room with a bedroom opening from it. There was a writing-table
standing against the door which led to the adjoining apartment, and
while I was waiting I just glanced at the things with which the table
was littered. There were a number of foreign newspapers, but in what
language they were printed I could not make out; there was a package of
official-looking documents tied with a string, a great blue envelope
addressed in French to the Prince Michel Zaroguine and post-marked
Washington, and back of all, in a frame, the photograph of a man."
For some minutes previous Mr. Fairbanks had been speaking quite
composedly, though Jones, with the observant eye of his class, had
noticed that near the ears his cheeks and his forehead as well were wet
with perspiration. But now abruptly he grew unaccountably excited, and
his speech displayed a feverish animation. His face had lost its
scarlet; it had grown very white; and it seemed to the novelist that in
some manner which he could not explain to himself it had taken on a not
unfamiliar aspect. "H'm!" he reflected, "it's odd. I know I never saw
the man before, and I am sure that I do not particularly care ever to
see him again. Leigh ought to have more sense than to bring an
orang-outang even into such a club as the Smallpox. Besides, what does
he mean by boring every one to death? By gad, I believe he has put Leigh
to sleep. It's worse than a play." But still he made no effort to move.
In spite of himself, he felt vaguely fascinated, and, though he declined
to admit it, a trifle ill at ease.
"I took up the photograph," Mr. Fairbanks continued, "and while I was
examining it, the Russian came back. In his hand he held a check-book.
'That's the grand duke himself,' he said. 'He will stop in here
presently on his way out. There will be two or three members of the
suite with him; and, that you may recognize his Highness at once, take a
good look at the picture. When he comes in you must do this way: button
your coat, please; thanks: now stand anywhere you like and make a low
bow. Let me see you make one. Bravo! that is splendid. Only--how shall I
say?--do not let your arms hang in that fashion. The grand duke might
think you had dropped something and were stooping to pick it up.
However, that is a minor matter. It may be that he won't see you at all.
But of all things remember this: under no circumstances must you speak
to him unless he first addresses you, and then you must merely answer
his question. In other words, do not, I pray you, try to engage him in
conversation.' 'Does he speak English?' I asked. I couldn't help it. I
was getting nervous. 'Now let us have the rubies,' he said. I took the
box out of my breast-pocket and handed it to him. He opened it, drew the
cotton aside, and ran his fingers lovingly over the gems. 'Yes,' he
said, 'they will do.' Then he closed the box again, and put it in the
drawer of the table at which he had taken a seat. 'If,' he continued,
'his Highness is satisfied, I will draw a draft for you, and Count
Beziatnikoff will sign it. The count,' he went on to say, 'is the keeper
of the Privy Purse. The draft itself is on the London Rothschilds, but
they will cash it at Belmont's.' I did not quite like that arrangement:
it did not seem entirely business-like. 'Your Excellency,' I said, 'it
is the custom here to have checks for large amounts certified before
they are offered in payment.' But I had to explain what certification
meant before he understood me. 'That is nothing,' he said, 'that is
nothing. If his Highness is pleased, we will go to Belmont's together,
or, if you prefer, we will sit here over a Sam Ward and let one of the
hotel-clerks go to the bank in our stead.' There seemed to me nothing
objectionable in that suggestion; for, after all, I could not exact of
any one, however grand-ducal he might be, to go about with a hundred and
ten thousand dollars in his waistcoat."
"Or in his trousers either."
"Or in his trousers either, as you very properly put it. Now, _Mr._
Jones--Mr. Leigh, look at me; Colonel Barker--colonel--I am coming to
the point. Where's that waiter? Gentlemen, see here; watch that man
there--watch Jones. Don't take your eyes off _Mr._ Jones, but listen,
all of you, to what I say. Mr. Leigh, you are looking at me: look at
your friend, colonel, I insist. _Mr._ Jones, _you_, if you care to, can
look at me. Now, gentlemen, now--"
"Have you got a camera concealed about your person?"
"No, I have not, but I have something that came from one. You wait a
minute, and I'll show it to you. I'll show it to you all. Where did I
leave off?"
"In his waistcoat-pocket."
"Thank you: so I did. Well, gentlemen, we sat there talking as
pleasantly as you please. The Russian joked a bit, and said that he
wanted a certified check from me,--the check for his commission, you
remember,--and presently he got up and said he would see what was
delaying his Highness. So I sat awhile, twirling my thumbs. Five minutes
passed, ten minutes passed. I looked at my watch: it was almost
half-past two. That draft, I told myself, won't be cashed to-day. I went
to the window and looked out. I went to the door: there was no one in
the hall but a chambermaid. I went back to my seat, and then, moved by
my own uneasiness, I opened the drawer of the table. The box was gone! I
took the drawer out. It was one that extended the entire width of the
table: the further end of it had been cut off. I looked down and in
through the place from which I had taken it. I could see into the next
room! I pulled the table to one side, and there, just where the drawer
had touched the door against which it had stood, was an oblong opening
cut through the woodwork of the door itself. I was down-stairs in an
instant. Gentlemen, the grand duke had gone to Philadelphia that very
morning. No such person as Prince Zaroguine lodged in the hotel. The
clerk came upstairs with me. 'That room,' he said, 'is occupied by a
Frenchman, and the adjoining room belongs to a man who registered from
Boston. Why, that's his picture there!' he exclaimed, pointing to the
picture of the grand duke. 'I did not even know that they were
acquainted. But they will be back; they have left their things; they
haven't even paid their bills.' I did not wait for their return: if I
had I might be waiting still. But I took the photograph, and down to
Inspector Byrnes I posted. 'That,' said he, 'that is the picture of one
of the 'cutest rogues in the land. He has as many names as the Czar of
Russia himself.' And the original of that picture--Gentlemen,
here,--Mr. Leigh, here,--colonel, here is the picture itself. I have
kept it with me ever since. The original of that picture sits before
you. Hold on to him, colonel. Jones, if you move I'll put a bullet
through you. Mr. Leigh, do you ring for the police. Hold him, colonel.
Disgorge, you scoundrel, disgorge! I have got you at last!" And then,
before the astonished gaze of Alphabet Jones, Colonel Barker faded in a
mist, Mr. Fairbanks lost his rotundity, his black coat changed to a blue
swallow-tail with brass buttons, he grew twenty years younger, and, so
far from being violent, he seemed rather apologetic than otherwise.
"It's six o'clock, sir," he said. "Will you order anything before the
bar closes?"
Alphabet blinked his eyes. He was lying in a cramped position on the
sofa. He was uncomfortable and very hot. He pulled himself together and
looked around. Save for the waiter and himself, the room was deserted.
"Is there any baccarat going on upstairs?" he asked.
"No, sir; the gentlemen are just going away."
"Well, well," he mused, "that was vivid. H'm! I'll work it up as an
actual occurrence and send it on to the _Interstate_: it will be good
for the two hundred and fifty which I meant to make at baccarat.--I say,
waiter, get me a Remsen cooler, please."
A MAID OF MODERN ATHENS.
"It was this way," she said, and as she spoke she stooped and flicked a
speck of dust from her habit. "It was this way: The existence which I
lead in the minds of other people is absolutely of no importance
whatever. Now wait: I care a great deal whether school keeps or not, but
in caring I try chiefly to be true to myself. I may stumble; I may not.
In any event I seek the best. As for the scandal of which you speak,
that is nonsense. There is no criterion. That which is permissible here
is inhibited yonder, and what is permissible yonder is inhibited here.
Scandal, indeed!"
There was something about her that stirred the pulse. She was fair; the
sort of girl whose photograph is an abomination, and yet in whose face
and being a charm resides, a charm intangible and coercive, inciting to
better things. A Joan of Arc in a tailor-made gown.
"You remember how it was when we were younger--You--well, there is no
use in going into that. You had a mother to think for you; I had no one.
I had to solve problems unassisted. The weightiest of all was marriage,
and that, in my quality of heiress, I found perplexing to a degree. But
how is it possible, I asked myself, how can a girl pledge her life to a
man of whom she knows absolutely nothing? For, practically speaking,
what does the average girl know of the man whose name she takes? It may
be different in the country, but in town! Listen to me; a girl 'comes
out,' as the saying is; she meets a number of men, the majority of whom
are more or less agreeable and well-bred--when she is present. But what
are they when she is not? At dinners and routs, or when she receives
them in her own house, they are at their best; if they are not they stay
away. It is not so difficult to be agreeable once in awhile, but to be
so always is a question not of mask but of nature. It seems to me that
when an intelligent woman admires her brother it is because that brother
is really an admirable man. Has she not every opportunity of judging?
But what opportunity is given to the girl whom a man happens to take in
and out at dinner, or whom she sees for an hour or two now and then? You
must admit that her facilities are slight. That was the way it was with
me, and that was the way I fancied it would continue to be, and I
determined that it was better to remain spinster forever than to take a
man on trust and find that trust misplaced. Suspicious? No, I am not
suspicious. When your husband bought this property did you think him
suspicious because he had the title searched? Very good; then perhaps
you will tell me that the marriage contract is less important than the
conveyance of real estate? Besides, my doubts on the subject of love
would have defied a catalogue. When I read of the follies and transports
of which it was reported to be the prime factor, I was puzzled. It
seemed to me that I had either a fibre more or a fibre less than other
girls, I could not comprehend. No man I had ever met--and certainly I
had met many--had ever caused me so much as a fleeting emotion. There
were men with whom I found speech agreeable and argument a pleasure,
but, had they worn frocks instead of trousers, such enjoyment as I
experienced would have been unimpaired. You see, it was purely mental.
And when--there, I remember one man in particular. As Stella said of
Swift, he could talk beautifully about a broomstick. He knew the reason
of things; he was up in cuneiform inscriptions and at home with
meteorites; he was not prosy, and, what is more to the point, he never
treated a subject as though it were a matter of life and death. He was
not bad-looking, either, and he was the only man of my acquaintance who
both understood Kant and got his coats from Poole. That man I liked very
much. He was better than a book. I could ask him questions, a thing you
can't do even of an encyclopaedia. One fine day the personal pronoun
cropped out. We had been discussing Herbert Spencer's theory of
conceivability, and abruptly, with an inappositeness which, now I think
of it, would have been admirable on the stage, but which in the
drawing-room was certainly misplaced, he asked me to take a walk with
him down the aisle of the swellest church in the commonwealth. I mourned
his loss, as we say. But wasn't it stupid of him? But what does get into
men? Why should they think that, because a girl is liberal with odd
evenings, she is pining for the marriage covenant?"
With the whip she held she gave the hem of her habit a sudden lash.
"That episode gave me food for thought. H'm. By-and-by the scene was
occupied by a young man who was an authority on orchids, and wrote
sonnets for the _Interstate_. My dear, a more guileful little wretch
never breathed. When my previous young man disappeared, I felt that I
had been hasty. I desired nothing so much as an increase in my store of
knowledge, and I determined that if another opportunity occurred I would
not be in such a hurry to shut the door on entertaining developments.
Consequently, when my poet turned up, I was as demure as you please. He
was a fox, that man. He began with the fixed purpose of irritating me
into liking him. The tactics he displayed were unique. He never came
when I expected him, and when he did come he was careful to go just when
he thought he had scored a point. If any other man happened in, he first
eclipsed him and then left him to me. I saw through that game at once.
He understood perfectly that if I preferred the other man I was all the
more obliged to him for going, and if I preferred him to the other man I
was the sorrier to see him leave. In addition to this, whatever subject
I broached, he led it by tangential flights to Love. That Machiavelli
_en herbe_ knew that to talk love is to make love. And talk of love he
did, no, but in the most impersonal manner. To hear him discant you
would have thought his wings were sprouting. Love, as he expressed it,
was a sentiment which ennobled every other; a purifying and exalting
light. It was the most gracious of despots. It banished the material; it
beckoned to the ideal. It turned satiety into a vagabond that had not
where to lay its head. It was the reduction of the world, creation, and
all the universe to a single being. It was an enchanted upland,
inhibited to the herd. It was a chimera to the vulgar, a crown to the
refined. 'A perfect lover,' he said, 'must needs be an aristocrat.' And
if you will believe me, I actually thought he meant what he said. In
spite of myself, I was becoming interested. There were new horizons
before me. I seemed to discern something hitherto unseen. My dear, for
the moment I felt myself going. I was at the foot of his enchanted
upland. I was almost willing to take him for guide. At first I had been
merely amused. Once, even, when he quoted the 'Two souls with but a
single thought,' I suggested that that must mean but half a thought
apiece. The quiet dignity which he then displayed almost fetched me. He
had the air of a prelate in whose presence an oaf has trampled on a
crucifix. He kept up that sort of thing for two months. To me his
sincerity was beyond peradventure. Not once did he speak in a personal
way. I was beginning to wonder when he would stop beating about the
bush, and I not only wondered, I believe I even wished that he would be
a little more enterprising and a trifle less immaterial. Presently I
detected a symptom or two which told me that the end of the beginning
was in sight. I suppose my manner was more encouraging. In any event,
one evening he took my hand and kissed it. From nine-and-ninety men out
of a hundred I should have thought nothing of such a thing. In Europe it
is an empty homage, a pantomime expressive of thanks. As I say, then, in
any other man I should not have given it a second thought, but he had
never done it before.