for they caught sight of him a moment later, bowed to him in great
surprise, and began to make him finger-signs.
He bowed in return, but he regarded them darkly and made no return
signs.
Agatha reflected that there were more d-- and d-- people in the world
than she had ever imagined. Presently she noticed that Mr. McVicar was
not eating. “Don’t you like the goulash?” she wrote.
“I have a headache,” he answered.
“You must go home, then.”
“But the Amalgamated Shirt-Makers?”
At this juncture the seven young men opposite got up and filed slowly
out, each working a right hand in what seemed to be a friendly adieu.
When Mr. McVicar rose his lips were pressed together as if he were
striving to master himself. He refrained from looking at Agatha and
fiddled with his hat.
She saw how ill he was. Her expression grew troubled and wistful. “A
hansom,” she said to the head waiter. But she did not send Mr. McVicar
home. She let him drive to her aunt’s with her.
On the way, for some reason or other, Mr. McVicar grew much brighter.
“Where do we go to-morrow?” he asked.
Agatha stole a glance toward him. “To-morrow,” she said, “I--shall--
devote--to--automorphic--deductions--and--to--the--correlation--of--
all--the--new--concrete--examples--I--have--noted.”
“Then you’ll need me,” he declared.
“Will--you--be--well--enough?” asked Agatha.
“Why, I’m well now.”
“Come--then--in--case--I’ve--forgotten--any--of--the--examples.”
The following morning they did not go down the avenue, but turned into
Central Park at the Sherman statue instead, and out of it again at the
West Seventy-second Street entrance. Then they headed toward the Hudson.
It was a day even more perfect than the last. The wide topaz river
sparkled in the sun. The shaded walks wound invitingly between
leaf-strewn stretches of green. There were children at play along the
smooth crescents of the drive, and sparrows darted to and fro, chirping.
Thus far Agatha had walked, head down and brows puckered--evidently
concerned with “automorphic deductions.” (They had gone, in all, some
twenty blocks, which was a sufficient distance for any number of
deductions.) But now she roused from her thoughts and looked up at Mr.
McVicar. His chin was on his breast, his eyes were lowered, and his
manner was undisguisedly dejected.
She touched his arm. Then she stopped and stood on tiptoe.
“Aren’t--you--well--to-day--either?” she inquired, her red mouth very
close, so that he would be sure to understand.
He looked down at her for a long moment. Then he wrote, “I never felt
better or happier in all my life.” When he took the pad again his hand
covered hers for a second. Of a sudden her manner became distinctly
reserved.
Presently they reached a shaded bench. He dusted a seat for her, and
they sat down, when he wrote: “But I know my happiness can’t last. I
meant to tell you last night. You see, I have an uncle--a lawyer--who
thinks I’m wasting my time. I must quit.”
Agatha coloured painfully. Mr. Avery had driven a close bargain with
him! She hastened to write in return, “You shall get what your uncle
thinks is fair.”
“There’s another reason, little woman. You saw my friends yesterday.
They’re inquisitive. I’m afraid they’ll annoy you. So this is my last
day.” He gazed across at the New Jersey shore.
She moved nearer, touching his arm ever so lightly. “Is--that--the--
real--reason?” she asked.
He watched her red mouth frame each word, and his face lowered, as
if irresistibly drawn toward hers. Then his head sank to a hand. He
studied the path. Soon, “No,” he wrote, “it isn’t. The real reason
involves a great happiness that I daren’t hope for.”
Agatha leaned even closer. “There--is--a--possibility--of--your--
speech--returning?” she guessed. She held her breath at the very thought
of it.
He nodded. “Yes, it’s very likely that my speech will come back.”
Agatha turned away, and glad tears swam beneath the black lashes.
He would speak again! He would be like other people! Oh, how
good! Presently, she blinked the tears away. “You--haven’t
always--been--this--way?” she said.
“Not always.”
“When--did--it--happen?”
“Quite recently.”
Her face was sweet with pity. “Were--you--struck--dumb?” she asked.
He observed her steadily for a moment. “I was terribly hard hit,” he
wrote.
“It--affected--your--hearing--too?”
“It even affected my heart.”
“Will--these--both--improve?”
“It depends on just one person.”
She gave him a smile full of cheer. “Doctors--do--wonderful--things--
these--days. Is--this--one--homeopathic?”
“No, magnetic--awfully.” His grey eyes searched hers again. “Would you
advise me to hope?”
“Oh--yes! Just--hope--has--wrought marvels.” Her face shone with
earnestness.
“Bless you. But you don’t know that this is all the result of my own
wickedness.”
“You--have--been--more--than--punished--then.”
He clenched his two hands. “Yes, I have been punished,” he wrote. “If
you ever have to pass judgment upon me, remember that.”
“Was--it--so--dreadful--what--you--did?”
He thought a moment. “Not when you consider the temptation.”
“What--was--the--temptation?”
He hesitated so long that she believed he had not understood her. So
she wrote the question, “What was the temptation?”
“A girl.”
Agatha shrank back in sudden, inexplicable indignation. Then she rose
abruptly. She had meant to tell him that if he were to regain both
speech and hearing it would make no difference in their arrangements.
But now----
He rose, also, and dropped the pad into a pocket. Then he handed her
the parasol. His attitude was one of resignation.
Walking homeward, Agatha looked straight ahead, and two bright, red
spots burned in a circle about her dimples. At the bottom of the
Connaughton flight, she gave him a dignified good-morning. He held out
a card to her. Then he raised his hat.
All that afternoon Agatha wandered about the library. She felt a
surprising indifference toward her thesis. Every little while she drew
forth Mr. McVicar’s card. It contained, in addition to his name, a line
written in pencil, “Telephone, River 0630.” Why had he written that?
_She_ had no further need of him!
But as tea-time neared she remembered a place that she felt absolutely
called upon to visit in connection with her work: a narrow down-town
street, with its hosts of children all a-dance on the gas-lighted
pavement. Could she visit the crowded block alone? And was Mr.
McVicar’s time up for that day before, say, ten or eleven o’clock?
Certainly not. And if she paid for his time was she not entitled to his
company She asked central for River o-six-three-o.
A maid’s voice answered the telephone. “Tell Mr. McVicar,” said Agatha,
“that Miss Kerr will want him this evening at eight.”
“Very well, miss.”
Agatha, smiling and rosy faced, made her way tunefully up the staircase.
“What! Going out at night?” demanded Miss Connaughton, from the
drawing-room.
“Of course,” said Agatha; “what have I an escort for? Oh, tra-la-la,
tra-la-la,” and, singing, she disappeared.
* * * * *
Agatha had promised to telephone Miss Connaughton, so she rang up
directly they stepped from the cars at the down-town station. “I can’t
possibly get home till eleven, Auntie dear,” she announced. “It took us
forty minutes to come just this far.”
“Oh, Agatha!” came back the reply. “Come home--awful news--Mr.
Avery----”
“I can’t hear you,” cried Agatha. “The elevated is making such a noise.
Rattle your ’phone.”
“Insolent trick,” went on Miss Connaughton. The remainder was a jumble.
Agatha told Mr. McVicar about it. “I--can’t--go--home,” she said.
“This--evening--is--dreadfully--important. Don’t--you--think--so?”
“YES,” he wrote--all in capitals. Offering her his arm, he hurried her
away.
It was not an ideal evening for Jones Street. There were clouds
overhead in massive motion before a hot wind. The gas-jets leaped and
hissed down the narrow streets, which looked particularly dark and
forbidding. Perhaps the children would not dance on the pavement that
night. Agatha did not care.
Mr. McVicar obviously did not feel as cheerful as she. It was as if
all the heart had gone out of him. And he kept looking back. It made
Agatha nervous. She took to glancing behind also. What was he expecting?
They approached the lone figure of a man--a forlorn figure that
slouched into the entrance of a building just ahead. Mr. McVicar
crossed the street. They passed other figures. He looked each over
keenly. She shivered a little. Oh, she was glad he was so big!
They hurried forward. Each thoroughfare seemed to grow narrower and
gloomier than the last. They turned innumerable corners, Agatha
clinging to his arm with increasing timidity. All at once, on turning
another corner into a street that looked very much like one they had
already traversed, they came face to face with two swarthy-skinned
persons, a man and a woman. The pair were evidently gipsies, for the
woman wore a red handkerchief upon her head, while big, gold earrings
swung against the neck of the man. The latter carried a monkey. He did
not get out of the way. Instead, leering, he held out a hand.
“Give me da mon for da monk!” he cried.
“Hurry!” Agatha entreated. Oh, for Auntie’s brougham now!
Instead of hastening, Mr. McVicar faced the man and gave him a
resounding cuff upon the ear. Agatha, the sociologist, became that
moment just a normal, terror-stricken girl. She screamed. With her cry
mingled the raucous protests of the man and the hoarse commands of the
woman, for Mr. McVicar now had the former by the shoulders and was
shaking him fiercely.
The hubbub brought aid. Around the nearest corner came a well-dressed
young man, piloting a policeman on the run. A moment, and around
another corner came another well-dressed young man with another
policeman.
Next, “Cut for it!” Agatha heard a voice exclaim--a deep voice. But,
strangely enough, the gipsies did not attempt to get away. They stood
and grinned at the little crowd that had gathered.
Mr. McVicar sprang to Agatha’s side. He was panting and--could it be
true?--gurgling what sounded like words!
Agatha smiled at him through the dim light. He had protected her. Her
hand crept into his. Then she gave a fresh cry of fear. His fingers
were wet--with blood.
“Oh, he’s wounded!” she called.
“Did he bite you?” demanded one of the policemen--the one who had the
man-gipsy by the coat. “Well, here--bite him back! The dog!”
“I did _not_ bite him,” protested the man-gipsy. “It was the monkey.”
“Where is that monkey?” shouted the woman-gipsy. “Say, you fellows,
hunt him up. If we lose him we’re out twenty plunks.”
Three or four of the onlookers scattered in different directions,
searching.
“Shut up, you she-devil!” ordered the second officer.
“How can we thank you?” said Agatha.
“No thanks, miss,” said officer number one. “Just come along, please,
for to testify.”
At that Mr. McVicar took one of the little fingers that were resting
between his and deliberately pinched it! Agatha understood. To go with
the officers meant a police station; a police station meant publicity,
sniffy servants, hysterical aunt.
Agatha was, at times, a girl of resources. She knew they must get away,
and she was quick to devise how. “I must help find that poor, little
monkey,” she said. “You go on. We’ll follow.”
But the officer shook his head. “If you was to miss the station,” said
he, “we’d have a poor case. Forget the monkey, miss.”
Agatha grew desperate. She resolved on flight, so she seized her skirts
in her two hands, turned like a flash, and with her escort fleeing
beside her, and almost carrying her along, she raced away.
The officers were in a predicament. They yelled, they whistled, they
beat on the pavement. Then one handed over his prisoner to the other
and gave chase. After them, in loose order, came the onlookers.
Up one street went Agatha and her escort, turned a corner, rushed down
another, turned another corner. Luck was against them. A third officer
met them squarely as they came. His arms were out, made longer by his
leather-bound stick. Gasping, they fell into them.
The next moment the pursuing officer had them in his grasp. “Thank you,
Sheehan,” said he. “Face about, you!” This to Mr. McVicar. They began
the return march, everyone panting. Counting the onlookers, they made
quite a procession.
The other officer met them half-way, a gipsy in either hand. “Say,
Flynn,” said he, “they’s something crooked about that young couple.”
“Crooked!” burst forth Agatha, with sudden rage. “I ran because I don’t
want to be dragged into a police station. Please let go of my sleeve.”
She could hear the onlookers whispering among themselves. Oh, it was
too mortifying!
She clung to the representative of the law, and began to sob. Her tears
had instant effect upon the little crowd. “Oh, let the young lady go,
officer,” said one voice. “Yes,” chorused others. “But pinch the tall
gentleman,” added the man-gipsy.
The inexorable officers moved forward. Presently they all trooped into
a police station, and the principals came short in an uneven line
before a battered desk.
A blowzy Celtic visage was lifted to regard them. Beneath that visage
was a wide, open book. It seemed the very Book of Judgment to poor
Agatha. She glanced at Mr. McVicar. He was watching her sorrowfully,
his face startlingly pale, his whole attitude woeful.
“Hello!” said he of the wide book. For Mr. McVicar, his look was
casual; for Agatha, it was more prolonged, yet not unkind--though the
buff-and-crocus confection was tipped rakishly to one side; for the
gipsy twain, however, it was condemnatory.
The gipsies smiled up at him. “Hello, Lieutenant!” returned they
audaciously.
At this there was some small commotion and a general giggling in the
rear of the room. Agatha peered swiftly round, and beheld five young
men who were ranged against the rear wall. They were well dressed.
They were grinning. They all wore coloured glasses.
Officer Flynn was talking. “I was comin’ along my beat,” said he,
whereat there began an astonishingly truthful account of the late
mêlée. It was interrupted by wild yowlings from a room evidently near
at hand.
“Ah!” said the man-gipsy; “the monkey!”
“Th’ dhrunks in Noomber 3,” explained the lieutenant.
Officer Flynn continued, “And we was ready to run the gipsies in when
the young gent up and skedaddled.”
“So did I,” protested Agatha, but the lieutenant scowled only at Mr.
McVicar. “I _made_ him,” added Agatha stoutly, after which she resolved
into tears again.
“Now, now,” comforted the lieutenant. “Till me, how come y’ t’ be down
in this ind of th’ town, anyhow?”
“I am concerned,” sobbed Agatha, “with the phenomena of social
evolution.”
“Ah!” said the lieutenant; “sittlements.”
“So--so,” she struggled on, “to-night I started for Jones Street----”
“_Jones_ Street!” said the lieutenant. Again his scowl was fixed upon
the escort. “Young man, phwat was y’ doin’ in _Greene_?”
All eyes were upon Mr. McVicar--the lieutenant’s with suspicion, the
gipsies’ with bold delight, the policemen’s curiously, Agatha’s in
appeal. Mr. McVicar was now all tints--even those uncertain, elusive
ones that are so much affected in _nouveau_ art. His lips moved
spasmodically, uttering inaudible words.
“SPEAK!” thundered the lieutenant impatiently.
“Yes, speak.” This from the grinning gipsies, _sotto voce_.
Agatha stepped forward. “Officer,” she said, “he’s deaf and dumb, but
he reads the lips.”
“And writes with his toes,” announced the man-gipsy.
Agatha cast him a withering glance. Then she lifted her face to the
escort. “Why--were--we--in Greene--Street?”
He was now startlingly scarlet. After a little indecision he took out
his pad and wrote, “I was trying to shake the gipsies.” He showed the
page to Agatha.
“Of course,” said she. Then, to the lieutenant, “He was trying to shake
the gipsies.”
“He succeeded,” cried the man-gipsy. “He shook loose my four-dollar
earrings and a twenty-dollar monkey.”
This statement was hailed with mirth from the rear. The maudlin
occupants of Number 3 joined in noisily. Even the policemen smiled.
The next moment one of the latter gave a shout of triumph.
“Lieutenant,” he announced excitedly, “this dago is wearin’ a wig!” He
pointed at the black mop of hair that hung down over the temples of the
man-gipsy.
The man-gipsy drew himself up haughtily. “I am _not_ a dago,” said he,
with dignity. Then, to the lieutenant, “Your eminence, he insults me.”
Agatha’s eyes were keen. “The other one, too,” she whispered.
Officer Flynn seized the wide, scarlet kerchief on the gipsy woman’s
head and gave it a jerk. It came away--with it a full and ropy coiffure.
“Stung!” cried the woman.
Now, shorn of its late protection, her head was masculine in
appearance, the short, brown hair showing itself to be well cut and
carefully kept. When Officer Flynn had plucked off the man-gipsy’s wig
there was disclosed another head no less modishly barbered.
The lieutenant was a man of long experience.
“College,” said he.
The woman-gipsy bowed. “You are inspired.”
From behind them came sounds of suffering--the five gentlemen in the
rear were bent to the floor. Seeing them, the gipsies fell to chortling
shrilly.
The lieutenant was turning the leaves of the book. “Inspired nothin’,”
said he. “Whin Oi see a youngster makin’ a jackass of himself----”
And it was then that something dawned upon Agatha: these were all
friends of Mr. McVicar’s, and this was what he had meant when he spoke
of their “annoying” her. But she was a college girl, and knew just how
much fun could be gotten out of a lark--even a silly, sophomoric lark.
She glanced over at Mr. McVicar and dimpled.
“An’, mebbe,” went on the lieutenant, almost agreeably, “this is a’
inittyaytion?”
“Something on that order,” said the woman-gipsy.
“It was all in the interest of science,” added the man-gipsy. “We
were endeavouring to make the dumb speak.” Here he began to make
finger-signs at Agatha’s escort.
Agatha, shocked by the cruelty of the jest, fairly whirled round
upon the offender. Her reproof, however, remained unspoken; for
there, between the gipsies and the door, advancing on quick foot,
was an open-faced, shrewd-eyed young man. This person halted at the
lieutenant’s elbow, and took the company in with swift comprehension.
At the same time he drew a pencil from a breast pocket and a yellow pad
from a sagging pocket lower down.
Agatha had only a second in which to wonder if he, too, were d-- and
d-- when, “Aloysius,” said he to the lieutenant, “what’s doing?” He
pointed at the wigs.
It was then that Agatha realised that she was in the presence of the
danger that she (and Auntie) so much feared. The shrewd-eyed young man
was a reporter! She turned helplessly to Mr. McVicar.
“But he sha’n’t have my picture,” she muttered.
Mr. McVicar looked down at her quickly--almost as if he had heard. Then
his grey eyes went back to the lieutenant and the newspaper man. His
hands were twitching.
The lieutenant glanced up. “Aw,” he said disgustedly, “it’s only a fool
thrick.” Then, to the waiting line, “Ye kin all go.”
At this the reporter became excited. “But it ought to make a story.
Have you got their names?” He sprang to the side of the woman-gipsy.
It was now that Mr. McVicar did an extraordinary thing. Without a
moment’s hesitation he stepped between the reporter and the woman-gipsy
and gave the latter a shove that sent her spinning backward. Then he
turned to the desk.
“It is a trick,” he declared, “a mean, contemptible trick, and I am
mostly to blame for it. But it has gone far enough.”
Agatha gave a cry of amazement. It was the deep voice she had heard
when the officers were approaching. And it was his! This was not
gurgling: this was speech! She sank upon a bench, her face hidden in
the crook of one trembling arm, and began to sob wildly.
“Lieutenant,” went on the deep voice, “I ask you to save this young
lady from notoriety.”
The lieutenant promptly leaned far over and addressed the woman-gipsy.
“Ye git,” said he harshly, “an’ yer gang wid ye. An’ if Oi hear of y’
givin’ anny names----”
The woman-gipsy held up a defensive hand. “Now that the dumb hath
spoken,” said she, “far be it from me to bring grief----”
“Hike!” interrupted the lieutenant.
The gipsies stole out, after them the five well-dressed young men. Next
the officers saluted the desk and passed Agatha with pitying glances.
Only the reporter remained.
“Say,” said the lieutenant to him, “Oi’ve give y’ manny a scoop, ain’t
Oi?”
“Yes,” said the reporter, “you have.”
“Wull, thin. An’ d’ye know yere missin’ th’ story of yer loife this
siccond?”
“For heaven’s sake! What is it?”
The lieutenant leaned toward him, dropping his voice dramatically.
“Hist!” he exclaimed. “They’s a man dead in Brooklyn!” He gave a
prodigious wink.
“Oh, I see. All right,” said the reporter. He waved a hand and went out.
Then Mr. McVicar began to speak again--to Agatha, and so quaveringly
that the lieutenant knew the tears were close there, too. The
lieutenant turned his back and fell to studying a map.
“I’ve been a coward and a cad,” said that quavering voice, “and you’ll
never forgive me. But, honestly, I did it all because I--I wanted to
be with you. So I pretended I was--was--uncle that morning that I
telephoned. Every day I thought the truth would come out. And lots of
times I came near skipping town. The fellows wouldn’t let me alone a
minute--from the time I had to tell one of ’em (_you_ remember) that I
was deaf and dumb. The fiends! Oh, _don’t_ cry so! I’d--I’d die if it’d
do any good.”
Agatha raised her tear-wet face. “I’m not c-r-crying because I’m
angry,” she sobbed, putting out her two hands to him. “I’m c-c-crying
because you’re not d-- and d--.”
His strong arms caught her up then and held her close, and for all the
silent, pent-up hours he had spent with her there now gushed forth a
thousand whispered words of rapturous endearment. And he kissed her
poor, trembling lips, her chin, her black-lashed eyelids--even the
fluff of her hair.
“Dearest,” he whispered, “I loved you the second I spied you from
behind that reference table.”
Agatha suddenly stopped her sobbing. Then she leaned away from him--and
looked down. The plaid she saw above his half-shoes was red and brown
at right angles upon a French-knotted ground of blue. It was not
exactly the plaid that had been displayed that other day, but it was a
full cousin to it.
The sun broke through the clouds then, for as she looked up once more
a smile lit all that scarlet rounding of her cheeks where her dimples
were. “Then, d-dear,” she began, both gloved hands creeping up to rest
on his shoulders, “wh-what is your tr-truly name?”
A YELLOW MAN AND A WHITE
Fong Wu sat on the porch of his little square-fronted house, chanting
into the twilight. Across his padded blouse of purple lay his _sam-yen_
banjo. And as, from time to time, his hymn to the Three Pure Ones
was prolonged in high, fine quavers, like the uneven, squeaky notes
of a woman’s voice, he ran his left hand up the slender neck of the
instrument, rested a long nail of his right on its taut, snake’s-skin
head, and lightly touched the strings; then, in quick, thin tones, they
followed the song to Sang-Ching.
The warm shadows of a California summer night were settling down over
the wooded hills and rocky gulches about Fong Wu’s, and there was
little but his music to break the silence. Long since, the chickens had
sleepily sought perches in the hen yard, with its high wall of rooty
stumps and shakes, and on the branches of the Digger pine that towered
beside it. Up the dry creek bed, a mile away, twinkled the lights of
Whiskeytown; but no sounds from the homes of the white people came down
to the lonely Chinese. If his clear treble was interrupted, it was by
the cracking of a dry branch as a cotton-tail sped past on its way
to a stagnant pool, or it was by a dark-emboldened coyote, howling,
dog-like, at the moon which, white as the snow that eternally coifs
the Sierras, was just rising above their distant cobalt line.