He walked buoyantly home. He had a room at the top of a house in an
uptown cross-street. Having locked his door and lighted a gas-jet he
stood a long time before his mirror. It was a friendly young face he saw
there, but troubled. The hair was pale, the eyes were pale, the nose
small. The mouth was rather fine, cleanly cut and a little feminine. The
chin was not a fighter's chin, yet neither chin nor mouth revealed any
weakness. He scanned the features eagerly, striving to relate them with
vaguely remembered portraits of Napoleon. He was about the same height
as the Little Corporal, he seemed to recall, but an eagle boldness was
lacking. Did he possess it latently? Could he develop it? He must have
books about this possible former self of his. He had early become
impatient of written history because when it says sixteen hundred and
something it means the seventeenth century. If historians had but agreed
to call sixteen hundred and something the sixteenth century, he would
have read more of them. It was annoying to have to stop to figure.
Before retiring he went through certain exercises with an unusual
vehemence. He was taking a course in jiu-jitsu from a correspondence
school. Aforetime he had dreamed of a street encounter, with some
blustering bully twice his size, from which, thanks to his skill, he
would emerge unscarred, unruffled, perhaps flecking a bit of dust from
one slight but muscular shoulder while his antagonist lay screaming with
pain.
With the approach of sleep all his half-doubts were swept away. Of course
he had been Napoleon. He could almost remember Marengo--or was it
Austerlitz? There was a vague but not distressing uncertainty as to
which of these conflicts he had directed, but he could--almost--remember.
And he had been one who commanded, and who, therefore, would make
nothing of pricing a dog. He would enter that store boldly to-morrow,
give its proprietor glare for glare, and demand to be told the price of
the creature in the window. Napoleon would have made nothing of it.
* * * * *
The old man came noisily from his back room and again glowered above his
spectacles. But this time he faced no weakling who made a subterfuge of
undesired goldfish.
Bean gulped once, it is true, before words would come.
"I--uh--what's the price of that dog in the window?"
The old man removed his spectacles, ran a hand through upstanding white
hair, and regarded his questioner suspiciously.
"You vant him, hey? Vell, I tell. Fifdy dollars, you bed your life!"
The blood leaped in his veins. He had expected to hear a hundred at
least. Still, fifty was a difficult enough sum. He hesitated.
"Er--what's his name?"
"Naboleon."
"_What?_" He could not believe this thing.
"Naboleon. It comes in his bedigree when I giddim. You bed your life I
gif him nod such names--robber, killer, Frenchman!"
Bean felt assaulted.
"He was a fighter?"
"Yah, fider--a killer unt a sdealer. You know what?"--his face lightened
a little with garrulity--"my granmutter she seen him, yah, sure she seen
him, seddin' on his horse when he gone ridin' into Utrecht in eighdeen
hunderd fife, with soljus. Sure she seen him; she loogs outer a winda'
so she could touch him if she been glose to him, unt a soljus rides oop
unt says, 'Ve gamp right here, not?' unt Naboleon he shneer awful unt
say, 'Gamp here vere dey go inter dem cellus from der ganal-side unt get
unter us unt blow us high wit bowder--you sheep's head! No; we gamp back
in der Malibaan vere is old linden drees hunderd years old, eighd rows
vun mile long, dere is vere we gamp, you gread fool!' Sure my granmutter
seen him. He pull his nose mit t'um unt finger, so! Muddy boods, vun
glofe off, seddin' oop sdraighd on a horse. Sure, she seen him. Robber
unt big killer-sdealer! She vas olt lady, but she remember it lige it
was to-morrow."
Excitement engendered by this reminiscence had well-nigh made Bean
forget the dog. Once he had made people afraid. The world had trembled
before him. Policemen had been as insects.
"I'll take that dog," he announced royally--then faltered--"but I
haven't the money now. You keep him for me till I get it."
"Yah, you know vot? A olt man, lige me, say that same ofer lasd mont'
ago, unt I nefer see him until yet!"
It was a time for extreme measures. Bean pressed seven dollars upon the
dog's owner.
"And ten dollars every week; maybe more!"
The old man stowed the bills in a pocket under his apron and scratched
the head of the parrot that was incisively remarking, "Oh! What a fool!"
and giggling fatuously at its own jest.
"I guess you giddim. I guess mebbe you lige him, hey! He iss a awful
glutton to eat!"
Napoleon!
And in the street car the first headline he saw in his morning paper
was, "Young Napoleon of Finance Flutters Wall Street!"
The thing was getting uncanny.
* * * * *
[Illustration: It was a friendly young face he saw there, but troubled]
A Napoleon of Finance!
Something, Napoleonic at least for Bunker Bean, had to be done in
finance immediately. He had reached the office penniless. He first tried
Bulger, who owed him ten dollars. But this was a Waterloo.
"Too bad, old top!" sympathized Bulger. "If you'd only sejested it
yesterday. But you know how it is when a man's out; he's got to make a
flash; got to keep up his end."
He considered the others in the office. Most of them, he decided, would,
like Bulger, have been keeping their ends up. Of course, there was
Breede. But Napoleon at his best would never have tried to borrow money
of Breede, not even on the day of his coronation. Tully, the chief
clerk, was equally impossible. Tully's thick glasses magnified his eyes
so that they were terrible to look at. Tully would reach out a nerveless
hand and draw forth the quivering heart of his secret. Tully would know
right off that a man could have no respectable reason for borrowing five
dollars on Thursday.
There remained old Metzeger who worked silently all day over a set of
giant ledgers, interminably beautifying their pages with his meticulous
figures. True, Bean had once heard Bulger fail interestingly to borrow
five dollars of Metzeger until Saturday noon, but a flash of true
Napoleonic genius now enabled him to see precisely why Bulger had not
succeeded. Metzeger lived for numerals, for columned digits alone. He
carried thousands of them in his head and apparently little else. He
could tell to the fraction of a cent what Union Pacific had opened at on
any day you chose to name. He had a passion for odd amounts. A flat
million as a sum interested him far less than one like $107.69-3/4. He
could remember it longer. It was necessary then to appeal to the poetry
in the man.
A long time from across his typewriter he studied old Metzeger, tall,
angular, his shoulders lovingly rounded above one of the ledgers, a
green shade pulled well over his eyes, perhaps to conceal the
too-flagrant love-light that shone there for his figures. Napoleon had
won most of his battles in his tent.
Bean arose, moved toward the other and spoke in clear, cool tones.
"Mr. Metzeger, I want to borrow five dollars--"
The old man perceptibly stiffened and bent his head lower.
"--five dollars and eighty-seven cents until Saturday at ten minutes
past twelve."
Metzeger looked up, surveying him keenly from under the green shade.
"_How_ much?'
"Five eighty-seven."
There was a curious relenting in the sharpened old face. The man had
been struck in a vital spot. With his fine-pointed pen he affectionately
wrote the figures on a pad: "$5.87--12:10." They were ideal; they
vanquished him. Slowly he counted out money from various pockets, but
the sum was $5.90.
"Bring me the change," he said.
Bean brought it from the clerk who kept the stamp-box. Metzeger replaced
three pennies in a pocket, and Bean moved off with the sum he had
demanded, feeling almost as once he might have felt after Marengo.
It must be true! He couldn't have done the thing yesterday.
He omitted his visit to the dog that day and loitered for an hour in a
second-hand bookshop he had often passed. He remembered it because of a
coloured print that hung in the window, "The Retreat from Moscow." He
had glanced carelessly enough at this, hardly noting who it was that
headed the gloomy procession. Now he felt the biting cold, and shivered,
though the day was warm. There were pleasanter prints inside. In one,
Napoleon with sternly folded arms gazed down at a sleeping sentry. In
another he reviewed troops at Fontainebleau, and again, from an
eminence, he overlooked a spirited battle, directing it with a masterly
wave of his sabre. These things were a little disconcerting to one in
whom the blood-lust had diminished. He was better pleased with a steel
engraving of the coronation, and this he secured for a trifle. It was a
thing to nourish an ailing ego, a scene to draw sustenance from when
people overwhelmed you in street cars and took your gold watch.
Then there were books about Napoleon, a whole shelf of them. A lot of
authors had thought him worth writing about. He examined several
volumes. One was full of dreadful caricatures that the English had
delighted in. He found this most offensive and closed it quickly.
Probably that explained why he had always felt an instinctive antipathy
for the English.
"If you're interested in Napoleon things--" said the officious clerk,
and Bean went cold. He wondered if the fellow suspected something.
"Not at all, not at all!" he protested, and refused to look at any more
books.
He took his print of the coronation, securely wrapped, and went to
another store several blocks away. He could get a Napoleon book there,
where they wouldn't be suspicious. He found one that looked promising,
"Napoleon, Man and Lover," and still another entitled "The Hundred
Days." The latter had illustrations of the tomb, which he noted was in
Paris. Its architecture impressed him, and his hands trembled as he held
the book open. He had been buried with pomp, even with flamboyance.
Robber and killer he might have been, but the picture showed a throng of
admiring spectators looking down to where the dead colossus was chested,
and on the summit of the dome that rounded above that kingly
sarcophagus, a discriminating nation had put the cross of Christ in
gold.
Let people say what they would! With all this glory of sepulchre there
must be something in the man not to be wholly ashamed of.
And yet "Napoleon, Man and Lover," which he read that night, confirmed
his first impression that this strangely uncovered incident in his
Karmic past was, on the whole, scandalous; not a thing he would like to
have "get about." He sympathized with the poor boy driven from his
Corsican home, with the charity student of Brienne, with the young
artillery officer, dreaming impossible dreams. But as lover--he blushed
for that ruthless dead self of his; the Polish woman, the little
actress, sending for them as if they were merchandise. It seemed to him
that even the not too-fastidious Bulger would have been offended by such
direct brutality.
Well, he was paying dearly for it now; afraid to venture into the
presence of a couple of swell dames not invincibly austere, lacking the
touch-and-go gallantry of a mere Bulger who had probably never been
anybody worth mentioning.
And there was the poor pathetic Louise of Prussia. Bean had already
fallen in love with her face, observed in advertisements of the Queen
Quality Shoe. He recalled the womanly dignity of the figure descending
the shallow steps, the arch accost of the soft eyes, the dimple in the
round check. She had been sent to sue him, the invader, to soften him
with blandishments. He had kept her waiting like a lackey, then had
sought cynically to discover how far her devotion to her country's
safety would carry her. And when her pitiful little basket of tricks had
been emptied, her little traps sprung, he had sent her back to her
husband with a message that crushed her woman's pride and shattered the
hopes of her people. He had heard the word "bounder." It seemed to him
that Napoleon had shown himself to be just that--a fearful and
impossible bounder. He tingled with shame. He wished he might speak to
that Queen now as a gentleman would.
And yet he could not read the book without a certain evil quickening.
Brutal though his method of approach had been, the man had conquered
more than mere force may ever conquer. The Polish woman had come to love
him; the little actress would have followed him to his lonely island.
Others, too many others, had confessed his power.
He was ashamed of such a past, yet read it with a guilty relish. He
recalled the flapper who had so boldly met his glance. He thought she
would have been less bold if she could have known the man she looked at.
He placed "Napoleon, Man and Lover" at the bottom of his trunk beside
the scarlet cravat he had feared to wear. It was not a book to "leave
around."
"The Hundred Days," which he read the following night, was a much less
discouraging work. It told of defeat, but of how glorious a defeat! The
escape from Elba, the landing in France and the march to Paris,
conquering, where he passed, by the sheer magnetism of his personality!
His spirit bounded as he read of this and of the frightened exit of that
puny usurper before the mere rumour of his approach. Then that audacious
staking of all on a throw of the dice--Waterloo and a deathless
ignominy. He heard the sob-choked voices of the Old Guard as they bade
their leader farewell--felt the despairing clasp of their hands!
Alone in his little room, high above the flaring night streets, the
timid boy read of the Hundred Days, and thrilled to a fancied memory of
them. The breath that checked on his lips, the blood that ran faster in
his veins at the recital, went to nourish a body that contained the
essential part of that hero--he was reading about himself! He forgot his
mean surroundings--and the timidities of spirit that had brought him
thus far through life almost with the feelings of a fugitive.
The Lords of Destiny had found him indeed untractable as the great
Emperor, the world-figure, and, for his proudness of spirit, had decreed
that he should affrightedly tread the earth again as Bunker Bean.
Everything pointed to it. Even the golden bees of Napoleon! Were there
not three B's in his own name? The shameful truth is that he had been
christened "Bunker Bunker Bean." His fond and foolish mother had thus
ingenuously sought to placate the two old Uncle Bunkers; unsuccessfully,
be it added, for each had affected to believe that he took second place
in the name. But the three B's were there; did they not point
psychically to the golden bees of the Corsican? Indeed, an astrologist
in Chicago had once told him, for a paltry half-dollar, that those B's
in his name were of a profoundly mystic significance.
Again, he was of distinguished French origin. Over and over had his
worried mother sought to impress this upon him. The family was an old
and noble one, fleeing from France, during a Huguenot persecution, to
Protestant England where the true name "de Boncoeur" had been corrupted
to "Bunker." At the time of his earliest dissatisfaction with the name
he had even essayed writing it in the French manner--"B. de Boncoeur
Bien"--supposing "Bien" to be approximate French for "Bean."
What more natural than that the freed soul, striving for another body,
should have selected one of distinguished French ancestry? The commoner
would inevitably seek to become a patrician.
It was a big thing; a thing to dream and wonder and calculate about.
When he was puzzled or disturbed he would resort to the shell--a thing
he had clung tenaciously to through all the years--sitting before it a
long time, his eyes fixed upon it with hypnotic tensity.
What should it mean to him? How was his life to be modified by it? He
did not doubt that changes would now ensue. He was already bolder in the
public eye. If people stared superciliously at him, he sometimes stared
back. That aggressive stout man could not now have bullied him out of
his seat in the car with any mere looks.
The phrase "Napoleon of Finance" had stayed in his mind. Modernly the
name seemed briefly to suggest some one who made a lot of money out of
nothing but audacity. Certainly it was not being applied to soldiers or
statesmen. This was interesting. If he made a lot of money he could move
to the country and have plenty of room for the dog. And it seemed about
the only field of adventure left for this peculiar genius. He began to
think about making money. He knew vaguely how this was done: you bought
stocks and then waited for the melon to be cut. You got on the inside of
things. You were found to have bought up securities that trebled in
value over night. Those that decreased in value had been bought by
people who were not Napoleons. That was the gist of it. A Napoleonic
mind would divine the way. "Napoleon knew human nature like a book,"
said one of the inspired historians. That was all you needed to know. He
resolved to study human nature.
At precisely ten minutes past twelve on the following Saturday he laid
upon old Metzeger's desk the exact sum of five dollars and eighty-seven
cents. One less gifted as to human nature would have said, "Thank you!"
and laid down five dollars and ninety cents. Bean fell into neither
trap. Metzeger looked quickly at the clock and silently took the money.
He had become the prey of a man who surmised him accurately.
Then occurred one of those familiar tragedies of the wage slave. The
whole week long he had looked forward to the ball game. In the box that
afternoon would be the Greatest Pitcher the World Had Ever Known. This
figure had loomed in his mind that week bigger at times than all his
past incarnations. He was going to forego a sight of his dog in order to
be early on the ground. He would see the practice and thrill to the
first line-up. He had lived over and over that supreme moment when the
umpire sweeps the plate with a stubby broom and adjusts his mask.
The correct coat was buttoned and the hat was being adjusted when the
door of the inner office opened with a sharp rattle.
"Wantcha!" said Breede.
There was a fateful, trembling moment in which Breede was like to have
been blasted; it was as if the magnate had wantonly affronted him who
had once been the recipient of a second funeral in Paris. Keeping Bean
from a ball game aroused that one-time self of his as perhaps nothing
else would have done. But Breede was Breede, after all, and Bean
swallowed the hot words that rose to his lips. His perturbation was
such, however, that Breede caught something of it.
"Hadjer lunch?"
"No!" said Bean, murderously.
"Gitcha some quick. Hurry!"
He knew the worst now. The afternoon was gone.
"Don't want any!" It was a miniature explosion after the Breede manner.
"C'mon, then!"
He was at the desk and Breede dictated interminably. When pauses came he
wrote scathing comments on Breede's attire, his parsimony in the matter
of food, his facial defects, and some objectionable characteristics as a
human being, now perceived for the first time. He grew careless of
concealing his attitude. Once he stared at Breede's detached cuffs with
a scorn so malevolent that Breede turned them about on the desk to
examine them himself. Bean went white, feeling "ready for anything!" but
Breede merely continued his babble about "Federal Express" stock, and
"first mortgage refunding 4 per cent. gold bonds," and multifarious
other imbecilities that now filled a darkened world.
He jealously watched the letters Breede answered and laid aside, and the
sheaf of reports that he juggled from hand to hand. His hope had been
that the session might be brief. There was no clock in the room and he
several times felt for the absent watch. Then he tried to estimate the
time. When he believed it to be one o'clock he diversified his notes
with a swift summary of Breede's character which only the man's
bitterest enemies would have approved. At what he thought was two
o'clock he stripped him of the last shreds of moral decency. When three
o'clock seemed to arrive he did not dare put down, even in secretive
shorthand, what he felt could justly be said of Breede. After that it
was no good hoping. He relaxed into the dullness of a big despair,
merely reflecting that Bulger's picture of Breede under his heel had
been too mushily humane. What Bean wished at the moment was to have
Breede tied to a stake, and to be carving choice morsels from him with a
dull knife. He made the picture vivacious.
At what he judged to be four-thirty a spirited rap sounded on the door.
"C'min," yelled Breede.
Entered the flapper. Breede looked up.
"Seddown! View of efforts bein' made b' cert'n parties t' s'cure 'trol
of comp'ny by promise of creatin' stock script on div'dend basis, it is
proper f'r d'rectors t' state policy has been--"
The flapper had sat down and was looking intently at Bean. There was no
coquetry in the look. It was a look of interest and one wholly in
earnest. Bean became aware of it at Breede's first pause. At any other
time he would have lowered his eyes before an assault so direct and
continuous. Now in his hot rage he included the flapper in the glare he
put upon her unconscious father.
He saw that she was truly enough a flapper; not a day over eighteen, he
was sure. Not tall; almost "pudgy," with a plump, browned face and gray
eyes like old Breede's, that looked through you. He noted these details
without enthusiasm. Then he relented a little because of her dress. The
shoes--he always looked first at a woman's shoes and lost interest in
her if those were not acceptable--were of tan leather and low, with
decently high heels. (He loathed common-sense shoes on women.) The hose
were of tan silk. So far he approved. She wore a tailored suit of blue
and had removed the jacket. The shirtwaist--he knew they were called
"lingerie waists" in the windows--was of creamy softness and had the
lines of the thing called "style." Her hat was a straw that drooped
becomingly. "Some dresser, all right!" he thought, and then, "Why don't
she take a look at old Cufflets there, and get him in right?"
Again and again he hardened his gaze upon her. Her eyes always met his,
not with any recognition of him as a human being, but with some curious
interest that seemed remote yet not impersonal. He indignantly tried to
out-stare her, but the thing was simply not to be done. Even looking
down at her feet steadily didn't dash her brazenness. She didn't seem to
care where _he_ looked. After a very few minutes of this he kept his
eyes upon his note-book with dignified absorption. But he could feel her
glance.
"--to c'nserve investment rep'sented by this stock upon sound basis
rather than th' spec'lative policy of larger an' fluc'chating div'dends
yours ver' truly what time's 'at game called?"
Thus concluded Breede, with a sudden noisy putting away of papers in an
open drawer at his side.
Bean looked up at him, in open-mouthed fear for his sanity.
"Hello, Pops!" said the flapper.
"'Lo, Sis! What time's 'at game called?"
"Three," said Bean, still alarmed.
Breede looked at his watch.
"Jus' got time to make it."
He arose from the desk. Bean arose. The flapper arose.
"Take y' up in car," said Breede, most amazingly.
Bean pulled his collar from about his suddenly constricted throat.
"Letters!" He pointed to the note-book.
"Have 'em ready Monday noon. C'mon! Two-thirty now."
The early hour was as incredible as this social phenomenon.
"Daughter!" said Breede, with half a glance at the flapper, and deeming
that he had performed a familiar social rite.
"Pleased to meet you!" said Bean, dazedly. The flapper jerked her head
in a double nod.
Of the interval that must have elapsed before he found himself seated in
the grandstand between Breede and the flapper he was able to recall but
little. It was as if a dense fog shut him in. Once it lifted and he
suffered a vision of himself in a swiftly propelled motor-car, beside an
absorbed mechanician. He half turned in his seat and met the cool,
steady gaze of the flapper; she smiled, but quickly checked herself to
resume the stare; he was aware that Breede was at her side. And the fog
closed in again. It was too unbelievable.
A bell clanged twice and his brain cleared. He saw the scurry of
uniformed figures to the field, the catcher adjusted his mask. The
Greatest Pitcher the World Has Ever Known stood nonchalantly in the box,
stooped for a handful of earth and with it polluted the fair surface of
a new ball. A second later the ball shot over the plate. The batter
fanned, the crowd yelled.
All at once Bean was coldly himself. He knew that Breede sat at his
right; that on his left was a peculiar young woman. He promptly forgot
their identities, and his own as well, and recalled them but seldom
during the ensuing game.
It is a phenomenon familiar to most of us. The sons of men, under the
magic of that living diamond, are no longer little units of souls
jealously on guard. Heart speaks to heart naked and unashamed; they
fraternize across deeps that are commonly impassable, thrilling as one
man to the genius of the double-play, or with one voice hurling merited
insults at a remote and contemptuous umpire. It is only there, on earth,
that they love their neighbour. There they are fused, and welded into
that perfect whole which is perhaps the only colourable imitation ever
to be had on earth of the democracy said to prevail in Heaven.
There was no longer a Bean, a Breede, a flapper. Instead were three
merged souls in three volatile bodies, three voices that blended in
cheers or execration. At any crisis they instinctively laid gripping
hands upon each other and, half-rising, with distended eyes and tense
half-voices, besought some panting runner to "Come on! Come _on_, you!
Oh, come _on_!" There were other moments of supreme joy when they were
blown to their feet and backs were impartially pounded. More than once
they might have been observed, with brandishing fists, shouting,
"Robber! Robber! _Robber!!!_" at the unperturbed man behind the plate
who merely looked at an indicator in his hand and resumed his
professional crouch quite as if nothing had happened.
And there were moments of snappy, broken talk, comments on individual
players, a raking over the records. It was not Breede who talked to Bean
then. It was one freed soul communicating with another. He none too
gently put Breede right in the matter of Wagner's batting average for
the previous year and the price that had been paid for the new
infielder. And Breede in spirit sat meekly at his feet, grateful for his
lore.
Of an absent player, Breede said he was too old--all of thirty-five.
He'd never come back.
"They come back when they learn to play ball above the ears," retorted
Bean with crisp sapience. "How about old Cy Young? How about old
Callahan of the Sox? How about Wagner out there--think he's only
nineteen--hey? Tell me _that_!"
He looked pityingly at the man of millions thus silenced.
Two men scored from third and second, thanks to a wild throw.
"Inside play, there?" said Breede.
"Inside, nothing!" retorted Bean arrogantly. "Matty couldn't get back to
second and they _had_ to run. If that Silas up there hadn't gone foamy
in the fighting-top and tried to hit that policeman over by the fence
with the ball, where'd your inside play been? D'you think the Pirates
are trying to help 'em play inside ball? Inside, nothing!"
Again Breede looked respectful, and the flapper listened, lustrous-eyed.
The finish was close. With two men out in the last half of the ninth and
two strikes called on the batter, a none too certain single brought in
the winning run. The clinging trio shrieked--then dazedly fell apart.
Life had gone from the magic. The vast crowd also fell apart to units,
flooding to the narrow gates.
Outside Breede looked at Bean as if, faintly puzzled, he was trying to
recall the fellow's face. One could fancy him saying, "Prob'ly some chap
works in m' office."
Father and daughter entered the car. Bean raised his dented hat. Breede
was oblivious; the flapper permitted herself a severe double nod. The
motor chugged violently. Bean, moving on a few steps, turned. The
flapper was looking back. She stared an instant then most astonishingly
smiled, a smile that seemed almost vocal with many glad words. Bean felt
himself smile weakly in response.
He walked a long way before he took a car, his eyes on the pavement, his
mind filled with a vision. When the flapper smiled it did something to
him, but what it was he couldn't tell. She had a different face when she
smiled; her parting lips made a new beauty in the world. He thought the
golden brown of her hair rather wonderful. It was like the golden brown
of the new dog. He recalled little details of her face, the short upper
lip, the forward chin, the breadth of the brow. There was something
disconcerting about that brow and the eyes like her father's--probably
have her own way! Then he remembered that he must have noticed a badge
pinned to the left lapel of a jacket that had been fashioned--with no
great difficulty, he thought--to give its wearer the appearance of
perfect physical development. He couldn't remember when he had precisely
noted this badge, perhaps in some frenzied moment in the game's
delirium, but it was vividly before him now--"VOTES FOR WOMEN!" What did
that signify in her character? Perhaps something not too pleasant.
Still--he lived again through the smile that had seemed to speak.
* * * * *
Three days later, at the close of an afternoon's grinding work, the grim
old man at the desk looked up as Bean was leaving the room.
"S'good game!"
"Fine!" said Bean, as he closed the door.
But for this reference and one other circumstance Bean might have
supposed that Breede had forgotten the day. The other circumstance was
an area of rich yellowish purple on the arm which Breede had madly
gripped in moments of ecstasy, together with painful spots on his right
side where the elbow of Breede had almost continuously jabbed him.
V
The latest Napoleonic dynasty was tottering. The more Bean read of
that possible former self, the less he admired its manifestations. A
Corsican upstart, an assassin, no gentleman! It was all too true.
Very well, for that vaunted force of will, but to what base ends had
it been applied! He was merciless to himself, an egotist and a
vulgarian. How it would shock that woman, as yet unidentified, who
was one day to be the mother of the world's greatest left-handed
pitcher. Take the flapper--impossible, of course, but just as an
example--suppose she ever came to know about the Polish woman and
the actress, and the others! How she would loathe him! And you
couldn't tell what minute it might become known. People were taking
an interest in such matters. He wished he had cautioned the Countess
Casanova to keep the thing quiet. Probably she had talked.
He must go further into that past of his. Doubtless there were lessons
to be drawn from the Napoleonic episode, but just now, when he was all
confused, the thing--he put it bluntly--was "pretty raw."
"With Napoleon, to think was to act." So he had read in one chronicle.
Very well, he would act. Again he would stand, with fearless eyes, at
the portal of the vaulted past.
At eight o'clock that night he once more rang the third bell. He had
feared that the Countess Casanova might have returned to European
triumphs, but the solicitations of the scientific world were still
prevailing.
He stood in the little parlour and again the Countess appeared from
behind the heavy curtains, a plump white hand at the throat of her
scarlet gown.
He was obliged to recall himself to her, for the Countess began to tell
him that his aura was clouded with evil curnts.
"You told me what I was--last time, don't you remember? You know, you
said, it was written on the slate what I was--" He could not bring
himself to utter the name. But the Countess remembered.
"Sure; perfectly! And what was you wishing to know now?"
She surveyed him with heavy-lidded eyes, a figure of mystery, of secret
knowledge.
"I want you to tell me who I was before that--before _him_."
The Countess blinked her eyes rapidly, as if it hurried calculation.
"And I don't mean _just_ before. I want to go 'way back, thousands of
years--what I was _first_." He looked helplessly around the room, then
glanced appealingly at the Countess. The flushed and friendly face was
troubled.
"Well, I dunno." She pondered, eying her sitter closely. "Of course all
things is possible to us, but sometimes the conditions ain't jest right
and y'r c'ntrol can't git into rapport with them that has been gone
more'n a few years. Now this thing you're after--I don't say it can't be
done--f'r money."
"If I learned something good, I wouldn't care anything about the money,"
he ventured.
The Countess glanced up interestedly.
"That's the way to look at it, friend, but how much you got on you?"
"Twenty-two dollars," confessed Bean succinctly.
"Would you part from twenty, if you was told what you want to know?"
"Yes; I can't stand that other thing any longer."
The Countess narrowed her eyes briefly, then became animated.
"Say, listen here, friend! That's a little more delikit work than I been
doin', but they's a party near here--lemme see--" She passed one of the
plump white hands over her brow in the throes of recollection. "I think
his name is Professor Balthasar. I ain't ever met him, understand what I
mean? but they say he's a genuine wonder an' no mistake; tell you
anything right off the reel. You set right there and lemme go see if I
can't call him up by telephone."
She withdrew between the curtains, behind which she carefully pulled
sliding doors. Bean heard the murmur of her voice.
He waited anxiously. His Napoleon self was already fading. If only they
would tell him something "good." Little he cared for the twenty dollars.
He could get along by borrowing seventeen-seventy-nine from Metzeger.
The voice still murmured. Only the well-fitting doors prevented Bean
from hearing something that would have been of interest to him.
"That you, Ed?" the Countess was saying. "Listen here. 'Member th' one I
told you about, thinks he's the original N.B.--you know who--well he's
a repeater; here now wantin' t' know who he was before then, who he was
_first_ y'understand. An' say, I ain't got the right dope for that an' I
want you to get over here quick's you can an' give him about a
ten-minute spiel. Wha's that? Well, they's twenty, an' I split with you.
But listen here, Ed, I get the idee this party's worth nursin' along. I
dunno, something _about_ him. That's why I'm tellin' you. I want it done
right. Course, I could do enough stallin' muself t' cop the twenty; tell
him Julius Caesar or the King of China or somebody, but I ain't got the
follow-up, an' you can't tell _how_ much he might be good for later.
Take my tip: he's a natural born believer. Sure, twenty! All right!"
The doors slid back and the Countess reappeared between the curtains.
"I'm 'fraid I'll have to disappoint you," she began. "The Professer was
called out t' give some advice to one the Vandabilts. But I got his
private secatary on the wire an' he's gone out to chase him up. We'll
haf to wait an' see."
Bean was sorry to be causing this trouble.
"Perhaps I better come another night."
"No, you don't! You set right there!" She seemed to listen to unspoken
words, looking far off. "There! My control says he's comin'; he's on the
way."
Bean was aghast before this power.
"'Nother thing," pursued the Countess in her normal manner, "keep
perfec'ly still when he comes. Don't tip him off what you want. Let him
do the talkin'. If he's the real thing he'll know what you want. They
say he's a wonder, but what do _we_ know about it? Let him prove it!"
Bean felt that he and the Countess were a pair of shrewd skeptics.
The third bell rang and a heavy tread was heard on the stairs. The mere
sound of its mounting was impressive. The Countess laid a reminding
finger on her lips, as she moved toward the door.
There appeared an elderly man, in a black frockcoat, loose-fitting and
not too garishly new, a student's coat rather than a fop's.
"Is this Perfesser Balthasar?" inquired the Countess in her best manner.
"At your service, Madam!" He permitted himself a courtly inclination,
conferred upon the Countess a glistening tall hat, and then covered his
expansive baldness with a skullcap of silk which he drew from an inner
pocket.
"I feared we was discommoding you," ventured the Countess, elegantly
apologetic; "your secatary said you was out advisin' one the
Vandabilts--"
"A mere trifle in the day's work, Madam!" He brushed it aside with an
eloquent hand. "My mission is to serve. You wished to consult me?"
"Not me; but this young gentaman here--"
"Ah!" He turned to face Bean, who had risen, regarding him with serious
eyes and twirling a curled moustache meditatively.
"I see, I see! An imprisoned soul seeking the light!" He came nearer to
Bean, staring intently, then started with dramatic suddenness as if at
an electric shock from concealed wires.
"What is this--what is this--what _is_ this?"
Bean backed away defensively. The professor seemed with difficulty to
withdraw his fascinated gaze, and turned apologetically to the Countess.
"You will pardon me, Madam, but I must ask you to leave us. My control
warns me that I am in the presence of an individuality stronger than my
own. His powerful mind is projecting the most vital queries. I shall be
compelled to disclose to him matters he would perhaps not wish a third
person to overhear. I see a line of mighty rulers, ruthless,
red-handed--the past of his soul."
The Countess murmurously withdrew. The two males faced each other.
[Illustration: "I feared he was discommoding you," ventured the
Countess, elegantly apologetic]
The professor was a mere sketch of a man, random, rakish, with head
aslant and shifty eyes forever dropping away from a questioner's face.
He abounded in inhuman angles and impossible lines. It seemed that he
must have been rather dashingly done in the first place, then half
obliterated and badly mended with fumbling, indecisive touches. His
restless hands unceasingly wrung each other as if he had that moment
made his own acquaintance and was trying to infuse a false geniality
into the meeting.
When he spoke he had a trick of opening his mouth for a word and holding
it so, a not over-clean forefinger poised above an outheld palm. It
seemed to the listener that the word when it came would mean much. His
white moustache alone had a well-finished look, curving jauntily upward.
"Sit there!" An authoritative finger pointed Bean to the chair he had
lately occupied.
He sat nervously, suffering that peculiar apprehension which physicians
and dentists had always inspired.
"Most amazing! Most astounding!" muttered the professor as if to his own
ear alone. He sat in a chair facing Bean and regarded him long and
intently. At brief intervals his face twitched, his body stiffened, he
seemed to writhe in some malign grasp.
Bean gripped the arms of his chair. His tingling nerves were accurately
defining his spine. He waited, breathless.
"I see it all," breathed the professor in low, solemn tones, his eyes
fixed above Bean's head. "First the pomp and glitter of a throne. You
wrench it from a people whose weakness you play upon with a devilish
cunning, you ascend to it over the bodies of countless men slain in
battle. Power through blood! You are cruel, insatiable, a predatory
monster. But retribution comes. You are hurled from your throne. Again
you ascend it, but only for a brief time. You fight your last battle;
you _lose_! You are captured and taken to a lonely island somewhere far
to the south, there to be imprisoned until your death. Afterward I see
your body returned to the city that was once your capital. It now lies
in a heavy stone coffin. It is in a European city. I can almost hear the
name, but not plainly. I cannot get the name under which you ruled. I
look into the abyss and the cries of your victims drown it. Horror piles
upon horror!"
Bean was leaning forward, tense with excitement, his mouth open. "Yes,
that's just the way I felt about it," he murmured.
"But this was only a few paltry years ago, perhaps a hundred. It passes
from my view. I am led back, away from it--far back--the cries of those
you slaughtered echo but faintly--the scene changes--"
The professor paused. Bean had cowered in his chair, wincing under each
blow. He wiped his face and crumpled the moist handkerchief tightly in
one hand.
"Perhaps the name may come to me now," continued the professor. "But
your superior personality overwhelmed me at first; you are so
self-willed, so dominant, so ruthless. The name, the name!" He cried the
last words commandingly and snapped his fingers at the delinquent
control. "There! I seem to hear--"
"Never mind that name," broke in Bean hastily. "Let it go! I--I don't
want to know it. Go on back farther!"
Again the professor's look became trancelike.
"Ah! What a relief to be free from that blood-lust!" He breathed deeply
and his eyes rolled far up under their lids.
"What is this? A statesman, still crafty, still the lines of cunning
cruelty about the mouth. The city is Venice in the fourteenth century.
He is dressed in a richly bejewelled robe and toys with an inlaid
dagger. He is plotting the assassination of a Doge--"
"Please get still farther back, can't you?" pleaded Bean.
The seer struggled once more with his control.
"I next see you at the head of a Roman legion, going forth to battle.
You are a tyrant, ruling by fear alone, and with your own sword I see
you cut off the heads of--"
"Farther back," beseeched the sitter. "I--I've had enough of all that
battle and killing. I--I don't _like_ it. Go on back to the very first."
Patiently the adept redirected his forces.
"I see a poet. He sings his deathless lay by a roadside in ancient
Greece. He is an old man, feeble, blind--"
"Something else," broke in the persistent sitter, resolving not to pay
twenty dollars for having been a blind poet.
The professor glanced sharply at him. Perhaps his control did not relish
these interruptions. He seemed to suppress words of impatience and began
anew.
"Ah! Now I see your very first appearance on this planet. You were born
from another as yet unknown to our astronomers. You are now"--he lowered
his eyes to the sitter's face--"an Egyptian king."
Detecting no sign of displeasure at this, he continued with refreshed
enthusiasm.
"It is thousands of years ago. You are the last king of the pre-dynastic
era--"
"What kind of a king--one of those fighters?"
"You are a wise and good king. I see a peaceful realm peopled by
contented subjects."
"_That's_ what I want to know. Go on; tell me more. Married?"
"Your wife is a princess of rare beauty from--from Mesopotamia. You have
three lovely children, two boys and a girl, and your palace on the banks
of the Nile is one of the most beautiful and grand palaces ever erected
by the hand of man. You are ministered to by slaves, and your
councillors of state come to you with their reports. You are tall,
handsome and of a most kingly presence. Your personal bravery is
unquestioned, you are an adept in all manly sports, but you will not go
to war as you very properly detest all violence. For this reason there
is little to relate of your reign. It was uneventful and distinguished
only by your wise and humane statesmanship--"
"What name?" asked Bean, in low, reverent tones.
"The name--er--the name is--oh, yes, I get it--the name is Ram-tah."
"Can I find him in the histories?"
"You cannot," answered the seer emphatically. "I am probably the only
living man that can tell you very much about him."
"When did he--pass on?"
"At the age of eighty-two years. He was deeply mourned by all his
people. He had been a king of great strength of character, stern at
moments, but ever just. His remains received the treatment customary in
those times, and the mummy was interred in the royal sepulchre which is
now covered by the sands of the centuries. Anything else?"
Bean was leaning forward in his chair, his eyes lost in that far,
glorious past.
"Nothing else, now, I think. If I could see you again some time, I'd
like to ask--"
"My mission is to serve," answered the other, caressing the moustache
with a deft hand. "Anything I can do for you, any time, command me."
The Countess appeared from between the curtains.
"Was the conditions right?" she asked.
"They have been, at least _so_ far," replied the professor crisply, with
a side-glance at Bean who seemed on the point of leaving.
"Say, friend, I guess you're forgetting something, ain't you?" demanded
the Countess archly.
And Bean perceived that he had indeed forgotten something. He rectified
the oversight with blushing apologies, while the professor inspected the
mantel ornaments with an absent air. What was twenty dollars to a king
and a sire of kings? He bowed himself from the room.
They listened until the hall door closed.
"There's yours, Ed. You earned it all right, I'll say that. My! don't I
wish I was up on that dope."
"You were the wise lady to send for me, Lizzie. You'd have killed him
off right here. As it is, he'll come back. He's a clerk somewhere,
drawing twenty-five a week or so. He ought to give up at least five of
it every week; cigarette money, anyway. Anything loose in the house?"
"They's a couple bottles beer in the icebox. Gee! ain't he good, though!
If he only had the roll some has!"
* * * * *
In his little room far up under the hunched shoulders of the house,
Bunker Bean sat reviewing his Karmic past. Over parts of it he
shuddered. That crafty Venetian plotting to kill, trifling wickedly with
the inlaid dagger; the brutal Roman, ruling by fear, cutting off heads!
And the blind poet! He would rather be Napoleon than a blind poet, if
you came down to that. But the king, wise, humane, handsome, masterly,
with a princess of rare beauty from Mesopotamia to be the mother of his
three lovely children. That was a dazzling vision to behold, a life sane
and proper, abounding in majesty both moral and material.
He sought to live over his long and peaceful but brilliant reign. Then
he dwelt on his death and burial. They had made a mummy of him, of
course. Somewhere that very night, at that very instant, his lifeless
form reposed beneath the desert sands. Perhaps the face had changed but
little during the centuries. He, Bunker Bean, lay there in royal robes,
hands folded upon his breast, as lamenting subjects had left him.
And what did it mean to him now? He thought he saw. As King Ram-tah he
had been _too_ peaceful. For all his stern and kingly bearing might he
not have been a little timid--afraid of people now and then? And the
Karmic law had swept him on and on into lives that demanded violence,
the Roman warrior, the Venetian plotter, the Corsican usurper!
He saw that he must have completed one of those vast Karmic cycles. What
he had supposed to be timidity was a natural reaction from Napoleonic
bravado. Now he had finished the circle and was ready to become again
his kingly self, his Ram-tah self--able, reliant, fearless.
He expanded his chest, erected his shoulders and studied himself in the
glass: there was undoubted majesty in the glance. He vibrated with some
fresh, strange power.
Yes; but what about to-morrow--out in the world? in daylight, passing
the policeman on the corner, down at the office? Would he remain a king
in the presence of Breede, even in the lesser presence of Bulger, or of
old Metzeger from whom he purposed to borrow seventeen dollars and
seventy-nine cents? All right about being a king, but how were other
people to know it? Well, he would have to make them feel it. He must
know it himself, first; then impress it upon them.
But a sense of unreality was creeping back. It was almost better to
remember the Napoleon past. There were books about that. He pictured
again the dead Ram-tah in trappings of royalty. If he could only _see_
himself, and be sure. But that was out of the question. It was no good
wishing. After all, he was Bunker Bean, a poor thing who had to fly when
Breede growled "Wantcha." He sat at his table, staring moodily into
vacancy. He idly speculated about Breede's ragged moustache; he thought
it had been blasted and killed by the words Breede spoke. A moment later
he was conscious that he stared at an unopened letter on the table
before him.
He took it up without interest, perceiving that it came from his Aunt
Clara in Chicago. She would ask if he had yet joined the Y.M.C.A., and
warn him to be careful about changing his flannels.
"Dear Bunker" [it began], "my own dear husband passed to his final rest
last Thursday at 5 p.m. He was cheerful to the last and did not seem to
suffer much. The funeral was on Saturday and was very beautiful and
impressive. I did not notify you at the time as I was afraid the shock
would affect you injuriously and that you might be tempted to make the
long trip here to be with me. Now that you know it is all over, you can
take it peacefully, as I am already doing. The life-insurance people
were very nice about it and paid the claim promptly. I enclose the money
which wipes out all but--"
He opened the double sheet. There were many more of the closely written
lines, but he read no farther, for a check was folded there. His
trembling fingers pulled the ends apart and his astounded eyes rested on
its ornate face.
It was for ten thousand dollars.
* * * * *
At six minutes after eight the following evening the Countess Casanova,
moved from her professional calm, hurriedly closed the sliding doors
between the two rooms of her apartment and sprang to the telephone where
she frantically demanded a number. The delay seemed interminable to her,
but at last she began to speak.
"That you, Ed? F'r God's sake, beat it over here quick. That boob las'
night is back here an' _he's got it_. I dunno--but something _big_, I
tell you. He's actin' like a crazy man. Listen here! He wants t' know
can you _locate_ it--see it lyin' there underground. Why, the mummy;
yes. M-u-m-m-i-e. Yes, sure! He's afraid mebbe they already dug him up
an' got him in a musée somewheres, but if it's still there he wants it.
Yes, sure thing, dontchu un'stand? _Wants_ it! How in--how can I tell?
That's up to you. Git here! Sure--fifty-fifty!"
Bean glanced up feverishly as the Countess reappeared. She was smoothing
her hair and readjusting the set of the scarlet wrapper. Her own
excitement was apparent.
"It's all right. I think he'll come, but it was a close call. He was
jes' packin' his grip f'r Wash'n'ton. Got a telegraph from the Pres'dent
to-day t' come at once. Of course he'll miss a big fee. The Pres'dent
don't care f'r money when it's a question of gittin' th' right advice--"
"Oh, money!" murmured Bean, and waved a contemptuous hand.
His manner was not lost upon his hearer.
"Lots of money made in a hurry, these days," she suggested, "or got hold
of some way--gits left to parties--thousand dollars, mebbe--two, three,
four thousand?"
Again he performed the pushing gesture, as if he were discommoded by
money. He scarcely heard her voice.
The Countess did not venture another effort to appraise his wealth.
She fell silent, watching him. Bean gazed at a clean square on the
wall-paper where a picture had once hung. Then the authoritative tread
was again heard on the stairway, and again the Countess Casanova
welcomed Professor Balthasar to her apartment. She expressed a polite
regret for having annoyed him.
Professor Balthasar bestowed his shiny hat upon her, enveloped his
equally shiny skull with the silken cap and assured her that his mission
was to serve. Bean had not risen. He still stared at the wall.
"I'll jes' leave you alone with our friend here," said the Countess
charmingly. The professor questioned her with a glance and she shook her
head in response, yet her gesture as she vanished through the curtains
was one of large encouragement.
The professor faced Bean and coughed slightly. Bean diverted his stare
to the professor and seemed about to speak, but the other silenced him
with a commanding forefinger.
"Not a word! I see it all. You impose your tremendous will upon me."
He took the chair facing Bean and began swiftly:
"I see the path over the desert. I stop beside a temple. Sand is all
about. Beneath that temple is a stone sarcophagus. Within it lies the
body of King Tam-rah--"
"Ram-tah!" corrected Bean gently.
"Did I not say Ram-tah?" pursued the seer. "There it has lain sealed for
centuries, while all about it the tombs of other kings have been
despoiled by curiosity hunters looking for objects of interest to place
in their cabinets. But Ram-tah, last king of the pre-dynastic period,
though others will tell you differently, but that's because he never got
into history much, by reason of his uniformly gentlemanly conduct. He
rests there to-day precisely as he was put. I see it all; I penetrate
the heaped sands. At this moment the moon shines upon the spot, and a
night bird is calling to its mate in the mulberry tree near the
northeast corner of the temple. I see it all. I am there! What is this?
What is this I get from you, my young friend?"
The professor seemed to cock a psychic ear toward Bean.
"You want--ah, yes, I see what you want, but that, of course, humanly,
would be impossible. Oh, quite impossible, quite, quite!"
"_Why_, if you're sure it's there?"
"My dear sir, you descend to the material world. I will talk to you now
as one practical man to another. Simply because it would take more money
than you can afford. The thing is practicable but too expensive."
"How do you know?"
"It is true, I do not know. My control warned me when I came here that
your circumstances had been suddenly bettered. I withdraw the words. I
do not know, but--you will pardon the bluntness--_can_ you afford it?"
"What'd it cost? That's what I want to know."
"Hum!" said the professor. He was unable to achieve more for a little
time. He hum'd again.
"There's the labour and the risk," he ventured at last. "Of course my
agents at Cairo--I have secret agents in every city on the globe--could
proceed to the spot from my carefully worded directions. They could do
the work of excavating. So far, so good! But they would have to work
quietly and would be punished if discovered. Of course here and there
they could bribe. Naturally, they would have to bribe, and that, as you
are doubtless aware, requires money. Again, entering this port the
custom-house officials would have to be bribed, and they've gone up in
price the last few years. My control tells me that this mummy is one
they've been looking hard for. It's about the only one they haven't
found. The loss will be discovered and my men might be traced. It
requires an enormous sum. Now, for instance, a thousand dollars"--he
regarded Bean closely and was reassured--"a thousand dollars wouldn't
any more than start the work. Two thousand"--his eyes were steadily upon
Bean now--"would further it some. Three thousand might see it pretty
well advanced. Four thousand, of course, would help still farther and
five thousand"--he had seen the shadow of dismay creep over the face of
his sitter--"five thousand, I _think_, might put the thing through."
Bean drew a long breath. The professor had correctly read the change in
his face at "five thousand," but it had been a sudden fear that his
whole ten thousand was not going to suffice for this prodigious
operation.
"I can afford that," said Bean shortly. He hardly dared trust himself to
say more. His emotion threatened to overcome him.
The professor suffered from the same danger. He, too, dared trust
himself to say no more than the few necessary words.
"There must be a payment down," he said with forced coldness.
"How much?"
"A thousand wouldn't be any too much."
"Enough?"
"Well, perhaps not enough," the professor nerved himself to admit.
"I'll give you two, now. Give you the rest when you get--when you get It
here."
"You move me, I confess," conceded the professor. "I will undertake it."
"How long will it be, do you think?"
"I shall give orders by cable. A month, possibly, if all goes well."
"I'll give you check." He gulped at that. It was the first time he had
ever used the words.
The Countess parted the curtains. Curiously enough she carried a pen and
ink, though no one remarked upon the circumstance.
Bean had that morning left a carefully written signature at the bank
where his draft had been deposited. He later wondered how the scrawl he
achieved now could ever be identified as by the same hand.
And he was conscious, even as he wrote, that the Countess Casanova and
Professor Balthasar were labouring under an excitement equal to his own.
It _was_ a big feat to attempt.
As before, they waited until he had closed the lower door.
"Oh, Ed!" breathed the Countess emotionally.
"Anything loose in the house?" asked the professor.
"They's a couple bottles beer in the icebox, but _Oh, Ed_!"