Again we chant pregnant phrases from the Bard of Dress: "It is cut to
give the wearer the appearance of perfect physical development. And the
effect produced so improves his form that he unconsciously strives to
attain the appearance which the garment gives him; he expands his chest,
draws in his waist, and stands erect."
A psychologist, that Bard! acutely divining a basic law of this absurd
human nature. In a beggar's rags few men could be more than beggars. In
kingly robes, most men could be kings; could achieve the finished and
fearless behaviour that is said to distinguish royalty.
Bunker Bean, the divinely credulous, now daily arrayed himself in royal
vestures, set a well-fashioned crown upon the brow of him and strode
forth, sceptre in hand. Invisible were these trappings, to be sure; he
was still no marked man in a city street. But at least they were there
to his own truth-lit eyes, and he most truly did "expand his chest, draw
in his waist, and stand erect." Yea, in the full gaze of inhumanly large
policemen would he do these things.
This, indeed, was one of the first prerogatives his royalty claimed. He
discovered that it was not necessary for any but criminals to fear
policemen. It might still be true that an honest man of moderate
physique and tender sensibilities could not pass one without slight
tremors of self-consciousness; but by such they were--a most prodigious
thought--to be regarded as one's paid employees; within the law one
might even greet them pleasantly in passing, and be answered civilly.
Bean was now equal to approaching one and saying, "Good evening,
Officer!" He would sometimes cross a street merely to perform this
apparently barren rite. It stiffened his spine. It helped him to realize
that he had indeed been a king and the sire of kings; that kingly stuff
was in him.
So marked an advance in his spirit was not made in a day, however. It
came only after long dwelling in thought upon his splendid past. And,
too, after he had envisioned the circumstance that he was now a man of
means. The latter was not less difficult of realization than his
kingship. He had thought little about money, save at destitute moments;
had dreamed of riches as a vague, rather pleasant and not important
possibility. But kings were rich; no sooner had his kingship been
proclaimed than money was in his hand. And, of course, more money would
come to him, as it had once come on the banks of the Nile. He did not
question how nor whence. He only knew.
It was three days before he bethought himself to finish the reading of
Aunt Clara's letter, suspended at sight of the astounding enclosure. He
had begun that letter a harried and trivial unit of the toiling masses.
He came to finish it a complacent and lordly figure!
"--I enclose the check which wipes out all but $7,000 of that
money from your dear mother with which dearest Edward so rashly
speculated years ago, in the hope of making you a wealthy man.
I am happy to say that $5,000 of this I can pay at once out of
the money I have saved. I have been investing for years, as I
could spare it, in the stock of the Federal Express Company,
and now have fifty shares, which I will transfer to you at par,
though they are quoted a little above that, if you are willing
to accept them. The balance I will pay when I have sold the
house and furnishings, as with my dearest husband gone I no
longer have any incentive to keep on working. I am tired. It is
a good safe stock paying 4-1/2 per cent. and I would advise you
to keep it and also put the Ins. money into the same stock. A
very nice man in the Life Ins. office said it ought to pay more
if the business was better managed. If you turned your talents
to the express business you might learn to manage it yourself
because you always had a fine head for such things, and by
owning a lot of their stock you could get the other
stockholders to elect you to be one of their directors, which
would be a fine occupation for you, not too hard work and
plenty of time to read good books which I hope you find same
now of evenings in place of frittering away your time with
associations of a questionable character, and ruining your
health by late hours and other dissipation though I know you
were always of good habits.
"Affectionately,
"Aunt Clara.
"P.S.--It has rained hard for two days."
There it was! Money _came_ to you. Federal Express was only a name to
him; he had written it sometimes at Breede's dictation. But his Aunt
Clara was old enough to know about such things, and he would follow her
advice, though being a director of an express company seemed as
unexciting as it was doubtless respectable: what he had at times been
wild enough to dream was that he should be the principal owner of a
major-league baseball club, and travel with the club--see every game! If
he should, temporarily, become the director of an express company, he
would have it plainly understood that he might resign at any moment.
Night and morning he surveyed himself in the glass. Not in the way of
ordinary human conceit; he was clear sighted enough as to the
pulchritude of his present encasement; but with the eyes of the young
who see visions. Raptly scrutinizing his meagre form he chanted a line
of verse that seemed apposite:
"_Build thou more stately mansions, O my soul!_"
He was already persuaded that his next incarnation would enrich the
world with something far more stately than the mansion that he at
present occupied; something on the Gordon Dane order, he suspected. And
it was not too soon to begin laying those unseen foundations--to think
the thought that must come before the thing. He was veritably a king,
yet for a time must he masquerade as a wage-slave, a serf to Breede, and
an inferior of Bulger's, considered as a mere spectacle.
He began to word long conversations with these two; noiseless
conversations, be it understood, in which the snappy dialogue went
unuttered. His sarcasm to Bulger in the matter of that ten-dollar loan
was biting, ruthless, witty, invariably leaving the debtor in direst
confusion with nothing to retort. Bean always had the last word, both
with Bulger and Breede, turning from them with easy contempt.
He was less hard on Breede than on Bulger, because of the ball game. A
man who could behave like that in the presence of baseball must have
good in him. Nevertheless, in this silent way, he curtly apprised Breede
of his intentions about working beyond stipulated hours, and when Breede
was rash enough to adopt a tone of bluster, Bean silenced him with a
magnificent "I can imagine nothing of less consequence!"
He carried this silent warfare into public conveyances and when stout
aggressive men glared at him because he had a seat he quickly and
wittily reduced them to such absurdity in the public eye that they had
to flee in impotent rage. The once modest street row with a bully twice
his size was enlarged in cast. There were now, as befitted a king, two
bullies, who writhed in pain, each with a broken arm, while the slight
but muscular youth with a knowledge of jiu-jitsu walked coolly off,
flecking dust from one of his capable shoulders. Sometimes he paused
long enough to explain the affair, in a few dignified words, to an
admiring policeman who found it difficult to believe that this stripling
had vanquished two such powerful brutes. Sometimes another act was
staged in which he conferred his card upon the amazed policeman and
later explained the finesse of his science to him, thereby winning his
deathless gratitude. He became quite chummy with this officer and was
never to be afraid of anything any more.
He glowed from this new exercise. He became more witty, more masterful,
while the repartee of his adversaries sank to wretched piffle. He met
disaster only once. That was when his conscience began to hurt him after
a particularly bitter assault on Bulger in which the latter had been
more than usually contemptible in the matter of the overdue debt. He
felt that he had really been too hard on the fellow. And Bulger, who
must have been psychically gifted himself, came over from his typewriter
at that moment and borrowed an additional five without difficulty. In
later justification, Bean reflected that he would almost certainly have
refused this second loan had it not been for his softened mood of the
moment. Still he was glad that, with his instinctive secrecy he had kept
from Bulger any knowledge of his new fortune. With Bulger aware that he
had thousands of dollars in the bank, something told him that
distressing complications would have ensued.
He debated several days about this money. He resolved, at length, that a
thousand dollars should be devoted to the worthy purpose of living up to
his new condition. A thousand dollars would, for the present, give him
an adequate sensation of wealth. Three thousand more must be paid to
Professor Balthasar when his secret agents brought It from Its
long-hidden resting-place. Suppose the professor pleaded unexpected
outlays, officials not too easily bribed or something, and demanded a
further sum? At once, in a crowded street, he brought about a heated
interview with the professor, in which the seer was told that a bargain
was a bargain, and that if he had thought Bean was a man to stand
nonsense of any sort he was indeed wildly mistaken. Bean was going to
hold him to the exact sum, and his parting sting was that the professor
had better get a new lot of controls if his old ones hadn't been able to
tell him this. After he had cooled a little he reflected that if there
were really any small sums the professor would be out of pocket, he
would of course not be mean.
This left him four thousand dollars with which to buy his way into the
directorate of that express company, as suggested by Aunt Clara. He had
learned a great deal about buying stocks. He knew there was a method
called "buying on a margin" which was greatly superior to buying the
shares outright: you received a great many more shares for a given sum.
Therefore he would buy thus, and the sooner be a director. He liked to
think of that position in his moments of lesser exaltation. He recalled
his child-self sitting beside his father on the seat of an express
wagon. It was queer how life turned out--sometimes you couldn't get away
from a thing. Maybe he would always be a director; still he could go
into baseball, too.
He did his business with the broker without a twinge of his old
timidity. Indeed, he was rather bored by the affair. The broker took his
money and later in the day he learned that he controlled a very large
number of the shares of the Federal Express Company. He forgot how many,
but he knew it was a number befitting his new dignity. Having done this
much he thought the directorship could wait. Let them come to him if
they wanted him. He had other affairs on.
There was the new dog.
It was not the least of many great days in Bean's life, that golden
afternoon when he sped to the bird-and-animal store and paid the last
installment of Napoleon's ransom. The creature greeted him joyously as
of yore through the wall of glass, frantically essaying to lick the hand
that was so close and yet so unaccountably withheld.
The money passed, and one dream, at least, had been made to come true.
For the first time he was in actual contact with the wonderful animal.
"He knows me," said Bean, as the dog hurled itself delightedly upon him.
"We've been friends a long time. I think he got so he expected me every
afternoon."
Napoleon barked emphatically in confirmation of this. He seemed to be
saying: "Hurry! Let's get out of here before he puts me back in that
window!"
The old man confessed that he would miss the little fellow. He advised
Bean to call him "Nap." "Napoleon" was no right name for a dog of any
character.
"You know what that fellow been if he been here now," he volunteered at
parting. "I dell you, you bed your life! He been a gompanion unt partner
in full with that great American train-robber, Chessie Chames. Sure he
would. My grantmutter she seen him like she could maybe reach out a
finger unt touch him!"
"I'll call him Nap," promised Bean. He had ceased to feel blamable for
the shortcomings of Napoleon I, but it was just as well not to have the
name used too freely.
When he issued to the street, the excited dog on a leash, he was prouder
than most kings have ever had occasion to be.
Now, he went to inspect flats. He would at last have "apartments," and
in a neighbourhood suitable for a growing dog. He bestowed little
attention on the premises submitted to his view, occupying himself
chiefly with observing the effect of his dog on the various janitors.
Some were frankly hostile; some covertly so. Some didn't mind dogs--but
there was rules. And some defeated themselves by a display of
over-enthusiasm that manifestly veiled indifference, or perhaps
downright dislike.
But a janitor was finally encountered who met the test. In ten seconds
Bean knew that Cassidy would be a friend to any dog. He did not fawn
upon the animal nor explode with praise. He merely bestowed a glance or
two upon the distinguished head, and later rubbed the head expertly just
back of the erect ears; this, while he exposed to Bean the circumstances
under which one steam-heated apartment, suitable for light housekeeping,
chanced to be vacant. The parties, it appeared, was givin' a Dutch lunch
to a gang of their friends at 5 A.M. of a morning, and that was bad
enough in a place that was well kep' up; but in the sicin' place they
got scrappin', which had swiftly resulted in an ambulance call for the
host and lessee, and the patrol wagon for his friends that were not in
much better shape thimselves, praise Gawd. But the place was all cleaned
up again and would be a jool f'r anny young man that could take a drink,
or maybe two, and then stop.
Bean knew Cassidy by that time, and his inspection of the apartment was
perfunctory. Cassidy would be a buckler and shield to the dog, in his
absence. Cassidy would love him. The dog, on his spread forefeet,
touched his chest to the ground and with ears erect, eyes agleam, and
inciting soprano gurgles invited the world to a mad, mad, game.
Cassidy only said, "Aw, g'wan! _Would_ you, now!" But each word was a
caress. And Cassidy became Bean's janitor.
He moved the next day, bringing his effects in a cab. The cabman
professed never to have seen a dog as "classy" as Nap, and voiced the
cheerful prophecy that in any bench show he would make them all look
like mutts. He received a gratuity of fifty cents in addition to the
outrageous fee he demanded for coming so far north, although he had the
appearance of one who uses liquor to excess, and could probably not have
qualified as a judge of dogs.
Bean's installation, under the guidance of Cassidy, was effected without
delay. The apartment proved to be entirely suitable for a king in
abeyance. There was a bedroom, a parlour, an alcove off the latter that
Cassidy said was the libr'y an' a good place f'r a dawg t' sleep, and
beyond this was a feminine diminutive of a kitchen, prettily called a
"kitchenette."
Bean felt like an insect in such a labyrinth of a place. He forgot where
he put things, and then, overcome by the vastness and number of rooms,
forgot what he was looking for, losing himself in an abstracted and
fruitless survey of the walls. He must buy things to hang on the walls,
especially over certain stains on the wall of the parlour, or
throne-room, to which in the heat of battle, doubtless, certain items of
the late Dutch lunch had been misdirected.
But he knew what to buy. Etchings. In the magazine stories he read,
aside from the very rich characters who had galleries of old masters,
there were two classes: one without taste that littered its rooms with
expensive but ill-advised bric-a-brac; and one that wisely contented
itself with "a few good etchings." He bought a few good etchings at a
department store for $1.97 each, and felt irreproachable. And when he
had arranged his books--about Napoleon I and ancient Egypt--he was ready
to play the game of living. Mrs. Cassidy "did" his rooms, and Cassidy
already showed the devotion of an old and tried retainer. The Cassidys
made him feel feudal.
At night, while Nap fought a never-decided battle with a sofa-pillow, or
curled asleep on the couch with a half-inch of silly pink tongue
projecting from between his teeth, he read of Egypt, the black land,
where had been the first great people of the ancient world. He devoured
the fruit of the lotus, the tamarisk, the pomegranate, and held cats to
be sacred. (Funny, that feeling he had always had about cats--afraid of
them even in childhood--it had survived in his being!) There he had
lived and reigned in that flat valley of the Nile, between borders of
low mountains, until his name had been put down in the book of the dead,
and he had gone for a time to the hall of Osiris.
Or, perhaps, he read reports of psychical societies, signed by men with
any number of capital letters after their names: cool-headed scientists,
university professors, psychologists, grave students all, who were
constantly finding new and wonderful mediums, and achieving
communication with the disembodied. He could tell them a few things;
only, of course, he wouldn't make a fool of himself. He could _show_
them something, too, when the secret agents of Professor Balthasar came
bringing It.
Or he looked into the opal depths of his shell, and saw visions of his
greatness to come, while Nap, unregarded, wrenched away one of his
slippers and pretended to find it something alive and formidable, to be
growled at and shaken and savagely macerated.
* * * * *
There came, on a certain fair morning, a summons from Breede, who was
detained at his country place by the same malady that Bulger had once so
crudely diagnosed. Bean was to bring out the mail and do his work there.
The car waited below.
At another time the expedition might have attracted him. He had studied
pictures of that country place in the Sunday papers. Now it meant a
separation from his dog, who was already betraying for the Cassidys a
greater fondness than the circumstances justified; and it meant an
absence from town at the very time when the secret agents might happen
along with It. Of course he could refuse to go, but that would cost him
his job, and he was not yet even the director of an express company.
Dejectedly he prepared for the journey.
"Better take some things along," suggested Tully, who had conveyed the
order to him. "He may keep you three or four days."
Bulger followed him to the hall.
"Look out for Grandma, the Demon!" warned Bulger. "'F I was the old man
I'd slip something in her tea."
"Who--who is she?" demanded Bean.
"Just his dear, sweet old mother, that's all! Talk you to
death--suffergette! Oh! say!"
Reaching the street, his gloom was not at all lightened by the discovery
of the flapper in the waiting car. She gave him the little double-nod
and regarded him with that peculiar steely kindness he so well
remembered. It was undoubtedly kind, that look, yet there was an
implacable something in its quality that dismayed him. He wondered what
she exactly meant by it.
"Get in," commanded the flapper, and Bean got in.
"Tell him where to go for your things."
Bean told him.
"I'm glad it's on our way. Pops is in an awful state. He swore right out
at his own mother this morning, and he wants you there in a hurry. Maybe
we'll be arrested for speeding."
Bean earnestly hoped they would. Pops in health was ordeal enough. But
he remained silent, trusting to the vigilance of an excellent
constabulary. The car reached the steam-heated apartment without
adventure, however, and he quickly secured his suit-case and consigned
the dog for an uncertain period to a Cassidy, who was brazenly taking
more than a friendly interest in him. Cassidy talked bluntly of how "we"
ought to feed him, as if he were already a part owner of the animal.
The car flew on, increasing a speed that had been unlawful almost from
the start. He wondered what the police were about. He might write a
sharp letter to the newspapers, signed, "Indignant Pedestrian," only it
would be too late. He was being volleyed at the rate of thirty-five
miles an hour into the presence of a man who had that morning sworn at
his mother. He wished he could, say for one day, have Breede back there
on the banks of the Nile--set him to work building a pyramid, or weeding
the lotus patch, foot or _no_ foot! He'd show him!
He switched this resentment to the young female at his side. He wanted
her to quit looking at him that way. It made him nervous. But a muffled
glance or two at her disarmed this feeling. She was all right to look
at, he thought, had pretty hands and "all that"--she had stripped off
her gloves when they reached the open country--and she didn't talk,
which was what he most feared in her sex. He recalled that she had said
hardly a word since the start. He might have supposed himself forgotten
had it not been for that look of veiled determination which he
encountered as often as he dared.
A young dog dashed from a gateway ahead of them and threatened the car
furiously. They both applied imaginary brakes to the car with feet and
hands and taut nerves. The puppy escaping death by an inch, trotted back
to his saved home with an air that comes from duty well performed. They
looked from the dog to each other.
"I'd make them against the law," said Bean.
"How could you? The idea!"
"I mean motors, not dogs."
"Oh! Of course!"
They had been brought a little together.
"You go in for dogs?" asked the flapper.
He hesitated. "Going in" for dogs seemed to mean more. "I've got only
one just now," he confessed.
Wooded hills flew by them, the white road flickered forward to their
wheels.
"You interested in the movement?" demanded the flapper again.
"Yes," he said.
"Granny will be delighted to know that. So many young men aren't."
"What make is it?" he inquired, preparing to look enlightened when told
the name of the vehicle in which they rode.
"Oh, I mean the Movement--_the_ movement!"
"Oh, yes," he faltered. "Greatly interested!" He remembered the badge on
her jacket, and Bulger's warning about Grandma, the Demon.
"Granny and I marched in the parade this year, clear down to Washington
Square. If she wasn't so old we'd both run over to London and get
arrested in the Strand for breaking windows."
Bean shuddered.
"We're making our flag now for the next parade--big blue cloth with a
gold star for every state that has raised woman from her degradation by
giving her a vote."
He shuddered again. Although of legal years for the franchise, he had
never voted. If you tried to vote some ward-heeler would challenge you
and you'd like as not be hauled off to the lock-up. And what was the
good of it! The politicians got what they wanted. But this he kept to
himself.
"Granny'll put a badge on you," promised the flapper. "We have to take
advantage of every little means."
He was still puzzling over this when they turned through a gateway,
imposing with its tangle of wrought iron and gilt, and at a decorously
reduced speed crinkled up a wide drive to the vast pile of gray stone
that housed the un-filial Breede.
[Illustration: "Daughter!" said Breede, with half a glance at the
flapper]
A taller and, Bean thought, a prettier girl than the flapper stepped
aside for them, looking at Bean as they passed. One could read her look
as one could not read the flapper's. It was outrageously languishing.
"Flirts with every one, makes no difference _who_!" explained the
flapper with a venomous sniff.
Bean laughed uneasily.
"She's my own dear sister, and I love her, but she's a perfect cat!"
Bean made deprecating sounds with his lips.
"I suppose people have been wondering where I was," confessed the
flapper as they descended upon the granite steps. "I forgot to tell them
I was going. Better hurry to Pops or he'll be murdering some one."
A man took his bag and preceded him into the big hall.
"Engaged, too!" called the flapper bitterly.
He found Breede imprisoned in a large, light room that looked to the
west. Below the windows a green hill fell sheerly away to the bank of a
lordly river, and beyond rose other hills that shimmered in the haze. A
light breeze fluttered the gayly striped awnings. Breede, at a desk,
turned his back upon the fair scene and fumed.
"Take letter G.M. Watkins, Pres'den I 'n' N.C. Rai'way," began Breede
as Bean entered the room. "Dear sir repline yours of 23d instan' would
say Ouch! damn that foot don't take that regardin' traffic 'greement
now'n 'fect that 'casion may rise 'n near future to 'mend same in
'cordance with stip'lations inform'ly made at conf'rence held las'
Janwary will not'fy you 'n due time 'f change is made yours very truly
have some lunch brought here 'n a minute may haf' t' stay three four
days t'll this Whoo! damn foot gets well take letter H.J. Hobbs secon'
'sistant vice Pres'den' D. 'n' L.S. Rai'way New York, New York, dear
Hobbs mark it pers'nal repline yours even date stock purchases goin'
forward as rapidly's thought wise under circumstances it is held mos'ly
'n small lots an' too active a market might give rise t' silly notions
about it--"
The day's work was on, familiar enough, with the exception of Breede's
interjections; he spoke words many times that were not to be "taken
down." And yet Bean forebore to record his wonted criticisms of his
employer's dress. There was ground for them. Breede had never looked
less the advanced dresser. But Bean's mind was busy with that older
sister, she of the marvellously drooping eyes. He had recognized her at
once as the ideal person with whom to be wrecked on a desert island. A
flirt, and engaged, too, was she? No matter. He wrecked himself with
her, and they lived on mussels and edible roots and berries, and some
canned stuff from the ship, and he built a hut of "native thatch," and
found a deposit of rubies, gathering bushels of them, and he became her
affianced the very day the smoke of the rescuing steamer blackened the
horizon. And throughout an idyllic union they always thought rather
regretfully of that island; they had had such a beautiful time there.
And his oldest son, who was left-handed, pitched a ball that was the
despair of every batter in both leagues!
Such had been the devastation of that one drooping glance. This vision,
enjoyed while he ate of the luncheon brought to him, might have been
prolonged. He hadn't remembered a quarter of the delightful
contingencies that arise when the right man and woman are wrecked on an
island, but he looked up from his plate to find Breede regarding him and
his abundant food with a look of such stony malignance that he could eat
no more--Breede with his glass of diluted milk and one intensely
hygienic cracker!
But during pauses in the afternoon's work the island vision became
blurred by the singular energies of the flapper. What did she mean by
looking at him that way? There was something ominous about it. He had to
admit that in some occult way she benumbed his will power. He did not
believe he would dare be wrecked on a desert island with the other one,
if the flapper knew about it.
At last there was surcease of Breede.
"Have 'em ready in the morning," he directed, referring to the letters
he had dictated. "G'wout 'n' 'muse yourself when you get time," he added
hospitably. "Now I got to hobble to my room. If you see any women
outside, tell 'em g'wan downstairs if they don't want to hear me."
He stood balanced on one foot, a stout cane in either hand. Bean opened
the door, but the hall was vacant. Breede grunted and began his
progress. It was, perhaps, not more than reasonably vocal considering
his provocation.
Bean uncovered a typewriter and sat to it, his note-book before him. For
a moment he reverted to the island vision. They could be attacked by
savages from another island, and he would fight them off with the rifles
he had salvaged from the ship. _She_ would reload the weapons for him,
and bind up his head when he was wounded. He fought the last half of the
desperate battle with a stained bandage over his brow.
There was a sharp rap at the door and it opened
before he could call. The flapper entered.
"Don't let me disturb you," she said, and walked to the window, as if
she found the place only scenically interesting.
Bean murmured politely and began upon his letters. The flapper was
relentless. She sat in her father's chair and fastened the old look of
implacable kindness upon him. He beat the keys of the machine. The
flapper was disturbing him atrociously.
A few moments later another rap sounded on the door, and again it opened
before he could call. A shrewd-looking, rather trim old lady with
carefully coiffed hair stood in the doorway.
"Don't let me disturb you," she said, and again Bean murmured.
"Mr. Bean, my grandmother," said the flapper.
"Keep right on with your work, young man," said the old lady in
commanding tones, when Bean had acknowledged the presentation. "I like
to watch it."
She sat in another chair, very straight in her lavender dress, and
joined with the flapper in her survey of the wage-slave. This was
undoubtedly Grandma, the Demon.
Bean continued his work, thinking as best he could above the words of
Breede, that she must be a pretty raw old party, going around, voting,
smashing windows, leading her innocent young grandchild into the same
reckless life. Nice thing, that! He was not surprised when he heard a
match lighted a moment later, and knew that Grandma was smoking a
cigarette. Expect anything of _that_ sort!
He had wished they would go before he finished the last letter, but they
sat on, and Grandma filled the room with smoke.
"Now he's through!" proclaimed the flapper.
"How old are you?" asked Grandma, as Bean arose nervously from the
machine.