Theory's Victim
Johnson Boller looked. And, looking, the pleased grin which had so
lately suffused his features faded out swiftly--because the unknown
really seemed to be with them.
Far down the mob, an attendant of the place was indicating their general
direction to a shortish man in a long storm-coat; and now he of the coat
had nodded and was pushing his way down the narrow aisle toward them,
staring at the sea of faces as he moved along slowly and seeming a
little uncertain in his movements.
"Anthony!" Johnson Boller said suddenly.
"Well?"
"Don't speak to this guy! I don't like his looks!"
"Bah!"
"And this gang behind us is doing everything but watch the fight," Mr.
Boller whispered on. "If you try anything funny on this fellow that's
coming, he's likely to put up a yell of some kind--and once a fight
starts in this box these three behind are coming in."
"Johnson, don't be absurd," Anthony smiled. "Get over in the odd seat; I
want the chap next to me so that I can have a good look at him."
"Will you remember that I said you were going to start trouble?" Johnson
inquired hotly.
"I'll remember anything you like, only get over into that odd seat," Mr.
Fry muttered, as the stranger came closer. "Ah, he's hardly more than a
boy."
"Yes, he's a young thug!" Johnson Boller informed him in parting. "He's
a young gang-leader, Anthony--look at the walk! Look at the way he has
that cap pulled down over one eye! Look at----"
Anthony Fry, obviously, would have heard him as well had he been seated
on the steps of Colorado's State capitol. Intellectual countenance
alight, the mildly eccentric Anthony--really the sanest and most
delightful of men except when these abstract notions came to him--was
wholly absorbed in the newcomer.
Rather than stare directly he turned toward the ring as the young man in
the long coat crowded into the box and settled down with a little puff,
but one who knew him as well as Johnson Boller could feel Anthony's eyes
looking past his lean right cheek and taking in every detail of theory's
prospective victim.
Not that he was a particularly savage-looking creature on closer
inspection, however. The cheap cloth cap and the shabby long coat--heavy
enough for a typhoon when there was the merest suggestion of drizzle
outdoors--gave one that impression at first, but second examination
showed him to be really rather mild.
He seemed to be about twenty. His clothing, from the overcoat to the
trousers and the well-worn shoes, indicated that he came from no very
elevated plane of society. His features, which seemed decidedly boyish
among some of the faces present, were decidedly good. His hair needed
cutting and had needed it, for some time, and he was tremendously
interested in the star bout. Elbows on the rail, cap pulled down to
shade his eyes, the youngster's whole excited soul seemed centered in
the ring.
So at a rather easy guess Mr. Boller concluded that he was a mechanic or
a janitor's assistant or an elevator boy or something like that. The
buyer of his seat, finding himself unable to come at the last moment,
had given the kid his ticket and he was having the time of his life.
Johnson Boller hunched down again with a sad little grunt. He had meant
to enjoy this star bout; only a week ago, in fact, before the Montreal
horror loomed up, he had been considering just how an evening might be
snatched from the happy home life without disturbing Beatrice--who,
ignorant of modern pugilism, disapproved prize-fighting on the ground of
brutality. And now it was ruined, because Johnson Boller's next half
hour would have to go to the devising of means by which Anthony could be
steered from his idiotic experiment, whatever it might be in concrete
form.
Anthony meant to offer this youngster opportunity--how or in what form
Anthony himself doubtless did not know as yet. But he did intend to
speak to him and, unless Johnson Boller's faculty for guessing was much
in error, he meant to lead the youngster hence, perhaps to feed him in a
restaurant while he talked him full of abstract theory, perhaps even to
take him home to the Lasande.
But whatever he intended, it wouldn't do. Johnson Boller really needed
Anthony this night. He needed Anthony to listen while he talked about
the absent Beatrice, and recalled all her beauty, all her fire, all her
adorable qualities; he needed Anthony at the other side of the
chessboard, over which game Johnson Boller could grow so profoundly
sleepy that even Beatrice _en route_ to Siam would hardly have disturbed
him. And he needed no third person!
Toward the end of the fifth round, however, Johnson Boller grew
painfully conscious that he had as yet concocted no very promising
scheme. Indeed, the lone inspiration so far included whispering to the
kid that the gentleman on his other side was mildly insane and that
flight were best, should the gentleman address him; but Anthony
persisted in leaning so close to the youngster that whispering was
impossible.
Also, it occurred to Johnson Boller that he himself might be taken
violently ill--that he might clutch his heart and beg Anthony to lead
him to the outer air. There was little in that, though; the chances were
more than even that Anthony, if his enthusiasm as to the victim still
persisted, would request the youngster's assistance in getting him out.
And the enthusiasm seemed enduring enough. They were in the tenth and
last round now and Anthony, with his strange smile, was turning to the
young man and--ah, yes, he was speaking:
"Pardon me!"
The boy started with undue violence and stared at him, drew back a
little and even looked Anthony up and down as he said:
"Speaking to me?"
"I am speaking to you, young man," Anthony smiled benignly. "May I speak
to you a little more?"
This, very evidently, was a sensitive boy, unaccustomed to chatting with
really elegant, palpably prosperous strangers. The startled eyes ran
over Anthony again and a frown came into them.
"What's the idea?" he asked briefly.
"There is a very large idea, which I should like to make clear to you,"
Mr. Fry went on smoothly. "I should like to have a talk with you, young
man--not here, of course, but when the fight is over--and it will be to
your considerable advantage----"
"I don't want to buy anything," the canny young man informed him.
"And I don't want to sell you anything," Anthony laughed, "but I do wish
to present to you a proposition which will be of much interest."
This time, possibly not without warrant, the boy shrank unmistakably
from him, hitching his collar a little higher and his cap a little
farther down.
"It wouldn't interest me," he said with some finality. "I'm--just a poor
lad, you know, and I haven't a cent to invest in anything."
"But you have an hour to invest, perhaps?" Anthony smiled.
"Nope!"
"Oh, yes, you have," the owner of Fry's Imperial Liniment persisted. "It
is for no purpose of my own, save perhaps to justify a small contention,
but I wish you to come home with me for a little while."
"WHAT?" said the boy.
As Johnson Boller observed, sighing heavily and shaking his head as he
observed it, the young man was downright scared now. An older citizen
would have spoken his candid thoughts to Anthony Fry, doubtless, and
chilled him back to reason; but this one drew away from Anthony until he
bumped into Johnson Boller, turned hastily and asked the latter's pardon
and then gazed at Anthony with eyes which, if not filled with terror,
certainly held a quantity of somewhat amused apprehension.
He shook his head determinedly and seemed to be seeking words, and as he
sought them a new element entered the situation. The red-faced person
just behind Anthony Fry, having gazed suddenly from the youngster to the
maker of theories, lurched forward suddenly and spoke:
"Let that kid alone!"
"Eh?" Anthony said amazedly.
Johnson Boller leaned forward quickly.
"Stop right there, Anthony!" he hissed. "Don't answer him!"
"Why on earth shouldn't I answer him?" Anthony snapped.
"You keep out of it, young feller!" the red-faced one told Johnson
Boller, and one saw that his honest rage was rising fast. "He's gotter
let that kid alone!"
"Well, confound your impudence, sir!" Anthony began. "I----"
"None o' that stuff!" the total stranger said hotly. "You cut out
picking on the kid or I'll step on your face."
And here his redder-faced companion leaned forward and demanded thickly:
"Woddy do ter kid, Joe? Huh? Wozzer matter--huh? Wozzer trouble 'th
you--huh?"
Johnson Boller was on his feet and in the aisle, perturbed and still
able to see how the unexpected had been planned for his especial
benefit.
"This is where we get off, Anthony," he said briefly, "I could smell it
coming. Come along."
"Is there going to be a fight here?" the boy in the chair between asked,
with a quantity of eager excitement.
"If I know the signs, ten seconds hence this spot is going to look like
a detail of the Battle of the Marne," said Mr. Boller. "And you want to
get out of it quick or you'll be hurt, kid. You scoot right down that
way, the way you came, and get clear of the crowd before it starts."
He pointed. He waited. But the boy did not start.
Who, in the calmer afterward, shall explain just how these gunpowder
situations develop, grow instantaneously incandescent, and explode?
The atmosphere was one of physical battle; the red-faced gentlemen were
filled with alcoholic spirits; yet who shall say just why the red-faced
man, his friend stumbling against him, gained the impression that
Anthony Fry had struck him a coward's blow from behind? Or why, with a
roar of incoherent fury, he aimed a dreadful punch at Anthony himself,
standing there quite collected if somewhat paler?
That is what happened, although by no means all that happened. The
unfortunate spot came three seconds later when Anthony, side-stepping
the alcoholized jab, threw up his hands to fend off the jabber's whole
swaying person--threw them, all unwittingly, so that his right fist
settled squarely on a red nose, drawing therefrom a magic spurt of
blood!
After that, for a little, nothing was very clear. Three sets of fists
began to hammer in Anthony's general direction; three throats
shouted--and three hundred took up the shout.
Men came tumbling toward Box B and into it. A large person in bright
blue shirt-sleeves, with a derby on the back of his head, received the
third blow intended for Anthony and returned it with interest, just as
that startled person was jammed against the rail.
From three different points, high-held night-sticks were pushing through
the surging crowd; and Johnson Boller, looking quickly at the storm
center, counted no less than eleven separate couples pounding one
another, and smiled as he jerked Anthony bodily over the rail and
hissed:
"Come on, you poor lunatic! Come on!"
"Johnson, upon my soul----" Anthony began.
"Never mind your soul! Get your body out of here before the cops find it
and club it to death for starting this rumpus!" Mr. Boller cried
agitatedly. "Look at that sergeant, Anthony! He's got his eye on you and
he's fighting his way over here! Now, you scoot down there, kid! Move!
Quick, before----"
"No! Come with us, boy!" Anthony said, somewhat disconcertingly.
"What for?" the boy inquired. "I want to watch this."
"You stay and watch it by all means!" Johnson Boller smiled quickly.
"You're perfectly safe, youngster; I was only fooling. Now you come this
way, Anthony, and----"
Anthony, unperturbed, laid a kindly hand on the youngster's shoulder.
"You'd better come with us, my son," said he. "They'll run you in for a
witness and you may be locked up for a week unless you have friends to
get you out."
This time he had startled the young man. Wide eyes turned and stared at
him and there was a distinct note of fright in the voice that said:
"What do you mean? Arrest me?"
"Of course, if you stay here," Anthony said. "Come with me and I'll take
care of you."
And then Johnson Boller had caught his arm and was dragging him away;
and Anthony, catching the willing arm of the boy, was dragging him
after. Around the side of the ring they sped, where an interested group
of fighters and trainers watched the mêlée; and, veering, on through a
small side door and into the night.
"Here's where the taxis wait," Mr. Boller said quickly. "Now, you beat
it straight down the street, kid, and----"
"We'll take this one," Anthony interrupted, as he jerked open the door
and thrust his bewildered charge inward. "Tell the man to take us home,
Johnson."
Johnson Boller complied with a grunt, slamming the door viciously as he
plumped into his own seat. The kid, prospective victim of Anthony's
latest notion, was still with them--and he seemed contented enough to be
there for the present. The possibility of arrest had jarred the
youngster more than a little, and he hunched down on the little forward
seat and breathed quite heavily. And now Anthony's deep, kindly voice
was addressing him with--
"You'll come home with me for a little while, youngster?"
Mr. Boller drew a long, resigned breath and prepared to back the boy in
every objection his doubtless normal mind should offer--but they chanced
to pause by an arc lamp just then and he caught the boy's expression.
It was really a queer thing to see. No fear was there at all now, but
only the overwhelming, innocent curiosity of youth, mingled with an
inscrutable something else. One might have called it a daredevil light,
breathing the young craving for adventure, but Johnson Boller, with an
unaccountable shudder, felt that it was not just that.
To save him, he could not have named the quality; he sensed it rather
than actually saw it, but it was there just the same--an ominous,
mocking, speculative amusement that had no place at all in the eye of an
elevator boy when looking at the wealthy, dignified Anthony Fry. The
boy's fine teeth showed for a moment as he asked:
"Pardon me, but what's it all about? Why under the sun should I go home
with you?"
"Because I want to talk confidentially to you for an hour."
"You're not judging from these togs that I'm a criminal, are you?" the
boy grinned, and it seemed to Johnson Boller that the tone was far too
cultivated for the clothes.
"What?"
"I mean, you don't want any one murdered, or anything of that kind?"
Anthony laughed richly.
"By no means, my dear boy. As to what it is all about I'll tell you when
we get there. You'll come?"
"I think not," the boy said frankly.
"But----"
"Nix! I don't know why, but I don't like the idea. I think it's a little
bit too unusual. Who are you, anyway?"
"My name is Fry, if that tells you anything," smiled its owner.
"Fry?" the boy repeated.
"Anthony Fry."
"Eh?" the youngster said, and there was a peculiarly sharp note in his
voice.
"He makes Fry's Liniment," Johnson Boller put in disgustedly, yet
happily withal because it was plain that the boy would have no part in
spoiling his chess game and the little chat about Beatrice. "He has a
lot of theories not connected with the liniment business, kid, and he
wants to bore you to death with some of them. They wouldn't interest you
any more than they interest me, and you're perfectly right in refusing
to listen to them."
"Umum," said the boy oddly.
"And now I'll tell you what we'll do," Johnson Boller concluded quite
happily. "You tell me where you live, and when the man drops us I'll pay
your fare home. Some class to that, eh? Going home in a taxicab after
sitting in a ten-dollar seat at a big fight! You don't get off on a
jamboree like that very often, I'll bet!"
"No," the boy said thoughtfully.
"So here's the little old Hotel Lasande where Mr. Fry lives," Mr. Boller
finished cheerfully, "and where shall I tell the man to set you down,
kid?"
He had settled the matter, of course. Never in this world could the
little ragamuffin resist the temptation of returning to his tenement
home, or whatever it was, in a taxi. Johnson Boller, rising as the
vehicle stopped, laid a kindly hand on his shoulder.
"Now, you sit over in my seat and stretch your legs while you ride,
kid--and here! Have a real cigar and feel like a real sport! Don't you
know how to bite off the end?"
"I--I don't want to bite off the end yet," the boy muttered.
"Sink your teeth in it. Now I'll get you a match."
He felt for one, did Johnson Boller, and then ceased feeling for one.
That sudden low laugh of the young man's was one of the oddest sounds he
had ever heard; moreover, as the Lasande doorman opened the door of the
taxi, he caught the same odd light in the boy's eye--and now he, too,
had risen and pulled the disreputable cap a little lower as he said:
"I won't smoke it now, thanks. I'm going upstairs and listen to Mr. Fry
for a while, I think."