Not many mornings after, there was the sound of a strange footstep in
Miss Slopham's kitchen, and Bridget emitted a half-shriek. "Mither of
Moses! what's that?" It was Ogla-Moga, who had just arrived. His
costume was an extraordinary mixture of blanket and trousers and coat,
hardly consistent with the requirements of civilization. A broad
slouched hat hid his coarse black locks, and cast a friendly shadow
over his piercing eyes and swarthy face.
"Here, Bridget," said Miss Slopham, "get some breakfast for
this--a--a--gentleman at once." Miss Slopham was not accustomed to
meeting Indians in a social way. She hardly knew whether to call him
chief; she thought wildly for a moment of sheik; but compromised upon
gentleman.
To Bridget's astonishment, her mistress hovered about while the
strange dark man gobbled his food and glared upon her with his wild
eyes. Still another stranger had come in with them; but this one wore
the garments of civilization as if he were used to them. He was a bald
young man--in fact, one of the baldest young men that ever was seen.
He seemed to be bald all over. He had no ascertainable eyebrows, or
eyelashes, or hair, and this, with his bright, fresh complexion and
his big spectacles, gave him a very unworldly appearance.
"Oh, Miss Slobham," he said, "I haf been so much mofed wid de story of
dis poor Indian! He iss a shild of nature. He hass been so quiet, and
so goot and so sad! I haf talked to him by de hour, and he hass not
interroopted me vonce. I haf exblained to him the viewss of our
Ettical Surkle upon de future state, and he hass listened so
attentifely, and ven I haf looked at him I haf found dat he wass
asleep. Oh, his sleep wass so benign! I haf vept; I could not hellp
it. He iss a shild of nature;" and good Mr. Michst wiped a tear from
his eye.
"Good! good!" grunted Ogla-Moga, as he put a block of beefsteak in his
mouth without the formality of a fork.
"He hass eaten all de vay from St. Louis to here, and he never seem to
haf enough," said Mr. Michst, in awe, looking at Ogla-Moga very much
as one might at the phenomenon of a menagerie.
"Poor creatures! I've often heard that their supplies were sometimes
cut off for months at a time. I suppose this is a case of that kind.
Ogla-Moga," said Miss Slopham, addressing him with her most reassuring
and eleemosynary smile, "does the government feed you often,
you--a--poor Indians?"
"Not had--what you call it?--round meal--no, square meal," the Indian
replied, making an explanatory parallelogram with his hands, "in four
moons."
"Moonss?--moonss? What does he mean by moonss?"
Before the lady had time to make sure of her own knowledge on the
subject, Ogla-Moga began a wild and mysterious pantomime, which caused
Bridget, who had her eye steadily on the strange monster, and kept
close to the window as an avenue of desperate retreat, to exclaim:
"Mither of Moses! what's the baste going to do?" Ogla-Moga was
throwing his arm up in the air with a fierce swing, suddenly crooking
his elbow, and bringing his closed hand to his mouth, while he rolled
his eyes around the room with a melodramatic ferocity, evidently
intended to convey the idea of extreme rapture.
"Poor Ogla-Moga!" said Miss Slopham; "he wants something to drink.
Give him a glass of ice-water, Bridget, and have it perfectly clear.
It may remind him of the water he used to drink from the brooks of his
far-off forest home;" and here Miss Slopham, in her turn, wiped a tear
from her eye. Indeed, the crystal particle was apparently so surprised
to find itself on the good lady's cheek that it seemed to disappear of
its own accord.
Ogla-Moga looked at the innocent glass of Croton that was handed him
with undisguised disdain; but he swallowed his thoughts, whatever they
were, with the water, and signified that his meal was ended.
And now for the first time the extent of the task she had undertaken
became apparent to Miss Slopham. What was to be done with this
terrible infant from the prairies during the week of seclusion that
her plan made necessary? She lived alone, except for the companionship
of Bridget, and it was asking a good deal of a timid and shrinking
nature like Miss Slopham's to take into her little household a
gentleman who rolled his eyes in such an alarming manner. Then, too,
there were the proprieties, against which sins could not be committed
even in the name of reform. Yet what else was there to be done? He
could not be sent to a hotel: that meant publicity, and perhaps
recapture by the emissaries of a cruel and unsympathetic government.
She could not ask a friend to take him in. He could not be sent
anywhere without danger. Finally a brilliant thought struck her
just as she was on the verge of distraction, with Ogla-Moga's big
eyes fastened on her all the while. There was the janitor of the
apartment-house. He might easily be induced to take a boarder, and he
would be discreet. Ogla-Moga could be kept in retirement in his rooms.
She would act at once upon the idea. And yet what was she to say? How
was she to account for the presence of this stranger in her little
household? Ah! he needed clothes. His present costume was an
impossible one. She would begin with this subject with the janitor's
wife, and feel her way gradually. So she made her way to the top of
the house.
It would be hard to say who was in the greatest flutter when the
janitor's door was opened upon her, Miss Slopham, whose maiden bosom
was agitated with strange embarrassments, or Mrs. Doherty, who was not
accustomed to receive calls from the ladies of the house. The former
was so confused that she walked against a chair and knocked it over,
gave a little scream, and stepped on the baby, which was sprawling on
the floor, whereat the baby screamed, and she screamed, and Mrs.
Doherty screamed--all of which did not tend to diminish the mental
excitement of either of the ladies, especially as Mrs. Doherty had up
to that moment been trying to dust off a chair with one hand while she
held another baby with the other arm, and motioned with her head to a
little girl--or perhaps she ought to be called a baby--who had charge
of still two other babies, to take them out of the room. Poor Miss
Slopham thought she had never seen so many babies in her life before,
and the spectacle somehow only increased her bewilderment. So perhaps
it was not to be wondered at that when she had sunk into a chair she
should begin the conversation with the extraordinary and utterly
unprecedented question:
"Oh, Mrs. Doherty, could you--a--could you--a--lend me--a--a pair of
pantaloons?"
"A pair of what, Miss Slopham?" said the astounded Mrs. Doherty, in a
low voice which expressed both the proper deference of the janitor's
wife and the natural amazement of the woman.
"Oh, of course, I--I didn't mean to say that," poor Miss Slopham
stammered, in hopeless embarrassment. "The fact is, there's a
gentleman down-stairs--a friend of mine, you know--he has no home, and
very few clothes--and I want to get you to help me. He's down-stairs
now, and he's going to stay--I don't see how I am going to help
it--and I must get a suit of clothes for him this afternoon. I suppose
you think this is all very queer," said the poor lady in breathless
confusion, with a little nervous laugh, thinking to herself at the
same time that it certainly _was_ very queer.
"I'm not at all sure that I understand ye, ma'am," said the bewildered
woman, looking about her in an alarmed sort of way, as if she wondered
whether Miss Slopham was quite a safe woman to be alone with.
"Oh, how can I explain it?" that lady cried, desperately. "Well," she
said, drawing a long breath, "let's begin at the beginning. Of course
you understand that I don't want any such clothes for myself?"
"No, ma'am, I suppose not," murmured Mrs. Doherty, evidently
suspecting that the other was slightly insane.
"Well, I wanted to ask you about them, because I thought your husband
might have some clothes he did not want. I'd pay him a good price for
them, and they needn't be very good"--and again Miss Slopham struck
that terrible snag of the conversation--"I want them for a gentleman
who's got into trouble; I can't tell you what it is, but he's got to
keep out of the way of people. And the thing I wanted to ask you most,
Mrs. Doherty," she said, in a pleading voice, conscious that she was
twisting it all into a sad snarl, "was whether I couldn't get you and
Mr. Doherty to take him to board up here with you for a while," and
here the good lady sighed a sigh of relief in spite of her misery and
confusion. She had at last let the cat out of the bag.
Mrs. Doherty's eyes were growing very large. The man needed new
clothes; must have them that afternoon; there was a reason for his
keeping out of the way; Miss Slopham would not tell what it was; the
man had got into trouble. The idea grew bigger and bigger in Mrs.
Doherty's mind, until at last it burst out with,
"But is it a jail-bird ye've got there, ma'am?"
"No, no," cried Miss Slopham, badly frightened in her turn at the
other's fear. "How could you think such a thing? He's a gentleman, you
know; quite an important man where he comes from. There are reasons
why I can't tell you who he is. He doesn't want anybody to know it
either. But a jail-bird! why, wait till you see him, Mrs. Doherty. He
looks so gentle, and he's really handsome."
Mrs. Doherty looked at Miss Slopham. Miss Slopham was a wealthy
tenant, and paid a large rent, and Mrs. Doherty was only the janitor's
wife. But, after all, Mrs. Doherty was a woman, and Miss Slopham was a
woman also, and Mrs. Doherty looked at Miss Slopham in the way in
which only a woman can look at another woman; looked at her gray and
withered curls, and at her face, which had never, in the spring-time
of Miss Slopham's youth, been the kind of face which painters
celebrate and poets embalm in verse, and said nothing. What she may
have thought, or whether she thought anything, was a matter of little
consequence, for when the richer lady came to mention the terms at
which she rated the hospitality of the Doherty household, Mrs. Doherty
showed a positive anxiety to oblige her, and even murmured something
about being glad to do anything in their power for such a kind lady.
Now began a week of agony for Miss Slopham. Ogla-Moga was duly
installed in the Doherty apartment, and duly invested with a suit of
Mr. Doherty's clothes. But the taste for roving was still strong upon
him. The inner life of an apartment-house seemed to arouse all his
savage curiosity, and the fact that the entrance to every apartment
looked like the entrance to every other apartment gave rise to some
disagreeable complications. In the second floor front, for example, a
skirmish with a view to matrimony had long been in progress between
the daughter of the family, Miss Josephine Ayr, and Mr. Margent, of
the young and prosperous stock-broking firm of Margent & Bar, and the
decisive engagement was plainly near at hand. The progress of the
acquaintanceship had been watched with an interest not altogether
friendly by the second floor back, while Miss Slopham had deigned to
catch such neutral and impartial glimpses of it as she could over the
stairs from the third floor front. In fact, the second floor back, who
bore the name of Pound, had in an unguarded moment introduced Mr.
Margent to the second floor front, and had then in silent rage seen
him borne away from them by Miss Josephine. Perhaps this was to be
accounted for by the fact that the two marriageable daughters in the
second floor back had been offered, to use the coarse expression of
the young stock-broker, "with no takers" for a series of years, and
perhaps by the bold and shocking manners of Miss Josephine, which were
often the subject of remark in the Pound household, where the opinion
was frequently heard that it was difficult to understand how old Mrs.
Ayr could keep so cheerful with a daughter whose behavior was the
scandal of all her acquaintances. By one of those unaccountable
coincidences which will occur in apartment-houses, the remarks of the
Ayrs about the Pounds were repeated to the Pounds, while at the same
time the remarks of the Pounds about the Ayrs were repeated to the
Ayrs, the result being that Miss Josephine said that it must be a
great satisfaction to Mrs. Pound to feel that she would probably
always have her daughters with her, especially as they were already of
an age to have many tastes in common with her, and the Misses Pound
said that it was truly painful to see people who had once been very
wealthy reduced in circumstances, like the Ayrs, for example, and
that both families were carefully polite when they met.
Now Mr. Margent was thought to be on the point of declaring himself,
and when he appeared one afternoon his intentions were obvious. He
was, if possible, more scrupulously dressed than ever. His clothes,
trimly cut in the latest style, were new and spotless. His plump, not
to say puffy, face, of an overfed white, was as smooth-shaven as ever.
His plentiful watch-chain and his elegant shoes and his expensive
stockings were, if possible, more plentiful and elegant and expensive
than ever. When Miss Josephine appeared in a fresh costume, his small
gray eyes revolved about her with an appearance of sluggish
satisfaction which for him was almost animation.
"Business," said he--"business's been splendid this year. Tip-top. C.
B. & Q. brought us in ten thousand at one clip the other day. Fact;"
and Mr. Margent paused for a fresh supply of ideas.
"How nice that is!" said Miss Josephine, gently, with a shade of
tender appreciation in her voice.
"But it costs a dreadful deal to live. We all live at hotels, you
know--all the boys. And then a fellow has to have his cab: all
the boys have cabs. And then we've got to have clothes. But I'm
economizing on that. I cut myself down to twenty suits last year. I
don't see any use of a fellow's having more than twenty suits;" and
Mr. Margent paused again, intellectually out of breath.
"I think you're a very extravagant creature," said the charming Miss
Josephine, playfully shaking her finger at him. "If you had a wife to
take care of you, you wouldn't be allowed to spend so much money."
"Well, do you know, I've been thinking of getting married. I was
talking with the boys about it the other day. I said I believed a man
could support a wife on seven thousand a year--keeping a fellow's cab,
and staying at the hotel, you know, and all that sort of thing"--he
hastened to add, with a little anxiety in his voice. "The boys bet I
couldn't, and I bet I could, and I believe it was then that I really
made up my mind to get married. Don't you believe it could be done on
that?" Mr. Margent found himself the subject of a suffusion of ideas,
and had the appearance of being surprised at his own gifts.
Miss Josephine was of the opinion, in a low voice, and with an
expression of intense interest in the lace in her sleeve, that it
could be done for that.
"Well, now," said the ardent youth, moving over to the sofa where she
was sitting, and settling himself down beside her, "why shouldn't we
get married? You're just the kind of girl I like--tip-top, you know. I
like a girl with style about her. Come, say yes." And here the crude
outlines of something like a joke, for the first time in Mr. Margent's
history, began to be visible to him in the dim recesses of his obese
mind. "Let's make it buyer sixty days," and he laughed until his small
eyes almost closed.
"And what's buyer sixty days, you horrid man?"
"Why, don't you know that? I should have thought you'd know that. It's
when the buyer has sixty days to call for the stock. Let's get married
in sixty days, and we'll invite all the boys."
Poor Miss Josephine! Was this her romance? She had not counted on
much--but was this all? She was a sensible and practical girl,
however, and the instructions of an excellent mother had not been lost
upon her. She yielded herself to the embrace of this winsome wooer,
her head drooped upon his shoulder, and he was just about to collect
the dividend of a kiss, when the hall door swung open with a crash,
and no other than Ogla-Moga plunged into the room, with a bundle
intended for Miss Slopham. It was Ogla-Moga's unfortunate peculiarity
that all floors were alike to him, and likewise all interiors. He
stood in the dark hallway glaring with amazement upon the bewildered
couple. Miss Josephine screamed, and Mr. Margent swore with actual
animation. Ogla-Moga grew still more excited. He had learned enough of
civilized life to know that strangers and intruders were objects of
suspicion.
"G'out! g'out!" he roared, with his voice at prairie pitch. "G'out! or
I put you out!"
Miss Josephine screamed again; her estimable mother rushed in by the
door leading to the bedrooms, followed by three children, all beside
themselves with curiosity and wonder, and Mr. Ayr himself appeared in
the doorway leading to the dining-room, in a state of respectable
consternation; and last of all appeared the heads of the two Misses
Pound in the hallway outside, uttering simultaneously, with many
deprecatory little bobs, the same words, to the effect that they
thought perhaps some one was hurt, all of which only increased the
wrath of Ogla-Moga, more than ever convinced that something was wrong.
"You no belong here!" he cried, swinging his arms wildly about. "This
wigwam belongs gray squaw!"
Miss Josephine always persisted in believing that Ogla-Moga had first
gone to the Pound door, and that the Misses Pound, who knew only too
well that Mr. Margent was calling upon her, had sent him to the other.
But if it were true, she had a real woman's revenge. She had no sooner
descried them in the doorway than with wonderful presence of mind she
fainted straight into Mr. Margent's arms, much to that gentleman's
astonishment. It was a master-stroke. The Misses Pound disappeared as
suddenly as if they had been pictures from a magic lantern, and had
been slid off the screen. Mrs. Ayr at once looked more cheerful, and
Mr. Ayr began an insane effort to remove Ogla-Moga from the premises,
in which it would have gone ill with him had it not been for a sudden
vision of curl-papers and gray hair behind the Indian. His name was
called in a voice he was accustomed to hear, he turned away, the door
was banged to upon his heels, and the tableau closed.
The very next day Mrs. Gottom of the third floor back was to
give a dinner party to the distinguished Italian musician, Signor
Barbazzo. Mrs. Gottom was known among the irreverent young men of her
acquaintance as "the menagerie woman." Her favorite exclamation was,
"I must have a fresh lion," and visitors to her apartment were always
sure of beholding the latest leonine specimens landed on these shores.
Signor Barbazzo's freshness made him a _rarus leo_. He was famous, and
all the world was waiting for him, but he had not yet appeared in
public. As a cruel fate would have it, Mrs. Gottom fell sick the very
day set for the dinner, and was compelled to resign her place as
hostess to her pretty and simple-hearted niece, Miss Tristan, who had
never seen Signor Barbazzo. As fate would also have it, that gentleman
himself fell sick, and being in the habit of doing as he pleased among
the barbarians of the West, sent no excuses. As fate would still have
it, Ogla-Moga, taking the wrong door as usual, strolled into Mrs.
Gottom's drawing-room, which happened to be empty, about an hour
before dinner, settled himself in a luxurious arm-chair in the middle
of the room, and--fell asleep. Half an hour later, pretty Miss
Tristan came rustling into the room with her coolest and sweetest
dress on. She gave a start of surprise when she saw a man there,
stepped forward, thinking that it was the distinguished guest himself,
stopped again, seeing that he was fast asleep, and then taking a swift
woman's glance at him, sped softly out of the room.
"Aunty, what do you think?" said she, breathlessly, running into that
lady's room. "Signor Barbazzo is in the parlor, sound asleep in the
big chair!"
"What are you saying, child? Signor Barbazzo in the parlor asleep!
Nonsense!"
"But it must be he. Who else can it be? Hasn't he got long black
hair?"
"Yes. And no beard or mustache? and a swarthy complexion?"
"Yes, yes."
"Well," said the aunt, wearily, "I suppose he has come in tired. Doing
what he pleases, as they all do. But he mustn't be disturbed, on any
account. I wish I was there to manage him. The other day at Mrs.
Vicar's he went away in the middle of the dinner because the macaroni
wasn't right. He'll do something dreadful, I suppose. Now be sure.
_Don't_ begin by making him cross. So if he should sleep an hour, keep
the people quiet at all hazards, and let him sleep two hours if he
wants to."
Poor Miss Tristan went back to the post of duty oppressed with a great
responsibility. The servant was stationed at the door to prevent any
ringing of the bell, and as the guests came in one by one, they were
warned in whispers not to rouse the sleeping lion. Very soon Mrs.
Gottom's drawing-room presented a striking example of the homage due
to genius. The guests stood about in little groups, conversing in the
most timid whispers, and even making signs take the place of language,
glancing every moment at the supposed great man in the chair, who had
his legs stretched out before him, his head thrown back, and was, if
it must be confessed, snoring audibly, not to say visibly. There was
Professor Phyle, the celebrated phrenologist--a tall man, with a gaunt
face and long gray hair. He had been a lion once, but was now out of
date. There were also present Mrs. Blenkin, a comparatively new
soprano, having seen only two seasons; Lieutenant Wray, a lion just
caught, or rather polar bear, having only then returned from a trip to
the arctic regions, in which his ship had covered itself with glory; a
young lady who had written a novel, and another who had written a
poem, both unpublished, but both understood to be of a mysterious
excellence; and others not necessary to mention. Even for these great
people the chance to see a genius off his guard was not to be
resisted. He seemed to be so soundly asleep that they might safely
approach him. They tiptoed toward him, and hovered about him, holding
their breath meanwhile. The ladies gazed at him longest, and seemed
best satisfied with their inspection, with the exception of Professor
Phyle, who was in raptures.
"I have never," said he, in a blood-curdling whisper, and waving his
hand toward the unconscious Ogla-Moga, while the guests gathered about
to hear what his verdict would be, "seen a more distinctly musical
face. It is remarkable. It ought to convert any skeptic to phrenology.
The development of what we phrenologists call, for the sake of
convenience, the organs of tune and time--just over and near the side
of the eye--the fulness of the eyes, the exquisite mobility of the
mouth, are fairly abno-or-r-mal," and here the learned professor's
whisper made one's flesh creep. "And I have no doubt, if I could
examine the organs which are concealed by those luxuriant locks"--and
now the professor smiled his society smile, and his fingers rayed out
toward the sleeping Indian's head in a nervous, eager way--"that I
should find ideality, adhesiveness, time, hope, veneration, and so on,
strongly developed, as in the case of the great composers." The ladies
nodded at each other, and drew long breaths of astonishment.
"I am glad," continued the professor, in his most approving manner,
"that this little social incident"--but now the smile was more
labored, and his eyebrows went up with less ease than usual, for, to
tell the truth, the professor, like the rest of the company, was
getting a little hungry--"should have given us an opportunity to make
a scientific proof of his great genius."
Meanwhile the lieutenant, who was a practical person, if he was a
lion, bent toward the still snoring Ogla-Moga with his eyeglass.
"It's a singular thing," said he, coming back, "but the face doesn't
seem at all Italian to me. It's more like an Indian's face than that
of any civilized man I ever saw."
There was an indignant whisper of dissent all about.
"How can you say so?" responded the professor. "There are centuries of
culture and refinement in that face--the stern old Roman cast softened
and modified by generation after generation of the artistic training
and cultivation of modern Italy. I would venture to assert from this
mere glance at his face that his fathers before him for a long way
back were musicians, and I would pick him out from a crowd on Broadway
as a genius in music. Why," said the professor, with as much of a
flourish as he could get into a whisper, "his very nostrils convict
him."
It must be said that at that particular moment Ogla-Moga's nostrils
were convicting him of a genius for music of a most discordant kind.
He was snoring a profound snore whose chords could not be found in
Beethoven or Rossini, nor even in Liszt or Wagner. Just as the
professor finished his eulogy, there came a terrific rumble and
rattle, and the Indian snored so loud that he fairly woke himself up.
He raised himself up in the chair and looked about in speechless
amazement. No one spoke. All were waiting, with the deference due to
genius, to see what the great man would do, and were, at the same
time, if it must be confessed, a little overcome with the novelty of
the situation. His black eye ran quickly from one to the other, when
it fell upon the uniform of Lieutenant Wray, assumed on that occasion
by the express wish of his hostess. At that sight, which must have
recalled to Ogla-Moga's mind the power and authority of the Government
of the United States, a look of terror blanched his face, and darting
up, he fled through the open door into the hall, and disappeared,
leaving behind him the impression that the eccentricity of
distinguished Italian musicians is past finding out.