Whatever the function--whether it was a cosey dinner for the congenial
few, a crowded reception for the uncongenial many, or a coming-out party
for some one of the eager-expectant buds just bursting into bloom--most
of whom he had known from babyhood--Peter was always ready with his “Of
course I'll come--” or “Nothing would delight me more--” or the formal
“Mr. Grayson accepts with great pleasure,” etc., unless the event
should fall upon a Saturday night; then there was certain to be a prompt
refusal.
Even Miss Felicia recognized this unbreakable engagement and made her
plans accordingly. So did good Mrs. McGuffey, who selected this night
for her own social outings; and so did most of his intimate friends who
were familiar with his habits.
On any other night you might, or you might not, find Peter at home,
dependent upon his various engagements, but if you really wanted to
get hold of his hand, or his ear, or the whole or any other part of
his delightful body, and if by any mischance you happened to select a
Saturday night for your purpose, you must search for him at the Century.
To spend this one evening at his favorite club had been his custom for
years--ever since he had been elected to full membership--a date so far
back in the dim past that the oldest habitue had to search the records
to make sure of the year, and this custom he still regularly kept up.
That the quaint old club-house was but a stone's throw from his own
quarters in Fifteenth Street made no difference; he would willingly have
tramped to Murray Hill and beyond--even as far as the big reservoir, had
the younger and more progressive element among the members picked the
institution up bodily and moved it that far--as later on they did.
Not that he favored any such innovation: “Move up-town! Why, my dear
sir!” he protested, when the subject was first mentioned, “is there
nothing in the polish of these old tables and chairs, rubbed bright by
the elbows of countless good fellows, that appeals to you? Do you think
any modern varnish can replace it? Here I have sat for thirty years or
more, and--please God!--here I want to continue to sit.”
He was at his own small table in the front room overlooking the street
when he spoke--his by right of long use, as it was also of Morris,
MacFarlane, Wright, old Partridge the painter, and Knight the sculptor.
For years this group of Centurions, after circling the rooms on meeting
nights, criticising the pictures and helping themselves to the punch,
had dropped into these same seats by the side of Peter.
And these were not the only chairs tacitly recognized as carrying
special privileges by reason of long usage. Over in the corner between
the two rooms could be found Bayard Taylor's chair--his for years,
from which he dispensed wisdom, adventure and raillery to a listening
coterie--King, MacDonough and Collins among them, while near the stairs,
his great shaggy head glistening in the overhead light, Parke Godwin
held court, with Sterling, Martin and Porter, to say nothing of still
older habitues who in the years of their membership were as much a part
of the fittings of the club as the smoke-begrimed portraits which lined
its walls.
On this Saturday night he had stepped into the clubhouse with more
than his usual briskness. Sweeping a comprehensive glance around as
he entered, as if looking for some one in the hall, he slipped off his
overcoat and hat and handed both to the negro servant in charge of the
cloak-room.
“George.”
“Yes, Mr. Grayson.”
“If anybody inquires for me you will find me either on this floor or in
the library above. Don't forget, and don't make any mistake.
“No, suh--ain't goin' to be no mistake.”
This done, the old gentleman moved to the mirror, and gave a sidelong
glance at his perfectly appointed person--he had been dining at the
Portmans', had left the table early, and was in full evening dress.
The inspection proved that the points of his collar wanted straightening
the thousandth part of an inch, and that his sparse gray locks needed
combing a wee bit further toward his cheek bones. These, with a certain
rebellious fold in his necktie, having been brought into place, the
guardian of the Exeter entered the crowded room, picked a magazine from
the shelves and dropped into his accustomed seat.
Holker Morris and Lagarge now strolled in and drawing up to a small
table adjoining Peter's touched a tiny bell. This answered, and the
order given, the two renewed a conversation which had evidently been
begun outside, and which was of so absorbing a character that for a
moment Peter's face, half hidden by his book, was unnoticed.
“Oh!--that's you, Methusaleh, is it!” cried Morris at last. “Move
over--have something?”
Peter looked up smiling: “Not now, Holker. I will later.”
Morris kept on talking. Lagarge, his companion--a thin,
cadaverous-looking man with a big head and the general air of having
been carved out of an old root--a great expert in ceramics--listening
intently, bobbing his head in toy-mandarin fashion whenever one of
Holker's iconoclasms cleared the air.
“Suppose they did pay thirty thousand dollars for it,” Holker insisted,
slapping his knee with his outspread palm. “That makes the picture no
better and no worse. If it was mine, and I could afford it, I would sell
it to anybody who loved it for thirty cents rather than sell it to a man
who didn't, for thirty millions. When Troyon painted it he put his soul
into it, and you can no more tack a price to that than you can stick
an auction card on a summer cloud, or appraise the perfume from a rose
garden. It has no money value, Legarge, and never will have. You might
as well list sunsets on the Stock Exchange.”
“But Troyon had to live, Holker,” chimed in Harrington, who, with
the freedom accorded every member of the club--one of its greatest
charms--had just joined the group and sat listening.
“Yes,” rejoined Morris, a quizzical expression crossing his face--“that
was the curse of it. He was born a man and had a stomach instead of
being born a god without one. As to living--he didn't really live--no
great painter really lives until he is dead. And that's the way it
should be--they would never have become immortal with a box full of
bonds among their assets. They would have stopped work. Now they can
rest in their graves with the consciousness that they have done their
level best.”
“There is one thing would lift him out of it, or ought to,” remarked
Harrington, with a glance around the circle. “I am, of course, speaking
of Troyon.”
“What?” asked Morris.
“The news that Roberts paid thirty thousand dollars for a picture for
which the painter was glad to get three thousand francs,” a reply which
brought a roar from the group, Morris joining in heartily.
The circle had now widened to the filling of a dozen chairs, Morris's
way of putting things being one of the features of club nights, he, as
usual, dominating the talk, calling out “Period”--his way of notifying
some speaker to come to a full stop, whenever he broke away from the
facts and began soaring into hyperbolics--Morgan, Harrington and the
others laughing in unison at his sallies.
The clouds of tobacco smoke grew thicker. The hum of conversation
louder; especially at an adjoining table where one lean old Academician
in a velvet skull cap was discussing the new impressionistic craze which
had just begun to show itself in the work of the younger men. This had
gone on for some minutes when the old man turned upon them savagely and
began ridiculing the new departure as a cloak to hide poor drawing, an
outspoken young painter asserting in their defence, that any technique
was helpful if it would kill off the snuff-box school in which the man
under the skull cap held first place.
Morris had lent an ear to the discussion and again took up the cudgels.
“You young fellows are right,” he cried, twisting his body toward their
table. The realists have had their day; they work a picture to death;
all of them. If you did but know it, it really takes two men to paint a
great picture--one to do the work and the other to kill him when he has
done enough.”
“Pity some of your murderers, Holker, didn't start before they stretched
their canvases,” laughed Harrington.
And so the hours sped on.
All this time Peter had been listening with one ear wide open--the one
nearest the door--for any sound in that direction. French masterpieces,
Impressionism and the rest of it did not interest him to-night.
Something else was stirring him--something he had been hugging to his
heart all day.
Only the big and little coals in his own fireplace in Fifteenth Street,
and perhaps the great back-log, beside himself, knew the cause. He
had not taken Miss Felicia into his confidence--that would never have
done--might, indeed, have spoilt everything. Even when he had risen from
Morris's coterie to greet Henry MacFarlane--Ruth's father--his intimate
friend for years, and who answered his hand-shake with--“Well, you
old rascal--what makes you look so happy?--anybody left you a
million?”--even then he gave no inkling of the amount of bottled
sunshine he was at the precise moment carrying inside his well-groomed
body, except to remark with all his twinkles and wrinkles scampering
loose:
“Seeing you, Henry--” an answer which, while it only excited derision
and a sly thrust of his thumb into Peter's ribs, was nevertheless
literally true if the distinguished engineer did but know it.
It was only when the hours dragged on and his oft-consulted watch marked
ten o'clock that the merry wrinkles began to straighten and the eyes to
wander.
When an additional ten minutes had ticked themselves out, and then a
five and then a ten more, the old fellow became so nervous that he began
to make a tour of the club-house, even ascending the stairs, searching
the library and dining-room, scanning each group and solitary individual
he passed, until, thoroughly discouraged, he regained his seat only to
press a bell lying among some half-empty glasses. The summoned waiter
listened attentively, his head bent low to catch the whispered order,
and then disappeared noiselessly in the direction of the front door,
Peter's fingers meanwhile beating an impatient staccato on the arm of
his chair.
Nothing resulting from this experiment he at last gave up all hope
and again sought MacFarlane who was trying to pound into the head of a
brother engineer some new theory of spontaneous explosions.
Hardly had he drawn up a chair to listen--he was a better listener
to-night, somehow, than a talker, when a hand was laid on his shoulder,
and looking up, he saw Jack bending over him.
With a little cry of joy Peter sprang to his feet, both palms
outstretched: “Oh!--you're here at last! Didn't I say nine o'clock, my
dear boy, or am I wrong? Well, so you are here it's all right.” Then
with face aglow he turned to MacFarlane: “Henry, here's a young fellow
you ought to know; his name's John Breen, and he's from your State.”
The engineer stopped short in his talk and absorbed Jack from his neatly
brushed hair, worn long at the back of his neck, to his well-shod feet,
and held out his hand.
“From Maryland? So am I; I was raised down in Prince George County. Glad
to know you. Are you any connection of the Breens of Ann Arundle?”
“Yes, sir--all my people came from Ann Arundle. My father was Judge
Breen,” answered Jack with embarrassment. He had not yet become
accustomed to the novelty of the scene around him.
“Now I know just where you belong. My father and yours were friends.
I have often heard him speak of Judge Breen. And did you not meet my
daughter at Miss Grayson's the other day? She told me she had met a Mr.
Breen from our part of the country.”
Jack's eyes danced. Was this what Peter had invited him to the club for?
Now it was all clear. And then again he had not said a word about his
being in the Street, or connected with it in any way. Was there ever
such a good Peter?
“Oh, yes, sir!--and I hope she is very well.”
The engineer said she was extremely well, never better in her life, and
that he was delighted to meet a son of his old friend--then, turning to
the others, immediately forgot Jack's existence, and for the time being
his daughter, in the discussion still going on around him.
The young fellow settled himself in his seat and looked about him--at
the smoke-stained ceiling, the old portraits and quaint fittings and
furniture--more particularly at the men. He would have liked to talk to
Ruth's father a little longer, but he felt dazed and ill at ease--out of
his element, somehow--although he remembered the same kind of people at
his father's house, except that they wore different clothes.
But Peter did not leave him long in meditation. There were other
surprises for him upstairs, in the small dining-room opening out of
the library, where a long table was spread with eatables and
drinkables--salads, baby sausages, escaloped oysters, devilled crabs and
other dishes dear to old and new members. Here men were met standing in
groups, their plates in their hands, or seated at the smaller tables,
when a siphon and a beer bottle, or a mug of Bass would be added to
their comfort.
It was there the Scribe met him for the second time, my first being the
Morris dinner, when he sat within speaking distance. I had heard of him,
of course, as Peter's new protege--indeed, the old fellow had talked of
nothing else, and so I was glad to renew the acquaintance. I found him
to be like all other young fellows of his class--I had lived among his
people, and knew--rather shy, with a certain deferential air toward
older people--but with the composure belonging to unconscious youth--no
fidgeting or fussing--modest, unassertive--his big brown eyes under
their heavy lashes studying everything about him, his face brightening
when you addressed him. I discovered, too, a certain indefinable charm
which won me to him at once. Perhaps it was his youth; perhaps it was a
certain honest directness, together with a total lack of all affectation
that appealed to me, but certain it is that not many minutes had passed
before I saw why Peter liked him, and I saw, too, why he liked Peter.
When I asked him--we had found three empty seats at a table--what
impressed him most in the club, it being his first visit, he answered
in his simple, direct way, that he thought it was the note of
good-fellowship everywhere apparent, the men greeting each other as if
they really meant it. Another feature was the dress and faces of the
members--especially the authors, to whom Peter had introduced him, whose
books he had read, and whose personalities he had heard discussed,
and who, to his astonishment, had turned out to be shabby-looking old
fellows who smoked and drank, or played chess, like other ordinary
mortals, and without pretence of any kind so far as he could detect.
“Just like one big family, isn't it, Mr. Grayson?” the boy said. “Don't
you two gentlemen love to come here?”
“Yes.”
“They don't look like very rich men.”
“They're not. Now and then a camel crawls through but it is a tight
squeeze,” remarked Peter arching his gray, bushy eyebrows, a smile
hovering about his lips.
The boy laughed: “Well, then, how did they get here?”
“Principally because they lead decent lives, are not puffed up with
conceit, have creative brains and put them to some honest use,” answered
Peter.
The boy looked away for a moment and remarked quietly that about
everybody he knew would fail in one or more of these qualifications.
Then he added:
“And now tell me, Mr. Grayson, what most of them do--that gentleman, for
instance, who is talking to the old man in the velvet cap.”
“That is General Norton, one of our most distinguished engineers. He is
Consulting Engineer in the Croton Aqueduct Department, and his opinion
is sought all over the country. He started life as a tow-boy on the Erie
Canal, and when he was your age he was keeping tally of dump-cars from a
cut on the Pennsylvania Railroad.”
Jack looked at the General in wonderment, but he was too much interested
in the other persons about him to pursue the inquiry any further.
“And the man next to him--the one with his hand to his head?”
“I don't recall him, but the Major may.”
“That is Professor Hastings of Yale,” I replied--“perhaps the most
eminent chemist in this or any other country.”
“And what did he do when he was a boy?” asked young Breen.
“Made pills, I expect, and washed out test tubes and retorts,”
interrupted Peter, with a look on his face as if the poor professor were
more to be pitied than commended.
“Did any of them dig?” asked the boy.
“What kind of digging?” inquired Peter.
“Well, the kind you spoke of the night you came to see me.”
“Oh, with their hands?” cried Peter with a laugh. “Well, now, let me
see--” and his glance roved about the room. “There is Mr. Schlessinger,
the Egyptologist, but of course he was after mummies, not dirt; and then
there is--yes--that sun-burned young fellow of forty, talking to Mr.
Eastman Johnson; he has been at work in Yucatan looking for Toltec
ruins, because he told me his experience only a few nights ago; but
then, of course, that can hardly be said to be--Oh!--now I have it.
You see that tall man with side-whiskers, looking like a young bank
president--my kind--my boy--well, he started life with a pick and
shovel. The steel point of the pick if I remember rightly, turned up a
nugget of gold that made him rich, but he DUG all the same, and he may
again some day--you can't tell.”
It had all been a delightful experience for Jack and his face showed it,
but it was not until after I left that the story of why he had come
late was told. He had started several times to explain but the constant
interruption of members anxious to shake Peter's hand, had always
prevented.
“I haven't apologized for being late, sir,” Jack had said at last. “It
was long after ten, I am afraid, but I could not help it.”
“No; what was the matter?”
“I didn't get the letter until half an hour before I reached here.”
“Why, I sent it to your uncle's house, and mailed it myself, just after
you had gone out with Miss MacFarlane.”
“Yes, sir; but I am not at my uncle's house any more. I am staying with
Garry Minott in his rooms; I have the sofa.”
Peter gave a low whistle.
“And you have given up your desk at the office as well?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Bless my soul, my boy! And what are you going to do now?”
“I don't know; but I will not go on as I have been doing. I can't, Mr.
Grayson, and you must not ask it. I would rather sweep the streets.
I have just seen poor Charley Gilbert and Mrs. Gilbert. He has not a
dollar in the world, and is going West, he tells me.”
Peter reflected for a moment. It was all he could do to hide his
delight.
“And what do your people say?”
“My aunt says I am an idiot, and Corinne won't speak to me.”
“And your uncle?”
“Nothing, to me. He told Garry that if I didn't come back in three days
I should never enter his house or his office again.”
“But you are going back? Are you not?”
“No,--never. Not if I starve!”
Peter's eyes were twinkling when he related the conversation to me the
next day.
“I could have hugged him, Major,” he said, when he finished, “and I
would if we had not been at the club.”