_Timon Up To Date_
The Doctor and his wife waited until their half dozen guests had
finished the tasty supper Mrs. Harford had provided before they sprung
upon them the purpose which had moved them to invite them. The entire
party was made up of West Arlingtonites, neighbors from across the way,
from down the block and from up near Carter Station. They had chatted
gaily over neighborhood gossip in the dining-room, intermingled with
nonsense of the sort that passes between people who have been a great
deal in the same set. And now that they were seated on the front porch,
two in a hammock and the others in comfortable rockers, the badinage
continued as Dr. Harford passed cigars to the men and pretended to give
them to the ladies, too.
"They don't seem to have taken offense at our not asking them,"
whispered Mrs. Caswell to plump little Mrs. Fremont.
"No, not a bit," responded Mrs. Fremont, in the same low tone. "All the
same, I feel like a hypocrite for coming."
"Nonsense," said Mrs. Caswell; "you're too soft."
She might have added more, but Dr. Harford, who had been lounging
against a post since he had handed around the cigars, was evidently
trying to attract the attention of the entire group.
"I am reminded tonight," he began, slowly, "by this little affair of a
larger party here last summer, when we entertained the card club."
In the stillness that ensued the song of the crickets in the fields
beyond the town sounded most strangely plain.
"Mrs. Harford and I," pursued the Doctor, his voice growing more
incisive, his manner more stern, "both enjoyed ourselves in that club,
and we are most curious to know why we were not included this year."
The pair in the hammock stopped swinging so suddenly that their feet
scraped the floor vigorously. Mrs. Fremont cleared her throat with
evident nervousness. The others were still dumb--that is, all except Mr.
Caswell.
"Why, old man," he burst out, "I was told you did not want to"----
"Joseph!" interrupted Mrs. Caswell, turning herself so that her husband
could see her more plainly in the white light from the arc lamp at the
corner. There was the menace of a curtain lecture in her face.
"We did want to join, Caswell," exclaimed Dr. Harford, quickly. "The
plain fact is that we were not asked."
"There must be some mistake," said Mr. Caswell. "I'm sure I, for one,
have been sorry"----
"Joseph!" again exclaimed Mrs. Caswell. This time she was unmistakably
severe. Caswell subsided.
Dr. Harford addressed himself directly to Mrs. Caswell. "I intend to get
to the bottom of this affair tonight," he said. "I have asked questions
of several of you, and so has Effie, and the excuses given have been so
various that they would be funny if I did not feel they are doing injury
to me professionally, as well as socially. My purpose in having you all
together here"----
A Garrison-avenue car crowded with Electric Park visitors rumbled
noisily by and drowned some of the words of his sentence.
"I want it sifted thoroughly now."
Little Mrs. Fremont half rose from her chair, as she said weakly to her
husband: "I don't feel well. I think I'd better be going."
"Pardon me, Mrs. Fremont," said Dr. Harford, "I beg of you that you will
remain."
"Stick it out, Emily," remarked Mr. Fremont. "Harford has got us here to
learn the truth." Nothing ever seemed to worry Fremont.
"Now, Mrs. Caswell," continued Dr. Harford, still addressing that lady
directly and drawing nearer to her by a foot or two, "I will begin with
you. Last week when you were in my office I asked you to tell me just
what stories were being circulated about me in West Arlington, and after
some demur you told me. Do you mind repeating them?"
Mrs. Caswell was scornful. "I have nothing to say," she exclaimed. "I
think it better to hush the whole affair."
"Then, my dear madam, I am forced to repeat to my guests what you told
me. You said, you will recollect, that one resident had accused me of
having cheated at cards, and that another party had called me a 'tooth
butcher,' and had declared I could not fix the teeth of her little dog.
Was not that it?"
It was Mrs. Caswell's turn to rise. "This is a contemptible outrage,"
she cried. "I demand that it stop."
"No more contemptible than the injury you have done us," spiritedly said
Mrs. Harford, speaking for the first time.
"Have I not quoted you right?" asked Dr. Harford of Mrs. Caswell.
"I shall say nothing," returned she. "You have cooked up a vile plot to
trap us here."
"Then, my dear Mrs. Caswell, if you will affirm nothing, I have a way to
make you speak." He stepped inside his hallway for an instant, while the
others, all except his wife, watched him with great curiosity and some
alarm. When he reappeared he was carrying a table on which was some
large, heavy article hidden under a tablecloth. "There's a little
surprise coming to you and the rest," he resumed. "You did not know,
madame, that when I was pressing you with questions as you sat in my
dental chair a phonograph was making a record of your answers." He
whipped off the cover of the talking machine and busied himself with
preparing it for action.
Consternation was writ large upon the countenances of those who could be
seen in the stray beams of light that countered through the porch. But
Mrs. Caswell's was the only voice heard. Again she protested against
having been trapped.
"Silence," said Dr. Harford, and he started the machine to whirring.
Everybody bent forward so as to miss nothing. But there was no need, for
the familiar tones of Mrs. Caswell had been well recorded by the Edison
invention and floated out in full and plain confirmation of the charges
Dr. Harford had so carefully repeated.
Fremont's "Thunderation!" was the only audible one of several
exclamations that were murmured as the quoted phrases died away. Dr.
Harford raised a warning finger.
"Wait," he said; "there's more."
And as the machine kept revolving they heard his own voice say:
"And who was it, Mrs. Caswell, who told you that I had cheated at
cards?"
There came a sharp interruption.
"Stop!" cried Mrs. Caswell, as in sheer desperation she bounced from her
chair and made a vicious dive toward the tell-tale recording angel, only
to be blocked by the watchful Dr. Harford. "Let go of me," she cried, as
she shook off his restraining hand in furious anger. "I insist that you
stop this outrage. Joseph, how can you stand idly by and see me so
grossly insulted?"
There was no answer to the summons from Caswell. His wife evidently
expected none, for she continued right along in wrathful denunciations
of Harford, threatening law suits and other means of dire vengeance. "I
declare she frightens me," whispered timid Mrs. Fremont, as she drew her
chair closer to that of her husband.
The phonograph was pursuing the even tenor of its paraffine way. Those
who could hearken to it above the irate tones of Mrs. Caswell heard her
refuse several times to name her informant; heard the Doctor's earnest
pleading for no concealment, and finally heard her say:
"Well, if you really must know, Doctor, who it was who said you cheated
at cards, it was Mrs. Fremont."
Dr. Harford quickly shut off the record and turned to face the others.
Mrs. Fremont had risen from her chair and leveled her finger at Mrs.
Caswell. She was timid no longer.
"How dared you tell such a lie about me, Irene Caswell?" she gasped.
"You know you said it, Mary Fremont."
"I did not. She is telling what is not true, Dr. Harford. She came to me
when we were re-forming the club and said she would not join this year
if you were to be a member. She uttered a lot of things against you, and
finally she said she was sure you would not hesitate to cheat at cards,
and she only wished she could catch you once. And then I reminded
her--perhaps I was wrong to do it--of the time when I was your partner
and you sprouted an extra point and presently we got into a dispute
about the score."
"You mean the night at Mrs. Parkin's?"
"Yes; don't you remember you were the first one to call attention to it
and wanted to take off the point, but after some time it was shown that
we had the right number? That's honestly all I said to her about you and
the cards."
"I believe you, Mrs. Fremont."
From the chair into which Mrs. Caswell had subsided there came a snort.
"Go ahead," she sneered. "Play out your little comedy. You're all in it
together. Nobody will believe me."
"We take you at your word, Mrs. Caswell," rejoined Dr. Harford. "There
is more of the truth to be got at."
Again the phonograph was in motion, and the listeners heard these
questions and answers:
"And who was it, Mrs. Caswell, who told you I was a 'tooth butcher' and
could not fix the teeth of her little dog?"
"Well, to tell you the truth, Doctor, it was Mrs. Parkin who said her
husband had called you a 'tooth butcher,' and it was Mrs. Somerset who
said you could not fix the teeth of her little dog."
Both the Parkins rose from their place in the hammock. The husband was
so angry that he moved toward Mrs. Caswell with upraised hand until he
recollected himself and halted with a muttered exclamation. The wife, a
tall, graceful blonde, who had made herself well liked since they had
moved out to West Arlington, chose to ignore the woman who had involved
her, and so addressed herself directly to the host.
"My husband and I," she began, coolly and cuttingly, "are very much
indebted to you, Dr. Harford, for so cleverly unmasking the traitor in
our midst. This woman has called it a miserable trap, and I want to say
that I feel that only by such a contrived plot has it been possible to
uncover the truth and lay the trouble at the door of the right
scandal-monger.
"Of course, it is unnecessary to say to you," and she pulled herself up
to her full queenly height and spoke with most dignified impressiveness,
"that my husband did not call you a 'tooth butcher' and that I did not
tell her he had said so. What he did say was merely to repeat jokingly
that old jest about a dentist being a 'tooth carpenter.' I forget the
way he put it, but it sounded funny to me at the time, and when I was
out with Mrs. Caswell in her auto that very afternoon I told her. She
laughed, but Mrs. Somerset, who was with us, thought the expression
horrid, and said if she were to think of you as a 'tooth carpenter' and
not as a good, careful dentist, she would not let you attend her dog.
Thus, you see, Doctor, how two harmless little expressions have been
perverted into nasty gossip against you.
"I cannot tell you of the things that she alleged against you that
afternoon or at other times. I did not give heed to them, and I have too
much respect for you to repeat them here just now. I am only sorry that
we yielded to Mrs. Caswell's insistent urging that we exclude you from
the card club this summer. I am sure it was only done because we felt
there had been ill feeling between you and her and because she had been
the one to start the club and lead it each year."
"And I want to add, Harford," said Parkin, heartily, "that you will
either be in the club henceforth or there will be no club. Am I not
right?" he queried, turning to the Fremonts.
The prompt assent from both must have settled Mrs. Caswell's last hope
of appeal from a unanimous verdict. She rose and made a sign to her
husband. Her blazing anger had given way to a chilly hauteur that showed
that, although beaten, she had not hauled down the flag. "I hope your
little farce has quite ended," she remarked to Dr. Harford, with
exaggerated dignity.
"Quite," he replied, with sweet acquiescence.
"Then I suppose I will be allowed to go?"
"As soon as convenient."
"I leave you," she pursued, "in the hands of your friends. Oh! if you
only knew the things they have said about you! And now they honey you!"
"I am willing to trust them," he said, equably.
For the life of her, Mrs. Caswell could think of no other biting thing
to say, so she took her departure.
"Come, Joseph," she ordered, as she passed down the steps to the
hedge-bordered walk.
Caswell stopped for an instant to hold out his hand to the dentist.
"Sorry, immensely sorry, old chap. Awful mess she's made. If there's any
way I can"----
"Joseph!" reiterated Mrs. Caswell from the gateway.
And Joseph obeyed.
"Have a fresh cigar, Parkin. And you, Fremont," said Dr. Harford, as the
six left behind settled back in their chairs and hammock for a good
half-hour review of Mrs. Caswell and her mischief-making.
"By George! this was an original plan of yours, Harford," exclaimed
Fremont.
"Indeed it was," murmured little Mrs. Fremont.
"It was not my idea at all. I got it from Shakespeare. Do you not recall
a scene in 'Timon of Athens' where Timon invites his false friends to a
banquet to show them up?"
"Well, you worked it neatly, anyhow," said Parkin, who had never read
Shakespeare in his life.
"I had one great advantage over 'old Bill,'" continued Dr. Harford.
"In what way?" asked Mrs. Parkin, smiling at him.
"I had the phonograph."
_The Night That Patti Sang_
When I moved there 10 years ago that Franklin-street block just west of
Charles was even then known as "Doctors' Row," though there was by no
means the number of professional men the street now has. From Dr.
Osler's at the Charles-street corner of the south side--in the old
Colonial mansion where now the Rochambeau apartments stand--to Dr. Alan
P. Smith's on the north side next to the old Maryland Club building at
Cathedral street, there were in all five doctors. And my own
shingle--newly painted in gilt letters as befitted a specialist freshly
returned from the Vienna hospitals--made the sixth sign of the kind.
On the south side not far from Dr. Osler's, the front of one of those
fine old houses erected in the thirties, and the homes of the elite of
Baltimore for many years before Mount Vernon place was built up, bore
the announcement of:
_____________________________
| |
| JAMES COURSEY DUNTON, M. D. |
|_____________________________|
The sign was of a very old pattern, and was so rain-washed that the name
could scarcely be deciphered. This, too, was the case with a frosted
pane in the front window, on which--perhaps 40 years ago--Dr. Dunton had
had his name painted in black letters. The house, too, showed the same
lack of paint and care.
In my student days at the Johns Hopkins Medical School I had never heard
the name of Dr. Dunton, and this led me to make inquiries of a
professional neighbor. I learned that Dunton was in effect an elderly
hermit, that for years he had abandoned his practice and had declined to
respond to calls. His self-enforced isolation had grown to such a degree
that he was rarely seen on the street and made all his household
purchases through notes stuck in his vestibule door for "order boys". "I
have seen Dunton only once in eight years," said my informant. "They
say, too, he used to be an excellent practitioner, an Edinburgh
graduate, with a patronage of the best classes--a courtly gentleman who
was well liked by his patients."
"What was the cause for the change?" I asked.
"A love tragedy of some kind, they told me, though I never got the
details."
I developed a lively curiosity in the elderly recluse, and nearly every
time I moved in or out of my own residence, or passed my front windows,
I glanced at Dr. Dunton's house in hopes of seeing him. My first glimpse
was, perhaps, a month after I had been told about him. The sun had gone
down, save where I could see the gilded tops of the Cathedral with a red
glint upon them. In the half-light Dr. Dunton came to his second-story
window--I knew it must be he--a tall, slender figure, somewhat bent,
garbed in unrelieved black, save for the open white collar of
ante-bellum style. Scant white hair extended from his temples back over
his ears and framed a face that seemed, in the dusk, refined and kindly,
though seared with many wrinkles. I watched the silent figure at the
window unnoticed by him, for he gazed with intentness at the
vine-adorned front of the old Unitarian Church at the corner, until the
real darkness came upon us both.
It was, I think, about a week later when I again encountered Dr. Dunton.
The Edmondson-avenue trolley line had just been completed up Charles
street, and for the first time this old residential section resounded
with the clangor that betokened rapid transit. About 9 one night I
observed Dr. Dunton stepping down from the pavement of the Athenaeum
Club to cross the street. A trolley car was coming rapidly, but the old
gentleman, his head bent in thought and unused as he was to modern
inventions and modern bursts of speed, paid no attention and moved in
front of it. The motorman threw off his current, tried to reverse, and
rang his gong furiously, but saw that he could not stop in time to avoid
hitting the Doctor. I had bounded into the street, and when the car was
only half a dozen feet off I was fortunately able to draw the old chap
back and hold him clear of the Juggernaut that had so nearly wrought his
destruction.
His first impulse, as he turned toward me, was one of anger that I had
presumed to intrude so violently upon his thoughts. Then he saw what a
narrow escape he had had, and anger gave place to a courtly smile and a
slight twinkle in his sunken eyes.
"We young fellows are not so careful as we ought to be," he said. "I owe
you my life."
I hastened to assure him that my act was one of simple kindness, but he
renewed his expressions of thanks in even more polished phrases. The car
had gone on and we had crossed to the church corner.
"I am Dr. Dunton," he said. "My house is yonder and, though I dwell
alone, and with little ceremony, I will be pleased to have you partake
of such hospitality as I can offer."
I accepted with alacrity. "I am Dr. Seaman," I responded. "I have just
moved into the block." And I indicated my own home.
We crossed Franklin street to Dr. Dunton's house. He opened the heavy
door with a latch-key, but before I could enter it was necessary for him
to go ahead and light up. He was profuse in his apologies for the
disorder of everything as he led me into the room behind the parlor, but
beyond a thick coating of dust the dark mahogany furniture showed no
signs of the absence of servants.
"I suppose you younger men might call this your 'den,'" he said as he
applied a match to the centre chandelier, "but I prefer to name it my
study." There were rows upon rows of medical works of a past generation
on the shelves around the room, a familiar bust of Esculapius, a skull
or two, some assorted bones and other signs of my host's former
profession. A worn leather arm-chair sat behind the table under the
chandelier, another arm-chair on the right. Dr. Dunton drew the latter
forward for me and dropped into the other one. As the light fell full
upon him I noted that he was not only thin, but gaunt, and that his
face, which interested me strangely, was marked by hollow places that
gave him an almost uncanny appearance, despite its refinement and
intellectuality. His eyes had a haunting expression, as if at times he
suffered much physical pain, and there was a sadness in them that
quickened my sympathies.
For a minute or so there was silence. I felt that he was at a loss for
topics upon which to converse on common ground. Finally he said:
"You are the first visitor I have had here since poor Wallis sat in that
chair a dozen years ago."
"You mean Mr. Wallis the lawyer?" I asked.
"He was my good friend in many dark days," he answered gently. I felt
that he was slipping away from me into the past.
"You must have it lonely here," I remarked.
"Not lonely," was the response. "I live with my memories."
The shadow on his face grew deeper.
"Why not practice your profession," I hazarded, "and forget some part of
your past sorrows in a busy life?"
He leaned forward, looking intently at me and yet beyond. "Ah! lad," he
said, as he laid a thin hand upon my wrist, "if you but knew, if you
but knew! I tried hard, and then I found I couldn't, and then I gave up
trying. There are griefs so great that one cannot lose them until the
last sleep. I am not lonely, for I have Her always with me here."
It was best for me to remain silent. He was almost unaware of my
presence. I felt he would go on if I did not divert his train of
thought.
"Night after night She sits here with me," he pursued; "day after day
She is by my side. In spirit the loving companionship I sought is ever
mine, and yet, great God, how different!" His face he buried in his
hands. In my eyes the tears could not be kept back.
Presently he rose from his seat and moved to the wall next to the
parlor. To my surprise, the pressure of his finger against a spot in the
wooden door pillar opened up a secret cupboard in the partition. The
Doctor reached in and lifted out an arm chair of the same pattern as
that upon which I was seated. It was heavy and I jumped to aid him, but
he negatived me with a short, sharp twist of his head. As he came into
the full light I saw that the chair contained a woman's cloak, one of
shimmery gray satin, but now sadly faded and time-stained. Reverently he
lifted the cloak and laid it across the back of the chair.
"That's as it was the night she sat there and passed away," said the
Doctor.
For several minutes there was no word between us. The Doctor, his mouth
twitching, his thoughts far from me, stared intently at the old cloak.
"How I loved her, how I loved her!" he finally murmured. Again he was
becoming aware of my presence. "You can't understand, sir, the depth of
my devotion. It stood the test of years--it stood even her marriage to
another."
Another pause.
"She was the prettiest and merriest child you ever saw," he finally went
on. "Had she been an Indian maid they would have called her 'Dancing
Sunshine.' But being just a Baltimore girl, with her parents more fond
of reading Scott than of any other literature save the Bible, she was
named Geraldine. You remember that line in the 'Lay of the Last
Minstrel':
The fair and lovely form, the Lady Geraldine.
"That's where she got her romantic and historic name. To us boys--my
brother Tom and myself--she was always Dina. She was our cousin. Her
father had died when she was but a babe. So had my mother, and Aunt
Patty thenceforth was the housewife with us. Father was one of those
merchants and ship owners who have long passed away in Baltimore. No
firm was better known around the Basin than that of Dunton & Jameson,
and no clipper ships were faster than those with the Dunton signal.
"Dina was Tom's age, some years younger than I, but both of us made her
our playmate. We didn't have the hundred and one diversions and sports
that young people seem to have nowadays--no suburban clubs, no motoring,
little driving. We roamed through Howard's woods around and beyond the
Washington Monument, and we strolled the banks of the 'canal' that used
to parallel Jones' Falls down there above Centre street. And in all our
rambles and excursions Dina was our joyous, care-free companion. I can
see her now, as she was at 14, a simply dressed school girl, with her
olive complexion, her clear, trustful gray eyes, her trim, petite,
lissom figure and her rosebud mouth, ready ever to kiss either of us in
fond sisterly affection.
"She was 16 when I was sent to Edinburgh on one of father's ships, to
become a doctor. For once her laughter deserted her, and the last
picture I had of her as our boat headed down the Patapsco on a bright,
blue morning was of a tearful miss on Bowly's wharf, waving a bedewed
handkerchief and watching through misty eyes the going of Cousin Jim
across the water. There had been a tender farewell between us, and
though no word of love was spoken, I tell you, lad, I knew I was leaving
my heart behind.
"My three years in Scotland were ones of hard work, and the chief joy I
knew came with Dina's letters. The mails were slow in those days, and
they came too uncertainly for me, you may be sure. But each brought me,
in addition to a budget of news, just a bit of Dina's lovely
personality. I saw her, in her letters, growing into sweet womanhood,
and, as I sometimes stretched myself in meditation on Arthur's Seat, far
above old Edinburgh, my thoughts were not of the city, nor of my own
lifework, but of the little girl at home.
"I was just completing my course, when there came my first terrible
blow. A letter came from Dina, the first in two months, and it brought
me word, lad, that she was married! Married! Just think of it! And to
Tom. He had been with Watson and Ringgold in the Mexican War, and
clippings they sent me had recounted the bravery of young Captain
Dunton. I confess to you, sir, that for days I had murder in my heart,
and against my own brother. I went off on a walking trip in the
Trossachs, and a savage time I had of it with myself; I had schemes of
petty revenge; I abused Dina; I vowed she could not love Tom; that she
must have been swept off her feet by the brass buttons and the war
glamour about him.
"By the time I came back to Baltimore I had regained self-control, and
when I met Tom and his wife it was with the determination to do
everything for Dina's happiness, even though she were another's. I was
not wrong in my prophecy that she would develop into sweet womanhood,
only I underestimated it. In all our circle of acquaintances in
Baltimore there was no more beautiful young matron than Mrs. Dunton; no
more sprightly and piquant bride; no hostess more gracious, as she
presided over the dinners and 'small and early' affairs that were given
at our home here.
"But, alas! it was not long before sorrows came to her. Tom began to
drink heavily. He got in with a gay set at Barnum's Hotel, his hours
grew irregular, his absences from home more numerous and more
prolonged. Father and I remonstrated ineffectually, at first pleadingly
and then in anger. We did our best to keep Dina ignorant of some of the
worst stories out concerning Tom's dissipation, but she knew. And though
she loyally never criticised him in talking to us, we saw the joy fade
out of her heart and lips, and the glint of ineffaceable sadness come
into those pure gray eyes. God only knows what she suffered in the nine
years before death, invited by alcohol, came and took Tom.
"It may sound brutal, but I was glad when besotted Tom was gone. It
ended Dina's terrible worry, it relieved father and myself of
unexplainable trouble, expense and annoyance, it laid to rest a family
skeleton of whose existence all Baltimore seemed to know. And deep down
in my heart, I confess it, there was a thrill that the woman I loved
above all was free.
"Of course, being a true woman, and a tender-hearted one, Dina grieved
long over Tom's death. She had loved him sincerely despite his grievous
faults, and ours was a melancholy household for another year. In those
days our women wore deep black mourning and veils, and sombre, indeed,
was Dina as she went out to church, to Tom's grave, or to half a dozen
poor households she had taken under her wing. But most of the time she
was at home ministering to father, whose declining health was a cause of
alarm to both of us.
"Presently I began to urge her to go about with me. At first she said
no, then with her characteristic considerateness she seemed unwilling to
hurt me by refusing further. I took her to the homes of our friends for
an evening of music or whist, or to an occasional public concert. The
color began to come back into the cheeks whence it had been so long
absent, and that glint of grief in the gray eyes grew dimmer. I spoke no
word of love, but unobtrusively carried on a campaign to let her see how
badly I yearned for her. The new books, the best sweets, the prettiest
flowers, such delicate compliments as sincerity could dictate--all these
I gave her and watched patiently to see the dawning of love on her part.
I had always had her fond affection, but I wanted more and strove in
every way to gain it.
"Two years passed and there came a night memorable in Baltimore when
18-year-old Adelina Patti--a singer in the first flush of youth and
beauty, fresh from triumphs in New York--was brought to Holliday-Street
Theatre to sing 'La Somnambula.' Strakosch had stirred up a furore about
Patti and Brignoli in Gotham, and Baltimore was curious to hear them. I
took Dina, and proud was I of her beauty and her sweet garb as we sat in
the midst of a hundred acquaintances in an audience the newspapers
called 'brilliant'. She had abandoned black and wore a satin gown of a
soft color, shimmery and splendidly adorned with lace. Her matured
beauty seemed to me more glorious than the promise of childhood, which
had first captured me. She was entranced with the music, but I had no
ears for the diva, and was there only to enjoy the divinity by my side.
I had a feeling that the end of my probation was near. I believed she
would say 'yes' should I ask her, and I determined to do so that night.
"After we had gotten away from our friends she talked animatedly of the
opera in the carriage, and I listened contentedly all the while I kept
saying 'Tonight, Jim, tonight!' As we came into the house she led the
way into this office, and with a smile dropped into that chair you see.
She allowed me to unfasten her opera cloak and draw it across the back
of the chair, but she playfully bade me sit down, when I let my arm
steal caressingly about her neck. Ah! man, if you could but know how I
loved her that minute!"----
The Doctor's voice broke. There were tears in his eyes. As for me, I was
profoundly moved, and my own eyelashes were wet.
"I passed into the dining-room to get her some sherry and cake. I was
gone but a moment, but in that instant she was lost to me forever."
The veins in the old man's forehead stood out like whipcords. He resumed
fiercely after a pause:
"She was dead, sir. She was dead. She sat in the same position in that
chair as when I had left her, but her hand clutched her side and the
smile she had given me was replaced by a sharp contraction, as if from
pain. Swiftly her heart action had been gripped by an unseen force and
stopped forever. I grew frantic when I found I could not revive her; I
shrieked aloud in the agony of my heart, and father and the servants
rushed here in alarm. They tell me I was mad for days; that I raved and
called incessantly. I do not remember. I knew nothing for a long time,
and then I cursed myself for living on when memory returned. Twice I had
lost her--once by marriage and once by death--and the joy of living was
never to be mine again. I have survived, sir, these many years. I buried
Father after Dina, and I am alone here. But, God, man! I died long ago.
My soul is with her I adored."
He arose and I followed. I felt that he meant to end our talk. He wiped
away the tears from his cheek with a silk handkerchief, and then,
placing his gaunt hand on my right shoulder, he moved his face close to
mine and spoke earnestly:
"I never dare visit her grave in Greenmount. I am afraid of myself. But
if you can, to please an old man whose wretched life you have saved
tonight, will you go there some time and see that her resting place has
been tended reverently? I have paid them for it."
I promised him I would, and then I passed out into the starlit night
with a thousand impressions of the terrible tragedy of this man's life
crowding my excited brain. I could not sleep, and I lay in bed for hours
reconstructing the tale and fancying many details he had not supplied.
The next morning I went to the Dunton lot in Greenmount and found it
well cared for. Over his loved Dina's grave was a handsome stone of
Carrara marble, with this inscription:
______________________________
| |
| GERALDINE, |
| Beloved wife of Thomas Bowly |
| Dunton. |
| Passed away suddenly, |
| 1860. |
| Aged 30 years. |
| "God is love." |
|______________________________|
On one side was the grave of the ill-fated Tom. On the other the green
turf waited to be disturbed to make room for the last of the Duntons,
and there, on a raw day in the following March, I saw the body of the
old Doctor laid beside her whom he had loved so long and with such
overwhelming sorrow.
_An Island On A Jamboree_
For three days the shipping of Baltimore, large and small, had been held
in leash by a great storm upon the bay. One of those West India autumn
hurricanes coming suddenly had whipped the Chesapeake into such a fury
with its fierce southeast blow that steamboats and small sailing craft
alike heeded the Weather Bureau warning and remained in Baltimore.
On the third night the gale had spent its fury, and, with a rising
barometer and a favorable Government forecast, Captain Cromwell, eager
to get home, ventured out with his bugeye as soon as the dawn came. The
Patapsco was full of white caps, but the wind had softened and the skies
were clear, and the Tuckahoe met with no misadventure as it passed down.
A hundred other vessels were making ready to follow, but he had the
start of them and the river to himself. In a few hours he would be with
his family at Rock Hall.
But as he rounded Seven-Foot Knoll and headed across the bay he suddenly
grew excited, and shouted the name of his favorite patron, the great
Jehoshaphat.
Then he yelled to his crew:
"What in the devil is that ahead, you lazy loafer?"
The crew rose up en masse--being only one--from its lolling position
beside the mainmast, and looked out over the disturbed waters. And then
it was the crew's turn to become excited.
"Golly, Cap. Jim, I ain't never done seen nuthin' like that afore. What
the debbil am it?"
The commander of the Tuckahoe responded:
"I'll be jiggered if I know."
The crew instinctively moved back to a position close to the master, and
both, with mixed feelings of alarm and curiosity, concentrated their
gaze upon the strange sight that had aroused them.
"I've been running to Baltimore these ten years, John Washington," said
the Captain to the crew, "and I've seen queer things on the bay and the
river. I'll never forget how them blamed naval fellers from Annapolis
frightened me by coming up out of the water with one of them durned
submarines. But I'll be blowed if ever I have seen anything to beat
this. There warn't no island out there when we run past the Knoll going
up."
"'Deed there warn't, Cap. Jim. Golly, I'se scared, I is. Ain't you
'fraid it's one of Satan's traps, Cap. Jim? The debbil am mighty
cunnin', you knows dat."
"Devil or not, John, I'm going to see what it really is."
And the captain of the Tuckahoe gave the command "Hard lee!" so as to
head the bay craft more directly toward the centre of the mysterious
island that they had discovered. It was now about a half mile distant
and, as seen in the morning light, low-lying and ten acres or so in
extent. Its most peculiar feature to the pair on the bugeye was a grove
of tall trees, naked to a height of 60 or 80 feet, and then crowned by
enormous spreading leaves, or branches.
"Them's powerful funny trees, Cap. Jim," said the colored deckhand,
doubtfully.
"Never seen anything like 'em in this bay before," replied Captain
Cromwell. "I ain't never been in the tropics, John, but they look mighty
like pictures of cocoanut palms."
"Tropics, Cap. Jim?"
"Yes; the West Indies."
"In de name of de Lawd, Cap. Jim, how dem trees done get here from de
West Indies? Dat a long way off, ain't it?"
Captain Cromwell made no reply. He was too intently studying the island.
All of a sudden he was startled by his crew sinking on its knees on the
deck with an exclamation. He turned and saw the negro's skin blanched
with terror.
"Fo' de Lawd Gawd, Cap. Jim, dat thing am movin'."
"Skidoo, John, skidoo," said the Captain, skeptically.
"'Deed an' double-deed, it is, Cap. Jim. You jes' look behind it ober
dar at Kent Island."
The Captain peered as directed, while the negro eyed him doubtfully.
"Great Jehoshaphat!" the white man cried. "You're right, John, you're
right. That there island is a-movin' up the bay."
"Ain't yer skeered, Cap. Jim?" asked the crew, with a shudder. "'Pears
to me it's mighty like de debbil."
Captain Cromwell was doubtful himself. He laid his hand on the tiller
and was about to change his course when he made a fresh discovery.
"There's a man on that island, as I'm a-livin'," he exclaimed.
"Whar is he, Cap. Jim?" cried the negro.
"Right by that grove of trees, John. He's waving his arms at us. He's
standing by some kind of a hut and there's a tall pole with the stars
and stripes turned upside down."
"Maybe dey's pirates, Cap. Jim." Visions of the dreaded skull and
cross-bones and of a horrible death at the yardarm, whatever that was,
made John Washington's teeth and knees knock together violently.
"Pirates, the deuce! They're Americans that want help."
"And is you gwine close, Cap. Jim? Lawdy."
The crew started forward and the Captain held the bugeye to its course
to the strange island. The man by the grove of palms waved his arms and
ran toward the shore nearest to them. He shouted several times, but
Captain Cromwell could not hear him. Finally, the man picked up a huge
leaf, and, twisting it into a cornucopia shape, made a megaphone of it.
With this aid his voice came floating over the bay.
"Keep off!" he called. "There is a sunken reef on this side. Head for
the cove." He pointed to the north end of the floating mass, and
Captain Cromwell put about. The island, now that he was close, appeared
to be making good headway--at least four or five miles an hour. There
was a swish and a swirl of water on the sides that showed it would have
been folly to have run in shore there. But after he had rounded a
hummock of glistening sand he saw the cove, and in a few minutes more
had entered it and discovered a roughly constructed wharf. John
Washington reluctantly obeyed a sharp order to take in sail, and, with
the aid of the stranger ashore, the Tuckahoe was presently moored.
Captain Cromwell's first impulse was to laugh at a near view of the man
on the island. "Powerful funny lookin'," was John Washington's comment.
His hair and whiskers were of the red hue that could never by courtesy
be called auburn. Both whiskers and hair were long and ragged and would
have provoked despair in any aseptic barber shop in Baltimore. For coat
the islander had on a baggy affair, roughly fashioned out of jute, and
his trousers were of sailcloth, cut in a style that would not have met
the approval of a Maryland Club member. He was thick-set, with a slight
stoop. His wrists were tattooed, his hands horny. His eyes were a placid
blue pair. Above the left one was a scar.
"Where in blazes am I?" he yelled to Captain Cromwell as the Tuckahoe
was nearing the wharf. "Blazes" is a mild translation of the expletive
actually employed.
"Chesapeake bay, mate."
"Chesapeake bay! Jiminy crickets! Blown all the way from the Bahamas!
Well, I'm danged!"
"How did it happen?" asked the master of the Tuckahoe. The newest
Robinson Crusoe didn't hear him.
"How in blazes did I pass in the Capes and not know it?" Again "blazes"
is putting it mildly. "Durned thick, nasty weather yesterday. Couldn't
see a half mile. Must a passed in then. How far up am I?"
"Mouth of the Patapsco."
"By jinks, so it is. I might a knowed it. There's the Knoll. And there's
North P'int. Many's the time I sighted them when I used to run here in a
five-master from Bath."
"How did you come--this time?" again asked Captain Cromwell.
Again his curiosity had to wait. "Got a quid of 'baccy, mate?" asked the
red-bearded man as he stood on the wharf beside the bugeye. "Ain't had a
chaw in four years." He seized eagerly the plug that was handed to him,
broke off a generous "chaw" and thrust it into his mouth. Then, and not
until then, did he make reply.
"How did I come? Caught in a sou'easter, that's all. Nastiest storm you
ever want to see. Hit us suddenly five nights ago. Them palms was bent
double with the wind. Lord only knows why my mansion yonder didn't go.
After while sort a felt we were driftin'. When mornin' broke there was
my kingdom afloat in the ocean cut in two, me alone on this bit and the
biggest half gone off with my subjects on it."
"Subjects?"
"Yes, my people."
The Captain looked at John and John edged off from the stranger and made
a sign suggestive of deficient mentality.
"Your people?" asked Captain Cromwell.
"Yes, man. Why, I am the King of Tortilla Key."
John renewed the aforesaid sign and edged still farther away. Captain
Cromwell laughed. The stranger chimed in.
"Does sound funny, don't it. Fact is I made myself King. I've got a
crown up at the palace there. Rusty tin saucepan afore I knocked the
bottom out."
The Captain laughed again.
"You're an odd fish," he remarked. "What was your name before you were
King?"
"Me? Oh! I'm a 'down Easter.' Peleg Timrod of Squan, Mass., U. S. A. Of
course, I knowed Peleg was no royal name, so I just dubbed myself Victor
Fust when I annexed this here island."
"It ain't much of a kingdom."
"About four times as large as you see afore the rest broke away. Anyway,
I thought it a mighty big place when I got tossed up here goin' on four
year ago. I'd been afloat on the roof of a deckhouse for three days
arter the fruiter Bainbridge were cast away, and I tell you, mate, I was
powerful glad to hit any old kind of terra firma then. The bunch of
natives who fed me and sheltered me was a kind lot. They didn't seem to
belong to no country in partikler, and though I knowed Britain claimed
the Bahamas, I jes' kind a thought Teddy might want the place for a
coaling station some time. So I let 'em know I was their King, and I
reckon I ain't had any more trouble with them than Peter Leary had in
Guam. Of course, I couldn't make it plain to 'em how the Constitution
follows the flag, 'cos I didn't know myself."
"Where did you get your American flag?"
"American flag, mate?" Victor I. was offended. "Why, bless you, that
ain't no stars and stripes. That there's the flag of Tortilla. There's
no stars there. The red's my old undershirt, the blue I found thrown up
in the surf one day and the white is a bit of sail I had with me when I
dropped in to take my throne. That flag means business. I"----
His Majesty was interrupted by a shout from John Washington:
"Golly, Cap. Jim, the island's stopped!"
"Stopped, you lunkhead?"
"Yes, Cap. Jim. It ain't movin' no more. I'se been watchin' Poole's
Island yonder, and we done ceased."
"Maybe it's aground," suggested the King.
"Maybe it is," replied the Rock Hall captain, "but it's more likely to
have run into a current down the bay from the Susquehanna. It's just as
well for you, I guess, or you'd a bumped into Cecil county so hard you
wouldn't a voted next 'lection."
For some minutes the trio studied the island and its surroundings with
intentness. The King was the first to notice when his kingdom got to
moving again.
"It's headin' down the bay this time," he cheerily declared. "Reckon you
were right about getting into a current. S'pose I'm off on another
cruise."
"Sail away with me, and let it go," urged Captain Cromwell.
"What! desert my kingdom in such a economic crisis! Not this King. No,
siree. Victor I. stays right here as long as there's a Tortilla to king
it over. There's no kin in Squan to lament the loss of Peleg Timrod, and
I've had a bully time here. Plenty of bananas, pineapples and cocoanuts
to live on, no work to do, and a couple of queens to boot."
"Queens?" cried Captain Cromwell.
"Golly!" exclaimed his crew.
"Yes; two as fine-looking girls as you'd want to see. I'm powerful sorry
they ain't here now to give you a royal welcome. They're gone with the
rest of the island and the rest of the subjects. I miss 'em."
Victor I. sighed. Then he resumed after a pause:
"Women certainly are the curiousest things. They're the same everywhere.
Life's no good without 'em, and they plague you to death while you're
trying to live with 'em. Now, there's those two queens. I loved both,
and yet I had such trouble with 'em last week I made 'em go home to
their father's hut. Ain't I sorry they wasn't at the palace when the
sou'easter came!
"How did I get 'em? Oh, they were given to me when I first came to
Tortilla. You see, when I got throwed up here there was a family of
natives, eight in all--the old man, the old woman, three daughters, the
husband of one of them and two young boys. The two girls who didn't have
no husbands took a shine to me as soon as I came and dad just passed me
along to both. That was before I declaimed myself King. I was brought up
in Sunday-school all right and I knowed well only Turks and Mormons had
two wives at a time. But, under the circumstances, I couldn't offend
anybody, so I just took both. Eugenie--that's the name I give her--she
could cook and keep house out of sight. The little one--Marie
Antoinette--was the cutest and soon had the biggest corner of my heart.
That's what got me into trouble. You see, new clothes was scarce on
Tortilla, and when I gave a bit of my old sail to Marie Antoinette for a
Sunday-go-to-meetin' dress and didn't give none to Eugenie their oldest
sister put the devil into Eugenie's head. She"----
The further recital of the tale of a pair of queens was cut short by a
terrible roaring. A piece of the island behind the wharf broke loose and
sank into the bay with a suddenness that put the Tuckahoe in dire peril.
The wave that followed the engulfing of an acre of land lifted the
little bugeye and nearly capsized it, at the same time ripping the wharf
to pieces and snapping the moorings. Captain Cromwell and his negro
sprang to the tiller and succeeded in steadying her. When they had time
to look about them they saw the red-headed King in the water a hundred
feet away, swimming for what was left of his kingdom.
"Come nearer; I'll throw you a line," shouted Captain Cromwell.
"No; I'll stick to my kingdom," answered Victor I., alias Peleg Timrod.
"You'd better sheer off; you'll hit a coral reef or get drawn under."
The Tuckahoe's master saw that it was good advice, and he ordered John
Washington to hoist sail. By the time this was done they were a quarter
of a mile out in the bay, and Victor I., wet and dripping, was again on
his terra firma.
"Goodbye," yelled the bay captain.
"Bye-bye," returned the King, nonchalantly.
And soon he was but a speck on the strand of the floating island, which
was making good progress southward.
For half an hour Tortilla Key was visible in the bay. Captain Cromwell
and John watched it unceasingly, the latter growing more and more
relieved as the bugeye scudded nearer home and farther from the moving
marvel. Strange to relate, over the bay, usually dotted with small or
large vessels, there was no steamer or sailing craft to be seen up to
the time that the bunch of tall palms became a speck off Annapolis and
was finally lost in the south horizon. This evidently suggested a line
of action to the master of the Tuckahoe.
"John Washington," he said, as he mustered his crew aft and addressed it
sternly, "don't you ever breathe a word about that floatin' island to a
living soul, or I'll skin you alive."
"Golly, Cap. Jim, you knows I ain't."
"Well, you'd better not, because folks is liable to think we made a
round of Pratt-street saloons afore we boarded the Tuckahoe."
"Dey sutt'nly 'll think we's liars, Cap. Jim."
"They certainly will, John."
For a week Captain Cromwell scanned the daily papers anxiously for news
of the progress of the queer derelict. And each day, with equal
curiosity, John Washington visited him to learn what he could.
"Thought as how it mout a bumped up down Norfolk way," said the crew.
"No, it hasn't," replied the Captain. "I guess it must be chasing up and
down the ocean now."
"Golly, Cap. Jim, but dat dere was powerful queer."
"Are you sure, John, you've never told any one--not even Liza?"
"Go 'way, Cap'n, wha' for you s'pose I'se gwine tell de old woman?"
But he had. And her narrative, as circulated in Eastern-Shore cabins,
was a vastly more moving tale than the simple unvarnished truth as you
and I know it.
_Alexander the Great_
Alexander loved everything about Antoinette except her too pronounced
fondness for the romantic. That perturbed him greatly. Nobody liked to
be sentimental with a pretty girl more than did Alexander. If he could
squeeze Antoinette's hand slyly at Ford's or the Academy when a "dark
scene" was on, and get a sweet answering pressure; if he engineered his
arm about her undisturbed when he took her driving on Druid Hill's
unlighted roads of a summer night; if he hazarded an occasional kiss on
her warm, cherry-red lips as they lingered in the parting on the front
steps of her Harlem-avenue home--he was as pleased as any admiring lover
could well be. And the next day in that dull, prosaic German-street
office, pictures of Antoinette as she laughed, of Antoinette as she
lowered her clear brown eyes after that kiss, would thrust themselves
most impertinently into each page of the big ledger he had to post.
The trouble, however, with Antoinette from Alexander's viewpoint was
that she was more romantic than that. It was all right for her to be a
trusting little dear and allow him the occasional kiss or hug. But no
adorer likes to be told that he doesn't come up to the lady's ideal, and
that was what Antoinette had plainly given Alexander to understand in
those moments when, spurred on by the kiss or the hug, he had sought to
make her more truly his only and own. "The man I marry," vowed the
darling Antoinette, "must be a hero. You're just an ordinary fellow.
You're better than the rest I know, and I like you awfully much. But
Alexander, dear," and she gave a little twist to the top button of his
coat, "I don't love you, because you have never shown yourself capable
of bold deeds or brave actions. I am woman enough to worship a man who
can do things of that kind. The age of chivalry is not dead. There are
heroes in this world, and though I'm awfully fond of you, Alexander, I'm
going to wait until I meet my ideal." Then Alexander would hie himself
to his Gilmor-street home and curse his luck. What could a plain,
unassuming, workaday clerk do in the way of being a hero? Where did he
have opportunities of meeting situations of peril in which he could
prove his valor?
One of those evenings when Antoinette waxed confidential and revealed
her true thoughts--evenings rare, because, as a rule, she was fencing
coquettishy with tongue and eyes--she acknowledged that the nearest
approach to her ideal that she had ever seen was a handsome, lithe young
Atlantic City life guard. She put such a valuation upon the courage of
this sun-bronzed, red-shirted Adonis that Alexander's jealousy rose to
the fuming point. There pressed upon him the notion of going to the
City-by-the-Sea, either to challenge this approximate ideal to mortal
combat or of emulating his choice of occupation and working a lifeboat
and a rescue-line himself. Then he reflected that, after all, he would
rather be a live clerk in Baltimore than a dead hero in the restless
ocean surf.
"It's all the fault of those blamed novels," muttered Alexander, in his
wrath. "She has filled up her head with that silly trash until she has
spoiled the finest girl on earth." He never met her on Lexington street
that she was not on her way to or from the Enoch Pratt Library, or was
carrying home the latest bit of fiction from the bookstores. The old and
the new alike fed her imagination--Scott, the elder Dumas, the King
Arthur romances, Stanley Weyman, Anthony Hope, Hallie Erminie Rives,
Laura Jean Libbey, Bertha M. Clay, Mrs. Alexander--all were fish for her
net, tabloids for her mental digestion. "If she had her way, she would
make me a Rob Roy, a Romeo, a Prisoner of Zenda, a Sir Gal--or whatever
the dickens that old fellow's name was," vowed Alexander, who, it must
be confessed, was not strong on literature.
For three hours and more he lay awake on his bed that night. He knew the
length of time, because the wind was from the east and brought the sound
of the City Hall's strike to him. How to gain Antoinette in marriage,
how to meet her fancy of what a man ought to be, how to be a hero
without an untimely fate in the flower of his youth--was ever lover more
perplexed, more worried!
The next morning brought his deliverance. It came to him as he held
himself in place on two inches of the footboard of a crowded open car.
A queer spot for salvation to be handed to a despairing lover! Yet
salvation is accustomed to odd performances. In this instance it popped
into Alexander's mind so unexpectedly that he chuckled and made a seated
individual think Alexander was reading the jokes of his penny paper over
his shoulder. As a matter of fact, Alexander was soaring into a new and
unexplored world. A great white light was leading him far from the
madding crowd.
For three days chuckling alternated with heavy thinking. His mind was so
engrossed with the probability of his deliverance from the trials and
anxieties of trying vainly to please Antoinette that when he went, by
appointment, to take her to Electric Park to see the vaudeville show he
came perilously near telling her all about it. And that to the swain who
hopes to capture a hesitating maiden would, as every masculine knows,
have been fatal. As it was, Alexander's countenance was so benign and
cheerful that the little lady noticed it.
"You've got a surprise for me, I know," she declared as she eyed him,
pouting most charmingly.
She had hit so near the truth that Alexander, helpless masculine,
floundered. "N--n--no. I--I--I haven't," he vowed.
"Yes, you have, Alexander Brotherton," she replied, spiritedly; and at
midnight as they were crossing Harlem square, homeward bound, she
snuggled up to him confidingly and intimated that it was about time to
tell her.
Alexander weakened. When a fellow is 24 and a girl is 22 and unusually
pretty and winsome, his heart must be adamant to withstand that little
trick of snuggling up. Alexander gasped, but with the gasp gained sense
enough to see he couldn't tell her about the "great white light."
Antoinette, girl like, was miffed. It was the first time in her
experience with Alexander, and in fact with several other adorers, that
she had not been able to operate that little device successfully. As a
result, she was rather cool when they parted.
The next evening Alexander went around to make it up. He had to "crawl,"
of course. They all do. The girls make them do it. And when he had
apologized earnestly for the eleventh time and vowed with a double
criss-cross that there really wasn't any secret, Antoinette was
partially mollified and allowed Alexander to stay until past 11 o'clock
without a recurrence of pouting on her part.
The next night she was in a lovely humor when Alexander came around. It
was close and hot, and, after buying sondaes at the drug store on the
corner below, Alexander suggested riding out and strolling along some of
the paths of Druid Hill Park. He put it humbly, but he was most blithe
and joyous when she consented.
They were walking up the Mall on their way to the boat lake half an hour
later. It was dark just there, and, as no one seemed to be near,
Alexander let his hand steal around Antoinette's little waist.
"You shouldn't do that," said Antoinette slipping away from him, but not
angrily. "We're not engaged, you know."
"I'd like to be," asserted Alexander ardently.
What answer she would have made can only be guessed at, for just at this
moment two muscular fellows sprang in front of them from behind a tree.
In the few arc-light rays that penetrated the low-hanging limbs
Antoinette could see that both were masked and that one held a pistol at
her. Antoinette backed close to Alexander and screamed. It was a good,
lusty scream, far stronger than Alexander had thought her capable of
emitting.
"Hand over your money and valuables," gruffly said the companion of him
who held the pistol.
Antoinette could feel Alexander double his fists and his muscles grow
hard. He started toward the two highwaymen. "Don't! don't!" she cried,
as she threw her arms around him. "They'll kill you!"
But Alexander heeded her not. Instead, he pushed her aside and sprang
determinedly at the other pair. With his left hand he knocked up the
pistol and caused it to fall to the ground. With his right he delivered
a swinging blow on the shoulder that staggered the other fellow.
Apparently the pair had not expected resistance, for they darted off in
the shadows, with Alexander in stern pursuit.
"Don't leave me alone," called Antoinette agonizingly. Visions of dire
peril to distressed womanhood leaped into her brain from a score of
favorite novels. She might be kidnapped and confined in some dark
tower--she might be shot down from ambush--she might--but, ah, now! her
fears were dissipated, for the doughty Alexander was back. He was
puffing most unromantically, but was overjoyed at the turn that enabled
him to show himself so valiant.
Several strangers had been attracted by Antoinette's scream. Alexander
satisfied their curiosity by a modest recital of the incident. And then
with the adoring Antoinette holding close to him he turned away. One of
the strangers stopped him.
"You've left the pistol," he said.
"By George! so I did," said Alexander.
"Don't take that awful thing," said Antoinette with a shudder.
"It will be a prize trophy," said Alexander, and Antoinette with this
point of view was content. Under the first light he showed the weapon to
her. She needed to be encouraged to handle the pistol, but finally she
inspected it closely. "It has your initials--'A. B.'--on it," she
suddenly declared.
"Why so it has," stammered Alexander. Without further ado he put the
revolver in his pocket.
"Hadn't you better tell the park gateman about the outrage?" asked
Antoinette presently.
"No; I think it wiser to keep it out of the papers," returned Alexander.
"After all, it was only a little incident, with no serious
consequences."
But Antoinette did not regard it in that light. To her it was a
valorous deed, and she rehearsed her view of it all the way home.
"You are my hero, my first hero," she said to the proud Alexander on her
stoop, and reaching up to his face she impulsively gave him the warmest
kiss he had ever secured from her. The hero business wasn't so bad after
all.
Some evenings later they were again strolling in the park. Alexander had
received permission to smoke a cigarette as they walked, but could not
light it in the breeze that was blowing. "Wait a moment, little girl,"
he finally said, and he stepped aside to the protection of a broad tree
trunk, perhaps forty feet away, leaving Antoinette on the path. It was
the main-traveled way from Madison-avenue gate to the Mansion House, but
at the time no one was near. Suddenly, however, a tall man loomed up
from behind Antoinette and seized her rudely in his arms.
"A kiss, my little beauty," he said as he put his face close to hers.
Antoinette would have dropped with fright had not his firm grasp upheld
her. She was too scared to scream, but she did have presence of mind
enough to turn her face aside. What she saw when she did turn overjoyed
her, for Alexander was coming agilely over the turf to her rescue.
"Here, let go of that lady, you dirty whelp!" cried Alexander, when yet
some paces away. The man relaxed his hold on her, but, instead of
running as her hold-up man had done, he turned to meet the oncoming
champion. Alexander grappled with him and there was a stout tussle. It
seemed ages to Antoinette, who was watching the struggle with tense,
strained eyes, before Alexander proved his redoubtability by throwing
her insulter over on the grass.
"Oh, Alexander!" she cried in exultation and relief. "You are so strong
and brave!"
Alexander, panting, swelled his chest. Such praise from the girl he
loved was like divine, enchanting wine. He took her to his bosom, as
they say. But the fond embrace was cut short by a snicker from the
onlooker. He had not risen from the recumbent position in which
Alexander's prowess had placed him. Antoinette's beloved turned angrily
on him, "Get you gone, you vile dog!" he exclaimed theatrically. And
then he kicked him, not gently, but positively.
In a flash the other man was up and had grabbed the surprised Alexander.
It was such a grab that Alexander murmured in pain. Antoinette thought
she heard one of them say something about "Not in the bargain." She was
not sure. But she was sure that Alexander was not doing so well in the
second round of combat as in the first. Then he whispered to his
opponent, and almost immediately the strength of the other diminished,
even as did Samson's when shorn of his locks. Presently the other broke
away and ran, and Alexander stood breathless, master of the field.
On the walk back to the Druid Hill-avenue entrance to take a car for
home Antoinette again proposed that they tell the authorities of the
two attacks. Alexander was against it. He said he dreaded the mire of
publicity for the sweetest creature on earth. And he looked at her
lovingly as he said it. Antoinette's purpose weakened, but she had
enough strength of will left to declare she was almost sure she could
identify her assailant. "He had an odd-shaped mole on his right cheek,"
she remarked. "And, do you know, it's curious that I think I am nearly
certain that one of our highwaymen of last week had a similar mark. I
got a glimpse of it once when a puff of air caught his mask." Alexander
redoubled his urgings that they keep silent. He breathed easier when
they were past the gateman and on the car.
For a week he basked in the glory of her adulation. Never was a hero so
worshiped as this proven one. Never was a sweet girl so happy as
Antoinette. She had met her ideal, and he was hers. Twenty hours of the
twenty-four she dreamed of him; the other four she rejoiced at being
with him.
The eighth night after the second encounter in Druid Hill he had taken
her to Gwynn Oak Park to dance. Until the sixth number, the waltzes and
two-steps were all his. Then Will Harrison, an old acquaintance, came
up. "I hate to leave you," whispered Antoinette, as she gazed up into
her hero's face, "but Will is a nice boy, and I don't like to refuse him
one." Alexander smiled in return, and told her to enjoy herself. As she
floated around on Will's arm she took advantage of every turn to watch
the adored Alexander. She thought he looked lonely, and she wished she
could decently end her waltz and get back to him. For a moment, in a
reverse step, she lost sight of him, and when she saw him again a tall
young fellow was talking to him. Alexander seemed ill at ease and
perturbed. In fact, he quite failed to notice that she was nearing him
again in the dance. "I want that extra five you whispered you'd give
me," Antoinette heard the tall chap say. "That kick was worth it. If you
don't cough up I'll tell the lady how much it cost you, you coward, to
be a hero twice." Antoinette looked intently at the tall man. There was
a mole on his right cheek. She was wise all of a sudden. Then she grew
faint with the shock of the knowledge.
"Take me out of here," she muttered to her partner. He obeyed. A car was
fast filling up to leave for Walbrook. Antoinette made a dash for it.
"Come, take me home, Will!" she called. Again he obeyed, and bounced her
into a seat.
"I'll never speak to that awful wretch again," said Antoinette to the
curious Will. "I am ashamed of myself."
And thus was Alexander the Great dethroned.
_Breaking Into Medicine_