JOHN NIXON'S INVITATION.
"Well," said Sir William, a little feebly to Daisy, who sat on a stool
beside his chair, with her head resting on the cushioned arm in such a
position that Ware could stroke her hair with his "good" hand, "this has
jolly well taught me to look about, on street-crossings. I suppose I am
what the tram people would call a 'jay walker'. I say, Puss--aren't you
sorry you married such a silly ass. Be frank, now! Say I'm a blundering
idiot."
"No, you're not," said Daisy; "how's your arm feeling?"
"Tip-top," Ware, as he replied offhand about the broken limb, regarded
the girl with a bright and tender approval.
"And your head?" continued Daisy, "does it ache much, there where the
bruise is? Let me get some fresh ice."
"For the third and last time--no!" Sir William responded, flipping her
ear; "this ice is cold enough: it has clotted every vein in my bally
forehead. I say, kitten, isn't that somebody knocking?"
The knock which sounded on the door--that of the small sitting-room of
Sir William's bedroom suite--was clumsily-knuckled and hesitating. It
sounded once, audibly--then a second time, feebly--and, after the second
knock, the scuffle of a heavy foot receding indicated that the knocker
was going away without entering. Daisy went quickly and opened the door.
"Come on, Dad," she said.
Nixon stopped in the hall, his back half-turned, and spoke to his
foster-daughter over-shoulder.
"You go on about your business a while," he said, gruffly, "I want to
talk to the boss."
Ware, hearing this dialogue from his chair, smiled queerly to himself.
"Right-O," he called, "run along, my dear, for a jiffy; see if Mother
has any messages for us. Come on, Nixon, old chap!"
Reddening in an odd way at the cordial tone, John Nixon, his hands
hanging awkwardly and his beard canted aside in a sheepish attitude,
came in, pushing the door shut behind him. He lowered himself into the
nearest chair.
"How are _you_?" said Sir William, humorously and companionably, "I
say--that _was_ a jolly cataclysm! Lucky to get off with our lives,
what?" Nixon, sheepish but still characteristically blunt, came straight
to his point.
"I wouldn't have got off with no life," he said, "if you hadn't slung
me out o' the way and got stepped on yourself."
"Rubbish!" said Ware, briefly; "all the same, it's good of you to put it
that way, old chap. Makes me feel less mortified at my stupidity in
standing there like a post and getting knocked down. Let's jolly well
talk of something else."
John Nixon's head came up and back. He put his right hand down on his
knee-cap with a slap that could be heard across the room.
"Don't you go tryin' for to head me off, English," he said, "I done
wrong and I'm a-goin' to own up to it. Here, I been walkin' around your
nice house here, a-spittin' all over the floor as if it was a hotel--it
kind of seems like that to me, because we don't sling on no style out
west here--and all because I never did like an Englishman. They always
make me contrairy. When I'm with an Englishman, I talk rough and go
bullin' around, just to be the opposite to what I think he is--"
Sir William leaned out over the arm of his chair and extended his
uninjured hand toward Nixon.
"Put her there, as you say in Canada," he said, beamingly, "Nixon,
you're a brick. And if we English make you Canadians feel contrary, I'll
admit we bring it on ourselves. We, too, are a contrary people; and the
more you try to put on this roughness of manner, which is not your own,
the more we try to put on this finicky niceness, which so rubs you the
wrong way. Just because we desire to rub you the wrong way. And so we
see-saw, back and forth, until eventually we come to fisticuffs, or
worse. Nixon, I believe you've hit the peg on which hangs the whole
difficulty between England and Canada. Now that we two understand each
other, let's set an example to our peoples: let's be natural. Put her
there, I say."
John Nixon put her there, and the two shook hands--an inter-imperial
handshake.
"How would you like for to come out to my place a while, English?" he
said, after a moment. "As I said, we don't sling on no style nor
nothin', but we never know what it is to go hungry. The roof don't let
in no rain, neither; and you can't sleep on nothin' more comfortable
than a bedtick stuffed with prairie hay."
"Ripping!" Sir William, "knocked about" as he was, all but hoisted
himself to his feet in his enthusiasm; "I say, Nixon, when shall we
start?"
"Next train, if you say so. Anyway," John Nixon rubbed an eyebrow with
his gray-bristled forefinger, "I'm worryin' about the stock, and I want
to get back home. Got any drinkin-water around, English?"
Sir William was about to touch the bell, when Nixon, glancing toward the
bathroom, saw basin, tap and tumbler.
"Don't ring, for me," he said, getting up, "I can work the fasset
myself, without no help botherin' around."
As his guest returned from the bathroom, sweeping the water-drops from
his beard by drawing his hand down over it, Sir William said:
"Will you be offended if I ask you a question--a straight
question--Nixon, old chap?"
"You couldn't offend me now, English," said John Nixon, "anyhow straight
questions goes, between us, after this. That's our agreement, ain't it?"
"That's it, exactly," said Ware, "so my question is this: Why do you
persist in calling me 'English'? It sounds a bit like some sort of an
imputation. Do you see my point?"
"I don't foller you," said John Nixon, as he laid his hand on the
door-knob; "the only reason I call you 'English' is because your reel
name keeps slippin' my mind."
"It shouldn't be hard to remember," said Ware.
"What is it?" queried Nixon.
"To you, henceforth," said the baronet, "it is--Bill."
"Yes, that's you, all over again," said Lovina Nixon, late that evening,
as she thrust into her iron-gray hair two or three matutinal hairpins,
in places where they would not jab her, and clambered into bed, "astin'
these tony English people out to the farm, to turn up their noses at
everything. Well, Daise'll have to look after them, for I got enough to
do with the housework and the milkin'. Is the old woman coming along,
too?"
John Nixon yawned, turned his back to her, and wrapped around himself
two-thirds of the bed-clothes.
"You go on to sleep," he said, "you'll feel better in the mornin'."
Lovina, however, continued on rebelliously, although the rest of her
grumbling was sunk to a smothered monotone by her nightly habit of
sleeping with the blankets over her head; but her last thought before
she dropped off to sleep was that now at last she would have a chance to
bring from the back of the farmhouse cupboard the "weddin' set" of neat
china that had been waiting there during nearly a quarter of a century
for an appropriate guest.
"No, I don't think I shall go, William," said Lady Frances, adjusting
the cushion at the back of her son's head and handing him the evening
newspaper, "this northwest winter is here now--don't forget that it's
November, not May, outside--and the plan sounds to me rather too much
like Polar exploration. You say you intend to go out for the winter.
Well, if you survive the experience, perhaps I shall join you in the
spring. But surely you're not going to start on this wild expedition
the way you are. I am told it is difficult to go on snowshoes with a
crutch. Those people, too! William, you are insane."
"Mother, dear," Ware patted the capable old hand that rested on his
chair-arm, "you said that once before, you remember. And that reminds
me--we haven't discussed this with Daisy. Let's have her in now, if
she's about."
"She's about," rejoined Lady Frances--a little sarcastically, but with
an unconcealed accent of motherly affection--, "she's having tea with
McTavish, the cook."