The paymaster, Peter Rainsford, had found little in West Albany to
excite the tepid interest he still retained in life, but Tony Fairfax,
the driver of Number Twenty-four, had attracted his attention. Each time
that Fairfax came to report Rainsford made a vain effort to engage him
in conversation. The agent wondered what the engine-driver's story was,
and having one of his own, hoped for Fairfax's sake that there was
anything but a class resemblance between them.
Detained late this night at his desk, he pushed back his lamp to
contemplate Tito Falutini, who, his hat pressed against his red flannel
breast, his teeth sparkling, came in to report. Tito told a tale in a
jargon which only an etymologist could have sifted into words.
"Well, what do you think has become of him?" Rainsford asked.
The Italian gesticulated with his hat far and wide.
"_You_ took the train to Fonda alone, without an engineer, Falutini? How
was it the fellows didn't stop you at Fonda? It doesn't seem possible."
The official opened a ledger and ran his eye over the names.
"I can put Steve Brodie on Number Twenty-four to-morrow morning. You
should have reported at once in West Albany, Falutini."
The name of Steve Brodie was intelligible to Tito. "Nota io," he said,
"not a fire for any man, only Toni."
Rainsford wrote a few moments in his ledger. "Want me to strike your
name right off the books now, Falutini? I've a good mind to do it
anyway. You should have reported at nine this morning."
"Want to find Fairfax," said the Italian.
The disappearance did not speak well for the young man in whom the boss
had taken an interest.
"Has he paid up at Kenny's?" Rainsford asked hopelessly.
Falutini did not understand. "Signora Kenni," informed the fireman,
"mutche cri, kids mutche cri, altro." Fairfax, the fellow made Rainsford
understand, had left his clothes and belongings.
"Ah," Rainsford thought, "it looks worse than at first."
"No," Falutini explained, "no fight." Then he broke forth into an
explanation from which Rainsford vainly tried to create some order.
Statues and terra-cotta figures mingled with an explanation of theft of
some property of Fairfax's and his flight in consequence.
"I'll close up here in a quarter of an hour, and go over and see Mrs.
Kenny. Steve Brodie will take your engine, and you look out for
yourself, my man, and don't get bounced when you come in to report
to-morrow."
Rainsford saw Mrs. Kenny in the kitchen-bedroom-parlour of the
first-class hotel (Gents only). When he came in and sat down in the
midst of the Irish family Rainsford did not know that he was the second
gentleman that had crossed the threshold since the sign had swung in the
window. Mary Kenny was intelligible, charmingly so, and her account was
full of colour; and the young man's character was drawn by a woman's
lips, with a woman's tenderness.
"Ah, wurra sor," she finished, "Oi cud go down on me knees to him if it
wasn't for Pathrick Kenny. It was an evil day when that Hitalian came to
the dure. Wud ye now?" she offered, as though she suggested that he
should view sacred relics, "wud ye feel like goin' up to his room and
castin' an eye?"
Peter Rainsford did so, feeling that he was taking a man at a
disadvantage, but consoling himself with the thought that Fairfax's
disappearance warranted the invasion. Mrs. Kenny, the baby on her arm,
stood by his side, and called over the objects as though she were a
showman at a museum.
"That's his bury, sor, and the best wan in the hotel, and them's his
little ornyments an' foolin's in order on the top. Matty reds his room
up, an' never a hand but mine puts his wash to rights." She pulled a
drawer open. "His beautiful starched shirts, I doos them with me own
hands and charges him as though he was me son; an' there is his
crayvats, an' over there," she pointed with her thumb, "stud the image,
bad cess to the Hitalian an' his likes, Mr. Rainsford, an' many's the
time I've stud beyont the dure an' heard him sing and whustle beautiful,
whilst he was a-carvin' of it."
Rainsford looked at a small design pinned against the wall: he
considered it long.
"Do ye think that he's kilt then?" asked the Irish woman.
The paymaster returned briskly. "No, I don't think so. I hope he has not
come to any harm."
"His readin' buks, sor," she said, "wud ye cast an eye?"
But here Rainsford refused, and returning to his own lodgings higher up
in the town, and on a better scale, went home thoughtful, touched, and
with a feeling of kinship with the truant engineer. Before, however, he
could take any steps to look for Fairfax, a coloured man from somewhere
appeared with the request that Mrs. Kenny send all Fairfax's things. The
mysterious lodger enclosed, moreover, a week's board in advance, but no
address; nor had the coloured man any information for Nut Street, and a
decided antipathy existed between George Washington and Mary Kenny. She
was pale when she packed up Fairfax's belongings and cried into his
trunk, as she laid the drawing of Bella Carew next to the unopened
packet of his mother's treasures. She was unconscious of what sacred
thing she touched, but she was cut to the heart, as was poor Falutini.
Peter Rainsford, who had not gone far in his friendship with the elusive
Fairfax, was only disappointed.
* * * * *
At the close of the following Sunday afternoon, Rainsford was reading in
his room when Fairfax himself came in.
"Why, hello, Fairfax," the paymaster's tone was not that of a
disaffected patron to a delinquent engineer. "You are just two weeks
late in reporting Number Twenty-four. But I'm sincerely glad you came,
whatever the reason for the delay."
Rainsford's greeting was that of a friend to a friend. Fairfax,
surprised, lifted his eyebrows and smiled "thanks." He took the chair
Rainsford offered. "Why _thank_ you, Rainsford." He took a cigar which
Rainsford handed him. He was in the dress of a railroad man off duty.
"Now I don't know anybody I've been more curious about," said the
paymaster. "Where on earth did you go to, Fairfax? You don't know how
you have mystified us all here, and in fact, me from the first."
"There are no end of mysteries in life," said the young man, still
smiling; "I should have wondered about you, Mr. Rainsford, if I had had
either the time or the courage!"
"Courage, Fairfax?"
"Why yes," returned the engineer, twisting his cigar between his
fingers, "courage to break away from the routine I've been obliged to
follow."
Fairfax saw before him a spare man of about forty years of age. The thin
hair, early grey, came meekly around the temples of a finely made and
serious brow, but the features of Rainsford's face were delicate, the
skin was drawn tightly over the high cheek-bones. There was an extreme
melancholy in his expression; when defeat had begun to write its lines
upon his face, over the humiliating stain, Resignation had laid a hand.
"Well, I'll spare you wondering about me, Fairfax," the agent said; "I
am just a plain fellow, that's all, and for that reason, when I saw that
one of the hands on my pay-roll was clearly a gentleman, and a very
young one too, it interested me, and since I have been to Kenny's"--he
hesitated a little--"since I have heard something about you from that
good soul, why, I am more than interested, I am determined!"
Fairfax, his head thrown back, smoked thoughtfully, and Rainsford noted
the youthfulness of the line of his neck and face, the high idealism of
the brow, the beautiful mouth, the breeding and the sensitiveness there.
"Why, it's a crime, that's what it is. You are young, you're a boy.
Thank God for it, it is not too late. Would you care to tell me what
brought you here like this? I won't say what misfortune brought you
here, Fairfax,"--he put his nervous hand to his lips--"but what folly on
your part."
Rainsford took for granted the ordinary reasons for hard luck and the
harvest of wild oats.
Fairfax said, "I have no people, Rainsford; they are all dead."
"But you have influential friends?"
"No," said Fairfax, "not one."
"You have extraordinary talent, Fairfax."
The young man started. "But what makes you think that?"
"Falutini told me."
Fairfax laughed harshly. "Poor Tito. He's a judge, I daresay." His face
clouded, grew quite stern before Rainsford's intent eyes. "Yes," he said
slowly, "I think I have talent; I think I must have a lot somewhere, but
I have got a mighty dangerous Pride and it has driven me to a sort of
revenge on Fate, an arrogant showing of my disdain--God knows of what
and of whom!" More quietly he said: "Whilst my mother lived I could not
beg, Rainsford, I couldn't starve, I couldn't scratch and crawl and live
as a starving artist must when he is making his way. I wanted to make a
living first, and I was too proud to take the thorny way an artist
must."
Fairfax got up, put his hands in his pockets, and walked across
Rainsford's small room. It was in excellent order, plainly furnished but
well supplied with the things a man needs to make him comfortable. There
were even a few luxuries, like pillows on the hard sofa, bookshelves
filled with books and a student's lamp soft under a green shade. As he
turned back to the paymaster Fairfax had composed himself and said
tranquilly--
"I reckon you've got a pretty bad note against me in the ledger, haven't
you, Rainsford?"
"Note?" repeated the other vaguely. "Oh, your bad conduct report. Well,
rather."
"Who has got my job on Number Twenty-four?"
"Steve Brodie."
Fairfax nodded. "He surely does know how to drive an engine all right,
and so do I, Rainsford."
"You mustn't run any more engines, Fairfax."
"I don't want to come back to West Albany and to the yards," said the
engineer.
"I haven't much influence now," Rainsford said musingly, "but I have
some friends still. I want you to let me lend you some money, a very
small sum."
The blood rushed to Fairfax's face. He extended his hand impulsively.
"There, Rainsford, you needn't go on. You are the first chap who has put
out a rope to me. I did have twenty-five cents given me once, but
otherwise----"
"I mean it sincerely, Fairfax."
"Rainsford," said the young man, with emotion in his voice, "you are a
fine brand of failure."
"Will you let me stand by you, Fairfax?"
"Yes, indeed," said the other, "I will, but not in the way you mean. I
reckon I must have felt what kind of a fellow you were or I wouldn't be
here. At any rate you're the only person I wanted to see. I quite
understand you can't take me back at the yards, and I don't want to
drive in and out from West Albany. Could you do anything for me at the
general company, Rainsford? Would they give me a job in Albany? I'd take
a local though I'm up to an express."
"No," said Rainsford, "you mustn't think of driving engines; I won't
lift my hand to help you."
"It is all I can do," returned the engineer quietly, after a second,
"all I want." Then he said, "I've _got_ to have it...."
"Why I'll _lend_ you enough money, Fairfax, to pay your passage to
France!"
"Stop!" cried the young man with emotion, "it's too late."
"Nonsense," said the other warmly, Fairfax's voice and personality
charming him as it charmed others. "Why, you are nothing but a big,
headlong boy! You have committed a tremendous folly; you've got art at
your finger tips. Are you going to sweat and stew all your life in the
cab of an engine? Why, you are insane."
"Stop," cried Fairfax again, "for the love of heaven...."
Rainsford regarded him, fascinated. He saw in him his own lost
promises, his own lost chance; it seemed to him that through this young
man he might in a way buy back the lost years.
"I'll _not_ stop till I have used every means to make you see the
hideous mistake you're making."
"Rainsford," said Antony, paling, "if you had made me this offer the day
before I left Nut Street, I would have been in France by this. My God!"
he murmured beneath his breath. "_How_ I would have escaped!"--checked
himself with great control for so young a man and so ardent a man. He
was a foot taller than his desk-bowed pale companion, and he laid his
hand impulsively on his chief's shoulder.
"If you can give me a _job_, Rainsford, do so, will you? I know I have
no right to ask you, after the way I have treated the Company, but I am
married. I have married Molly Shannon. You know her, the girl at
Sheedy's." He waited a second, looking the other man in the eyes, then,
with something of his old humour, he said, "There are two of us now,
Rainsford, and I have got to make our living."