white-walled, immaculate, odorous of stale ether and antiseptics. On
the table lay the sheeted form of a young girl. Only the upper
portion of the body was visible, and about the neck wet, red-stained
bandages were bound. "A queer case," said the surgeon. "Brought here
from a sweat-shop two hours ago. A stove-pipe fell and gashed an
artery in her neck. She's bleeding to death. Blood's supposed to be
thicker than water, but hers isn't, poor girl. If it would clot she
might pull through. Or I could save her by transfusion, but we can't
find any relatives, and there's mighty little time."
The attending nurse entered. "The patient's brother is here," she
announced, "and is asking to see her."
"Her brother!" The surgeon's face lighted. "What's he like?"
"About twenty, Doctor; looks strong and healthy."
"See him, Nurse. Tell him the facts. Say his sister will die unless
he'll give some blood to her. Or wait!" He turned to Markham.
"Harry, you do it! Persuasion's your line. Make believe he's a jury.
But put it strong, old man! And hurry! Every minute counts!"
The boy was standing stolidly in the waiting-room, only the pallor
of his healthy skin and the anxiety of his clear eyes hinting the
strain. Markham explained swiftly, concisely.
"Doctor Burroughs says it's her one chance," he ended.
The boy drew in his breath and paled visibly.
"You mean Nell'll die if some one don't swap his blood for hers?"
"Unless the blood she has lost is replaced----"
"Well, quit beefin'," interrupted the other roughly. "I'm here,
ain't I?"
When he entered the operating room the boy gave a low cry of pain,
bent over the form on the table, and pressed his lips to the white
forehead. When he looked up his eyes were filled with tears. He
nodded to the surgeon.
Doggedly, almost defiantly, he submitted himself, but when the
artery had been severed and the blood was pulsing from his veins to
the inanimate form beside him his expression changed to that of
abject resignation. Several times he sighed audibly, but as if from
mental rather than bodily anguish. The silence became oppressive. To
Markham it seemed hours before the surgeon looked up from his vigil
and nodded to the nurse. Then:
"You're a brave lad," he said cheerfully to the boy. "Your sacrifice
has won!"
The boy, pale and weak, tried to smile. "Thank God!" he muttered.
Then, with twitching mouth: "Say, Doc, how soon do I croak?"
"Why, not for a good many years, I hope." The surgeon turned
frowningly to Markham. "Didn't you explain that there was no danger
to him?"
"God! I'm afraid I didn't!" stammered Markham. "I was so keen to get
his consent. Do you mean that he thought----"
The surgeon nodded pityingly and turned to the lad. "You're not
going to die," he said gently. "You'll be all right to-morrow. But
I'm deeply sorry you've suffered as you must have suffered the past
hour. You were braver than any of us suspected!"
"Aw, that's all right," muttered the boy. "She's my sister, ain't
she?"
--------------------------------------------------------------------
THE OLD GROVE CROSSING
By Albert H. Coggins
More mother's tears, and the fourth prisoner discharged! The judge
began to fear permanent softening of the heart and therefore took
grim satisfaction when the name Timothy McMenamin, alias "One Eyed
Johnny," was called and there shambled into the dock a chronic old
jail-bird whose appearance left no remote possibility of the further
painful exercise of discretionary powers.
Silence reigned while his Honour scanned the card. From highway
robbery and safe cracking the record of Timothy ran the entire gamut
of inspiring action, and by some subtle mental telepathy the crowd
knew that he had indeed been a man of parts. But now Timothy was in
the sere and yellow and had fallen on evil days. The Judge read
aloud from the present indictment, to which Timothy had sullenly
pleaded "Guilty."
"Soliciting alms upon the public thoroughfare and vagrancy."
Then fraught with deep agrieve, his "Why--Timothy!" caught the
levity of the crowded courtroom.
The Judge pursed pondering lips. Then a playful thought was his.
"Are you represented by counsel, Timothy?"
Timothy was not.
"Mr. Wallace!"
If a room may be said to gasp, that courtroom gasped.
William R. K. Wallace!
The rubber rattle of an impromptu assignment, usually thrown the
teething tyro, given to the very leader of the bar!
His Honour was indeed facetious.
Wallace, engaged in an undertone confab with a court clerk, looked
up, converted the instinctive gesture of impatience into one of
good-natured acquiescence, and stepped forward. The crowd's tribute
to supremacy: a hush so distinct as to seem almost audible.
The Judge assumed due solemnity.
"Mr. Wallace, we have here a knight-errant of most distinguished
parts. He has sojourned in many public institutions. A most
cosmopolitan citizen and of unquestioned social standing; having met
some of the best wardens in the country. Some twenty years ago he
committed a little indiscretion up in Montour County, dwelling there
subsequently for a period of six months. That being your own native
heath, Mr. Wallace, would it not be chivalric and neighbourly upon
your part to volunteer your professional services!"
The crowd enjoyed the speech and scene. In all his years at the bar
no one had ever seen William R. K. Wallace nonplussed. Now his
Honour had succeeded in "putting one over" on him. His "Certainly,
your Honour," was but instinctive. Of the purport of a possible plea
Wallace had no remote idea. So he turned and indulged in a
critically professional survey of his client.
As he took in the sullen figure, unshaven, unkempt, and hard, the
forbidding aspect painfully accentuated by the patch over one
sightless eye--what came of a sudden to the attorney? Masterful and
adroit though he was, did he feel the utter futility of it all? It
certainly seemed that Wallace--William R. K. Wallace--trembled
through an acute second of actual stage fright, the horrible
unnerved instant when the mind gropes and finds no substance of
thought. Yes, his Honour had scored.
Then, himself again, he addressed the Court. Quietly, almost
conversationally and entirely away from the subject at hand; but
this was Wallace, and no one stayed him.
"I was born in Centre County, your Honour, not Montour, but so close
to the county line that your Honour's impression is to all intents
and purposes correct. So close, in fact, that right down the
driveway, scarcely a hundred yards away, one could step into Montour
County by crossing the railroad tracks, for _they_ were the county
line at that corner."
Then for a few seconds he indulged in memory's visualization of
early days. Still in a desultory way he continued:
"We lived there contentedly, your Honour, a good father, a sainted
mother, myself a grown boy, and--and a baby sister.... She had come
late.... Perhaps that's one reason we made so much of her. Just
turned two she was, and a little bundle of winsomeness.... She
gathered to herself all the glinting morning sunlight of the
mountain tops."
People stirred restlessly. This was not like Wallace. True, he
sometimes indulged in sentiment before a jury and ofttime moved the
sturdy yeomanry to free some red-handed rascal regardless of the
facts. But to parade his own early rural days and his little
sister--well, it only indicated that he was sore pressed.
But now the discerning could note the least little shade of
resonance and purpose. And, too, he half turned from time to time
toward the man in the dock.
"Through that valley the magnificent Blue Diamond Express went
thundering by, bearing its burden of the prosperous and
contented.... But then there were other trains, the long slow
freights that wended their way, laden, down the valley. They, too,
carried passengers ... on the couplings ... cramped up underneath
... or smuggled into the corner of a box car. These were of the
underworld--the discontented and the disinherited. The tramp, the
outcast ... perchance the criminal, making his getaway from city to
city."
He glanced keenly, quickly; his client was beginning to emerge from
stolid indifference.
"The Old Grove Crossing, as they called it, was not so well guarded
twenty years ago as now, your Honour. And one day this little
two-year-old took it into her baby head to roam. Perhaps childish
fancy paints the wild flowers on a distant hill brighter, perhaps
some errant butterfly winged its random way across the tracks--who
knows?
"At all events, the wanderlust seized her tiny feet and she had come
just so near Montour County that she had but to cross the far track
to have completely changed jurisdiction. And there she stood, for a
big, slow-moving train of empties occupied that track. Puzzled?
Perhaps a little; but still it was a matter of no moment.... Neither,
your Honour, was the big, thundering Blue Diamond. Why should it be?
There existed in all this world no such thing as either evil or
fear.... And so she waited, transfixed only by wonderment as the
monster thing bore down on her.... I'm aware, your Honour, that in
every well-appointed melodrama the hero always appears at the proper
instant.... But in real life sometimes--well, we _have_ tried cases
in our courts, the purpose of which was to determine the dollar
value of that for which there can be no recompense--a baby life
crushed out."
He paused for an impressive second.
"And this was my baby sister.
"Oh, yes, they saw her ... when less than two hundred feet away.
Along that straightaway the Montour Valley Railroad Company, in its
corporate wisdom, shot its Blue Diamond seventy miles an hour. The
engineer was the best man on the line--and he fainted dead away.
That's what their best man did. He had a baby of his own. Instinct
made him throw on the brakes ... as well, a child's bucket of sand
on the tracks! ... Down, down it came, shrieking, crashing,
pounding, and swirling from side to side; belching its hell of
destruction and rasping its million sparks as the brakes half
gripped.... Only one small mercy vouchsafed--by its awful might
and momentum--instant death!"
Dramatically Wallace passed his hand over his forehead. The Judge
had done the same. So well had he played upon their emotions that he
sensed to perfection the proper pause duration....
"No, your Honour," he said quietly, "she did not die. This little
story of real life followed the conventional.... Sometimes God is
as good as the dramatist. They told us the meagre details. _He_
didn't; he had a pressing engagement and slipped away, resuming, I
suppose, his 'reservations' on his Blue Diamond.... He wasn't
very prepossessing, anyway, from all accounts. Any ten-twenty-thirty
dramatist could have given us a more presentable, better manicured
hero."
Wallace sauntered a little.
"This object that tumbled from a box car, sprawled, picked himself
up, and then jumped like a cat, was, as a matter of fact, a nobody,
an outcast, a crook----"
Casually, it seemed, his hand rested on the bowed shoulder of the
broken old man.
"Just a one-eyed yeggman, making his way----"
He got no further. The courtroom was in an uproar and unrestrained
applause ran its riotous course. There was none to check it.
His Honour, savagely surreptitious with his handkerchief, finally
took command of himself and the situation.
"Mr. Wallace, the Court requires no argument in this case. We will
accept the guarantee of future good conduct which you were about to
offer, and, if necessary, underwrite it ourselves.... Sentence
suspended!"
Then as the Court was adjourned and they crowded about the pair of
them, counsel and client, a shouldering, demonstrative throng a
dozen deep, the Judge, before retiring stilled them for a brief
afterword.
"Mr. Wallace, in the matter of the--ah, of certain refreshments, in
which we had rendered a mental ruling incidental to the costs
thereof, we would say that ruling is hereby reversed and the--the
refreshments--are on--the Court."
--------------------------------------------------------------------
LOST AND FOUND
By John Kendrick Bangs
-- I --
The week-end was over, and Begbie had returned to town, restless,
and strangely unhappy. There was within him a curious sense of
something lost, and yet, now and then, the intimation of another
something that seemed to be gain wholly would flash across the
horizon of his reflections like a ray of sunshine attempting to
penetrate a possible rift in the clouds.
He unpacked his suit-case listlessly, and compared its contents with
the catalogue of his week-end needs which he always kept pasted on
the inner side of the cover of his suit-case. Everything was there,
from hair-brush to dinner-coat--and yet that sense of something
left behind still oppressed him. A second time he went over the list
and compared it with his possessions, to find that nothing was
missing; and then on a sudden there flashed across his mind a full
realization of what the lost object was.
"Ah!" he ejaculated with a deep sigh of relief.
"That's it! I will write at once to my hostess and ask her to return
it."
Action followed the resolution, and, seating himself at his
escritoire, Begbie wrote:
"The Mossmere, New York.
"August ----, 19--.
"My Dear Mrs. Shelton:
"Upon my return from the never-to-be-forgotten series of golden
hours at Sea Cliff I find that, after the habit of the departing
guest, I have left at least one of my possessions behind me. It is
of value perhaps to nobody but myself, but, poor as it is, I cannot
very well do without it. It is my _heart_. If by some good chance
you have found it, and it is of no use to you, will you be good
enough some time soon, when you have nothing better to do, to return
it to me? Or, if by some good fortune you find it worth retaining,
will you please tell me so, that I may know that it is in your
custody and is not lying somewhere cold and neglected? It is the
only one I have, and it has never passed out of my keeping before.
"Always devotedly yours,
"Harrison Begbie."
-- II --
It was on the morning of the second day after the mailing of this
letter that Begbie found a dainty-hued missive lying beside his
plate at the breakfast-table. It was postmarked Sea Cliff, and
addressed in the familiar handwriting of his hostess. Feverishly he
tore it open, and found the following:
"Sea Cliff, August ----, 19--.
"My Dear Mr. Begbie:
"What careless creatures you men are! I have found ten such articles
as you describe in my house during the past ten days, and out of so
vast and varied a number I cannot quite decide which one is yours.
Some of them are badly cracked; some of them are battered
hopelessly--only one of them is in what I should call an A1, first
class, condition. I am hoping it is yours, but I do not know. In any
event, on receipt of this won't you come down here at once and we
can run over them together. I will meet you with the motor on the
arrival of the 12:15 at Wavecrest Station.
"Meanwhile, my dear Mr. Begbie, knowing how essential a part of the
human mechanism a heart truly is--_I send you mine_ to take the
place of the other. You may keep it until your own is returned to
you.
"Always sincerely,
"Mary Shelton."
"P.S.--Telegraph me if you will be on the 12:15."
-- III --
Ten minutes later the following rush-message sped over the wires:
"New York, Aug. ----, 19--.
"Mrs. Shelton, Sea Cliff, L. I.:
"Haven't time to wire you of arrival on 12:15. Am rushing to catch
the 9:05.
"Harrison."
--------------------------------------------------------------------
YOU CAN NEVER TELL
By "B. MacArthur"
Very dimly shone the lamps of the rickshaws; very faintly came the
tap-tap of the sandals passing to and fro on the Bund. Yokohama was
going to sleep, and the great liners in the bay looked dark and
ghost-like against the rising moon. The three men sitting on the
terrace of the Grand Hotel met here every ninth week. They were
captains of three of the liners. All were Englishmen. Blackburn, who
commanded a ship owned and manned by Japanese, lit his pipe and
gazed out across the harbour, drawing his hand over his brow and
hair.
"Same old heat," he said.
The others nodded.
Bainbridge, a slight little man with fair hair, moved restlessly.
"A week, and we'll all be at opposite corners again," he said, "none
of them much cooler."
"Not bad at home now," mused Villiers, broad and silent man, with
the gray eyes of a dreamer. He leaned forward, smiling slightly.
"D'ye know, it's three years next month since I've seen th' wife.
Devil of a life! And I don't see my way to getting back yet, either.
No place for women, the East."
Bainbridge stared at him uneasily.
"Yes, deuce of a life," he assented, "but worse for the women, even
in England. Always standing on their own legs, as it were, pinching
and skimping for a chap they only see once in a couple of years. I
say, y'know, it's rotten bad for them, at best."
"Quite right," said Villiers, "and it is an experience that is bound
to have its effect. The strong woman will be stronger, the weak
woman weaker, and the bad woman--will go under."
Blackburn smiled.
"Then we are three lucky chaps," he said, and blew a ring of smoke
and looked at it rather sentimentally.
Villiers laughed.
"The queer part about it is the faith they've got. It's that which
pulls them through. I believe if I wrote the wife to-night that I'd
a Japanese girl in Nagasaki she'd never believe me, though she's
quite sophisticated enough to be cognizant of the prevalence of that
sort of thing out here. She takes the attitude that such things
might happen--but not to her or hers. It's rather a potent point of
view."
"It's an absurd point of view--no offence to you, old chap," said
Bainbridge. "Suppose it was a fact and she had to face it--what
would be her attitude?"
"It couldn't be a fact so long as she felt as she does about it,"
answered Villiers; "it is that which insures her being quite right
in her belief."
"Oh, rot!" said Bainbridge. "You're an idealist." He took a deep
drink from his tall glass. "I'll bet you if all three of us wrote
home to-night in the light of remorseful confession every one of us
would receive replies, next mail out, to the same effect."
"There's just one way to prove that," said Villiers, "and that's to
write."
"Done!" said Bainbridge.
"Hold on, old chaps!" Blackburn knocked out the ashes from his pipe.
"D'ye know you're about to play a devilish risky game? Shouldn't
care to enter it myself. Luck to you, however, if you must. But both
of you are taking too much for granted."
"You hold the stakes, then," said Villiers complacently. "Next trip
we meet here, as per schedule, we'll have our mail first thing and
rendezvous at eight for supper. If we can't read our letters aloud
we can at least describe the attitude taken therein, which is the
point under discussion."
"Very well," said Blackburn, "but I warn you it's a silly affair."
* * * * *
Nine weeks later Blackburn, tying his tie before the mirror in his
cabin, felt a curious interest in seeing his two friends as had been
arranged at their previous meeting. They would have received their
mail from home even as he had received his, but it was with a thrill
of satisfaction that he remembered he had not endangered his own or
his wife's happiness in what he considered the mad manner of his
friends.
Very promptly, then, and most serene, he appeared on the terrace and
seated himself at the usual table to await their arrival.
Bainbridge presently appeared and, after greeting Blackburn, sat
down and lit a pipe. They talked spasmodically. A curious
tranquillity seemed to have enveloped the little man, which so held
Blackburn's attention that he could think of nothing to say. They
sat in silence, Blackburn mentally taking stock of his friend. All
his nervousness and cynicism seemed to have left him, and his eyes,
usually so furtive, looked very still and deep.
"Wonder why Villiers doesn't come along," said Blackburn at last.
Bainbridge nodded.... "I'll read you my letter now," he said, and
in a lower voice: "By Jove, old chap, I was quite wrong, d'ye know?
Never would have believed it possible any one could feel so about a
chap like me."
He laid the letter on the table. "Wonderful thing that," he said;
and Blackburn took it.
"Are you quite sure you want me to read this?" he asked.
"Quite," replied Bainbridge, "because--because it's changed things
so--for me, you know."
Blackburn read:
"Dear Lad:
"Something in my heart tells me this horrible thing isn't true. It
can't be. Such things may happen to people, but somehow I can't feel
it has happened to me and mine. But if it has--and you will begin
again because your best nature still cares for me--won't you begin
right now, because I love you and will try to forget. I can't write
more.
"Minnie."
When Blackburn had finished he folded it very gently and handed it
to Bainbridge.
"I congratulate you, old fellow," he said gravely, and then: "Let's
go up to Villiers' room and stir him up. He may be snoozing."
They rose and climbed the stairs to the room Villiers was wont to
occupy during his stay in port. The door was unlocked, and after
knocking and receiving no reply they entered. It was so dark at
first they could see nothing. Blackburn, dimly discerning the
bureau, shuffled toward it to light the gas. But before he reached
it his foot struck a soft object, and simultaneously a nauseous wave
of horror swept over him.
"My God! Light a match," he said.
Bainbridge did so and, stepping over the prone figure, lit the gas
with trembling hands.
Villiers was quite dead. His gun lay by his side, and in a little
pool of blood by his right temple a crumpled letter lay, face up.
"Nothing should be touched," said Blackburn, "until the proper steps
have been taken--except----"
Bainbridge stooped and lifted the bloody page.
"Except this," he said, and, folding it carefully, put it in his
wallet.
* * * * *
When, many hours later, Blackburn was aboard his ship, he locked his
cabin door, and Bainbridge, who had accompanied him for the purpose,
spread out the sheet and read it slowly.
"My Dear Frank:
"Your rather extraordinary epistle has reached me, and I assure you
it was quite unnecessary. You surely do not expect me to have lived
all these years alone and to have known men as I do without
realizing that I could scarcely expect you to live the life of a
celibate in the 'Far East.' In this strange little game of life we
must take our pleasures as they come, and I have taken mine even as
I have not prevented you from taking yours. Foolish boy! If you
expected me to have hysterics over your self-imposed confession you
may be relieved to know that I merely laughed at it. We are all in
the same boat, we sinners, so why should one of us cavil at another?
Cheer up and don't take life so seriously.
"Sue."
--------------------------------------------------------------------
THE ESCAPE
By A. Leslie Goodwin
The tent flap lifted and dropped. The prisoner could make out the
dim outlines of a man's form.
"To be shot at sunrise, eh?"
The prisoner stirred quickly. That voice was strangely familiar to
him.
The figure moved nearer. A knife flashed and the prisoner's bonds
fell off.
"Follow me, and not a sound."
They crept out of the tent, past a dozing sentry, and across a dark
field.
"Now," said the guide, as they straightened up in the shadow of a
hedge, "a proposition, for cousins will be cousins, even in war."
He paused, looked warily around, and emitted a low chuckle.
"Six months ago," he continued, "when I was captured by your side
and sentenced to be shot you rescued me, as I have you. You showed
me our lines and gave me two minutes to get away. After that two
minutes you were to fire, and you----"
He stopped, wheeled like a flash, but too late. A shot rang out, and
another.
The two men stiffened, leaned toward each other, gasped, and dropped
to the ground.
Around the corner of the hedge stepped the sentry, a smoking
automatic in his hand.
"Huh!" he growled, stirring the prostrate figures with his foot.
"Relatives have no business on opposite sides, anyway."
--------------------------------------------------------------------
TWO LETTERS, A TELEGRAM, AND A FINALE
By H. S. Haskins
"New York, September 10.
"Dearest Marian:
"Is it not time to break silence? Three months have passed since we
quarrelled on the eve of your departure for the mountains. I wrote
twice during the first week. You did not answer. Pride forbade my
risking another rebuff.