To feel potential within one's self the capacity to live and yet to
have no means of realizing this capacity is doubtless one of the least
comfortable and agreeable of human experiences. Such, as summer came on,
was Janet's case. The memory of that visit to Silliston lingered in her
mind, sometimes to flare up so vividly as to make her existence seem
unbearable. How wonderful, she thought, to be able to dwell in such
a beautiful place, to have as friends and companions such amusing and
intelligent people as the stranger with whom she had talked! Were all
the inhabitants of Silliston like him? They must be, since it was a seat
of learning. Lise's cry, “I've just got to go away, anywhere,” found
an echo in Janet's soul. Why shouldn't she go away? She was capable of
taking care of herself, she was a good stenographer, her salary had been
raised twice in two years,--why should she allow consideration for her
family to stand in the way of what she felt would be self realization?
Unconsciously she was a true modern in that the virtues known as duty
and self sacrifice did not appeal to her,--she got from them neither
benefit nor satisfaction, she understood instinctively that they were
impeding to growth. Unlike Lise, she was able to see life as it is, she
did not expect of it miracles, economic or matrimonial. Nothing would
happen unless she made it happen. She was twenty-one, earning nine
dollars a week, of which she now contributed five to the household,--her
father, with characteristic incompetence, having taken out a larger
insurance policy than he could reasonably carry. Of the remaining four
dollars she spent more than one on lunches, there were dresses and
underclothing, shoes and stockings to buy, in spite of darning and
mending; little treats with Eda that mounted up; and occasionally the
dentist--for Janet would not neglect her teeth as Lise neglected hers.
She managed to save something, but it was very little. And she was
desperately unhappy when she contemplated the grey and monotonous vista
of the years ahead, saw herself growing older and older, driven always
by the stern necessity of accumulating a margin against possible
disasters; little by little drying up, losing, by withering disuse,
those rich faculties of enjoyment with which she was endowed, and which
at once fascinated and frightened her. Marriage, in such an environment,
offered no solution; marriage meant dependence, from which her very
nature revolted: and in her existence, drab and necessitous though it
were, was still a remnant of freedom that marriage would compel her to
surrender....
One warm evening, oppressed by such reflections, she had started home
when she remembered having left her bag in the office, and retraced
her steps. As she turned the corner of West Street, she saw, beside
the canal and directly in front of the bridge, a new and smart-looking
automobile, painted crimson and black, of the type known as a runabout,
which she recognized as belonging to Mr. Ditmar. Indeed, at that moment
Mr. Ditmar himself was stepping off the end of the bridge and about to
start the engine when, dropping the crank, he walked to the dashboard
and apparently became absorbed in some mechanisms there. Was it the
glance cast in her direction that had caused him to delay his departure?
Janet was seized by a sudden and rather absurd desire to retreat, but
Canal Street being empty, such an action would appear eccentric, and she
came slowly forward, pretending not to see her employer, ridiculing
to herself the idea that he had noticed her. Much to her annoyance,
however, her embarrassment persisted, and she knew it was due to the
memory of certain incidents, each in itself almost negligible, but
cumulatively amounting to a suspicion that for some months he had been
aware of her: many times when he had passed through the outer office she
had felt his eyes upon her, had been impelled to look up from her work
to surprise in them a certain glow to make her bow her head again in
warm confusion. Now, as she approached him, she was pleasantly but
rather guiltily conscious of the more rapid beating of the blood that
precedes an adventure, yet sufficiently self-possessed to note the
becoming nature of the light flannel suit axed rather rakish Panama
he had pushed back from his forehead. It was not until she had almost
passed him that he straightened up, lifted the Panama, tentatively, and
not too far, startling her.
“Good afternoon, Miss Bumpus,” he said. “I thought you had gone.”
“I left my bag in the office,” she replied, with the outward calmness
that rarely deserted her--the calmness, indeed, that had piqued him and
was leading him on to rashness.
“Oh,” he said. “Simmons will get it for you.” Simmons was the watchman
who stood in the vestibule of the office entrance.
“Thanks. I can get it myself,” she told him, and would have gone on had
he not addressed her again. “I was just starting out for a spin. What
do you think of the car? It's good looking, isn't it?” He stood off and
surveyed it, laughing a little, and in his laugh she detected a note
apologetic, at variance with the conception she had formed of his
character, though not alien, indeed, to the dust-coloured vigour of the
man. She scarcely recognized Ditmar as he stood there, yet he excited
her, she felt from him an undercurrent of something that caused her
inwardly to tremble. “See how the lines are carried through.” He
indicated this by a wave of his hand, but his eyes were now on her.
“It is pretty,” she agreed.
In contrast to the defensive tactics which other ladies of his
acquaintance had adopted, tactics of a patently coy and coquettish
nature, this self-collected manner was new and spicy, challenging to
powers never as yet fully exerted while beneath her manner he felt
throbbing that rare and dangerous thing in women, a temperament, for
which men have given their souls. This conviction of her possession of a
temperament,--he could not have defined the word, emotional rather than
intellectual, produced the apologetic attitude she was quick to sense.
He had never been, at least during his maturity, at a loss with the
other sex, and he found the experience delicious.
“You like pretty things, I'm sure of that,” he hazarded. But she did not
ask him how he knew, she simply assented. He raised the hood, revealing
the engine. “Isn't that pretty? See how nicely everything is adjusted in
that little space to do the particular work for which it is designed.”
Thus appealed to, she came forward and stopped, still standing off a
little way, but near enough to see, gazing at the shining copper caps on
the cylinders, at the bright rods and gears.
“It looks intricate,” said Mr. Ditmar, “but really it's very simple.
The gasoline comes in here from the tank behind--this is called the
carburetor, it has a jet to vaporize the gasoline, and the vapour is
sucked into each of these cylinders in turn when the piston moves--like
this.” He sought to explain the action of the piston. “That compresses
it, and then a tiny electric spark comes just at the right moment to
explode it, and the explosion sends the piston down again, and turns
the shaft. Well, all four cylinders have an explosion one right after
another, and that keeps the shaft going.” Whereupon the most important
personage in Hampton, the head of the great Chippering Mill proceeded,
for the benefit of a humble assistant stenographer, to remove the floor
boards behind the dash. “There's the shaft, come here and look at it.”
She obeyed, standing beside him, almost touching him, his arm, indeed,
brushing her sleeve, and into his voice crept a tremor. “The shaft turns
the rear wheels by means of a gear at right angles on the axle, and the
rear wheels drive the car. Do you see?”
“Yes,” she answered faintly, honesty compelling her to add: “a little.”
He was looking, now, not at the machinery, but intently at her, and she
could feel the blood flooding into her cheeks and temples. She was even
compelled for an instant to return his glance, and from his eyes into
hers leaped a flame that ran scorching through her body. Then she knew
with conviction that the explanation of the automobile had been an
excuse; she had comprehended almost nothing of it, but she had been
impressed by the facility with which he described it, by his evident
mastery over it. She had noticed his hands, how thick his fingers were
and close together; yet how deftly he had used them, without smearing
the cuffs of his silk shirt or the sleeves of his coat with the oil that
glistened everywhere.
“I like machinery,” he told her as he replaced the boards. “I like to
take care of it myself.”
“It must be interesting,” she assented, aware of the inadequacy of the
remark, and resenting in herself an inarticulateness seemingly imposed
by inhibition connected with his nearness. Fascination and antagonism
were struggling within her. Her desire to get away grew desperate.
“Thank you for showing it to me.” With an effort of will she moved
toward the bridge, but was impelled by a consciousness of the abruptness
of her departure to look back at him once--and smile, to experience
again the thrill of the current he sped after her. By lifting his hat, a
little higher, a little more confidently than in the first instance,
he made her leaving seem more gracious, the act somehow conveying an
acknowledgment on his part that their relationship had changed.
Once across the bridge and in the mill, she fairly ran up the stairs and
into the empty office, to perceive her bag lying on the desk where she
had left it, and sat down for a few minutes beside the window, her heart
pounding in her breast as though she had barely escaped an accident
threatening her with physical annihilation. Something had happened to
her at last! But what did it mean? Where would it lead? Her fear, her
antagonism, of which she was still conscious, her resentment that Ditmar
had thus surreptitiously chosen to approach her in a moment when they
were unobserved were mingled with a throbbing exultation in that he had
noticed her, that there was something in her to attract him in that way,
to make his voice thicker and his smile apologetic when he spoke to her.
Of that “something-in-her” she had been aware before, but never had it
been so unmistakably recognized and beckoned to from without. She was at
once terrified, excited--and flattered.
At length, growing calmer, she made her way out of the building. When
she reached the vestibule she had a moment of sharp apprehension, of
paradoxical hope, that Ditmar might still be there, awaiting her. But he
had gone....
In spite of her efforts to dismiss the matter from her mind, to persuade
herself there had been no significance in the encounter, when she was
seated at her typewriter the next morning she experienced a renewal of
the palpitation of the evening before, and at the sound of every step in
the corridor she started. Of this tendency she was profoundly ashamed.
And when at last Ditmar arrived, though the blood rose to her temples,
she kept her eyes fixed on the keys. He went quickly into his room: she
was convinced he had not so much as glanced at her.... As the days
went by, however, she was annoyed by the discovery that his continued
ignoring of her presence brought more resentment than relief, she
detected in it a deliberation implying between them a guilty secret: she
hated secrecy, though secrecy contained a thrill. Then, one morning when
she was alone in the office with young Caldwell, who was absorbed in
some reports, Ditmar entered unexpectedly and looked her full in the
eyes, surprising her into answering his glance before she could turn
away, hating herself and hating him. Hate, she determined, was her
prevailing sentiment in regard to Mr. Ditmar.
The following Monday Miss Ottway overtook her, at noon, on the stairs.
“Janet, I wanted to speak to you, to tell you I'm leaving,” she said.
“Leaving!” repeated Janet, who had regarded Miss Ottway as a fixture.
“I'm going to Boston,” Miss Ottway explained, in her deep, musical
voice. “I've always wanted to go, I have an unmarried sister there of
whom I'm very fond, and Mr. Ditmar knows that. He's got me a place with
the Treasurer, Mr. Semple.”
“Oh, I'm sorry you're going, though of course I'm glad for you,”
Janet said sincerely, for she liked and respected Miss Ottway, and was
conscious in the older woman of a certain kindly interest.
“Janet, I've recommended you to Mr. Ditmar for my place.”
“Oh!” cried Janet, faintly.
“It was he who asked about you, he thinks you are reliable and quick and
clever, and I was very glad to say a good word for you, my dear, since
I could honestly do so.” Miss Ottway drew Janet's arm through hers
and patted it affectionately. “Of course you'll have to expect some
jealousy, there are older women in the other offices who will think they
ought to have the place, but if you attend to your own affairs, as you
always have done, there won't be any trouble.”
“Oh, I won't take the place, I can't!” Janet cried, so passionately that
Miss Ottway looked at her in surprise. “I'm awfully grateful to you,”
she added, flushing crimson, “I--I'm afraid I'm not equal to it.”
“Nonsense,” said the other with decision. “You'd be very foolish not
to try it. You won't get as much as I do, at first, at any rate, but a
little more money won't be unwelcome, I guess. Mr. Ditmar will speak to
you this afternoon. I leave on Saturday. I'm real glad to do you a good
turn, Janet, and I know you'll get along,” Miss Ottway added impulsively
as they parted at the corner of Faber Street. “I've always thought a
good deal of you.”
For awhile Janet stood still, staring after the sturdy figure of her
friend, heedless of the noonday crowd that bumped her. Then she went to
Grady's Quick Lunch Counter and ordered a sandwich and a glass of milk,
which she consumed slowly, profoundly sunk in thought. Presently Eda
Rawle arrived, and noticing her preoccupation, inquired what was the
matter.
“Nothing,” said Janet....
At two o'clock, when Ditmar returned to the office, he called Miss
Ottway, who presently came out to summon Janet to his presence. Fresh,
immaculate, yet virile in his light suit and silk shirt with red
stripes, he was seated at his desk engaged in turning over some papers
in a drawer. He kept her waiting a moment, and then said, with apparent
casualness:--“Is that you, Miss Bumpus? Would you mind closing the
door?”
Janet obeyed, and again stood before him. He looked up. A suggestion
of tenseness in her pose betraying an inner attitude of alertness,
of defiance, conveyed to him sharply and deliciously once more the
panther-like impression he had received when first, as a woman, she had
come to his notice. The renewed and heightened perception of this feral
quality in her aroused a sense of danger by no means unpleasurable,
though warning him that he was about to take an unprecedented step,
being drawn beyond the limits of caution he had previously set for
himself in divorcing business and sex. Though he was by no means
self-convinced of an intention to push the adventure, preferring to
leave its possibilities open, he strove in voice and manner to be
business-like; and instinct, perhaps, whispered that she might take
alarm.
“Sit down, Miss Bumpus,” he said pleasantly, as he closed the drawer.
She seated herself on an office chair.
“Do you like your work here?” he inquired.
“No,” said Janet.
“Why not?” he demanded, staring at her.
“Why should I?” she retorted.
“Well--what's the trouble with it? It isn't as hard as it would be in
some other places, is it?”
“I'm not saying anything against the place.”
“What, then?”
“You asked me if I liked my work. I don't.”
“Then why do you do it?” he demanded.
“To live,” she replied.
He smiled, but his gesture as he stroked his moustache implied a slight
annoyance at her composure. He found it difficult with this dark,
self-contained young woman to sustain the role of benefactor.
“What kind of work would you like to do?” he demanded.
“I don't know. I haven't got the choice, anyway,” she said.
He observed that she did her work well, to which she made no answer.
She refused to help him, although Miss Ottway must have warned her. She
acted as though she were conferring the favour. And yet, clearing his
throat, he was impelled to say:--“Miss Ottway's leaving me, she's
going into the Boston office with Mr. Semple, the treasurer of the
corporation. I shall miss her, she's an able and reliable woman, and she
knows my ways.” He paused, fingering his paper knife. “The fact is,
Miss Bumpus, she's spoken highly of you, she tells me you're quick and
accurate and painstaking--I've noticed that for myself. She seems to
think you could do her work, and recommends that I give you a trial. You
understand, of course, that the position is in a way confidential, and
that you could not expect at first, at any rate, the salary Miss Ottway
has had, but I'm willing to offer you fourteen dollars a week to begin
with, and afterwards, if we get along together, to give you more. What
do you say?”
“I'd like to try it, Mr. Ditmar,” Janet said, and added nothing, no word
of gratitude or of appreciation to that consent.
“Very well then,” he replied, “that's settled. Miss Ottway will explain
things to you, and tell you about my peculiarities. And when she goes
you can take her desk, by the window nearest my door.”
Ditmar sat idle for some minutes after she had gone, staring through the
open doorway into the outer office....
To Ditmar she had given no evidence of the storm his offer had created
in her breast, and it was characteristic also that she waited until
supper was nearly over to inform her family, making the announcement in
a matter-of-fact tone, just as though it were not the unique piece
of good fortune that had come to the Bumpuses since Edward had been
eliminated from the mercantile establishment at Dolton. The news was
received with something like consternation. For the moment Hannah was
incapable of speech, and her hand trembled as she resumed the cutting of
the pie: but hope surged within her despite her effort to keep it down,
her determination to remain true to the fatalism from which she had
paradoxically derived so much comfort. The effect on Edward, while
somewhat less violent, was temporarily to take away his appetite. Hope,
to flower in him, needed but little watering. Great was his faith in the
Bumpus blood, and secretly he had always regarded his eldest daughter as
the chosen vessel for their redemption.
“Well, I swan!” he exclaimed, staring at her in admiration and
neglecting his pie, “I've always thought you had it in you to get on,
Janet. I guess I've told you you've always put me in mind of Eliza
Bumpus--the one that held out against the Indians till her husband came
back with the neighbours. I was just reading about her again the other
night.”
“Yes, you've told us, Edward,” said Hannah.
“She had gumption,” he went on, undismayed. “And from what I can gather
of her looks I calculate you favour her--she was dark and not so very
tall--not so tall as you, I guess. So you're goin'” (he pronounced it
very slowly) “you're goin' to be Mr. Ditmar's private stenographer! He's
a smart man, Mr. Ditmar, he's a good man, too. All you've got to do is
to behave right by him. He always speaks to me when he passes by the
gate. I was sorry for him when his wife died--a young woman, too. And
he's never married again! Well, I swan!”
“You'd better quit swanning,” exclaimed Hannah. “And what's Mr. Ditmar's
goodness got to do with it? He's found-out Janet has sense, she's
willing and hard working, he won't” (pronounced want) “he won't be the
loser by it, and he's not giving her what he gave Miss Ottway. It's just
like you, thinking he's doing her a good turn.”
“I'm not saying Janet isn't smart,” he protested, “but I know it's hard
to get work with so many folks after every job.”
“Maybe it ain't so hard when you've got some get-up and go,” Hannah
retorted rather cruelly. It was thus characteristically and with
unintentional sharpness she expressed her maternal pride by a reflection
not only upon Edward, but Lise also. Janet had grown warm at the mention
of Ditmar's name.
“It was Miss Ottway who recommended me,” she said, glancing at her
sister, who during this conversation had sat in silence. Lise's
expression, normally suggestive of a discontent not unbecoming to her
type, had grown almost sullen. Hannah's brisk gathering up of the dishes
was suddenly arrested.
“Lise, why don't you say something to your sister? Ain't you glad she's
got the place?”
“Sure, I'm glad,” said Lise, and began to unscrew the top of the salt
shaker. “I don't see why I couldn't get a raise, too. I work just as
hard as she does.”
Edward, who had never got a “raise” in his life, was smitten with
compunction and sympathy.
“Give 'em time, Lise,” he said consolingly. “You ain't so old as Janet.”
“Time!” she cried, flaring up and suddenly losing her control. “I've got
a picture of Waiters giving me a raise I know the girls that get raises
from him.”
“You ought to be ashamed of yourself,” Hannah declared. “There--you've
spilled the salt!”
But Lise, suddenly bursting into tears, got up and left the room. Edward
picked up the Banner and pretended to read it, while Janet collected the
salt and put it back into the shaker. Hannah, gathering up the rest of
the dishes, disappeared into the kitchen, but presently returned, as
though she had forgotten something.
“Hadn't you better go after her?” she said to Janet.
“I'm afraid it won't be any use. She's got sort of queer, lately--she
thinks they're down on her.”
“I'm sorry I spoke so sharp. But then--” Hannah shook her head, and her
sentence remained unfinished.
Janet sought her sister, but returned after a brief interval, with the
news that Lise had gone out.
One of the delights of friendship, as is well known, is the exchange
of confidences of joy or sorrow, but there was, in Janet's promotion,
something intensely personal to increase her natural reserve. Her
feelings toward Ditmar were so mingled as to defy analysis, and several
days went by before she could bring herself to inform Eda Rawle of
the new business relationship in which she stood to the agent of the
Chippering Mill. The sky was still bright as they walked out Warren
Street after supper, Eda bewailing the trials of the day just ended: Mr.
Frye, the cashier of the bank, had had one of his cantankerous fits, had
found fault with her punctuation, nothing she had done had pleased
him. But presently, when they had come to what the Banner called the
“residential district,” she was cheered by the sight of the green lawns,
the flowerbeds and shrubbery, the mansions of those inhabitants of
Hampton unfamiliar with boardinghouses and tenements. Before one of
these she paused, retaining Janet by the arm, exclaiming wistfully:
“Wouldn't you like to live there? That belongs to your boss.”
Janet, who had been dreaming as she gazed at the facade of rough stucco
that once had sufficed to fill the ambitions of the late Mrs. Ditmar,
recognized it as soon as Eda spoke, and dragged her friend hastily,
almost roughly along the sidewalk until they had reached the end of the
block. Janet was red.
“What's the matter?” demanded Eda, as soon as she had recovered from her
surprise.
“Nothing,” said Janet. “Only--I'm in his office.”
“But what of it? You've got a right to look at his house, haven't you?”
“Why yes,--a right,” Janet assented. Knowing Eda's ambitions for her
were not those of a business career, she was in terror lest her friend
should scent a romance, and for this reason she had never spoken of
the symptoms Ditmar had betrayed. She attempted to convey to Eda the
doubtful taste of staring point-blank at the house of one's employer,
especially when he might be concealed behind a curtain.
“You see,” she added, “Miss Ottway's recommended me for her place--she's
going away.”
“Janet!” cried Eda. “Why didn't you tell me?”
“Well,” said Janet guiltily, “it's only a trial. I don't know whether
he'll keep me or not.”
“Of course he'll keep you,” said Eda, warmly. “If that isn't just like
you, not saying a word about it. Gee, if I'd had a raise like that I
just couldn't wait to tell you. But then, I'm not smart like you.”
“Don't be silly,” said Janet, out of humour with herself, and annoyed
because she could not then appreciate Eda's generosity.
“We've just got to celebrate!” declared Eda, who had the gift, which
Janet lacked, of taking her joys vicariously; and her romantic and
somewhat medieval proclivities would permit no such momentous occasion
to pass without an appropriate festal symbol. “We'll have a spree on
Saturday--the circus is coming then.”
“It'll be my spree,” insisted Janet, her heart warming. “I've got the
raise....”
On Saturday, accordingly, they met at Grady's for lunch, Eda attired in
her best blouse of pale blue, and when they emerged from the restaurant,
despite the torrid heat, she beheld Faber Street as in holiday garb as
they made their way to the cool recesses of Winterhalter's to complete
the feast. That glorified drug-store with the five bays included in its
manifold functions a department rivalling Delmonico's, with electric
fans and marble-topped tables and white-clad waiters who took one's
order and filled it at the soda fountain. It mattered little to Eda
that the young man awaiting their commands had pimples and long hair and
grinned affectionately as he greeted them.
“Hello, girls!” he said. “What strikes you to-day?”
“Me for a raspberry nut sundae,” announced Eda, and Janet, being unable
to imagine any more delectable confection, assented. The penetrating
odour peculiar to drugstores, dominated by menthol and some unnamable
but ancient remedy for catarrh, was powerless to interfere with their
enjoyment.
The circus began at two. Rather than cling to the straps of a crowded
car they chose to walk, following the familiar route of the trolley past
the car barns and the base-ball park to the bare field under the
seared face of Torrey's Hill, where circuses were wont to settle. A
sirocco-like breeze from the southwest whirled into eddies the clouds
of germ-laden dust stirred up by the automobiles, blowing their skirts
against their legs, and sometimes they were forced to turn, clinging to
their hats, confused and giggling, conscious of male glances. The crowd,
increasing as they proceeded, was in holiday mood; young men with a
newly-washed aspect, in Faber Street suits, chaffed boisterously groups
of girls, who retorted with shrill cries and shrieks of laughter;
amorous couples strolled, arm in arm, oblivious, as though the place
were as empty as Eden; lady-killers with exaggerated square shoulders,
wearing bright neckties, their predatory instincts alert, hovered about
in eager search of adventure. There were men-killers, too, usually to be
found in pairs, in startling costumes they had been persuaded were the
latest Paris models,--imitations of French cocottes in Hampton, proof of
the smallness of our modern world. Eda regarded them superciliously.
“They'd like you to think they'd never been near a loom or a bobbin!”
she exclaimed.
In addition to these more conspicuous elements, the crowd contained
sober operatives of the skilled sort possessed of sufficient means
to bring hither their families, including the baby; there were
section-hands and foremen, slashers, mule spinners, beamers,
French-Canadians, Irish, Scotch, Welsh and English, Germans, with only
an occasional Italian, Lithuanian, or Jew. Peanut and popcorn men,
venders of tamales and Chile-con-carne hoarsely shouted their wares,
while from afar could be heard the muffled booming of a band. Janet's
heart beat faster. She regarded with a tinge of awe the vast expanse of
tent that rose before her eyes, the wind sending ripples along the heavy
canvas from circumference to tent pole. She bought the tickets; they
entered the circular enclosure where the animals were kept; where the
strong beams of the sun, in trying to force their way through the canvas
roof, created an unnatural, jaundiced twilight, the weirdness of which
was somehow enhanced by the hoarse, amazingly penetrating growls of
beasts. Suddenly a lion near them raised a shaggy head, emitting a
series of undulating, soul-shaking roars.
“Ah, what's eatin' you?” demanded a thick-necked youth, pretending not
to be awestricken by this demonstration.
“Suppose he'd get out!” cried Eda, drawing Janet away.
“I wouldn't let him hurt you, dearie,” the young man assured her.
“You!” she retorted contemptuously, but grinned in spite of herself,
showing her gums.
The vague feeling of terror inspired by this tent was a part of its
fascination, for it seemed pregnant with potential tragedies suggested
by the juxtaposition of helpless babies and wild beasts, the
babies crying or staring in blank amazement at padding tigers whose
phosphorescent eyes never left these morsels beyond the bars. The
two girls wandered about, their arms closely locked, but the strange
atmosphere, the roars of the beasts, the ineffable, pungent odour of the
circus, of sawdust mingled with the effluvia of animals, had aroused
an excitement that was slow in subsiding. Some time elapsed before they
were capable of taking a normal interest in the various exhibits.
“'Adjutant Bird,'” Janet read presently from a legend on one of the
compartments of a cage devoted to birds, and surveying the somewhat
dissolute occupant. “Why, he's just like one of those tall mashers
who stay at the Wilmot and stand on the sidewalk,--travelling men, you
know.”
“Say-isn't he?” Eda agreed. “Isn't he pleased with himself, and his feet
crossed!”
“And see this one, Eda--he's a 'Harpy Eagle.' There's somebody we know
looks just like that. Wait a minute--I'll tell you--it's the woman who
sits in the cashier's cage at Grady's.”
“If it sure isn't!” said Eda.
“She has the same fluffy, light hair--hairpins can't keep it down, and
she looks at you in that same sort of surprised way with her head on one
side when you hand in your check.”
“Why, it's true to the life!” cried Eda enthusiastically. “She thinks
she's got all the men cinched,--she does and she's forty if she's a
day.”
These comparisons brought them to a pitch of risible enjoyment amply
sustained by the spectacle in the monkey cage, to which presently they
turned. A chimpanzee, with a solicitation more than human, was solemnly
searching a friend for fleas in the midst of a pandemonium of chattering
and screeching and chasing, of rattling of bars and trapezes carried on
by their companions.
“Well, young ladies,” said a voice, “come to pay a call on your
relations--have ye?”
Eda giggled hysterically. An elderly man was standing beside them. He
was shabbily dressed, his own features were wizened, almost simian, and
by his friendly and fatuous smile Janet recognized one of the harmless
obsessed in which Hampton abounded.
“Relations!” Eda exclaimed.
“You and me, yes, and her,” he answered, looking at Janet, though at
first he had apparently entertained some doubt as to this inclusion,
“we're all descended from them.” His gesture triumphantly indicated the
denizens of the cage.
“What are you giving us?” said Eda.
“Ain't you never read Darwin?” he demanded. “If you had, you'd know
they're our ancestors, you'd know we came from them instead of Adam and
Eve. That there's a fable.”
“I'll never believe I came from them,” cried Eda, vehement in her
disgust.
But Janet laughed. “What's the difference? Some of us aren't any better
than monkeys, anyway.”
“That's so,” said the man approvingly. “That's so.” He wanted to
continue the conversation, but they left him rather ruthlessly. And
when, from the entrance to the performance tent, they glanced back over
their shoulders, he was still gazing at his cousins behind the bars,
seemingly deriving an acute pleasure from his consciousness of the
connection....