"Don't you want to know who my executors are?" he inquired quite angrily.
"No," said Hughie, who was deep in other thoughts at the moment. "Not my business," he repeated.
"Hughie," said Jimmy Marrable, "you are poor Arthur over again. He was a cursedly irritating chap at times," he added explosively.
A babble of cheerful voices on the staircase announced the return of the safe-looking Mr. Lunn and party. They flowed in, entranced with that gentleman's door-knockers (the countenances of which, by the way, were usually compared by undergraduate critics, not at all unfavourably, with that of their owner), and declared themselves quite ready now to be properly impressed by whatever features of the College Hughie should be pleased to exhibit to them.
One tour round a College is very like another; and we need not therefore follow our friends up and down winding staircases, or in and out of chapels and libraries, while they gaze down on the resting-places of the illustrious dead or gape up at the ephemeral abodes of the undistinguished living.
The expedition was chiefly remarkable (to the observant eye of Mrs. Ames) for the efforts made by its conductor to get lost in suitable company—an enterprise which was invariably frustrated by the resolute conduct of that small but determined hero-worshipper, Miss Joan Gaymer. On oneoccasion, however, Hughie and Miss Freshwater were left together for a moment. The party had finished surveying the prospect from the roof of the College Chapel, and were painfully groping their way in single file down a spiral staircase. Only Hughie, Miss Freshwater, and the ubiquitous Miss Gaymer were left at the top.
"You go next, Joey," said Hughie; "then Miss Freshwater, then me."
The lady addressed plunged obediently into the gloomy chasm at her feet. She observed with frank jealousy that the other two did not immediately follow her, and accordingly waited for them in the belfry half-way down.
Presently she heard their footsteps descending; and Miss Freshwater's voice said:—
"I wanted to tell you about it first of anybody, Hughie, because you and I have always been such friends. Nobody else knows yet."
There was a silence, broken only by Hughie's footsteps, evidently negotiating a difficult turn. Then Miss Freshwater's voice continued, a little wistfully:—
"Aren't you going to congratulate me?"
And Hughie's voice, sounding strangely sepulchral in the echoing darkness, replied:—
"Rather! I—I—hope you'll be very happy. Mind that step."
Miss Gaymer wondered what it was all about.
Hughie found an opportunity before the day was over of holding another brief conversation with his uncle, in the course of which he expressed an opinion on the advantages of immediate and extensive foreign travel which sent that opponent of early marriages back to town in a thoroughly satisfied frame of mind.
"There ought to be a statue," said Jimmy Marrable to his cigar, as he leaned back reflectively in his railway carriage, "set up in the capital of every British Colony, representing a female figure in an attitude of aloofness, and inscribed:Erected by a grateful Colony to its Principal Emigration Agent—The Girl at Home Who Married Somebody Else."
Then he sighed to himself—rather forlornly, a woman would have said.
AN UNDERSTUDY
"The indulgence of the audience is asked on behalf of Miss Joan Gaymer, who, owing to the sudden indisposition of Miss Mildred Freshwater, has taken up that lady's part at very short notice."
"The indulgence of the audience is asked on behalf of Miss Joan Gaymer, who, owing to the sudden indisposition of Miss Mildred Freshwater, has taken up that lady's part at very short notice."
Acoupleof hours later Hughie, roaring very gently for so great a lion, was engaged in paddling a Canadian canoe down to Ditton Corner.
The canoe contained one passenger, who, with feminine indifference to the inflexible laws of science, was endeavouring to assist its progress by paddling in the wrong direction. Her small person, propped by convenient cushions, was wedged into the bow of the vessel, and her white frock and attenuated black legs were protected from the results of her own efforts at navigation by a spare blazer of Hughie's. Her hat lay on the floor of the canoe, half-full of cherries, and her long hair rippled and glimmered in the afternoon sun. Miss Joan Gaymer would be a beauty some day, but for the present all knowledge of that fact was being tactfully withheld from her. To do her justice, the prospect would have interested her but little. Like most small girls of eleven, she desired nothing so much at present as to resemblea small boy as closely as possible. She would rather have captured one bird's-nest than twenty hearts, and appearances she counted as dross provided she could hold her own in a catherine-wheel competition.
They were rather a silent couple. Joan was filled with that contentment which is beyond words. She was wearing a new frock; she had escaped under an escort almost exclusively male—if we except the benevolent despotism of Mrs. Ames—from home, nurse, and governess, to attend a series of purely grown-up functions; and to crown all, she was alone in the canoe, a light-blue blazer spread over her knees, with one who represented to her small experience the head and summit of all that a man should—nay, could—be.
"I expect," she remarked, in a sudden burst of exultation, as the canoe slid past two gorgeously arrayed young persons who were seated by the water's edge, "that those two are pretty sorry they're not in this canoe with us."
The ladies referred to arose and walked inland with some deliberation. Hughie did not answer. His brow was knitted and his manner somewhat absent.
"Hughie," announced Miss Gaymer reproachfully, "you are looking very cross at me."
She had a curiously gruff and hoarse littlevoice, and suffered in addition from inability to pronounce those elusive consonantsrandl. So she did not say "very cross," but "ve'y c'oss," in a deep bass.
Hughie roused himself.
"Sorry, Joey!" he said; "I was thinking."
"Sec'ets?" inquired Miss Gaymer, all agog with femininity at once.
"No."
"Oh,"—rather disappointedly. "About your old boat, then?"
"Yes," said Hughie untruthfully. "Do you quite understand how we race?"
"Ithinkso," said the child. "Your boat is second, and it wants to bump into the boat in f'ont—is that it?"
"Yes."
"Well, do it just when you pass us, will you?"
"I'll try," said Hughie, beginning to brighten up. "But it may take longer than that. About the Railway Bridge, I should think."
"And after the race willyoutake me home again?" inquired the lady anxiously.
"Can't be done, I'm afraid. The race finishes miles from Ditton, where you will be; and I shouldn't be able to get back in time. You had better drive home with the others."
"When shall I see you again, then?" demandedMiss Gaymer, who was not of an age to be reticent about the trend of her virgin affections.
"About seven. You are all coming to dine in my rooms."
"Ooh!" exclaimed his companion in a flutter of excitement. "How long can I sit up?"
"Ask Mrs. Ames," replied the diplomatic Hughie.
"Tillten?" hazarded Joey, with the air of one initiating a Dutch auction.
"Don't askme, old lady."
"Supposing," suggested Miss Gaymer craftily, "that you was to say you wanted me to sit up and keep you company?"
Hughie laughed. "Afraid that wouldn't work. I have to go out about nine to a Bump Supper."
"What's that?"
"A College supper, in honour of the men who have been rowing."
"I like suppers," said Miss Gaymer tentatively.
Hughie smiled. "I don't think you'd like this one, Joey," he said.
"Why? Don't they have any sixpences or thimbles in the t'ifle?" said Miss Gaymer, in whose infant mind the word supper merely conjured up a vision of sticky children, wearing paper caps out of crackers, distending themselves under adult supervision.
"I don't think theyhaveany trifle."
"Perfectly p'eposte'ous!" commented Miss Gaymer with heat. (I think it has already been mentioned that she spent a good deal of her time in the company of Jimmy Marrable.) "Ices?"
"Let me see. Yes—sometimes."
"Ah!" crooned Joey, with a happy little sigh. "Can'tI come?"
"Afraid not, madam. Bump Suppers are for gentlemen only."
"I should like that," said madam frankly.
"And they are rather noisy. You might get frightened."
"Not if I was sitting alongside of you," was the tender reply.
Joey's anxiety for his company renewed Hughie's depression of spirits. Admiration and confidence are very desirable tributes to receive; but when they come from every quarter save the right one the desirability of that quarter is only intensified. Poor human nature! Hughie sighed again in a manner which caused the entire canoe to vibrate. Miss Gaymer suddenly turned the conversation.
"What was that person talking to you about, Hughie?" she inquired.
"Who?"
"That person that came with us in the t'ain. Miss—" Joey's mouth twisted itself into a hopeless tangle.
"Freshwater?" said Hughie, reddening.
"Yes. When you were taking us round the Co'ege after lunch you and her stayed behind on the top of the Chapel, while the rest of us were coming down. When I was waiting for you, I heard her say: 'You're the first to hear of it, Hughie.' To hear of what?"
Hughie looked genuinely disturbed.
"I don't know whether she wants it known yet, Joey," he said.
Miss Gaymer assumed an expression before which she knew that most gentlemen of her acquaintance, from Uncle Jimmy down to the coachman at home, were powerless.
"Hughie dear, you'll tellme, won't you?" she said.
Hughie, making a virtue of necessity, agreed.
"Well, promise you won't tell anybody," he said.
"All right," agreed Miss Gaymer, pleasantly intrigued.
"She's going to be married," said Hughie, in a voice which he endeavoured to make as matter-of-fact as possible. It was not a very successful effort. At twenty-one these things hurt quite as much, if not so lastingly, as in later life.
"I'm ve'y g'ad to hear it," remarked Miss Gaymer with composure.
Hughie looked at the small flushed face before him rather curiously.
"Why, Joey?" he asked.
"Never mind!" replied Miss Gaymer primly.
After that the conversation languished, for they were approaching the race-course, and boats of every size and rig were thronging round them. There was the stately family gig, with an academic and myopic paterfamilias at the helm and his numerous progeny at the oars, sweeping the deep of surrounding craft like Van Tromp's broom. There was the typical May Week argosy, consisting of a rowing-man's mother and sisters, left in the care of two or three amorous but unnautical cricketers, what time their relative performed prodigies of valour in the Second Division. There was also a particularly noisome home-made motor-boat,—known up and down the river from Grantchester to Ely as "The Stinkpot,"—about the size of a coffin, at present occupied (in the fullest sense of the word) by its designer, builder, and owner; who, packed securely into his craft, with his feet in a pile of small coal, the end of the boiler in the pit of his stomach, and the engines working at fever heat between his legs, was combining the duties of stoker, engineer, helmsman, and finally (with conspicuous success) director of ramming operations.
Through these various obstacles Hughie, despite the assistance of his passenger, directed his canoe with unerring precision, and finally broughtup with all standing beside the piles at Ditton. He experienced no difficulty in making arrangements for the return journey of the canoe, for a gentleman of his acquaintance begged to be allowed the privilege of navigating it home, pleading internal pressure in his own craft as the reason. Hughie granted the boon with alacrity, merely wondering in his heart which of the three languishing damsels planted round his friend's tea-urn he had to thank for the deliverance.
They found the fly in a good position close to the water, with the rest of the party drinking tea, and meekly wondering when the heroes who dotted the landscape in various attitudes of nervousness would disencumber themselves of their gorgeous trappings and get to business. Hughie deposited Joan beside a mountain of buns and a fountain of tea, and, after expressing a hope that every one was getting on all right, announced that the Second Division might be expected to paddle down at any moment now.
This statement involved a chorus of questions regarding the technicalities of rowing, which that model of utility, Mr. Lunn, had confessed himself unable to answer, and which had accordingly been held over till Hughie's arrival.
Hughie's rather diffident impersonation of Sir Oracle, and his intricate explanation of the exactdifference between bucketing and tubbing (listened to with respectful interest by surrounding tea-parties), was suddenly interrupted by a small but insistent voice, which besought him to turn the tap off and look pretty for a moment.
There was a shout of laughter, and Hughie turned round, to find that one of those privileged and all too inveterate attendants upon the modern athlete, a photographer, was (with the assistance of a megaphone) maintaining a reputation for humorous offensiveness, at his expense, on the towpath opposite.
After this the Second Division paddled down to the start, arrayed in colours which would have relegated such competitors as King Solomon and the lilies of the field to that euphemistic but humiliating category indicated by the formula "Highly Commended." Presently they returned, unclothed to an alarming and increasing extent, and rowing forty to the minute. One crew brought off a "gallery" bump right at Ditton Corner, to the joy of the galaxy of beauty and fashion thereon assembled. The bumped crew made the best of an inglorious situation by running into the piles and doubling up the nose of the boat, which suddenly buckled and assumed a sentry-box attitude over the head of the apoplectic gentleman who was rowing bow. The good ship herself incontinently sank, all hands going down with herlike an octette of Casabiancas. Whereupon applause for the victors was turned into cries of compassion for the vanquished. However, as all concerned shook themselves clear of the wreck without difficulty and paddled contentedly to the bank, the panic subsided, and the rest of the procession raced past without further incident.
As the last boat, remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow, accompanied by a coloured gentleman ringing a dinner-bell and a spectacled don who trotted alongside chanting, "Well rowed, Non-Collegiate Students!" creaked dismally past, Hughie arose and shook himself.
"Our turn now," he said. "So long, everybody!"
"Good luck, Hughie!" said Mrs. Ames. "Your health!"
She waved her cup and then took a sip of tea.
There was a chorus of good wishes from the party, and one or two neighbouring enthusiasts raised a cry of "Benedict's!" which swelled to a roar as Hughie, flushing red, elbowed his way out of the paddock and steered a course for a ferry-boat a hundred yards down the Long Reach. Popular feeling, which likes a peg upon which to hang its predilections, was running high in favour of Hughie and his practically single-handed endeavour to humble the pride of the All Saintsmen, with their four Blues and five years' Headship.
Still, though many a man's—especially a young man's—heart would have swelled excusably enough at such homage, Hughie cared very little for these things. The notoriety of the sporting paper and the picture-postcard attracted him not at all. He was doggedly determined to take his boat to the Head of the river, not for the glory the achievement would bring him, but for the very simple and sufficient reason that he had made up his mind, four Blues notwithstanding, to leave it there before he went down. A Cambridge man's pride in his College is a very real thing. An Oxford man will tell you that he is an Oxford man. A Cambridge man will say: "I was at such-and-such a College, Cambridge." Which sentiment is the nobler need not be decided here, but the fact remains.
However, there was a fly in the ointment. Amid the expressions of goodwill that emanated from Hughie's own party one voice had been silent. The omission was quite unintentional, for Miss Mildred Freshwater's head had been buried in a hamper in search of spoons at the moment of Hughie's departure. But to poor Hughie, who for all his strength was no more reasonable where his affections were concerned than other and weaker brethren, the circumstance bereft the ovation ofthe one mitigating feature it might otherwise have possessed for him.
As he strode along the bank to where the ferry-boat was waiting, he heard a pattering of feet behind. A small, hot, and rather grubby hand was thrust into his, and Miss Gaymer remarked:—
"I'm coming as far as that boat with you, Hughie. Can I?"
"All right, Joey," he replied.
They had only a few yards farther to go. Miss Gaymer looked up into her idol's troubled countenance.
"What's the matter, Hughie!" she inquired.
"Joey, I've got the hump."
Miss Gaymer squeezed his arm affectionately.
"Never mind, I'll marry you when I'm grown up," she announced rather breathlessly.
Hughie felt a little awed, as a man must always when he realises that a woman, however old or young, loves him. He smiled down on the slim figure beside him.
"You're a good sort, Joey," he said. "One of the best!"
Miss Gaymer returned contentedly to her tea, utterly and absolutely rewarded for the effort involved by the sacrifice of this, her maidenly reserve.
THE JOY OF BATTLE
Hughiestepped out of the ferry-boat on to the towpath, which was crowded with young men hastening to the places where the boats were moored and young women who would have been much better employed on the opposite bank.
The punctilious Hughie was looking about for a friendly hedge or other protection behind which he might decorously slip off the white flannel trousers which during the afternoon had been veiling the extreme brevity of his rowing-shorts, when he was tapped on the shoulder. He turned and found himself faced by a stout clean-shaven man, with eyes that twinkled cheerfully behind round spectacles. He looked like what he was, a country parson of the best type, burly, humorous, and shrewd, with unmistakable traces of the schoolmaster about him.
"I beg your pardon, sir," he said, with a rather old-fashioned bow, "but are you Mr. Marrable?"
Hughie admitted the fact.
"Well, I just want to say that I hope you are going Head to-night. You are to row stroke yourself, I hear."
"Yes."
"Quite right, quite right! It's a desperate thing to change your crew about between races, but it's our only chance. You could never have caught them with the man you had last night. He's plucky, but he can't pick a crew up and take them with him. Have you been out in the new order?"
"Yes. We had a short spin a couple of hours ago."
"Satisfactory?"
"Yes, very fair."
"That's excellent. Now we shall see a race!"
The speaker turned and walked beside Hughie in the direction of the Railway Bridge. Hughie wondered who he could be.
"I suppose you are an old member of the College, sir," he said.
"Yes. Haven't been able to come up for fifteen years, though."
"In the crew, perhaps?" continued Hughie, observing his companion's mighty chest—it had slipped down a little in fifteen years—and shoulders.
"Yes,"—rather diffidently.
"I thought so. About what year?"
The stranger told him.
Hughie grew interested.
"You must have been in D'Arcy's crew," hesaid,—"the great D'Arcy. My father knew him well.Wereyou?"
"Er—yes."
"My word!" Hughie's eyes blazed at the mention of the name, which, uttered anywhere along the waterside between Putney Bridge and Henley, still rouses young oarsmen to respectful dreams of distant emulation and middle-aged coaches to floods of unreliable reminiscence. "He must have been a wonder in his time. Did you know him well? What sort of chap was he?"
"Well—you see—IamD'Arcy," replied the stranger apologetically.
After that he gave Hughie advice about the coming race.
"I have watched the All Saints crew for three nights now," he said. "They are a fine lot, and beautifully together; but it is my opinion that they can't last."
"They're a bit too sure of themselves," said Hughie. "Too many Blues in the boat."
"How many?"
"Four. Seven, Six, Five, and Bow."
"Good! They are probably labouring under the delusion that a boat with four Blues in it is four times as good as a boat with one Blue in it. Consequently they haven't trained very hard, especially those two fat men in the middle of the boat. What about their Stroke?"
"Pretty enough, but a rotter when it comes to the pinch."
"Good again! Well, these fellows have not once been extended during the races, for you gave them no sort of a run last night. You went to bits at the start and never quite recovered. However, that will give All Saints some false confidence, which is just what we want. Now what do you propose to do to-night? Jump on to their tails at the start?"
"No good," said Hughie. "They are too old birds for that game. Besides, my crew want very carefully working up to a fast stroke. I can't trust Six at anything above thirty-four. He'll go on rowing that all day; but if I quicken up to thirty-six or seven he gets flustered, and forty sends him clean off his nut after about a minute. No, we must just wear them down."
"Quite right," said D'Arcy. "If you are within a length at the Railway Bridge you ought just to do it."
"The difficulty is," said Hughie ruefully, "that the crew are only good for about one spurt. It's a good spurt, I must say, but if it fails we are done. They can never slow down to a steady stroke again—especially Six. So it simply has to be made at the right moment. The difficulty is to know when."
"Have you got a reliable cox?"
"First-class."
"Can't he tell you?"
"Too much row going on," said Hughie. "The whole College will be on the towpath to-night."
The Reverend Montague D'Arcy plunged his hand into the tail-pocket of his clerical frock-coat, and produced therefrom a large-pattern service revolver.
"Look here," he said. "You would be able to hear this lethal weapon on the Day of Judgment itself. Will you consent to take your time from me?"
"Rather! Thank you, sir." There was no doubting the sincerity of Hughie's gratitude.
"Well," continued the clergyman briskly, "I shall wait by the Railway Bridge, on the Barnwell side, away from the towpath. If you have made your bump before that you won't want me. Well and good. But I don't think youwillhave made it, and I don't advise you to try. For the first half of the course those All Saints men will match you stroke for stroke, and if you hustle your heavy man at Six he will probably lose his head. As you pass under the Railway Bridge quicken slightly—not more than two strokes a minute, though. I have six shots in this revolver. When you hear two of them, that will mean that you are getting within jumping distance and must be ready for the spurt. When youhear the remaining four in quick succession you must simply swing out and put the very last ounce of your blood and bones and bodies and souls into it. And if you catch 'em," concluded the reverend gentleman, "by gad! I'll dance the Cachuca on the bank!"
By this time they had reached the spot where their racing-shell—sixty-two feet of flimsy cedar wood—was lying waiting for them. The rest of the crew, already assembled, were standing about in the attitudes of profound dejection or forced hilarity which appear to be the only alternatives of deportment open to men who are suffering from what is expressively termed "the needle." Some were whistling, others were yawning, and all were wondering why on earth men took up rowing as a pastime.
Hughie gathered his Argonauts into a knot, and at his request the Reverend Montague D'Arcy outlined to them the plan of campaign. Then the crew embarked, and the stout clergyman assisted the grizzled College boatman—the only person present whose nerves appeared unaffected by the prevailing tension—to push their craft clear of the bank, and set them going on a half-minute dash as a preliminary to their long paddle down the course to the starting point of the race.
In accordance with a picturesque but peculiar custom they wore in their straw hats bunches ofmarigolds and corn-flowers—the College colours—as an intimation that they had achieved bumps during the preceding nights; and so bedecked they paddled majestically down the Long Reach, feeling extremely valorous and looking slightly ridiculous, to challenge a comparison (in which they were hopelessly outclassed from the start) with the headgear of the assembled fair in Ditton Paddock.
The method of sending off a bumping race is the refinement of cruelty.
As each boat reaches its starting-post the crews disembark and stand dismally about, listening to the last exhortations of coaches or nervously eyeing the crew behind them. Presently an objectionably loud piece of artillery, situated half-way down the long line of boats, goes off with a roar. This is called "first gun," and means chiefly that there will be another in three minutes. The crew mournfully denude themselves of a few more articles of their already scanty wardrobe, which they pile upon the shoulders of the perspiring menial whose duty it is to convey the same to the finishing-post, and crawl one by one into their places in the boat. Finally, the coxswain coils himself into his seat and takes both rudder-lines in his left hand, leaving the right free to grasp the end of the boat's last link withterra firma, her starting-chain. Then the second gungoes, and the crew shudder and know that in sixty seconds precisely they must start.
The ritual observed during the final minute is complicated in the extreme, and varies directly with the nervous system of the coach, who dances upon the bank with a stop-watch in his hand, to time the ministrations of the College boatman, who stands by with a long boat-hook ready to prod the vessel into midstream.
"Fifteen seconds gone," says the coach. "Push her out, Ben."
Ben complies, with a maddening but wise deliberation. If the boat is pushed out too promptly the starting-chain will grow taut and tug the stern of the boat inwards towards the bank, just when her nose should be pointing straight upstream. But this elementary truth does not occur to the frenzied octette in the boat. The gun will go, and bow-side will find their oar-blades still resting on the towpath. Theyknowit.
"Thirty seconds gone," says the coach. "Paddle on gently, Bow and Two."
His object is to get the full advantage of the length of the chain, but Bow and Two know better. They are convinced that he merely desires that they shall be caught at a disadvantage when the gun fires. However, they paddle on as requested, with a palsied stealthiness that suggests musical chairs.
"Fifteen seconds left," says the coach. "Are you straight, Cox? Ten more sec—"
Ah! As usual the chain has drawn tight, and the stern of the boat is being dragged inwards again.
"Paddle on, Two!" yells the coxswain.
Two gives a couple of frenzied digs; the Dervish with the watch, accompanied by a ragged and inaccurate chorus all down the bank, chants "Five, four, three, two—"; there is a terrific roar from the gun; the coxswain drops the chain; the boatman slips the point of his boat-hook (which, between ourselves, has been doing the lion's share in keeping the ship's head straight) from Five's rigger; and they are off.
The Benedictine crew got under way very unostentatiously. Their coach was actually rowing in the All Saints boat,—and it would be difficult to select a more glowing testimonial to the sterling sportsmanship of English rowing,—so the starting operations were wisely left to the College boatman, who had performed the office for something like half a century. The flight of time was recorded by Hughie himself, from the watch which hung on his stretcher beside his right foot. The experienced Mr. Dishart-Watson kept those too-often fatally intimate acquaintances, the rudder-lines and starting-chain, tactfully apart, and the St. Benedict's boat got off the mark with astart that brought her within a length of All Saints during the first half-minute.
After that their opponents drew away. As D'Arcy had said, they were a seasoned crew, and nothing short of sheer superiority would wear them down. The two boats swung round Grassy Corner and entered the Plough Reach about their distance apart. All Saints were rowing the faster stroke.
Hughie, who was keeping to a steady thirty-two, felt with satisfaction that the men behind him were well together. Number Seven, small but plucky, was setting bow-side a beautiful example in steady swing and smart finish. Six—Mr. Puffin—was rowing a great blade. To look at him now, you would ask why he had not been included in the University Crew. If you saw him trying to row forty to the minute, you would marvel that he should be included in any crew at all.
Five was not looking happy. He was lying back too far and tugging at the finish. To him the boat seemed heavier than usual, for he was just beginning to realise the difference between seconding the efforts of Hughie Marrable and those of Mr. Duncombe. Still, he was plugging gamely. Four, a painstaking person, was encouraging himself in a fashion entirely his own. After every stroke, as he sat up and swung forward,he gasped out some littlesotto voceremark to himself, such as, "Oh, wellrowed, Four!—Stick to it, Four!—Use yourlegs, old man!—That's better!—That's abeauty!—Oh, wellrowed, Four!" And so on. Where he got the necessary breath for these exercises nobody knew; but some folk possess these little peculiarities, and row none the worse for them. Bow was another instance. He was a chirpy but eccentric individual, and used to sing to himself some little ditty of the moment—or possibly a hymn—all through a race, beginning with the first stroke and ending exactly, if possible, with the last. He had been known, when stroking a boat, to quicken up to a perfectly incredible rate simply because he feared that the song would end before he completed the course, a contingency which he regarded as unlucky in the extreme. On the other hand, he would become quite depressed if he had to stop in the middle of a verse, and he was quite capable of rowingrallentandoif he desired to synchronise his two conclusions.
But few people have the time or inclination for these diversions while oscillating upon a sixteen-inch slide, and the rest of the crew were swinging at and plugging in grim silence.
The two boats swept into the roaring medley of Ditton Corner. They flashed past the row of piles and tethered punts amid a hurricane ofshouts and waving handkerchiefs. Hughie, wrongfully exercising his privilege as Stroke, allowed his eyes to slide to the right for a moment. He had a fleeting glimpse of the crimson and excited countenance of Miss Gaymer, as some man held her aloft in the crowd. Then the boat gave a slight lurch, and Joey was swallowed up again. Hughie felt guiltily responsible for the lurch, and recalling his gaze into the proper channel—straight over the coxswain's right shoulder—swung out again long and steadily.
"Are we straight yet?" he gasped to Dishy.
"Yes—just."
"Tell 'em to reach out a bit."
Mr. Watson complied, in tones that rose high above the tumult on the bank and penetrated even into the harmonious soul of Bow, who was grappling with a difficult cadenza at the moment.
"Six good ones!" said Hughie, next time his face swung up towards the coxswain's.
"Now, you men, six good ones!" echoed Dishy. "One! Two!Five, you're late!Three! Four! Five!Bow, get hold of it!Six!Oh, well rowed!"
There was a delighted roar from the bank. The Benedictine crew were together again after the unsteadiness round Ditton.
"How far?" signalled Hughie's lips.
"Length—and—a—half," replied Cox. "Less," he added, peering ahead.
They were half-way up the Long Reach now. In another minute or two they would be at the Railway Bridge, beyond which hard-pressed boats are popularly supposed to be safe.
"Tell 'em—going—quicken," gurgled Hughie, "if can."
Cox nodded, rather doubtfully, and Hughie ground his teeth. If only this accursed noise on the bank would cease, even for five seconds, Dishy would get a chance to make the crew hear. As it was, the ever-increasing crowd, rolling up fresh adherents like a snowball, made that feat almost an impossibility.
But the coxswain was a man of experience and resource. Just as the boat passed under the Railway Bridge itself there was a momentary silence, for the crew were shut off from their supporters by some intervening balks of timber. Dishy seized the opportunity.
"Be ready to quicken," he yelled. "Now! Oh, well done!"
The crew had heard him, and what was more, they had obeyed him. Stroke in the All Saints boat suddenly realised that the oncoming foe had quickened to thirty-five or six, and that the interval between the two boats had shrunk to something under a length. He spurted in his turn, and his men spurted with him, but their length of stroke grew proportionately shorter, and thepace of the boat did not increase. St. Benedict's were holding their advantage.
"Half a length," said Dishy, in response to an agonised interrogation from Hughie's right eyebrow.
Suddenly above the tumult there rang out two reverberating revolver-shots. A stout clergyman, whooping like a Choctaw, was tearing along the right bank of the river, which was practically clear of spectators, with his weapon smoking in his hand. Dishy's voice rose to a scream.
"Look out—be ready!Onlysix feet!"
And now the musical gentleman who was rowing bow felt the boat lift unsteadily under him. A wave rolled across the canvas decking behind him, and he felt a splash of water on his back.
"Washing us off!" was his comment. "Glory, glory! Another verse'll do it. Now then, all together,—
"What though the spicy breezesBlow soft, o'er Ceylon's—"
"What though the spicy breezesBlow soft, o'er Ceylon's—"
Bang! bang! bang! bang!
The great service revolver rang out. The nose of the Benedictine boat, half submerged in a boiling flood, suddenly sprang to within three feet of the All Saints rudder.
"Now, you men!" Mr. Dishart-Watson's wizened and saturnine countenance shrank suddenlyand alarmingly to a mere rim surrounding his mouth. "Justtenmore!One—two—"
Like St. Francis of Assisi, "Of all his body he made a tongue." He counted the strokes in tones that overtopped all the roars of encouragement and apprehension arising from the now hopelessly mixed-up mob of Benedictine and All Saints men that raged alongside. Hughie Marrable quickened and quickened, and his crew responded sturdily. Faster and faster grew the stroke, and more and more pertinaciously did the nose of the Benedictine boat plough its way through the turbid waves emitted by the twitching rudder in front. Never had they travelled like this. Six was rowing like a man possessed. Four had ceased to encourage himself, and was plugging automatically with his chest open and his eyes shut. Bow may or may not have been singing: he was certainly rowing. There was a world of rolling and splashing, for the All Saints coxswain was manipulating his rudder very skilfully, and ever and again the aggressive nose of the Benedictine boat was sent staggering back by a rolling buffeting wave. But there was no stopping the Benedictines.
Suddenly Dishy gave vent to a final cataclysmic bellow.
"You're overlapping!"
They were almost at Charon's Grind. The coxswain'slank body stiffened in its little seat, and Hughie saw him lean hard over and haul on to the right-hand rudder-line.
"Last three strokes! Now, you devils!Plug! plug! pl—Aa—a—ee—ooh—ee—easy all! Oh, well rowed, well rowed, well rowed!"
There was a lurch and a bump.
"Done it!—'Bows down to wood and stone,'" gasped Bow.
The eight men let go their oars and tumbled forward on to their stretchers, and listened, with their heads and hearts bursting, to the din that raged on the bank.
It was a fine confused moment.
In the boat itself Cox was vainly endeavouring to shake hands with Stroke, who lay doubled up over his oar, with his head right down on the bottom of the boat, oblivious to everything save the blessed fact that he need not row any more. Consciousness that he had taken his crew to the Head of the River was yet to come. At the other end Bow, with his head clasped between his knees, was croaking half-hysterically to himself, "Two bars too soon, Hughie! Oh, my aunt, we've gone Head! Two bars too soon!"
On the towpath every one was shouting and shaking hands with indiscriminatebonhomie,—this was one of those occasions upon which even the ranks of Tuscany could scarce forbear tocheer,—and everybody, with one exception, seemed to be ringing a bell or blowing a trumpet. The exception was supplied by a trio of young gentlemen, two of whom held an enormous Chinese gong suspended between them, while a third smote the same unceasingly with a mallet, and cried aloud the name of Marrable. It must be recorded here, to his honour, that the smiter bore upon his forehead an enormous and highly coloured bruise, suggestive of sudden contact with, say, a bedroom-door.
On the opposite bank of the river, a stout, middle-aged, and apparently demented Clerk in Holy Orders was dancing the Cachuca.
KNIGHT-ERRANTRYÀ LA MODE
Ifall good Americans go to Paris when they die, it may safely be predicted that all the bad ones will be booked through to Coney Island.
So much may be inferred from the regularity and zeal with which the Toughs, Hoboes, Bowery Boys, and other fearful wildfowl of the New York proletariat, accompanied by the corresponding females of the species, betake themselves every Sabbath by trolley-car or steamer to this haunt of ancient peace (which, by the way, is not to all appearances an island and harbours no conies).
Take Margate and Douglas and Blackpool, and pile them into an untidy heap; throw in a dozen Fun-Cities from Olympia and half a score of World's Fairs from the Agricultural Hall; add some of the less reputable features of Earl's Court and Neuilly Fair; include a race-course of the baser sort; case the whole in wood, and people it with sallow gentlemen in striped jerseys and ladies answering exclusively to such names as Hattie, Sadie, and Mamie, reared up apparently upon an exclusive diet of peanuts and clam-chowder; keep the whole multitude duly controlledand disciplined by a police force which, if appearances go for anything, has been recruited entirely from the criminal classes; and you will be able faintly to realise what Coney Island can do when it tries on a fine Sunday in summer.
So thought Hughie Marrable. He had been wandering round the world for nine years now; but not even a previous acquaintance with the Devil Dancers of Ceylon, the unhallowed revels of Port Said, or the refinements of a Central African Witch-Hunt (with full tom-tom accompaniment), had quite prepared him for this. Still, it was part and parcel of Life, and Life was what he had left England to see.
He had arrived in New York from San Francisco two days ago. But let it not be imagined that he had been conveyed thither by any Grand-Trunk-Ocean-to-Ocean-Limited, or other refinement of an effete modernity. His transcontinental journey had occupied just three years. Since the day on which he steamed through the Golden Gate on a tramp-freighter from Yokohama he had been working his way eastward by easy stages, acquiring experience (as Jimmy Marrable had directed) of the manner in which the other half of the world lives. Incidentally he had mixed cocktails behind a Nevada bar; learned to fire a revolver without taking it out of his pocket; accompanied a freight train over the Rockies inthe capacity of assistant brakeman—his duties being chiefly confined to standing by with a coupling-pin, to discourage the enterprise of those gentlemen of the road who proposed to travel without tickets; and once, in a Southern State, he had been privileged to be present at that ennobling spectacle to which the brightest nation on earth occasionally treats the representatives of an older civilisation—the lynching of a negro.
In a few days Hughie would sail for England, on board the mighty Apulia. It was not often that he travelled in such ostentatious luxury: the primitive man in him leaned towards something damp and precarious on board a sailing-ship or a collier; but he happened to know that the Apulia intended going for the ocean record this trip; and since the third engineer happened to be a friend of his, Hughie had decided that four-and-a-half days and nights down among the humming turbines and the spirits that controlled them would be cheap at the price of an expensively upholstered state-room many decks above, in which he would leave his baggage and occasionally sleep.
For all that he had cast a regretful eye only that very morning on a battered little tramp-steamer which was loading up with cargo alongside a wharf at Hoboken—due to sail for Europe, so a stevedore told him, in about two days' time.
To-morrow he was to be taken yachting inNew York harbour by an old P. and O. acquaintance, whom he had faithfully "looked up," in accordance with a two-year-old promise, at his city office that morning. In the evening, at the invitation of an American actor to whom he had once been of service in Calcutta, he was to dine at the Lambs' Club,—the New York equivalent of the Garrick and Green Room, with a dash of the Eccentric thrown in,—and the next day he was to pay a flying visit to Atlantic City.
Meanwhile he was putting in a few off-hours at Coney Island. He had watched the islanders bathing, had witnessed a display of highly—not to say epileptically—Animated Pictures, had spent half-an-hour in an opencafé-chantant, where a bevy of tired-looking girls in short skirts pranced about with mechanical abandon at the back of the small stage, shouting the chorus of a ditty which a wheezy lady (who looked like the mother of all chorus-girls) was singing at the front; and had declined a pressing invitation from the keeper of an Anatomical Museum to step inside and "have a dollar's worth for a dime."
Finally he drifted into a small theatre, where a melodrama of distinctly British flavour (seasoned to the Coney Island palate by a few distinctly local interpolations) was unfolding itself to a closely packed and hard-breathing audience.
To judge from the state of the atmosphere theentertainment had been in progress for some time. As Hughie took his seat the curtain rose on a moonlit military scene. Figures wrapped in great-coats sat round a camp-fire on the audience's right hand, the only plainly recognisable character being the Heroine, who, attired as a hospital nurse and positively starred with red crosses, was sewing aloofly upon an erection which looked like a sarcophagus, but was marked in plain figures "Ambulence." A sentry, who from his gait Hughie took (rightly) to be the Comic Man, was pacing up and down at the back.
Presently the guard was changed, with much saluting of a pattern unknown at any War Office, and the Comic Man, released from duty, was called upon to sing "that dear ole song you useter sing at 'ome." The cold light of the moon having been temporarily replaced by broad daylight in order to give the singer's facial expression full play, he obliged; though why any one who had heard him sing the song before should have asked him to sing it again passed Hughie's comprehension. Next a drummer-boy (female) was called upon by the company, and after a great exhibition of reluctance,—fully justified by her subsequent performance,—gave vent to a patriotic ditty, in which the only distinguishable rhymes were "Black Watch" and "Scotch."
These revels brought the Hero on to the stage.He was attired in clerical dress and a cavalry helmet; and, sitting down beside the Heroine upon the sarcophagus, he proceeded, oblivious of the presence of the entire guard, who were huddled round the fire not more than five feet away, to make her a proposal of marriage; quoting Scripture to some purpose, and extorting a demure affirmative from the lady just before the Comic Man, who had obviously been lamenting that the success of the piece should be imperilled by such stuff as this, upset the soup-kettle, and so gave a fresh turn to the proceedings.
All this time Hughie had been conscious of an increasing feeling of curiosity as to the identity of the only member of the glee-party round the fire who so far had made no contribution to the entertainment. He darkly suspected him of being the Villain, though what the Villain should be doing unrecognised at such a period of the play—it was about the third act—was hard to understand. However, the mystery was now cleared up by a Frenchvivandière—by this time it was plain that the scene was laid in the Crimea—who called upon the mysterious one, in the accents of Stratford-atte-Bowe, for a song and dance. No reply being forthcoming, the entire company (precipitately, but quite correctly, as it happened) rose up and denounced the stranger as a Russian and a spy. They had only themselves to blamefor his presence, for apparently he had strolled up and joined the party quite promiscuously; and no one had thought, so far, of asking him who he was or even of addressing him.
The audience now sat up expectantly. But instead of taking the spy prisoner and shooting him on sight, the guard hurried off R.U.E.—possibly to bring up their big guns or find a policeman. These deplorable tactics did not meet with the reward they deserved, for the Villain, instead of bolting off L. as fast as he could, lingered upon the stage to tell the audience that he had come back to have one more go at the Hero. (Goodness knows how many he had had!) The Hero obligingly appeared at that moment, and a section (whose numbers appeared to increase as the play proceeded) of the audience shouted to the Villain to cut in and do itnow. But portentous trampings "off" announced the return of the glee-party, and the Villain, finding that he could not execute his perfectly justifiable design without considerable danger to his own person, and was in fact in a particularly tight place himself, suddenly appealed (with considerable "nerve," it seemed to Hughie) to the Hero, as a Cleric, to save him. The Hero (who was evidently a fool as well as a bore) immediately complied. "You must take upon you my identity," he remarked. In a twinkling they had exchanged great-coats,and the Villain was now by all the laws of Melodrama completely disguised as the Hero. He dashed off L., just as a perfect avalanche of people, who had been faithfully and increasingly marking time in the wings, poured on to the stage R., and endeavoured almost to poke their rifles into the Hero's breast. But just as a nervous female in the audience, apprehensive about the sudden discharge of firearms, convulsively gripped Hughie's left elbow, the Heroine dashed on from nowhere, and taking her stand before the Hero—apparently she was the only person upon the stage who recognised him—uttered these thrilling but mysterious words: "You kennot far erpon ther Red Kerawss!"
Curtain, amid thunders of applause.
After a commendably short interval the curtain rose upon the next act. The Hero was now discovered asleep (under what must have struck any thoughtful member of the audience as highly compromising circumstances for a clergyman) in the cottage of a stout lady in a very short skirt and fur-topped boots; whom, from the fact that her opening soliloquy commenced with the words, "Har, vell!" the audience rightly adjudged to be a Russian. This lady, it was soon plain, was consumed by a secret passion for the Hero. In fact she proclaimed it in such strident tones that it was surprising that its object did not wake up.
This scene soon resolved itself into a series of determined efforts on the part of the Villain to terminate the existence of the Hero—an enterprise in which he by this time commanded the whole-hearted support of the greater part of the audience. His first attempt was foiled by the Comic Man, who entered singing "Keep the baby warm, Mother!" just as he had crawled within striking distance of the unwakeable Hero. Muttering curses, the unfortunate man announced his intention of retiring "to the woods," pending another opportunity. But he had no luck. Just as the Comic Man performed a humorous exit through the window, the stout lady—most of the other characters, by the way, addressed her as "Tinker": possibly her name was Katinka—came in through the door, filled with the forebodings of what she called "loove." Her subsequent course of action could certainly only have been condoned on the plea of emotional insanity. She unceremoniously bundled the Hero out of bed—fortunately he had gone there in his boots—and sent him off on a transparent wild-goose chase to the "trenches." Then she got into bed herself, and when the Villain came crawling back from "the woods," brandishing his knife in the limelight, the audience were treated to a sort of up-to-date rendering of "Little Red Riding Hood," the part of the Wolf being sustained byKatinka, and that of Red Riding Hood by the now hopelessly demoralised Villain, who was once more chased back to his arboreal lurking-place with the muzzle of a revolver in the small of his back.
In the next and final act the Villain made a supreme effort. He began by slaying the drummer-boy,—presumably to keep his hand in,—but on going through his victim's pockets in search of certain "despatches" which that youthful hero had undertaken to carry through the Russian lines,—where to, heaven knows!—the unfortunate man discovered a locket, which instantly revealed to him the surprising, but none the less distressing, intelligence that he had slain his own son. His anguish was pitiful to behold, and when the Hero came on and began to rub it in by further excerpts from the Scriptures, the audience to a man decided that if the Villain brought it off this time no jury would convict, but that he would be bound over at the most. He certainly set about the business with more gumption than usual. Waiting until the Hero was well launched into "Secondly," with the limelight full in his eyes, he once more produced the glittering knife. Suddenly the ubiquitous Katinka dashed on, and in the most unsportsmanlike manner shot the Villain in the small of the back, at a range of about eighteen inches. Hedropped dead across the body of his son (which must have hurt that infant prodigy very much). All the other characters sidled on from the wings and formed a grand concluding tableau, the Hero, egregious to the last and entwined in a stained-glass attitude with the Hospital Nurse, pronouncing a sort of benediction as the curtain fell.
"Doesn't this remind you of the Drama as it used to be dished up to the undergraduates in the old Barn at Cambridge?" remarked a voice.
Hughie turned to the speaker. He found beside him a man of about thirty, with a fair moustache, which half hid a weak but amiable mouth and a receding chin. He was dressed in the thick blue shore-going garments of the seaman, but he looked too slight for an A.B. and too clean for a fireman.
"Deck-hand," said Hughie to himself. "Gentleman once—no, still!"
"Hallo!" he replied. "You seem to know me. Forgive me if I ought to know you, but I can't fix you at present. Odd thing, too, because I don't often forget a face."
"I was up at Cambridge in your time," said the man.
"Not Benedict's?"
"No—Trinity. I was sent down ultimately. But I knew you well by sight. Often saw you in the boat, and so on. You're Marrable, aren't you?"
"Yes. Were you a rowing man?"
"No. I hunted with the Drag and rode at Cottenham—in those days." He glanced philosophically at his present attire.
"Come and have something," said Hughie.
The man interested him. He might, of course, be a mere long-shore shark on the make, or he might be what he looked—a good-hearted, well-born waster—an incorrigible but contented failure. Anyhow, five minutes over a friendly glass would probably settle the question.
"I wonder if it's possible to obtain a decent British drink in this clam-ridden hole," Hughie continued.
"The nearest thing to a product of the British Empire that you'll get here," said the man, "is Canadian whisky; and personally I would rather drink nitric acid. We had better stick to lager. Come along: I know the ropes."
Presently they found themselves in a German beer saloon, where a stertorous Teuton supplied their needs.
"By the way," said the man, "I have the advantage of you. My name is Allerton. Sorry I forgot!"
"Thanks," said Hughie, rather lamely. "Are you—living out here just now?"
"No," said Allerton simply. "I'm a deck-hand on a tramp-steamer." He spoke easily and freely,as one gentleman to another. He had realised at a glance that he was not about to be made the victim of offensive curiosity or misplaced charity. "She's lying at Hoboken, due out on Tuesday, for Bordeaux."
"French boat?"
"No. American owned, under the British flag, by a fairly competent rascal, too. This trip we are carrying a cargo of Californian wine of sorts. We took it last week from a sailing barque that had brought it round the Horn. She wanted to start back at once, so turned it over to us cheap."
"And you're going to Bordeaux? What does your astute owner want to take coals to Newcastle for?"
"Because everything that comesoutof Newcastle is labelled coal whether it is coal or not. In other words, this poison will be carried by us to Bordeaux, bottled and sealed, and shipped to England as fine vintage Burgundy. John Bull will drink it and feel none the worse. I'm told it's a paying trade."
"I wish I were going in your boat," said Hughie, rather regretfully. "I'm booked by the Apulia."
"Well, look out for the Orinoco on your second day out."
"The Orinoco? I remember seeing her atHoboken to-day, and wishing I could make the trip on her."
"I doubt if you'd be of the same opinion after trying conclusions with Mr. James Gates, our first 'greaser,'" replied Allerton. "Still, I don't know," he continued, regarding Hughie's brawny form reflectively. "I don't believe he could put the fear of death into you the way he does into most of us. You've knocked about a bit in your time, I dare say, only with more success than I. Perhaps you weren't born with holes inallyour pockets."
"I say," said Hughie rather diffidently,—it is difficult to confer a favour upon a man who is down without offending him,—"will you dine with me? Or sup, as it's getting late?"
"I shall be charmed," said the deck-hand. "Shall I show you a place? I know quite a comfortable establishment close by here."
Hughie said "Righto!" and presently they found themselves in the place of entertainment selected by Allerton. Most of the room was occupied by small tables, at which various couples were eating and drinking. At one end was a platform, upon which an intermittent sort of variety entertainment was in progress.
On the floor at the foot of the platform was a piano. At the piano sat a girl, who accompanied the performers and bridged over the gaps inthe programme by selections from the less restrained works of American Masters of Music. Not far from the stage an unhealthy-looking youth was presiding over a bar. The atmosphere was something between that of a smoking-concert, and Baker Street Station in the days of the old Underground.
Allerton's lazy nonchalance lasted until the first course was set before him by a smiling blackamoor, and then, with a half-apologetic aside to his host on the subject of his last meal, he fell upon the fare in a manner which brought very vividly home to Hughie's intelligence the difference between an amateur casual like himself, with money enough in his pocket to make it possible to knock off when he tired of the game, and the genuine article. He was not hungry, having in fact dined a couple of hours before; but he did his best by tactful pecking to conceal the fact from his guest. Still, even after he had ordered some wine and duly inspected the cork, he had a good deal of time to look about him.
Presently his attention began to concentrate itself upon the girl at the piano. She was sitting quite near him, and Hughie, always respectfully appreciative where a pretty face was concerned,—his wanderings, though they had made him more than ever a master of men, had done little to eradicate his innate attitude of quiet, determined,and occasionally quite undeserved reverence towards women,—had time to notice the un-American freshness of her colouring, the regularity of her profile, and the prettiness of her hair. He also observed that the foot which rested upon the pedal of the piano was small and shapely. She was quietly dressed, in a dark-blue serge skirt and a white silk blouse—or "shirtwaist," to employ the mysterious local designation—with short sleeves. She had round arms and good hands.
Hughie wondered what she was doing in a place like this, and, young-man-like, felt vaguely unhappy on her behalf; but experienced a truly British feeling of relief (mingled with slight disappointment) on observing that she wore a wedding-ring. He waxed sentimental. Who was her husband? he wondered. He hoped it was not the proprietor of the establishment,—a greasy individual of Semitic appearance, who occasionally found leisure, in the intervals between announcing the "turns" and calling the attention of patrons to the exceptional resources of the bar, to walk across the room and paw the girl affectionately on the shoulder while giving her some direction as to the music,—nor yet the scorbutic young man behind the bar.
His meditations were interrupted by Allerton.
"Marrable, eyes front! And fill up your glass. Hang it, drink fair!"
Hughie turned and regarded his guest. The greater part of a magnum of vitriolic champagne had disappeared down that gentleman's throat. His eye had brightened, and now twinkled facetiously as he surveyed first Hughie and then the girl at the piano.
"Une petite pièce de tout droit—eh, what?" he remarked.
Hughie, beginning to understand why his companion was now swabbing decks instead of ruling ancestral acres, nodded shortly.
Allerton noticed his host's momentary distance of manner, and leaned across the table with an air of contrition.
"I'm afraid," he said apologetically, "that I'm getting most infernally full. You see how it is with me, don't you? I'm that sort of bloke. Always have been, from a nipper. Thash—That's why I'm here. It's a pity. And the worst of it is," he added, in a sudden burst of candour, "that I'm going to get much fuller. It's a long time since I tasted this." He touched his glass. "It isn't served out on the Orinoco. Do you—er—mind?"
Hughie, with a queer feeling of compassion, smiled reassuringly, and ordered another bottle. If Allerton was about to get drunk, he should get drunk like a gentleman for once in a way.
Then his attention reverted to the piano.
There had been a development. The girl was mechanically playing one of the compositions of that delicate weaver of subtle harmonies, Mr. John Philip Sousa; but she was not reading her music. Her eyelids were resolutely lowered, as if she wished to avoid seeing something. The reason resolved itself into a gentleman who was leaning over the front of the piano, gazing amorously down upon the musician, and endeavouring, with surprising success, to make himself heard above one of the composer's most characteristic efforts.
Hughie looked him up and down. He was a big man, powerfully built, with little pig's eyes set close together, and a ponderous and vicious-looking lower jaw. Washeher husband? wondered the deeply interested Hughie. No: he was too obviously endeavouring to make himself agreeable.
"Marrable, my son," suddenly interpolated the convivial but observant Allerton, "you're cut out! No use bidding against that customer. Do you know who he is?"