A photograph of Jerry at this stage wouldhave revealed a young man sitting at a telephone desk, registering a conflict of feelings and emotions indicative of consternation, guilt, tenderness, fear, terror, compunction, meanness and idiocy. When that official voice came over the wire a second time, Jerry all but collapsed against the table, holding the receiver uncertainly in the direction of that ear that still heard the incredible news and confirmed his fears:
"Name—Miss Sindicutt."
Silence, during which the other end apparently heard not that exclamation of desperation: "Ye gods and little fishes!" for it resumed complacently:
"Shall we send her up to you?"
"No, no, for heaven's sake don't. That is, wait a bit, will you? Give me a chance to get over the——" Jerry was about to say "shock," but stopped himself in time and with as much composure as he could muster he told the Y. W. C. A. that he was busy just now, but would call later, and advise them what to do in the—under his breath he said "appalling"—circumstances.
Slowly Jerry put the receiver back on the hook. He remained in the chair like one who has received a galvanic shock. That Japanesegirl, of a preposterous dream, had actually followed him to America! She was here—right in New York City. It was fantastic, impossible! Ha, ha! it would be funny, if it were not so danged impossible. In the United States, of all places! She, who ought to be right among her heathens, making good converts. What in the name of common sense had she come to the States for? Why couldn't she let Jerry alone, when he was up to his neck in plans that he fairly knew were going to create an upheaval in the architectural world? Just because he had befriended her in his infernal youth, he could not be expected to be responsible for her for the rest of her days. Besides, he, Jerry, was not the only one in that comic opera Syndicate. The thought of his partners in crime, as they now seemed to him, brought him up again before that telephone, seizing upon it this time as a last straw.
He was fortunate to get in touch with all three of the members of the former Sunny Syndicate Limited. While Monty and Bobs rushed over immediately, Jinx escaped from the Appawamis Golf Club where for weeks he had been vainly trying to get rid of some of his superfluous flesh by chasing little red balls over the still snow bound course, flung himselfinto his powerful Rolls Royce, and went speeding along the Boston Post Road at a rate that caused an alarm to be sent out for him from point to point. Not swift enough, however, to keep up with the fat man in the massive car that "made the grade" to New York inside of an hour, and rushed like a juggernaut over the slick roads and the asphalt pavements of Manhattan.
Jerry's summons to his college friends had been in the nature of an S. O. S. call for help. On the telephone he vouchsafed merely the information that it was "a deadly matter of life and death."
The astounding news he flung like a bomb at each hastily arriving member of the late Syndicate. When the first excitement had subsided, the paramount feeling was one of consternation and alarm.
"Gosh!" groaned Jinx, "what in the name of thunderation are you going to do with a Japanese girl in New York City? I pity you, Jerry, for of course you are mainly responsible——"
"Responsible nothing——" from the indignant Jerry, wheeling about with a threatening look at that big "fathead." "I presume I was theonlymember of that—er—syndicate."
"At least it was your idea," said Monty, extremely anxious to get back to the hospital, where he had been personally supervising a case of Circocele.
"You might have known," suggested Bobs, "that she was bound to turn out a Frankenstein. Of course, we'll all stand by you, old scout, but you know how I am personally situated."
Jerry's wrathful glare embraced the circle of his renegade friends.
"You're a fine bunch of snobs. I'm not stuck myself on having a Jap girl foisted on to my hands, and there'll be a mess of explanations to my friends and people, and the Lord only knows how I'll ever be able to put my mind back on my work and—— At the same time, I'm not so white livered that I'm going to flunk the responsibility. We encouraged—invited her to join us out here. I did. You did, so did you, and you! I heard you all—every last one of you, and you can't deny it."
"Well, it was one thing to sentimentalise over a pretty little Jap in Japan," growled Bobs, who was not a snob, but in spite of his profession at heart something of a stickler for the conventions, "but it's another proposition here. Of course, as I said, we fellows allintend to stand by you." (Grunts of unwilling assent from Monty and Jinx.) "We aren't going to welch on our part of the job, and right here we may as well plan out some scheme to work this thing properly. Suppose we make the most of the matter for the present. We'll keep her down there at that 'Y.' Do you see? Then, we can each do something to—er—make it—well uncomfortable for her here. We'll freeze her out if it comes down to that. Make her feel that this U. S. A. isn't all it's cracked up to be, and she'll get home-sick for her gods and goddesses and at the psychological moment when she's feeling her worst, why we'll just slip her aboard ship, and there you are."
"Great mind! Marvellous intellect you got, Bobs. In the first place, the 'Y' informed me on the 'phone that they are sending her here. They are waiting now for me to give the word when to despatch her, in fact. Now the question is"—Jerry looked sternly at his friends—"which one of your families would be decent enough to give a temporary home to Sunny? My folks as you know are out of the reckoning, as I'm an outlaw from there myself."
Followed a heated argument and explanations.Monty's people lived in Philadelphia. He himself abode at the Bellevue Hospital. That, so he said, let him out. Not at all, from Jerry's point of view. Philadelphia, said Jerry, was only a stone's throw from New York. Monty, exasperated, retorted that he didn't propose to throw stones at his folks. Monty, who had made such warm promises to Sunny!
Bobs shared a five-room bachelor flat with two other newspaper men. Their hours were uncertain, and their actions erratic. Often they played poker till the small hours of the morning. Sunny would not fit into the atmosphere of smoke and disorder, though she was welcome to come, if she could stand the "gaff." Bobs' people lived in Virginia. His several sisters, Bobs was amusedly assured, would hardly put the girl from Japan at her ease.
Jinx, on whom Jerry now pinned a hopeful eye, blustered shamelessly, as he tried to explain his uncomfortable position in the world. When not at his club in New York, he lived with a sister, Mrs. Vanderlump, and her growing family in the Crawford mansion at Newport. Said sister dominated this palatial abode and brother Jinx escaped to New York uponoccasions in a true Jiggsian manner, using craft and ingenuity always to escape the vigilant eye and flaying tongue of a sister who looked for the worst and found it. It was hard for Jinx to admit to his friends that he was horribly henpecked, but he appealed to them as follows:
"Have a heart about this thing. I ask you, what is a fellow to do when he's got a sister on his back like that? If she suspects every little innocent chorus girl of the town, what is she going to say to Sunny when that kid goes up before her in tights?"
It is extraordinary how we think of people we have not seen in years as they were when first we saw them. In the heat of argument, no one troubled to point out to Jinx that the Sunny who had come upon the tight rope that first night must have long since graduated from that reprehensible type of dress or rather undress.
Finally, and as a last resort, a night letter was despatched to Professor Timothy Barrowes. All were now agreed that he was the one most competent to settle the matter of the disposition of Sunny, and all agreed to abide by his decision.
At this juncture, and when a sense of satisfactionin having "passed the buck" to the competent man of archæology had temporarily cheered them, a tapping was heard upon the studio door. Not the thumping of the goblin's head of the Italian iron knocker; not the shriek of the electric buzzer from the desk below, warning of the approach of a visitor. Just a soft taptapping upon the door, repeated several times, as no one answered, and increasing in noise and persistence.
A long, a silent, a deadly pause ensued. At that moment each found himself attributing to that girl they had known in Japan, and whom they realised was on the other side of that door, certain characteristic traits and peculiarities charming enough in Japan but impossible to think of as in America. To each young man there came a mental picture of a bizarre and curious little figure, adorned with blazingly bright kimona and obi—a brilliant patch of colour, her bobbed hair and straight bangs seeming somehow incongruous and adding to her fantastic appearance. After all, in spite of her hair, she was typical of that land of crooked streets, and paper houses, and people who walked on the wrong side and mounted their horses from the front. The thought of that girl in New York City grated againsttheir sensibilities. She didn't belong and she never could belong was their internal verdict.
It may have been only a coincidence, but it seemed weird, that Hatton, lately so dead to the world, should appear at that psychological moment on the steps of the gallery, immaculate in dress and with that cool air of superiority and efficiency that was part of his assets, descend in his stately and perfect way, approach the door as a butler should, and softly, imperturbably fling that door open. His back retained its stiff straight line, that went so well with the uniform Hatton insisted upon donning, but his head went sideways forward in that inimitable bow that Hatton always reserved for anything especially attractive in the female line.
Upon the threshold there looked back at Hatton, and then beyond him, a girl whom the startled young men took at first to be a perfect stranger. She wore a plain blue serge suit, belted at the waist, with a white collar and jabot. A sailor hat, slightly rolled, crushed down the hair that still shone above the face whose remarkable beauty owed much to a certain quaintness of expression. She stood silently, without moving, for what seemed a long moment to them all, and then suddenly shespoke, breathlessly and with that little catch in her voice, and her tone, her look, her words, her quick motions so characteristic of the little girl they had known, broke the spell of silence and let loose a flood of such warm memories that all the mean and harsh and contemptible thoughts of but a moment since were dissipated forever.
They crowded about her, hanging upon and hungry for her unabashed and delighted words, and dazzled by the girl's uncanny loveliness.
"Jinx! Thad are you! I know you by your so nize fat!"
She had not lost her adorable accent. Indeed, if they could but have realised it, Sunny had changed not at all. She had simply grown up.
Jinx's soft hands were holding the two little fragrant ones thrust so joyously into his own. The fat fellow fought a sudden maddening desire to hug like a bear the girl whose bright eyes were searching his own so lovingly.
"Monty! Oh, you have grow into whole mans.Howit is nize. And you still smile on me troo those glass ad you eye."
Smile! Monty was grinning like the proverbial Cheshire cat. That case of Circoceleat Bellevue hospital had vanished into the dim regions of young Monty's mind. Anyway there were a score of other Internes there, and Monty had his permit in his pocket.
"Bobs! Is thad youself, wiz those fonny liddle hair grow om your mout'.Howit is grow nize on you face. I lig' him there."
Any doubt that Bobs had experienced as to the desirability of that incipient moustache vanished then and there.
And Jerry! Jerry, for the last, to be looked at with shining eyes, till something tightened in his throat, and his mind leaped over the years and felt again that dizzy, tingling, electrical sensation when Sunny had asked him to kiss her.
CHAPTER VIII
That "even tenor of their ways," to which reference has already been made, ceased indeed to bear a remote resemblance to evenness. It may be recorded here, that for one of them at least, Sunny's coming meant the hasty despatch of his peace of mind. Their well laid schemes to be rid of her seemed now in the face of their actions like absurd aberrations that they were heartily ashamed of.
It is astonishing how we are affected by mere clothes. Perhaps if Sunny had appeared at the door of Jerry Hammond's studio arrayed in the shining garments of a Japanese, some measure of their alarm might have remained. But she came to their door as an American girl. That Sunny should have stood the test of American clothes, that she shone in them with a distinction and grace that was all her own, was a matter of extreme pride and delight to her infatuated friends. Appearances play a great part in the imagination and thought of the young American. It was thefantastic conception they had formed of her, and the imagined effect of her strange appearance in America that had filled them with misgiving and alarm—the sneeky sort of apprehension one feels at being made conspicuous and ridiculous. There was an immense relief at the discovery that their fears were entirely unfounded. Sunny appeared a finished product in the art of dressing. Not that she was fashionably dressed. She simply had achieved the look of one who belonged. She was as natural in her clothes as any of their sisters or the girls they knew. There was this difference, however: Sunny was one of those rare beings of earth upon whom the Goddess of Beauty has ineffaceably laid her hands. Her loveliness, in fact, startled one with its rareness, its crystal delicacy. One looked at the girl's face, and caught his breath and turned to look again, with that pang of longing that is almost pain when we gaze upon a masterpiece.
Yet "under the skin" she was the same confiding, appealing, mischievous little Sunny who had pushed her way into the hearts of her friends.
Her mission in America, much as it aroused the mirth of her friends, was a very serious one, and it may be here stated, later, an eminentlysuccessful one. Sunny came as an emissary from the mission school to collect funds for the impoverished mission. Mr. Sutherland, a Scotchman by birth, was not without a canny and shrewd streak to his character, and he had not forgotten the generous contributions in the past of the rich young Americans whose protégé Sunny had been.
All this, however, does not concern the devastating effect of her presence in the studio of Jerry Hammond. There, in fact, Sunny had taken up an apparently permanent residence, settling down as a matter of course and right, and indeed assisted by the confused and alternately dazed and beguiled Jerry.
Her effects consisted of a bag so small, and containing but a few articles of Japanese silk clothing and a tiny gift for each of her dear friends. Indeed, the smallness of Sunny's luggage appealed instantly to her friends, who determined to purchase for her all the pretty clothes her heart should desire. This ambition to deck Sunny in the fine raiment of New York City was satisfactorily realised by each and everyone of the former Syndicate, Sunny accompanying them with alacrity, overjoyed by those delicious shopping tours, the results of which returned in Jinx's Rolls Royce, Monty'staxi, Bobs' messenger boys, and borne by hand by Jerry. These articles, however, became such a bone of contention among her friends, each desiring her to wear his especial choice, that Sunny had her hands full pleasing them all. She compromised by wearing a dress donated by Monty, hat from Jinx, a coat from Jerry, and stockings and gloves from Bobs. It was finally agreed by her friends that there should be a cessation to the buying of further clothes for Sunny. Instead an allowance of money was voted and quickly subscribed to by all, and after that, Sunny, with the fatherly aid of a surprisingly new Hatton, did her own purchasing.
Of her four friends, Jerry was possibly the happiest and the unhappiest at this time. He was a prey to both exhilaration and panic. He moved heaven and earth to make Sunny so comfortable and contented in his studio, that all thought of returning to Japan would be banished forever from her mind. On the other hand, he rushed off, panic stricken and sent telegrams to Professor Barrowes, entreating him to come at once and relieve Jerry of his dangerous charge. His telegrams, however, were unfruitful, for after an aggravating delay, during which Sunny became, like Hatton,one of the habits and necessities of Jerry's life, the Telegraph Company notified him that Professor Barrowes was no longer at that particular school of learning, and that his address there was unknown. Jerry, driven to extremities by the situation in his studio, made himself such a nuisance to the Telegraph Company, that they bestirred themselves finally and ascertained that the last address of Professor Timothy Barrowes was Red Deer, Alberta, Canada. Now Red Deer represented nothing to Jerry Hammond save a town in Canada where a wire would reach his friend. Accordingly he despatched the following:
Professor Timothy Barrowes,Red Deer, Alberta, Canada.Come at once. Sunny in New York. Need you take her charge. Delay dangerous. Waiting for you. Come at once. Answer at once. Important.J. Addison Hammond.
Professor Timothy Barrowes,Red Deer, Alberta, Canada.
Come at once. Sunny in New York. Need you take her charge. Delay dangerous. Waiting for you. Come at once. Answer at once. Important.
J. Addison Hammond.
Professor Barrowes received this frantic wire while sitting on a rock very close to the edge of a deep excavation that had recently been dug on the side of a cliff towering above a certain portion of the old Red Deer River. Below, on a plateau, a gang of men were digging and scraping and hammering at the cliff. Not in the manner of the husky workers ofnorthwestern Canada, but carefully, tenderly. Not so carefully, however, but the tongue of the Professor on the rock above castigated and nagged and warned. Ever and anon Sunny's old friend would leap down into the excavation, and himself assist the work physically.
As stated, Jerry's telegram came to his hand while seated upon aforesaid rock, was opened, and absent-mindedly scanned by Jerry's dear friend, and then thrust hastily into the professor's vest pocket, there to remain for several days, when it accidentally was resurrected, and he most thoughtfully despatched a reply, as follows:
Jeremy Addison Hammond,12 West 67th St.,New York City, U. S. A.Collect.Glad to hear from you. Especially so this time. Discovered dinosaur antedating post pleocene days. Of opinion Red Deer district contains greatest number of fossils of antique period in world. Expect discoveries prove historical event archeological world. Will bring precious find New York about one month or six weeks. Need extra funds transportation dinosaur and guard for same. Expect trouble Canadian government in re-taking valuable find across border. Much envy and propaganda take credit from U. S. for most important discovery of century. Get in communication right parties New York, Washington if necessary. Have consul here wired give full protection and help. Information sentconfidential. Do not want press to get word of remarkable find until fossil set up in museum. See curator about arrangements. May be quoted as estimating age as quaternary period. Wire two thousand dollars extra. Extraordinary find. Greatest moment my life. Note news arrival New York Sunny. Sorry unable be there take charge. Dinornis more important Sunny.Timothy Barrowes.
Jeremy Addison Hammond,12 West 67th St.,New York City, U. S. A.
Collect.
Glad to hear from you. Especially so this time. Discovered dinosaur antedating post pleocene days. Of opinion Red Deer district contains greatest number of fossils of antique period in world. Expect discoveries prove historical event archeological world. Will bring precious find New York about one month or six weeks. Need extra funds transportation dinosaur and guard for same. Expect trouble Canadian government in re-taking valuable find across border. Much envy and propaganda take credit from U. S. for most important discovery of century. Get in communication right parties New York, Washington if necessary. Have consul here wired give full protection and help. Information sentconfidential. Do not want press to get word of remarkable find until fossil set up in museum. See curator about arrangements. May be quoted as estimating age as quaternary period. Wire two thousand dollars extra. Extraordinary find. Greatest moment my life. Note news arrival New York Sunny. Sorry unable be there take charge. Dinornis more important Sunny.
Timothy Barrowes.
What Jerry said when he tore open and read that long expected telegram would not bear printing. Suffice it to say that his good old friend was consigned by the wrathful and disgusted Jerry to a warmer region than Mother Earth. Then, squaring his shoulders like a man, and setting his chin grimly, Jerry took up the burden of life, which in these latter days had assumed for him such bewildering proportions.
That she was an amazing, actual part of his daily life seemed to him incredible, and beguiling and fascinating as life now seemed to him with her, and wretched and uncertain as it was away from her, his alarm increased with every day and hour of her abode in his house. He assured himself repeatedly that there was no more harm in Sunny living in his apartment than there was in her living in his house in Japan. What enraged the befuddled Jerry at this time was the officious attitude of hisfriends. Monty took it upon himself to go room hunting for a place for Sunny, and talked a good deal about the results he expected from a letter written to Philadelphia. He did not refer to Sunny now as a stone. Monty was sure that the place for Sunny was right in that Philadelphia home, presided over by his doting parents and little brothers and sisters, and where it was quite accessible for week-end visits.
Jinx, after a stormy scene with his elder sister in which he endeavoured to force Sunny upon the indignant and suspicious Mrs. Vanderlump, left in high dudgeon the Newport home in which he had been born, and which was his own personal inheritance, and with threats never to speak to his sister again, he took up his residence at his club, just two blocks from the 67th Street studio.
Bobs cleared out two of his friends from the flat, bought some cretonne curtains with outrageous roses and patches of yellow, purple, red and green, hung these in dining room and bedroom and parlour, bought a brand new victrola and some quite gorgeous Chinese rugs, and had a woman in cleaning for nearly a week. To his friends' gibes and suggestions that he apparently contemplated matrimony,Bobs sentimentally rejoined that sooner or later a fellow got tired of the dingy life of a smoke-and-card-filled flat and wanted a bit of real sweetness to take away the curse of life. He acquired two lots somewhere on Long Island and spent considerable time consulting an architect, shamefully ignoring Jerry's gifts in that line.
That his friends, who had so savagely protested again sharing the burden of Sunny, should now try to go behind his back and take her away from him was in the opinion of Jerry a clue to the kind of characters they possessed, and of which hitherto he had no slightest suspicion.
Jerry, at this time, resembled the proverbial dog in the manger. He did not want Sunny himself—that is, he dared not want Sunny—but the thought of her going to any other place filled him with anguish and resentment. Nevertheless he realised the impossibility of maintaining her much longer in his studio. Already her presence there had excited gossip and speculation in the studio building, but in that careless and bohemian atmosphere with which denizens of the art world choose to surround themselves the lovely young stranger in the studio of Jerry Hammond arousedmerely smiling and indulgent curiosity. Occasionally a crude joke or inquiry from a neighbouring artist aroused murder in the soul of the otherwise civilised Jerry. That anyone could imagine anything wrong with Sunny seemed to him beyond belief.
Not that he felt always kindly toward Sunny. She aroused his ire more often than she did his approval. She was altogether too free and unconventional, in the opinion of Jerry, and in a clumsy way he tried to teach her certain rules of deportment for a young woman living in the U. S. A. Sunny, however, was so innocent and so evidently earnest in her efforts to please him, that he invariably felt ashamed and accused himself of being a pig and a brute. Jerry was, indeed, like the unfortunate boatman, drifting toward the rocks, and seeing only the golden hair of the Lorelei.
Sunny had settled down so neatly and completely in his studio that it would have been hard to know how she was ever to be dislodged. Her satisfaction and delight and surprise at every object upon the place was a source of immense satisfaction and entertainment to Jerry. It should be mentioned here, that an unbelievable change could have been observedalso in Hatton. The man was discovered to be human. His face cracked up in smiles that were real, and clucks that bore a remote resemblance to human laughter issued at intervals from the direction of the kitchen, whither he very often hastily departed, his hand over mouth, after some remark or action of Sunny that appeared to smite his funny bone.
The buttons on the wall were a never failing source of enchantment to Sunny. To go into her own room in the dark, brush her hand along the wall, touch an ivory button, and see the room spring into light charmed her beyond words. So, too, the black buttons that, pressed, caused bells to ring in the lower part of the house. But the speaking tube amazed and at first almost terrified her. Jerry sprang the works on her first. While in her room, a sudden screech coming from the wall, she looked panically about her, and then started back as a voice issued forth from that tube, hailing her by name. Spirits! Here in this so solid and material America! It was only after Jerry, getting no response to his calls of "Sunny! Hi! Sunny! Come on down! Come on down! Sunny! I want you!" ran up the stairs, knocked at her door and stoodlaughing at her in the doorway, that the colour came back to her cheeks. He was so delighted with the experiments, that he led her to the telephone and initiated her into that mystery. To watch Sunny's face, as with parted lips, and eyes darkened by excitement, she listened to the voice of Jinx, Monty or Bobs, and then suddenly broke loose and chattered sweet things back, was in the opinion of Jerry worth the price of a dozen telephones. However, he cut short her interviews with the delighted fellows at the other end, as he did not wish to have them impose on her good nature and take up too much of the girl's time.
The victrola and the player-piano worked day and night in Sunny's behalf, and it was not long before she could trill back some of the songs. Upon one occasion they pulled up the rugs, and Sunny had her first lesson in dancing. Jerry told her she took to dancing "like a duck does to water." He honestly believed he was doing a benevolent and worthy act in surrounding the young girl with his arms and moving across the floor with her to the music of the victrola. He would not for worlds have admitted to himself that as his arms encircled Sunny, Jerry felt just about as near to heaven as he ever hoped to get, though premonitionsthat all was not normal with him came hazily to his mind as he dimly realised that that tingling sensation that contact with Sunny created was symptomatic of the chaos within. However, dancing with Sunny, once she had acquired the step, which she, a professional dancer in Japan, sensed immediately, was sheer joy, and all would have been well, had not his friends arrived just when they were not wanted, and, of course, Sunny, the little fool, had instantly wanted to try her new accomplishment upon her admiring and too willing friends. The consequence was Jerry's evening was completely spoiled, and what he meant just as an innocent diversion was turned into a "riotous occasion" by a "bunch of roughnecks," who took advantage of a little innocent girl's eagerness to learn to dance, and handled her "a damn sight too familiarly" to suit the paternal—he considered it paternal—taste of Jerry.
Jerry, as Sunny passed in the arms of the light-footed Jinx, whose dancing was really an accomplishment, registered several vows. One was he proposed to give Sunny herself a good calling down. The other he purposed curtailing some of the visits of the gang, and putting a stop once and for all to the flow of gifts that were in his opinion rotten taste on thepart of Jinx, a joke coming from Monty, plainly suffering a bad case of puppy love, and as for Bobs, no one knew better than Jerry did that he could ill afford to enter into a flower competition with Jinx. That Rolls Royce, when not bearing the enchanted Sunny through the parks and even on little expeditions into the byways and highways of the Great White Road, which runs through Westchester county, was parked not before Jinx's club, or the garage, but, with amazing impudence before the door of that duplex studio. Jerry intended to have a heart-to-heart talk with old Jinx on that score.
Even at home, Sunny had wrought havoc. Before she had been three days upon the place, Hatton, the stony faced and spare of tongue, had confided to her the whole history of his life, and explained how his missus had driven him to drink.
"It's 'ard on a man, miss. 'E tries to do 'is best in life, but it's 'ard, miss, when there's a woman 'as believes the worst, and brings out the worst in a man, miss, and man is only yuman, only yuman, miss, and all yuman beings 'as their failings, as no doubt you know, miss."
Sunny did know. She told Hatton that shewas full of failings. She didn't think him a bad man at all because once in a long time he drank a little bit. Lots of men did that. There was the Count of Matsuyama. He had made many gifts to the Shiba temple, but he loved sake very much, and often in the tea-gardens the girls were kept up very late, because the Count of Matsuyama never returned home till he had drunk all the sake on the place, and that took many hours.
Gratuitously, and filled with a sudden noble purpose, Hatton gave Sunny his solemn promise never again to touch the inebriating cup. She clapped her hands with delight at this, and cried.
"Ho! How you are nicer man now. Mebbe you wife she come bag agin unto you. How thad will be happy for you."
"No, no, miss," sadly and hastily Hatton rejoined, "you see, miss, there was another woman in the case also, what the French call, miss: Shershy la Fam. I'm sorry, miss, but I'm only yuman, beggin' your pardon, miss."
Sunny had assumed many of the duties that were previously Hatton's. The kitchenette was her especial delight. Here swathed in a long pongee smock, her sleeves rolled up, Sunny concocted some of those delectabledishes which her friends named variously: Sunny Syndicate Cocktail; Puree al la Sunny; Potatoes au Sunny; Sweet pickles par la Sunny, and so forth. Her thrift also cut down Jerry's bills considerably, and he was really so proud of her abilities in this line that he gave a special dinner to which he generously invited all three of their mutual friends, and announced at the table that the meal was entirely concocted by Sunny at a price inconceivably low.
The piéce de resistance of this especial feast was a potato dish. Served in a casserole, it might at first sight have been taken for a glorified potatoes au gratin; but, no, when tasted it revealed its superior qualities. The flushed and pleased Sunny, sitting at the head of the table, and dishing out the third or fourth serving to her admiring friends, was induced to reveal to her friends of what the dish was composed. The revelation, it is regrettable to state, convulsed and disconcerted her friends so that they ceased to eat the previously much appreciated dish. Sunny proudly informed them that her dish was made up mainly of potato peelings, washed, minced and scrambled in a mess of odds and ends in the way of pieces of cheese, mushrooms, meat, and variousvegetables garnered from plates of a recently wasteful meal.
Her explanation caused such a profound silence for a moment, which was followed by uneasy and then unrepressed mirth, that she was disconcerted and distressed. Her friends consoled her by telling her that it didn't matter what she made dishes of; everything she did was exactly right, which made it a bit harder to explain that the shining pan under the kitchen sink was the proper receptacle for all leftovers on the plates. She was reconciled completely moreover, when Jerry assured her that the janitor was kicking over the empty dinner pails that she had been sending down the dumbwaiter.
CHAPTER IX
Sunny had certain traits that contributed largely to what seemed almost an unconscious conspiracy to rob Jerry Hammond of his peace of mind. There was a resemblance in her nature to a kitten.
To maintain a proper decorum in his relations with his guest, Jerry was wont, when alone, to form the firm resolution to hold her at arm's length. This was far from being an easy matter. It was impossible for him to be in the room with Sunny and not sooner or later find her in touch with him. She had a habit of putting her hand into his. She slipped under his most rigid guard, and acquired a bad trick of pressing close to his side, and putting her arm through his. This was all very well when they took their long walks through the park or up and down Riverside Drive. She could not see the reason why if she could walk arm in arm with Jerry when they climbed on the top of one of the busses that rolled up the wonderful drive she shouldnot continue linked with her friend. In fact, Sunny found it far more attractive and comfortable to drive arm in arm with Jerry than walk thus with him. For, when walking, she loved to rove off from the paths, to make acquaintance with the squirrels and the friendly dogs.
Her near proximity, however, had its most dangerous effect in the charmed evenings these two spent together, too often, however, marred by the persistent calls of their mutual friends. At these times, Sunny had an uncanny trick of coming up at the back of Jerry, when that unconscious young man by the fireplace was off in a day dream (in which, by the way, in a vague way, herself was always a part), and resting her cheek upon the brown comfortable head, there to stay till her warm presence startled him into wakefulness, and he would explode one of his usual expressions of these days:
"Don't do that, I say!"
"Keep your hands off me, will you?"
"Don't come so close."
"Keep off—keep off, I say."
"I don't like it."
"For heaven's sake, Sunny, will nothing teach you civilised ways?"
At these times Sunny always retired very meekly to a distant part of the room, where she would remain very still and crushed looking, and, shortly, Jerry, overcome with compunction, would coax her to a nearer proximity mentally and physically.
Another disturbing trick which Jerry never had had the heart to ban was that of kneeling directly in front of him, her two hands upon his own knees. From this vantage point, with her friendly expressive and so lovely face raised to his, she would naïvely pour out to him her innocent confidences. After all, he savagely argued within himself, what harm in the world was there in a little girl kneeling by your side, and even laying her head, if it came down to that, at times upon a fellow's knee? It took a rotten mind to discover anything wrong with that, in the opinion of Jerry Hammond.
However, there is a limit to all things, and that limit was reached on a certain evening in early spring, a dangerous season, as we all know. "If you give some people an inch they'll take a mile," Jerry at that time angrily muttered, the humour of the situation not at all appealing to him.
He was going over a publication on SpanishArchitecture, Catalonian work of the 14th and 15th centuries. Sunny was enjoying herself very innocently at the piano player, and Jerry should, as he afterwards admitted to himself, have "left well enough alone." However it be, nothing would do but he must summon Sunny to his side to share the pleasure of looking at these splendid examples of the magnificent work of the great Spanish architect Fabre.
Now Sunny possessed, to an uncanny degree, that gift of understanding which is extremely rare with her sex. She possessed it, in fact, to such a fine degree, that nearly everyone who met her found himself pouring out the history of his life into her sympathetic and understanding little ear. There was something about her way of looking at one, a sort of hanging absorbedly upon one's narrative of their history, that assured the narrator that he not only had the understanding but the sympathy of his pretty listener.
Jerry, therefore, summoned her from her diversions at the piano-player, which she hastened to leave, though the record was her favourite, "Gluhwormchen." Her murmuring exclamations above his shoulder revealed her instant enthusiasm and appreciation of justthose details that Jerry knew would escape the less artistic eye of an ordinary person. She held pages open, to prolong the pleasure of looking at certain window traceries; she picked out easily the Geometrical Gothic type, and wanted Jerry's full explanation as to its difference to those of another period. Her little pink forefinger ever found points of interest in the sketches which made him chuckle with delight and pride. The value of Sunny's criticism and opinion, moreover, was enhanced by the fact that she conveyed to the young man her conviction, that while of course these were incredibly marvellous examples of the skill of ancient Spanish architects, they were not a patch on the work which J. Addison Hammond was going to do in the not far distant future. Though he protested against this with proper modesty, he was nevertheless beguiled and bewitched by the shining dream she called up. He had failed to note that she was perched on the arm of his chair, and that her head rested perilously near to his own. Possibly he would never have discovered this at all had not an accident occurred that sent Hatton, busy on some task or other about the studio, scurrying in undignified flight from the room, with his stony face covered with hishands. From the kitchen regions thereafter came the sound of suppressed clucks, which by this time could have been recognised as Hatton's laughter.
What happened was this: At a moment when a turned leaf revealed a sketch of ravishing splendour, Sunny's breathless admiration, and Jerry's own motion of appreciation (one fist clapped into the palm of the other hand), caused Sunny to slip from the arm of the chair onto Jerry's knee.
Jerry arose. To do him justice, he arose instantly, depositing both book and Sunny upon the floor. He then proceeded to read her such a savage lecture upon her pagan ways, that the evident effect was so instantly apparent on her, that he stopped midway, glared, stared at the crushed little figure, so tenderly closing the upset book, and then turned on his heel and made an ignominious and undignified exit from the room.
"What's the use? What's the use?" demanded Jerry of the unresponsive walls. "Hang it all, this sort of thing has got to stop. What in Sam Hill is keeping that blamed Proff?"
He always liked to imagine at these times that his faith was pinned upon the early comingof Professor Barrowes, when he was assured the hectic state of affairs in his studio would be clarified and Sunny disposed of once and forever. Sunny, however, had been nearly a month now in his studio, and in spite of a hundred telegrams to Professor Barrowes, demanding to know the exact time of his arrival, threatening moreover to hold back that $2,000 required to bring the dashed Dinornis from Red Deer, Alberta, Canada, to New York City, U. S. A., he got no satisfactory response from his old-time teacher. That monomaniac merely replied with letter-long telegrams—very expensive coming from the extreme northwestern part of Canada to New York City, giving more detailed information about the above mentioned Dinornis, or Dynosaurus, or whatever he called it, and explaining why more and more funds were required. It seems the Professor was tangled up in quite a serious dispute with the Canadian authorities. Some indignant English residents of Canada had aroused the alarm of Canadians, by pointing out that Dynosaureses were worth as much as radium, and that a mere Yankee should not be permitted to carry off those fossilized bones of the original inhabitants of Canada, which ought, instead, to bedonated to the noble English nation across the sea.
As Jerry paced his floor he paused to reread the words of the motto recently pinned upon his wall, and, of course, it was as follows: "Honi soit qui mal y pense." That was enough for Jerry. There was no question of the fact that he had been "a pig and a brute," terms often in these days applied by himself to himself. Sunny was certainly not to be blamed for the accident of slipping from the arm of his chair. True, he had already told her that she was not to sit on that arm, but that was a minor matter, and there was no occasion for his making a "mountain out of a molehill."
Having arrived at the conclusion that, as usual, he, not Sunny, was the one to blame, it was in the nature of Jerry that he should hurriedly descend to admit his fault. Downstairs, therefore again, and into the now empty studio. Sounds came from the direction of the kitchen that were entirely too sweet to belong to the "pie-faced" Hatton, whose disgusting recent mirth might mean the loss of his job, ominously thought Jerry.
In the kitchen Sunny was discovered on her knees with her lips close to a small hole in the floor in the corner of the room. She was halfwhistling, half whispering, and she was scattering something into and about that hole, which had been apparently cut out with a vegetable knife, that looked very much like cheese and breadcrumbs. Presently the amazed Jerry saw first one and then another tiny face appear at that hole, and there then issued forth a full-fledged family of the mouse species, young and old, large and small, male and female. The explanation of the previously inexplicable appearance in the studio of countless mice was now perfectly clear, and the guiltlessness of that accused janitor made visible. Jerry's ward had been feeding and cultivating mice! At his exclamation, she arose reproachfully, the mice scampering back into their hole.
"Oh!" said Sunny, regret, not guilt, visible on her face, "you are fright away my honourable mice, and thas hees time eat on hees dinner."
She put the rest of her crumbs into the hole, and called down coaxingly to her pets that breakfast would be ready next day.
"You mustn't feed mice, you little fool!" burst from Jerry. "They'll be all over the house. They are now. Everybody in the building's kicking about it."
"Honourable mice very good animals," said Sunny with conviction. "Mebbe some you and my ancestor are mice now. You kinnod tell 'bout those. Mice got very honourable history ad Japan. I am lig' them very much."
"That'll do. Don't say another word. I'll fix 'em. Hi! you, Hatton! Doggone you, you must have known about this."
"Very sorry, sir, but orders from you, sir, was to allow Miss Sunny to have her way in the kitchen, sir. 'Hi tries to obey you, sir, and 'hi 'adn't the 'eart to deprive Miss Sunny of her honly pets, sir. She's honly yuman, sir, and being alone 'hall day, so young, sir, 'as 'ankerings for hinnocent things to play with."
"That'll do, Hatton. Nail up that hole. Get busy."
Nevertheless, Hatton's words sunk into the soul of Jerry. To think that even the poor working man was kinder to little Sunny than was he! He ignored the fact that as Hatton nailed tin over the guilty hole his shoulders were observed to be shaking, and those spasmodic clucks emanated at intervals also from him. In fact, Hatton, in these days, had lost all his previously polished composure. That is to say, at inconvenient moments, he would burst into this uncontrollable clucking, as forinstance, when waiting on table, observing a guest devouring some special edible concocted by Sunny, he retired precipitately from service at the table to the kitchen, to be discovered there by the irate Jerry, who had followed him, sitting on a chair with tears running down his cheeks. To the threatened kicking if he didn't get up and behave himself, Hatton returned:
"Oh, sir, hi ham honly yuman, and the gentleman was ravim' so about them 'spinnuges,' sir, has 'ees hafter calling them."
"Well, what are they then?" demanded Jerry.
"Them's weeds, sir," whispered Hatton wiping his eyes. "Miss Sunny, I seen her diggin' them up in the lot across the way, and she come up the fire escape with them in 'er petticoat, sir, and she 'ad four cats in the petticoat also, sir. She's feedin' arf the population of cats in this neighbourhood, sir."
Jerry had been only irritated at that time. He knew that Sunny's "weeds" were perfectly edible and far more toothsome in fact than mere spinach. Trust her Japanese knowledge to know what was what in the vegetable kingdom. However, mice were a more serious matter. There was an iron clad rule in the building that no live stock of any kind, neitherdogs, cats, parrots, or birds or reptiles of any description, (babies included in the ban) were to be lodged on these de luxe premises. Still, as Jerry watched Sunny's brimming eyes, the eyes of one who sees her dear friends imprisoned and doomed to execution, while Hatton nailed the tin over the holes, he felt extremely mean and cruel.
"I'm awfully sorry, Sunny, old scout," he said, "but you know we can't possibly havemiceon the place. Now if it were something like—like, well a dog, for instance——"
"Iaregot a nize dog," said Sunny, beginning to smile through her tears.
Apprehension instantly replaced the compunction on Jerry's face—apprehension that turned to genuine horror, however, when Sunny opened the window onto the fire escape, and showed him a large grocer's box, upholstered and padded with a red article that looked suspiciously like a Japanese petticoat. Digging under this padded silk, Sunny brought forth the yellowest, orneriest, scurviest and meanest-looking specimen of the dog family that it had ever been Jerry's misfortune to see. She caught this disreputable object to her breast, and nestled her darling little chin against the wriggling head, that persisted inducking up to release a long red tongue that licked her face with whines of delight and appreciation.
"Sunny! For the love of Mike! Where in the name of all the pagan gods and goddesses of Japan did you get that god-forsaken mutt from? If you wanted a dog, why in Sam Hill didn't you tell me, and I'd have gotten you a regular dog—if they'd let me in the house."
"Jerry, he are a regular dog also. I buyed him from the butcher gentleman, who was mos' kind, and he charge me no moaney for those dog, bi-cause he are say he are poor mans, and those dog came off those street and eat him up those sausage. So that butcher gentleman he are sell him to me, and he are my own dog, and I are love my Itchy mos' bes' of all dogs."
And she hugged her little cur protectingly to her breast, her bright eyes with the defiant look of a little mother at bay.
"Itchy!"
"Thad are my dog's name. The butcher gentleman, he say he are scratch on his itch all those time, so I are name him Itchy. Also I are cure on those itch spot, for I are wash himevery day, and now he are so clean he got only two flea left on his body."
"By what process of mathematics, will you tell me, did you arrive at the figure of two?" demanded the stunned young man, thrusting his two fists deep into his pocket and surveying Sunny and the aforesaid dog as one might curious specimens in the Bronx zoo.
"Two? Two flea?" Sunny passed her hand lovingly and sympathetically over her dog's yellow body, and replied so simply that even an extremely dense person would have been able to answer that arithmetic problem.
"He are scratch him in two place only."
Jerry threw back his head and burst into immoderate laughter. He laughed so hard that he was obliged to sit down on a chair, while Hatton on the floor sat down solidly also, and desisted with his hammering. Jerry's mirth having had full sway, hands in pocket he surveyed Sunny, as, lovingly, she returned her protesting cur to its silken retreat.
"Sunny! Sunny!" said Jerry, shaking his head. "You'll be the death of me yet."
Sunny regarded him earnestly at that.
"No, Jerry, do not say those. I are not want to make you death. Thas very sad—for die."
"What are we going to do about it? They'll never let you keep a dog here. Against the rules."
"No, no, it are no longer 'gainst those rule. I are speag wiz the janitor gentleman, and he are say: 'Thas all ride, seein' it's you!'"
"He did, did he? Got around him too, did you? You'll have the whole place demoralised if you keep on."
"I are also speag ad those landlord," confessed Sunny innocently, "bi-cause he are swear on those janitor gentleman, account someone ad these house are spik to him thad I are got dog. And thad landlord gentleman he come up here ad these studio, and I show him those dog, and he say he are nize dog, and thad those fire escape he is notinside. So I nod break those rule, and he go downstairs spik ad those lady mek those complain, and he say he doan keer if she dam clear out this house. He doan lig' her which even."
Jerry threw up his hands.
"You win, Sunny! Do as you like. Fill the place full if you want to. There's horses and cows to be had if they strike your fancy, and the zoo is full of other kind of live stock. Take your choice."
Sunny, indeed, did proceed to take herchoice. It is true she did not bring horses and cows and wild animals into Jerry's apartment; but she passed the word to her doting friends, and in due time the inmates of that duplex apartment made quite a considerable family, with promise of early increase. There was besides Itchy, Count and Countess Taguchi, overfed canaries, who taught Sunny a new kind of whistle; Mr. and Mrs. Satsuma, goldfish who occupied an ornate glass and silver dish, fern and rock lined donated by Jinx, and Miss Spring Morning, a large Persian cat, whom Sunny named after her old friend of the teahouse of a Thousand Joys, but whose name should have been Mr. Spring Morning.
It was a very happy family indeed, and in time the master of the house became quite accustomed to the pets (pests he called them at first), and had that proud feeling moreover of the contented man of family. He often fed the Satsumas and Taguchis himself, and actually was observed to scratch the head of Itchy, who in these days penetrated into the various rooms of the apartment (Sunny having had especial permission from the janitor gentleman) so long as his presence was noiseless. He wore on his scrawny neck a fine leather and gilt collar that Monty sent all theway to Philadelphia to get for Sunny, thereby earning the bitter resentment of his kid brother, who considered that collar his by rightful inheritance from Monty's own recent kid days. Monty's remorse upon "swiping" said collar was shortlived, however, for Sunny's smile and excitement and the fun they had putting it on Itchy more than compensated for any bitter threats of an unreasonable kid brother. Besides Monty brought peace in that disturbed direction by sending the younger Potter a brand new collar, not, it is true, of the history of the one taken, but much more shiny and semi-adjustable.
CHAPTER X
On the 20th of April, Sunny's friend, "Mr. dear Monty" as she called him (J. Lamont Potter, Jr., was his real name), obtained an indefinite leave of absence from the hospital, and called upon Sunny in the absence of Jerry Hammond. He came directly to the object of his call almost as soon as Sunny admitted him. While indeed she was assisting him to remove that nice, loosely hanging taupe coloured spring coat, that looked so well on Monty, he swung around, as his arms came out of his coat sleeves, and made Sunny an offer of his heart and soul. These the girl very regretfully refused. Follows the gist of Sunny's remarks in rejection of the offer:
"Monty, I do not wan' gettin' marry wiz you jos yet, bi-cause you are got two more year to worg on those hospital; then you are got go unto those John Hoppakins for post—something kind worg also. Then you are go ad those college and hospital in Hy——" Shetried to say Heidelberg, but the word was too much for her, and he broke in impetuously:
"Listen, Sunny, thoseweremy plans, but everything's changed now, since I met you. I've decided to cut it all out and settle down and marry. I've got my degree, and can hang out my shingle. We'll have to economize a bit at first, because the governor, no doubt, will cut me out for doing this; but I'm not in swaddling clothes, and I'll do as I like. So what do you say, Sunny?"
"I say, thas nod ride do those. Your honourable father, he are spend plenty moany for you, and thas unfilial do lig' thad. I thang you, Monty, but I are sawry I kinnod do lig' you ask."
"But look here, Sunny, there are whole heaps of fellows—dubs who never go beyond taking their degree, who go to practising right away, and I can do as they do, as far as that goes, and with you I should worry whether I go up in medicine or not."
"But, Monty, Iwansee you go up—Ho! up, way high to those top. Thas mos' bes' thing do for gentleman. I do nod lig' man who stay down low on ground. Thas nod nize. I do nod wan' make marry wiz gentleman lig' those."
"We-el, I suppose I could go on with the work and study. If I did, would you wait for me? Would you, Sunny?"
"I do not know, Monty. How I kin see all those year come?"
"Well, but you can promise me, can't you?"
"No, Monty, bi-cause mebbe I goin' die, and then thas break promise. Thas not perlite do lig' those."
"Pshaw! There's no likelihood at all of your dying. You're awfully healthy. Anyone can see it by your colouring. By jove, Sunny, you have the prettiest complexion of any girl I've ever seen. Your cheeks are just like flowers. Die! You're bugs to think of it even. So you are perfectly safe in promising."
"We-el, then I promise that mebbe after those five, six year when you are all troo,ifI are not marry wiz someone else, then I goconsidermarry wiz you, Monty."
This gracious speech was sweetened by an engaging smile, and Monty, believing that "half a loaf is better than no loaf" showed his pleasure, though his curiosity prompted him to make anxious inquiry as to possible rivals.
"Bobs asked you yet?"
"No—not yet."
"You wouldn't take him if he did, would you, Sunny?"
"No. Not yet."
"Or any time. Say that."
Sunny laughed.
"Any time, Monty."
"And Jinx? What about Jinx?"
"He are always my good friend."
"You wouldn't marry him, would you?"
"No. I are lig' him as frien'."
Monty pursued no further. He knew of the existence of Jerry's Miss Falconer. Dashed, but not hopeless Monty withdrew.
That was on the 20th of April. Bob's proposal followed on the 22nd. He inveigled Sunny into accompanying him to his polished and glorified flat, which was presided over by an ample bosomed and smiling "mammy" whom Bobs had especially imported from the sunny South.
His guest, having exclaimed and enthused over the really cosy and bright little flat, Bobs, with his fine, clever face aglow, asked her to share it with him. The request frightened Sunny. She had exhausted considerable of her stock of excuses against matrimony to Monty, and she did not want to see that look of hope fade from Mr. dear Bobs' face.
"Oh, Bobs, I arethadsorry, but me? I do not wan make marry jos yet. Please you waid for some udder day when mebbe perhaps I go change those mind."
"It's all right, Sunny."
Bobs took his medicine like a man, his clean cut face slightly paling, as he followed with a question the lightness of which did not deceive the distressed Sunny:
"You're not engaged to anyone else, are you, Sunny?"
"Emgaged? What are those, Bobs?"
"You haven't promised any other lucky dog that you'll marry him, have you?"
"No-o." Sunny shook her bright head. "No one are ask me yet, 'cept Monty, and I are say same ting to him."
"Good!" Bobs beamed through his disappointment on her.
"While there's life there's hope, you know."
He felt that Jinx's chances were slim, and he, too, knew of Miss Falconer and Jerry.
Sunny, by no means elated by her two proposals, confided in Hatton, and received sage advice:
"Miss Sunny, Hi'm not hin a position exactly to advise you, and hits 'ardly my place, miss, but so long as you hasks my hadvice, Igives it you grattus. Now Mr. Potter, 'ees a trifle young for matrimunny, miss—a trifle young, and Mr. Mapson, I 'ear that 'ees not got hany too much money, and hits a beggarly profession 'ees followin', miss. I 'ave 'eard this from Mr. Jerry's hown folks, 'oo more than once 'as cast haspirations against Mr. Jerry's friends, but hi takes it that wot they're sayin' comes near to the truth habout the newspaper as a perfession, miss. Now there's Mr. Crawford, Miss——"
Hatton's voice took on both a respectful and a confidential tone as he came to Jinx.
"Now, Hi flatters myself that Hi'm some judge of yuman nature, miss, and I make bold to say, hif I may, miss, that Mr. Crawford his about halso to pop the 'appy question to you, miss. Now, hif hi was hin your place, miss, 'ees the gentleman hi'd be after 'ooking. His people hare of the harristocrissy of Hamerica—so far, miss, as Hamerica can 'ave harristocrissy—and Mr. Crawford his the hair to a varst fortune, miss. There's no telling to wot 'eights you might climb if you buckles up with Mr. Crawford, Miss."
"Ho! Hatton, I lig' all those my frien' jos same. Me? I would lig' marry all those, but I kinnod do."
"'Ardly, miss, 'ardly. Hamerica is 'ardly a pollagamous country, though 'hit his the 'ome of the Mormon people."
"Mormon?"
"A church, miss; a sex of people wots given to pollagummy, which is, I takes it, too 'ard and big a word for you, miss, bein' a forriner, to hunderstand, so hi'll explain a bit clearer, miss. The Mormon people hacquire several wives, some helders 'avin' the reputation of bein' in the class with hour hown King 'Enry the Heighth, and worse, miss,—with Solomon 'imself, I 'ave 'eard it said."
"Ho-h-a-!" said Sunny thoughtfully. "Thad is very nize—those Mormon. Thas lig' Japanese emperor. Some time he got lots wife."
Hatton wiped the sweat from his brow. He had gotten upon a subject somewhat beyond his depths, and the young person before him rather scandalised his ideas of what a young lady's views on such matters should be. He had hoped to shock Sunny somewhat. Instead she sighed with an undeniably envious accent as he told her of the reprehensible Mormons. After a moment she asked very softly:
"Hatton, mebbe Jerry ask me those same question."
Hatton turned his back, and fussed with the dishes in the sink. He too knew about Miss Falconer.
"'Ardly, miss, 'ardly."
"Why not, Hatton?"
"If you'll pardon me, I 'ave a great deal of work before me. Hi'm in a 'urry. 'Ave you fed the Count and Countess Taguchi, may I ask, miss."
"Hatton,ifa mannotask girl to make marry wiz him, what she can do?"
"Well now, miss, you got me there. Has far as Hi'm hable to see personally, miss, there haren't nothing left for 'er to do except wait for the leap year."
"Leap year? What are those, Hatton?"
"A hodd year, miss—comes just in so often, miss, due to come next year, halso. When the leap year comes, miss, then the ladies do the popping—they harsks the 'appy question, miss."
"O-h-h-! Thas very nize. I wish it are leap year now," said Sunny wistfully.
"Hit'll come, miss. Hit's on hit's way. A few months and then the ladies' day will dawn," and Hatton, moving about with cheer, clucked at the thought.
CHAPTER XI
A week after Bobs proposed to Sunny, Jinx, shining like the rising sun by an especially careful grooming administered by his valet, a flower adorning his lapel, and a silk hat topping his head, with a box of chocolates large enough to hold an Easter bonnet in his hand, and a smaller box of another kind in his vest pocket, presented himself at Jerry Hammond's studio. Flowers preceded and followed this last of Sunny's ardent suitors.
He was received by a young person arrayed in a pink pongee smock, sleeves rolled up, revealing a pair of dimpled arms, hair in distracting disorder, and a little nose on which seductively perched a blotch of flour, which the infatuated Jinx was requested to waft away with his silken handkerchief.
Sunny's cheeks were flushed from close proximity to that gas stove, and her eyes were bright with the warfare which she waged incessantly upon the aforesaid honourable stove. In the early days of her appearance at thestudio—by the way, she had been domiciled there a whole month—Sunny's operations at the gas stove had had disastrous results. Her attempt to boil water by the simple device of turning on the gas, as she did the electric light was alarming in its odorous effects, but her efforts to blow out the oven was almost calamitous, and caused no end of excitement, for it singed her hair and eyebrows and scorched an arm that required the persistent and solicitous attention of her four friends, a doctor and the thoroughly agitated Hatton, on whose head poured the full vials of Jerry's wrath and blame. In fact, this accident almost drove Hatton to desert what he explained to Sunny was the "water wagon."
After that Sunny was strictly ordered by Jerry to keep out of the kitchen. Realising, however, that she could not be trusted on that score, he took half a day off from the office, and gave her a full course of instruction in the mysteries and works of said gas stove. It should be assumed therefore that by this time Sunny should have acquired at least a primary knowledge of the stove. Not so, however. She never lit the oven but she threw salt about to propitiate the oni (goblin) which she was sure had its home somewhere in that strangefire, and she hesitated to touch any of the levers once the fire was lit.
Most of the dishes created by Sunny were more or less under the eye of Hatton, but on this day Hatton had stepped out to the butcher's. Therefore Jinx's arrival was hailed by Sunny with appreciation and relief, and she promptly lead the happy fellow to the kitchen and solicited his advice. Now Jinx, the son of the plutocratic rich, had never been inside a kitchen since his small boyhood, and then his recollection of said portion of the house was of a vast white place, where tiles and marble and white capped cooks prevailed, and small boys were chuckled over or stared at and whispered about.
The dimensions of Sunny's kitchen were about seven by nine feet, and it is well to mention at this moment that the room registered 95 degrees Fahrenheit. Jinx weighed two hundred and forty-five pounds, stripped. His emotions, his preparations, his hurry to enter the presence of his charmer, to say nothing of a volcanic heart, all contributed to add to the heat and discomfort of the fat young man down whose ruddy cheeks the perspiration rolled. Jinx had come upon a mission that in all times in the history of the world, subsequentto cave days, has called for coolness, tact, and as attractive a physical seeming as it is possible to attain.
Sunny drew her friend along to that gas stove, kneeled on the floor, making room for him to kneel beside her—no easy "stunt" for a fat man—opened the lower door and revealed to him the jets on full blaze. Jinx shook his head. The problem was beyond him, but even as his head shook he sniffed a certain fragrant odour that stole directly to a certain point in Jinx's anatomy that Sunny would quaintly have designated as his "honourable insides." The little kitchen, despite its heat, contained in that oven, Jinx knew, that which was more attractive than anything the cool studio could offer. Seating himself heavily on a frail kitchen chair, which creaked ominously under his weight, Jinx awaited hopefully what he felt sure was soon to follow.