In Which the Telephone Continues Ringing
When he had finished writing he sorted out some silver, and handed it and the yellow paper to Sacharissa.
"It's dark in here. Would you mind reading it aloud to me to see if I've made it plain?" he asked.
"Certainly," said Sacharissa; and she read:
MRS. DELANCY COURLAND,Tuxedo.I'm stuck in an idiotic elevator at 1008-1/2 Fifth Avenue. If I don't appear by New Year's you'll know why. Be careful that no reporters get hold of this.KILLIAN VAN K. VANDERDYNK.
Tuxedo.
I'm stuck in an idiotic elevator at 1008-1/2 Fifth Avenue. If I don't appear by New Year's you'll know why. Be careful that no reporters get hold of this.
KILLIAN VAN K. VANDERDYNK.
Sacharissa flushed deeply. "I can't send this," she said.
"Why not?" demanded the young man, irritably.
"Because, Mr. Vanderdynk, my father, brother-in-law, married sister, and three younger sisters are expected at the Courlands'. Imagine what effect such a telegram would have on them!"
"Then cross out the street and number," he said; "just say I'm stuck in a strange elevator."
She did so, rang, and a servant took away the telegram.
"Now," said the heir apparent to the Prince Regency of Manhattan, "there are two things still" possible. First, you might ring up police headquarters and ask for aid; next, request assistance from fire headquarters."
"If I do," she said, "wouldn't the newspapers get hold of it?"
"You are perfectly right," he said.
She had now drawn her chair so close to the gilded grille that, hands resting upon it, she could look down into the car where sat the scion of the Vanderdynks on a flimsy Louis XV chair.
"I can't express to you how sorry I am," she said. "Is there anything I can do to--to ameliorate your imprisonment?"
He looked at her in a bewildered way.
"You don't expect me to remain here until after New Year's, do you?" he inquired.
"I don't see how you can avoid it. Nobody seems to want to work until after New Year's."
"Stay in a cage--two days and a night!"
"Perhaps I had better call up the police."
"No, no! Wait. I'll tell you what to do. Start that man, Ferdinand, on a tour of the city. If he hunts hard enough and long enough he'll find some plumber or locksmith or somebody who'll come."
She rang for Ferdinand; together they instructed him, and he went away, promising to bring salvation in some shape.
Which promise made the young man more cheerful and smoothed out the worried pucker between Sacharissa's straight brows.
"I suppose," she said, "that you will never forgive my maid for this--or me either."
He laughed. "After all," he admitted, "it's rather funny."
"I don't believe you think it's funny."
"Yes, I do."
"Didn't you want to go to Tuxedo?"
"I!" He looked up at the pretty countenance of Sacharissa. "Ididwant to--a few minutes ago."
"And now that you can't your philosophy teaches you that youdon'twant to?"
They laughed at each other in friendly fashion.
"Perhaps it's my philosophy," he said, "but" I really don't care very much.... I'm not sure that I care at all.... In fact, now that I think of it, why should I have wished to go to Tuxedo? It's stupid to want to go to Tuxedo when New York is so attractive."
"Do you know," she said reflectively, "that I came to the same conclusion?"
"When?"
"This morning."
"Be-before you--I----"
"Oh, yes," she said rather hastily, "before you came----"
She broke off, pink with consternation. What a ridiculous thing to say! What on earth was twisting her tongue to hint at such an absurdity?
She said, gravely, with heightened color: "I was standing by the window this morning, thinking, and it occurred to me that I didn't care to go to Tuxedo.... When did you changeyourmind?"
"A few minutes a--that is--well, I neverreallywanted to go. It's jollier in town. Don't you think so? Blue sky, snow--er--and all that?"
"Yes," she said, "it is perfectly delightful in town to-day."
He assented, then looked discouraged.
"Perhaps you would like to go out?" he said.
"I? Oh, no.... The sun on the snow is bad for one's eyes; don't you think so?"
"Very.... I'm terribly sorry that I'm giving you so much trouble."
"I don't mind--really. If only I could do something for you."
"You are."
"I?"
"Yes; you are being exceedingly nice to me. I am afraid you feel under obligations to remain indoors and----"
"Truly, I don't. I was not going out."
She leaned nearer and looked through the bars: "Are you quite sure you feel comfortable?"
"I feel like something in a zoo!"
She laughed. "That reminds me," she said, "have you had any luncheon?"
He had not, it appeared, after a little polite protestation, so she rang for Sparks.
Her own appetite, too, had returned when the tray was brought; napkin and plate were passed through the grille to him, and, as they lunched, he in his cage, she close to the bars, they fell into conversation, exchanging information concerning mutual acquaintances whom they had expected to meet at the Delancy Courlands'.
"So you see," she said, "that if I had not changed my mind about going to Tuxedo this morning you would not be here now. Nor I.... And we would never have--lunched together."
"That didn't alter things," he said, smiling. "If you hadn't been ill you would have gone to Tuxedo, and I should have seen you there."
"Then, whatever I did made no difference," she assented, thoughtfully, "for we were bound to meet, anyway."
He remained standing close to the grille, which, as she was seated, brought his head on a level with hers.
"It would seem," he said laughingly, "as though we were doomed to meet each other, anyway. It looks like a case of Destiny to me."
She started slightly: "What did you say?"
"I said that it looks as though Fate intended us to meet, anyhow. Don't you think so?"
She remained silent.
He added cheerfully: "I never was afraid of Fate."
"Would you care for a--a book--or anything?" she asked, aware of a new constraint in her voice.
"I don't believe I could see to read in here.... Are you--going?"
"I--ought to." Vexed at the feeble senselessness of her reply she found herself walking down the landing, toward nowhere in particular. She turned abruptly and came back.
"Do you want a book?" she repeated.
"Oh, I forgot that you can't see to read. But perhaps you might care to smoke."
"Are you going away?"
"I--don't mind your smoking."
He lighted a cigarette; she looked at him irresolutely.
"You mustn't think of remaining," he said. Whereupon she seated herself.
"I suppose I ought to try to amuse you--till Ferdinand returns with a plumber," she said.
He protested: "I couldn't think of asking so much from you."
"Anyway, it's my duty," she insisted. "I ought."
"Why?"
"Because you are under my roof--a guest."
"Please don't think----"
"But I really don't mind! If there is anything I can do to make your imprisonment easier----"
"It is easy. I rather like being here."
"It is very amiable of you to say so."
"I really mean it."
"How can youreallymean it?"
"I don't know, but I do." In their earnestness they had come close to the bars; she stood with both hands resting on the grille, looking in; he in a similar position, looking out.
He said: "I feel like an occupant of the Bronx, and it rather astonishes me that you haven't thrown me in a few peanuts."
She laughed, fetched her box of chocolates, then began seriously: "If Ferdinand doesn't find anybody I'm afraid you might be obliged to remain to dinner."
"That prospect," he said, "is not unpleasant. You know when one becomes accustomed to one's cage it's rather a bore to be let out."
They sampled the chocolates, she sitting close to the cage, and as the box would not go through the bars she was obliged to hand them to him, one by one.
"I wonder," she mused, "how soon Ferdinand will find a plumber?"
He shrugged his shoulders.
She bent her adorable head, chose a chocolate and offered it to him.
'Are you not terribly impatient?' she inquired
"Are you not terribly impatient?" she inquired.
"Not--terribly."
Their glances encountered and she said hurriedly:
"I am sure you must be perfectly furious with everybody in this house. I--I think it is most amiable of you to behave so cheerfully about it."
"As a matter of fact," he said, "I'm feeling about as cheerful as I ever felt in my life."
"Cooped up in a cage?"
"Exactly."
"Which may fall at any--" The idea was a new one to them both. She leaned forward in sudden consternation. "I never thought of that!" she exclaimed. "You don't think there's any chance of its falling, do you?"
He looked at the startled, gray eyes so earnestly fixed on his. The sweet mouth quivered a little--just a little--or he thought it did.
"No," he replied, with a slight catch in his voice, "I don't believe it's going to fall."
"Perhaps you had better not move around very much in it. Be careful, I beg of you. You will, won't you, Mr. Vanderdynk?"
"Please don't let it bother you," he said, stepping toward her impulsively.
"Oh, don't, don't move!" she exclaimed. "You really must keep perfectly still. Won't you promise me you will keep perfectly still?"
"I'll promise you anything," he said a little wildly.
Neither seemed to notice that he had overdone it.
She drew her chair as close as it would go to the grille and leaned against it.
"Youwillkeep up your courage, won't you?" she asked anxiously.
"Certainly. By the way, how far is it to the b-basement?"
She turned quite white for an instant, then:
"I think I'd better go and ring up the police."
"No! A thousand times no! I couldn't stand that."
"But the car might--drop before----"
"Better decently dead than publicly paragraphed.... I haven't the least idea that this thing is going to drop.... Anyway, it's worth it," he added, rather vaguely.
"Worth--what?" she asked, looking into his rather winning, brown eyes.
"Being here," he said, looking into her engaging gray ones.
After a startling silence she said calmly: "Will you promise me not to move or shake the car till I return?"
"You won't be very long, will you?"
"Not--very," she replied faintly.
She walked into the library, halted in the center of the room, hands clasped behind her. Her heart was beating like a trip hammer.
"I might as well face it," she said to herself; "he is--by far--the most thoroughly attractive man I have ever seen.... I--Idon'tknow what's the matter," she added piteously.... "if it's that machine William made I can't help it; I don't care any longer; I wish----"
A sharp crack from the landing sent her out there in a hurry, pale and frightened.
"Something snapped somewhere," explained the young man with forced carelessness, "some unimportant splinter gave way and the thing slid down an inch or two."
"D-do you think----"
"No, I don't. But it's perfectly fine of you to care."
"C-care? I'm a little frightened, of course.... Anybody would be.... Oh, I wish you were out and p-perfectly safe." "If I thought you could ever really care what became of a man like me----"
Killian Van K. Vanderdynk's aristocratic senses began gyrating; he grasped the bars, the back of his hand brushed against hers, and the momentary contact sent a shock straight through the scion of that celebrated race.
She seated herself abruptly; a delicate color grew, staining her face.
Neither spoke. A long, luminous sunbeam fell across the landing, touching the edge of her hair till it glimmered like bronze afire. The sensitive mouth was quiet, the eyes, very serious, were lifted from time to time, then lowered, thoughtfully, to the clasped fingers on her knee.
Could it be possible? How could it be possible?--with a man she had never before chanced to meet--with a man she had seen for the first time in her life only an hour or so ago! Such things didn't happen outside of short stories. There was neither logic nor common decency in it. Had she or had she not any ordinary sense remaining?
She raised her eyes and looked at the heir of the Vanderdynks.
Of course anybody could see he was unusually attractive--that he had that indefinable something about him which is seldom, if ever, seen outside of fiction or of Mr. Gibson's drawings--perhaps it is entirely confined to them--except in this one very rare case.
Sacharissa's eyes fell.
Another unusual circumstance was engaging her attention, namely, that his rather remarkable physical perfection appeared to be matched by a breeding quite as faultless, and a sublimity of courage in the face of destruction itself, which----
Sacharissa lifted her gray eyes.
There he stood, suspended over an abyss, smoking a cigarette, bravely forcing himself to an attitude of serene insouciance, while the basement yawned for him! Machine or no machine, how could any girl look upon such miraculous self-control unmoved?Shecould not. It was natural that a woman should be deeply thrilled by such a spectacle--and William Destyn's machine had nothing to do with it--not a thing! Neither had psychology, nor demonology, nor anything, with wires or wireless. She liked him, frankly. Who wouldn't? She feared for him, desperately. Who wouldn't? She----
"C-r-rack!"
"Oh--whatis it!" she cried, springing to the grille.
"I don't know," he said, somewhat pale. "The old thing seems--to be sliding."
"Giving way!"
"A--little--I think----"
"Mr. Vanderdynk! Imustcall the police----"
"Cr-rackle--crack-k-k!" went the car, dropping an inch or two.
With a stifled cry she caught his hands through the bars, as though to hold him by main strength.
"Are you crazy?" he said fiercely, thrusting them away. "Be careful! If the thing drops you'll break your arms!"
"I--I don't care!" she said breathlessly. "I can't let----"
"Crack!" But the car stuck again.
"Iwillcall the police!" she cried.
"The papers may make fun ofyou."
"Was it formeyou were afraid? Oh, Mr. Vanderdynk! What do I care for ridicule compared to--to----"
The car had sunk so far in the shaft now that she had to kneel and put her head close to the floor to see him.
"I will only be a minute at the telephone," she said. "Keep up courage; I am thinking of you every moment."
"W-will you let me say one word?" he stammered.
"Oh, what? Be quick, I beg you."
"It's only goodbye--in case the thing drops. May I say it?"
"Y-yes--yes! But say it quickly."
"And if it doesn't drop after all, you won't be angry at what I'm going to say?"
"N-no. Oh, for Heaven's sake, hurry!"
"Then--you are the sweetest woman in the world!... Goodbye--Sacharissa-- dear."
She sprang up, dazed, and at the same moment a terrific crackling and splintering resounded from the shaft, and the car sank out of sight.
Faint, she swayed for a second against the balustrade, then turned and ran downstairs, ears strained for the sickening crash from below.
There was no crash, no thud. As she reached the drawing-room landing, to her amazement a normally-lighted elevator slid slowly down, came to a stop, and the automatic grilles opened quietly.
As Killian Van K. Vanderdynk crept forth from the elevator, Sacharissa's nerves gave way; his, also, seemed to disintegrate; and they stood for some moments mutually supporting each other, during which interval unaccustomed tears fell from the gray eyes, and unaccustomed words, breathed brokenly, reassured her; and, altogether unaccustomed to such things, they presently found themselves seated in a distant corner of the drawing-room, still endeavoring to reassure each other with interclasped hands.
They said nothing so persistently that the wordless minutes throbbed into hours; through the windows the red west sent a glowing tentacle into the room, searching the gloom for them.
It fell, warm, across her upturned throat, in the half light.
For her head lay back on his shoulder; his head was bent down, lips pressed to the white hands crushed fragrantly between his own.
A star came out and looked at them with astonishment; in a little while the sky was thronged with little stars, all looking through the window at them.
Her maid knocked, backed out hastily and fled, distracted. Then Ferdinand arrived with a plumber.
Later the butler came. They did not notice him until he ventured to cough and announce dinner.
The interruptions were very annoying, particularly when she was summoned to the telephone to speak to her father.
"What is it, dad?" she asked impatiently.
"Are you all right?"
"Oh, yes," she answered, carelessly; "we are all right, dad. Goodbye."
"We? Who the devil is 'We'?"
"Mr. Vanderdynk and I. We're taking my maid and coming down to Tuxedo this evening together. I'm in a hurry now."
"What!!!"
"Oh, it's all right, dad. Here, Killian, please explain things to my father."
Vanderdynk released her hand and picked up the receiver as though it had been a live wire.
"Is that you, Mr. Carr?" he began--stopped short, and stood listening, rigid, bewildered, turning redder and redder as her father's fluency increased. Then, without a word, he hooked up the receiver.
"Is it all right?" she asked calmly. "Was dad--vivacious?"
The young man said: "I'd rather go back into that elevator than go to Tuxedo.... But--I'm going."
"So am I," said Bushwyck Carr's daughter, dropping both hands on her lover's shoulders.... "Was he really very--vivid?"
"Very."
The telephone again rang furiously.
He bent his head; she lifted her face and he kissed her.
After a while the racket of the telephone annoyed them, and they slowly moved away out of hearing.
The Green Mouse Stirs
"I've been waiting half an hour for you," observed Smith, dryly, as Beekman Brown appeared at the subway station, suitcase in hand.
"It was a most extraordinary thing that detained me," said Brown, laughing, and edging his way into the ticket line behind his friend where he could talk to him across his shoulder; "I was just leaving the office, Smithy, when Snuyder came in with a card."
"Oh, all right--of course, if----"
"No, it was not a client; I must be honest with you."
"Then you had a terrible cheek to keep me here waiting."
"It was a girl," said Beekman Brown.
Smith cast a cold glance back at him over his left shoulder.
"What kind of a girl?"
"A most extraordinary girl. She came on--on a matter----"
"Was it business or a touch?"
"Not exactly business."
"Ornamental girl?" demanded Smith.
"Yes--exceedingly; but it wasn't that----
"Oh, it was not that which kept you talking to her half an hour while I've sat suffocating in this accursed subway!"
"No, Smith; her undeniably attractive features and her--ah--winning personality had nothing whatever to do with it. Buy the tickets and I'll tell you all about it."
Smith bought two tickets. A north bound train roared into the station. The young men stepped aboard, seated themselves, depositing their suitcases at their feet.
"Now what about that winning-looker who really didn't interest you?" suggested Smith in tones made slightly acid by memory of his half hour waiting.
"Smith, it was a most unusual episode. I was just leaving the office to keep my appointment with you when Snuyder came in with a card----"
"You've said that already."
"But I didn't tell you what was on that card, did I?"
"I can guess."
"No, you can't. Her name was not on the card. She was not an agent; she had nothing to sell; she didn't want a position; she didn't ask for a subscription to anything. And what do you suppose was on that card?"
"Well, what was on the card, for the love of Mike?" snapped Smith. "I'll tell you. The card seemed to be an ordinary visiting card; but down in one corner was a tiny and beautifully drawn picture of a green mouse."
"A--what?"
"A mouse."
"G-green?"
"Pea green.... Come, now, Smith, if you were just leaving your office and your clerk should come in, looking rather puzzled and silly, and should hand you a card with nothing on it but a little green mouse, wouldn't it give you pause?"
"I suppose so."
Brown removed his straw hat, touched his handsome head with his handkerchief, and continued:
"I said to Snuyder: 'What the mischief is this?' He said: 'It's for you. And there's an exceedingly pretty girl outside who expects you to receive her for a few moments.' I said: 'But what has this card with a green mouse on it got to do with that girl or with me?' Snuyder said he didn't know and that I'd better ask her. So I looked at my watch and I thought of you----"
"Yes, you did."
"I tell you I did. Then I looked at the card with the green mouse on it.... And I want to ask you frankly, Smith, what wouldyouhave done?"
"Oh, what you did, I suppose," replied Smith, wearily. "Go on."
"I'm going. She entered----"
"She was tall and squeenly; you probably forgot that," observed Smith in his most objectionable manner.
"Probably not; she was of medium height, as a detail of external interest. But, although rather unusually attractive in a merely superficial and physical sense, it was instantly evident from her speech and bearing, that, in her, intellect dominated; her mind, Smithy, reigned serene, unsullied, triumphant over matter."
Smith looked up in amazement, but Brown, a reminiscent smile lighting his face, went on:
"She had a very winsome manner--a way of speaking--so prettily in earnest, so grave. And she looked squarely at me all the time----"
"So you contributed to the Home for Unemployed Patagonians."
"Would you mind shutting up?" asked Brown.
"No."
"Then try to listen respectfully. She began by explaining the significance of that pea-green mouse on the card. It seems, Smith, that there is a scientific society called The Green Mouse, composed of a few people who have determined to apply, practically, certain theories which they believe have commercial value."
"Was she," inquired Smith with misleading politeness, "what is known as an 'astrologist'?"
"She was not. She is the president, I believe, of The Green Mouse Society. She explained to me that it has been indisputably proven that the earth is not only enveloped by those invisible electric currents which are now used instead of wires to carry telegraphic messages, but that this world of ours is also belted by countless psychic currents which go whirling round the earth----"
"Whatkind of currents?"
"Psychic."
"Which circle the earth?"
"Exactly. If you want to send a wireless message you hitch on to a current, don't you?--or you tap it--or something. Now, they have discovered that each one of these numberless millions of psychic currents passes through two, living, human entities of opposite sex; that, for example, all you have got to do to communicate with the person who is on the same psychical current that you are, is to attune your subconscious self to a given intensity and pitch, and it will be like communication by telephone, no matter how far apart you are."
"Brown!"
"What?"
"Did she go to your office to tell you that sort of--of--information?"
"Partly. She was perfectly charming about it. She explained to me that all nature is divided into predestined pairs, and that somewhere, at some time, either here on earth or in some of the various future existences, this predestined pair is certain to meet and complete the universal scheme as it has been planned. Do you understand, Smithy?"
Smith sat silent and reflective for a while, then:
"You say that her theory is that everybody owns one of those psychic currents?"
"Yes."
"I am on a private psychic current whirling around this globe?"
"Sure."
"And some--ah--young girl is at the other end?"
"Sure thing."
"Then if I could only get hold of my end of the wire I could--ah--call her up?"
"I believe that's the idea."
"And--she's for muh?"
"So they say."
"Is--is there any way to get a look at her first?"
"You'd have to take her anyway, sometime."
"But suppose I didn't like her?"
The two young men sat laughing for a few moments, then Brown went on:
"You see, Smith, my interview with her was such a curious episode that about all I did was to listen to what she was saying, so I don't know how details are worked out. She explained to me that The Green Mouse Society has just been formed, not only for the purpose of psychical research, but for applying practically and using commercially the discovery of the psychic currents. That's what The Green Mouse is trying to do: form itself into a company and issue stocks and bonds----"
"What?"
"Certainly. It sounds like a madman's dream at first, but when you come to look into it--for instance, think of the millions of clients such a company would have. As example, a young man, ready for marriage, goes to The Green Mouse and pays a fee. The Green Mouse sorts out, identifies, and intercepts the young man's own particular current, hitches his subconscious self to it, and zip!--he's at one end of an invisible telephone and the only girl on earth is at the other.... What's the matter with their making a quick date for an introduction?"
Smith said slowly: "Do you mean to tell me that any sane person came to you in your office with a proposition to take stock in such an enterprise?"
"She did not even suggest it."
"What did she want, then?"
"She wanted," said Brown, "a perfectly normal, unimaginative business man who would volunteer to permit The Green Mouse Society to sort out his psychic current, attach him to it, and see what would happen."
"She wants to experiment onyou?"
"So I understand."
"And--you're not going to let her, are you?"
"Why not?"
"Because it's--it's idiotic!" said Smith, warmly. "I don't believe in such things--you don't, either--nobody does--but, all the same, you can't be perfectly sure in these days what devilish sort of game you might be up against."
Brown smiled. "I told her, very politely, that I found it quite impossible to believe in such things; and she was awfully nice about it, and said it didn't matter what I believed. It seems that my name was chosen by chance--they opened the Telephone Directory at random and she, blindfolded, made a pencil mark on the margin opposite one of the names on the page. It happened to be my name. That's all."
"Wouldn't let her do it!" said Smith, seriously.
"Why not, as long as there's absolutely nothing in it? Besides, if it pleases her to have a try why shouldn't she? Besides, I haven't the slightest intention or desire to woo or wed anybody, and I'd like to see anybody make me."
"Do you mean to say that you told her to go ahead?"
"Certainly," said Brown serenely. "And she thanked me very prettily. She's well bred--exceptionally."
"Oh! Then what did you do?"
"We talked a little while."
"About what?"
"Well, for instance, I mentioned that curiously-baffling sensation which comes over everybody at times--the sudden conviction that everything that you say and do has been said and done by you before--somewhere. Do you understand?"
"Oh, yes."
"And she smiled and said that such sensations were merely echoes from the invisible psychic wire, and that repetitions from some previous incarnation were not unusual, particularly when the other person through whom the psychic current passed, was near by."
"You mean to say that when a fellow has that queer feeling that it has all happened before, the--the predestined girl is somewhere in your neighborhood?"
"That is what my pretty informant told me."
"Who," asked Smith, "is this pretty informant?"
"She asked permission to withhold her name."
"Didn't she ask you to subscribe?"
"No; she merely asked for the use of my name as reference for future clients if The Green Mouse Society was successful in my case."
"What did you say?"
Brown laughed. "I said that if any individual or group of individuals could induce me, within a year, to fall in love with and pay court to any living specimen of human woman I'd cheerfully admit it from the house- tops and take pleasure in recommending The Green Mouse to everybody I knew who yet remained unmarried."
They both laughed.
"What rot we've been talking," observed Smith, rising and picking up his suitcase. "Here's our station, and we'd better hustle or we'll lose the boat. I wouldn't miss that week-end party for the world!"
"Neither would I," said Beekman Brown.
Concerning the Sudden Madness of One Brown
As the two young fellows, carrying their suitcases, emerged from the subway at Times Square into the midsummer glare and racket of Broadway and Forty-second Street, Brown suddenly halted, pressed his hand to his forehead, gazed earnestly up at the sky as though trying to recollect how to fly, then abruptly gripped Smith's left arm just above the elbow and squeezed it, causing the latter gentleman exquisite discomfort.
"Here! Stop it!" protested Smith, wriggling with annoyance.
Brown only gazed at him and then at the sky.
"Stop it!" repeated Smith, astonished. "Why do you pinch me and then look at the sky? Is--is a monoplane attempting to alight on me?Whatis the matter with you, anyway?"
"That peculiar consciousness," said Brown, dreamily, "is creeping over me. Don't move--don't speak--don't interrupt me, Smith."
"Let go of me!" retorted Smith.
"Hush! Wait! It's certainly creeping over me."
"What's creeping over you?"
"You know what I mean. I am experiencing that strange feeling that all-- er--allthis--has happened before."
"All what?--confound it!"
"Allthis!My standing, on a hot summer day, in the infernal din of some great city; and--and I seem to recall it vividly--after a fashion-- the blazing sun, the stifling odor of the pavements; I seem to remember that very hackman over there sponging the nose of his horse--even that pushcart piled up with peaches! Smith! What is this maddeningly elusive memory that haunts me--haunts me with the peculiar idea that it has all occurred before?... Do you know what I mean?"
"I've just admitted to you that everybody has that sort of fidget occasionally, and there's no reason to stand on your hindlegs about it. Come on or we'll miss our train."
But Beekman Brown remained stock still, his youthful and attractive features puckered in a futile effort to seize the evanescent memories that came swarming--gnatlike memories that teased and distracted.
"It's as if the entire circumstances were strangely familiar," he said; "as though everything that you and I do and say had once before been done and said by us under precisely similar conditions--somewhere--sometime."
"We'll miss that boat at the foot of Forty-second Street," cut in Smith impatiently. "And if we miss the boat we lose our train."
Brown gazed skyward.
"I never felt this feeling so strongly in all my life," he muttered; "it's--it's astonishing. Why, Smith, Iknewyou were going to say that."
"Say what?" demanded Smith.
"That we would miss the boat and the train. Isn't it funny?"
"Oh, very. I'll say it again sometime if it amuses you; but, meanwhile, as we're going to that week-end at the Carringtons we'd better get into a taxi and hustle for the foot of West Forty-second Street. Is there anything very funny in that?"
"I knewthat, too. I knew you'd say we must take a taxi!" insisted Brown, astonished at his own "clairvoyance."
"Now, look here," retorted Smith, thoroughly vexed; "up to five minutes ago you were reasonable. What the devil's the matter with you, Beekman Brown?"
"James Vanderdynk Smith, I don't know. Good Heavens! I knew you were going to say that to me, and that I was going to answer that way!"
"Are you coming or are you going to talk foolish on this broiling curbstone the rest of the afternoon?" inquired Smith, fiercely.
"Jim, I tell you that everything we've done and said in the last five minutes we have done and said before--somewhere--perhaps on some other planet; perhaps centuries ago when you and I were Romans and wore togas----"
"Confound it! What do I care," shouted Smith, "whether we were Romans and wore togas? We are due this century at a house party on this planet. They expect us on this train. Are you coming? If not--kindly relax that crablike clutch on my elbow before partial paralysis ensues."
"Smith, wait! I tell you this is somehow becoming strangely portentous. I've got the funniest sensation that something is going to happen to me."
"It will," said Smith, dangerously, "if you don't let go my elbow."
But Beekman Brown, a prey to increasing excitement, clung to his friend.
"Wait just one moment, Jim; something remarkable is likely to occur! I--I never before felt this way--so strongly--in all my life. Something extraordinary is certainly about to happen to me."
"It has happened," said his friend, coldly; "you've gone dippy. Also, we've lost that train. Do you understand?"
"I knew we would. Isn't that curious? I--I believe I can almost tell you what else is going to happen to us."
"I'lltellyou," hissed Smith; "it's an ambulance for yours and ding-dong to the funny-house!Whatare you trying to do now?" With real misgiving, for Brown, balanced on the edge of the gutter, began waving his arms in a birdlike way as though about to launch himself into aerial flight across Forty-second Street.
"The car!" he exclaimed excitedly, "the cherry-colored cross-town car! Where is it? Do you see it anywhere, Smith?"
"What? What do you mean? There's no cross-town car in sight. Brown, don't act like that! Don't be foolish! What on earth----"
"It's coming! There's a car coming!" cried Brown.
"Do you think you're a racing runabout and I'm a curve?"
Brown waved him away impatiently.
"I tell you that something most astonishing is going to occur--in a cherry-colored tram car.... And somehow there'll be some reason for me to get into it."
"Into what?"
"Into that cherry-colored car, because--because--there'll be a wicker basket in it--somebody holding a wicker basket--and there'll be--there'll be--a--a--white summer gown--and a big white hat----"
Smith stared at his friend in grief and amazement. Brown stood balancing himself on the gutter's edge, pale, rapt, uttering incoherent prophecy concerning the advent of a car not yet visible anywhere in the immediate metropolitan vista.
"Old man," began Smith with emotion, "I think you had better come very quietly somewhere with me. I--I want to show you something pretty and nice."
"Hark!" exclaimed Brown.
"Sure, I'll hark for you," said Smith, soothingly, "or I'll bark for you if you like, or anything if you'll just come quietly."
"The cherry-colored car!" cried Brown, laboring under tremendous emotion. "Look, Smithy! That is the car!"
"Sure, it is! I see it, old man. They run 'em every five minutes. What the devil is there to astonish anybody about a cross-town cruiser with a red water line?"
"Look!" insisted Brown, now almost beside himself. "The wicker basket! The summer gown! Exactly as I foretold it! The big straw hat!--the--thegirl!"
And shoving Smith violently away he galloped after the cherry-colored car, caught it, swung himself aboard, and sank triumphant and breathless into the transverse seat behind that occupied by a wicker basket, a filmy summer frock, a big, white straw hat, and--a girl--the most amazingly pretty girl he had ever laid eyes on. After him, headlong, like a distracted chicken, rushed Smith and alighted beside him, panting, menacing.
"Wha'--dyeh--board--this--car--for!" he gasped, sliding fiercely up beside Brown. "Get off or I'll drag you off!"
But Brown only shook his head with an infatuated smile.
"Is it that girl?" said Smith, incensed. "Are you a--a Broadway Don Juan, or are you a respectable lawyer with a glimmering sense of common decency and an intention to keep a social engagement at the Carringtons' to-day?"
And Smith drew out his timepiece and flourished it furiously under Brown's handsome and sun-tanned nose.
But Brown only slid along the seat away from him, saying:
"Don't bother me, Jim; this is too momentous a crisis in my life to have a well-intentioned but intellectually dwarfed friend butting into me and running about under foot."
"Intellectually d-d--do you meanme?" asked Smith, unable to believe his ears. "Doyou?"
"Yes, I do! Because a miracle suddenly happens to me on Forty-second Street, and you, with your mind of a stockbroker, unable to appreciate it, come clattering and clamoring after me about a house party--a common-place, every-day, social appointment, when I have a full-blown miracle on my hands!"
"What miracle?" faltered Smith, stupefied.
"What miracle? Haven't I been telling you that I've been having that queer sense that all this has happened before? Didn't I suddenly begin-- as though compelled by some unseen power--to foretell things? Didn't I prophesy the coming of this cross-town car? Didn't I even name its color before it came into sight? Didn't I warn you that I'd probably get into it? Didn't I reveal to you that a big straw hat and a pretty summer gown----"
"Confound it!" almost shouted Smith, "There are about five thousand cherry-colored cross-town cars in this town. There are about five million white hats and dresses in this borough. There are five billion girls wearing 'em----!" "Yes; but thewicker basket" breathed Brown. "How do you account forthat?... And, anyway, you annoy me, Smith. Why don't you get out of the car and go somewhere?"
"I want to know where you are going before I knock your head off."
"I don't know," replied Brown, serenely.
"Are you actually attempting to follow that girl?" whispered Smith, horrified.
"Yes.... It sounds low, doesn't it? But it really isn't. It is something I can't explain--you couldn't understand even if I tried to enlighten you. The sentiment I harbor is too lofty for some to comprehend, too vague, too pure, too ethereal for----"
"I'm as lofty and ethereal as you are!" retorted Smith, hotly. "And I know a--an ethereal Lothario when I see him, too!"
"I'm not--though it looks like it--and I forgive you, Smithy, for losing your temper and using such language."
"Oh, you do?" said Smith, grinning with rage.
"Yes," nodded Brown, kindly. "I forgive you, but don't call me that again. You mean well, but I'm going to find out at last what all this maddening, tantalizing, unexplained and mysterious feeling that it all has occurred before really is. I'm going to trace it to its source; I'm going to compare notes with this highly intelligent girl."
"You're going tospeakto her?"
"I am. I must. How else can I compare data."
"I hope she'll call the police. If she doesn'tIwill."
"Don't worry. She's part of this strange situation. She'll comprehend as soon as I begin to explain. She is intelligent; you only have to look at her to understand that."
Smith choking with impotent fury, nevertheless ventured a swift glance. Her undeniable beauty only exasperated him. "To think--tothink," he burst out, "that a modest, decent, law-loving business man like me should suddenly awake to find his boyhood friend had turned into a godless votary of Venus!"
"I'm not a votary of Venus!" retorted Brown, turning pink. "I'll punch you if you say it again. I'm as decent and respectable a business man as you are! And my grammar is better. And, thank Heaven! I've intellect enough to recognize a miracle when it happens to me.... Do you think I am capable of harboring any sentiments that might bring the blush of coquetry to the cheek of modesty? Do you?"
"Well--well,Idon't know what you're up to!" Smith raised his voice in bewilderment and despair. "I don't know what possesses you to act this way. People don't experience miracles in New York cross-town cars. The wildest stretch of imagination could only make a coincidence out of this. There are trillions of girls in cross-town cars dressed just like this one."
"But the basket!"
"Another coincidence. There are quadrillions of wicker baskets."
"Not," said Brown, "with the contents of this one."
"Why not?"
Smith instinctively turned to look at the basket balanced daintily on the girl's knees.
He strove to penetrate its wicker exterior with concentrated gaze. He could see nothing but wicker.
"Well," he began angrily, "whatisin that basket? And how doyouknow it--you lunatic?"
"Will you believe me if I tell you?"
"If you can offer any corroborative evidence----"
"Well, then--there's a cat in that basket."
"A--what?"
"A cat."
"How do you know?"
"I don't know how I know, but there's a big, gray cat in that basket."
"Why agrayone?"
"I can't tell, but itisgray, and it has six toes on every foot."
Smith truly felt that he was now being trifled with.
"Brown," he said, trying to speak civilly, "if anybody in the five boroughs had come to me with affidavits and told me yesterday how you were going to behave this morning----"
His voice, rising unconsciously as the realization of his outrageous wrongs dawned upon him, rang out above the rattle and grinding of the car, and the girl turned abruptly and looked straight at him and then at Brown.
The pure, fearless beauty of the gaze, the violet eyes widening a little in surprise, silenced both young men.
She inspected Brown for an instant, then turned serenely to her calm contemplation of the crowded street once more. Yet her dainty, close-set ears looked as though they were listening.
The young men gazed at one another.
"That girl is well bred," said Smith in a low, agitated voice. "You--you wouldn't think of venturing to speak to her!"
"I'm obliged to, I tell you! This all happened before. I recognize everything as it occurs.... Even to your making a general nuisance of yourself."
Smith straightened up.
"I'm going to push you forcibly from this car. Do you rememberthatincident?"
The lid of the basket tilted a little. Then a plaintive voice said 'Meow-w'.
"No," said Brown with conviction, "that incident did not happen. You only threatened to do it. I remember now."
In spite of himself Smith felt a slight chill creep up over his neck and inconvenience his spine.
He said, deeply agitated: "What a terrible position for me to be in--with a friend suddenly gone mad in the streets of New York and running after a basket containing what he believes to be a cat. ACat!Good----"
Brown gripped his arm. "Watch it!" he breathed.
The lid of the basket tilted a little, between lid and rim a soft, furry, six-toed gray paw was thrust out. Then a plaintive voice said, "Meow-w!"