"Oh!" she gasped faintly.
That was all she said at first, her big blue eyes wide distended, her white-gloved wrists curving above the chair-arms as though to rise. Easy to see she was completely floored at seeing me.
And as it was her move, I just sat kind of grinning, you know, and holding her tight with my monocle.
Then her mouth twitched a bit; next her head went up and I heard again that delicious birdlike carol of a laugh. Her eyes came to rest upon the hat in my hand. I had slipped my Harvard band around it, remembering the admiration she had expressed for our colors.
"Oh!" she said again, and she looked at me hesitatingly. "Mr. Jones, is it not—or is it—"
I chuckled. "Mr. Smith, you know," I said. "Mr. Smith, of course."
And then I just went on chuckling, for I thought it so devilish clever of her, so humorous. And just then I thought of a dashed good repartee:
"Months—so many months, you know, since we met!" And I thought it delightful the way she puckered her lovely little forehead and looked me over. But she just looked so devilish enticing, I couldn't keep it up myself. I leaned nearer and spoke behind my hat, trying to look the love I felt.
"Didn't expect to see me, did you?"
She looked at me oddly and bit her lip. But her eyes were dancing and the delicious dimple in her cheek twitched on the verge of laughter. She shook her head.
"Indeed I did not." And again came that odd look in her face as though she were studying, kind of balking, don't you know. By Jove, she was perfectly dazzling!
"My dearest!" slipped softly from me as I held the hat.
She stared. Then once more that canary peal of merriment.
"Oh, dear!" Then her face sobered and she almost pouted. "Now you mustn't—please,really—it gets so tiresome. Don't you American, or rather, you Harvard men, ever talk anything to a girl but love? Why, it's absurd." She smiled, but her lashes dropped reproof. By Jove, I was taken back a little! Evidently she was piqued with me about something, but what the devil was it? And then I thought I had it.
I slipped nearer—to the edge of the chair.
"I didn't know you were in town to-day—'pon honor, I didn't. Billings never said a word about it," I explained. "Why, dash it, I would have givenanythingto have known."
She looked at me with a queer little smile, stroked her little lip with the point of one gloved finger and looked across the river at the Palisades. Dash the Palisades! Never could see any sense in them, anyhow!
"Oh, thank you, but Elizabeth and I didn't know ourselves until last evening that we would make the New York trip. She wanted to hear a suffragette lecture at the Carnegie, and I had some shopping to do."
And she just gave me one of those calm, self-contained, thoroughbred sort of smiles that are harder to get past than a six-foot hedge. What the deucewasthe matter with the girl? Something had changed her; yet I knew that nothing could really change her at heart—never.
But it was certain that she was put out about something. I would just have to play her easy and try to find out what it was. I remembered hearing Pugsley say—and he has had no end of experience with them—that when women are put out they expect you to find out what it is, no matter how devilishly improbable or unreasonable it may be.
And just then I remembered another clever idea of Pugsley's—what he said was a corking good way of diverting their minds.
"I say, you know," I said suddenly—and though I threw a whole lot of enthusiasm into my face in carrying out his idea, I didn't have to try very hard—"I think that's a ripping gown. White is ever so much more your style than—than—"
By Jove, I swallowed just in time! But it had roused her. I could see her brighten.
"Oh!" she said. "Let me see—whatisit you remember?" And she kind of muttered, "Perhaps I can tell from that—"
She paused expectantly.
"Oh, I say, you know!" And I twirled the hat, feeling a bit rattled. Why the deuce did she want to rub it in?
"But I want you to tell me." Her beautiful eyes were teasing.
"Youknow—in black." I twirled the hat faster.
"Black!" She stared, her exquisite lips standing apart like the two petals of a rose. "Why, I never wore black in my life. Youknowyou never saw me in black."
I felt hurt. I couldn't blame her for wanting to appear to forget about it, but still—
She must have seen my face fall, for I know, by Jove, I could just feel it kind of collapse, I was that hurt and disappointed. Her face softened kindly and I took courage, for my devilishly alert mind just then hit upon another explanation. I recalled that she had thoughtlessly left the pajamas in my rooms. I also realized with dismay that Foxy Grandpa had promised, or rather the officers had promised for him, that they should be returned promptly. And, by Jove, I had forgotten all about them!
"Never mind," I said, thinking aloud, as I frequently do. "I'll telephone about them as soon as we get to Wolhurst." Then a terrible shock struck me. "Oh, I say, you didn't have your name on them, did you?"
"On what?" How kindly, even if quizzically, she was regarding me! The big white hat shifted an inch or two nearer. I realized with joy that she was beginning to forget about being put out with me.
"Why—" I looked about cautiously and dropped my voice, though it was not likely any one could hear above the quiver of the train. "Why, in your black pajamas you left in my rooms."
A kind of little gasp was all I heard, and then she was on her feet and looking—not at me, but above my head—looking away off down the length of the car. Somehow—why, I couldn't understand—I had a weird, horrible feeling of abasement, as though I had killed a child, or had done some other dashed unreasonable thing like that. Her face had flushed but now was deadly white. And then, by Jove, I saw she was looking for another chair.
I jumped up at once and moved into the aisle.
"I'm so sorry," I said miserably, "so sorry, dear, I hurt you. I didn't mean ever to speak of the pajamas. I knew you wanted to forget about the other night, and I knew you wantedmeto forget, too—"
"Oh, please—" She shrank back, her beautiful eyes like those of a frightened deer. But it was the last car, and I blocked the aisle. I didn't realize at the time that I was doing it. It came to me afterward, and was one of the things I kicked myself about for hours, more or less.
Just at the moment I was so dashed wild about setting myself right with her. The only other thing I had presence of mind to remember was the nearness about us of a lot of beady-eyed cats, and so I drew nearer and lowered my voice so none could hear. For I had another feeling of inspiration as to what really was the matter with her!
Matter! I should say, rather! She was beginning to look angry—splendidly angry—her eyes just blazing blue fire. I knew I would have to get in my explanation quickly, and what's more, if what Pugsley thought was true, I would have to hit the jolly nail on the head or else everything was off, you know.
"Why, Frances—sweetheart," I pleaded softly—just loud enough for her to hear above the train, "I know you are put out with me because you found me gone the next morning, but honestly, dear, I acted for the best—indeed, I did." And to be on the safe side, I profited by another inspiration: "And, my darling girl, I'll never mention the pajamas and the other night—never any more—as long as we live, nor the cigarettes nor cigars nor whisky. Why, I don't care if you—"
"Tarrytown—all out for Tarrytown!" came in a high tenor voice from the end of the car, and something bowled down the aisle and brushed me aside. It was the frump.
"Come on, Frances!" she exclaimed sharply; "our station." Next instant they were streaking it for the door, with me a good second. I saw Frances look behind once with—oh, such a look! Dashed if it didn't shrivel me, you know—that sort. And, by Jove, I knew Pugsley was right, and that I had failed to put the ball over!
I was not six feet behind as they scrambled through the station to the other side where a large car stood panting. I saw Frances clutch the frump's arm and whisper something, and I heard the frump's reply, for her voice was loud and strongly masculine.
"Crazy?" she rasped. "Nonsense! Drunk, more likely. Most of them are half the time."
I didn't have time to see what she referred to, for just then we reached the side of the car. I didn't see a thing of Billings, but the chauffeur jumped to the ground and received the ladies and their bags. He seemed to me devilish familiar, too. By Jove, the way he held my darling's hand was the most infernally audacious, outrageous thing I ever beheld! I should have liked to punch his head. He helped them into the tonneau and was so busy with his silly jackass chatter that he closed the door before he turned and saw me. I was just standing there, leaning a little forward with my cane, you know, and fixing my monocle reproachfully on Frances—trying to get her eye.
And then, by jove, I felt a blow on my shoulder that almost bowled me over, for I had my legs crossed, you know.
"Well, I'll be hanged—it's Dicky!" And he was grinning at me like a what's-its-name cat. And with the grin I recognized him. It was the fresh young fool who had been so devilish familiar at the pier the morning Frances left.
Then he banged me again, dash it, and tried to get my hand, but I put it behind me. But he did get my arm, and he turned toward the car. His voice dropped.
"See here, I want you to meet—Eh?" He broke off, staring at the frump, who was making signs with her eyes, frowning and beckoning him with her green flower-pot. He left me, murmuring something, and stepped to the running-board. I could see the flower-pot bobbing about energetically and twice Frances nodded, it seemed to me reluctantly.
"Crazy—drunk? Pshaw, you're batty!" he said to the frump rudely. Then I heard another murmur and his harsh voice rose again: "Yes—Lightnut, I tell you—Dicky Lightnut. Yes—Jack Billings' great friend. You just wait till he's back from the city, and if he don't get upon his hind—Eh, what? His name isSmith? Rats!"
All this time I was just standing there, trying to catch Frances' eye. I felt sure if I could catch her eye she would see how devilish sorry I was. I moved back a few feet, for, dash it, without a sign from her, I had no idea now, of course, of considering myself as one of the party. Not finding Billings with the car, and the information I caught that he was still in the city, just left me high and dry, you know.
"All right, Miss Smarty," the yellow-topped chauffeur rasped, addressing the frump, "I'll just show you!"
He turned about and jerked his head.
"Oh, Dicky! Here, just a minute, old chap—will you?"
Of course I took no notice of him whatever. In fact I looked in the other direction.
"Lightnut!" he called. I just stared up at the castle on the hill. I felt devilish annoyed, though. I recalled a conversation the other day at the club in which Van Dyne remarked that the intimacy affected now by chauffeurs was growing insufferable. Declared his man had asked him for a light that morning.
The fellow stared a little; then he came toward me, smirking in a jocular, impertinent way.
"Say, stop your kidding, old man," he muttered; "girls have no sense of humor, you know. Come along—I've just been telling them you are my best friend."
I stole another look at the car, but Frances avoided me; so I came to a decision. I turned shortly on the driver.
"See here now, my good fellow," I said sharply, "you stop subjecting those ladies to annoyance. Drive on, or I'll report you to my friends."
He stared—seemed to be trying to stare me out of countenance, in fact. Then the grin slowly faded.
"Why, Dicky!" he exclaimed in an aggrieved tone, "don't you remember me—don't you know me?"
"I certainly do not," I answered with decision. I felt my face getting red with vexation. "And what's more, my name is not 'Dicky.'"
His hand slowly swept his chin and he whistled.
"Wha—Well, I'll be jiggered!" He whirled toward the car.
"On me, this time, I guess! You're right!"
Then his face clouded and he moved down upon me.
"Here, you get along now about your business, whoever you are!" His hand waved as though sweeping me away. "I've a mind to kick you for annoying that young lady."
He looked toward Frances and I could see he was showing off. But I thought she looked a bit disgusted. As for the frump, she suddenly opened the door, stepped down and then up again, but this time behind the steering wheel.
"If you don't come on, I'm going," she said quietly.
"Just a minute," he said, scowling back at her. He faced me.
"Look here, if I hit you once"—he leveled his finger—"well, they'll have to pick you up with a sponge, that's all!"
But, except for fixing my glass for a better study of Frances, I never moved. Didn't occur to me as necessary, you know, until she should drive off. Just stood leaning on my cane and with feet crossed, you know, in the way I had long ago found was the least exhausting, if one has to stand at all. But, by Jove, the fellow was right in my face now, almost! Devilish annoying!
"Did you hear me, you glass-eyed fool?" he barked in my ear. "You masher! By George,I'llmash you!"
And he looked at Frances again and laughed, but she was looking away off up at the big stone castle on the Pocantico Hills behind. And I just reveled in her glorious profile, splashed bright by the golden sunshine reflected from the Tappan Zee opposite. Incidentally, I was trying in my mind the three arm movements that must be made as one, and for which, to learn, I had paid the great master, Galliard of Paris, a thousand francs in gold.
The car began to edge away.
"All right—coming!" he yelled; and then he launched his blow. But so rapid—instantaneous, in fact—are the famous three movements of the great scientist, I don't remember that my eye even shifted its grip upon the monocle. Therefore, as I came back into the same position again as his shoulder hit the ground, I was in time to catch my darling's eye at last just as they curved. And, by Jove, she looked amused—and pleased.
As for the frump, she frankly and harshly laughed, and then moved up a speed, just as a south-bound express took the station.
And I swung aboard it, back for little old New York. Didn't see what the chauffeur did. Wasn't interested, you know, about that.
"Most infernal outrage of the century, I tell you!" Billings stormed. For an hour I had sat there in my rooms, limp and bewildered under the tempest of his wrath. The wild and incoherent sputter over the 'phone that Jenkins reported upon my return had sent me on a hunt for my friend. I had found him sullenly dining alone over at the club, and as soon as I entered he started to bolt from the room. Only through the greatest pleading had I managed to coax him back to my chambers, hoping I might screw out of him some explanation.
I had received it, by Jove!
Of course, I recognized it all as impossible and crazy, you know, but when I said so to Billings his remarks were so violent, and he turned such a dangerous apoplectic purple, dashed if I didn't renege.
"But then the old man, you know!" I protested weakly.
Billings leveled his big arm at me, mouthing wordlessly for a minute.
"That—that'll do, about that old man!" he choked at last. "Not—not another word abouthim!" And finally he collapsed into his seat from sheer exhaustion. Just sat there panting and glaring at me like a jolly bulldog.
Gradually he became calmer.
"Tell you what: the only thing that lets you out, Dicky, is the way Van Dyne and Blakesley did, in turn, when I got them there."
He spoke savagely, but I brightened a little.
"Oh!" I said. "Didn't they recognize you, either?"
Billings' snort made me jump.
"Recognize!" he bellowed. "They went back, mad as hell!"
"By Jove!" I said soothingly.
"That's not all," continued Billings grimly. "I was so sure it was a put-up job, some asinine, fool joke, I wrote a cautious note to the governor. After a lot of pleading, I got the fools to send it. He came."
Billings paused dramatically.
"Oh, yes,hecame!" he went on, fixing me with an excited eye. "And when I staggered forward and did the prodigal son act on his neck, he handed me a punch that jolted off his silk tile. Went straight up in the air with the whole bunch down there and contracted to do things for them that will keep him active for a year. Threatened to havemesent up for forgery—this is my own father now, mind you—forgery of my own name! Huh!"
Billings strode to the end of the room and back. Then he sat down again, beating with his foot upon the floor.
"Say, has everybody gone crazy?" he demanded.
I didn't dare say a word, for I had my own opinions, you know, and I knew it wouldn't do to express them. Only excite him. Best way seemed just to pretend to swallow it all, you know. Best way always, Pugsley says, especially with best friends.
"They were pretty nasty after that," Billings went on gloomily; "and they wouldn't send for any one else. Just had to sit there in that infernal bastile with nothing on but pajamas and a pair of bedroom slippers. Every once in a while somebody would come and address me as 'Foxy,' and want me to send for my clothes or else send out and buy some. Finally, a big brute came and threw me some dirty rags and said I'dhaveto put on those or else buy some others. Buy some, Dicky—did you get that?—buysome!"
"Devilish rude,Isay," I commented indignantly. "Who wants to wearboughtclothes? Why, dash it, my tailor says—"
"Pshaw!" Billings whirled his fat head impatiently. "You miss the whole point, Dicky! I didn't have a cent ofmoney; and what's more, I couldn't get any." He paused. "See? Try to get that, Dicky—make an effort, old chap."
I did, but, dash it, it was such a rum idea—very oddest thing he had said—and silly, you know. Fancy any one not being able to send out and get money! I just got to thinking what a jolly queer idea it was and lost part of what Billings was saying—something about how he managed to get them to send a note for his clothes. Here is what Ididhear:
"And I had just got into the togs and stuffed the rubies and pajamas out of sight in my pocket, when the particular brigand who had charge of my coop came back. He almost threw a fit when he saw me. 'Where's Twenty-seven?' he wanted to know. And then, before I could say a word, he blustered up to me with: 'And say, what businessyougot in here? Clear out!' And you bet I didn't lose a single golden minute—I cleared. You should have seen me beat it down that corridor! The fellow followed me a little, grumbling to himself. Then he called to a cop who was just coming in: 'Say, O'Keefe, run that young fat freak out of here, will you? It's one of that bunch of visitors that went through just now. Fresh thing—snooping into the cells!'
"And so the same cop that brought me there—the very same—was the one that shoved me out of the door, warning me that I'd best not go poking into the prisoners' cells again if I knew what was good for me!"
"By Jove!" I ventured sympathetically.
Billings nodded. "Of course, I knew it was a semi-lucid interval with them all, but for all I knew it might pass any instant and some bat discover I was a Dutch scrubwoman escaped from Hoboken. So I broke for the first taxi and hit it up for the club."
Billings took a deep breath and went on:
"By George," he said, laughing nervously. "I felt like a dog with a can to its tail hunting for a place to hide. Every time a fellow looked at me I had heart failure until he called me by my own name. Bribed Eugene to lie about my whereabouts until his face hurt and then I went to bed. Sneaked out of my hole this evening to get a bite of something, and then you ran me down.
"And Dicky"—Billings finished excitedly—"I was sure you had come to drag me back to my dungeon, and I looked behind you, fully expecting to see those two Irish pirates. If I had, I should have swooned in my soup, that's all!"
I murmured my sympathy. And, by Jove, I certainly did have a heartache about him, but of course I couldn't tell him why. I was getting him quieted—I could see that—and he was so far mollified as to help himself to a cigar. When he had clipped a V from the end with his knife, he leaned over and tapped me impressively on the knee with the blade.
"And just think, Dicky," he said, absently emphasizing with the sharp point of the knife, "there I sat, moneyless—not even a dime, you know—in a suit of pajamas whose three buttons were worth one hundred and fifty thousand dollars!"
He fell back, his fat arms eloquently outspreading.
"Can you beat it?" he demanded.
I rubbed my palm on my knee and considered.
Privately, I thought Icouldbeat it—by Jove, I was sure I could! I knew of a pair of pajamas worth a dashed sight more than money. And I wondered gloomily where they were. I had telephoned as soon as I stepped out at the Grand Central Station, and after a bit made them understand who I was and reminded them that the black pajamas had not been returned according to promise. And then they told me Foxy Grandpa had escaped, but as he had nothing else on, they felt sure of rounding him up as soon as he came out of his hiding-place—probably after dark.
"By the way, old chap," puffed Billings, his poise and good humor improving under the spell of the cigar, "I was sorry to return the pajamas torn and dusty and wrinkled as they were. But you see, on account of the rubies, I was leary about having them pressed or fussed over. So I wrapped and sealed them myself, just as one does a jewel package. Got them, did you?"
I stared at Billings through my glass.
"Didn't you get them?" he questioned in alarm.
"Yes, yes—it's all right, old chap," I said hastily and as pleasantly as I could. "Eugene delivered the box to Jenkins and I opened it myself. Thought it was—h'm—thought it was something else." Then I proceeded soothingly: "But you're just a little mistaken about the dust and wrinkles, old chap—and about them being torn. Ha, ha! Good joke!"
But Billings' face was unresponsive.
"Why, you goop," he said with cheerful contempt, "there's a triangular tear in the back of the coat you could stick your head through; and one of the sleeves is in ribbons."
I just opened the drawer of the table and took out the box—glove box, I think it was—containing the pajamas. I had read something somewhere about the clearing effect—the reaction, and that sort of thing, produced sometimes by a shock.
"See for yourself, old chap," I said gently. And I lifted out the gossamer fabrics and again spread their crimson glory under the lamp. Billings examined them eagerly, but just looked confounded.
"Don't understand it," he said, biting his nails. "Why, hang it, they look smooth, too, as though never worn. And the rubies are all right, too."
He rested his chin upon his hands and gloomed at the red sweep.
I caught a few sentences of his mumbling.
"By George, I'm half a mind to think there's something in the pajamas," he muttered—"something uncanny and disagreeable—something they're alive with!"
I sprang up and back, overturning my chair.
"Good heavens—oh, I say!" I exclaimed in consternation, as I fixed my glass on the garments. "It's your jail, then, you know—"
His hand checked my reach to the bell push.
"Don't be any more kinds of an ass than you can help, Dicky," he said with rude irritability. "I'm talking about something else; and I haven't got any jail, dammit! A station house isn't exactly a jail!"
He reached for another cigar and went off into a brown study, wrapping himself in clouds of smoke. I thought that maybe if I kept quite still he might come to himself all right. Meantime, for want of something to do, and to keep from getting so devilish sleepy, I fell to turning over the pajamas, admiring their beauty and daintiness and kind of half-daringly wondering howshewould—
And suddenly I made a discovery; and I forgot about keeping still.
"By Jove, Billings!" I exclaimed excitedly. "Here's something inside the collar—some sort of jolly writing!"
"What's that?" said Billings sharply. He jerked the garment from my hand and held it in the light. All round the circle within the collar band ran four or five darker red lines of queer little crisscross characters.
"Chinese laundry marks, you idiot," he commented carelessly. And then he ducked his head closer with a quick intake of breath.
"By George, Dicky!" he cried, his voice tremulous with some excitement. "Can't be that either; it's woven in—awfully fine, neat job, too. Now, what do you suppose—"
He broke off wonderingly.
Billings rubbed his chin perplexedly.
"By jigger, now, I wonder what those hen tracks mean?" he uttered musingly. Then he looked up at me with sudden animation in his face.
"Look here, Dicky," he exclaimed, "do you happen to know Doozenberry?"
I tried to remember. I shut one eye and studied the marks closely through my glass, but had to shake my head at last.
"Sorry, old chap; don't seem to remember it at all if I ever did—not a dashed glimmer of it left." I yawned. "Never tried to keep any of those college things, you know."
Billings, who had been staring, uttered a rude comment.
"It's not a language, you cuckoo," he snapped; "it's a man. He's a D.S.—distinguished scientist, you know. What's more, he's one of your neighbors, right in this building."
"Don't know him," I said a little stiffly. "What's his club?"
Billings all but gnashed his teeth.
"Club, thunder!" he jerked out impatiently. "Why, man, he's a member of all the great societies of the world—bodies whose rank and exclusiveness put the blink on all the clubs you or I ever saw. Got a string of letters after his name like a universal keyboard, and is the main squeeze, the great scream, among all the scientific push over here and in Europe. Lots of dough, but off his trolley with learning."
"And in this building?" I said wonderingly. "What's he like?"
For a moment I had a thought of Foxy Grandpa, but the janitor had said he did not belong in the building. Besides, Billings' next words removed that clue to the lost pajamas. By Jove, how I did long to ask his advice about them! Once I was on the point of doing so—had devilish narrow escape, in fact—but pulled up on the brink. So deuced hard to remember that anything so delicate and sweet and fetching could be Billings' sister, you know. I had been wondering for an hour whether I had better say anything about my adventure up at Tarrytown—wondered if she would like me to.
"Here, you moon calf, wake up!" Billings' coarse voice brought me back to the present, and I had to blink and pretend I was listening. "I'm telling you about Doozenberry! I say you surely must have seen him—you couldn't miss him in a black cave. Queer-looking old skate, tall as a street lamp and as thin; looks like a long cylinder of black broadcloth. So dignified it hurts him."
I reflected.
"Awfully large head," continued Billings, elevating his hands some two feet apart, "pear-shaped affair—big end up—bumps on it like halves of grape fruit, porcupine eyebrows, and—"
"Oh, I know," I said, nodding eagerly; "and a little, shriveled—well, kind of mashed sort of face, eyes beadlike and jolly small. I've got him now! I've gone down with him in the elevator."
Billings nodded. "You've got him painted," he said drily. "That's the professor; only, his eyes are anything but 'jolly.' I've ridden in the elevator with him myself. Always manages to look like he was traveling with a bad smell!"
"Devilish sensitive, I dare say."
Billings looked at me suspiciously, but I had got hold of the thing I was trying to recollect and I went on quickly:
"By Jove, you know, I believe Jenkins knows his man—fellow who butlers, and, I believe, cooks, for him. He and Jenkins belong to the same—how do they call it?—same club of gentlemen's gentlemen."
Billings brought his fist down. "Let's have Jenkins in," he suggested. And we did.
"I say, Jenkins," I began, "this Professor Doodle bug above us—"
"Doozenberry!" Billings sharply corrected.
"Well, some jolly rum thing about him, don't you know, Jenkins—something you said his man told you—remember, eh?"
Jenkins' eyes batted a little.
He cleared his throat. "Why, yes, sir; he told me a lot of funny things one night, sir. Don't suppose he would have done it, only him and me had an evening off and we—we—"
Jenkins seemed to hesitate.
"And you went on a bat together," suggested Billings, rubbing his hands pleasantly.
"It was, sir," Jenkins admitted, looking at me sadly. "Leastways, he sort o' loosened up as he got—got—"
"Pickled," Billings helped smoothly.
"Quite so, sir; there's some is that way always: some is taken other ways." Jenkins considered Billings moodily. "The power of the demon rum, sir."
"Ah, true!" sighed Billings, lifting his eyes.
"This here chap, he got to going on and all but crying about his cursed hard fate—them's his own words, sir—his cursed hard fate in having to drink water all the time and eat cow feed—"
"Eat what?"
"I don't know, sir—that's what he called it—something the perfesser has him fix out of cereals and nuts and sour milk. That's all they have, sir; and they don't have no cooking, for the perfesser says it breaks the celluloid—"
"Cellular," corrected Billings.
"Maybe so, sir," demurred Jenkins. "Hesaidcelluloid—the celluloid tissue papers,hecalled it. And then his having no heat on all winter and the windows kept open all the time and the snow piling up on his bed at night kept him with colds all the year. And then, there was the dampness—"
"That'sit, the dampness!" I exclaimed. "Tell him."
"Why, sir, he told me that every night he had to turn down the perfesser's bed and go all over it with a two-gallon watering can—"
"Watering can!" gasped Billings.
"I'm telling you what he says, sir. Then he covers it all up again, and in about a half-hour the perfesser turns the covers down; and if it's what he calls 'fine'—that is, damp all over—he climbs in and sleeps like a top."
"Cold-water bug, you know," I explained, but Billings shrugged his shoulders.
"That's all right. Bug or not, he's the goods, all the same. Greatest ever." He spoke with quiet conviction.
He deliberated a moment and turned to me.
"Tell you what, Dicky: I'm going up and ask him down. He's the one to give us the right dope on these crazy letters—Eh, what you say, Jenkins?"
"Beg pardon, sir; I was saying that the perfesser don't visit nobody; and he never sees nobody but the big lit'ry and scientific sharps."
"Oh, he don't eh?" Billings snorted contemptuously. "Well, Jenkins, I haven't been a prize fisherman in my time for nothing; I guess I know how to select my 'fly.' I know what will fetch him: 'Mr. Lightnut's compliments, and will he be pleased to honor him by passing upon an Oriental curio of rare scientific interest?'—that sort of merry rot! Why, you couldn't hold him back with a block and tackle. Oh, you needn't worry; I'll do the proper curves all right." He turned toward the door. "And, Jenkins, you come along and work me into the lodge."
"Oh, but dash it," I protested nervously, "he won't come—he'll be insulted. Why, he'll know as soon as he sees you that you couldn't—"
I checked myself, recalling that the best thing after his recent exhibition was to avoid every contradiction. And then, by Jove, I knew that if he became ill and had to go to a hospital or somewhere, it would be all off with his taking me up to Wolhurst next day.
Billings grinned confidently. "Watch me bring him down here," he said.
And by Jove, he did!
Billings ushered in the professor with a flourishing introduction.
The great man never spoke, but gave me the end of one finger, and devilish grudgingly at that. He just came to anchor and stood there very straight and stiff, ignoring the chairs thrust toward him from every point. One hand was stuck in his stiff broadcloth bosom, with elbow pointing outward, and his great topheavy head reared above us impressively.
Billings rubbed his hands and bowed and smirked.
"Lovely weather we are having for summer, don't you think, Professor? Jenkins, a chair for the professor."
He was already hedged in by chairs, but he remained standing. Dash it, he was staring hard at me, his beady eyes boring like gimlets, don't you know, and his little shriveled face all puckered up. By Jove, but he looked sour! Looked like he would bite, or, as Billings said afterward, would like to, if the human race wasn't poisonous.
"Wonderful stunt, science, isn't it, Professor?" gushed Billings, still rubbing his hands and grinning like a wild what's-its-name. "Tracing the orbits of the shooting stars or measuring the animals in the tiny sewer drop. H'm! Fascinating pursuit! And how marvelous it must be to be able to classify instantly any specimen of man's or nature's handiwork—to—a—call the turn, so to speak—right off the bat, as it were. H'm! We have here to-night—er—"
With his hand upon the pajamas, Billings paused, for the professor paid no attention—did not even turn round, in fact. He just stood there staring at me. Billings coughed suggestively.
"H'm! As I was saying, we have with us to-night a specimen," he resumed a little louder, "I may say an example of something that, while apparently commonplace and prosaic, is really a rare and unique—"
"Ha—specimengenus cypripedium," came in a squeaky bark from the professor as he held me in his eye. "Linnaeus, 1753. Ha!Species acaule—proper habitat, bogs. Very common—verycommon, indeed."
He batted at me sourly and seemed disappointed. By Jove, I never felt so devilish mortified in all my life! Never! I nearly dropped my monocle and felt myself getting jolly red about the ears. This only seemed to make it worse.
"Ha—labellumsomewhat pinker purple than normal," he proceeded. "H'm! Unusually fresh specimen."
I looked appealingly at Billings. "Oh, I say, you know!" I exclaimed in dismay.
Billings had been standing with his mouth agape, but now he made a stride forward and touched the professor on the arm.
"That's Mr. Lightnut, Professor," he said blandly. "That's notthespecimen. H'm! Slight mistake."
Slowly the professor's big head turned on its axis and his little eyes blinked at Billings nastily.
"I was referring to the orchid in the gentleman's coat," he observed quietly, and turned back to me.
"Of course! Ofcourse!" stammered Billings with eagerness. "My mistake—one on me.Stung!" his lips pantomimed to me.
I addressed the professor hospitably: "Ah! won't you sit down, Professor?"
He drew back, frowning. "Sit down, sir?" he questioned. And, by Jove, by this time he showed his teeth. And devilish white, even teeth they were, too, only they didn't fit.
"I never sit down, sir," he said stiffly; "never!"
"By Jove!" I explained.
"To be sure!" ejaculated Billings, looking extremely silly.
The professor appeared not ungratified with the sensation he had produced and condescended to smile; that is, if you can call a creasing and wrinkling like the cracked end of a hard-boiled egg a smile.
"You say, 'sit down,' sir," he said, addressing me. "I ask you, in turn: Is not 'sitting down' recrudescence back to the primordial?"
So saying, he took a pinch at my shirt front and stepped back again impressively. Still addressing me, he continued:
"It is such thoughtless indulgence of muscles growing obsolescent that retards the evolution of our species, a species, sir, which I claim is coessential in fundamental attributes with contemporaneous amphibia. Ha! I surprise you, perhaps? Can you note in me a resemblance to a batrachian?"
I didn't know. And, dash it, I was afraid to chance it. Tried my jolly best to think what a batrachian was. It came to me like a flash that it sounded like something in Italy.
"By Jove, you do, though, awfully!" I exclaimed, trying to brighten up over it. "Doesn't he, Billings? Noticed a resemblance right off, don't you know."
Billings went to nodding with an air of pleased surprise. Dash me if I believed he knew what a batrachian was, though, any more than I did. But Billings never admits anything.
"Sure," he said glibly. "I was half suspecting it; why, look at the skin, you know—and features!"
"By Jove, yes!" I said, feeling encouraged. "Head, mouth, nose, eyes and—" I was going to say "hair," but I remembered in time about the wig.
The professor looked awfully pleased. He gave me a finger again.
"Such perspicacity—ah—is rare in one who looks so—"
He coughed slightly, then resumed:
"How gratifying, indeed, to meet another investigator! A student in zoötomy, no doubt? Ah! Do not deny it; I divined it at once. A delightful recreation, sir—a game, absorbing but elusive."
"Awfully jolly, you know," I agreed. "Ripping, I say!"
"Surest thing you know," chirped Billings. I wondered if it was anything like polo.
And then, by Jove, thinking of polo sent me off again thinking of Frances. Not that she was like polo, dash it, but I wished she could see me play.
The professor took another pinch from my shirt front and favored me with a rusty smile.
"Ah!" he said: "You must take time to look into a little monograph of mine:Man in Miniature; a Study of the Anthropology of the Frog. You regard the frog, of course?"
"Oh, I say, yes—fine, you know!" I answered, my mouth watering. By Jove! I thought of the devilish good things they got up in season down at the Café Grenouille.
"My dear sir!" The professor bowed to me. "I can not express to you how gratifying to me this meeting is. I must get a list of your societies and degrees. So few appreciate the frog; so many, even in the scientific world, deride my published claim that congenious with man is therana mugiensor American bullfrog."
By Jove! they were certainly congenial with me, all right.
"Awfully hard to swallow unless well done, don't you know," I demurred thoughtfully.
"Truly incredible, sir!"
The professor took another pinch and held it in front of him.
"But I have allowed for that," he added, emphasizing with his other hand. "My frog brochure meets that difficulty and whets the appetite of the most mediocre."
"By Jove, Billings!" I exclaimed eagerly, "we must tell Marchand about it over at the club." I was so devilish tired of his eternalsauce délicieuse, hissauce aigre, hissauce écossaiseand the rest, don't you know.
The professor inclined his head gravely.
"Ha, French! Then Monsieur Marchand has done something with the frog, has he?" he questioned.
"Twenty-nine different stunts," Billings replied proudly. "Iknowbecause I'm on the House Committee. Yes,sir, frogs are his specialty; that man can get more out of a frog than any other living man."
The professor looked a little nettled.
"Oh, indeed!" he said rather coldly.
"I tell you, Professor, he's got 'emallskinned!" Billings enthused.
The remark provoked a contemptuous sniff.
"Undoubtedly, that being the proper condition preliminary to comparative anatomical study," said the professor loftily. "Then the physical resemblance to a man becomes startling. I have identified every analogy with man except the beautiful phenomenon of the beating of the frog heart twenty-four hours after separation from the body—the living body, sir. Experiment upon the living human specimen is necessary for confirmation of the homologous structure of the two hearts, however. This I have not done—not yet."
He spoke gloomily. I looked at Billings blankly but I found Billings was looking at me the same way.
Every once in a while he had been lifting the pajamas. He would cough and open his mouth, but just then the professor would start off again. Once Billings, with an awfully savage expression, shook his fist at our visitor's back and danced up and down upon the rug.
"The indifference, not to say prejudice, of the public upon the matter of human vivisection is heartrending," went on the professor sadly. "Sir, I have advertised in the 'help wanted' columns of the daily press, and have interviewed scores without arousing one spark of ambition or awakening one thrill of gratitude over the opportunity offered to assist me in the investigation of scientific phenomena. I pleaded, sir; I reproached; I even showed them the demonstration upon the frog. Did I move them? Were they affected, do you think?"
I shook my head sympathetically. Seemed the safe thing to do.
"A lot of pikers, by George!" said Billings with an air of indignation. "Must have been shameless!"
"Deuced indifferent," I ventured. "I should have been regularly cut up."
"Ah! of course you would," cried the professor, lifting another pinch. "There speaks the intelligent devotee of science! But did they see it that way? Not at all, sir; they were only indifferent and ungrateful—they were rude and—ah—boisterous! One savage primate assaulted me with his bare knuckles. A blow, gentlemen, a blow from the boasted family of anthropina!"
"Beastly outrage, Professor," growled Billings. "Leave it to me; I know a chap who's got a pull with the police commissioner, and I'll just tip him off, by George. It's no matter what family they are or how much they boasted. It'll be the hurry wagon and the cooler for them, eh, Dicky?"
He gestured to me wildly, nodding his head like a man with the what's-it-name dance.
"Deuced good idea. Awful rotters, I say," was my comment.
The professor seemed affected by our sympathy. He withdrew from his pocket a folded handkerchief, slowly opened it and pressed it lightly to each eye. Then he carefully refolded and replaced it.
"Strange thing, the persistence of the primitive emotions," he said, sniffing thoughtfully. "Singular how they affect the lachrymalapparati. Peculiarly disagreeable taste, gentlemen, that of tears, despite their simple elementary composition—ninety-nine and six-tenths per cent. water, you remember, and the rest a modicum of chloride of sodium, mucus, soda and phosphates. H'm! Your pardon, gentlemen, for this digression, but to have sustained a stab under this very roof fromgenus homo! It is indeed hard."
Here Jenkins, who had been lingering and busying himself about the apartment, whispered to me from behind:
"It's that dago, sir, that delivers fruit every day."
"Eh?"
"That's the name. I see him going back every morning."
Jenkins moved off, nodding mysteriously, as I stared at him through my glass. In his way, Billings was speaking words of comfort and all that sort of thing to the professor.
"Never mind; the law will get 'em for you," he reassured him.
"Ah! that's just where you are in error," sighed our guest. "The law, sir, will not get a single subject for me. In this age of unrestrained liberty of all classes, the law lends no aid whatever to science. It is not as it was in the glorious past when, under imperial patronage, Vesalius, the great father of anatomy, was protected when by mistake his scalpel cut the living heart of a Spanish grandee. Times worth while, gentlemen, those great days of supreme imperialism! Ah! there was no lack of material available if one stood in a little at court; one had only to designate a selection and the thing was done. Gracious, gentle times, my friends! Gone, alas, for ever! Such opportunities are impossible under a republic."
The professor shook his head and reached for his handkerchief again. But this time he only blew his nose.
"Tempora mutantur," he murmured regretfully, "Eh, gentlemen?"
"True," said Billings, pursing his lips. "Ah, how true!"
"By Jove, ought to be something done, you know," I declared.
"Out of millions, not a single human specimen available," groaned the professor dismally. "And my instruments ready for over a year."
"Cheer up, sir; you'll have a go yet," Billings encouraged.
"Ah!" The professor's little eyes swept Billings' person critically. "Perhaps you, sir, would like the privilege—"
Billings staggered back a step or two precipitately.
"Delighted; nothing'd give me greater pleasure, but so infernally busy," he explained hurriedly. "Just my confounded luck; unfortunately, got to go to Egypt right away—probably to-morrow morning."
The professor sighed again in his disappointment.
"No matter; I shall find some one in time," he said grimly. "But I shall abandon this foolish persuasion and cajolery as unworthy of the scientist. Do we lower ourselves with such devices in securing a butterfly or a grasshopper or a frog or any animate specimen except man? Certainly not; we capture and etherize them."
He glanced about the room and beckoned us with his finger.
"I have lately had my eye upon the gas man," he said in a low tone. He closed one eye impressively.
"Ah!" said Billings, his mouth dropping open wide.
"The individual who comes at intervals to take the quarters from the slot meter. H'm, fine subject, gentlemen!"
"Great!" agreed Billings.
"Ripping idea," I tried as a reply.
The professor clasped his fingers tightly and rubbed his thumbs one over the other. He brightened visibly.
"The party has to go down upon his knees and stoop behind the end of the tub in the bath-room," he continued. "It was my thought that while in that advantageous position the sudden, quick application of a Turkish bath towel saturated in ether would—Eh? Do you follow me?"
"Devilish clever, you know," I said. I had already selected this for reply for this time.
Billings failed to come up. He just stared hard, rolled his eyes and ran his finger around under his collar.
The professor, in the act of taking another pinch from my shirt front, paused with a little jerk. Then his great head shot forward in front of his rigid neck—so suddenly, by Jove, that I reached out to try to catch it, don't you know. He made just two strides to the table, ten feet away, and pounced upon the pajamas with obviously trembling hands.
And behind his back Billings relapsed into an arm-chair and fanned himself with a magazine.
His head dropped back, and upon his fat face was a what-you-call-it smile of peace. He closed his eyes for an instant.
"Suffering Thomas cats! At last!" I heard him murmur.
The professor fumblingly sought through his pockets, and producing a pair of spectacles with phenomenally large lenses, adjusted them shakily.
He bent over the pajamas eagerly.
"Impossible! And yet, it is, it is!" he muttered. "I would know the weave among a thousand. It is hers undoubtedly, undoubtedly—the lost silk of Si-Ling-Chi! How comes it here?"
He glared around rather wildly at each of us in turn. Without waiting for a reply, he whisked back to the pajamas, and fishing out a thick magnifying lens, scrutinized the garments closely. It seemed that he would certainly nod his big head off its jolly hinge; and his quick side glances at Billings and myself, together with his growling and muttering, just reminded me of a dog with a bone, by Jove!
I stared at Billings and Billings stared at me, and then he slipped over to the divan upon which I dropped, completely exhausted, dash it, from standing so long.
"Whosedid he say?" he whispered.
"Celia something," I answered. "Dash it, I didn't catch her surname. Oh, I say, you know, this isawful!"
I felt devilish mortified. Wondered what Frances might think, you know. Billings drew in his lips and wagged his head ominously. He waved me nearer.
"He's on," he breathed behind his hand; "he's looking for her laundry mark. Now, wouldn't that feaze you?"
An exclamation of triumph from the professor, another glance at us, and a hoarser and more prolonged mutter. I shifted uneasily. By Jove, I didn't like it at all!
Billings looked at me in consternation. "I wouldn't be in your shoes, Dicky," he whispered. "You'll be pinched for this, sure."
"Oh, I say, now! I tell you, a friend in China—"
Billings shrugged impatiently. "Just a plant, you chowder head," he said, viewing me pityingly. "I tell you that's how all these blackmailing schemes are worked. You ought to be more careful."
"But, dash it, I don't even know her, this Celia what's-her-name," I protested miserably. If Frances' brother thought that way, what wouldshethink?
"Um! Maybe you don't, but they'll expect you to say that, anyhow. You're up against it, old chap; the professor here evidently knows her and he knows her pajamas—relative, probably."
By Jove, I felt a little faint!
"It will be all over New York to-morrow," continued Billings gloomily. "Your picture and hers will be in the extras."
Out of the professor's mutterings we caught a random sentence.
"Found, found again," we heard him say. "Hers beyond peradventure of a doubt. I amnotmistaken."
Billings rose, and his beckoning finger summoned me to a corner of the room.
"This is going to cost you a pot of money, Dicky," he said with a serious air, "to say nothing of the scandal. My advice is, try buying him off—best thing in the long run. I'll feel him for you."
Nodding solemnly to me he cleared his voice. "H'm! I say, Professor."
The professor, with his eye glued to the lens and the lens to the silk, turned slowly about.
"H'm!" began Billings. "The—h'm—articles you have there—you recognize where they are from—eh?"
"Of course," he snapped, without looking up.
"H'm! And whose did I understand you to say—I—er—did not catch her name."
His glance uplifted and scoured us sourly.
"Si-Ling-Chi. Did you think I did not know? I recognized at sight her wonderful disappearing weave." He bent again with his lens. "Marvelous, indeed, after all these years," he muttered. "So long, so long! Incredible preservation!"
Billings placed his finger against his nose, rolled his eyes upward and emitted the faintest of whistles. He caught my arm sharply.
"Say, how old are you, Dicky?" he whispered excitedly.
"I—er—twenty-seven, I think, old chap," I replied hesitatingly.
Billings noiselessly slapped his leg. His face brightened.
"Been of age six years," he calculated to himself. "By George, maybe you can prove an alibi!"
He coughed again at the absorbed figure stooping over the table.
"Ah, Professor—h'm—how long now would you say it might be since—well, she you mention—how long a time since she last saw—er—what you have there—eh?"
"How long?" repeated the professor absently. Then he moved, but his hand only, and he flipped it, don't you know, as one does to banish a fly or a dashed mosquito—that sort of thing, by Jove!
"Can't you figure it out yourself?" he questioned irritably. "You remember chronology gives Hwang-Si's reign as in the twenty-sixth century before Christ; and of course, that of Si-Ling-Chi, his empress, would be the same."
Billings subsided limply into a chair.
"Great Thomas cats!" he gasped weakly.
"I think I divine the astute purpose of your inquiry," said the professor, pausing to polish his glasses and favoring us with a wintry smile. "It does not deceive me. You have in mind, sir, the erroneous chronology that places Si-Ling-Chi thirteen centuries earlier. Ha! Is not my suspicion correct?"
"Regular bull's-eye!" responded Billings. "I mean," he added hastily, "what's the use of denying it?"
"Twenty-six centuries before the Christian era is the best we can give Si-Ling-Chi," said the professor, carefully affixing his glasses and falling once more upon the pajamas.
"By Jove!" I said dazedly. "Then the lady—er—I mean the party—she's rather far back—er—isn't she, don't you know?"
The professor answered abstractedly:
"Two thousand years before Confucius; twenty-four hundred and twenty-nine years before the building of the Great Wall," he murmured mechanically.
Jove, but I was relieved! I looked inquiringly at Billings. He just sat there kind of drooping, and shook his head. "I'm all in," he motioned with his lips; and he wiped his forehead.
"Ah, gentlemen!" exclaimed the professor, coming back again, "what a thing this little Chinese woman did for civilization when she gave the world silk culture and invented the loom! No wonder the Chinese deified her as a goddess."
"Goddess!" Billings swallowed hard. "And did these—h'm—garments belong to the lady?"
The professor frowned at him in surprise. "Garments?"
"Them," said Billings in devilish questionable grammar, pointing to the table. "They are pajamas, you know."
"Ha!" ejaculated the professor, holding them up. "So they are. You are very observing, sir, very. Now, I had not noticed that at all; I was so interested in the material itself—the wonderful silk of Si-Ling-Chi, gentlemen. Ha! Indeed a rare privilege!"
By Jove! He stroked the stuff lightly, tenderly—as one likes to do a little child's hair, don't you know.
"Beautiful, beautiful fabric," he sighed half to himself. "Only once before have I seen a piece of it—but it was enough; I could never, never forget." Something like a groan escaped him.
Billings angled his head toward me and tightly compressed one eye.
"H'm! Something in the petticoat line—eh, Professor?"
The professor's face wrinkled with the most matter-of-fact surprise.
"Petticoat?" he piped querulously. "You are forgetting that the petticoat is a vestment unknown in China."
"Oh, in China! I was thinking of Paree," chuckled Billings, with a gay air and another glance at me. Then his nerve withered under the professor's blank stare, and he added hurriedly:
"H'm! So it was in China you saw the other piece of silk?"
The professor sighed profoundly. His reply came dreamily, regretfully:
"In the Purple Forbidden City; but I was not quick enough."
"Not quick enough?" Billings' echo was solicitous, sympathetic.
"It was among the palace treasures, the imperial properties—things unhappily lost to the world and civilization. Ah, gentlemen, I erred; I committed a fatal mistake; it has been a matter of deep mortification to me often!" His head wagged somberly.
Billings looked a little embarrassed and rubbed his chin. "H'm!" he coughed. "I guess we all slip a cog now and then. I know I've done things myself I've been rather ash—"
"I erred, gentlemen," went on the professor, "in trusting most unscientifically to the false principle that the hand is quicker than the eye. It isnottrue, for one of the guards saw me and my carelessness cost me dearly: I not only lost the silk, but a singularly beautiful gold thread altar cloth and a matchless amulet ofyu-chi jade, you know—white jade, at that, gentlemen, I assure you—a rare bit of carving of the second century—real Khoton jade, too—no basefei-tsui. But, alas! I lost them, my friends; they confiscated them, and no doubt they are still there in their original places from which I had—a—attached them. Do you wonder at my mortification? And then the sacrifice of a whole year of planning, watching, bribing and perfecting of preliminary disguise! All fruitless, fruitless!"
The professor lifted and dropped his palms in eloquent deprecation.
Billings' foot pressed mine. "Now, wouldn't that frost you?" he whispered under his breath. Aloud he exclaimed indignantly:
"Beastly outrage; it must have been painful."
The professor started in the act of lifting the pajamas again.
"Pain? I did not speak of the physical consequences. They were too terrible to discuss. I—"
The pajamas dropped from his hands and his eyes took on that somewhere-else, far-off look, don't you know.
"Sort of 'third degree' work, Professor?" Billings prodded him.
The professor did not reply. His long, slim fingers swept his forehead for an instant and he looked away again, his little eyes dilated. Somehow it made one feel devilish uncomfortable, dash it!
Billings cocked his eye at me and lifted his shoulders in a shrug. Then he deliberately kicked at the tabouret and sent its brass fixture set clattering noisily across the room.
The professor shivered, compressed his lips and blinked at us.
"Your pardon, gentlemen," he observed in some confusion. "Some one was asking me—"
"What they did to you when you lift—I mean when you lost the—er—loot."
He stared, shivered again and returned to the pajamas, muttering an almost inaudible reply.
We caught a word or two: "Long imprisonment—much physical pain—unspeakable things—do not like to think of it—I—"
His eyes closed. He folded his long, thin arms shudderingly. Billings and I sat very still. The professor's voice came as from far away:
"I could tell you of some experiences in China and in Tibet," he murmured. "Perhaps I—some other time—such horrible details, I—"
He leaned heavily upon the table with both hands. His head dropped forward an instant.
"No matternow," he muttered. "It was long, long ago!"