"I shall have love in my story," said Miss. Juno, with an amusing touch of sentiment that on her lips sounded like polite comedy.
"You may have all the love you like, and appeal to the same old novel-reader who has been reading the same sort of love story for the last hundred years, and when you've finished your work and your reader has stood by you to the sweet or bitter end, no one will be any the wiser or better. You've taught nothing, you've untaught nothing——and there you are!"
"Oh! A young man with a mission! Do you propose to revolutionize?"
"No; revolutions only roil the water. You might as well try to make water flow up-hill as to really revolutionize anything. I'd beautify the banks of the stream, and round the sharp turns in it, and weed it out, and sow water-lilies, and set the white swan with her snow-flecked breast afloat. That's what I'd do!"
"That's the art of the landscape gardener; I don't clearly see how it is of benefit to the novelist, Paul! Now, honestly, is it?"
"You don't catch my meaning, Jack; girls are deuced dull, you know,—I mean obtuse." Miss. Juno flushed. "I wasn't referring to the novel; I was saying that instead of writing my all in a vain effort to revolutionize anything in particular, I'd try to get all the good I could out of the existing evil, and make the best of it. But let's not talk in this vein any longer; I hate argument. Argument is nothing but a logical or illogical set-to; begin it as politely as you please, it is not long before both parties throw aside their gloves and go in with naked and bloody fists; one of the two gets knocked out, but he hasn't been convinced of anything in particular; he was not in condition, that is all; better luck next time."
"Have you the tobacco, Paul?" asked Miss Juno, extending her hand. The tobacco was silently passed from one hammock to the other; each rolled a cigarette, and lit it. Paul blew a great smoke ring into the air; his companion blew a lesser one that shot rapidly after the larger halo, and the two were speedily blended in a pretty vapor wraith.
"That's the ghost of an argument, Jack," said Paul, glancing above. He resumed: "What I was about to say when I was interrupted"—this was his pet joke; he knew well enough that he had been monopolizing the conversation of the morning—"what I was about to say was this: my novel shall be full of love, but you won't know that it is love—I mean the every-day love of the every-day people. In my book everybody is going to love everybody else—or almost everybody else; if there is any sort of a misunderstanding it sha'n't matter much. I hate rows; I believe in the truest and the fondest fellowship. What is true love? It is bosom friendship; that is the purest passion of love. It is the only love that lasts."
There was a silence for the space of some minutes; Paul and Miss. Juno were quietly, dreamily smoking. Without, among the roses, there was the boom of bees; the carol of birds, the flutter of balancing butterflies. Nature was very soothing, she was in one of her sweetest moods. The two friends were growing drowsy. Miss. Juno, if she at times betrayed a feminine fondness for argument, was certainly in no haste to provoke Paul to a further discussion of the quality of love or friendship; presently she began rather languidly:
"You were saying I ought to write, and that you believe I can, if I will only try. I'm going to try; I've been thinking of something that happened within my knowledge; perhaps I can make a magazine sketch of it."
"Oh, please write it, Jack! Write it, and send the manuscript to me, that I may place it for you; will you? Promise me you will!" The boy was quite enthusiastic, and his undisguised pleasure in the prospect of seeing something from the pen of his pal—as he loved to call Miss. Juno—seemed to awaken a responsive echo in her heart.
"I will, Paul; I promise you!"—and the two struck hands on it.
IV
When Paul returned to the Eyrie, it had been decided that Miss. Juno was to at once begin her first contribution to periodic literature. She had found her plot; she had only to tell her story in her own way, just as if she were recounting it to Paul. Indeed, at his suggestion, she had promised to sit with pen in hand and address him as if he were actually present. In this way he hoped she would drop into the narrative style natural to her, and so attractive to her listeners.
As for Paul Clitheroe, he was to make inquiry among his editorial friends in the Misty City, and see if he might not effect some satisfactory arrangement with one or another of them, whereby he would be placed in a position enabling him to go abroad in the course of a few weeks, and remain abroad indefinitely. He would make Venice his headquarters; he would have the constant society of his friends; the fellowship of Jack; together, after the joint literary labors of the day, they would stem the sluggish tide of the darksome canals and exchange sentiment and cigarette smoke in mutual delight. Paul was to write a weekly or a semi-monthly letter to the journal employing him as a special correspondent. At intervals, in the company of his friends, or alone, he would set forth upon one of those charming excursions so fruitful of picturesque experience, and return to his lodgings on the Schiavoni, to work them up into magazine articles; these would later, of course, get into book form; from the book would come increased reputation, a larger source of revenue, and the contentment of success which he so longed for, so often thought he had found, and so seldom enjoyed for any length of time.
All this was to be arranged,—or rather the means to which all this was the delightful end—was to be settled as soon as possible. Miss. Juno, having finished her story, was to send word to Paul and he was to hie him to the Rose Garden; thereafter at an ideal dinner, elaborated in honor of the occasion, Eugene was to read the maiden effort, while the author, sustained by the sympathetic presence of her admiring Mama and her devoted Paul, awaited the verdict.
This was to be the test—a trying one for Miss Juno. As for Paul, he felt quite patriarchal, and yet, so genuine and so deep was his interest in the future of his protégée, that he was already showing symptoms of anxiety.
The article having been sent to the editor of the first magazine in the land, the family would be ready to fold its æsthetic tent and depart; Paul, of course, accompanying them.
It was a happy thought; visions of Venice; the moonlit lagoon; the reflected lamps plunging their tongues of flame into the sea; the humid air, the almost breathless silence, broken at intervals by the baying of deep-mouthed bells; the splash of oars; the soft tripping measure of human voices and the refrain of the gondoliers; Jack by his side—Jack now in her element, with the maroon fez of the distinguished howadji tilted upon the back of her handsome head, her shapely finger-nails stained with henna, her wrists weighed down with their scores of tinkling bangles! Could anything be jollier?
Paul gave himself up to the full enjoyment of this dream. Already he seemed to have overcome every obstacle, and to be reveling in the subdued but sensuous joys of the Adriatic queen. Sometimes he had fled in spirit to the sweet seclusion of the cloistral life at San Lazaro. Byron did it before him;—the plump, the soft-voiced, mild-visaged little Arminians will tell you all about that, and take immense pleasure in the telling of it. Paul had also known a fellow-writer who had emulated Byron, and had even distanced the Byron record in one respect at least—he had outstayed his lordship at San Lazaro!
Sometimes Paul turned hermit, in imagination and dwelt alone upon the long sands of the melancholy Lido; not seeing Jack, or anybody, save the waiter at the neighboring restaurant, for days and days together. It was immensely diverting, this dream-life that Paul led in far distant Venice. It was just the life he loved, the ideal life, and it wasn't costing him a cent—no, not asoldo, to speak more in the Venetian manner.
While he was looking forward to the life to come, he had hardly time to perfect his arrangements for a realization of it. He was to pack everything and store it in a bonded warehouse, where it should remain until he had taken root abroad. Then he would send for it and settle in the spot he loved best of all, and there write and dream and drink the wine of the country, while the Angelus bells ringing thrice a day awoke him to a realizing sense of the fairy-like flight of time just as they have been doing for ages past, and, let us hope, as they will continue to do forever and forever.
One day he stopped dreaming of Italy, and resolved to secure his engagement as a correspondent. Miss. Juno had written him that her sketch was nearly finished; that he must hold himself in readiness to answer her summons at a moment's notice. The season was advancing; no time was to be lost, etc. Paul started at once for the office of his favorite journal; his interview was not entirely satisfactory. Editors, one and all, as he called upon them in succession, didn't seem especially anxious to send the young man abroad for an indefinite period; the salary requested seemed exorbitant. They each made a proposition; all said: "This is the best I can do at present; go to the other offices, and if you receive a better offer we advise you to take it." This seemed reasonable enough, but as their best rate was fifteen dollars for one letter a week he feared that even the highly respectable second-class accommodations of all sorts to which he must confine himself would be beyond his means.
Was he losing interest in the scheme which had afforded him so many hours of sweet, if not solid, satisfaction? No, not exactly. Poverty was more picturesque abroad than in his prosaic native land. His song was not quite so joyous, that was all; he would go to Italy; he would take a smaller room; he would eat at the Trattoria of the people; he would make studies of the peasant, thecontadini. Jack had written, "There is pie in Venice when we are there; Mama knows how to make pie; pie cannot be purchased elsewhere. Love is the price thereof!" And pie is very filling. Yes, he would go to Europe on fifteen dollars per week and find paradise in the bright particular Venetian Pie!
V
After many days a great change came to pass. Everybody knew that Paul Clitheroe had disappeared without so much as a "good-by" to his most intimate friends. Curiosity was excited for a little while, but for a little while only. Soon he was forgotten, or remembered by no one save those who had known and loved him and who at intervals regretted him.
And Miss. Juno? Ah, Miss. Juno, the joy of Paul's young dreams! Having been launched successfully at his hands, and hoping in her brave, off-hand way to be of service to him, she continued to write as much for his sake as for her own; she knew it would please him beyond compare were she to achieve a pronounced literary success. He had urged her to write a novel. She had lightly laughed him to scorn—and had kept turning in her mind the possible plot for a tale. One day it suddenly took shape; the whole thing seemed to her perfectly plain sailing; if Clitheroe had launched her upon that venturesome sea, she had suddenly found herself equipped and able to sail without the aid of any one.
She had written to Paul of her joy in this new discovery. Before her loomed the misty outlines of fair far islands; she was about to set forth to people these. Oh, the joy of that! The unspeakable joy of it! She spread all sail on this voyage of discovery—she asked for nothing more save the prayers of her old comrade. She longed to have him near her so that together they might discuss the situations in her story, one after another. If he were only in Venice they would meet daily over their dinner, and after dinner she would read to him what she had written since they last met; then they would go in a gondola for a moonlight cruise; of course it was always moonlight in Venice! Would this not be delightful and just as an all-wise Providence meant it should be? Paul had read something like this in the letters which she used to write him when he was divided against himself; when he began to feel himself sinking, without a hand to help him. Venice was out of the question then; it were vain for him to even dream of it.
So time went on; Miss. Juno became a slave of the lamp; her work grew marvelously under her pen. Her little people led her a merry chase; they whispered in her ears night and day; she got no rest of them—but rose again and again to put down the clever things they said, and so, almost before she knew it, her novel had grown into three fine English volumes with inch-broad margins, half-inch spacings, large type and heavy paper. She was amazed to find how important her work had become.
Fortune favored her. She found a publisher who was ready to bring out her book at once; two sets of proofs were forwarded to her; these she corrected with deep delight, returning one to her London publisher and sending one to America, where another publisher was ready to issue the work simultaneously with the English print.
It made its appearance under a pen-name in England—anonymously in America. What curiosity it awakened may be judged by the instantaneous success of the work in both countries: Tauchnitz at once added it to his fascinating list; the French and German translators negotiated for the right to run it as a serial in Paris and Berlin journals. Considerable curiosity was awakened concerning the identity of the authorship, and the personal paragraphers made a thousand conjectures, all of which helped the sale of the novel immensely and amused Miss. Juno and her confidants beyond expression.
All this was known to Clitheroe before he had reached the climax that forced him to the wall. He had written to Miss. Juno; and he had called her "Jack" as of old, but he felt and she realized that he felt that the conditions were changed. The atmosphere of the rose-garden was gone forever; the hopes and aspirations that were so easy and so airy then, had folded their wings like bruised butterflies or faded like the flowers. She resolved to wait until he had recovered his senses and then perhaps he would come to Venice and to them—which in her estimation amounted to one and the same thing.
She wrote to him no more; he had not written her for weeks, save only the few lines of congratulation on the success of her novel, and to thank her for the author's copy she had sent him: the three-volume London edition with a fond inscription on the flyleaf—a line in each volume. This was the end of all that.
Once more she wrote, but not to Clitheroe; she wrote to a friend she had known when she was in the far West, one who knew Paul well and was always eager for news of him.
The letter, or a part of it, ran as follows:
"Of course such weather as this is not to be shut out-of-doors; we feed on it; we drink it in; we bathe in it, body and soul. Ah, my friend, know a June in Venice before you die! Don't dare to die until you have become saturated with the aerial-aquatic beauty of this Divine Sea-City!
"Oh, I was about to tell you something when the charms of this Syren made me half-delirious and of course I forgot all else in life—I always do so. Well, as we leave in a few days for the delectable Dolonites, we are making our rounds of P. P. C.'s,—that we are revisiting every nook and corner in the lagoon so dear to us. We invariably do this; it is the most delicious leave-taking imaginable. If I were only Niobe I'd water these shores with tears—I'm sure I would; but you know I never weep; I never did; I don't know how; there is not a drop of brine in my whole composition.
"Dear me! how I do rattle on—but you know my moods and will make due allowance for what might strike the cold, unfeeling world as being garrulity.
"We had resolved to visit that most enchanting of all Italian shrines, San Francisco del Deserto. We had not been there for an age; you know it is rather a long pull over, and one waits for the most perfect hour when one ventures upon the outskirts of the lagoon.
"Oh, the unspeakable loveliness of that perfect day! The mellowing haze that veiled the water; the heavenly blue of the sea, a mirror of the sky, and floating in between the two, so that one could not be quite sure whether it slumbered in the lap of the sea or hung upon the bosom of the sky, that ideal summer island—San Francisco del Deserto.
"You know it is only a few acres in extent—not more than six, I fancy, and four-fifths of it are walled about with walls that stand knee-deep in sea-grasses. Along, and above it, are thrust the tapering tops of those highly decorative cypresses without which Italy would not be herself at all. There is such a monastery there—an ideal one, with cloister, and sundial, and marble-curbed well, and all that; at least so I am told; we poor feminine creatures are not permitted to cross the thresholds of these Holy Houses. This reminds me of a remark I heard made by a very clever woman who wished to have a glimpse of the interior of that impossible Monte Casino on the mountain top between Rome and Naples. Of course she was refused admission; she turned upon the poor Benedictine, who was only obeying orders—it is a rule of the house, you know—and said, 'Why do you refuse me admission to this shrine? Is it because I am of the same sex as the mother of your God?' But she didn't get in for all that. Neither have I crossed the threshold of San Francisco del Deserto, but I have wandered upon the green in front of the little chapel; and sat under the trees in contemplation of the sea and wished—yes, really and truly wished—that I were a barefooted Franciscan friar with nothing to do but look picturesque in such a terrestrial paradise.
"What do you think happened when we were there the other day? Now at last I am coming to it. We were all upon the Campo in front of the chapel—Violet, Eugene and I; the Angelus had just rung; it was the hour of all hours in one's lifetime; the deepening twilight—we had the moon to light us on our homeward way—the inexpressible loveliness of the atmosphere, the unutterable peace, the unspeakable serenity—the repose in nature—I cannot begin to express myself!
"Out of the chapel came the Father Superior. He knows us very well, for we have often visited the island; he always offers us some refreshment, a cup of mass wine, or a dish of fruit, and so he did on this occasion. We were in no hurry to leave the shore and so accepted his invitation to be seated under the trees while he ordered the repast.
"Presently he returned and was shortly followed by a young friar whom we had never seen before; there are not many of them there—a dozen perhaps—and their faces are more or less familiar to us, for even we poor women may kneel without the gratings in their little chapel, and so we have learned to know the faces we have seen there in the choir. But this one was quite new to us and so striking; his eyes were ever raised; he offered us a dish of bread and olives, while the abbot poured our wine, and the very moment we had served ourselves he quietly withdrew.
"I could think of but one thing—indeed we all thought of it at the same moment—'tis Browning's—
"'What's become of WaringSince he gave us all the slip?'"
"'What's become of WaringSince he gave us all the slip?'"
"You know the lines well enough. Why did we think of it?—because we were all startled, so startled that the abbot who usually sees us to our gondola, made his abrupt adieus, on some slight pretext, and the door of the monastery was bolted fast.
"Oh, me! How long it takes to tell a little tale—to be sure! We knew that face, the face of the young friar; we knew the hand—it was unmistakable; we have all agreed upon it and are ready to swear to it on our oaths! That novice was none other than Paul Clitheroe!"
header
BY
ISOBEL STRONG
medallion
Reprinted fromScribner's Magazineby permission
IF YOU want a child as badly as all that," my brother said, "why not adopt a chief's son, some one who is handsome and well-born, and will be a credit to you, instead of crying your eyes out over a little common brat who is an ungrateful cub, and ugly into the bargain?"
I wasn't particularly fond of the "common brat," but I had grown used to tending him, bandaging his miserable little foot and trying to make his lot easier to bear; and he had been spirited away. One may live long in Samoa without understanding the whys and wherefores. His mother may have been jealous of my care of the child and carried him away in the night; or the clan to which he belonged may have sent for him, though his reputed father was our assistant cook. At any rate, he had gone—departed as completely and entirely as though he had vanished into thin air, and I, sitting on the steps of the veranda, gave way to tears.
Two days later, as I hastened across the courtyard, I turned the corner suddenly, nearly falling over a small Samoan boy, who stood erect in a gallant pose before the house, leaning upon a long stick of sugar-cane, as though it were a spear.
"Who are you?" I asked, in the native language.
"I am your son," was the surprising reply.
"And what is your name?"
"Pola," he said. "Pola, of Tanugamanono, and my mother is the white chief lady, Teuila of Vailima."
He was a beautiful creature, of an even tint of light bronze-brown; his slender body reflected the polish of scented cocoanut oil, the tiny garment he called hislava-lavafastened at the waist was coquettishly kilted above one knee. He wore a necklace of scarlet berries across his shoulders, and a bright red hibiscus flower stuck behind his ear. On his round, smooth cheek a single rose-leaf hid the dimple. His large black eyes looked up at me with an expression of terror, overcome by pure physical courage. From the top of his curly head to the soles of his high-arched slender foot he lookedtama'alii—high-bred. To all my inquiries he answered in purest high-chief Samoan that he was my son.
My brother came to the rescue with explanations. Taking pity on me, he had gone to our village (as we called Tanugamanono) and adopted the chief's second son in my name, and here he was come to present himself in person.
I shook hands with him, a ceremony he performed very gracefully with great dignity. Then he offered me the six feet of sugar-cane, with the remark that it was a small, trifling gift, unworthy of my high-chief notice. I accepted it with a show of great joy and appreciation, though by a turn of the head one could see acres of sugar-cane growing on the other side of the river.
There was an element of embarrassment in the possession of this charming creature. I could not speak the Samoan language very well at that time, and saw, by his vague but polite smile, that much of my conversation was incomprehensible to him. His language to me was so extremely "high-chief" that I couldn't understand more than three words in a sentence. What made the situation still more poignant was that look of repressed fear glinting in the depths of his black velvety eyes.
I took him by the hand (that trembled slightly in mine, though he walked boldly along with me) and led him about the house, thinking the sight of all the wonders of Vailima might divert his mind. When I threw open the door of the hall, with its pictures and statues, waxed floor and glitter of silver on the sideboard, Pola made the regulation quotation from Scripture, "And behold the half has not been told me."
He went quite close to the tiger-skin, with the glass eyes and big teeth. "It is not living?" he asked, and when I assured him it was dead he remarked that it was a large pussy, and then added, gravely, that he supposed the forests of London were filled with these animals.
He held my hand quite tightly going up the stairs, and I realized then that he could never have mounted a staircase before. Indeed, everything in the house, even chairs and tables, books and pictures, were new and strange to this little savage gentleman.
I took him to my room, where I had a number of letters to write. He sat on the floor at my feet very obediently while I went on with my work. Looking down a few minutes later I saw that he had fallen asleep, lying on a while rug in a childish, graceful attitude, and I realized again his wild beauty and charm.
Late in the day, as it began to grow dark, I asked Pola if he did not want to go home.
"No, Teuila," he answered, bravely.
"But you will be my boy just the same," I explained. "Only you see Tumau (his real mother) will be lonely at first. So you can sleep at the village and come and see me during the day."
His eyes lit up with that and the first smile of the day overspread his face, showing the whitest teeth imaginable.
It was not long before he was perfectly at home in Vailima. He would arrive in the morning early, attended by a serving-man of his family, who walked meekly in the young chief's footsteps, carrying the usual gift for me. Sometimes it was sugar-cane, or a wreath woven by the village girls, or a single fish wrapped in a piece of banana-leaf, or a few fresh water prawns, or even a bunch of wayside flowers; my little son seldom came empty-handed.
It was Pola who really taught me the Samoan language. Ordinarily the natives cannot simplify their remarks for foreigners, but Pola invented a sort of Samoan baby-talk for me; sometimes, if I could not understand, he would shake me with his fierce little brown hands, crying, "Stupid, stupid!" But generally he was extremely patient with me, trying a sentence in half a dozen different ways, with his bright eyes fixed eagerly on my face, and when the sense of what he said dawned upon me and I repeated it to prove that I understood, his own countenance would light up with an expression of absolute pride and triumph. "Good!" he would say, approvingly. "Great is your high-chief wisdom!"
Once we spent a happy afternoon together in the forest picking up queer land-shells, bright berries and curious flowers, while Pola dug up a number of plants by the roots. I asked him the next day what he had done with the beautiful red flowers. His reply was beyond me, so I shook my head. He looked at me anxiously for a moment with that worried expression that so often crossed his face in conversation with me, and, patting the floor, scraped up an imaginary hole, "They sit down in the dusty," he said in baby Samoan. "Where?" I asked. "In front of Tumau." And then I understood that he had planted them in the ground before his mother's house.
Another time he came up all laughter and excitement to tell of an adventure.
"Your brother," he said, "the high-chief Loia, he of the four eyes (eye-glasses), came riding by the village as I was walking up to Vailima. He offered me a ride on his chief-horse and gave me his chief-hand. I put my foot on the stirrup, and just as I jumped the horse shied, and, as I had hold of the high-chief Loia, we both fell off into the roadpalasi."
"Yes," I said, "you both fell off. That was very funny."
"Palasi!" he reiterated.
But here I looked doubtful. Pola repeated his word several times as though the very sound ought to convey some idea to my bemuddled brain, and then a bright idea struck him. I heard his bare feet pattering swiftly down the stairs. He came flying back, still laughing, and laid a heavy dictionary in my lap. I hastily turned the leaves, Pola questing in each one like an excited little dog, till I found the definition of his word, "to fall squash like a ripe fruit on the ground."
"Palasi!" he cried, triumphantly, when he saw I understood, making a gesture downward with both hands, the while laughing heartily. "We both fell offpalasi!"
It was through Pola that I learned all the news of Tanugamanono. He would curl up on the floor at my feet as I sat in my room sewing, and pour forth an endless stream of village gossip. How Mata, the native parson, had whipped his daughter for going to a picnic on Sunday and drinking a glass of beer.
"Her father went whack! whack!" Pola illustrated the scene with gusto, "and Maua cried, ah! ah! But the village says Mata is right, for we must not let the white man's evil come near us."
"Evil?" I said; "what evil?"
"Drink," said Pola, solemnly.
Then he told how "the ladies of Tanugamanono" bought a pig of Mr. B., a trader, each contributing a dollar until forty dollars were collected. There was to be a grand feast among the ladies on account of the choosing of a maid ortaupo, the young girl who represents the village on all state occasions. When the pig came it turned out to be an old boar, so tough and rank it could not be eaten. The ladies were much ashamed before their guests, and asked the white man for another pig, but he only laughed at them. He had their money, so he did not care, "That was very, very bad of him," I exclaimed, indignantly.
"It is the way of white people," said Pola, philosophically.
It was through my little chief that we learned of a bit of fine hospitality. It seems that pigs were scarce in the village, so each house-chief pledged himself to refrain from killing one of them for six months. Any one breaking this rule agreed to give over his house to be looted by the village.
Pola came up rather late one morning, and told me, hilariously, of the fun they had had looting Tupuola's house.
"But Tupuola is a friend of ours," I said. "I don't like to hear of all his belongings being scattered."
"It is all right," Pola explained. "Tupuola said to the village, 'Come and loot. I have broken the law and I will pay the forfeit.'"
"How did he break the law?" I asked.
"When the high-chief Loia, your brother of the four eyes, stopped the night at Tanugamanono, on his way to the shark fishing, he stayed with Tupuola, so of course it was chiefly to kill a pig in his honor."
"But it was against the law. My brother would not have liked it, and Tupuola must have felt badly to know his house was to be looted."
"He would have felt worse," said Pola, "to have acted unchiefly to a friend."
We never would have known of the famine in Tanugamanono if it had not been for Pola. The hurricane had blown off all the young nuts from the cocoanut palms and the fruit from the breadfruit trees, while the taro was not yet ripe. We passed the village daily. The chief was my brother's dear friend; the girls often came up to decorate the place for a dinner party, but we had no hint of any distress in the village.
One morning I gave Pola two large ship's biscuits from the pantry.
"Be not angry," said Pola, "but I prefer to carry these home."
"Eat them," I said, "and I will give you more."
Before leaving that night he came to remind me of this. I was swinging in a hammock reading a novel when Pola came to kiss my hand and bid me good night.
"Love," I said, "Talofa."
"Soifua," Pola replied, "may you sleep;" and then he added, "Be not angry, but the biscuits——"
"Are you hungry?" I asked. "Didn't you have your dinner?"
"Oh, yes, plenty of pea-soupo" (a general name for anything in tins); "but you said, in your high-chief kindness, that if I ate the two biscuits you would give me more to take home."
"And you ate them?"
He hesitated a perceptible moment, and then said:
"Yes, I ate them."
He looked so glowing and sweet, leaning forward to beg a favor, that I suddenly pulled him to me by his bare, brown shoulders for a kiss. He fell against the hammock and two large round ship's biscuits slipped from under hislava-lava.
"Oh, Pola!" I cried, reproachfully. It cut me to the heart that he should lie to me.
He picked them up in silence, repressing the tears that stood in his big black eyes, and turned to go. I felt there was something strange in this, one of those mysterious Samoan affairs that had so often baffled me.
"I will give you two more biscuits," I said, quietly, "if you will explain why you told a wicked lie and pained the heart that loved you."
"Teuila," he cried, anxiously, "I love you. I would not pain your heart for all the world. But they are starving in the village. My father, the chief, divides the food, so that each child and old person and all shall share alike, and today there was only green baked bananas, two for each, and tonight when I return there will be again a division of one for each member of the village. It seems hard that I should come here and eat and eat, and my brother and my two little sisters, and the good Tumau also, should have only one banana. So I thought I would say to you, 'Behold, I have eaten the two biscuits,' and then you would give me two more and that would be enough for one each to my two sisters and Tumau and my brother, who is older than I."
That night my brother went down to the village and interviewed the chief. It was all true, as Pola had said, only they had been too proud to mention it. Mr. Stevenson sent bags of rice and kegs of beef to the village, and gave them permission to dig for edible roots in our forest, so they were able to tide over until the taro and yams were ripe.
Pola always spoke of Vailima as "our place," and Mr. Stevenson as "my chief." I had given him a little brown pony that exactly matched his own skin. A missionary, meeting him in the forest road as he was galloping along like a young centaur, asked, "Who are you?"
"I," answered Pola, reining in his pony with a gallant air, "am one of the Vailima men!"
He proved, however, that he considered himself a true Samoan by a conversation we had together once when we were walking down to Apia. We passed a new house where a number of half-caste carpenters were briskly at work.
"See how clever these men are, Pola," I said, "building the white man's house. When you get older perhaps I will have you taught carpentering, that you may build houses and make money."
"Me?" asked Pola, surprised.
"Yes," I replied. "Don't you think that would be a good idea?"
"I am the son of a chief," said Pola.
"I know," I said, "that your highness is a very great personage, but all the same it is good to know how to make money. Wouldn't you like to be a carpenter?"
"No," said Pola, scornfully, adding, with a wave of his arm that took in acres of breadfruit trees, banana groves, and taro patches, "Why should I work? All this land belongs to me."
Once, when Pola had been particularly adorable, I told him, in a burst of affection, that he could have anything in the world he wanted, only begging him to name it.
He smiled, looked thoughtful for an instant, and then answered, that of all things in the world, he would like ear-rings, like those the sailors wear.
I bought him a pair the next time I went to town. Then, armed with a cork and a needleful of white silk, I called Pola, and asked if he wanted the ear-rings badly enough to endure the necessary operation.
He smiled and walked up to me.
"Now, this is going to hurt, Pola," I said.
He stood perfectly straight when I pushed the needle through his ear and cut off a little piece of silk. I looked anxiously in his face as he turned his head for me to pierce the other one. I was so nervous that my hands trembled.
"Are yousureit does not hurt, Pola, my pigeon?" I asked, and I have never forgotten his answer.
"My father is a soldier," he said.
Pola's dress was a simple garment, a square of white muslin hemmed by his adopted mother. Like all Samoans, he was naturally very clean, going with the rest of the "Vailima men" to swim in the waterfall twice a day. He would wash his hair in the juice of wild oranges, clean his teeth with the inside husk of the cocoanut, and, putting on a freshlava-lava, would wash out the discarded one in the river, laying it out in the sunshine to dry. He was always decorated with flowers in some way—a necklace of jessamine buds, pointed red peppers, or the scarlet fruit of the pandanas. Little white boys looked naked without their clothes, but Pola in a strip of muslin, with his wreath of flowers, or sea-shells, some ferns twisted about one ankle, perhaps, or a boar's tusk fastened to his left arm with strands of horse-hair, looked completely, even handsomely, dressed.
He was not too proud to lend a helping hand at any work going—setting the table, polishing the floor of the hall or the brass handles of the old cabinet, leading the horses to water, carrying pails for the milkmen, helping the cook in the kitchen, the butler in the pantry, or the cowboy in the fields; holding skeins of wool for Mr. Stevenson's mother, or trotting beside the lady of the house, "Tamaitai," as they all called her, carrying seeds or plants for her garden. When my brother went out with a number of natives laden with surveying implements, Pola only stopped long enough to beg for a cane-knife before he was leading the party. If Mr. Stevenson called for his horse and started to town it was always Pola who flew to open the gate for him, waving a "Talofa!" and "Good luck to the traveling!"
The Samoans are not reserved, like the Indians, or haughty, like the Arabs. They are a cheerful, lively people, who keenly enjoy a joke, laughing at the slightest provocation. Pola bubbled over with fun, and his voice could be heard chattering and singing gaily at any hour of the day. He made up little verses about me, which he sang to the graceful gestures of the Siva or native dance, showing unaffected delight when commended. He cried out with joy and admiration when he first heard a hand-organ, and was excitedly happy when allowed to turn the handle. I gave him a box of tin soldiers, which he played with for hours in my room. He would arrange them on the floor, talking earnestly to himself in Samoan.
"These are brave brown men," he would mutter. "They are fighting for Mata'afa. Boom! Boom! These are white men. They are fighting the Samoans. Pouf!" And with a wave of his arm he knocked down a whole battalion, with the scornful remark, "All white men are cowards."
After Mr. Stevenson's death so many of his Samoan friends begged for his photograph that we sent to Sydney for a supply, which was soon exhausted. One afternoon Pola came in and remarked, in a very hurt and aggrieved manner, that he had been neglected in the way of photographs.
"But your father, the chief, has a large fine one."
"True," said Pola. "But that is not mine. I have the box presented to me by your high-chief goodness. It has a little cover, and there I wish to put the sun-shadow of Tusitala, the beloved chief whom we all revere, but I more than the others because he was the head of my clan."
"To be sure," I said, and looked about for a photograph. I found a picture cut from a weekly paper, one I remember that Mr. Stevenson himself had particularly disliked. He would have been pleased had he seen the scornful way Pola threw the picture on the floor.
"I will not have that!" he cried. "It is pig-faced. It is not the shadow of our chief." He leaned against the door and wept.
"I have nothing else, Pola," I protested. "Truly, if I had another picture of Tusitala I would give it to you."
He brightened up at once. "There is the one in the smoking-room," he said, "where he walks back and forth. That pleases me, for it looks like him." He referred to an oil painting of Mr. Stevenson by Sargent. I explained that I could not give him that. "Then I will take the round one," he said, "of tin." This last was the bronzebas-reliefby St. Gaudens. I must have laughed involuntarily, for he went out deeply hurt. Hearing a strange noise in the hall an hour or so later, I opened the door, and discovered Pola lying on his face, weeping bitterly.
"Whatareyou crying about?" I asked.
"The shadow, the shadow," he sobbed. "I want the sun-shadow of Tusitala."
I knocked at my mother's door across the hall, and at the sight of that tear-stained face her heart melted, and he was given the last photograph we had, which he wrapped in a banana-leaf, tying it carefully with a ribbon of grass.
We left Samoa after Mr. Stevenson's death, staying away for more than a year. Pola wrote me letters by every mail in a large round hand, but they were too conventional to bear any impress of his mind. He referred to our regretted separation, exhorting me to stand fast in the high-chief will of the Lord, and, with his love to each member of the family, mentioned by name and title, he prayed that I might live long, sleep well, and not forget Pola, my unworthy servant.
When we returned to Samoa we were up at dawn, on shipboard, watching the horizon for the first faint cloud that floats above the island of Upulu. Already the familiar perfume came floating over the waters—that sweet blending of many odors, of cocoanut-oil and baking breadfruit, of jessamine and gardenia. It smelt of home to us, leaning over the rail and watching. First a cloud, then a shadow growing more and more distinct until we saw the outline of the island. Then, as we drew nearer, the deep purple of the distant hills, the green of the rich forests, and the silvery ribbons where the waterfalls reflect the sunshine.
Among the fleet of boats skimming out to meet us was one far ahead of the others, a lone canoe propelled by a woman, with a single figure standing in the prow. As the steamer drew near I made out the figure of Pola, dressed in wreaths and flowers in honor of my return. As the anchor went down in the bay of Apia and the custom-house officer started to board, I called out, begging him to let the child come on first. He drew aside. The canoe shot up to the gangway, and Pola, all in his finery of fresh flowers, ran up the gangway and stepped forth on the deck. The passengers drew back before the strange little figure, but he was too intent upon finding me to notice them.
"Teuila!" he cried, joyfully, with the tears rolling down his cheeks. I went forward to meet him, and, kneeling on the deck, caught him in my arms.
header
BY
RICHARD WALTON TULLY
medallion
Reprinted fromThe Cosmopolitan Magazineof April, 1906 by permission
IDO NOT demand," said Mr. Pepper, "I simply suggest a change. If you wish me to resign"—his self-deprecatory manner bespoke an impossible supposition—"very well. But, if you see fit to find me a new assistant——" He paused, with an interrogatory cough.
It was the senior partner who answered, "We shall consider the matter."
The advertising manager's lean face took on an expression of satisfaction. He bowed and disappeared through the door.
Young Kaufmann, the junior partner, smiled covertly. But the elder man's face bespoke keen disappointment. For it must be explained that Mr. Pepper's simple announcement bore vitally upon the only dissension that had ever visited the firm of Kaufmann & Houghton during the thirty years of its existence.
In 1875, when John Houghton, fresh from college, had come to New York to find his fortune, the elder Kaufmann had been a candy manufacturer with a modest trade on the East Side. Young Houghton had taken the agency of a glucose firm. The disposal of this product had brought the two together, with the result that a partnership had been formed to carry on a wholesale confectionery business. Success in this venture had led to new and more profitable fields—the chewing-gum trade.
The rise to wealth of these two was the result of the careful plodding of the German workman, who kept the "K. & H." products up to an unvarying standard, joined with the other's energy and acumen in marketing the output. And this mutual relation had been disturbed by but one difference. When Houghton was disposed to consider a college man for a vacancy, Kaufmann had always been ready with his "practical man dot has vorked hiss vay." And each time, in respect to his wishes, Houghton had given in, reflecting that perhaps (as Kaufmann said) it had been that he, himself, was a good business man in spite of his college training, not because of it; and, after all, college ideals had sunk sincehistime. And the college applicant had been sent away.
Young Johann Kaufmann graduated from grammar school. Houghton suggested high school and college.
"Vat? Nein!" said the elder Kaufmann. "I show him how better the gum to make."
And he did. He put on an apron as of yore and started his son under his personal supervision in the washing-room. He took off his apron when Johann knew all about handling chicle products, from importing-bag to tin-foil wrapper. Then he died.
And this year troublesome conditions had come on. The Consolidated Pepsin people were cutting in severely. Orders for the great specialty of K. & H.—"Old Tulu"—had fallen. Something had to be done.
Houghton, now senior partner, had proposed, and young Kaufmann agreed, that an advertising expert be secured. But the agreement ended there. For the first words of the junior partner showed Houghton that the spirit of the father was still sitting at that desk opposite, and smiling the same fat, phlegmatic smile at his supposed weakness for "dose college bitzness."
They had compromised upon Mr. Pepper, secured from Simpkins' Practical Advertising School. But at the end of six months, Pepper's so-called "follow-up campaign" had failed to meet materially the steady inroads of the western men. He had explained that it was the result of his need of an assistant. It was determined to give him one.
Then, one night as he sat in his library, John Houghton had looked into a pair of blue eyes and promised to "give Tom Brainard the chance." In consequence he had had his hair tousled, been given a resounding kiss and a crushing hug from the young lady on his knees. For Dorothy Houghton, despite her nineteen years, still claimed that privilege from her father.
In that way, for the first time, a college man had come into the employ of K. & H., and been made the assistant of Mr. Pepper at the salary he demanded—"any old thing to start the ball rolling."
And now had come the information that the senior partner's long-desired experiment had ended in failure.
Young Kaufmann turned to his work with the air of one who has given a child its own way and seen it come to grief.
"I—I suppose," Houghton said slowly, "we'll have to let Brainard go."
And then a peculiar thing happened. Through the open window, floating in the summer air, he seemed to see a familiar figure. It was dressed in fluffy white, and carried a parasol over its shoulders. It fluttered calmly in, seated itself on the sill, and gazed at him with blue eyes that were serious, reproachful.
"Daddy!" it said, and it brushed away a wisp of hair by its ear—just as another one, long ago, had used to. "Daddy!" it faltered. "Why did I ask you to give him the place, if it wasn't because—because——"
The spell was broken by Kaufmann's voice. "Whatefer you do, I am sooted," he was saying. It might have been his father. "But if w'at Pepper says about Brainard——"
The senior partner straightened up and pushed a button. "Yes. But We haven't heard what Brainard says about Pepper."
Several moments later Tom Brainard entered. Medium-sized and muscular, he was dressed in a loose-fitting suit that by its very cut told his training. He stood between them as Mr. Pepper had done, but there was nothing of the other's ingratiating deference in his level look.
"Sit down, Brainard," said Houghton. The newcomer did so, and the senior partner marked an attitude of laziness and indifference.
Houghton became stern. "Brainard," he began, "I gave you a chance with us because——" He paused.
The other colored. "I had hoped to make good without that."
"But this morning Mr. Pepper——"
"Said we couldn't get along together. That's true."
"Ah! You admit!" It was Kaufmann.
"Yes."
There was a pause. Then Houghton spoke. "I can't tell you how much this disappoints me, Brainard. The fact is, for years I have tried to shut my eyes to the development of college training. In my time there was not the call for practicality that there is today. Yet it seems to me that the training in our colleges has grown less and less practical. Why do the colleges turn out men who spend their time in personal gossip over sport or trivialities?"
"You remember that the King of Spain—or was it Cambodia—puzzled his wise men for a year as to why a fish, when dropped into a full pail of water, didn't make it overflow."
"What's that got to do with it?"
"Because I must answer as the king did: It's not so—the paildoesoverflow. They hadn't thought to try it."
"You mean that I am wrong."
"Yes. Are you sure your gossips were 'college men'?"
"Ah!" Houghton made a gesture to his partner, who was about to speak. "Then let us commence at the root of the matter. Mr. Kaufmann and I have often discussed the subject. In this case you are the one who has 'tried it.' Suppose you explain our mistake."
"I'd be glad to do that," said Brainard, "because I've heard a lot of that talk."
"Well?"
"Well—of course when I say 'college man' I mean college graduate."
"Why?"
"If a kitten crawls into an oven, is it a biscuit?"
There was an earnestness that robbed the question of any flippancy.
Houghton laughed. "No!"
"If a dub goes into college and gets flunked out in a month, is he a college man?"
"Hardly."
"Oh, but he calls himself one. He goes to Podunk all decorated up in geraniums and the rest of his life is a 'college man.' I'm not talking about him or the man who comes to college to learn to mix cocktails—inside. He may last to the junior year. I'm talking about the graduate—they're only about a tenth of the college. But they're the finished product. Mr. Kaufmann, you wouldn't try to sell gum that had only gone as far as the rolling-room, would you?"
"W'at—me?"
"Would you?"
"No." The junior partner was puzzled.
"That's because you want it to go through all the processes. Well, let's talk only about the boy who has gone all the way through the man factory."
Houghton nodded. "That's fair."
"The trouble is, people don't do that. They persist in butting into the college world, jerking out some sophomore celebration, and saying, 'What use is this silly thing in the real world?'"
"Well, aren't they right?"
"No. That's just the point. The college world is a mimic world—and your lifetime is just four years. The sophomore celebration is a practical thing there; perhaps it's teaching loyalty—that generally comes first. That's your college rolling-room. But the graduate—he's learned to dosomethingwell. I never knew a college man who wasn't at least responsible."
"But——"
"But here's the trouble: after selecting say two hundred fellows out of an entering bunch of six hundred, and developing the thing each is best fitted for,fathersteps in and the boy who would have made a first-class professor is put into business and blamed for being impractical. The fellow who has been handling thousands of dollars in college management and running twenty assistants—the man who could have taken the place—has no father to give him the boost necessary, and the other man's failure has queered his chances. He has to go to work as a mere clerk under a man—excuse me, I don't want to do any knocking."
"You think the whole trouble is caused by misdirected nepotism."
"Yes."
"Ah——" It was young Kaufmann again. "But you said that you were trained in advertising on your college paper."
"Yes—and I was going to tell you today, if Mr. Pepper hadn't, that the money you're paying for me is utterly wasted."
"Ah!"
"Yes. I can't look in the face of a hungry designer and beat him down to within a dollar of the cost of materials. And—and—my suggestions upon broader lines don't seem to cause much hooray."
"Well—" the junior partner sat up—"since you admit——" He paused for his partner to speak the words of discharge.
But Houghton was looking quizzically at the college man. "What was your idea as to broader lines?"
Brainard hesitated. "Well, it seemed to me that Pepper is trying to do two things that are antagonistic: be'élite'and sell chewing-gum. The fact is thatélitepeople don't chew gum. I'd like to know how the statement, 'Old Tulu—Best by Test,' will make a kid on the corner with a cent in his fist have an attack of mouth-watering."
Kaufmann roused himself. "It is true. Our gumisthe best."
"I'm not disputing that, but still it'sgum. If you're trying to increase the vulgar habit of gum-chewing—well—you can't do it by advertising the firm's financial standing, its age, or the purity of its output. That would do for an insurance company or a bank—butgum! Who cares for purity! All they want to know is if itschmeckt gut." This last with a humorous glance at Kaufmann.
The latter was scowling. Brainard was touching a tender spot.
"Well, what would you do?"
Brainard flushed. He felt the tone of sarcasm in the elder man's voice. He tightened his lips. "At least, I'd change the name of the gum!"
"Change the name!" Kaufmann was horrified.
"Well, nobody wants 'Old Tulu.' They want 'New Tulu' or 'Fresh Tasty Tulu.' At least, something to appeal to the imagination of Sadie-at-the-ribbon-counter."
"Oh!" observed Houghton. "And the name you suggest?"
"Well,—say something like 'Lulu Tulu.'"
"Gott!" Kaufmann struck the desk a blow with his fist. It was an insult to his father's memory.
Brainard rose. "I'm sorry," he said, "if I have offended. To save you any further bother, I'll just cut it out after Saturday. I—thank you for the chance"—he smiled a little ruefully—"the chance you have given me. Good day, gentlemen."
He turned on his heel and left the office.
***
As John Houghton was driven home that night, he became suddenly conscious that he would soon meet the apparition of the afternoon in the flesh. And though, of course, there was no need, he found himself rehearsing the justification of his position. "Lulu Tulu" indeed! Imagine the smile that would have illumined the faces at the club on such an announcement. The impudence of the boy to have suggested it to him—him who had so often held forth upon the value of conservatism in business! And he remembered with pride the speaker who had once said, "It is such solid vertebrae as Mr. Houghton that form the backbone of our business world." That speaker had been Bender, of the New York Dynamo Company. Poor Bender! The Western Electric Construction had got him after all.
This line of thought caused Houghton to reach in his pocket and produce a letter. He went over the significant part again.
"Our Mr. Byrnes reports the clinching of the subway vending-machine contract," it read, "and this, together with our other business, will give us over half of the New York trade. With this statement before us, we feel that we can make a winning fight if you still refuse to consider our terms. In view of recent developments, we cannot repeat our former offer but if you will consider sixty-seven as a figure——"
Sixty-seven! And a year before he would not have taken one hundred and ten! In the bitterness of the moment, he wondered if he, too, would finally go the way that Bender had.
And then, as the butler swung the door back, he was recalled to the matter of Tom Brainard by the sight of a familiar figure that floated toward him as airily as had its astral self that afternoon.
He kissed her and went to his study. Just before dinner was not a time to discuss such things. But later, as he looked across the candelabra at his daughter, all smiles and happiness in that seat that had been her mother's, he regretted that he had not, for——
"Daddy," Dorothy was saying, "I got such a funny note from Tom this afternoon. He says there has been a change at the office and that you will explain."
"Yes."
"Well——?" She paused eagerly. "It's something awfully good—I know."
Her father frowned and caught her eye. "Later," he said significantly.
The girl read the tone, and the gaiety of the moment before was gone. After that they ate in silence.
One cigar—two cigars had been smoked when she stole into the library. Since coffee (whether from design or chance he never knew), she had rearranged her hair. Now it was low on her neck in a fashion of long ago, with a single curl that strayed over a white shoulder to her bosom. She knelt at his side without a word.
He looked down at her. Somehow he had never seen her like this before—that curious womanly expression.
"Tell me," was all she said.
And, as he told Tom Brainard's failure to fit in, he watched her closely. "I'm sorry," he concluded.
"So am I, daddy," she returned steadily; "because I am going to marry him."
"What?"
"Oh, you knew—you must have," she said, "when I asked you to give him the chance."
The father was silent. In fancy he again heard Dolly Warner promising, against her parents' advice, to wait for her John to "get on in the world."
"Well?" he asked.
"Do you think you've given him a fair chance?"
He was restored to his usual poise. "I suppose he complained that I didn't."
Dorothy's eyes went wide. "No, he said that after I had heard the news from you, he would leave everything to me."
"Oh!"
"But, father, I don't think youhavebeen fair. Tom is right.Idon't chew gum, do I?"
"Well——" He was indignant. Then he stopped thoughtfully. "No."
"But Mary downstairs does. She wouldn't be offended at 'Lulu Tulu.' I dare say she'd think it 'just grand.'"
He returned no answer.
"Come, daddy," she went on. "New York has grown lots—even since I was little. And—and some people get behind the times. They think they're being dignified when it's only that they're antiquated."
He looked shrewdly at her. "I never heard you talk like that before. Where did you——"
"Tom said that a week ago," she admitted. "And he said, too, that he could double the results if he only had full swing. Instead, you admit he's a mere clerk for that horrid Pepper. Oh, daddy, daddy," she pleaded. "Give him a chance." Then her voice went low again. "I'm going to marry him anyway," she said, "and you don't want this between. If he fails, I'll stand the loss from what mother left me. Give him full swing—a real chance, daddy! He's going to be—your son."
John Houghton looked into the earnest girlish face. He wound the curl about his finger. "Kaufmann has always wanted to visit the Fatherland," he said irrelevantly.
She gave a quick, eager look. "And that Pepper could go on a vacation."
***
Days drag very slowly at a summer resort, especially when one has promised not to write to him. But Dorothy's father had kept his word, so she could but do the same. Behind, in the sweltering city, in full charge for six weeks was Tom Brainard. His authority included permission to invent and use any new labels or trade-marks he saw fit.
The girl at the seashore, however, was also busy—amusing her father that he might not give too much time to thinking. And then, when three of the six weeks had passed, came the accident to the motor car.
She was told that with rest and no worries, her father would recover in a week or two. She cheerfully fitted into the rôle of assistant to the nurse in charge, and, as soon as the doctor allowed, prepared to read his mail to him as he lay, eyes and head bandaged. But as she opened and glanced over the accumulated letters, she suddenly went pale. She read one in particular from end to end, and then, with a scared, furtive look at the bandaged figure, slipped it into a pocket.
Later, when her father had finished dictating to her, she answered the concealed letter herself.
Again the days drifted. The bandages were removed; but still the girl continued to scan the mail. Her vigilance was rewarded. She flushed over a second letter which, with one in a worn envelope, she took to her father.
He saw the careworn expression. "My little girl has been overworking," he said.
She held out the worn letter. "I've had this for some time—but—but I waited for something more, and here it is." She showed the other.
He took the first, and when he had finished, his hand was trembling.
"I regret to report that things are in a chaos," it ran. "All of the regular advertising has been withdrawn. The usual entertainment money for salesmen classed under this head has been stopped. In consequence, our city trade has tumbled fearfully—and you know how bad it was before. The worst news I have to offer is in regard to Mr. Brainard personally. Our detective reports that his time outside is spent in most questionable company. He has been seen drinking at roof-gardens with a certain dissipated pugilist named Little Sullivan, and was traced with this man to the apartment of a song-and-dance woman named Violette. He seems to be spending money extravagantly and visits certain bohemian quarters in the vicinity of Jones Street, where he puts in his time with disreputable-looking men. I beg leave to advise immediate action.—Mowbray."
"My God!" groaned Houghton. This explained that derisive offer of fifty-one from Consolidated Pepsin.
"And you kept this from me?"
"They said not to worry you," she said. "I—I've had enough for two. Besides, I answered it."
"You did! What——?"
"I told them to wait a little longer."
The father groaned again.
"I justhadto, daddy; and then today this letter came."
He seized it eagerly. It read: "You were right about waiting. Suspend all action."
"What does it mean?" she asked.
"We'll find out tomorrow," he answered grimly.
The 4:30 train gave John Houghton just time to reach the office before it closed. Dorothy went home. Her father, roused by the evil news of the day before, had impressed her with all that it might mean in a material way. As though that mattered!—as though anything could hurt her more! She would have been willing to go with Tom Brainard in rags before—but now!
She sat by the telephone with clenched fists, her traveling veil still pushed up on her hat, the lines that had come into her face during the past week deepening with the dusk. At last—a long, sharp ring! "Yes—father—not dine at home—meet you at the Yolland—a guest. Yes—but about Tom—what?—7:30—But about Tom, daddy? Good-by?!! But, daddy!!!"
It was no use. He had hung up. She called feverishly for the office, but the reply was, "They do not answer." Mechanically she went up to her room. "The blue mousseline, Susan," she said.
As the maid laid it out, she walked the floor. Through the window the park lay green and inviting. She longed to fly to the cool grass and run—and run——
From below came the loud, rasping notes of a street-piano that, in some incomprehensible fashion, had wandered to the deserted row of houses. The noise, for all that there was a pleasing swing to the air, irritated her. She threw the man a quarter. "Go away," she waved.
At last the maid said her mistress was ready, and Dorothy, without questioning the decision, allowed herself to be put into the brougham.
The drive seemed hours long, and then—her father's face told her nothing. Without a word, he led her to a reception-room. As they entered, a figure sprang to meet them.
For a moment she hesitated. Then, "Tom!" she cried, and caught his hand.
He saw the whiteness of her face, and all the yearnings of their separation matched it upon his.
"Dorothy!" he faltered.
Her father interrupted. "Tom is to explain how he has quadrupled our business in the last week."
A sudden weakness seized her. She followed them unsteadily. Seated at a table, however, she was able to smile again. At that moment, the orchestra, striking up, suddenly caught her attention. "Tum—tum-tum—tum-tum—tum"—that haunting, swinging melody of the street-piano.
"What tune is that?" she asked.
Brainard smiled. "Thatis a tune that has suddenly become popular. Any night you may see hundreds of East Side children dancing on the asphalt and singing it."
"Yes," she said. "I heard it on a street-piano."
"It's called," he went on, '"My Lulu Tulu Girl.' All the grinders have it. Billy Tompkins, Noughty-three, who lives in the Jones Street social settlement, worked that for me. Those dagoes worship him—saved a kid's life or something."
A light came into John Houghton's eyes.
"That's part of the scheme. Aspwell wrote the song. I found him down in bohemia working on an opera. But, for the sake of old days in the senior extravaganza, he turned off 'My Lulu Tulu Girl.' You know those orders on your desk are for our new brand, 'Lulu Tulu.' The song was introduced two weeks ago at the Metropolitan Roof by Violette, a young lady who married our old football trainer, Little Sullivan. We'll hear her later—I have tickets. Then we'll go to Leith's; there's a turn there by 'Jim Bailey and his Six Lulu Tulu Girls'—rather vulgar (while they dance they chew the gum and perform calisthenics with it) but it seems to go. Then——"
"Tom!"
"After we've dined, I'll show you our regular magazine and newspaper advertising in the reading-room—double space. You see, I couldn't ask you to increase, so I stopped it for a time and saved up. But I hope you'll stand for it regularly. It's mainly pictures of Miss. Lulu Tulu in a large Florodora hat, with verses below apostrophizing the poetry of motion of her jaws. Then there's a line of limericks about the adventures of the 'Lulu Tulu Gummies'—small gum-headed tykes—always in trouble until they find Lulu. I got Phillips to do that as a personal favor."
"Also Noughty-something, I suppose," remarked Houghton.
"Yes. But he graduated before my time. I knew his work in the college annual. He's in the magazines now. Then I got Professor Wheaton—'Jimmy the Grind' we used to call him—his folks wanted him to be a poet—imagine Jimmy a poet!—I got Professor Wheaton to give us some readers on 'Tulu as a Salivary Stimulant,' 'The Healthful Effect of Pure Saliva on Food Products' and 'The Degenerative Effect of Artificially Relieving an Organ of its Proper Functions.' That hits the Pepsin people, you see——"
And so it ran—until he had covered his plan fully, and Dorothy's face with happy smiles.
"Tom," said the father, "if I had opened that letter instead of Dolly!"
Dorothy suddenly became demure under their gaze and sought to change the subject. "Then you admit, daddy, that a college man is of some use?"
"I'll admit that Tom got the business. But that was because he is naturally clever and business-like, not because——"
"Just a moment," said Brainard. "I think I can show that you're mistaken. I found out that Pepper was doing the wrong thing—by the first rule of criticism (freshman English): 'What is the author trying to do? Does he do it? Is it worth doing?' Substitute 'advertising man' for 'author' and you have a business that is worth doing (since you continue it)—and by the other two questions I saw his incongruity of subject-matter and expression.' My economics taught me the 'law of supply and demand.' 'Analytical research of original authorities' taught me where the demand was. There was only the problem of a cause to stimulate it. Through deductive logic' and 'psychology' I got the cause that would appeal, and the effect worked out in an increased demand which we were ready to supply—just like a problem in math."