Mr. Jones had finished transcribing Obadiah Dale’s morning dictation and awaited a fitting moment to place the letters before the manufacturer to receive his signature. Meanwhile, he smoked a cigarette and, with his face sadly distorted on account of the smoke, manicured his nails with his pocket knife.
This important part of a gentleman’s toilet would gladly have been left by Mr. Jones to a professional manicurist, because of the more skilled attention and the valuable social privileges attached to such services, had not the chronically depleted condition of his purse demanded the exercise of rigorous economy.
In the glare of the pendant bulb, Kelly was engaged artistically in the preparation of a crude but libelous cartoon of the stenographer.
A moment of rest and mental relaxation had descended upon the personal staff of Obadiah. His hive of commercial industry had, for the moment, ceased to buzz. Suddenly, the hall door was thrown open. Mr. Jones suffered a severe laceration from the point of his own blade. Even the artistic soul of Kelly was shaken by the abrupt intrusion.
Hezekiah Wilkins entered. His manner was hurried. Not as a messenger bearing joyous news ofgreat triumphs, but rather as an emissary charged with intelligence of bitter flavor, who desires to get rid of it, that he may turn to happier matters.
Having been courteously advised by the bleeding outer guard that the manufacturer was not engaged at the moment, Hezekiah entered the inner citadel. Obadiah was reading a voluminous mass of typewritten pages which he laid aside at the coming of his attorney. Waving the lawyer to a chair, he intimated that he awaited the further pleasure of his legal adviser.
Seating himself, Hezekiah shoved both of his feet as far in front of him as his short legs would permit. He studied the aspect of his shoes thus presented, as if he had never before appreciated their beauty.
“Well?” Obadiah spoke curtly.
“I wish to discuss the matter of that young man in the hospital. Curtis is his name–I think.”
“All right,” Obadiah agreed.
Hezekiah placed his palms together and gazed upwards as if in pious meditation upon the words which he was about to utter.
Obadiah viewed the attitude of his adviser with disapprobation. “Go ahead,” he urged roughly. “Don’t take all day.”
The lawyer gave his employer a look of reproof. “It is very important,” he announced with great calmness, “that legal matters be accurately presented so that the facts deduced shall afford a sound basis for correct judgment when appearing in court.” Hezekiah explained with dignity. “I have found that a moment given to the correct logical presentation of facts tendsto expedite a just solution of perplexing questions.” As he ceased speaking, he appeared to drift away into a condition of deep cogitation under the very eyes of his employer.
Before this display of profound thought, Obadiah was helpless. Properly chastened, he awaited in patience the outcome of the mental processes of his learned subordinate.
After a period in which no sound was heard but the ticking of the clock, Hezekiah recovered from his abstraction with a start, and announced, “This young Curtis refuses to accept your check.”
“Bigger fool he,” Obadiah responded with indifference.
Hezekiah turned sharply upon the mill owner, “I don’t agree with you at all,” he rapped.
Obadiah had great confidence in the judgment of his legal adviser. There had been times when failing to follow it had cost him money. He became uneasy. “Do you think that he has a case against me?”
“I would rather have his chances before a jury than yours.”
“Is he going to bring suit?” Obadiah’s uneasiness increased. He did not care to be at the mercy of a South Ridgefield jury. He usually was stuck.
“Yes, it’s my opinion that he intends to bring an action against you. He displayed marked animus.”
“He displayed what?”
“Animus–unfriendliness,” Hezekiah interpreted.
Obadiah’s uneasiness affected his temper. “Why don’t you speak English?” he demanded, the pitch of his voice getting higher.
For an instant there was a flash in Hezekiah’s eyes but when he spoke he was perfectly calm. “I beg pardon, I failed to make allowances for–your understanding.”
Obadiah regarded his attorney angrily but made no reply. Years of experience had warned him against verbal combat with this man. Usually he did not awaken to the danger until he rankled under one of Hezekiah’s darts.
Disregarding the exchange of compliments, the lawyer went on, perfectly unruffled, “Is there a reason for this young man to entertain ill will against you?”
“I never heard of the fellow before,” protested Obadiah.
“Is he acquainted with your daughter?”
“No.” Obadiah hesitated after his denial and modified it. “She helped to take him to the hospital and she has visited him since, I understand.”
“Ah!” Comprehension lighted Hezekiah’s face. “You told me,” he suggested, “that your daughter considered herself to be to blame for the accident.”
“Yes,” Obadiah agreed with reluctance. “Virginia has a silly idea that she was at fault. She felt very badly over the matter.”
“And went to the hospital to express her regret and conceded responsibility for the accident to the injured man. He told me that he could rely on your daughter as a witness in his behalf.”
“I’ll be hanged,” cried Obadiah, the tone of his voice reminding one of Hennie’s likening of him to a mosquito.
“You’ll be stung with a fat verdict if he gets youinto court with your own daughter testifying against you. That’s what will happen to you. Probably she admitted responsibility in the presence of witnesses,” Hezekiah pointed out with deepest pessimism.
“I won’t have my daughter dragged into court as a witness against me,” groaned Obadiah.
“How are you going to stop it? Ship her out of the state?” Hezekiah suggested with a promptness which displayed unethical resourcefulness in the suppression of embarrassing witnesses.
“Can’t you arrange a compromise?” begged Obadiah.
“Not after this mistake.” Hezekiah returned the check for twenty-five dollars. “I’m as popular as a mouse in a pantry with that young fellow after attempting to pass that on him.” He gave the mill owner a glance of curiosity. “How far would you let me go now?”
“Use your own judgment, only keep Virginia out of court.”
Both men were silent for a time and then the lawyer spoke. “I tried to sound young Curtis. I endeavored to discover if he had any settlement in mind. All I found was a pronounced hostility to you personally and,” Hezekiah smiled reminiscently, “to me as your representative.”
“That’s your imagination,” exclaimed Obadiah and then, after the custom of a malefactor of great wealth, went on, “How can we get at him? He must be got at.”
“I might suggest something–,” Hezekiah appeared doubtful, lacking in his usual assurance.
It irritated Obadiah to have this man upon whose judgment he had staked his fortune display indecision in this trivial affair. “Out with it! What’s the matter with you? Have you got cold feet?” he stormed.
Hezekiah chuckled. “This case is complicated. The other side is most unfriendly. It’s pretty hard to keep out of court when the other fellow wants to put you there,” he argued, “I believe that I see a way if you will give me full authority to make such settlement as I deem advisable and,” Hezekiah shifted uneasily, “allow me the assistance of counsel.”
“Hezekiah Wilkins, have you gone crazy? Do you mean to ask me to hire another lawyer to help you in this insignificant automobile case?” groaned Obadiah.
“I haven’t asked you to employ a lawyer. I asked for counsel.”
“For the love of Mike, whose counsel do you require in this tempest in a teapot?” shouted the exasperated mill owner.
“I wish, with your permission, to ask your daughter Virginia to be of counsel.”
“Thunderation,” bawled Obadiah, shrilly, exploding with pent up aggravation. “Have you gone out of your wits?” He surveyed the lawyer as if he really believed his legal mentality to be addled. “Can’t I get it into your head–” he cast a look of utter contempt at the massive cranium of the lawyer–“that my interest in this case is to keep my daughter out of court? If it wasn’t for her, I’d let that brittle shanked motorcycling ass sue until they grow bananas in Canada.”
“Your verbal pyrotechnics are interesting but hardly germane to the subject,” Hezekiah reproved his employer. “I have no intention of dragging your daughter into court in the guise of a Portia, although her beauty would––”
Obadiah’s temper was on edge. “Come to the point, sir,” he demanded. “Cut out the hot air. My time is worth money.”
For a moment Hezekiah gazed thoughtfully out of a window making strange gestures with his glasses. Then, turning to the mill owner he smilingly agreed. “As much valuable time has been utilized by you in prolix descriptions, possibly amusing, assuredly slanderous and not tending in the slightest degree to shed light upon our problem, I admit a necessity for expedition.”
Obadiah viewed his attorney with wrathful eyes but remained silent.
Even under the angry eyes of his employer a benignant look lighted the countenance of the lawyer and his voice was very gentle as he resumed, “It’s an old adage–‘Youth will be served.’ In its arrogance, youth defies the wisdom of age and the judgment of the ages. In its careless irresponsibility, it knows not danger. In its assurance and self-confidence it knows not fear. Clad in the armor of health, it basks in the sunshine of its strength and blatantly rejoices in its hopes.”
“Hezekiah Wilkins, are you sick, or what in the devil is the matter with you?” inquired the overwrought manufacturer.
“No, not sick, Obadiah,” Hezekiah explainedplacidly, “not sick, but happy–happy in that thought–a distinctly attractive one, and exceptionally well-developed for your benefit. I regret,” the lawyer lamented, “that a stenographer was not present to preserve it. It is a pity that the world should lose it–that it should be lost to those who would understand and appreciate it–even love it.”
Obadiah sank deep into his chair, encircled by gloom, as, appreciating his inability to direct the train of his legal adviser’s thought, he allowed that worthy to pursue his own course.
“Youth calls to youth,” the sentimental Hezekiah continued. “Youth understands youth. Youth can persuade youth.” Suddenly the attorney seemed to thrust aside the gentle atmosphere in which he had been immersed, and, fixing a most crafty look upon Obadiah, he snapped, “You and I can’t handle that fellow, but your daughter can. It’s going to cost you some money, though.” He suffered a relapse. “Youth knows neither the value of time nor money.”
Obadiah was filled with relief. “By gum, you’ve hit it,” he shouted. “But why couldn’t you get that off your chest without throwing a fit?” he complained, ill-humoredly.
Once more Hezekiah reverted to sentiment. “The language of youth is song, and its thought poetry,” he sighed, after which he arose and faced the manufacturer across his desk. “I am authorized to proceed in accordance with my plan?” he asked–“to make the best settlement which in my judgment can be made in the premises, through,” he chuckled, “the extraordinary channels to which I have recourse?”
“Go the limit, only keep it out of court,” grumbled Obadiah. “Give such instructions as you wish to Virginia and let her understand that I am only interested in an amicable adjustment and do not care to be bothered with details.”
As Hezekiah departed through the outer office, he interrupted a conversation between Mr. Jones and Kelly.
The stenographer met the intrusion with characteristic activity. Rushing to his desk, he seized the recently typed letters and bore them into Obadiah’s presence. His haste, if noted by the attorney, should have indicated that prolonged presence in the throne room had resulted in marked delay to the normal performance of imperial functions.
Apparently Hezekiah’s mind was engrossed by lighter matters. He moved spryly, whistling a cheery melody not at present in vogue but much in favor in his youth.
Mr. Jones came out of Obadiah’s room hurriedly. The sound of stern reproof came also, until it was shut off by the closing of the door. It seemed as if the spirit of the stenographer expanded in relief, in the familiar atmosphere of his own domain; as one who, having accomplished a hazardous journey, returns to the peace of his own fireside.
He entered Kelly’s room with great dignity. Taking a position in the center, he raised his arms horizontally, inhaled a deep breath, bowed deeply, straightened up, exhaled, rose on his toes, descended, and dropped his arms.
The massive Kelly viewed this athletic exhibitionwith interest. “What’s that exercise for?” he demanded.
Mr. Jones yawned. “It gives me relaxation from the strain,” he answered.
“What strain? Where did you strain yourself?” asked Kelly with kindly interest in his friend’s welfare.
“The office responsibility,” explained the stenographer. “It knocks the sap out of a fellow.” He lighted a cigarette.
“Oh, is that it?” Kelly gave a cruel laugh. “I thought you had sprung something. If you do that exercise often, young fellow, you’ll bust a lung. Let’s see you do it again,” urged the bookkeeper, as if desirous of witnessing the fulfillment of his prophecy.
Without fear, Mr. Jones laid aside his cigarette with care, and gulped such a deep draught of air that he became red in the face and gave other evidences of being about to burst from undue pneumatic pressure.
Kelly viewed with undisguised amusement the undeveloped protuberance thrust forward in pride by the stenographer. “You haven’t the chest expansion of a lizard,” he told him.
Mr. Jones received this deadly insult in the midst of deep bowing. He exploded, and, leaning against a desk, breathed rapidly while the injured look in his eyes attempted to carry that reproof which his speechlessness otherwise forbade.
“If you do that exercise much,” Kelly gloomily predicted, “you are going to relax in a wooden box. Who gave you that stuff? You must have been getting your ideas from the gymnasium of a bug house.”
For obvious reasons Mr. Jones failed to reply.
“There is no sense in the thing. What you need is–” Kelly descended from his perch and seizing him, only that instant recovered from speechlessness, in his strong grasp, made exploratory investigations with his fingers throughout the panting one’s anatomy.
“Ouch,” wailed the pained Mr. Jones.
“Shut up. Do you want the old man out here? I’m not going to hurt you. I want to find out what ails you.”
“Leggo, you are nearly killing me.”
Mr. Jones rubbed himself ruefully when Kelly loosed him. “You big stiff, ain’t you got no sense, gouging around in a fellow’s insides that way? You are liable to put a man out of business,” he protested.
Utterly indifferent to these complaints, Kelly was judging the stenographer coldly and dispassionately. “You’ve got no bone. You’ve got no muscle. You’ve got no fat.” Kelly forgot that pride and dignity are intangible assets. “You’d better take correct breathing exercises or you’ll get T. B.,” he told him. “I shouldn’t be surprised if you’ve got it now.”
Naturally, Mr. Jones was greatly alarmed and showed it.
“Here’s the way to take a breathing exercise.” Kelly slowly inhaled a mighty volume of air until his chest arched forth in all of its magnificent development. He held it so for a moment and beat upon it resoundingly in accordance with the supposed custom of the orang-outang in moments of victory. “No tuberculosis there,” he boasted, after exhaling with the rush of a gale of wind.
“That’s some expansion, Kelly,” the stenographeradmitted, and he continued as in excuse for his own physical deficiencies, “I should take more exercise. My work is confining, and the strain is heavy. I’m all run down. The old man must have noticed it, too, because the other day he says to me, ‘Mr. Jones, you’re working too hard–it’s telling on you–I’d give you a good rest if I could manage to get along without you.’”
Kelly burst into a roar of laughter. “If you wait for the old man to give you a rest, my son, you are going to get tired, believe me. Cut out the bluff for a minute. I want to talk seriously to you. You’re in rotten physical condition and you owe it to yourself to keep from playing leading man at a funeral.”
Mr. Jones’s countenance registered horror.
Kelly went on. “I happen to know a darn sight more about physical training than I do about book-keeping. I ought to–I spent enough time around a college gymnasium when I should have been some place else.”
Even Mr. Jones’s alarm faded before this astounding information. “College,” he remarked in surprise.
“Sure,” Kelly grinned, “I spent a couple of years in college. I’m proud of them. I nearly flunked out before I learned that I leaned to muscle instead of to literature.” He returned to the subject under discussion. “I can give you a bunch of exercises which will do you a lot of good in six months if you are faithful. I’ll give you gentle exercises at first, darn gentle,” he laughed, “otherwise you’ll snap something. I believe that I’ll make a man out of you, young grasshopper.”He shook his head wearily. “Gosh, but it’s going to take a lot of work.”
Mr. Jones flushed hotly. “Say,” he said, “it’s not necessary to insult me, is it?”
“Yes, you’ve got to use a harpoon to get anything through that rhinoceros’ hide of egotism of yours.” He fastened a stern and foreboding eye upon Mr. Jones. “Do you want to die?” he inquired.
Mr. Jones sought the motive behind the startling question. “What’s going to kill me?” he demanded.
“Lack of air.” Kelly’s answer was obscure. It was too general. He thought it necessary to restate it with modifying amendments. “The lack of good fresh air,” he concluded.
“Oh,” said Mr. Jones, apparently much relieved at the distinction made.
“You want to get out into the air and breathe,” Kelly explained as if the stenographer were carelessly given to omit this function.
“I don’t have the time.” Mr. Jones visualized a dignified stroll over a golf links.
Kelly gave thought to the difficulty. “A motorcycle would be the thing,” he decided.
The effect upon Mr. Jones would have been no different if Kelly had prescribed an aeroplane or a submarine. “I can’t ride a motorcycle, and even if I could, where can I get one?” he objected.
“That’s the point.” Kelly was as enthusiastic as a life insurance agent. “I have a friend who has one. He nearly killed himself on it and now he is in the hospital. I’ll bet that he is tired of it and will sell it cheap.”
“What do I want with the thing if it nearly killed him?” Mr. Jones protested logically.
“Don’t be a fool. The motorcycle never hurt him. He ran into an automobile and hurt himself.”
Mr. Jones believed the difference to be immaterial. “I won’t ride a motorcycle,” he declared obstinately.
Kelly clung to his scheme with constructive pride. “It’s up to you, my friend,” he argued. “You are going to die unless you get out into the air. I suggest the way to do it.”
“Yes, and I’ll get killed on the blamed old motorcycle,” predicted Mr. Jones mournfully.
“Take your choice!” the generous Kelly invited. “I am going up to the hospital to see that fellow after office hours. Why don’t you come along and meet him and then you can decide about the machine.”
Mr. Jones, fearful that he might overlook an important engagement, consulted a note-book with care. After concluding his investigation of the records, he said, “Well, as I don’t happen to have anything on, I don’t mind going up there with you, but you can write it in your hat that I’m not strong for any motorcycle business.”
Within a few moments after the prescribed closing hour, Obadiah’s official staff appeared upon the streets of South Ridgefield. Their steps lead them towards the hospital and on the way they passed Mr. Vivian’s cool oasis of refreshment amidst the burning sands of the town’s business section.
Here, the confectioner and his assistants arrayed in pure white moved gracefully about, serving the guests with cooling drink or, from time to time, gaveattention to the adjustment of the mechanical piano which furnished melody for the lovers of music.
Mr. Jones feasted his eyes upon this scene of innocent revelry and good fellowship. “Come on,” he said to Kelly, “have a drink?”
Kelly received the invitation with insulting words. “That’s your trouble,” he exclaimed in a voice which carried far. “That’s what makes your complexion so fierce.”
The sensitive soul of Mr. Jones rebelled at this public outcry of his physical defects. “Say, you big chump,” he burst out, “don’t you know any better than to bawl a fellow out that way in a place where everybody can hear you? That’s a dickens of a thing to do.”
“Come on. Nobody was listening.” Kelly looked about as if disappointed at failing to find an audience awaiting other personal allusions. “It’s the truth,” he maintained vigorously.
Mr. Jones hesitated, torn as many another good man, between his vanity and his appetite. Before his eyes flowed a tantalizing stream of those delicacies so dear to his palate. In his pocket reposed two dimes, his wealth until pay day on the morrow would replenish his purse. Why should not a good fellow entertain his friends even though they resort to personal comments? Rent by conflicting desires, he jingled the coins. As he fingered them, there flashed the remembrance of the war tax. He turned to Kelly and his voice was very sad, as he murmured, “I guess that you’re right, old man. We’ll cut out the sweet stuff.”
They had no difficulty in locating Joe Curtis. Hissunny characteristics had won him already wide spread friendships among the hospital staff, so that the way to his bed was indicated as the path to a neighbor’s door.
Kelly grinned amiably at Miss Knight, and inquired, “May I speak to Joe Curtis?”
The nurse looked at the big fellow with the appraising eye of a connoisseur of men. “Sure,” she retorted, “if you can talk and he will give you a chance to.”
The participants in this repartee were much pleased with its cleverness. They laughed loudly.
Mr. Jones, considering the remarks frivolous, did not deign to unbend from a stately poise assumed by him when in the presence of ladies. Miss Knight was evidently a person of ordinary origin, lacking in discrimination. She had failed to notice the stenographer, confining her attentions, including her smiles, to the husky Kelly.
“Here’s another friend, Joe,” the nurse told the injured motorcyclist when they arrived at his bedside. She failed to take account of Mr. Jones who had progressed down the aisle with mien of great distinction. His entrance was marred only by a remark of a vulgar patient who in a coarse whisper desired to be advised, “Who let Charlie Chaplin in?” much to the amusement of other low fellows.
“Hello, Joe, how’s business?” asked Kelly.
“Fine, Mike, fine. Never better,” responded the patient.
“Meet my friend, Mr. Percy Jones.” The introduction was impaired as the stenographer’s attentionwas devoted to frowning down masculine giggles reminiscent of the reference to the illustrious movie star.
That the social exigencies of the moment might not be overlooked, Kelly dug a finger into the stenographer’s side.
Mr. Jones undulated as to a measure of the Hula Hula. “Wough,” he yelled. “Wot cher doin’?”
Happy laughter arose from nearby beds.
Miss Knight swept her recumbent charges with a glance of stern reproof. “Where’s your manners?” she demanded. “Cut out this rough stuff or–” she paused for effect and then launched this terrifying threat–“you’ll get no ice cream on Wednesday.” The male surgical cases quailed before this menace of cruel and unusual punishment. Peace reigned.
“Gentlemen, be seated,” invited Joe, in the rich and mellow tones of an interlocutor.
Miss Knight departed. Mr. Jones sat down in the only chair and Kelly made preparations to rest his huge form on the bed of the injured one.
Joe viewed this arrangement with alarm. “Don’t you sit on my broken leg, you hippopotamus,” he protested.
Kelly withdrew so hastily that he nearly knocked Mr. Jones off his chair.
“Mike, go over there and get that other chair. Don’t try to rob a little fellow like Jonesy,” Joe told him.
Pain swathed the features of Mr. Jones. To be publicly addressed as “Jonesy” was bad enough, but when coupled with an insulting reference to his size, it was too much.
Kelly finally seated himself by the invalid’s head and remarked with a smile of pleasure, “Joe, they tell me you’re about dead. Is there anything in it?”
“Listen to words of warning,” suggested the injured man. “Even with my game leg, it would take a bigger man than you to put me out of business.”
Kelly disregarded the challenge. “Is there any truth in the report that landing on your head is all that saved you?”
Joe grunted in disdain and Mr. Jones openly yawned at such commonplace humor.
Regardless of popular displeasure, Kelly went on. “I understand that your head ruined the truck?”
“Mike, you are a heavy kidder.” Joe smiled affectionately at his big friend. “Your conversation is usually agreeable, sometimes interesting, but never reliable. You guessed wrong about a truck. I ran into a seven passenger touring car.”
“Ha, a chariot of the awful rich. In the excitement did you surreptitiously abstract any diamonds, tires, gasoline or other valuables shaken loose by your dome?”
“No such luck, Mike. There was only a girl in the car.”
“The priceless jewel of the Isle of Swat and you did not kidnap it?” exclaimed Kelly.
Mr. Jones displayed a superior interest. “Was she beautiful?” he inquired.
“Was she beautiful?” mimicked Kelly. “She must have been. That’s why Joe tried to make a hit.” He leaned over the motorcyclist. “For once I am proud of you, young man. You used your head.”
Mr. Jones displayed extreme animation. “By Jove,” he laughed. “Possibly the lady thought that Mr. Curtis was butting in.”
Kelly inspected the stenographer with great intentness. “Good morning, old top. When did you wake up?”
“Your kidding is contagious, Mike. Jonesy has caught it,” chuckled Joe.
“No, you don’t understand the nature of the brute. It’s not me–it’s the ladies. Jones awakens at a reference to them and blossoms beneath their smiles,” explained Kelly.
A gentle look spread over Joe’s face. “The girl I ran into happened to be the right sort. She stuck by me when I was hurt and helped to bring me here–” He paused for a moment and then continued, “Let’s not talk about her in this room full of men.”
“Sure,” boomed Kelly. “You’re right as usual, Joe. Never stopped to think myself.” He turned and pointed to the stenographer. “My old friend Jones is on the edge of a decline.” The bookkeeper disregarded the presence of the private secretary as if he were deaf. “If he starts to slide he hasn’t far to go to land in a cemetery.”
Mr. Jones displayed no marked pleasure in the conversation. He maintained a dignified aloofness.
“I have decided to train him,” Kelly explained. “It’s going to be a hard job. He’s got no bone. He’s got no muscle. He’s got no fat. He’s got nothin’.”
Again Kelly overlooked the proud and sensitive spirit which protested against this public dissection of physical defects.
The eyes of Kelly and Joe viewed the puny figure of the stenographer in the manner of disgusted farmers examining a runt which resists their efforts to fatten it.
“To get flesh and muscle and bone on him I must give him plenty of exercise and get him out into the air. That will make him eat,” Kelly went on.
“His present diet is mostly cigarettes, isn’t it?” Joe inquired.
“He eats them by the bale,” confessed Kelly.
Apparently Joe deemed himself invited into the case as a consulting specialist. “Make him cut them out,” he prescribed. “Take the little fellow out for a run every night and give him a good sweat out. Give him a bath and a rub down and get him in bed by ten o’clock. Watch your distances at first. Jonesy is full of dope. Look at his eyes.”
Mr. Jones quailed under this keen scrutiny of experts.
“He’ll fall dead if he runs a block,” predicted Joe. “He’ll be able to cover some ground, though, after a couple of weeks of plugging. You can speed him up, then.” He studied the stenographer with impersonal interest. “Make a feather weight boxer of him, Mike, if he isn’t yellow. Get him in shape for the fall meet of the Athletic Club. If he can’t box, make him run. He’s built like a jack rabbit.”
The course of treatment outlined by the consulting specialist filled Mr. Jones with undisguised alarm. His mind and body alike protested against the indignities which threatened him. To him came recognition that immediate resistance was necessary toprevent the advent of a gruelling course of physical training, repugnant to his flesh and revolting to his soul. “S-s-s-say,” he stammered in the intenseness of his opposition, “I don’t want––”
“Look here,” Joe interrupted with fierceness, “you asked Mike to train you, didn’t you?”
Mr. Jones’s mental anguish did not make for quick thinking. He worked his lips but emitted no sound.
To Joe this silence acquiesced in his assumption and he went on, “You begged him to train you and he finally consented. You have shown judgment in selecting him–you couldn’t find a better man. But, remember this, my friend. Training is hard work. You are in for a rough time of it, Jonesy, and don’t you forget it. Remember this–it’s not what you want–it’s what Mike wants that is going to count. He has undertaken the devil’s own job to make a man out of a shrimp like you. Do you get me?” he concluded ferociously.
Before the sheer brute masculinity of the attack, the gentle courage of Mr. Jones gave way. “Yes, sir,” he agreed meekly.
“Now, that’s all settled, Mike,” Joe indicated with satisfaction. “Jonesy knows where he gets off. How about the grub?”
“No trouble there,” Kelly explained. “We board at the same place. The food is plain enough and I can eat his dessert and make him fill up on solid stuff. I wanted to ask about your motorcycle.”
“You are welcome to use it, Mike. It will be fine to chase Jonesy on or to get ahead of him if you want to time him. The machine was badly smashed in mycrash. There is a repair bill of seven dollars against it. If you will pay that, you can use it until I need it again. Put Jones up on it, too, if you like.”
There was a rustling of skirts and the sound of soft footsteps. Virginia came towards the young men. Mr. Jones and Kelly instantly recognized their employer’s daughter. They came to their feet as kitchen police in the presence of the Commanding General, which is with the speed of the lightning.
Virginia smiled sweetly at the invalid. “I am sorry to intrude,” she explained, “but the hospital closes to visitors in ten minutes; so I had to come now or not see Joe today.”
“It is fine of you to come even for a minute.” Joe smiled happily and then attempted to present Kelly and Mr. Jones to her.
She gave them a friendly smile. “I know you both. I have seen you in my father’s office so often that we are really old acquaintances.”
Kelly looked her squarely in the eyes and beamed, “Thanks, I like that.”
Mr. Jones assumed a manner containing all that was best from the several books upon social usages he had perused. Often had he longed for an opportunity to show the manufacturer’s daughter that at least her father’s private secretary was well versed in such matters. His chance had come and he must make the most of it. He bowed profoundly, “I am honored, indeed,” he murmured gently. “Permit me to express the extreme pleasure Miss Dale’s presence gives me.” Apparently, at this point, Mr. Jones expected Virginia to extend her lily white hand to be kissed.
She, being a young thing, a mere chit as it were, was unversed in this procedure. She looked at the low-bowed Mr. Jones and then at Joe and Kelly with a somewhat puzzled expression.
The athletes, being men of vulgar minds, burst into a roar of laughter which shocked Mr. Jones exceedingly. Finding nothing better to do, he was forced to join in amusement at his own expense.
“Gee, I’m going to miss my supper,” cried Kelly, and, with a breezy “Good bye” to Virginia and Joe, and a hurried “Come on” to Mr. Jones, he rushed away.
Mr. Jones was astounded at this exhibition of haste and ill-breeding, before this lady of position. However, he found himself torn between conflicting desires. He would have gladly spent some hours in the company of Miss Dale engaged in elegant conversation, but, at the moment, for the life of him, he could recall no subject of sufficient gentility for discussion.
“Come on, Jones,” came Kelly’s voice from the hall.
Virginia had taken Kelly’s chair and, leaning over the bed, was engrossed in conversation with the injured man.
The presence of Mr. Jones was being overlooked. He deemed it better to depart with Kelly. Immediate action was essential. He arose and again bowed deeply. “Allow me,” he pleaded, in dulcet tones, “to express my delight and joy in meeting Miss Dale and to inform her that circumstances beyond my individual control require my withdrawal from her company.”
“Blow, Jonesy, before your beans get cold,” suggested Joe.
At this low remark, Mr. Jones straightened up to his full height very suddenly and stepped backwards with dignity. Unhappily, his heel hooked against the leg of his chair and twisted the piece of furniture beneath him so that, tripping, he lost his balance upon the waxed floor. Simultaneously, Mr. Jones lost his dignity and waved his arms wildly in a frantic endeavor to recover himself.
“Come on,” Kelly urged again.
Mr. Jones obeyed the words of his trainer literally. Coming on over the chair, he landed with a crash between the beds on the other side of the aisle.
“Bring the ambulance up here,” suggested a facetious patient.
Sore in mind and body, Mr. Jones was assisted to his feet by the helpful Miss Knight. “I stumbled,” he explained to her in excuse.
“It’s a darn good thing you didn’t fall,” replied the nurse with ill-concealed sarcasm.
Virginia had watched Mr. Jones’s acrobatic performances with mixed emotions. She glanced at her wrist watch and, rising, leaned over to bid Joe farewell.
He caught her hand and held it. For a moment the black eyes were gazing squarely into the depths of the blue ones, and no word passed between the two, yet they were filled with a new, strange joyousness.
“I must go,” she whispered gently, and pulled her hand from Joe’s as she turned towards the strickenMr. Jones. “I hope you are not hurt,” she told him and left the ward with a nod at Kelly at the door.
Seizing his hat, Mr. Jones limped slowly after her.
“You’ll get better control of your muscles after Mike handles you a bit,” Joe called after him.
“Didn’t I tell you fellows that was Charlie Chaplin?” came a voice from one of the beds. Amidst the merriment aroused by this sally Mr. Jones joined Kelly and took his departure.
“Dis yere fambly ain’ nevah ready to eat. Dey allers has sumpin else dey gotta do,” grumbled Serena as she moved out upon the front porch of the Dale home.
Virginia stood upon the greensward listening to the call of a song sparrow in the tree above her head. The notes of the bird rang clear upon the morning air in all of their sweetness, until overwhelmed in competition with a jazz melody whistled by Ike as he moved about dragging a serpent-like length of hose behind him.
“Cum in to you’ breakfus, chil’,” commanded Serena.
“In a moment. Isn’t it a beautiful day for the concert?”
Although Virginia’s tardiness was yet uppermost in her mind, Serena deigned to examine the heavens above and the earth beneath with a critical eye which proposed to allow no fault to escape it. Then she made answer in a cryptic reply, “You ain’ said nothin’ chil’, you ain’ said nothin’ a tall.”
“Virginia,” said Obadiah, when they met at the breakfast table, “Mr. Wilkins was here again yesterday afternoon and you were not at home.”
The girl laughed. “I know it, Daddy,” she confessed, as she poured a generous measure of thick cream over her dish of sliced peaches. The charge of absenteeism made against her did not appear to be affecting her appetite as she began to eat.
“I warned you that he was coming,” Obadiah continued, impressively.
“Yes, Daddy.” The girl was enjoying her peaches and cream. “After you told me about it I waited for him and he didn’t come,” she explained virtuously. “The next afternoon, I had to go out and–of course, he had to come. The afternoon after that, I waited at home expecting Mr. Wilkins and he never came near. Yesterday I had to go out–and he had to come.” She laughed gaily. “We have been playing a game of hide and seek. Mr. Wilkins has been it and hasn’t caught me yet.”
“It’s been an expensive game for me,” protested Obadiah. “I pay Mr. Wilkins a large salary for his time and services and I can use them to better advantage than in making calls upon you.”
“That’s an ungallant speech. I am filled with shame for my own father.” She shook her head sadly in token of her disgrace. “If Mr. Wilkins wants to see me, why doesn’t he arrange to come when I am home?” she argued stoutly.
Obadiah became stern. “You should have remained home for Mr. Wilkins. You are out a great deal, anyway.”
A look of mock horror came into Virginia’s face. “Would you have me sit alone in this big house, waiting with folded arms for Mr. Wilkins?” she giggled.
Even Obadiah relented before this sorrowful picture. “Who said anything about folded arms,” he demanded shortly, “or about sitting alone, either? You are out some place in that machine every day. It won’t hurt you to remain at home until Mr. Wilkins has seen you. My affairs are of more importance than yours.”
Virginia looked at him with great solemnity. “You want to be cross at me, Daddy, and you can’t make yourself,” she laughed. “These peaches and cream are protecting me. If they didn’t taste so good to you, I would get a scolding. I don’t deserve it, though, because, after all, my affairs are always your affairs. Ike says that the machine runs better if it is used every day. I keep it in splendid order for you.”
The efforts of his daughter did not appear to impress Obadiah.
She went on with an air of pride, “Lately, I have been busy on a surprise for you.” She assumed an air of dignity. “I am giving an entertainment to the old ladies of the Lucinda Home this afternoon. I planned it all by myself and I invite you to be present. There’ll be a concert by a brass band. Aren’t you surprised, Daddy?”
Obadiah was surprised. Without reference to natural perplexity as to why festivities for the benefit of the old ladies should be a matter of astonishment to him, there were ample grounds for amazement in the knowledge that his youthful daughter had assumed management of a production involving a brass band. It was as if she had announced her connection with a circus for the aged.
“Where did you get the band?” demanded Obadiah, in the tone of an anxious parent whose infant has returned bearing personal property suspected of belonging to a neighbor.
“Colonel Ryan loaned it to me. He is coming, too. Won’t you come, Daddy dear, please?” There was a wistful look in the girl’s face. “It’s going to be lovely.”
Obadiah was uncomfortable. “I can’t come today,” he replied, finally.
“Oh Daddy–” her disappointment showed in every note of her voice–“I have counted so much on having you. I would be so proud of you.” She glanced imploringly at him.
“I’m going out of town,” he said.
“Can’t you put it off?”
“No, Virginia, I have made my plans to go today. I can’t let anything interfere with business arrangements. They mean dollars and cents.”
“All right, Daddy,” she surrendered with a sad little sigh and tried to cheer herself. “Some day when I have something else you’ll plan to come, won’t you, dear?”
He was interested in his newspaper now. “Perhaps,” he finally answered absently without looking up.
For a time they ate in silence. “The afternoon frightens me, Daddy,” she told him with a worried air. “It’s a big responsibility. What if it should be a failure?”
He crushed his paper down by his plate and snapped, “You got into the thing of your own accord. It’sup to you to see it through. To make a success of it–a Dale success. You can do it.”
His assurance braced the girl. “I’ll make a go of it, Daddy,” she promised, and then, “It’s wrong for me to expect Mr. Wilkins to run after me. I will go to his office this morning and see him.”
He gave her a look of approval. “That’s business,” he agreed.
She hovered about him after they rose from the table. “Could I ask Mr. Wilkins to come to my concert, Daddy?” There was an appealing look in the big blue eyes. “I don’t want it to seem as if I have no friends.”
He gave her an uneasy glance and there was almost a note of regret in his voice when he answered, “I am sorry that I can’t come. Certainly, you may ask Mr. Wilkins. Tell him that I want him to go. Ask any one you like.” Yet in spite of these concessions his conscience disturbed him. “How will you meet the expenses of the entertainment,” he inquired.
“They won’t be much. Serena had the things which I needed charged at the store.”
Obadiah appeared about to protest but changed his mind.
“I can pay for anything else I need out of my allowance,” she went on.
An unusual wave of generosity engulfed Obadiah, due, no doubt, to pricks of his unquiet conscience. “Don’t do that,” he objected. “Send the bills to me.”
A delighted Virginia lifted up her voice, joyously, “How perfectly grand! I’ll order ice cream for everybody.”
Pain rested upon Obadiah’s countenance, due, no doubt, rather to a twinge of indigestion at the mention of a large quantity of ice cream during the breakfast hour than to regret at the result of his unusual liberality. He sought relief in reproving Ike sternly, ere departing for his office.
Virginia spent a busy morning. She telephoned to Colonel Ryan, visited Mrs. Henderson and conferred at length with Mrs. Smith, the matron at the Lucinda Home, regarding the approaching festivities.
Later, she repaired to the establishment of Mr. Vivian, glittering brilliantly in the morning sun and graced even at this early hour by thirsty members of South Ridgefield’s younger set.
Her deliberations with the genial proprietor were prolonged. Complex factors hindered the meeting of minds regarded as essential to the contractual relationship of commerce. Mr. Vivian’s knowledge of the law of probabilities as applied to the consumption of ice cream and cake by infants, by adults, or by infants and adults together, was as deep as the information of an insurance actuary on the mortality of fellow men. But specialists gain their reputation through years of toil, and they object to risking it on the uncertain. To Mr. Vivian the capacity of old ladies and aged soldiers for delicate confections was an unknown factor. He had no digest of leading cases to consult, no vital statistics to inspect, no medical journals to study. He was venturing into unexplored territory. Without premises he was asked to deduct a conclusion. Mr. Vivian was reduced to an unscientific guess.
Yet, if necessary, guesses can be made. So it cameto pass that Mr. Vivian bowed the manufacturer’s daughter from his emporium, and, with the sweet smell of his wares in his nostrils, raised eyes of loving kindness from the profitable order in his hand, due account thereof to be rendered unto Obadiah for payment, and gazed after her in respectful admiration.
Shortly after this, the judicial solemnity of the chamber of Hezekiah Wilkins, Attorney at Law, situate and being, opposite the suite of Obadiah, was disturbed by a timid knock. It failed to attract Hezekiah’s attention. This was strange. The room was not unusually large. Also, its size was diminished by cases of reports, digests and encyclopedias covering the walls, except where they were pierced by the windows and door or broken by the fireplace and its broad chimney face. Upon this hung a picture of the Supreme Court and on the mantel below stood a bust of John Marshall, the stern eyes of which viewed the polished back of Hezekiah’s head as he sat at his desk.
It is possible that the lawyer was preoccupied through profound consideration of some abstract point of law. Before him lay an open court report and his desk was littered with documents. His head was bowed forward, his hands clasped over his abdomen and his eyes closed.
“Tap–tap,” sounded again at the door. Hezekiah brushed at his face as if to shoo a disturbing fly. Yet, so deep were his meditations that he failed to note the interruption.
“Knock–knock–bang.” The noise swelled to a well-defined blow of sufficient authority to recall the greatest mental concentration from the most tortuouslegal labyrinth of the most learned court in the world.
Hezekiah jumped. He raised his head with a jerk and his eyes opened. One unacquainted with the abysmal excogitations of judicial mentalities might describe them as having a startled look. He rubbed them with his fists, stroked his smooth shaven cheeks and replaced his glasses on his nose. Having by such simple expedients withdrawn his mind from the fathomless depths of legal lore into which it seemingly had been plunged, he shouted, “Come in.”
Virginia entered.
Hezekiah, recognizing the daughter of his employer, sprang to his feet, greeting her, “I am honored, indeed, Miss Dale.”
“Mr. Wilkins, my father says that I have done wrong in allowing you to come to our house twice and not find me at home.” She smiled sweetly at him as she held out her hand to him. “I am sorry. I thought that my best apology would be to save you another trip by coming to see you.”
“You are very considerate, Miss Dale,” he responded, as he offered her his visitor’s chair.
She sat down filled with great curiosity as to his business with her.
He did not approach it directly. “We are having beautiful weather, Miss Dale. Being given to out of door pursuits and pastimes–athletic, as it were–you must find it very agreeable.”
“I do enjoy these beautiful spring days. I like to be out of doors, too. But I am not what they call an athletic girl, Mr. Wilkins.”
“I plead guilty to an inaccuracy of nomenclature,”Hezekiah responded with great solemnity, removing his glasses and flourishing them.
“What did you say, Mr. Wilkins?” asked Virginia in smiling bewilderment.
His eyes began to twinkle and in spite of his serious face she caught his mood and they burst into a peal of laughter.
“Miss Dale–” he began.
She interrupted him. “Call me Virginia as you always have done, Mr. Wilkins,” she urged. “Please do.”
“It will be easier,” he admitted, and then for a moment he studied her face thoughtfully. “You are looking more like your mother, every day, Virginia. She was a beautiful woman–a very beautiful woman,” he continued dreamily. “As good, too, as she was beautiful. It seems to me, now, that her life was given up to doing kindnesses to others. I have always been proud that your mother accepted me as one of her friends.”
His words awakened eager interest in the girl. “Tell me about her, please, Mr. Wilkins,” she begged, as he paused.
He smiled gently into the wistful eyes of blue, as happy remembrances of the past returned to him. “Your mother came into our lives as a gentle zephyr from her own beautiful Southland. With her came memories of bright sunshine, growing flowers and perfumed air. These things radiated from her–a part of her life. Happiness and joy were ever her constant companions and the gifts she would shower.”
Virginia’s eyes were big with the tender longingsof her heart. “My mother tried to make every one else happy, didn’t she?”
The countenance of Hezekiah softened and his voice was tempered by gentle memories as he said, “If she tried to do that, she succeeded. Every one who knew your mother was the happier for it.”
“Oh–what a beautiful thing to say about her, Mr. Wilkins,” she whispered.
After a few moments of silence, Hezekiah resolutely thrust aside the reveries into which he and his visitor had plunged. “Ahem,” he coughed and then he polished his scalp so vigorously that it became suffused with a purplish tinge. “Virginia,” he inquired sternly, “are you acquainted with one Joseph Tolliver Curtis?”
For an instant Virginia was unable to identify Joe under his formal appellation. “Yes, he is the man at the hospital who was hurt by our machine,” she answered finally.
“You have visited him?”
She nodded.
He removed his glasses and tapped his teeth. “Did you ever discuss with the said Joseph Tolliver Curtis the accident heretofore referred to?”
“What did you say, Mr. Wilkins?” worried Virginia.
“Will you please state,” demanded Hezekiah absently, “whether at any time or any place you discussed the subject matter of this action with the plaintiff.”
“Mr. Wilkins, what are you talking about?” Virginia cried in dismay.
Hezekiah came out of his preoccupation. “I beg your pardon,” he said hastily. “I asked if you ever talked over the accident with Curtis.”
“Is that the question you asked me, Mr. Wilkins?”
“Honest,” he chuckled.
“Oh, I can answer that easily. I talked it all over with him.”
“Have you objection to advising me of the substance–” Hezekiah stopped and restated his question–“Will you tell what you said, Virginia?”
“Certainly, I told Mr. Curtis that I was to blame for the accident and he said it was his own fault.”
The lawyer was surprised. “Did he admit negligence?”
Virginia deemed this question to imply danger to Joe and she remembered her promise. “I am not at liberty to say, Mr. Wilkins,” she answered stoutly. “I can’t discuss Mr. Curtis’s part in the accident.”
For a moment Hezekiah eyed the girl thoughtfully. He arose and took a turn up and down the room while his eyes danced with mischief. He reached a decision which changed his line of questioning when he reseated himself. “Virginia, do you think that you were to blame for that accident?” he asked the girl.
“I know that I was.”
“If you were a witness in court, would you testify that the accident was your fault?”
“I would admit my blame anywhere and any place, Mr. Wilkins.”
“Did Mr. Curtis say anything to you about bringing a suit for damages against your father?”
“No, he wouldn’t do that, I’m sure.”
“Why are you sure?”
“I told him that I believed my father should pay him damages.”
“What did he say to that?” asked Hezekiah with interest.
“He said that he wouldn’t take money from my father.”
“Was he angry, Virginia?”
“Oh, no indeed.” She hesitated for a moment. “He seemed tired and worn out and so I left him.”
“Well, Virginia, what would you say if I told you that I tried to reach an agreement with Mr. Curtis the other day and he refused to accept anything in settlement?”
“I say that my father is just the dearest and noblest man that ever lived. He sent you to do that, didn’t he, Mr. Wilkins, and never said a word about it to me? Isn’t that just like Daddy?”
Hezekiah smiled but said no word. Possibly he remembered the amount of the check. Professional confidences make lawyers cynical. He drummed a spirited march upon his desk with his fingers and took no other part in the acclaim of Obadiah.
“Mr. Wilkins,” worried Virginia, “do you suppose that you could have hurt Mr. Curtis’s feelings?”
“I did not intend to. Men are never as gentle as women, though.” Hezekiah was playing a foxy game. “A man is rougher. It is easy for him to hurt the feelings of a sensitive person without having the slightest intention of doing so.”