"Not a bit," returned Terwilliger—"not a bit. In fact, what I've discovered has prejudiced me in your favor. You are just the man I've been looking for for some days. I've wanted a man with three A blood and three Z finances for 'most a week now, and from what I gather from Burke and Bradstreet, you fill the bill. You owe pretty much everybody from your tailor to the collector of pew rents at your church, eh?"
"I've been unfortunate in financial matters," returned the earl; "but I have left the family name untarnished."
"So I believe, Earl. That's what I admire about you. Some men with your debts would be driven to drink or other pastimes of a more or less tarnishing nature, and I admire you for the admirable restraint you have put upon yourself. You owe, I am told, about twenty-seven thousand pounds."
"My secretary has the figures, I believe," said the earl, slightly bored.
"Well, we'll say thirty thousand in round figures. Now what hope have you of ever paying that sum off?"
"None—unless I—er—well, unless I should be fortunate enough to secure a rich wife."
"Precisely; that is exactly what I thought," rejoined Terwilliger. "Marriage is your only asset, and as yet that is hardly negotiable. Now I have called you here this afternoon to make a proposition to you. If you will marry according to my wishes I will give you an income of five thousand pounds a year for the next five years."
"I don't quite understand you," the earl replied, in a disappointed tone. It was evident that five thousand pounds per annum was too small a figure for his tastes.
"I think I was quite plain," said Terwilliger, and he repeated his offer.
"I certainly admire the lady very much," said the earl; "but the settlement of income seems very small."
Terwilliger opened his eyes wide with astonishment. "Oh, you admire the lady, eh?" he said. "Well, there is no accounting for tastes."
"You surprise me slightly," said the earl, in response to this remark. "The lady is certainly worthy of any man's admiration. She is refined, cultivated, beautiful, and——"
"Ahem!" said Terwilliger. "May I ask, my dear Earl, to whom you refer?"
"To Ariadne, of course. I thought your course somewhat unusual, but we do not pretend to comprehend you Americans over here. Your proposition is that I shall marry Ariadne?"
I hesitate to place on record what Terwilliger said in answer to this statement. It was forcible rather than polite, and the earl from that moment adopted a new simile for degrees of profanity, substituting "to swear like an American" for the old forms having to do with pirates and troopers. The string of expletives was about five minutes in length, at the end of which time Terwilliger managed to say:
"No such d—— proposition ever entered my mind. I want you to marry a cold, misty, musty spectre, nothing more or less, and I'll tell you why."
And then he proceeded to tell the Earl of Mugley all that he knew of the history of Bangletop Hall, concluding with a narration of his experiences with the ghost cook.
"My rent here," he said, in conclusion, "is five thousand pounds per annum. The advertising I get out of the fact of my being here and swelling it with you nabobs is worth twenty-five thousand pounds a year, and I'm willing to pay, in good hard cash, twenty per cent of that amount rather than be forced to give up. Now here's your chance to get an income without an encumbrance and stave off your creditors. Marry the spook, so that she can go back to the spirit land a countess and make it hot for the Bangletops, and don't be so allfired proud. She'll be disappointed enough I can tell you, when I inform her that an earl was the best I could do, the promised duke not being within reach. If she says earls are drugs in the market, I won't be able to deny it; and, after all, my lad, a good cook is a greater blessing in this world than any earl that ever lived, and a blamed sight rarer."
[Illustration]
"Your proposition is absolutely ridiculous, Mr. Terwilliger," replied the earl. "I'd look well marrying a draught from a dark cavern, as you call it, now wouldn't I? To say nothing of the impossibility of a Mugley marrying a cook. I cannot entertain the proposition."
"You'll find you can't entertain anything if you don't watch out," fumedTerwilliger, in return.
"I'm not so sure about that," replied the earl, haughtily, sipping his lemon squash. "I fancy Miss Ariadne is not entirely indifferent to me."
"Well, you might just as well understand on this 18th day of July, 18—, as any other time, that my daughter Ariadne never becomes the Earless of Mugley," said Terwilliger, in a tone of exasperation.
"Not even when her father considers the commercial value of such an alliance for his daughter?" retorted the earl, shaking his finger in Terwilliger's face. "Not even when the President of the Three-dollar Shoe Company, of Soleton, Massachusetts (Limited), considers the advertising sure to result from a marriage between his house and that of Mugley, with presents from her majesty the queen, the Duke of York acting as best man, and telegrams of congratulation from the crowned heads of Europe pouring in at the rate of two an hour for half as many hours as there are thrones?"
Terwilliger turned pale.
The picture painted by the earl was terribly alluring.
He hesitated.
He was lost.
"Mugley," he whispered, hoarsely—"Mugley, I have wronged you. I thought you were a fortune-hunter. I see you love her. Take her, my boy, and pass me the brandy."
"Certainly, Mr. Terwilliger," replied the earl, affably. "And then, if you've no objection, you may pass it back, and I'll join you in a thimbleful myself."
And then the two men drank each other's health in silence, which was prolonged for at least five minutes, during which time the earl and his host both appeared to be immersed in deep thought.
"Come," said Terwilliger at last. "Let us go back to the drawing-room, or they'll miss us, and, by-the-way, you might speak of that little matter to Ariadne to-night. It'll help the fall trade to have the engagement announced."
"I will, Mr. Terwilliger," returned the earl, as they started to leave the room; "but I say, father-in-law elect," he whispered, catching Terwilliger's coat sleeve and drawing him back into the office for an instant, "you couldn't let me have five pounds on account this evening, could you?"
Two minutes later Terwilliger and the earl appeared in the drawing-room, the former looking haggard and worn, his eyes feverishly bright, and his manner betraying the presence of disturbing elements in his nerve centres; the latter smiling more affably than was consistent with his title, and jingling a number of gold coins in his pocket, which his intimate friend and old college chum, Lord Dufferton, on the other side of the room, marvelled at greatly, for he knew well that upon the earl's arrival at Bangletop Hall an hour before his pockets were as empty as a flunky's head.
Terwilliger's time was almost up. The hour for his interview with the spectre cook of Bangletop was hardly forty-eight hours distant, and he was wellnigh distracted. No solution of the problem seemed possible since the earl had so peremptorily declined to fall in with his plan. He was glad the earl had done so, for otherwise he would have been denied the tremendous satisfaction which the consummation of an alliance between his own and one of the oldest and noblest houses of England was about to give him, not to mention the commercial phase of the situation, which had been so potent a factor in bringing the engagement about; for Ariadne had said yes to the earl that same night, and the betrothal was shortly to be announced. It would have been announced at once, only the earl felt that he should break the news himself first to his mother, the countess—an operation which he dreaded, and for which he believed some eight or ten weeks of time were necessary.
"What is the matter, Judson?" Mrs. Terwilliger asked finally, her husband was growing so careworn of aspect.
"Nothing, my dear, nothing."
"But there is something, Judson, and as your wife I demand to know what it is. Perhaps I can help you."
And then Mr. Terwilliger broke down, and told the whole story to Mrs. Terwilliger, omitting no detail, stopping only to bring that worthy lady to on the half-dozen or more occasions when her emotions were too strong for her nerves, causing her to swoon. When he had quite done, she looked him reproachfully in the eye, and said that if he had told her the truth instead of deceiving her on the night of the spectral visitation, he might have been spared all his trouble.
"For you know, Judson," she said, "I have made a study of the art of acquiring titles. Since I read the story of the girl who started in life as an innkeeper's daughter and died a duchess, by Elizabeth Harley Hicks, of Salem, and realized how one might be lowly born and yet rise to lofty heights, it has been my dearest wish that my girls might become noblewomen, and at times, Judson, I have even hoped that you might yet become a duke."
"Great Scott!" ejaculated Terwilliger. "That would be awful. Hankinson, Duke of Terwilliger! Why, Molly, I'd never be able to hold up my head in shoe circles with a name on me like that."
[Illustration]
"Is there nothing in the world but shoes, Judson?" asked his wife, seriously.
"You'll find shoes are the foundation upon which society stands," chuckledTerwilliger in return.
"You are never serious," returned Mrs. Terwilliger; "but now you must be. You are coping with the supernatural. Now I have discovered," continued the lady, "that there are three methods by which titles are acquired—birth, marriage, and purchase."
"You forget the fourth—achievement," suggested Terwilliger.
"Not these days, Judson. It used to be so, but it is not so now. Now the spectre hasn't birth, we can't get any living duke to marry her, dead dukes are hard to find, so there's nothing to do but to buy her a title."
"But where?"
"In Italy. You can get 'em by the dozen. Every hand-organ grinder in America grinds away in the hope of going back to Italy and purchasing a title. Why can't you do the same?"
"Me? Me grind a hand-organ in America?" cried Hankinson.
"No, no; purchase a dukedom."
"I don't want a dukedom; I want a duchessdom."
"That's all right. Buy the title, give it to the cook, and let her marry some spectre of her own rank; she can give him the title; and there you are!"
"Good scheme!" cried Terwilliger. "But I say, Molly, don't you think it would be better to get her to bring the spectre over here, and have me give him the title, and then let him marry her here?"
"No, I don't. If you give it to him first, the chances are he would go back on his bargain. He'd say that, being a duke, he couldn't marry a cook."
"You have a large mind, Molly," said Terwilliger.
"I know men!" snapped Mrs. Terwilliger.
And so it happened. Hankinson Judson Terwilliger applied by wire to the authorities in Rome for all right, title, and interest in one dukedom, free from encumbrances, irrevocable, and duly witnessed by the proper dignitaries of the Italian government, and at the second interview with the spectre cook of Bangletop, he was able to show her a cablegram received from the Eternal City stating that the papers would be sent upon receipt of the applicant's check for one hundred lire.
"'Ow much his that?" asked the ghost.
"One hundred lire?" returned Terwilliger, repeating the sum to gain time to think. He was himself surprised at the cheapness of the duchy, and he was afraid that if the ghost knew its real value she would decline to take it. "One hundred lire? Why, that's about 750,000 dollars—150,000 pounds. They charge high for their titles," he added, blushing slightly.
"Pretty 'igh," returned the ghost. "But h'I carn't be a duke, ye know.'Ow'll I manidge that?"
Hankinson explained his wife's scheme to the spectre.
"That's helegant," said she. "H'I've loved a butler o' the Bangletops for nigh hon to two 'undred years, but, some'ow or hother, he's kep' shy o' me. This'll fix 'im. But h'I say, Mr. Terwilliger, his one o' them Heyetalian dukes as good as a Henglish one?"
"Every bit," said Terwilliger. "A duke's a duke the world over. Don't you know the lines of Burns, 'A duke's a duke for a' that'?"
"Never 'eard of 'im," replied the ghost.
"Well, you look him up when you get settled down at home. He was a smart man here, and, if his ghost does him justice, you'll be mighty glad to know him," Terwilliger answered.
And thus was Bangletop Hall delivered of its uncanny visitor. The ducal appointment, entitling its owner to call himself "Duke of Cavalcadi," was received in due time, and handed over to the curse of the kitchen, who immediately disappeared, and permanently, from the haunts that had known her for so long and so disadvantageously. Bangletop Hall is now the home of a happy family, to whom all are devoted, and from whosemenageno cook has ever been known to depart, save for natural causes, despite all that has gone before.
[Illustration]
Ariadne has become Countess of Mugley, and Mrs. Terwilliger is content with her Judson, whom, however, she occasionally calls Duke of Cavalcadi, claiming that he is the representative of that ancient and noble family on earth. As for Judson, he always smiles when his wife calls him Duke, but denies the titular impeachment, for he is on good terms with his landlord, whose admiration for his tenant's wholly unexpected ability to retain his cook causes him to regard him as a supernatural being, and therefore worthy of a Bangletop's regard.
"All of which," Terwilliger says to Mrs. Terwilliger, "might not be so, my dear, were I really the duke, for I honestly believe that if there is a feud of long standing anywhere in the universe, it is between the noble families of Bangletop and Cavalcadi over on the other shore."
"Talking about inventions," said the oculist, as he very dexterously pocketed two of the pool balls, the handsome ringer, more familiarly known as the fifteen ball, and the white ball itself, thereby adding somewhat to the minus side of his string—"talking about inventions, I had a curious experience last August. It was an experience which was not only interesting from an inventive point of view, but it had likewise a moral, which, will become more or less obvious as I unfold the story.
"You know I rented and occupied a place in Yonkers last summer. It was situated on the high lands to the north of the city, a little this side of Greystone, overlooking that magnificent stream, the Hudson, the ever-varying beauties of which so few of the residents along its banks really appreciate. It was a comfortable spot, with a few trees about it, a decent-sized garden—large enough to raise a tomato or two for a Sunday-night salad—and a lawn which was a cure for sore eyes, its soft, sheeny surface affording a most restful object upon which to feast the tired optic. I believe it was that lawn that first attracted me as I drove by the place with a patient I had in tow. It was just after a heavy shower, and the sun breaking through the clouds and lighting up the rain-soaked grass gave to it a glistening golden greenness that to my eyes was one of the most beautiful and soul-satisfying bits of color I had seen in a long time. 'Oh, for a summer of that!' I said to myself, little thinking that the beginning of a summer thereofwasto fall to my lot before many days—for on May 1st I signed papers which made me to all intents and purposes proprietor of the place for the ensuing six months.
"At one corner of the grounds stood, I should say, a dozen apple-trees, the spreading branches of which seemed to form a roof for a sort of enchanted bower, in which, you may be sure, I passed many of my leisure hours, swinging idly in a hammock, the cool breezes from the Hudson, concerning which so many people are sceptical, but which nevertheless exist, bringing delight to the ear and nostril as well as to the 'fevered brow,' which is so fashionable in the neighborhood of New York in the summer, making the leaves rustle in a tuneful sort of fashion, and laden heavily with the sweet odors of many a garden close over which they passed before they got to me."
"Put that in rhyme, doctor, and there's your poem," said the lieutenant, as he made a combination scratch involving every ball on the table.
"I'll do it," said the doctor; "and then I'll have it printed as Appendix J to the third edition of my work onSixty Astigmatisms, and How to Acquire Them. But to get back to my story," he continued. "I was lying there in my hammock one afternoon trying to take a census of the butterflies in sight, when I thought I heard some one back of me call me by name. Instantly the butterfly census was forgotten, and I was on the alert; but—whether there was something the matter with my eyes or not, I do not know—despite all my alertness, there wasn't a soul in sight that I could see. Of course, I was slightly mystified at first, and then I attributed the interruption either to imagination or to some passer-by, whose voice, wafted on the breeze, might have reached my ears. I threw myself back into the hammock once more, and was just about dozing off to the lullaby sung by a bee to the accompaniment of the rustling leaves, when I again heard my name distinctly spoken.
"This time there was no mistake about it, for as I sprang to my feet and looked about, I saw coming towards me a man of unpleasantly cadaverous aspect, whose years, I should judge, were at least eighty in number. His beard was so long and scant that, to keep the breezes from blowing it about to his discomfort, he had tucked the ends of it into his vest pocket; his eyes, black as coals, were piercing as gimlets, their sharpness equalled by nothing that I had ever seen, excepting perhaps the point of this same person's nose, which was long and thin, suggesting a razor with a bowie point; his slight body was clad in sombre garb, and at first glance he appeared to me so disquietingly like a visitor from the supernatural world that I shuddered; but when he spoke, his voice was all gentleness, and whatever of fear I had experienced was in a moment dissipated.
"'You are Doctor Carey?' he said, in a timid sort of fashion.
"'Yes,' I replied; 'I am. What can I do for you?'
"'The distinguished oculist?' he added, as if not hearing my question.
"'Well, I'm a sort of notorious eye-doctor,' I answered, my well-known modesty preventing my entire acquiescence in his manner of putting it.
"He smiled pleasantly as I said this, and then drew out of his coat-tail pocket a small tin box, which, until he opened it, I supposed contained a drinking-cup—one of those folding tin cups.
"'Doctor Carey,' said he, sitting down in the hammock which I had vacated, and toying with the tin box—a proceeding that was so extraordinarily cool that it made me shiver—'I have been looking for you for just sixty-three mortal years.'
"'Excuse me,' I returned, as nonchalantly as I could, considering the fact that I was beginning to be annoyed—'excuse me, but that statement seems to indicate that I was born famous, which I'm inclined to doubt. Inasmuch as I am not yet fifty years old, I cannot understand how it has come to pass that you have been looking for me for sixty-three years.'
"'Nevertheless, my statement was correct,' said he. 'I have been looking for you for sixty-three years, but not for you as you.'
"This made me laugh, although it added slightly to my nervousness, which was now beginning to return. To have a man with a tin box in his hand tell me he had been looking for me for thirteen years longer than I had lived, and then to have him add that it was not, however, me as myself that he wanted, was amusing in a sense, and yet I could not help feeling that it would be a relief to know that the tin box did hold a drinking-cup, and not dynamite.
"'You seem to speak English,' I said, in answer to this remark, 'and I have always thought I understood that language pretty well, but you'll excuse me if I say that I don't see your point.'
"'Why is it that great men are so frequently obtuse?' he said, languidly, giving the ground such a push with his toe that it set the hammock swinging furiously. 'When I say that I have searched for you all these years, but not for you as you, I mean not for you as Dr. Carey, not for you as an individual, but for you as the possessor of a very rare eye.'
"'Go on,' I said, feebly, and rubbed my forehead, thinking perhaps my brains had got into a tangle, and were responsible for this extraordinary affair. 'What is the peculiar quality which makes my eye so rare?'
"'There is only one pair of eyes like them in the world, that I know of,' said the stranger, 'and I have visited all lands in search of them and experimented with all kinds of eyes.'
"'And I am the proud possessor of that pair?' I queried, becoming slightly more interested.
"'Not you,' said he. 'You and I together possess that pair, however.'
"'You and I?' I cried.
"'Yes,' said he. 'Your left eye and my right have the honor of being the only two unique eyes in the world.'
"'That's queer too,' I observed, a mixture of sarcasm and flippancy in my tones, I fear. 'You mean twonique, don't you?'
"The old gentleman drew himself up with dignity, made a gesture of impatience, and remarked that if I intended to be flippant he would leave me. Of course I would not hear of this, now that my curiosity had been aroused, and so I apologized.
"'Don't mention it,' he said. 'But, my dear doctor, you cannot imagine my sensations when I found your eye yesterday.'
"'Oh! You found it yesterday, did you?' I put in.
"'Yes,' he said. 'On Forty-third Street.'
"'I was on Forty-third Street yesterday,' I replied, 'but really I was not conscious of the loss of my eye.'
"'Nobody said you had lost it,' said my visitor. 'I only said I had found it. I mean by that that I found it as Columbus found America. America was not necessarily lost before it was found. I had the good fortune to be passing through the street as you left your club. I glanced into your face as I passed, caught sight of your eye, and my heart stood still. There at last was that for which I had so long and so earnestly searched, and so overcome was I with joy at my discovery that I seemed to lose all power of speech, of locomotion, or of sane thought, and not until you had passed entirely out of sight did I return really to my senses. Then I rushed madly into the club-house I had seen you leave a few moments before, described you to the man at the door, learned your name and address, and—well, here I am.'
"'And what does all this extraordinary nonsense lead up to?' I asked. 'What do you intend to do about my eye? Do you wish to borrow it, buy it, or steal it?'
"'Doctor Carey,' said my visitor, sadly, 'I shall not live very long. I have reason to believe that another summer will find me in my grave, and I do not want to die without imparting to the world the news of a marvellous discovery I have made—the details of a wonderful invention that I have not only conceived, but have actually put into working order.I, an unknown man—too old to be able to refute the charge of senility were any one disposed to question the value of my statements—could announce to the world my great discovery a thousand times a day, and very properly the world would decline to believe in me. The world would cry humbug, and I should have been unable, had I failed to find you, to convince the world that I was not a humbug. With the discovery of your eye, all that is changed. I shall have an ally in you, and that is valuable for the reason that your statements, whatever they may be, will always be entitled to and will receive respectful attention. Here in this box is my invention. I shall let you discover its marvellous power for yourself, hoping that when you have discovered its power, you will tell the world of it, and of its inventor.'
"With that," said the doctor, "the old fellow handed me the tin box, which I opened with considerable misgivings as to possible results. There was no explosion, however. The cover came off easily enough, and on the inside was a curiously shaped telescope, not a drinking-cup, as I had at first surmised.
"'Why, it's a telescope, isn't it?' I said.
"'Yes. What did you suppose it was?' he asked.
"'I hadn't an idea,' I replied, not exactly truthfully. 'But it can't be good for much in this shape,' I added, for, as I pulled the parts out and got it to its full length, I found that each section was curved, and that the whole formed an arc, which, though scarcely perceptible, nevertheless should, it seemed to me, have interfered with the utility of the instrument.
"'That's the point I want you to establish one way or the other,' said my visitor, getting up out of the hammock, and pacing nervously up and down the lawn. 'To my eye that telescope is a marvel, and is the result of years of experiment. It fulfils my expectations, and if your eye is what I think it is, I shall at last have found another to whom it will appear the treasure it appears to me to be. You have a tower on your house, I see. Let us go up on the roof of the tower, and test the glass. Then we shall see if I claim too much for it.'
"The earnestness of the old gentleman interested me hugely, and I led the way through the garden to the house, up the tower stairs to the roof, and then standing there, looking across the river at the Palisades looming up like a huge fortress before me, I put the telescope to my eye.
"'I see absolutely nothing,' I said, after vainly trying to fathom the depths of the instrument.
"'Alas!' began the old gentleman; and then he laughed, nervously. 'You are using the wrong eye. Try the other one. It is your left eye that has the power to show the virtues of this glass.'
"I obeyed his order, and then a most singular thing happened. Strange sights met my gaze. At first I could see nothing but the Palisades opposite me, but in an instant my horizon seemed to broaden, the vista through the telescope deepened, and before I knew it my sight was speeding, now through a beautiful country, over fields, hills, and valleys; then on through great cities, out to and over a broad, gently undulating stretch which I at once recognized as the prairie lands of the west. In a minute more I began to catch the idea of this wonderful glass, for I now saw rising up before me the wonderful beauties of the Yosemite, and then, like a flash of the lightning, my vision passed over the Sierra Nevada range, my eye swept down upon San Francisco, and was soon speeding over the waters of the Pacific.
"Two minutes later I saw the strange pagodas of the Chinese rising before me. Sweeping my glass to the north, bleak Siberia met my gaze; then to the south I saw India, her jungles, her waste places. Not long after, a most awful sight met my gaze. I saw a huge ship at the moment of foundering in the Indian Ocean. Horrified, I turned my glass again to the north, and the minarets of Stamboul rose up before me; then the dome of St. Peter's at Rome; then Paris; then London; then the Atlantic Ocean. I levelled my glass due west, and finally I could see nothing but one small, black speck—as like to a fleck of dust as to anything else—on the lens at the other end. With a movement of my hand, I tried to wipe it off, but it still remained, and, in answer to a chuckle at my side, I put the glass down.
"'It is the most extraordinary thing I ever saw,' I said.
"'Yes, it is,' said the other.
"'One can almost see around the world with it,' I cried, breathless nearly with enthusiasm.
"'One can—quite,' said the inventor, calmly.
"'Nonsense!' I said. 'Don't claim too much, my friend.'
"'It is true,' said he. 'Did you notice a speck on the glass? I am sure you did, for you tried to remove it.'
"'Yes,' said I, 'I did. But what of it? What does that signify?'
"'It proves what I said,' he answered. 'You did see all the way around the world with that glass. The black spot on the lens that you thought was a piece of dust was the back of your own head.'
"'Nonsense, my boy! The back of my head is bigger than that,' I said.
"'Certainly it is,' he responded; 'but you must make some allowance for perspective. The back of your head is a trifle less than twenty-four thousand miles from the end of your nose the way you were looking at it.'"
"You mean to say—" began the lieutenant, as the doctor paused to chalk his cue.
"Never mind what I mean to say," said the doctor. "Reflect upon what I have said."
"But the man and the telescope—what became of them?" asked the lieutenant.
"I was about to tell you that. The old fellow who had made this marvellous glass, which to two eyes that he knew of, and to only two, would work as was desired, feeling that he was about to die, had come to me to offer the glass for sale on two considerations. One was a consideration of $25. The other was that I would leave no stone unturned to discover a possible third person younger than myself with an eye similar to those we had, to whom at my death the glass should be transmitted, exacting from him the promise that he too would see that it was passed along in the same manner into the hands of posterity. I was also to acquaint the world with the story of the glass and the name of its inventor to the fullest extent possible."
"And you, of course, accepted?"
"I did," said the doctor; "but having no money in my pocket, I went down into the house to borrow it of my wife, and upon my return to the roof, found no trace of the glass, the old man, or the roof either."
"What!" cried the lieutenant. "Are you crazy?"
"No," smiled the doctor. "Not at all. For the moment I reached the roof of the house, I opened my eyes, and found myself still swinging in the hammock under the trees."
"And the moral?" queried the lieutenant. "You promised a moral, or I should not have listened."
"Always have money in your pocket," replied the doctor, pocketing the last ball, and putting up his cue. "Then you are not apt to lose great bargains such as I lost for the want of $25."
"It's a good idea," returned the lieutenant. "And you live up to it, I suppose?"
"I do," returned the oculist, tapping his pocket significantly. "Always!"
"Then," said the lieutenant, earnestly, "I wish you'd lend me a tenner, for really, doctor, I have gone clean broke."
I do not assert that what I am about to relate is in all its particulars absolutely true. Not, understand me, that it is not true, but I do not feel that I care to make an assertion that is more than likely to be received by a sceptical age with sneers of incredulity. I will content myself with a simple narration of the events of that evening, the memory of which is so indelibly impressed upon my mind, and which, were I able to do so, I should forget without any sentiments of regret whatsoever.
The affair happened on the night before I fell ill of typhoid fever, and is about the sole remaining remembrance of that immediate period left to me. Briefly the story is as follows:
Notwithstanding the fact that I was overworked in the practice of my profession—it was early in March, and I was preparing my contributions for the coming Christmas issues of the periodicals for which I write—I had accepted the highly honorable position of Entertainment Committeeman at one of the small clubs to which I belonged. I accepted the office, supposing that the duties connected with it were easy of performance, and with absolutely no notion that the faith of my fellow-committeemen in my judgment was so strong that they would ultimately manifest a desire to leave the whole programme for the club's diversion in my hands. This, however, they did; and when the month of March assumed command of the calendar I found myself utterly fagged out and at my wits' end to know what style of entertainment to provide for the club meeting to be held on the evening of the 15th of that month. I had provided already an unusually taking variety of evenings, of which one in particular, called the "Martyrs' Night," in which living authors writhed through selections from their own works, while an inhuman audience, every man of whom had suffered even as the victims then suffered, sat on tenscore of camp-stools puffing the smoke of twenty-five score of free cigars into their faces, and gloating over their misery, was extremely successful, and had gained for me among my professional brethren the enviable title of "Machiavelli Junior." This performance, in fact, was the one now uppermost in the minds of the club members, having been the most recent of the series; and it had been prophesied by many men whose judgment was unassailable that no man, not even I, could ever conceive of anything that could surpass it. Disposed at first to question the accuracy of a prophecy to the effect that I was, like most others of my kind, possessed of limitations, I came finally to believe that perhaps, after all, these male Cassandras with whom I was thrown were right. Indeed, the more I racked my brains to think of something better than the "Martyrs' Night," the more I became convinced that in that achievement I had reached the zenith of my powers. The thing for me to do now was to hook myself securely on to the zenith and stay there. But how to do it? That was the question which drove sleep from my eyes, and deprived me for a period of six weeks of my reason, my hair departing immediately upon the restoration thereof—a not uncommon after-symptom of typhoid.
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It was a typical March night, this one upon which the extraordinary incident about to be related took place. It was the kind of night that novelists use when they are handling a mystery that in the abstract would amount to nothing, but which in the concrete of a bit of wild, weird, and windy nocturnalism sends the reader into hysterics. It may be—I shall not attempt to deny it—that had it happened upon another kind of an evening—a soft, mild, balmy June evening, for instance—my own experience would have seemed less worthy of preservation in the amber of publicity, but of that the reader must judge for himself. The fact alone remains that upon the night when my uncanny visitor appeared, the weather department was apparently engaged in getting rid of its remnants. There was a large percentage of withering blast in the general make-up of the evening; there were rain and snow, which alternated in pattering upon my window-pane and whitening the apology for a wold that stands three blocks from my flat on Madison Square; the wind whistled as it always does upon occasions of this sort, and from all corners of my apartment, after the usual fashion, there seemed to come sounds of a supernatural order, the effect of which was to send cold chills off on their regular trips up and down the spine of their victim—in this instance myself. I wish that at the time the hackneyed quality of these sensations had appealed to me. That it did not do so was shown by the highly nervous state in which I found myself as my clock struck eleven. If I could only have realized at that hour that these symptoms were the same old threadbare premonitions of the appearance of a supernatural being, I should have left the house and gone to the club, and so have avoided the visitation then imminent. Had I done this, I should doubtless also have escaped the typhoid, since the doctors attributed that misfortune to the shock of my experience, which, in my then wearied state, I was unable to sustain—and what the escape of typhoid would have meant to me only those who have seen the bills of my physician and druggist for services rendered and prescriptions compounded are aware. That my mind unconsciously took thought of spirits was shown by the fact that when the first chill came upon me I arose and poured out for myself a stiff bumper of old Reserve Rye, which I immediately swallowed; but beyond this I did not go. I simply sat there before my fire and cudgelled my brains for an idea whereby my fellow-members at the Gutenberg Club might be amused. How long I sat there I do not know. It may have been ten minutes; it may have been an hour—I was barely conscious of the passing of time—but I do know that the clock in the Dutch Reformed Church steeple at Twenty-ninth Street and Fifth Avenue was clanging out the first stroke of the hour of midnight when my door-bell rang.
Theretofore—if I may be allowed the word—the tintinnabulation of my door-bell had been invariably pleasing unto me. I am fond of company, and company alone was betokened by its ringing, since my creditors gratify their passion for interviews at my office, if perchance they happen to find me there. But on this occasion—I could not at the moment tell why—its clanging seemed the very essence of discord. It jangled with my nervous system, and as it ceased I was conscious of a feeling of irritability which is utterly at variance with my nature outside of business hours. In the office, for the sake of discipline, I frequently adopt a querulous manner, finding it necessary in dealing with office-boys, but the moment I leave shop behind me I become a different individual entirely, and have been called a moteless sunbeam by those who have seen only that side of my character. This, by-the-way, must be regarded as a confidential communication, since I am at present engaged in preparing a vest-pocket edition of the philosophical works of Schopenhauer in words of one syllable, and were it known that the publisher had intrusted the magnificent pessimism of that illustrious juggler of words and theories to a "moteless sunbeam" it might seriously interfere with the sale of the work; and I may say, too, that this request that my confidence be respected is entirely disinterested, inasmuch as I declined to do the work on the royalty plan, insisting upon the payment of a lump sum, considerably in advance.
But to return. I heard the bell ring with a sense of profound disgust. I did not wish to see anybody. My whiskey was low, my quinine pills few in number; my chills alone were present in a profusion bordering upon ostentation.
"I'll pretend not to hear it," I said to myself, resuming my work of gazing at the flickering light of my fire—which, by-the-way, was the only light in the room.
"Ting-a-ling-a-ling" went the bell, as if in answer to my resolve.
"Confound the luck!" I cried, jumping from my chair and going to the door with the intention of opening it, an intention however which was speedily abandoned, for as I approached it a sickly fear came over me—a sensation I had never before known seemed to take hold of my being, and instead of opening the door, I pushed the bolt to make it the more secure.
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"There's a hint for you, whoever you are!" I cried. "Do you hear that bolt slide, you?" I added, tremulously, for from the other side there came no reply—only a more violent ringing of the bell.
"See here!" I called out, as loudly as I could, "who are you, anyhow. What do you want?"
There was no answer, except from the bell, which began again.
"Bell-wire's too cheap to steal!" I called again. "If you want wire, go buy it; don't try to pull mine out. It isn't mine, anyhow. It belongs to the house."
Still there was no reply, only the clanging of the bell; and then my curiosity overcame my fear, and with a quick movement I threw open the door.
"Are you satisfied now?" I said, angrily. But I addressed an empty vestibule. There was absolutely no one there, and then I sat down on the mat and laughed. I never was so glad to see no one in my life. But my laugh was short-lived.
"What made that bell ring?" I suddenly asked myself, and then the feeling of fear came upon me again. I gathered my somewhat shattered self together, sprang to my feet, slammed the door with such force that the corridors echoed to the sound, slid the bolt once more, turned the key, moved a heavy chair in front of it, and then fled like a frightened hare to the sideboard in my dining-room. There I grasped the decanter holding my whiskey, seized a glass from the shelf, and started to pour out the usual dram, when the glass fell from my hand, and was shivered into a thousand pieces on the hardwood floor; for, as I poured, I glanced through the open door, and there in my sanctum the flicker of a random flame divulged the form of a being, the eyes of whom seemed fixed on mine, piercing me through and through. To say that I was petrified but dimly expresses the situation. I was granitized, and so I remained, until by a more luminous flicker from the burning wood I perceived that the being wore a flaring red necktie.
"He is human," I thought; and with the thought the tension on my nervous system relaxed, and I was able to feel a sufficiently well-developed sense of indignation to demand an explanation. "This is a mighty cool proceeding on your part," I said, leaving the sideboard and walking into the sanctum.
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"Yes," he replied, in a tone that made me jump, it was so extremely sepulchral—a tone that seemed as if it might have been acquired in a damp corner of some cave off the earth. "But it's a cool evening."
"I wonder that a man of your coolness doesn't hire himself out to some refrigerating company," I remarked, with a sneer which would have delighted the soul of Cassius himself.
"I have thought of it," returned the being, calmly. "But never went any further. Summer-hotel proprietors have always outbid the refrigerating people, and they in turn have been laid low by millionaires, who have hired me on occasion to freeze out people they didn't like, but who have persisted in calling. I must confess, though, my dear Hiram, that you are not much warmer yourself—this greeting is hardly what I expected."
"Well, if you want to make me warmer," I retorted, hotly, "just keep on calling me Hiram. How the deuce did you know of that blot on my escutcheon, anyhow?" I added, for Hiram was one of the crimes of my family that I had tried to conceal, my parents having fastened the name of Hiram Spencer Carrington upon me at baptism for no reason other than that my rich bachelor uncle, who subsequently failed and became a charge upon me, was so named.
"I was standing at the door of the church when you were baptized," returned the visitor, "and as you were an interesting baby, I have kept an eye on you ever since. Of course I knew that you discarded Hiram as soon as you got old enough to put away childish things, and since the failure of your uncle I have been aware that you desired to be known as Spencer Carrington, but to me you are, always have been, and always will be, Hiram."
"Well, don't give it away," I pleaded. "I hope to be famous some day, and if the American newspaper paragrapher ever got hold of the fact that once in my life I was Hiram, I'd have to Hiram to let me alone."
"That's a bad joke, Hiram," said the visitor, "and for that reason I like it, though I don't laugh. There is no danger of your becoming famous if you stick to humor of that sort."
"Well, I'd like to know," I put in, my anger returning—"I'd like to know who in Brindisi you are, what in Cairo you want, and what in the name of the seventeen hinges of the gates of Singapore you are doing here at this time of night?"
"When you were a baby, Hiram, you had blue eyes," said my visitor. "Bonny blue eyes, as the poet says."
"What of it?" I asked.
"This," replied my visitor. "If you have them now, you can very easily see what I am doing here.I am sitting down and talking to you."
"Oh, are you?" I said, with fine scorn. "I had not observed that. The fact is, my eyes were so weakened by the brilliance of that necktie of yours that I doubt I could see anything—not even one of my own jokes. It's a scorcher, that tie of yours. In fact, I never saw anything so red in my life."
"I do not see why you complain of my tie," said the visitor. "Your own is just as bad."
"Blue is never so withering as red," I retorted, at the same time caressing the scarf I wore.
"Perhaps not—but—ah—if you will look in the glass, Hiram, you will observe that your point is not well taken," said my vis-a-vis, calmly.
I acted upon the suggestion, and looked upon my reflection in the glass, lighting a match to facilitate the operation. I was horrified to observe that my beautiful blue tie, of which I was so proud, had in some manner changed, and was now of the same aggressive hue as was that of my visitor, red even as a brick is red. To grasp it firmly in my hands and tear it from my neck was the work of a moment, and then in a spirit of rage I turned upon my companion.
"See here," I cried, "I've had quite enough of you. I can't make you out, and I can't say that I want to. You know where the door is—you will oblige me by putting it to its proper use."
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"Sit down, Hiram," said he, "and don't be foolish and ungrateful. You are behaving in a most extraordinary fashion, destroying your clothing and acting like a madman generally. What was the use of ripping up a handsome tie like that?"
"I despise loud hues. Red is a jockey's color," I answered.
"But you did not destroy the red tie," said he, with a smile. "You tore up your blue one—look. There it is on the floor. The red one you still have on."
Investigation showed the truth of my visitor's assertion. That flaunting streamer of anarchy still made my neck infamous, and before me on the floor, an almost unrecognizable mass of shreds, lay my cherished cerulean tie. The revelation stunned me; tears came into my eyes, and trickling down over my cheeks, fairly hissed with the feverish heat of my flesh. My muscles relaxed, and I fell limp into my chair.
"You need stimulant," said my visitor, kindly. "Go take a drop of your OldReserve, and then come back here to me. I've something to say to you."
"Will you join me?" I asked, faintly.
"No," returned the visitor. "I am so fond of whiskey that I never molest it. That act which is your stimulant is death to the rye. Never realized that, did you?"
"No, I never did," I said, meekly.
"And yet you claim to love it. Bah!" he said.
And then I obeyed his command, drained my glass to the dregs, and returned. "What is your mission?" I asked, when I had made myself as comfortable as was possible under the circumstances.
"To relieve you of your woes," he said.
"You are a homoeopath, I observe," said I, with a sneer. "You are a homoeopath in theory and an allopath in practice."
"I am not usually unintelligent," said he. "I fail to comprehend your meaning. Perhaps you express yourself badly."
"I wish you'd express yourself for Zulu-land," I retorted, hotly. "What I mean is, you believe in thesimilia similibusbusiness, but you prescribe large doses. I don't believe troubles like mine can be cured on your plan. A man can't get rid of his stock by adding to it."
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"Ah, I see. You think I have added to your troubles?"
"I don't think so," I answered, with a fond glance at my ruined tie. "I know so."
"Well, wait until I have laid my plan before you, and see if you won't change your mind," said my visitor, significantly.
"All right," I said. "Proceed. Only hurry. I go to bed early, as a rule, and it's getting quite early now."
"It's only one o'clock," said the visitor, ignoring the sarcasm. "But I will hasten, as I've several other calls to make before breakfast."
"Are you a milkman?" I asked.
"You are flippant," he replied. "But, Hiram," he added, "I have come here to aid you in spite of your unworthiness. You want to know what to provide for your club night on the 15th. You want something that will knock the 'Martyr's Night' silly."
"Not exactly that," I replied, "I don't want anything so abominably good as to make all the other things I have done seem failures. That is not good business."
"Would you like to be hailed as the discoverer of genius? Would you like to be the responsible agent for the greatest exhibition of skill in a certain direction ever seen? Would you like to become the most famousimpresariothe world has ever known?"
"Now," I said, forgetting my dignity under the enthusiasm with which I was inspired by my visitor's words, and infected more or less with his undoubtedly magnetite spirit—"now you're shouting."
"I thought so, Hiram. I thought so, and that's why I am here. I saw you on Wall Street to-day, and read your difficulty at once in your eyes, and I resolved to help you. I am a magician, and one or two little things have happened of late to make me wish to prestidigitate in public. I knew you were after a show of some kind, and I've come to offer you my services."
"Oh, pshaw!" I said. "The members of the Gutenberg Club are men of brains—not children. Card tricks are hackneyed, and sleight-of-hand shows pall."
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"Do they, indeed?" said the visitor. "Well, mine won't. If you don't believe it, I'll prove to you what I can do."
"I have no paraphernalia," I said.
"Well, I have," said he, and as he spoke, a pack of cards seemed to grow out of my hands. I must have turned pale at this unexpected happening, for my visitor smiled, and said:
"Don't be frightened. That's only one of my tricks. Now choose a card," he added, "and when you have done so, toss the pack in the air. Don't tell me what the card is; it alone will fall to the floor."
"Nonsense!" said I. "It's impossible."
"Do as I tell you."
I did as he told me, to a degree only. I tossed the cards in the air without choosing one, although I made a feint of doing so.
Not a card fell back to the floor. They every one disappeared from view in the ceiling.If it had not been for the heavy chair I had rolled in front of the door, I think I should have fled.
"How's that for a trick?" asked my visitor.
I said nothing, for the very good reason that my words stuck in my throat.
"Give me a littlecreme de menthe, will you, please?" said he, after a moment's pause.
"I haven't a drop in the house," I said, relieved to think that this wonderful being could come down to anything so earthly.
"Pshaw, Hiram!" he ejaculated, apparently in disgust. "Don't be mean, and, above all, don't lie. Why, man, you've got a bottle full of it in your hand! Do you want it all?"
He was right. Where it came from I do not know; but, beyond question, the graceful, slim-necked bottle was in my right hand, and my left held a liqueur-glass of exquisite form.
"Say," I gasped, as soon as I was able to collect my thoughts, "what are your terms?"
"Wait a moment," he answered. "Let me do a little mind-reading before we arrange preliminaries."
"I haven't much of a mind to read tonight," I answered, wildly.
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"You're right there," said he. "It's like a dime novel, that mind of yours to-night. But I'll do the best I can with it. Suppose you think of your favorite poem, and after turning it over in your mind carefully for a few minutes, select two lines from it, concealing them, of course, from me, and I will tell you what they are."
Now my favorite poem, I regret to say, is Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwock," a fact I was ashamed to confess to an utter stranger, so I tried to deceive him by thinking of some other lines. The effort was hardly successful, for the only other lines I could call to mind at the moment were from Rudyard Kipling's rhyme, "The Post that Fitted," and which ran,
"Year by year, in pious patience, vengeful Mrs. Boffin sitsWaiting for the Sleary babies to develop Sleary's fits."
"Humph!" ejaculated my visitor. "You're a great Hiram, you are."
And then rising from his chair and walking to my "poet's corner," the magician selected two volumes.
"There," said he, handing me theDepartmental Ditties. "You'll find the lines you tried to fool me with at the foot of page thirteen. Look."
I looked, and there lay that vile Sleary sentiment, in all the majesty of type, staring me in the eyes.
"And here," added my visitor, openingAlice in the Looking-Glass—"here is the poem that to your mind holds all the philosophy of life:
"'Come to my arms, my beamish boy,He chortled in his joy.'"
I blushed and trembled. Blushed that he should discover the weakness of my taste, trembled at his power.
"I don't blame you for coloring," said the magician. "But I thought you said the Gutenberg was made up of men of brains? Do you think you could stay on the rolls a month if they were aware that your poetic ideals are summed up in the 'Jabberwock' and 'Sleary's Fits'?"
"My taste might be far worse," I answered.
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"Yes, it might. You might have stooped to liking some of your own verses. I ought really to congratulate you, I suppose," retorted the visitor, with a sneering laugh.
This roused my ire again.
"Who are you, anyhow, that you come here and take me to task?" I demanded, angrily. "I'll like anything I please, and without asking your permission. If I cared more for thePeterkin Papersthan I do for Shakespeare, I wouldn't be accountable to you, and that's all there is about it."
"Never mind who I am," said the visitor. "Suffice to say that I am myself. You'll know my name soon enough. In fact, you will pronounce it involuntarily the first thing when you wake in the morning, and then—" Here he shook his head ominously, and I felt myself grow rigid with fright in my chair. "Now for the final trick," he said, after a moment's pause. "Think of where you would most like to be at this moment, and I'll exert my power to put you there. Only close your eyes first."
I closed my eyes and wished. When I opened them I was in the billiard-room of the Gutenberg Club with Perkins and Tompson.
"For Heaven's sake, Spencer," they said, in surprise, "where did you drop in from? Why, man, you are as white as a sheet. And what a necktie! Take it off!"
"Grab hold of me, boys, and hold me fast," I pleaded, falling on my knees in terror. "If you don't, I believe I'll die."
The idea of returning to my sanctum was intolerably dreadful to me.
"Ha! ha!" laughed the magician, for even as I spoke to Perkins and TompsonI found myself seated opposite my infernal visitor in my room once more."They couldn't keep you an instant with me summoning you back."
His laughter was terrible; his frown was pleasanter; and I felt myself gradually losing control of my senses.
"Go," I cried. "Leave me, or you will have the crime of murder on your conscience."
"I have no con—" he began; but I heard no more.
That is the last I remember of that fearful night. I must have fainted, and then have fallen into a deep slumber.
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When I waked it was morning, and I was alone, but undressed and in bed, unconscionably weak, and surrounded by medicine bottles of many kinds. The clock on the mantle on the other side of the room indicated that it was after ten o'clock.
"Great Beelzebub!" I cried, taking note of the hour. "I've an engagement with Barlow at nine."
And then a sweet-faced woman, who, I afterwards learned, was a professional nurse, entered the room, and within an hour I realized two facts. One was that I had lain ill for many days, and that my engagement with Barlow was now for six weeks unfulfilled; the other, that my midnight visitor was none other than—
And yet I don't know. His tricks certainly were worthy of that individual; but Perkins and Tompson assert that I never entered the club that night, and surely if my visitor was Beelzebub himself he would not have omitted so important a factor of success as my actual presence in the billiard-room on that occasion would have been; and, besides, he was altogether too cool to have come from his reputed residence.
Altogether I think the episode most unaccountable, particularly when I reflect that while no trace of my visitor was discoverable in my room the next morning, as my nurse tells me, my blue necktie was in reality found upon the floor, crushed and torn into a shapeless bundle of frayed rags.
As for the club entertainment, I am told that, despite my absence, it was a wonderful success, redeemed from failure, the treasurer of the club said, by the voluntary services of a guest, who secured admittance on one of my cards, and who executed some sleight-of-hand tricks that made the members tremble, and whose mind-reading feats performed on the club's butler not only made it necessary for him to resign his office, but disclosed to the House Committee the whereabouts of several cases of rare wines that had mysteriously disappeared.
It was altogether queer, and Jingleberry to this day does not entirely understand it. He had examined his heart as carefully as he knew how, and had arrived at the entirely reasonable conclusion that he was in love. He had every symptom of that malady. When Miss Marian Chapman was within range of his vision there was room for no one else there. He suffered from that peculiar optical condition which enabled him to see but one thing at a time when she was present, and she was that one thing, which was probably the reason why in his mind's eye she was the only woman in the world, for Marian was ever present before Jingleberry's mental optic. He had also examined as thoroughly as he could in hypothesis the heart of this "only woman," and he had—or thought he had, which amounts to the same thing—reason to believe that she reciprocated his affection. She certainly seemed glad always when he was about; she called him by his first name, and sometimes quarrelled with him as she quarrelled with no one else, and if that wasn't a sign of love in woman, then Jingleberry had studied the sex all his years—and they were thirty-two—for nothing. In short, Marian behaved so like a sister to him that Jingleberry, knowing how dreams and women go by contraries, was absolutely sure that a sister was just the reverse from that relationship which in her heart of hearts she was willing to assume towards him, and he was happy in consequence. Believing this, it was not at all strange that he should make up his mind to propose marriage to her, though, like many other men, he was somewhat chicken-hearted in coming to the point. Four times had he called upon Marian for the sole purpose of asking her to become his wife, and four times had he led up to the point and then talked about something else. What quality it is in man that makes a coward of him in the presence of one he considers his dearest friend is not within the province of this narrative to determine, but Jingleberry had it in its most virulent form. He had often got so far along in his proposal as "Marian—er—will you—will you—," and there he had as often stopped, contenting himself with such commonplace conclusions as "go to the matinee with me to-morrow?" or "ask your father for me if he thinks the stock market is likely to strengthen soon?" and other amazing substitutes for the words he so ardently desired, yet feared, to utter. But this afternoon—the one upon which the extraordinary events about to be narrated took place—Jingleberry had called resolved not to be balked in his determination to learn his fate. He had come to propose, and propose he would,ruat coelum. His confidence in a successful termination to his suit had been reinforced that very morning by the receipt of a note from Miss Chapman asking him to dine with her parents and herself that evening, and to accompany them after dinner to the opera. Surely that meant a great deal, and Jingleberry conceived that the time was ripe for a blushing "yes" to his long-deferred question. So he was here in the Chapman parlor waiting for the young lady to come down and become the recipient of the "interesting interrogatory," as it is called in some sections of Massachusetts.
"I'll ask her the first thing," said Jingleberry, buttoning up his Prince Albert, as though to impart a possibly needed stiffening to his backbone. "She will say yes, and then I shall enjoy the dinner and the opera so much the more. Ahem! I wonder if I am pale—I feel sort of—um—There's a mirror. That will tell." Jingleberry walked to the mirror—an oval, gilt-framed mirror, such as was very much the vogue fifty years ago, for which reason alone, no doubt, it was now admitted to the gold-and-white parlor of the house of Chapman.
"Blessed things these mirrors," said Jingleberry, gazing at the reflection of his face. "So reassuring. I'm not at all pale. Quite the contrary. I'm red as a sunset. Good omen that! The sun is setting on my bachelor days—and my scarf is crooked. Ah!"
The ejaculation was one of pleasure, for pictured in the mirror Jingleberry saw the form of Marian entering the room through the portieres.
"How do you do, Marian? been admiring myself in the glass," he said, turning to greet her. "I—er—"
Here he stopped, as well he might, for he addressed no one. Miss Chapman was nowhere to be seen.
"Dear me!" said Jingleberry, rubbing his eyes in astonishment. "How extraordinary! I surely thought I saw her—why, I did see her—that is, I saw her reflection in the gla—Ha! ha! She caught me gazing at myself there and has hidden."
He walked to the door and drew the portiere aside and looked into the hall. There was no one there. He searched every corner of the hall and of the dining-room at its end, and then returned to the parlor, but it was still empty. And then occurred the most strangely unaccountable event in his life.
As he looked about the parlor, he for the second time found himself before the mirror, but the reflection therein, though it was of himself, was of himself with his back turned to his real self, as he stood gazing amazedly into the glass; and besides this, although Jingleberry was alone in the real parlor, the reflection of the dainty room showed that there he was not so, for seated in her accustomed graceful attitude in the reflected arm-chair was nothing less than the counterfeit presentment of Marian Chapman herself.
It was a wonder Jingleberry's eyes did not fall out of his head, he stared so. What a situation it was, to be sure, to stand there and see in the glass a scene which, as far as he could observe, had no basis in reality; and how interesting it was for Jingleberry to watch himself going through the form of chatting pleasantly there in the mirror's depths with the woman he loved! It almost made him jealous, though, the reflected Jingleberry was so entirely independent of the real Jingleberry. The jealousy soon gave way to consternation, for, to the wondering suitor, the independent reflection was beginning to do that for which he himself had come. In other words, there was a proposal going on there in the glass, and Jingleberry enjoyed the novel sensation of seeing how he himself would look when passing through a similar ordeal. Altogether, however, it was not as pleasing as most novelties are, for there were distinct signs in the face of the mirrored Marian that the mirrored Jingleberry's words were distasteful to her, and that the proposition he was making was not one she could entertain under any circumstances. She kept shaking her head, and the more she shook it, the more the glazed Jingleberry seemed to implore her to be his. Finally, Jingleberry saw his quicksilver counterpart fall upon his knees before Marian of the glass, and hold out his arms and hands towards her in an attitude of prayerful despair, whereupon the girl sprang to her feet, stamped her left foot furiously upon the floor, and pointed the unwelcome lover to the door.
Jingleberry was fairly staggered. What could be the meaning of so extraordinary a freak of nature? Surely it must be prophetic. Fate was kind enough to warn him in advance, no doubt; otherwise it was a trick. And why should she stoop to play so paltry a trick as that upon him? Surely fate would not be so petty. No. It was a warning. The mirror had been so affected by some supernatural agency that it divined and reflected that which was to be instead of confining itself to what Jingleberry called "simultaneity." It led instead of following or acting coincidently with the reality, and it was the part of wisdom, he thought, for him to yield to its suggestion and retreat; and as he thought this, he heard a soft sweet voice behind him.
"I hope you haven't got tired of waiting, Tom," it said; and, turning,Jingleberry saw the unquestionably real Marian standing in the doorway.
"No," he answered, shortly. "I—I have had a pleasant—very entertaining ten minutes; but I—I must hurry along, Marian," he added. "I only came to tell you that I have a frightful headache, and—er—I can't very well manage to come to dinner or go to the opera with you to-night."
"Why, Tom," pouted Marian, "I am awfully disappointed! I had counted on you, and now my whole evening will be spoiled. Don't you think you can rest a little while, and then come?"
"Well, I—I want to, Marian," said Jingleberry; "but, to tell the truth, I—I really am afraid I am going to be ill; I've had such a strange experience this afternoon. I—"
"Tell me what it was," suggested Marian, sympathetically; and Jingleberry did tell her what it was. He told her the whole story from beginning to end—what he had come for, how he had happened to look in the mirror, and what he saw there; and Marian listened attentively to every word he said. She laughed once or twice, and when he had done she reminded him that mirrors have a habit of reversing everything; and somehow or other Jingleberry's headache went, and—and—well, everything went!