One afternoon, a few days afterwards, Whimple, dropping into Tommy Watson's store, found the auctioneer and "Chuck" Epstein gravely examining a doll's carriage and its occupant, a doll eminently respectable in mien and terrifically blue of eye.
"Is this a new line, Tommy?" Whimple asked.
"No—it's 'Chuck's' purchase, he intends to present the outfit to a young lady."
"To Dolly Turnpike," said Epstein quietly, "it's her birthday to-morrow; what do you think of it?"
Whimple examined the carriage and the doll as closely and as gravely as the others had done, and expressed the opinion that it was all right. He added the hope that the young lady would think so too, and the opinion that she was extremely fortunate in having among her friends so thoughtful a man as Epstein.
It is doubtful if Epstein heard him, although it was quiet enough in the back part of the store where the three had conducted their examination. Whimple started to repeat his hope when he became aware that Tommy was shaking his head and holding a finger to his lips. Whimple thereupon broke off in the middle of a sentence and kept silence.
Epstein was looking at him, but not with the eyes of one who sees the object he gazes on. Whimple thought to himself that he had never dreamed the retired comedian was as old as he looked now. He wondered if it would be kindly taken if he should advise the old man that home and a rest in bed would brace him up a little, when Epstein began to speak.
"My little girl," he said, in the rich round voice his friends loved to hear, "was born on the same day of the month that Dolly was. Only, a long time ago—quite a long time ago, or perhaps I only dream that it was long ago," he stammered and paused, and then went on. "She would have been thirty years old now, wedded, no doubt, a mother, perhaps—what dreams—what dreams——" Again he paused.
Tommy Watson rose softly, went to the front door, deliberately locked it, and then returned to Whimple and Epstein—who was talking again. "I had retired from the stage, happy and contented, to take up a business career, so that I might be with my wife and child, and the other children, if they should come. We loved so well—we loved so well—and—and——" again a long pause. And then, as though some one had spoken to him, "Yes, yes, I went back to the stage again, but that was afterwards; and how they welcomed me and cheered me and praised me; for I made them laugh as in the olden time, but my heart was gone.
"My little girl was two years old when we began to notice the shadow. Just two; with a wealth of brown hair and eyes, her eyes—they were brown too; such a brown, so wonderful, and they were her mother's eyes. The shadow darkened; the little tongue became strangely quiet, the little limbs were tired so easily, the little hands were all too often idle. But how she clung to us—she seemed to know that she must go, and so she slipped away at last, so gently—so gently—and we could not hold her.
"What is a man anyway?" he demanded abruptly, but they did not speak: they knew he did not see them. "What is a man?" he reiterated. "I have made thousands laugh the world over: I have driven away their sorrows and heartaches, for a few hours at least, but I could not drive away the shadow; I could not, I could not. Nor could she who held first place in my heart and first place in the heart of our darling." His voice lowered again and he went on, "After—after—we had laid her little body in the graveyard we went to the home of a friend, thinking—thinking: I know not what. But when the night came, I could not rest nor even sit still, and all the while she was listening, listening, and looking at her arms. I knew, I knew: for my heart was bleeding too, and at last I took her arm, and together we went back to our own home; 'For it seems to me,' said my wife, 'that I hear the patter of her little feet moving about the rooms, and I hear her crying, "Mamma: Dad-dy:" and we are not there, Jacob, and she'll be so lonely, so lonely.'
"I was thinking that too. I could not have stayed away, and so back we went. She—she—my wife, seemed more content there. But always I noticed that she seemed to be listening and waiting, and often she smiled and talked as though she was answering the little one, but—but——" his head was drooping, he seemed to be falling asleep. Whimple stirred uneasily, and Tommy Watson, whose cheeks were wet with tears, shook a warning finger at him. The old man looked up again. "The shadow came again," he said quietly, "and somewhere—somewhere—they are waiting for me. Men differ on religion, and fight over the future state. What do I know of it? I don't know. A Jew, though a British subject born, a comedian—some say I have no religion, and never had. I don't know. But, oh! I know they wait for me—and where they wait is home."
For a long time there was silence; Epstein was the first to break it. He stood up suddenly, and with a new light in his eyes asked of Whimple, as though seeing him for the first time that day, how he liked the carriage and the doll.
"Fine," said Whimple as heartily as he could, for his throat was lumpy and his heart was beating quickly.
"I'm glad of that. Why, what's the matter, Tommy, you look as though you had been crying?"
"Slight cold in the head," returned Tommy rather abruptly, "rotten time of the year to get a cold too."
"It'll be all right in a day or two, I hope," said Epstein. "I must be going to Turnpike's. I want them to give this to Dolly to-morrow. You know I had a baby girl one time"—he proceeded quite firmly—"she—she died—and Rachel, her mother, followed—shortly. We called her Dolly—after Flo Dearmore's mother, who was very good to us"—here he looked smilingly at Tommy, who had blushed at the mention of Flo's name—"my little girl had beautiful brown eyes—just like Dolly Turnpike's."
He left them then. Whimple lingered a little while and finally blurted out—"I never knew that about Epstein."
"I've heard little bits of it," said Tommy, whose eyes were still moist. "Say, but he's a wonder though." Whimple agreed. Twice he made as though to go, and after the second attempt he asked bluntly, "Does William come here every morning yet?"
"Yes," answered Tommy.
"Well, I—that is——" he did not finish the sentence, and did not know how he could, but Tommy saved him. "That's all right," he said, "I'll send him over right after his lesson to-morrow. Whimple, you know what the good book says: it's more blessed to take a man on again than to refuse to give him another chance."
"Well, I don't just remember that," said Whimple, "but I do know that I've had sixty applicants in response to my advertisement for an office boy, and of all the——"
"I know—I know," broke in Tommy, "there's mighty few William Adolphus Turnpikes in this world, and he'll be just as glad to get back as you will be to have him."
"Confound him," said Whimple, but he laughed as he said it.
"Sure, but that'll be all right so long as the two of you get together again."
When Whimple reached the office the next morning he found William there. The lad's face was shining with pleasure. "I'm sorry about that dog business, Mister Whimple," he said, "and I'll try to be good."
"All right, William," said Whimple happily, "let it go at that." But to the surprised and disgruntled Lucien Torrance, William said darkly, "Well, what between you and the bunch that was after my job, I guess Mister Whimple was nearly crazy. It's more'n one man can stand for keeping you straight; it beats me how your own boss can put up with it."
The provincial political pot, which had been simmering all through the early spring, boiled over in July of that year. The Legislature was dissolved with all the solemn formalities attendant upon the death of an important public body, and many gentlemen with aspirations for public office or government jobs found that they must forego much of the joy that was offered in the shape of baseball, lacrosse, and rowing fixtures, and get out and hustle for their respective "grand old party."
The issues at stake in the contest, according to Tommy Watson, were such as no self-respecting auctioneer could put on the block at any sale and not blush for shame. "It's just a case," said he, "of the government, knowing they cannot be beaten, wanting to make sure of a new lease of power," and Tommy, as usual, was not far wrong. But if there were no really great issues in a general sense, there was a big one in Mid-Toronto, and stripped of all party rhetoric and verbiage it was this: "Shall 'The Big Wind' continue to represent us?"
The people were tired of "The Big Wind." So was the government. But the government dare not say so, while the people—including the many who had voted for him four years before—hoped that "The Big Wind" (his real name does not belong to this chronicle of facts) would have sense enough to blow himself out of public life. He might have done that if some of those who called themselves his friends had been strong enough in their friendship to have so advised him. For even in the moments—and they were many—when he thought much of himself, "The Big Wind" had glimmerings of common sense.
The government had taken him up for reasons that at the time seemed to be sufficient. He was the sole male survivor of a family that had done much for Toronto; was the possessor of a large fortune, and a liberal giver to charities, as his father in his lifetime had been; his position socially was distinguished, and he was a handsome man, tall and straight, with a fine olive-complexioned face, well set off with mustachios and an imperial. Much had been hoped from him, a cabinet position was in his reach, until the day he made his first speech in the Provincial House. That was a day indeed. The party papers had blazoned the announcement the day before that on the morrow "The Big Wind" would make his maiden address in the House, taking as his subject "two or three important matters in connection with the budget. A rare treat is in store for those who will be able to attend," and all the rest of the hyperbole that the party papers—except yours, dear reader—are wont to indulge in. Of course, the galleries of the House were crowded, and on the floor every member was in his seat. In the press gallery the attendance of managers and editorial writers was as large as that of the men who do the real work on newspapers—the reporters. All the reporters representing the government papers had been instructed to give "The Big Wind" pretty fully, while the men from the opposition papers had been informed that they might give him a "good show." When he arose to address the House, the government side greeted him with cheers, and the opposition joined in the desk pounding that followed.
"The Big Wind" started gracefully—he always did that, and the House listened indulgently while he patted every one on the back—not forgetting himself. This occupied some fifteen minutes, during which the reporters began to ask one another in whispers, "Why doesn't he get going?" They were beginning to wonder if he would ever get going when he said, "And now, Mr. Speaker, as to the budget." There was a suppressed "Ah!" in the press gallery, followed by a surprised "Oh!" when "The Big Wind" averred that "budgets" had been known since the world began. He delved into a pile of manuscript, and made some allusion to the Book of Genesis—without giving any one the slightest idea of what he was talking about. He paid a great deal of attention to Genesis, he stayed with it for an hour or so, in fact. People began to leave the galleries, members left the chamber to find solace in the smoking-room or the library. The managing editor of the chief leading government organ, who had condescended to take a seat in the press gallery, told the three reporters representing the paper to cut the speech to one column, and himself returned to his office. An hour later this editor telephoned to the press gallery and asked one of his reporters, "Say, where is that chump now?"
"Well," answered the reporter, "he's just figuring on leading the children of Israel into the promised land."
"It's a pity the Egyptians couldn't kill him," shouted the editor; "cut him down to half a column."
And "The Big Wind" went on blowing. At six o'clock he had left the children of Israel to their fate, and was grappling with the Norman invasion of England. The House adjourned for dinner then, and it is on record that as they walked the corridor to the dining-room, a member of the cabinet asked the premier, "Where in the name of all we stand for is this fellow going to land?" that the premier, without even the trace of a blush, answered in two words, and that one of them rhymed with "well."
"The Big Wind" resumed his address at eight o'clock at night and concluded it at eleven, with a few playful allusions to the Peninsular War and an expression of regret that time did not permit of his dealing with other matters no less important.
And this was the man that Mid-Toronto was asked to return again because his own party was afraid to antagonise him, and the opposition felt that they hadn't a ghost of show to carry a riding that for twenty years had beaten their candidates by large majorities. It looked indeed as though "The Big Wind" might be elected by acclamation.
Two weeks before the official nomination, Whimple, himself a dabbler in politics and a supporter of the government, heard, with other rumours, that an independent candidate would be in the field in Mid-Toronto, and the next morning the rumours were declared, by no less a personage than William Adolphus Turnpike, to have truth as their foundation.
"You live in Mid-Toronto, William," said Whimple, jocularly, "and you ought to know what's going on there!"
"Well, I know a few things," said William, smilingly.
"Such as——" and Whimple paused.
"Politics," said William, grinning.
"Yes!"
"A fight—a fight, and it'll be a loller-palluselar."
"A what?"
"That's just a word my Pa uses, Mister Whimple—honest, I couldn't say it more'n once a day."
"And who's going to fight 'The Big Wind,' pray?"
"The People's Party."
"The—what—oh! I say, William, what kind of a game is this?"
"No yarn—it's straight goods. The People's Party was formed last night, and picked their man."
"But, how do you know that? There's nothing in the papers about it this morning."
"No, because Tommy Watson's the press agent and secretary, and he says it's time enough to give it to the papers to-night, so he's going to do it."
"Tommy Watson! What on earth is he butting in for? He doesn't live in the riding!"
"No, but he was at the meetin', him and a few others—about seven altogether—and he says, 'I'll keep the minutes,' he says, 'and load up the papers.' The meetin' was held in our house," William went on, "and my Pa was elected to the chair. Gee! it was an elegant meetin': Pa made a corking speech. He says, '"The Big Wind" ain't to blame much for thinking he's the white-haired darlin',' he says, 'because his friends should put him wise that he ain't.' And Tony Gaston, what drives oner Jimmy Duggan's coal-wagons, he says, 'The Bigga de Wind is an awful mutt,' so he ups and asks why don't Jimmy Duggan run, so Pa says 'Carried,' and Tommy Watson makes 'em do it all reg'lar, and they forms the People's Party and puts Jimmy Duggan up for their man."
"It sounds foolish," said Wimple, reflectively.
"Well," said William, slowly, "that's what Tommy Watson says. 'It looks foolish,' he says, 'and that's just where a lot of other people's goin' to be made look foolish too. The party men'll be thinking there's no chance for Jimmy, and first thing you know he'll slip in.' So they asked Jimmy is he game, and Jimmy says he's game to buck up against any government anywheres, he says, especially one what'll stand for 'The Big Wind.'"
William paused, and then went on slowly, "Say, Mister Whimple, my Pa's a wonder to know what's what, and he says quite solemn to Tommy Watson after the meeting's over, 'Jimmy's the best man in a fight of any kind I ever knew,' he says; 'b'lieve me, Mister Watson,' he says, 'he'll punc-ture "The Big Wind." This part of the city don't have to stand for a gas-bag that ain't even got sense enough to burst when it's too full, and we ain't going to stand for it,' he says."
Whimple found the secretary and press agent of the People's Party busily engaged in the back of his store preparing reports of the nomination meeting for the newspapers.
"What's this I hear about a fight in Mid-Toronto, Tommy?" he asked.
"Meaning that the news has been gently broken to you by one William Adolphus Turnpike?"
"Yes."
"Well, put your money on Jimmy Duggan, coal and woodyard man, defender of the rights of the common people, candidate of the People's Party, the valiant David that's going to knock the stuffing out of the false Goliar——"
"Isn't it Goliath?" suggested Whimple, mildly.
"Well, maybe you're right, but, any way, there'll be an awful explosion in Mid-Toronto on August tenth, duly fixed by royal proclamation as the day on which the manhood of this fair province——"
"Oh, drop it, Tommy——"
"If the gentleman has any questions to ask I'll be pleased to answer them at the close of my address," Tommy went on. "I was about to say this fair province of Toronto, rising in their might, will go to the polls, well knowing that under the freedom and liberty which is theirs by right of the grand old flag——"
"Tommy, shut up!"
"I was about to say, they can vote as they darned well please, and the same will be mostly the way they've voted every election the last fifteen years—except in Mid-Toronto."
"Are you through?"
"Well, that's all I can think of just now."
"But what's the use? You haven't got the shadow of a chance. Why, the government 'll be returned hands down."
"Sure; but 'The Big Wind' won't. He'll be returned sky high. Don't you forget it. Why, Mid-Toronto's just seething, Whimple—just seething. Every patriotic soul in the riding is repeating that well-known verse from Bill Shakespeare's 'Saturday Night in London':—
'Breathes there a man with soul so punk,Who never to himself has thunk,By hedges and by hook or crook,We'll surely give Big Wind the Hook.'"
"Shakespeare! Shakespeare! Are you sure, Tommy?"
"Well, perhaps it wasn't him; but he's as good as any to tack it to."
"But, Tommy—seriously, is Jimmy Duggan going to fight?"
"Fight!—you bet your life he's going to fight, and he's going to win, too."
"Umph!"
"Umph again, Whimple, you and the government will be umphing to the finish, and then you'll umph some more."
"But look here, Tommy, you know the opposition and its press has had the government tottering to its fall every election these fifteen years, and it's as solid as ever."
"Well, we'll make a dint in its solidity any way. You keep your eyes on Jimmy Duggan."
And Whimple did; others were a little slower to turn their gaze in that direction. They treated Duggan and the People's Party as a joke until the official nomination meeting when the strength and enthusiasm of Jimmy's supporters jolted them. There was a hurried consultation thereafter in the government's campaign quarters. Cabinet ministers were turned loose in the riding; the city papers supporting the government, though loth to do it, began to play up "The Big Wind." Every hall in the riding was hired for every night of the remaining week of the campaign, and two or three meetings were held every night. The People's Party and Jimmy Duggan could not afford to rent halls; their material platforms were express and coal delivery wagons drawn up on vacant lots: their speakers, outside of Tommy Watson, were men who laboured in the factories and workshops, or, like William Turnpike's Pa and Jimmy Duggan himself; had little businesses of their own. Jimmy could talk—after a fashion. "Pa" Turnpike did a little in the speech-making line. Tommy Watson did a great deal, and so did Tony Gaston, who had distinguished himself by nominating Duggan on the night the People's Party was formed.
Tony was a treat; William followed him around from meeting to meeting, declaring one of Tony's speeches to be worth more than all the others put together. "Gee! you'd orter hear him, Lucien," he said to Simmons' office boy one afternoon. "He's a Dago—but he's white. He gets leaning over the side of a wagon and he waves his arms till you'd think he'd shake them off, and all the time he's spitten' out words so blamed fast you'd wonder his tongue don't drop off. 'Ladies and der Gents,' he says, 'dis is de pr'r'oudest minnit of me life. It's an honor to stand befacin' such a audonce to spek a wor'r'd,' he says, 'for me frend, James de Duggan.' Somebody yells, 'Well, yer work f'r him, that's why.' 'Sure, I wor'rks for him,' says Tony, 'and I wor'r'ks har'rd f'r him,' he says, 'and that's more'n you do f'r the man dats payin' you good mon ev'ry week what you don't ear'r'r'n. Ladies and der Gents,' he says, 'har'rk nottin's to dat loaf-er, but vote f'r the frends of de honest wor'r'k de mans and stick de Big Wind so up he blows-puff.'"
But a new problem faced the People's Party when, for the final four days of campaigning, "The Big Wind's" committee announced a band or an orchestra at every meeting for every night.
"That'll take lots of our people away," said Tommy Watson, thoughtfully, when he read the announcement. "What can we do, I wonder, to meet it?" But William's Pa was solving the difficulty while Tommy was pondering over it. Flo Dearmore—the theatrical season being over—was in town, living, as she always did between seasons, with her mother. She was immensely interested in the contest, the faithful Tommy Watson, whose courting of her was proceeding with some success, keeping her fully informed, and when William's Pa called on her, she listened to his request with interest, refused to consider it at all, but, woman-like, changed her mind, and appeared that night on one of the People's Party platforms—an express wagon loaned by Turnpike. Tommy Watson was in the chair, and he almost fell out of it when he saw Flo approaching the wagon. Almost before he could move, she was seated beside him, many willing hands having assisted her on her way.
Tommy's eyes were popping and his mouth was gaping. He framed his lips to question her, but the words would not come. Flo greeted him demurely, and smiled mischievously over his evident embarrassment. "Don't worry, Tommy," she said, "I'm in this fight too. They're not going to beat your man if I can help prevent it. If they have their bands—well, I can sing still," with just a touch of pride.
"Flo—Flo," gasped Tommy, "you're a brick. There's lots here who know you, and some of them know you're going to be Mrs. Tommy Watson pretty soon, and they'll tell the others. Flo, this is worth hundreds of votes to us. Oh! but you're a woman in a thousand." She flushed with pleasure at this. "You'll have to tell me later all about it," Tommy went on; "who put you up to this, or did you think of it yourself?"
"It was Pa Turnpike," she said.
"Good old Turnpike. Say, but that Pa of William's is certainly smart. You remember William: the lad who sang for you at the Variety."
And just here Jimmy Duggan, who had been making a brief address, finished suddenly, as was his wont, with an invitation to all, "whether they know me or not, to solemnly weigh the merits of the two candidates, and to decide in favour of the man whose platform prin-ciples are those for which the common people have long been fighting, and if you do, you'll vote for me."
On the instant that he finished Tommy Watson was up. "The next speaker," said he, "will be a singer. (Cheers.) Our respected town's lady, Flo Dearmore—(cheers)—who has won a high place on the stage. She is for Duggan—(loud cheers)—and says it'll break her heart if he ain't elected, and that wouldn't do. (Cheers.) She's a woman in a million."
Here some one cried out, "Why don't you marry the lady, Tommy?"
"I'm going to, and pretty soon," answered Tommy, promptly, turning toward Flo as he spoke. All blushes, she nodded her head affirmatively, while the crowd shouted approval. Then she sang for them—two songs only—and afterwards went on to another meeting, accompanied by Tommy Watson, Tony Gaston, and William, where she sang again. And William's heart was throbbing with happiness, for, from the night in the Variety, when he had first seen her on the stage, he had placed this lovely lady in a niche of his heart next to that occupied by the mother to whom he was an unsolvable puzzle. He would have followed her to fifty meetings that night had she been going to that many, but his happiness was the more nearly perfect because the lady and Gaston were going to the only other Duggan meeting together, and he would be able to worship her, and listen in ecstasy to her singing, and afterwards hear one of Tony Gaston's fiery orations.
"Gee!" said William to himself: "ain't this the great luck?" and then, with an admiring glance at Flo, "and ain't she a pippin?"
Of course, Jimmy Duggan won. Even the present generation of hustling Canadians know that, though many of them could not tell an inquirer, off-hand, the name of the Canadian Prime Minister who preceded Sir Wilfrid Laurier. Of course he won—by a bare 3000 majority—that's all. Mid-Toronto shouted itself black in the face that night, and went about its own business for the next seven days in a manner that one eminent alienist would have described—had he been giving expert evidence for the defence at fifty dollars per hour—as "between a state of hysterical mania and senile decay, but not close enough to the one to necessitate confinement in an asylum, or to the other as to require the attention of a trained nurse." Jimmy Duggan was the least affected of any of the People's Party. He made fifty-five brief speeches of thanks in various sections of Mid-Toronto, and made his last to Tommy Watson, Tony Gaston, and Pa Turnpike, who escorted him to his home.
"I owe most to you three," he said earnestly, "and you'll have to help me think up some kind of legislation to press for. There's one thing we have to be glad about though," he added.
"What's that?" asked Tommy.
"Well—I ain't a government man, so it's no good anybody coming to me to worry me to death trying to get a government job for them."
"What are you going to do about William?" That was the question Flo Dearmore asked of Tommy Watson one afternoon when Tommy should have been attending strictly to his business as an auctioneer, but was neglecting it for the business of courtship, which, he declared for the one hundred and ninety-ninth time, had more charms for him than the most exciting sale he had ever conducted.
"Well, what about him?" was Tommy's answer.
"Isn't that Scottish though?" said Flo: "question for question."
"You know the old proverb," Tommy said, smilingly, "'don't answer too quickly, or you'll put your foot in it.'"
"I never heard of it before," she said, "and I don't believe there is such a proverb."
"It's something like that, anyway," retorted Tommy; "but, coming back to the question I asked, what about William?"
"I asked it first."
"You're beginning to get your hooks in for the last word rather early, aren't you?"
"Tommy Watson! make no mistake about me. I'm going to have the first and last word now and—and——"
"To the end of your married life, I suppose," broke in Tommy with a sigh so heavy that it shook him.
Flo tapped him on the head with the fingers of one dainty hand. "You're almost intelligent at times, Tommy Watson," she said, with mock seriousness.
"Yes," he retorted, "yes; almost intelligent enough to go on the stage," and then he spent the next ten minutes in explaining that he had meant to convey no reflections; that his sweetheart was the dearest, most lovable, and most intelligent person in the world; that he would never have made, and never could make, an actor: that he was the biggest bonehead in the boundaries of the City of Toronto, and all his friends and acquaintances knew it. She made him withdraw the last assertion, and beg her pardon in his nicest manner for insulting himself and his wife to be, and then came back to the subject of William.
"There's promise in the boy," she said, "he'll be a great comedian some day, if he gets a fair start."
"Yes, and he knows it, too," Tommy commented, "confound the kid. Sometimes he drives me frantic, but all the time I like him. He hasn't got the faintest notion of ever being anything but a comedian. He's almost uncanny. What he doesn't think of hasn't been thought of by anybody yet, I'll bet. He can't find words, often, to tell what his thoughts are, and then he falls back on the greatest line of slang I've ever heard. Only yesterday he said to 'Chuck' Epstein, 'Many's the time when things all go wrong I've felt like going home and crying, honest. Then, when I'd get home, there's Pa dead tired, but chirpin' like a cricket, and Ma tired too, but hustlin' around gettin' supper for Pa and the kids and me, and Dolly and Pete and the others all waitin' to see what line I'm going to take. So I gets busy and cuts up, and, say, maybe we don't have the merry ha ha times, and my Pa says to me often, he says, "William, make 'em laugh; a feller what can hide the sores in his own heart," he says, "while he's makin' somebody else laugh," he says, "he's a winner more ways than one." And it's true, Mister Epstein.'"
"Yes," said Flo, softly, "it's true."
"But now, here's the situation," Tommy went on. "William's Pa is doing pretty well now, and he won't stand for any charity game. If the boy will go back to school, Pa Turnpike will cheerfully consent, but William won't. He's very stubborn on that point. 'Not for mine,' he says. 'If I could stick to history and reading lessons, all right, but the rest of the truck they try to shovel into a boy's head at school kills me dead. Say, I've come outer the school some days almost scared to put me feet down for fear they'd slip over the edge of the world, and I never really know whether the sun goes around the world or the world around the sun, and often I ain't been sure whether the sun might hit us, or us hit the sun, and everything bust to pieces.'"
"Well, you'll have to try persuasion on him."
"We're trying it," said Tommy, "and I think we're beginning to see daylight. It's down to the point now where William comes over and takes luncheon in my room with Epstein and myself, and he gets an hour of reading and instruction from the old man then, in addition to the one in the morning. We arranged that with Whimple, and William walked right into it. If we could only get him to cut out the slang——"
"What!"
"Well, that's just what Epstein said when I suggested it to him."
"I should think so, Tommy Watson; that boy is a natural born 'slanger.'"
Tommy laughed.
"You're laughing in the wrong place, Tommy—that boy will go on absorbing slang to the end of his days, unless you're foolish enough to shame it out of him. By the time he is ready to go on the stage he will have a stock-in-trade of slang that will be the making of him, for he is so apt and ready with it. But, tell—no, I'll tell Epstein myself—to take care that his slang does not mar the rest of his speech. He must not be allowed to get into the way of just mouthing slang and nothing else. Does he read well?"
"You should hear him, Flo: it's a treat, and when he gets stuck on a big word he dives into the dictionary head first, or questions Epstein until he can say it properly and understand its meaning."
"That is real progress. He's a delightful mimic, too."
"Yes: he takes off Epstein, or Whimple, or myself, to the life."
"The latter must be extremely difficult," said Flo, demurely.
"True—quite true—for there's no doubt I'm a wonderful man, Flo," answered Tommy, solemnly: "so inscrutable and impassive—is that the way to say it—so adept at hiding my inmost thoughts, so——"
"But you needn't squeeze my hand so hard, Tommy, while you pronounce your eulogy; it isn't an auctioneer's gavel."
"It's a very pretty hand, though," Tommy said with a smile, "a very pretty hand."
"Are you an impartial judge, Tommy?"
"Well, I can't say I have much experience in regard to the hands of the fair sex, but I'm willing to bet there are none like yours in the wide world."
"And you have travelled so much of it."
"Not lately, perhaps, but I once spent four hours in Montreal, 330 miles away; think of it! and half a day in Hamilton—that's all of forty miles off—and Toronto never looked so sweet to me as it did when I got back to it. Good old Toronto; it's been kind to me. It has given me the dearest of all women, and a good business, and—and——" he kissed her hand and a few minutes later departed.
At a down town corner he ran into William, who was studying with great interest the baseball bulletins displayed outside of a newspaper office. William was one of a pretty large crowd that was doing the same thing. News bulletins seemingly had little attraction for the majority of them. As Tommy neared him, William remarked to a man in the crowd, "Gee! wouldn't that jar you?"
"I don't see why: that's a very important piece of news. It isn't every day the city council decides to spend so much——"
"City council my neck," broke in William, rudely, "what's that got to do with the score?"
"Score! what score?"
"Oh, gee! I thought I was talking to a baseball fan."
"You thought wrong, young man," retorted the man, sharply. "I've no patience with such frivolous things."
And then William caught sight of Tommy. "Say," he called out, "what do you think of that score?"
Tommy, himself an enthusiast, studied it carefully. "Jersey City two, Toronto one," he said aloud, "and down we go to second place, William."
"Yes; and Jersey City putting us there! Say, that team of ours is certainly on the pork."
"Oh, they're not doing so badly; we're only a few points down."
"Only? What's the use? Every time they lick the good ones they fall down when they stack up against the tail-enders; it's rotten."
"Cheer up, William, cheer up! The team will soon be home for another long series, and then they'll soar."
"Yes," said William, gloomily, "to the bottom."
"You seem to be downhearted; what's the matter?"
"Mister Whimple lost a case to-day."
"Well, lots of lawyers do that. In baseball, or law, or anything else, William, you've got to lose sometimes. Remember the old saying, 'It's better to have tried to buck the line, and failed, than never to have tried at all.'"
"But Mister Whimple's just getting a good start, and he can't afford to lose cases. It gives him a bad steer with people that's looking for lawyers in the winning column!"
The plans that men make in the belief that the knowledge and wisdom of the adult mind knows what is best for youth are many and of small account. For the youthful mind sees easily through the most of them, intuitively perhaps, and not by methods of reasoning, and decides for itself whether it shall accept or reject them. And office boys constitute a particularly abnormal department—if such it may be termed—of the youthful mind. This is merely a roundabout way of preparing the readers, if any, of this veracious chronicle with the fact that William had not, as Tommy Watson supposed, "walked into" the plan whereby he was to receive an additional hour of tuition from that prince of tutors, "Chuck" Epstein. If this was a history, the truth might be coloured with the glamour of romance at times. But, as Tommy Watson himself was wont to say, "Facts are real, facts are earnest, facts are very stubborn things, facts are facts where'er you find 'em, facts are what gives truth its wings." Therefore, it is here set down in black and white that William himself engineered that additional hour, and the wise men who thought they had initiated it patted themselves on the back because it was a success.
William, of a truth, was beginning to find himself by finding others out. He had discovered, and it was a bitter shock to William, that Lucien Torrance, for whom his feelings were tinctured by good-natured tolerance, was making good use of his spare time around the office. Lucien had no "vaulting ambition:" he would hardly have understood the meaning of the words. He wanted to improve his position though, and he practised consistently on the typewriter, he took lessons in shorthand, and was beginning to master the intricacies of bookkeeping, taking his lessons therein at a night school. His desk was always neat and clean, and the clerical work that Simmons, the architect, was beginning to trust him with was well done.
William's desk always looked to be over-crowded, and was never neat. Periodically, the lad had a cleaning-up day, but he never seemed to make much headway in getting rid of the assorted mass of newspaper and magazine clippings that he accumulated with avidity. It was an amazing collection, and every bit of reading in it, and every picture, referred to comedians; always comedians.
Lucien Torrance tackled him about it one day. "Why don't you throw all that truck away?" he said; "it's an awful lot of rubbish."
"Truck! Rubbish!"
"Yes: what do you want with that?"
"You wouldn't tumble to it if I told you," William answered, so mildly that Lucien, who had expected a stinging rebuke, was almost overcome with surprise. "It's a secret," William went on, "a dark secret, but one of these days you'll be paying good money to find out about it."
"Not me."
"Yes, you, Lucien Torrance; you'll be doing it, and paying for your girl, or your wife, perhaps, to help you find it out."
"I haven't got a girl, and as for a wife, I'm only fifteen——"
"Don't give your age away," interrupted William. "I told you you wouldn't understand, and I ain't going to waste any of my breath trying to make you now. Some day you will, unless you turn to stone, like the fellow at the show last week."
"Oh, you mean 'the petrified man.'"
"You've got the name down fine, Lucien; I wanted to say it, but, honest, I couldn't. I thought it was stiffified, or something like that. But don't worry about me and this 'truck' and 'rubbish,' Lucien; I'm not daffy yet. Let's talk about something else."
"What?"
"Love, for instance."
"Love: what on earth do you want to talk about love for? Are you——"
"Not on your life," interrupted William, hurriedly, "no skirts for mine. Why I wouldn't worry about any woman in the world but Ma or my sisters. But I'd like to get at the bottom of this love business anyway. 'Chuck' Epstein says love is the greatest thing in the world, but it makes the most trouble. Can you beat that?"
"I don't know anything about it——"
"No, no; I don't figure that you do, Lucien. But when 'Chuck' says it, he says it to Tommy Watson, and Tommy heaves a sigh big enough to burst the store to pieces if the door hadn't been open so's the sigh floats out into the street and blows an old gent's hat off, and——"
"I don't believe it."
"I know you don't, Lucien: that's another of your troubles. Some day, maybe, your mind'll take in somer the things you're missin' now, and maybe it never will. But, anyway, Tommy says, 'You're right, "Chuck,"' he says, kinder gloomy like. Now, whatjer think of that, and him going to be married to Flo Dearmore in August?"
"Tommy Watson is?"
"Sure."
"I always thought he was an old bachelor."
"Well, you think again, Lucien, think again. Tommy ain't so old; and it seems to me every man's a bach-e-lor until he gets married. Now, you'd think Tommy'd be fairly bustin' with joy, and maybe he is; I don't know. But he goes around singing all them mournful songs, and, say, you'd ought to hear him singing. Oh, gee! Honest, Lucien, the fog horn over on the Island's a treat to it. Your boss was over once when Tommy was whanging away on oner them songs, and he says, 'Heavens, Tommy, when's the funeral?' and Tommy says, 'Guess again, Simmons,' he says. 'It's for very joy I'm singing.' So your boss says, 'Well, it ain't a fair deal for you to be so all fired joyful as to kill everybody else's joy,' he says; so Tommy shies a book at him, and Simmons ducks, and the book hits a vase and smashes it. Well, you'd think Tommy would be mad at himself and at everybody else because of that, but he laughs and says to Simmons, 'Better the vase than your head, Simmons. Gee! I'm so happy I could smash everything in the place.' So your boss says, 'Wait till your wife begins to try her cookin' on you.' Then Tommy gets after him, and Simmons scoots, and Tommy begins again on Scotch songs; all the slow, sad ones, and, honest, I had to go out too."
"You spend a lot of time there, don't you, William?"
"Sh—sh—Don't be sleuthing around, Lucien, you might find out something, and I'm afraid the blow would kill you. Anyway, I asked my Pa about this love business, and he kinder laughs, and looks at Ma, and she laughs too, like when she's pleased about something, and they kisses each other right there, and Pa says, 'It'll come to you some day, boy, please God, and when it comes——' and then he kisses Ma again and don't finish what he's started to say, and I don't ask him. I know enough anyway to know when Pa ain't going to be no mark for a buncher questions, but it's got me going. There's Miss Whimple loved a fellow when she's young, and he gets carved up by some black fellows in a desert around Egypt somewhere——"
"The Soudan."
"That's the name; who told you?"
"My father's brother is a soldier, and he fought the Dervishes."
"That's the bunch. Say, you certainly know something, Lucien, sometimes. So, Miss Whimple don't get married, and it's the icy mitt for anybody that asked her; and plenty did."
"She's a funny old——"
"You say a word about her, Lucien Torrance, that ain't nice, and I'll knock the head off'n you. She's—she's—well, there ain't another like her except Ma."
"I wasn't going to say anything——" began Lucien.
William cut him short. "You started wrong then," he said, "that's all there is to it; and now what about your boss?"
"Mine?"
"Yes; he's going crazy about a girl."
"He's what?"
"You heard me; you know you did. Say, he can't sleep nights thinking of that girl, by the looks of him, and he don't see her more'n seven times a week, and she's just as looney about him too; but she ain't showing it much."
"I don't believe it!"
"There you are again, and a lot of this thing going on under your very nose. Say, you're sticking so close to business you can't see a blame thing but your work. Do you ever have a day dream, Lucien?"
"I'm too busy."
"That's it, busy—too busy to have day dreams. Gee, I don't know what I'd do if I never had 'em. Say——"
Whimple entered at this moment with Simmons. The lawyer was urging the architect to "buck up." William smiled. "The girl loves you," Whimple said, in an undertone, but not pitched low enough, for the two boys heard it quite distinctly. William winked at Lucien, and the latter blushed. Simmons refused to be comforted, and passed into his own office, melancholy settled heavily on his usually bright face, and Lucien followed him.
"William," said Whimple a few minutes later, "will you please take this letter to Mrs. Stewart, and wait for an answer?"
William's "yes" was prompt. He liked Mrs. Stewart, a young and pretty widow, to whom of late he had carried a number of notes. While he was putting on his cap, Whimple, who was sitting in his own room, began to sing softly. William did not pay particular attention to the air until, as he started toward the outer door of the office, Whimple's voice rose a little, and then he listened intently. Whimple could sing well, and he was singing well now, and the song was "Annie Laurie." William paused irresolutely, looked at the letter, counted swiftly on one hand, then opened the door, and ran quickly down the stairs. At the bottom of the stairs he paused again, once more he counted, and then said to himself, "Friday, and I've taken five letters to her this week, and brought five back, and—and—I thought I was smarter'n Lucien. Dang it, all the men are going crazy together."