Ruggles of Red Gap Part 29

He took his accustomed seat with a pleasant word to me. I waited.

"Feeling a mite off this morning," he began, "account of a lot of truck I eat yesterday. I guess I'll just take something kind of dainty. Tell Clarice to cook me up a nice little steak with plenty of fat on it, and some fried potatoes, and a cup of coffee and a few waffles to come. The Judge he wouldn't get up yet. He looked kind of mottled and anguished, but I guess he'll pull around all right. I had the c.h.i.n.k take him up about a gallon of strong tea. Say, listen here, the Judge ain't so awful much of a stayer, is he?"

Burning with curiosity I was to learn what he could tell me of the day before, yet I controlled myself to the calmest of leisurely questioning in order not to alarm him. It was too plain that he had no realization of what had occurred. It was always the way with him, I had noticed. Events the most momentous might culminate furiously about his head, but he never knew that anything had happened.

"The Honourable George," I began, "was with you yesterday? Perhaps he ate something he shouldn't."

"He did, he did; he done it repeatedly. He et pretty near as much of that sauerkraut and frankfurters as the piano guy himself did, and that's some tribute, believe me, Bill! Some tribute!"

"The piano guy?" I murmured quite casually.

"And say, listen here, that guy is all right if anybody should ask you. You talk about your mixers!"

This was a bit puzzling, for of course I had never "talked about my mixers." I shouldn't a bit know how to go on. I ventured another query.

"Where was it this mixing and that sort of thing took place?"

"Why, up at Mis' Kenner's, where we was having a little party: frankfurters and sauerkraut and beer. My stars! but that steak looks good. I'm feeling better already." His food was before him, and he attacked it with no end of spirit.

"Tell me quite all about it," I amiably suggested, and after a moment's hurried devotion to the steak, he slowed up a bit to talk.

"Well, listen here, now. The Judge says to me when Eddie Pierce comes, 'Sour-dough,' he says, 'look in at Mis' Kenner's this afternoon if you got nothing else on; I fancy it will repay you.' Just like that.

'Well,' I says, 'all right, Judge, I fancy I will. I fancy I ain't got anything else on,' I says. 'And I'm always glad to go there,' I says, because no matter what they're always saying about this here Bohemian stuff, Kate Kenner is one good scout, take it from me. So in a little while I slicked up some and went on around to her house. Then hitched outside I seen Eddie Pierce's hack, and I says, 'My lands! that's a funny thing,' I says. 'I thought the Judge was going to haul this here piano guy out to the Jackson place where he could while away the tejum, like Jackson said, and now it looks as if they was here. Or mebbe it's just Eddie himself that has fancied to look in, not having anything else on.'

"Well, so anyway I go up on the stoop and knock, and when I get in the parlour there the piano guy is and the Judge and Eddie Pierce, too, Eddie helping the j.a.p around with frankfurters and sauerkraut and beer and one thing and another.

"Besides them was about a dozen of Mis' Kenner's own particular friends, all of 'em good scouts, let me tell you, and everybody laughing and ga.s.sing back and forth and cutting up and having a good time all around. Well, so as soon as they seen me, everybody says, 'Oh, here comes Sour-dough--good old Sour-dough!' and all like that, and they introduced me to the piano guy, who gets up to shake hands with me and spills his beer off the chair arm on to the wife of Eddie Fosd.i.c.k in the Farmers' and Merchants' National, and so I sat down and et with 'em and had a few steins of beer, and everybody had a good time all around."

The wonderful man appeared to believe that he had told me quite all of interest concerning this monstrous festivity. He surveyed the mutilated remnant of his steak and said: "I guess Clarice might as well fry me a few eggs. I'm feeling a lot better." I directed that this be done, musing upon the dreadful menu he had recited and recalling the exquisite finish of the collation I myself had prepared.

Sausages, to be sure, have their place, and beer as well, but sauerkraut I have never been able to regard as an at all possible food for persons that really matter. Germans, to be sure!

Discreetly I renewed my inquiry: "I dare say the Honourable George was in good form?" I suggested.

"Well, he et a lot. Him and the piano guy was bragging which could eat the most sausages."

I was unable to restrain a shudder at the thought of this revolting contest.

"The piano guy beat him out, though. He'd been at the Palace Hotel for three meals and I guess his appet.i.te was right craving."

"And afterward?"

"Well, it was like Jackson said: this lad wanted to while away the tejum of a Sunday afternoon, and so he whiled it, that's all. Purty soon Mis' Kenner set down to the piano and sung some c.o.o.n songs that tickled him most to death, and then she got to playing ragtime--say, believe me, Bill, when she starts in on that rag stuff she can make a piano simply stutter itself to death.

{Ill.u.s.tration: MIS' KENNER SET DOWN TO THE PIANO AND SUNG SOME c.o.o.n SONGS THAT TICKLED HIM MOST TO DEATH}

"Well, at that the piano guy says it's great stuff, and so he sets down himself to try it, and he catches on pretty good, I'll say that for him, so we got to dancing while he plays for us, only he don't remember the tunes good and has to fake a lot. Then he makes Mis'

Kenner play again while he dances with Mis' Fosd.i.c.k that he spilled the beer on, and after that we had some more beer and this guy et another plate of kraut and a few sausages, and Mis' Kenner sings 'The Robert E. Lee' and a couple more good ones, and the guy played some more ragtime himself, trying to get the tunes right, and then he played some fancy pieces that he'd practised up on, and we danced some and had a few more beers, with everybody laughing and cutting up and having a nice home afternoon.

"Well, the piano guy enjoyed himself every minute, if anybody asks you, being lit up like a main chandelier. They made him feel like he was one of their own folks. You certainly got to hand it to him for being one little good mixer. Talk about whiling away the tejum! He done it, all right, all right. He whiled away so much tejum there he darned near missed his train. Eddie Pierce kept telling him what time it was, only he'd keep asking Mis' Kenner to play just one more rag, and at last we had to just shoot him into his fur overcoat while he was kissing all the women on their hands, and we'd have missed the train at that if Eddie hadn't poured the leather into them skates of his all the way down to the dee-po. He just did make it, and he told the Judge and Eddie and me that he ain't had such a good time since he left home. I kind of hated to see him go."

He here attacked the eggs with what seemed to be a freshening of his remarkable appet.i.te. And as yet, be it noted, I had detected no consciousness on his part that a foul betrayal of confidence had been committed. I approached the point.

"The Belknap-Jacksons were rather expecting him, you know. My impression was that the Honourable George had been sent to escort him to the Belknap-Jackson house."

"Well, that's what I thought, too, but I guess the Judge forgot it, or mebbe he thinks the guy will mix in better with Mis' Kenner's crowd.

Anyway, there they was, and it probably didn't make any difference to the guy himself. He likely thought he could while away the tejum there as well as he could while it any place, all of them being such good scouts. And the Judge has certainly got a case on Mis' Kenner, so mebby she asked him to drop in with any friend of his. She's got him bridle-wise and broke to all gaits." He visibly groped for an illumining phrase. "He--he just looks at her."

The simple words fell upon my ears with a sickening finality. "He just looks at her." I had seen him "just look" at the typing-girl and at the Brixton milliner. All too fearfully I divined their preposterous significance. Beyond question a black infamy had been laid bare, but I made no effort to convey its magnitude to my guileless informant. As I left him he was mildly bemoaning his own lack of skill on the pianoforte.

"Darned if I don't wish I'd 'a' took some lessons on the piano myself like that guy done. It certainly does help to while away the tejum when you got friends in for the afternoon. But then I was just a hill-billy. Likely I couldn't have learned the notes good."

It was a half-hour later that I was called to the telephone to listen to the anguished accents of Belknap-Jackson.

"Have you heard it?" he called. I answered that I had.

"The man is a paranoiac. He should be at once confined in an asylum for the criminal insane."

"I shall row him fiercely about it, never fear. I've not seen him yet."

"But the creature should be watched. He may do harm to himself or to some innocent person. They--they run wild, they kill, they burn--set fire to buildings--that sort of thing. I tell you, none of us is safe."

"The situation," I answered, "has even more shocking possibilities, but I've an idea I shall be equal to it. If the worst seems to be imminent I shall adopt extreme measures." I closed the interview. It was too painful. I wished to summon all my powers of deliberation.

To my amazement who should presently appear among my throng of luncheon patrons but the Honourable George. I will not say that he slunk in, but there was an unaccustomed diffidence in his bearing. He did not meet my eye, and it was not difficult to perceive that he had no wish to engage my notice. As he sought a vacant table I observed that he was spotted quite profusely, and his luncheon order was of the simplest.

Straight I went to him. He winced a bit, I thought, as he saw me approach, but then he apparently resolved to bra.s.s it out, for he glanced full at me with a terrific a.s.sumption of bravado and at once began to give me beans about my service.

"Your bally tea shop running down, what! Louts for waiters, cloddish louts! Disgraceful, my word! Slow beggars! Take a year to do you a rasher and a bit of toast, what!"

To this absurd tirade I replied not a word, but stood silently regarding him. I dare say my gaze was of the most chilling character and steady. He endured it but a moment. His eyes fell, his bravado vanished, he fumbled with the cutlery. Quite abashed he was.

"Come, your explanation!" I said curtly, divining that the moment was one in which to adopt a tone with him. He wriggled a bit, crumpling a roll with panic fingers.

"Come, come!" I commanded.

His face brightened, though with an intention most obviously false. He coughed--a cough of pure deception. Not only were his eyes averted from mine, but they were gla.s.sed to an uncanny degree. The fingers wrought piteously at the now plastic roll.

"My word, the chap was taken bad; had to be seen to, what! Revived, I mean to say. All piano Johnnies that way--nervous wrecks, what!

Spells! Spells, man--spells!"

"Come, come!" I said crisply. The gla.s.sed eyes were those of one hypnotized.

"In the carriage--to the hyphen chap's place, to be sure. Fainting spell--weak heart, what! No stimulants about. Pa.s.sing house! Perhaps have stimulants--heart tablets, er--beer--things of that sort. Lead him in. Revive him. Quite well presently, but not well enough to go on. Couldn't let a piano Johnny die on our hands, what! Inquest, evidence, witnesses--all that silly rot. Save his life, what! Presence of mind! Kind hearts, what! Humanity! Do as much for any chap. Not let him die like a dog in the gutter, what! Get no credit, though----" His curiously mechanical utterance trailed off to be lost in a mere husky murmur. The gla.s.sy stare was still at my wall.

I have in the course of my eventful career had occasion to mark the varying degrees of plausibility with which men speak untruths, but never, I confidently aver, have I beheld one lie with so piteous a futility. The art--and I dare say with diplomat chaps and that sort it may properly be called an art--demands as its very essence that the speaker seem to be himself convinced of the truth of that which he utters. And the Honourable George in his youth mentioned for the Foreign Office!

I turned away. The exhibition was quite too indecent. I left him to mince at his meagre fare. As I glanced his way at odd moments thereafter, he would be muttering feverishly to himself. I mean to say, he no longer _was_ himself. He presently made his way to the street, looking neither to right nor left. He had, in truth, the dazed manner of one stupefied by some powerful narcotic. I wondered pityingly when I should again behold him--if it might be that his poor wits were bedevilled past mending.

My period of uncertainty was all too brief. Some two hours later, full into the tide of our afternoon shopping throng, there issued a spectacle that removed any lingering doubt of the unfortunate man's plight. In the rather smart pony-trap of the Klondike woman, driven by the person herself, rode the Honourable George. Full in the startled gaze of many of our best people he advertised his defection from all that makes for a sanely governed stability in our social organism. He had gone flagrantly over to the Bohemian set.