The Old Flute-Player Part 5

"Sure. I know that," the man replied. "That is why I say th' girl has got to be sent back."

Argument proved unavailing, and, ten minutes later, poor M'riar, screaming as if red-hot irons were begrilling her most tender spots, was being led into the "pen."

"We'll keep her here a while," the man explained, as he endeavored to avoid the child's astonis.h.i.+ngly skilful and astonis.h.i.+ngly painful kicks. "Maybe you can find somebody to go bond for her. There ain't no other way. There really ain't, Miss."

During all this speech he still was under the strong influence of Anna's wondrous eyes, else he would never have been able to articulate with such unruffled calm. His charge was doing agonizing things to his official s.h.i.+ns, and even pinching him just over the short ribs on his left side with a forefinger and a thumb which showed amazing strength and malice quite infernal.

Anna and her father turned away, perforce, to attend to their own business, after having promised M'riar that they would never let her be sent back; that they would come and take her from the pen tomorrow.

Neither had the least idea of a way in which to make this possible, but both swore in their hearts that it should be accomplished.

"Ach!" said Anna, "if only he had traveled in the third cla.s.s, too! He then would have been with us and would never have permitted it."

"But who, mine liebschen?"

Anna, realizing what she had been saying, colored vividly, but never in her life had she deceived her father, hidden anything from him, or in the slightest way evaded with him, so she summoned courage and said softly: "Why, the--the young gentleman."

"What gentleman?"

"The one on the s.h.i.+p who sprang down when that wicked man caught me to dance with him."

Herr Kreutzer slowly nodded, seeing no significance in her quick thought of Vanderlyn, save that the thought was rare good sense. Being an American, the young man naturally would have been better able to explain the matter to the officers, and, had the matter been enough explained, he thought, they could not, possibly, have had the heart to hold the child. "Ach, yes," said he. "If he was here! He certainly would know."

Luck, that day, as usually in his wealth-smoothed life, was with young Vanderlyn, for, just as Anna and her father were regretting that he was not there, lo, he appeared! It had been through his bull-dog persistence that the elder Vanderlyn had won the wealth which son and wife were spending now, since he had pa.s.sed on to a sh.o.r.e where wealth of gold may not be freighted. That same bull-dog persistence had the son applied to the momentous problem which confronted him. Not only had he won his difficult mother over to a friendly interest in the lovely German girl who had so utterly enthralled him, but he had made her eager to keep track of her, see more of her. Thus had he readily been freed from the small services which a mother might expect of her grown son on landing day; not only freed, but urged to go upon the search for which his heart craved avidly.

He had had some difficulty in obtaining, quickly, an official permit to repair to Ellis Island, but an opened pocketbook had solved it, in due course of time, and, now, here he was, trying to "frame up," as he expressed it to himself, "some really fair reason for having followed these whom he was seeking."

The excitement of poor M'riar's sad predicament made it unnecessary for him to present the reason which he had, with careful pains at length devised. Kind Fate had wondrously well timed his eager coming.

"What seems to be the trouble?" he asked easily, as he hurried forward with his hat in hand, much comforted by seeing that there was a trouble of some sort.

The matter was explained to him.

"That's easy," he said gaily. "Let me fix it;" and, forthwith, the thing was fixed. Without the slightest hesitation he made himself responsible for M'riar in every way which an ingenious government had managed to devise through years of effort.

The grat.i.tude of the three travelers was earnest and was volubly expressed in spite of his determined efforts to prevent them from expressing it. M'riar would have thrown her arms about his neck and kissed him had not Anna thoughtfully prevented it, after one quick glance at the astonis.h.i.+ng appearance of the delighted child's tear-and lunch-stained face.

And so it came about that the Herr Kreutzer and his daughter Anna, with her humble slave and wors.h.i.+per, M'riar, were ferried back from Ellis Island to New York within a half-a-dozen hours of the moment when they landed on it. As they went Moresco, himself, apparently a citizen, and free to go at once, was still there in the building, working with his boasted "pull" to help his countrymen. He shook his fist at them as they departed and cried insults after them. Few immigrants have ever been pa.s.sed through in briefer time than was the flute-player; few government inspectors at the landing station have ever been enabled, by a stroke of good luck from a cloudless sky, to take home to their wives, at night, as large a roll of crisp, new money (yellow-backed) as an inspector took home to his wife that night.

"Gee, Bill!" the wife exclaimed when she had finished choking. "When do you expect the cops?"

"What cops?" he naturally asked.

"Them that'll come to pinch you for bank-robbery," she answered, fondling the certificates with reverent, delighted fingers.

An episode of their return from Ellis Island to Manhattan much puzzled Vanderlyn. Puffing and blowing from his hurry (which had been less adroit than Vanderlyn's) they met Karrosch on the New York pier, about to start in search of Kreutzer.

"Ah," he said cordially, "I wish to talk with you. I have the largest orchestra in all America and wish to offer you the place of my first flute. You are very lucky to have had me on the s.h.i.+p with you. I shall be glad to pay--"

Kreutzer interrupted him with courteous shaking of the head. "I thank you, sir," he said, with firm decision. "I cannot play first flute in your large orchestra."

"But," said the astonished Karrosch, "I will pay--"

"I much regret," said Kreutzer, "that I cannot play first flute in your large orchestra."

Vanderlyn, not less than Karrosch, was bewildered by this episode.

Only Anna was not in the least surprised by it, although she did not understand it. She knew that he had many times refused alluring offers of the sort in London, always without an explanation of his reasons for so doing.

In the little rooms which they had found for temporary lodging place, Herr Kreutzer sat that evening, with a well-cleaned M'riar standing by and trying to devise some way of adding to his comfort. He had never given much thought to the child, before, he realized; he had accepted her as one of many facts of small importance. Now, though, he noted the devoted gaze with which her eyes were following Anna as she moved about the room, arranging little things.

"You love her, eh?" he asked.

"_Love_ 'er!" said M'riar, breathlessly. "My heye! Love _'er_! Ou, Hi, sye!"

Herr Kreutzer reached an arm out with a thrill of real affection and drew the little waif close to him. Never in her life had she been offered a caress, before, by anyone but Anna. It took her by surprise, and, without the slightest thought of doing so, she burst into a flood of tears. He did not fail to understand the workings of her soul. He drew the tiny creature to him and softly pressed a kiss upon her perfectly clean forehead.

"You vould not want to leave her, M'riar?"

"Hi'd die, Hi would," sobbed M'riar.

Herr Kreutzer held her head back and smiled into her eyes with a good smile which made her very happy. "Ach, liebling, do not worry."

"W'y wouldn't yer go with the toff and pl'y in ther big horchestra?"

she made bold to ask. "You'd set 'em _cryzy_, you would! _My_ 'art turns somersets, it does, w'en you pl'ys on yer flute."

He pushed the child away, almost as if she angered him; then, seeing her remorseful, frightened look, he took her back again and held her close beside his knee.

"I have no love for crowds, my M'riar," he said slowly. "No; not even in America. I have no love for crowds."

CHAPTER IV

Herr Kreutzer's little stock of money (depleted sadly by dishonest exchange) sagged heavily in a small leather bag which he carried in a carefully b.u.t.toned hip-pocket in his trousers. There it gave him comfort, as, the day after he had landed in New York, it c.h.i.n.ked and thumped against him as he walked. There was so much of it! In this land of gold and generous appreciation of ability, it would be far more than enough to carry him and the two girls who were now dependent on him until he should find a well paid, but not too conspicuous, situation. He was sure of this. It had been the gossip of the little orchestra in London that musicians, in New York, if worthy, were always in demand; that when they played they were paid vastly. Tales often had been told of money literally thrown to players by delighted members of appreciative audiences--money in great rolls of bank-notes, heavy gold-pieces, bank checks. Nowhere in the world, not even in the music loving Fatherland, a wandering trombonist who had visited the states had solemnly a.s.sured him, were expert performers on any sort of instrument so well paid and so well beloved as in the city of New York.

"You, Kreutzer," this man had said (for when musicians lie the cultivated and exotic fancy, essential to success in their profession, makes them lie superbly) "could, past the shadow of a doubt, win a real fortune in a season in New York."

"Much work is waiting, eh?" said Kreutzer, eagerly. He did not wish to win a fortune, for that would mean the larger orchestras, but he wondered if the smaller organizations paid proportionally well.

"For such as you," the man replied, maliciously--he was a disappointed, vicious person--"there ever is demand from large and small."

"Why, then, did you come back to England?" the flute-player inquired.

"I? Oh, I am not an artist--a real artist, as you are," was the answer, flattering and vicious. The man had tried to get an introduction to fair Anna and had been refused peremptorily, as all had been refused. He planned to have revenge for it. "The man who merely plays is not so vastly better off, there in the states, than here; but to the _artist_--to the real artist, such as you--the states will literally pay anything."

That the man who had found failure was not a real musician Kreutzer knew. Too often had his trombone trespa.s.sed, with its brazen bray, upon the time which the composer had allotted to the soft, delightful flute, to leave the slightest doubt of its performer's rank incompetence. That he had failed was, therefore, easily understood; in no way did it indicate that all he said about the chances of a real musician in the land of skysc.r.a.pers and mighty distances (which he also told about at length) was of necessity untrue. It had been the talk of this man which had fascinated Kreutzer; it was the city of this man's wild fancy which the flute-player expected to encounter when he reached New York.