The Pleasant Street Partnership Part 16

CHAPTER EIGHTEENTH

THE ADVENTURES OF A BIRTHDAY CAKE

In a great, handsome, dreary room sat Giant Despair. The December day was damp and cheerless, and the coal fire in the ugly old-fas.h.i.+oned grate beneath the elaborate marble mantel burned in a grudging, spiritless way. Above the uncurtained windows, with their shutters thrown wide upon a view of moist, bare garden, the heavy gilt cornices seemed to frown. Giant Despair was frowning as he searched in a ma.s.sive black walnut secretary for a missing paper.

Things had gone wrong to-day. His housekeeper who knew his ways was absent on her annual vacation, and for the carelessness and stupidity of the servants he could find no adequate words. In truth he had exhausted his vocabulary early in the day, and now was reduced to inarticulate growls.

Against one of the maids in particular his anger burned. He had mislaid a paper brought to him the evening before by his business agent; and now that it could not be found, the luckless maid was accused of making way with it.

She was a Swiss girl with a meek manner and eyes that belied it. Giant Despair could not see the eyes, and the manner annoyed him.

"If you please,--did you this day order a birthday cake?"

"What? Order what?" cried Giant Despair, turning in great rage to face the unfortunate maid.

She stood her ground. "A cake,--white, with candles of pink."

"Did I order a pink cake? What do you mean by asking such a question?

You know I didn't." His frown was terrible.

"Candles of pink," corrected the girl, and holding up her hand she counted, "One, two, three, four, five."

"What is the woman talking about?" demanded Giant Despair.

"De con-fectionaire man bring it. He say it vas for here. He comes not back."

"Then telephone him to send for it at once. Why do you come bothering me about it?"

"We know not who sends it."

"Bring the thing here and let me see what you are talking about."

The maid retired, returning presently carrying a small cake covered with an elaborate white icing, and further decorated, as has been said, with five pink candles. This she set upon the desk, and, a gleam of--was it malice or mischief? in her eyes, slipped away.

"Humph!" growled Giant Despair, peering at the strange object, even resorting to his big magnifying gla.s.s that he might see it the better.

An innocent, saucy little cake, it was a wonder it did not shrivel and disappear amid those strange surroundings, beneath that unfriendly gaze.

Could this be a joke some one was playing on him? Giant Despair wondered. But who thought enough about him even for that?

"Take it away," he commanded; but Annie had vanished, and so the cake had a chance to tell its story.

In this gloomy, tiresome world, somebody was five years old to-day.

Not very much of a story, but somehow it impressed Giant Despair strangely. He leaned back in his chair, his frown relaxing a trifle.

He did not care for children; they were meddlesome and noisy. He waged continual warfare against certain naughty boys on Pleasant Street, who, divining his dislike, resorted to all sorts of teasing tricks.

They carried off his door-mat, unhinged his gate, favored him with uncomplimentary valentines, and robbed his grape arbor,--each in its season.

So far as this went, however, he could not be called a favorite with older persons. In the large drug company where he was still senior partner he was held responsible for the policy of extorting just as much work as possible for just as little pay.

Persons of forbidding countenances are fated to be harshly judged; and the sins of others may have been laid at his door sometimes; but while his defective sight might be the cause of his frown, it remained that Giant Despair seldom spoke a kindly word.

The sympathy of that young woman in the shop, into which he stumbled by mistake, had touched him. She _knew_. It was not pity,--that he despised,--but a sort of fellows.h.i.+p in misfortune, and he had seized upon it hungrily, even while he called himself a fool. Perhaps it was this slight but softening experience which made possible to-day the faint regret that a little child was to be disappointed about this cake.

Such feelings could not find a harbor for long in that impatient breast. Becoming aware of sounds in the hall, Giant Despair strode across the room and flung open the door, intending to demand the instant removal of the cake. He was confronted by a small boy in a red coat and cap who cried excitedly, "Has you got my birfday cake?"

"Hey? So it is yours, is it? And who are you?"

But its owner had caught sight of it through the open door; and pus.h.i.+ng past Giant Despair, he lifted up his voice in a paean of joy.

"It's here! it's here! it's here!" he cried, standing before the desk with clasped hands and uplifted eyes, like a wors.h.i.+pper before a shrine. "Somebody give it to me! It's mine!"

"Where did that child come from?" asked Giant Despair, as he spoke becoming aware of the presence of some one else in the hall.

"I brought him, Mr. Goodman. It is Miss Carpenter of the shop." Marion advanced. "It is James Mandeville Norton, a small friend of ours, to whom we had promised a birthday cake. He was on the watch for it and was quite sure he saw it carried in here, and to pacify him I ventured to come and inquire."

If Giant Despair could ever be said to be affable he became so at this moment, to the evident astonishment of Annie, the maid. She could not know of the bond of sympathy that existed between this graceful young lady and her surly master.

"Why, how do you do? Come in;--ridiculous mistake. Glad to find the owner," he stammered, offering her a chair. "Fearful weather," he added, poking the fire.

"Very Novemberish," Marion agreed, declining the chair. "We won't trouble you further," she said.

"Somebody _please_ give me my cake. It's mine; I know it's mine."

James Mandeville's voice betrayed anguish of soul.

"He will let you have it, dear. Mr. Goodman doesn't want it. It was brought here by mistake," said Marion, rea.s.suringly putting her arm around the child.

That any one could see such a cake and not want it was naturally beyond James Mandeville's powers of belief. He stood silent, looking from Marion to Mr. Goodman.

"Of course you can have it. What do I want with it?" asked the old man, grimly.

James Mandeville moved forward and slipped his small, soft hand into Giant Despair's big, hard one. "I'll tell you," he said, "you can come to the party, and I'll let you have a slice of it; and you can help blow out the candles."

The little voice was eager, but the confiding touch of the dimpled hand did most execution.

"We shall be glad to have you, Mr. Goodman," Miss Carpenter said, laughing. "The party is to be in the shop, and very select for the reason that our circle of friends is limited."

"There's going to be candy," added James Mandeville.

Giant Despair was embarra.s.sed. "Thank you," he said; "I have not been to a party for a hundred years, and I am in too bad a humor to-day."

Then it seemed necessary to explain the cause,--the lost lease that had been burned or thrown in the ash barrel.

Miss Carpenter stood beside a table on which lay several large volumes; from the leaves of one of them the edge of a folded paper was visible. "Could this be it?" she asked.

"Pshaw! I put it there myself. Confound my eyes and my memory!" cried the old man.