The Mayor of Troy Part 38

"Fun!" echoed the Major. "And you'd have me reel off all those reminiscences--all the sickening praise, yard by yard, out of that infernal hand-book!"

Cai Tamblyn eyed him gravely.

"You don't like that neither?" he asked.

"Like it!" the poor man echoed again, sank into a chair, and, shuddering, covered his face. "It makes my soul creep with shame."

Silence followed for a dozen long seconds.

"Master!"

The Major shuddered again, but looked up a moment later with tears in his eyes as Cai laid a hand kindly yet respectfully on his shoulder.

"Master, I ax your pardon." He stepped back and paused, seeming to swallow some words in his throat before he spoke again.

"You're a long way more of a man than ever I gave 'ee credit to be.

Twelve year I pa.s.sed in your service, too; an' I take ye to witness that 'twas Cai Tamblyn an' not Scipio Johnson that knawed 'ee agen, for all the change in your faytures. Whereby you misjudged us, sir, when you left me fifty pound and that n.i.g.g.e.r a hundred an' fifty.

Whereby I misjudged ye in turn, an' I ax your pardon."

"No, Cai; you judged me truly enough, if severely. There was a time when I'd have fed myself on those praises that now sicken me."

"An' you was happy in them days."

"Yes, happy enough."

"Would you have 'em back, master?"

"Would I have them back?" The Major straightened himself up and stood for a moment staring out of the window. "No, Cai," he said resolutely, squaring his chin; "not for worlds."

"There's one little bit of it, sir, you got to have back," said Cai; "an' that's my fifty pound."

"Nonsense, man. I sha'n't hear of it."

"I've a-talked it over wi' the woman, an' she's agreeable. She says 'tis the only right an' proper thing to be done."

"She may be as agreeable as--as you deserve, Cai; but I tell you I don't touch a penny of it. And you may have formed your own opinion of me during twelve years of service, but in all that time I don't think you ever knew me go back on my word."

"That's truth, sir," Cai admitted, scratching his head again; "and more by token, 'tis about the only thing the book has forgot to praise 'ee for."

"Perhaps," said the Major, in his bitterness almost achieving a witticism, "the author felt 'twould be out of place."

"But all this apart, sir, I don't see how you'll get along without money."

"Make your mind easy on that score, my friend. I rather fancy that I'm provided for; but if that should prove to be a mistake, I may come to you for advice."

"Marryin'?" queried Cai. "But no; with a wooden leg--you'll excuse me--"

"Devil take the man! _You_ can't argue that womenkind are squeamish."

Cai grinned, "You'll take on this little job, anyway, sir? I can't very well go to his Wors.h.i.+p an' beg you off; it might set him suspectin'."

"I'll take the job," said the Major, hastily.

"Brayvo! But what I'd like to do"--Cai rubbed his chin reflectively--"is to get that cussed book written over agen, an'

written different."

"Give it time," his master answered sadly. "Maybe even that is a job that will get itself done one of these days."

Cai and his bride had departed, and the Major faced the ordeal of Regatta Day with much trepidation. Heaven help him to play his part like a man!

But it appeared that the sightseers, who, as ever, began to pour into the town at nine in the morning and pa.s.sed the door in one steady, continuous stream until long past noonday, had either seen the Hymen Hospital before or were intent first on culling the more evanescent pleasures of the day. In fact, no visitor troubled him until one o'clock, when, in the lull between the starts of the sailing and the rowing races, and while the Regatta Committee was dining ash.o.r.e to the strains of a bra.s.s band, a farm labourer in his Sunday best, crowned with a sugar-loaf hat, entered, flung himself into a chair, and demanded to have a tooth extracted.

"You needn' mind which," he added encouragingly; "they all aches at times. Only don't let it be more than one, for I can't afford it.

I been countin' up how to lay out my money, an' I got sixpence over; an' it can't be in beer, because I promised the missus."

The Major a.s.sured him that the extraction of a tooth or teeth did not fall within the sphere of the hospital's provision.

"W'y not?" asked the countryman, and added coaxingly, "Just to pa.s.s the time, now!"

"Not even to pa.s.s the time," the Major answered with firmness.

"Very well," said the man resignedly. "If you won't, you won't; but let's while it away somehow. Give me a black draught."

At rare intervals from three o'clock till five other country folk dropped in, two or three (once even half a dozen) at a time.

As a show the Hymen Hospital and Museum appeared to have outlived its vogue. The male visitors, one and all, removed their hats on entering, and spoke in constrained tones as if in church.

To the Major's relief, no one asked him to recite from the book, and the questions put to him were of the simplest. A farm maiden from the country requested that the bust might be wound up.

"I beg your pardon?"

"You don't tell me there isn' no music inside!" the maiden exclaimed.

"What's it _for,_ then?"

With difficulty the Major explained the purpose and also the limits of statuary. The girl turned to her swain with a _moue_ of disgust.

"It's my belief," she reproached him, "you brought me here out of stinginess, pretending not to notice when we pa.s.sed the waxworks, which is only tuppence, and real murderers with their chests a-rising an' fallin', as Maria's young man treated her to a last Regatta; an'

a Sleepin' Beauty with a clockwork song inside like distant angels."

But at five o'clock, or thereabouts, arrived no less a personage than Sir Felix Felix-Williams himself, gallantly escorting a couple of ladies whom he had piloted through the various rustic sights of the fair.

"O--oof!" panted Sir Felix, gaining the cool pa.s.sage and mopping his brow. "A veritable haven of rest after the dust and din! Hallo, my good man, are you the caretaker for the day? I don't seem to recollect your face. . . . Eh? No? Well, show us round, please.

These ladies are curious to know something of our local hero."

The Major, his wooden leg trembling, opened the door of the Museum.

The ladies put up their eye-gla.s.ses and gazed around, while Sir Felix dusted his coat.

"Hymen, his name was. That's his bust yonder," Sir Felix explained, flicking at his collar with his handkerchief. "A very decent body; a retired linen-draper, if I remember, from somewhere in the City, where he put together quite a tidy sum of money. Came home and spent it in his native town, where for years he was quite a big-wig.

But our friend here has a book about him, written up by the apothecary of the place. Isn't that so?" he appealed to the Major, who drew the doc.u.ment from his pocket with shaking fingers.

"Eh? I thought so," went on Sir Felix. "But spare us the long-winded pa.s.sages, my friend. Just a few particulars to satisfy the ladies, who, on this their first visit to Cornwall, are good enough to be inquisitive _a folie_ about us--about Troy especially."