Читать книгу He Comes Up Smiling - Charles Sherman - Страница 3

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CHAPTER I

THE BEAUTY CONTEST

"You have a phiz on yer," said the Watermelon with rare candor, "that would make a mangy pup unhappy."

"I suppose you think yer Venus," sneered James, a remark that he flattered himself was rather "classy."

The Watermelon sighed as one would over the ignorance of a child. "No," said he, "hardly."

"Don't let that bloomin' modesty of yers keep yer from tellin' the truth," adjured James.

The Watermelon waved the possibility aside with airy grace. "With all due modesty, James," said he, "I can't claim to be a woman."

"Not with that hay on yer mug," agreed Mike, casting a sleepy eye upward from where he lay in lazy content in the long, sweet grasses under the butternut tree.

"When I was a kid, I took a prize in a beauty show," announced James, with pardonable pride.

"Swiped it?" asked the Watermelon.

"Dog show?" inquired Mike drowsily, listening to the pleasing drone of a bee in a near-by clump of daisies.

James sat up and ran his fingers with musing regret through the coarse stubble on cheeks and chin. "I was three, I remember, a cute little cuss. My hair was yellow and ma curled it—you know how—all fuzzy—and I had a little white dress on. It was a county fair. I got the first prize for the best lookin' kid and was mugged for the papers. If I was shaved now and had on some glad rags, I'd be a lady killer, all right, all right."

"'Longside of me," said the Watermelon, "you'd look like a blear-eyed son of a toad."

"You! Why, you'd make a balky horse run, you would."

"When me hair's cut, I'm a bloomin' Adonis, not Venus;" and the Watermelon drew languidly at an old brown pipe, warm and comfortable in the pleasant shade, where soft breezes wandered fitfully by, laden with the odors of the fields in June.

James was skeptical. "Did y' ever take a prize in a beauty show?" he demanded, still musing upon those bygone honors.

"No," admitted the Watermelon. "My old man was a parson, and parsons' kids never have any chance. Besides, I wouldn't care to. Too much like the finest bull in a county fair, or the best laying hen."

"Huh," sneered James. "My folks was of the bon-ton."

"The bon-tons never broke any records in the beauty line," replied the Watermelon. "And the bon-tonnier they are, the uglier."

"Beauty," said James with charming naiveté, "runs in my family."

"It went so fast in the beginning then, yer family never had a chance to catch up," returned the Watermelon. "We'll have a beauty show, just us two."

Inspired by the thought, he sat up to explain, and Mike opened his eyes long enough to look each over with slow scornful derision and a mocking grunt.

James fondled the short stiff hair on his cheeks and chin and waited for developments.

The Watermelon went on. "We will meet this afternoon, here, see? Shaved and with decent duds on. And Mike can pick the winner."

"Mike! He can't tell a sick cat from a well one."

"That's all right. He knows enough to tell the best lookin' one between you and me. A blind mug could do that."

"But—"

"We haven't any one else, you mutt. We can't have too much publicity in this show. I dislike publicity any way, at any time, and especially when I have on clothes, borrowed, as you might say, for the occasion. If the gang was here, we could take a vote, but seein' that they ain't, we got to do with what we got."

"I ain't goin' to get in no trouble wid this here burg," declared Mike. "I want a quiet Sunday, some place where I can throw me feet for a bite of grub and not run no fear of the dog's taking one first. See? Besides, it's a decent, law-abidin' burg, God-fearin' and pious; too small to be made unhappy. You want to take somethin' yer own size."

"Aw, who's goin' to hurt the jerkwater town?" demanded the Watermelon with indignation.

"The cost of livin' is goin' up so these days, it's gettin' hard even to batter a handout," groaned Mike, whose idea of true beauty consisted of a full stomach and a shady place to sleep on a long quiet Sunday afternoon. "I ain't goin' to get every place soured on me. If the public gets any more stingy, I'll have to give up de turf for a livin', that's all. To throw a gag will be harder den hod-carryin'."

"We ain't goin' to hurt the burg none," said James.

He rose languidly and stretched. "You be here this afternoon, Mike, about three, see, or I'll knock yer block off. It's a nice quiet hangout and far enough from the village to be safe. I'm goin' to get a shave and borrow some duds from the bloomin' hostelry up yonder to do honor to de occasion." He knocked the ashes from his pipe and slipped it into his pocket. "If you don't get the clothes and de shave, Watermillion, you'll be counted down and out, see?"

"Sure," agreed the Watermelon.

He lay at length on the ground beneath the butternut tree and James paused a moment to run his eye critically over him, from his lean face with its two-weeks' growth of beard to his ragged clumsy shoes. James smiled grimly and drew himself up to his full height with just pride. He was six feet two in shoes that might as well have been stockings for all they added to his height. His shoulders were broad and muscular, with the gentle play of great muscles in perfect condition. His neck, though short, was well shaped and sinewy, not the short thick neck of a prize-fighter or a bull. His hips were narrow and his limbs long and straight. Beneath his open shirt, one saw his bronze throat and huge chest. A splendid specimen of the genus homo, for all the rags and tatters that served as clothes.

The Watermelon was a bit shorter, with narrower shoulders, but long-legged, slim, graceful, and under his satiny skin, his muscles slid and rippled with marvelous symmetry. Where James was strong, slow, heavy, he was quick, lithe, supple. Dissipation had not left its mark, and the hard life of the "road" had so far merely made him fit, an athlete in perfect condition. His features were clean-cut and symmetrical, with a narrow, humorous, good-natured mouth and eyes soft and gray and gentle, the eyes of a dreamer and an idler.

James looked at the slight graceful youth, sprawled in the shade of the butternut tree, and grinned, doubling his huge arms with slow, luxurious pleasure in the mere physical action and watching the rhythmic rise and fall of the great muscles.

"You might get honorable mention in one of these county fairs for the best yoke of oxen," admitted the Watermelon from where he lay at ease.

"There ain't going to be no show," said Mike firmly. "Not if yer have to swipe the duds. I ain't going—"

James showed that he was a true member of the bon-ton. He waved the other to silence with the airy grace of a master dismissing an impudent servant. "There is goin' to be a contest for the just reward of beauty and yer goin' to be here, Mike, and be the judge or y' will have that red-headed block of yours knocked into kindlin' wood."

Mike was fat and red-headed and dirty. His soul loathed trouble and longed for quiet with the ardor of an elderly spinster. "No, I ain't," said he, in a vain struggle for peace. "I ain't goin' to hang around here until you blokes swipe the rags and come back wid de cops after yer."

"There ain't no cops around this place, you mutt," contradicted the Watermelon with the delicate courtesy of the road.

"There's a sheriff—"

"Sheriffs," interrupted James coldly, "ain't never around until the job's done."

"Sunday," added the Watermelon, from knowledge gained by past experience, "is the best time to swipe anything. No one is lookin' for trouble that day and so they don't find it, see?"

"Sure," agreed James. "Every one's feelin' warm and good and stuffed, and when yer feel good yerself, yer won't believe any one is bad. You know how it is, Mike. When yer feelin' comfortable, yer can't understand why the devil we ain't comfortable."

"Well, why the devil ain't yer?" demanded Mike. "I ain't takin' all the shade er all the earth, am I? Lie down and be quiet. What do yer want a beauty show for?"

"Aw, stow it!" snapped the Watermelon.

"Yes, I'll stow it all right when we're all sent to the jug. I tell yer I ain't fit to work. The last time I got pinched, I pretty near croaked. I wasn't made to work."

"We ain't going to get pinched," said James. "You make more talk over two suits of clothes—"

"It ain't the clothes. It's the damn fool notion of swipin' 'em and then comin' right back here, and not makin' no get-away—"

"This hang-out is more than four miles from the burg, you galoot," sneered the Watermelon. "No one would think of coppin' us here. They'll go to the next town, or else watch the railroads—"

"But they might—"

"Might what? Might be bloomin' fools like you."

"Where are you goin' to be shaved?"

"In a barber shop," said James mildly. "You probably favor a lawn-mower, but personally I prefer a barber."

"Yes," wailed Mike, "go to a barber shop and let every guy in town get his lamps on yer—"

"You're gettin' old, Mike, me boy, and losin' yer nerve," said James. He stretched and yawned. "Well, I'm off before church time or the barbers will be closed. Remember, Mike, this afternoon, between four and five."

He pulled his clothes into place, adjusted his hat at the most becoming angle and started up the narrow woodland path, whistling gaily through his teeth. As he disappeared among the trees, the far-off sound of church bells stole to them on the quiet of the Sabbath morning.

CHAPTER II

A CLOSE SHAVE

The Watermelon climbed the stone wall and paused a moment to view his surroundings. The road wound up the hill from the village nestling at its foot and dipped again out of sight farther on. On all sides were the hills, falling rocky pasture lands, rising to orchards or woods, and now and then a farmhouse. It was summer, glad, mad, riotous summer. The sky was a deep, deep blue, with here and there a drifting, snow-white cloud. The fields were gay with buttercups and daisies, and wild roses nodded shyly at him from the briers along the roadside. In the leafy recesses of the trees, the birds twitted and sang. A little gray squirrel peered at him from the limb close by and then scampered off with a whisk of its bushy tail. A brook laughed and tumbled under a slender bridge across the road.

The Watermelon was a vagabond in every fiber of his long graceful self. The open places, the sweep of the wind, the call of the birds, the rise and fall of the hills, hiding the fascinating "beyond," found unconscious harmony with his nature. As a captive animal, given a chance for freedom, makes for the nearest timber; as a cat, in a strange neighborhood, makes for the old, familiar attic, so the Watermelon sought the country, the peace and freedom and space where a man can be a man and not a manikin.

He paused a moment now, in perfect contentment with the world and himself, while up the valley, over the hills, through the sun-warmed air, borne on the breath of the new-mown fields came the sound of distant church bells, softly, musically, soothingly. Slipping from the wall, he set out for the village below in the valley, where the road wound steeply down.

The village boasted but one barber shop, a quiet, little, dusty-white, one-room affair, leaning in timid humility against the protecting wall of the only other public building in town, drygoods, grocery and butcher shop in one. The church bells had stopped for some time when the Watermelon turned into the wide empty street, and strolled carelessly up to the faded red, white and blue pole of Wilton's Tonsorial Parlor. In its Sunday calm the whole village seemed deserted. A few of the bolder spirits who had outgrown apron strings and not yet been snared in any one's bonnet strings, had remained away from church and foregathered in the seclusion of the barber shop. The Watermelon regarded them a moment through the window as he felt carelessly in his pockets for the coins that were never there. It was a quiet crowd, well brushed hair, nicely polished boots and freshly shaved faces. They were reading the sporting news of Saturday's papers and ogling any girl, fairly young and not notoriously homely, who chanced to pass. The barber was cleaning up after his last customer and talking apparently as much to himself as to any one. Convinced of what he knew was so, that he had no money, the Watermelon pushed open the door and entered.

"Hello," said he.

"Hello," said the barber.

All the papers were lowered and all conversation stopped as each man turned and scanned the new-comer with an interest the Watermelon modestly felt was caused by some event other than his own entry. He surmised that James had probably been there before him, and the next words of the barber confirmed his surmise.

That dapper little man scanned him coldly, from the rakish tip of his shabby hat to the nondescript covering on his feet which from force of habit he called shoes, and spoke with darkly veiled sarcasm:

"I suppose you are a guest from the hotel up to the lake?"

The Watermelon grinned. He recognized James' favorite role. "No," said he cheerfully, "I'm John D., and me car is waiting without."

"A guest up to the hotel," repeated the barber, upon whom James had evidently made a powerful impression. "Just back from a two weeks' camping and fishing trip—"

"No," said the Watermelon. "I don't like fishing, baiting the hook is such darned hard work."

"Just back," went on the barber, still quoting, his soul yet rankling with the deceit of man. "Look like a tramp, probably—"

"Am one," grinned the Watermelon.

"And you thought you would get a shave as you passed through the village, wouldn't dare let your wife see you—"

"Say," interrupted the Watermelon wearily, "what are you giving us? Did any one bunko you out of a shave with that lingo?"

"Yes," snapped the barber. "About an hour ago a feller blew in here and said all that. He talked well and I shaved him. He said he had sent his camping truck on to the hotel by his team; he had stopped off to get a shave. I shaved him and then he found he hadn't any money in his old clothes—but he would send it right down—oh, yes—the moment he got to the hotel. It ain't come and Harry, there, says there ain't no one up to the hotel like that. Harry's the porter."

"Sure," said Harry importantly. "I passed the feller as I was coming down and there ain't any one like him to the hotel."

The Watermelon laughed heartily. "A hobo, eh? Bunkoed you for fair. You fellers oughtn't to be so dog-goned easy. Get wise, get wise!"

"We are wise now," said the barber ruefully, and added sternly, "If you want a shave, you've got to show your money first."

"Sure, I want a shave," said the Watermelon, and carelessly rattled a few old keys he carried in his pocket. They jingled with the clink of loose coins and were pleasing to the ear if not so much to the touch. "I came here for a shave, but I pay for what I want, see? Say, I'll bet that feller busted your cash register," and he nodded pleasantly toward the new shiny receiver of customs on the shelf near the looking-glass.

The remark brought an agreeable thrill of excited expectation to all save the barber. He shook his head with boundless faith in his new possession. "I bought that just last week and the drummer said it was practically thief proof."

"Do you want to bet?" asked the Watermelon. "All there is in the register, huh? Even money," and he jingled the keys in his pocket.

"Naw," said the barber. "I know he couldn't have robbed it. It's impossible, even if the thing could be robbed, which it can't be. I was right here all the time."

"It's near the lookin'-glass," said the Watermelon. "He went close to the counter to see himself, didn't he?"

The Watermelon knew vanity as James' one weakness and realized with what pleasure he himself would stand before the mirror and gaze fondly at his own charms, uncontaminated by a shaggy, two-weeks' growth of beard.

"Yes," admitted the barber slowly. "He did look at himself for a long time."

"And some of the time your back was turned," added the Watermelon. "You were probably cleaning up or looking for a whisk."

"Yes," admitted the barber again, still more reluctantly. "But nobody can bust into one of them cash registers, not without a noise that would be heard across the room."

"I'll bet he did," said the Watermelon. "Do you take me?"

"But they can't be busted," reiterated the barber.

"Then why the devil don't you bet?" demanded the Watermelon. "You are bettin' on a sure thing."

"Yes, go on. Don't be scared," encouraged Wilton's gay youth in joyful chorus.

The barber started for his precious register, but the Watermelon reached it first and laid his hand on it.

"Do you take me?" he asked. "You have to say that before you can count the change or the bet's—Say, is that the galoot?" he nodded suddenly toward the window and all turned quickly, instinctively, to look up the village street. The Watermelon hastily thrust a thin comb between the bell and the gong so it would not ring as he gently pressed the twenty-five cent key, registering another quarter, then he joined the others, pushing and struggling to see the man who did not pass, and gazed languidly over their heads.

"There ain't no one there," exclaimed the barber.

"He's passed out of sight," said the Watermelon, making a feeble attempt to see up the street. "He was almost by as I saw him."

"Do you take me?" he asked, as they returned to the counter and the subject of the cash register. His hands were in his pockets and occasionally he jingled the keys.

"Aw, go on," urged Harry, who was a sport. "What are you afraid of?"

"He couldn't have picked it," insisted the barber, whose faith in his register was really sublime.

"Sure he could. They are easy to a guy who knows the ropes," declared the Watermelon. "The drummer was handing you a lot of hot air when he said they can't be picked. You don't want to be so easy."

The slur on his mental capacity was too much for the barber. His vanity rose in defense of his register where his faith had failed. "I have some brains," he snorted. "I know the thing is perfectly safe. Yes, I take you."

He started to open the register, but the Watermelon objected. "Here," he cried, "let Harry do it. I'm not wanting to be bunkoed out of me hard-earned lucre." And he lovingly rattled the keys in his pockets.

Harry and the others stepped forward.

"How much has been registered?" asked the Watermelon.

Harry drew forth the strip of paper and after a few moments of mental agony, confused by the different results each obtained as all peered eagerly over his shoulder, he finally arrived at the correct answer, three dollars and sixty cents. It was Sunday and shaving day for the male quarter of the population.

"Three, sixty," announced Harry in some trepidation, lest he be flatly and promptly corrected.

The barber reached for the slip and added it on his own account. "Three, sixty," he agreed, and sighed.

"Count the cash," ordered the Watermelon, and Harry counted, slowly, carefully, laboriously, and the rest counted with him, more or less audibly.

When the last coin had been counted, there was a moment of puzzled silence. The Watermelon broke it.

"Three, thirty-five," said he. "What did I tell you?"

"Here," snapped the barber, "let me count it."

He pushed Harry aside and again all counted as the barber passed the coins. Quarters, dimes, nickels and pennies, the last one was lingeringly laid on the pile and the sum was lacking a quarter to make it complete according to the registered slip.

"Three dollars and thirty-five cents," said the Watermelon again, like the voice of doom.

"Well, I vum!" exclaimed Harry.

"How'd he do it?" asked the grocer's son, with an eye out for possibly similar emergencies nearer home.

The Watermelon shrugged. "I don't know," said he. "Can't do it myself, but the fellers in the cities have gotten so they can open 'em the minute the clerk turns his back. They can do it without any noise, too, and so quick you can't catch 'em. I'll be hanged if I know how they do it."

Again the barber counted the change, again he totaled the numbers on the registered slip. They would not agree. That painful lack of a quarter could not be bridged.

"He said it was automatic bookkeeping," moaned the barber, glaring at the slip that would register nothing less than three dollars and sixty cents.

"The bookkeeping's all right," said the Watermelon, "it's the money that ain't."

He gathered up the coins, slowly, lovingly, and the barber turned away from the painful sight.

"Do you want a shave?" he asked crossly.

The Watermelon sank gracefully into the chair. "It's hard luck," said he sympathetically, "but you oughtn't to be so easy. Get wise, get wise."

CHAPTER III

ENTER MR. BATCHELOR

With hair nicely cut, face once more as smooth as a boy's, and three dollars and ten cents in his pocket, the Watermelon gazed fondly at himself in the glass and felt sorry for James. He gently patted his hair, wet, shiny and smelling of bay rum, arranged his hat with great nicety at just the graceful angle he preferred as doing the most justice to his charms, and sallied forth to look for a suit of clothes. He had scanned critically those he had encountered in the barber shop with an eye to future possession, but none of them, at least what he had been able to see of them, the coat having generally been conspicuous by its absence, had pleased him. They had the uncompromising cut of the country and the Watermelon felt that the attractions that gazed back at him from the mirror were worthy of something better. He had a vague fancy for light gray with a pearl-colored waistcoat and purple socks—a suit possessing the gentle folds and undulations of the city, not the scant, though sturdy, outlines of the country. The hotel seemed the best place to look for what he wanted, so he turned in that direction.

The hotel was several miles from the village. Its gables and chimneys could be seen rising in majestic aloofness from the woods on a distant hillside. The Watermelon paused where the road dipped down again into the valley and ran his eye over the intervening landscape. By the road, it would be at least five miles; through the woods, the distance dwindled to about three. The Watermelon took to the woods. They became thicker at every step, the quiet and shade deeper and deeper. A bird's call echoed clear and sweet as though among the pillars of some huge grotto. A brook laughed between its mossy banks, tumbling into foamy little waterfalls over every boulder that got in its path. The Watermelon determined to follow the brook, sure that in the end it would lead him to the hotel. City people had a failing for brooks and no hotel management would miss the chance of having one gurgling by, close at hand. The brook grew wider and wider, and through a break in the trees the Watermelon saw a lake, disappearing in the leafy distance. He heard a splash and saw the shiny white body of a man rise for one joyful moment from the green depths ahead and then dive from sight with another cool splash.

The Watermelon decided from habit to get a better view of the lonely swimmer before he let his own presence become known. He slipped into the bushes and slowly wriggled his way to the little glade. The lake was bigger than at first appeared. It turned and twisted through the woods and was finally lost from view around a small promontory. The trees grew nearly to the water's edge, a dense protecting wall to one who wished to sport in nature's solitude, garbed in nature's simple clothing. The lake was too far from the hotel to have been annexed as one of the attractions of that hostelry. All this the Watermelon noticed at a glance. He also noticed that the man swimming in the cool brown depths, with long easy strokes, was alone and a stranger. The Watermelon looked for the clothes and found them on a log, practically at his feet.

In everything but color, they fulfilled his dream of what raiment should be like. Instead of the pale gray he rather favored, the suit was brown, a light brown, with a tiny green stripe, barely visible, intertwined with a faint suggestion of red, forming a harmonious whole that was vastly pleasing to the Watermelon's æsthetic senses. In the matter of socks, he realized that the stranger had not taken the best advantage of his opportunity. Instead of being red or green to lend character to the delicate suggestion of those colors found in the suit, they were a soft dun brown. There was a tie of the same shade and a silk negligée shirt of white with pale green stripes. The owner was clearly a young man of rare taste, unhampered by a vexatious limitation of his pocket-book.

He could be seen swimming slowly and luxuriously in the little lake, perfectly contented, unconscious that some one besides the woodpeckers and the squirrels was watching him. The swimmer's strokes had quickened and the Watermelon perceived that he was swimming straight up the lake with the probable intention of rounding the promontory and exploring the farther lake. When he disappeared, the Watermelon quickly, carefully, gathered up the clothes and likewise disappeared.

The swimmer was a big man and the clothes as good a fit as one could look for under the circumstances. They set off the Watermelon's long, lean figure to perfection, and the hat, a soft and expensive panama, lent added distinction. The Watermelon removed the three dollars and ten cents and the keys from his own pockets, and making a bundle of his cast-off dollies, stuffed them out of sight in a hollow log, where later he could return and find them. It was just as well to leave the stranger a practical captive in nature's depths until the beauty show was pulled off. After that event, he would return, and if the stranger was amenable to reason, he could have his good clothes back, but if he acted put out at all, for punishment he would have to accept the Watermelon's glorious attire.

Clean-shaven, well-clothed, there was no longer any need for him to go to the hotel, unless he wished to dine there. If the devotee of nature, back in the swimming pool, was a stranger in these parts and not a guest at the hotel, the Watermelon felt that he could do this with pleasure and safety. It was after twelve, and his ever-present desire to eat was becoming too pronounced to be comfortable. It would be a fitting climax to a highly delightful morning to have dinner, surrounded by gentle folk again, for the Watermelon came of a gentle family. He had no fear, for some time at least, of the owner of the borrowed clothes making himself unnecessarily conspicuous. But, on the other hand, if he were a guest at the hotel, the clothes would probably be recognized and murder be the simplest solution of their change of owners. Still, reasoned the Watermelon, with a shrewd guess at the truth, if he were a guest, it was hardly likely that he would be swimming alone in the isolated pond, in the bathing suit designed by nature. The clothes hardly indicated a young man of a serious turn of mind, who would seek the wooded solitudes in preference to the vivacious society of his kind to be found in a big hotel.

The wood ended abruptly at a stone wall. There was a road beyond the wall, and beyond the road, another stone wall and more woods. It was a narrow woodland road, a short cut to the hotel. It wound its way out of sight, up a hill, through the pines. It was grass-grown and shady and the trees met overhead. Sweetbrier and wild roses grew along the stone walls, while gay little flowers and delicate ferns ventured out into the road itself, and with every passing breeze nodded merrily from the ruts of last winter's wood hauling. By the side of the road, like a glaring anachronism, a variety theater in Paradise, a vacuum cleaner among the ferns and daisies, stood a huge red touring car with shining brass work and raised top. No one was anywhere in sight and the Watermelon climbed into the tonneau and leaned comfortably back in the roomy depths.

"Home, Henry," said he languidly to an imaginary chauffeur.

A honk, honk behind him answered. He leaned from the car and saw another turn into the road and come toward him. It was a touring car, big and blue. An elderly gentleman, fat, serious, important, was at the wheel. Beside him sat a lady, and a chauffeur languished in the tonneau.

"Hello, Thomas," called the old gentleman with the affability of a performing elephant, addressing the Watermelon by the name of his car, as is the custom of the road.

"Hello, William," answered the Watermelon, wondering why they called him Thomas.

The old gentleman flushed angrily and the lady laughed, a delightful laugh of girlish amusement. The Watermelon smiled.

"We are a Packard," explained the old gentleman stiffly.

"Are you?" said the Watermelon, wholly unimpressed by the information. "Well, I ain't a Thomas."

"I called you by the name of your car," said the old gentleman. "I surmise that you have not had one long."

"I don't feel as if I owned it now," the Watermelon admitted.

The old gentleman smiled genially. Anything was pardonable but flippancy in response to his own utterances, none of which was ever lacking in weight or importance. The young man, it seemed, was only ignorant.

"Are you in trouble?" he asked with a gleam of anticipated pleasure in his eyes. To tinker with a machine and accomplish nothing but a crying need for an immediate bath was his dearest recreation.

"No," said the Watermelon, thinking of the three, ten, in the pocket of the new clothes and of the lonely swimmer. "I ain't—yet."

The old gentleman was vaguely disappointed. "Can you run your machine?" he asked, hopeful of a reply in the negative.

"No," said the Watermelon.

"Won't go, eh?" The old gentleman turned off the power in his car and stepped forth, agilely, joyfully, prepared to do irreparable damage to the stranger's car. He drew off his gloves and slipped them into his pocket, then for a moment he hesitated.

"Where is your chauffeur?"

"I haven't one," said the Watermelon.

The old gentleman disapproved. "Until you know more about your machine, you should have one," said he oratorically. "I am practically an expert, and yet I always take mine with me."

He waved aside any comment on his own meritorious conduct and foresight and turned to the machine. "There is probably something the matter with the carburetor," said he, and raised the hood.

"Probably," admitted the Watermelon, alighting and peering into the engine beside the old gentleman.

"Father," suggested the lady gently, "maybe you had better let Alphonse—"

Alphonse, sure of the reply, made no move to alight and assist.

The old gentleman, with head nearly out of sight, peering here and there, tapping this and sounding that, replied with evident annoyance. "Certainly not, Henrietta. I am perfectly capable—"

His words trailed off into vague mutterings.

The Watermelon glanced at the lady, girl or woman, he was not sure which. Between thirty and thirty-five, the unconquerable youth of the modern age radiated from every fold of her dainty frock, from the big hat and graceful veil. Her hair was soft and brown and thick, her mouth was rather large, thin-lipped and humorous, and yet pathetic, the mouth of one who laughs through tears, seeing the piteous, so closely intermingled with the amusing. Her eyes were brown, clever, with delicate brows and a high smooth forehead. The Watermelon decided that she was not pretty, but distinctly classy. She was watching him with amused approval, oddly mingled with wistfulness, for the Watermelon was young and tall and graceful, good-looking and boyish. His man's mouth and square chin were overtopped by his laughing woman's eyes, soft and gentle and dreaming, a face that fascinated men as well as women. And he was young and she was—thirty-five. He smiled at the friendliness he saw in her eyes and turned to the old gentleman, who was now thoroughly absorbed.

"I need a monkey-wrench," said he. "I thought at first that there was something the matter with the carburetor, but think now that it must be in the crank shaft assembly."

"Oh, yes," agreed the Watermelon vaguely, and got the wrench from the tool-box as directed.

"I—I think that maybe you had better let us tow you to some garage," said the lady timorously, her voice barely audible above the old gentleman's noisy administrations.

"Search me," returned the Watermelon, standing by to lend assistance with every tool from the box in his arms or near by where he could reach it instantly at an imperious command.

"Automobiles," said the lady, "are like the modern schoolmarms, always breaking down."

"Like hoboes," suggested the Watermelon, "always broke."

The old gentleman straightened up. "There is something the matter with the gasolene inlet valve," he announced firmly.

"The whole car must be rotten," surmised the Watermelon, catching the oil-can as it was about to slip from his already over-burdened hands.

"No, no," returned the old gentleman reassuringly, as he buttoned his long linen cluster securely. "The crank shaft seems to be all right, but the—"

He knelt down, still talking, and the Watermelon had a horrible fear for a moment that his would-be benefactor was about to offer up prayers for the safety of the car. He reached out his hand to stay proceedings, when the old gentleman spoke:

"I must get under the car."

"Maybe it's all right," suggested the Watermelon, who did not like the idea of being forced to go after him with the tools.

"Father," the lady's voice was gentle, but firm, and the old gentleman paused. "Let Alphonse go. You know we are to dine with the Bartletts. Alphonse, please find out what the trouble is."

Alphonse alighted promptly. He was a thin, dapper little man with a blasé superiority that was impressive as betokening a profound knowledge of the idiosyncrasies of motor-cars. He plainly had no faith in the old gentleman's diagnosis. He approached the car and announced the trouble practically at once.

"There is no gasolene."

The old gentleman was not in the least perturbed over his own slight error in judgment. "A frequent, very frequent oversight," said he, rising. "We will tow you to the hotel, my dear sir. You can get the gasolene there."

"Never mind," said the Watermelon. "I can hoof it."

"Hoof it!" The old gentleman was pained and hurt. "Hoof it, when I have my car right here! No, indeed. Alphonse, get the rope."

The Watermelon protested. "Aw, really, you know—"

"Weren't you going to the hotel?"

"I was thinking some of it. But the car—"

"Alphonse, get the rope. It will be a pleasure. We have always got to lend assistance to a broken car. We may be in the same fix ourselves some day."

Alphonse brought the rope and the Watermelon watched them adjust it. When the last knot was tied to the old gentleman's liking, he turned to the Watermelon and presented him with his card. The Watermelon took it and read the name, "Brig.-General Charles Montrose Grossman, U.S.A., Retired." Then, not to be outdone, he reached in the still unexplored pockets of his new clothes with confident ease, and finding a pocket-book drew it forth, opened it on the mere chance that there would be a card within, found one and presented it to the general with lofty unconcern, trusting that the general and the owner of the clothes were not acquainted.

"William Hargrave Batchelor," read the general aloud, while his round fat face beamed with pleasure. "I have heard about you, sir, and am glad to make your acquaintance."

The Watermelon grasped the extended hand and wrung it with fervor. "The pleasure is all mine," said he with airy grace and sublime self-assurance.

"Let me present you to my daughter. Henrietta, this is young Mr. Batchelor of New York. You have read about him, my dear, in the papers. He broke the cotton ring on Wall Street last week. You may remember. Miss Grossman, Mr. Batchelor."

The girl put out her hand and the Watermelon shook it. Her hand was slender and white, soft as velvet and well cared for. The Watermelon's was big and brown and coarse, and entirely neglected as to the nails. Henrietta noticed it with fastidious amusement. William Hargrave Batchelor was not in her estimation, formed from the little she had read about him in the papers, a gentleman. He had started life as a newsboy on the streets of New York, and doubtless had not had his suddenly acquired wealth long enough to be familiar with the small niceties of life. Besides, he was so young and so good-looking, one could forgive him a great deal more than dirty nails.

"You hardly look as old as I imagined you to be from the papers," declared the general, regarding a bit enviously the youth who had made millions in a few short weeks by a sensational stroke of financial genius.

"I have a young mug," explained the Watermelon modestly.

The general looked a bit startled. Henrietta laughed. She had always wanted to meet a man in the making.

"I hope that if you have no other engagement, you will dine with us," said she.

"Certainly," cried the general. "Have you a previous appointment?"

"With myself," said the Watermelon. "To dine."

"You will dine with us," declared the general, and that settled it. "Get into my car. Alphonse will steer yours."

The Watermelon made one last protest against highway robbery in broad daylight, but the general waved him to silence and the Watermelon decided that if they wished to make off with the stranger's car it was no fault of his. He had done his best to stop it. He climbed into the general's car, the general cranked up and they were off, Alphonse and the Thomas car trailing along behind.