CHAPTER XXI.

MARK COMES TO TOWN.

Mr. Timothy O’Flaherty was a tramp. That was the plain unvarnished statement of the case. Mr. O’Flaherty would have called himself a knight of the road, and a comic editor would have called him Tired Tim; but to everybody else he was a plain tramp.

Mr. O’Flaherty was very, very tired, having walked nearly twenty miles that day without getting even so much as a square meal. One whole pie was the sum total of his daily bread and that was so bad that he had fed it to the bulldog for revenge and walked on. He was walking still, at present on the tracks of the West Shore Railroad some thirty miles north of New York.

From what has been said of Mr. O’Flaherty you may suppose that his heart leaped with joy when along came a rumbling night freight. He watched it crawl past with a professional and critical eye; there was a platform he might ride on, but he was liable to be seen there. If only he could find an open car. There was one! He made a leap at the door, swung himself aboard with as much grace as if he had lived all his life on Broadway, and then crawled into the car.

Mr. O’Flaherty looked around. There was some one else in that car!

“Another tramp,” thought the newcomer, and so to awaken him he gave him a friendly prod with his toe.

“Hello!” said he; but there was no answer.

“Drunk,” was the next conjecture, but then he heard a low sound that was very much like a groan.

That scared Timothy, and he seized the figure and jerked it to the light of the moon that shone in through the door. “Be the saints!” he muttered in alarm, “it’s a sojer, an’ he’s all tied up.”

“Um--um--um!” groaned the figure in a “nasal” tone.

It was Chauncey whom the tramp had found; Chauncey had slipped into his plebe trousers before he ran to the tent door, which accounted for the man’s exclamation, a “sojer.” If he had found Mark or Texas he would have exclaimed still more, for the latter two were clad in their underclothing.

Mr. O’Flaherty was a man of quick action; he saw that he couldn’t gratify his curiosity about that strange traveler unless he cut him loose; so he did it.

Chauncey’s first act to celebrate his liberty was a stretch and a yawn; his second was to seize the knife and rush to the back of the car, with the result that two more persons appeared in the moonlight a few minutes later.

Of Mr. Timothy O’Flaherty they did not take the least bit of notice; they appeared to have something else of much more importance to talk about just then. And Timothy sat in the shadow and stared at them with open mouth.

“Well, this is a scrape,” muttered one of them, gazing at his own scantily clad figure and at the landscape rushing by.

“What kin we do?” cried a second. “The old Nick take them old yearlin’s!”

“Bah Jove!” cried the third. “This is deucedly embarrassing. I cawn’t go out on the street, don’t cher know, dressed in this outlandish fashion!”

“And we can’t get a train back,” cried the first.

“An’ we got no money!” said the second.

“Bah Jove!” added the third, the one Timothy recognized as “Trousers” because he was the only one who had them. “Réveille’ll sound, don’t cher know, and we won’t be there.”

This entertaining conversation was kept up for some fifteen minutes more. All Mr. O’Flaherty managed to make out was that they had been sent away from somewhere and they hadn’t the least idea how to get back. Presently one of them--Trousers--discovered that he did have some money, plenty of it, whereupon Timothy’s mouth began to water. That cleared the situation in his eyes, but it didn’t seem to in theirs. They were afraid of being late and getting caught by some wild animal called réveille; moreover, they couldn’t take a train because they had no clothes. Here Timothy thought he’d better step in.

“Hey, Trousers!” said he.

The “dude” thus designated didn’t recognize himself, so Timothy edged up and poked him to make him look.

“Hey, Trousers!” said he. “I kin git you ducks some togs.”

To make a long story short the “ducks” “tumbled” to that proposition in a hurry. Even Trousers, the aristocrat, condescended to sit down and discuss ways and means with that very sociable tramp. To make the story still shorter Timothy propounded a plan and found it agreeable; “jumped” the car when it was finally switched off at Hoboken; and set out with ten dollars of the stranger’s money, to buy second-hand clothing at one o’clock in the morning.

“You’ll be sure to come back,” said Mark. “Because we’ll make it fifteen if you do.”

That settled whatever idea of “taking a sneak” was lurking in the messenger’s mind. He vowed to return, “sure as me name is Timothy O’Flaherty,” which, as we know, it was. And he came too. He flung a pile of duds into the car and went off whistling with the promised reward of virtue in his pocket. It was a “bully graft” for him anyhow, and he promised himself a regular roaring good time. That is the last we shall see of Timothy.

As to the plebes their joy was equally as great. They felt that this hazing was the supreme effort of the desperate Bull Harris, and it failed. Now that they were safe they could contemplate the delight of turning up smiling at réveille to the consternation of “the enemy.” Truly this involuntary journey had panned out to be a very pleasant affair indeed.

Mark’s first thought was as to a return train. They rushed off to the depot to find out, where they discovered a ticket agent who gazed doubtfully at their soiled and ragged clothing. The three realized then for the first time that their benefactor had kept a good deal of that ten dollars for himself, and poor Chauncey, to whom a wilted collar was agony, fairly groaned as he gazed at himself. However, they found that there was a train in ten minutes; and another at three-thirty-due at West Point at four-thirty-eight. That was the essential thing, and the three wandered out to the street again.

“We mustn’t go far, don’t cher know,” observed Chauncey. “We don’t want to miss that train.”

Chauncey’s was not a very daring or original mind. There was an idea floating through Mark’s head just then that never occurred to Chauncey; it would have knocked him over if it had.

“When we went up there to West Point,” began Mark, suddenly, “we expected to stay there two years without ever once venturing off the post.”

“Yes,” said Chauncey. “Bah Jove, we did.”

“And here we are down at Hoboken, opposite New York.”

“Yes,” assented Chauncey again.

“It feels good to be loose, don’t it?” observed Mark.

And still Chauncey didn’t “tumble”; Texas’ eyes were beginning to dance however.

“It’s awfully stupid back there on the reservation, not half as lively as New York.”

Still Chauncey only said “Yes.”

“Rather kind of the yearlings to give us a holiday, wasn’t it?” observed Mark.

Another “Yes,” and then seeing that his efforts were of no use Mark came out with his proposition.

“Stupid!” he laughed. “Don’t you see what I mean? I’m not going back on that first train.”

“Not going back on that train!” gasped Chauncey. “Bah Jove! then what----”

His horrified inquiries were interrupted by a wild whoop from the delighted Texas. Texas was beginning to wriggle his fingers, which meant that Texas was excited. And suddenly he sprang forward and started down the street, seizing his expostulating companion under the arm and dragging him ahead as if he had been a child.

Some ten minutes later those three members of the Banded Seven--B. B. J.--were on a Christopher Street ferryboat bound for New York and bent upon having some “fun.” When the Seven set out for fun they usually got it; they had all they could carry in this case.

It was with a truly delicious sense of freedom that they strolled about the deck of that lumbering boat. Only one who has been to West Point can appreciate it. Day after day on that army reservation, with a penalty of dismissal for leaving it, grows woefully monotonous even to the very busy plebe. Zest was added to their venture by the fact that they knew they were breaking rules and might be found out any moment.

“Still if we are,” laughed Mark, “we can lay the blame on Bull. And now for the fun.”

They half expected the fun would come rushing out to welcome them the moment they got into the light of the street. They expected a fire or a murder at the very least. And felt really hurt because they met only a sleepy hack driver talking to a sleepy policeman. And an empty street car and a few slouchy-looking fellows like themselves lounging about a saloon. However it was exciting to be in New York anyway; what more could the three B. J. plebes want?

They strolled across Christopher Street, gazing curiously. Mark had never been in New York before and Chauncey was worried because he couldn’t see a better part of it, for instance, “my cousin, Mr. Morgan’s mansion on Fifth Avenue, don’t cher know.” He even offered to take Mark up there, until he chanced to glance at his clothing. Then he shivered. Truly the three were a sight; Chauncey’s shapely plebe trousers were hidden in a huge green threadbare overcoat (August)! Mark could not help laughing whenever he gazed at the youthful aristocrat.

“Never mind,” he laughed. “Cheer up, nobody’ll try to rob us, which is one comfort.”

“I wish we would get robbed,” growled Texas. “Whar’s that aire fun we came fo’?”

That began to be a pressing question. They wandered about for at least half an hour and the clocks showed two, and still nothing had happened. The city seemed to be provokingly orderly that night.

“Durnation!” exclaimed Texas. “I reckon we got to make some fun ourselves.”

When a person is really looking for excitement, it takes very little to have him imagine some. The three had just been discussing the possibility of robbery down in this “tough” quarter when suddenly Mark seized the other two by the arm.

“Look, look!” he cried.

The others turned; and straightway over the whole three of them flashed the conviction that at last their hour had come. There was a burglar!

The three started in surprise, and a moment later they slid silently into the shadow of an awning to watch with palpitating hearts.

There was only one burglar. That is, he had no confederates visible. But his own actions were desperate enough for two. In the first place he crept softly up the steps of the house, stooping and crouching as he did so. He tried the door softly, shook it; and then finding it resisted his purpose he stole down again, glancing about him nervously.

He went down into the area, where it was dark; the three, trembling by this time, peered forward to watch him. They saw him try the window and to their horror saw it go softly up. The next moment the man deliberately sat down and removed his shoes. The plebes could see them in his hands as he arose again and with the stealthiness of a cat slid quickly in.

The three hesitated not a moment, but rose up and crept silently and swiftly across the street. Mark stole down into the area, his heart beating high. He peered in and a moment later beckoned the others. They came; they saw the burglar in the act of striking a light and creeping up the basement stairs. In an instant more he was gone.

“What shall we do?” whispered the three. “What?”

Mark answered by an act. There was only one thing he could do; he stooped and crept in at the window. The three followed him immediately and their forms were lost in the darkness of that imperiled house.