Part 6

Becoming purple in the face, my master nearly twisted my crank off. He heaped upon me the most insulting and unjust imprecations, as though it were my fault that my health was gone, even making distressing insinuations as to my ancestry. Words failing him, he fell to belaboring me with a hammer and monkey-wrench.

The spectators looked on with indifference. Some of them even urged him maliciously to the attack.

"I'd _sell_ the thing for fifty cents!" he exclaimed, with a shocking oath.

Suddenly an elderly, kindly-faced man pushed his way forward through the crowd. "I'll give you that for it," he said. "Only stop battering it!"

My master left off hitting me. He looked surlily at the speaker and then at the crowd.

"You can have it," he said between his teeth.

Hot tears of gratitude dropped from my cylinders as my deliverer pushed me to his nearby home. From that moment to this I have never known anything but happiness.

For my dear old master is a retired gas-fitter whose hobby is landscape gardening. Relieving me of my tired wheels, he has pastured me in the center of his front yard and planted me full of geraniums. I am lovingly taken care of. My kind master waters me regularly and curries me with a trowel. My working days are over. But what makes me happiest is the knowledge that I can never be sold.

LIGHT BREAKFAST

"Henry dear," said Mrs. Brush gently, without raising her pretty head from the pillow, "it's nearly half-past eight."

"What!" exclaimed her husband, sitting up vehemently and staring at the clock. "Where is Maria? She's supposed to be here by seven, isn't she?"

"Perhaps she didn't come today."

"That good-for-nothing darky! I'll go and investigate." Plunging energetically into his bath-robe and slippers, he sallied forth on a tour of the apartment.

No Maria sweeping in the hall; no Maria straightening up the living-room or library; no Maria dusting in the dining-room; no Maria preparing breakfast in the kitchen.

"How provoking!" sighed Mrs. Brush.

"Provoking? I call it outrageous."

"Yes; I'm sorry, dear, that this will make you late to your office."

"Oh, I'm not bothered about _that_, for I've just put through some new efficiency systems which enable me to accomplish a tremendous amount of work in a very short time. What I can't stand is having that darky _impose_ on us."

"But, dearest, maybe she's sick."

"Then she could have sent us word by telephone. No; she's taking advantage of the fact that you are young and inexperienced. But she'll be sorry for it. I'll discharge her myself."

"Now, please don't get excited, dear. If you discharged her, it might be days and days before we could get another."

"That wouldn't make any difference. We'd simply take our meals out. Except breakfast, of course. _I'd_ get that."

"You?"

"Yes. We'll start this morning. If you'll attend to the dusting--later in the day, I mean--I'll bring you your coffee before you get up, just as you're used to having it."

"But, Henry--"

"It won't be any trouble at all. Nothing is, no matter how unfamiliar it may be to you, if you go at it intelligently, scientifically." When Mr. Brush was obsessed with an idea, it was useless to oppose him. The best policy was to let it take its course. "As I have often told you," he continued, "housekeeping could be greatly simplified if you women would only--"

Seeing that he was about to launch into a homily on efficiency, such as she had heard him deliver at least twenty times in the three months she had been married to him, she said:

"If you're going to get breakfast, hadn't you better hurry and take your bath?"

"That's so," he admitted. Shuffling briskly to the bathroom, he was soon foaming at the mouth with tooth-paste.

There was a loud buzzing sound from the direction of the kitchen.

"Henry!" called Mrs. Brush, "there goes the dumb-waiter. Shall I answer it?"

"No; I'll ho," he replied pastily out of the corner of his mouth. Still busily agitating his tooth-brush, so as not to waste any time, he paddled to the dumb-waiter and called: "He'o! Whash you wa'?"

"Garbage!" replied a gruff voice. A rattling of ropes announced that the car was on its way.

Mr. Brush opened the "sanitary garbage closet," and, screwing up his face and tooth-brush, seized something that was mighty unlike a rose. He held the pail out at arm's-length as he carried it to the dumb-waiter.

_Buzz, buzz, buzz_, went the buzzer.

"Huh?" gurgled Mr. Brush, nervously swallowing a generous amount of tooth-paste.

"Garbage!" repeated the voice.

Mr. Brush looked helplessly at the can on the dumb-waiter and then at his incapacitated hands.

"Put your garbage on!" roared the voice.

Mr. Brush sputtered; then, extracting the tooth-brush with the fourth and fifth knuckles of his left hand, he shouted back indignantly:

"I 'id!"

"Then why didn't you _say_ so?" And down went the dumb-waiter with a jerk.

Mr. Brush returned to the bathroom. As he was in the midst of shaving, the buzzer sounded again. This time he was on the alert and ready for any argument. Leaving his razor, but not his lather, he hurried back to the kitchen in a combative mood.

"What do you want?" he yelled defiantly as he opened the door of the dumb-waiter. There was no answer; but facing him on the shelf of the car stood his empty pail, silent, stolid, indifferent to his bravado. He snatched it off and returned to his ablutions.

On account of the extreme lateness of the hour, he decided to finish off with a quick shower-bath, first hot and then cold. Just as he removed his last garment, the buzzer sounded again.

"Aw, go ahead and buzz!" he said between his teeth.

As he stepped into the hot downpour, the door-bell rang.

"Whoever that is can wait."

But apparently the person in question had no desire to do so, for the bell sounded again and again. To complete the symphony, the telephone chimed in with its merry tune.

"Gwendolyn!" called Mr. Brush, distractedly amid the roar of waters.

But she, having fallen into a pleasant doze while waiting for her breakfast, did not hear him. The bells and buzzer had by this time settled into a sustained chord like that of the whistles at New-year's.

Bounding out of the tub to the mat, Mr. Brush wrapped his form, which still glistened with pearly drops, in his bath-robe, and slip slopped frigidly down the hall.

"Hello!" he cried, snatching off the telephone-receiver. "No, this is _not_ Schmittberger the butcher!" Then he darted to the front door. Opening it, he found the postman waiting with a letter.

"Two cents due, please."

The buzzer continued its heavy droning, and the telephone started up again.

"Two cents, two cents," repeated Mr. Brush in befuddlement.

The postman stared.

"Two cents; yes, two cents," reiterated Mr. Brush, groping immodestly for pockets where there were none.

"You said that before."

"Oh, excuse me! I'll get it right off. Now, where did I put that purse? Let me think." But thinking in the neighborhood of that telephone was an impossibility. He would have to quiet the thing. So, clapping the receiver to his ear, he protested, "Hello! hello!"

"Will you _kindly_ give me Schmittberger's butcher shop?"

"Good grief!" he exclaimed, letting the receiver fall. It swung by its tail, pendulum-wise, barking infuriated clicks.

Mr. Brush staggered to the bedroom. With reeling brain, he ransacked all his chiffonier drawers for the purse which was lying in plain view on top. By the time he had discovered it and started back to the door, the buzzer in the kitchen was having delirium tremens. Floundering to the spot, he gasped:

"What do you want?"

"Ice!" was the husky reply.

"All right, I'll send it down. No, I mean, you send it up."

As the dumb-waiter rose, the temperature fell, and Mr. Brush soon found himself in the presence of a beautiful blue berg. With chattering teeth, he reached forward and drew it to him. The door of the dumb-waiter closed automatically, and he was left alone in the kitchen with the iceberg in his arms.

How to open the ice-box was a problem. After attempting unsuccessfully to cajole the catch by fondling it with the corner of the berg, he tried nudging it with his elbow. It would not take the hint. Indeed, it refused utterly to move until he got down on his knees before it and rubbed it with his shoulder.

Finally, however, the door opened, disclosing a rival berg, attended by a throng of bottles, siphons, and butter-crocks. A cold, inhospitable crowd they were, resenting any intrusion.

Thus rebuffed, Mr. Brush, who felt as though he were being frozen and cauterized at the same time, deposited the berg upon the cover of the wash-tubs. It coasted forward, threatening an avalanche. Clutching it at the brink, he paused, and wondered what he would do next.

The door-bell saved him the trouble of deciding. He had entirely forgotten the postman! Setting the berg upon a chair, he scurried out, and offered him a dollar bill, chattering apologies for the delay.

"Haven't you anything smaller?" asked the postman, impatiently.

"N-no, I d-don't think so."

"Then why did you keep me here all this time? I'll have to come back later."

He started off.

"Stop! Wait a moment! I'd rather make you a present of the ninety-eight cents. Oh, glory! that'll have to be gone through with all over again!"

Discouraged and shivering, he leaned against the side of the doorway. In so doing, his eye fell upon a collection of objects that had been deposited in front of the sill--the morning newspaper, a bottle of milk, one of cream, and a bag containing a long loaf of bread. He stooped over and gathered them up carefully one by one. Just as he had stowed away the newspaper under one arm and gripped the bag with his left hand and the two bottles with his right, the chilliness in him culminated in a sneeze, and everything fell.

Both bottles smashed. Landing just on the sill, they distributed their contents impartially outside and inside.

Finding that the proportion of the flood that the bread and the newspaper were able to sop up was small, though they did what they could, Mr. Brush hastily procured a bucket and rag from the kitchen, where the ice was indulging in a flood of its own, and set to work mopping. As he sprawled out into the hallway, gingerly squeezing out ragfuls of cream and broken glass, the door opposite was opened and a handsome woman appeared, attired in fashionable street dress. She looked him straight in the eye.

Mr. Brush clasped his bath-robe to him, made a frenzied recoil, slammed the door, and collapsed into the pool of milk.

"Henry dear, is breakfast nearly ready?" called his loving wife.

Enraged and dripping, he leaped up with sudden strength, and started for the bedroom, spluttering incoherent expostulations as he went.

At that moment there was heard the sound of a latch-key, and a grinning black face appeared.

"Good mawnin', sah. Somefin' seems to be spilt heah."

Fetching a large cloth, she set to work with easy dexterity.

Mr. Brush, fascinated, watched the lake disappear.

"You bes' get dress', sah. Ah'll have yo' breakfas' ready in a couple o' minutes."

"Thank Heaven you're here, Maria!" he said fervently. "I was almost afraid you weren't coming."

THE MAN OPPOSITE

Mildred congratulated herself on having conquered her timidity. She had come all the way down-town by herself, had looked through several stores until she found just the curtains she wanted; and now, ready to return home, she got on the 'bus as calmly as though she had been a New Yorker and a married woman all her life.

It being the rush hour of the afternoon, the conveyance was quite crowded. Mildred thought at first that she would have to sit on the backward-facing bench up front, which she disliked; but luckily she found a place on one of the seats opposite it. A moment later even the less-desirable bench was occupied.

The person who took the place on it directly facing her was a tall, dark man of about forty, with piercing black eyes and an aquiline nose. Mildred kept encountering his glance. There was something about it that disturbed her. She flushed a little.

His face seemed vaguely, uncomfortably familiar. Where had she seen him before? She was sure he wasn't anyone who had waited on her in a shop, nor any of the tradesmen who came to the door of her apartment: he looked too much the man of the world for that. Neither was he one of the few friends of her husband whom she had had a chance to meet. She could not place him. Happiness, and the absorption that goes with it, had made her oblivious of outside things.

Whoever he was, his glances rendered her more and more ill at ease. She looked out of the window, she looked up at the advertisements, she looked down at her lap. No use: she could _feel_ his gaze.

In vain did she reason with herself that he was not staring at her intentionally, but was merely directing his eyes straight ahead of him, as anyone might do. No; not even the protecting presence of the other passengers could reassure her. She felt almost as though she and the hawk-like stranger were alone in the conveyance.

Several times she thought of getting out and taking another 'bus. But the evening was growing dark, and she might have to wait a long while in a part of town she knew nothing about. And suppose he should get off after her!

The blocks seemed hours apart, the halts at corners interminable. Passengers got out in twos and threes. _He_ stayed.

Looking down at her hands, which nervously fingered the chain of her reticule, Mildred hoped and prayed he would go. But he did not.

The people who had shared the bench with him had moved to forward-facing seats as soon as any were vacant. He remained where he was.

It seemed she had seen that face somewhere--behind her, following her.

This recollection threw her into such a fit of trembling that she let fall her handkerchief. Before she could recover it, he bent forward with a quick swooping motion, seized it in his long fingers, and held it out to her. She took it trembling, hardly able to murmur, "Thank you."

He appeared about to speak.

Mildred rose in terror and retreated hastily to a place several seats back, across the aisle.

What would he do? Would he follow her? Were his eyes still fixed upon her? She dared not look; but a reflection in the window pane increased her fears.

Street after street went by. The last other passenger got off. Still he stayed. Mildred's furtive observations via the reflecting window pane never found him looking out to ascertain what part of town it was. Gradually she was forced to the sickening conviction that he was watching, not for any particular street, but to see where she would get off.

As her corner approached, she rang the bell. He rose. She moved quickly to the door. He followed her, smiling presumingly.

As she stepped down from the platform, her knees were so weak that she almost fell. Her heart pounded. Instead of running, as her terror prompted her to, she could with difficulty maintain a panting walk.

The man followed--not hurrying, but relentlessly, like an animal that is sure of its prey.

When she entered the doorway of the apartment house, he was barely ten yards behind her. She knew he would turn in also. He did.

If only she could get into the elevator and escape before he arrived!

The car was at one of the upper floors. She rang desperately until it appeared. The instant the iron door slid back, she flung herself in, gasping:

"Quick! Take me up quickly!"

"Yes, miss," replied the startled but drowsy elevator boy--as a tall form passed in after her. Mildred shrank into a corner, quivering.

"Fou'th flo'," announced the boy.

She sprang out. As she staggered totteringly down the dim corridor, she heard the man step out of the car.

Her latch key! Her latch key! She fumbled frantically in her handbag; then groped for the lock.

The man drew nearer.

She was helpless, cornered at the end of a dark hallway. Almost hysterical she let the key fall and closed her eyes.

At that moment the door opposite was unlocked briskly, and a lusty young voice inside yelled: "Hello, Pappa!"

LUCY THE LITERARY AGENT

"I know you will agree with me," said Lucy, "that these stories by Perth Dewar are quite remarkable, quite the most distinctive things of the kind that have been done in years, and that your readers will like them immensely."

Ethridge the Editor said nothing. It was unwise to contradict her; for of all the personal-touch literary agents, Lucy was the personal-touchiest. So he let her run on and on, trusting that eventually she would run down. Also she wasn't bad looking--in her aggressive way.

"You've read them?" she queried suddenly.

"Why, certainly," he lied, glancing with studied casualness at the Reader's Report slip attached to the blue manuscript cover.

Ethridge never read anything he could possibly avoid reading. He was one of those successful editors who edit by belonging to the best clubs and attending the right teas. Mere perusal of manuscripts was not particularly in his line.

The Report slip said: "Costume stories of Holland in the 17th Century. Only moderately well done. Not suitable for this magazine."

"Who is this Dewar person, anyhow?" asked Ethridge defensively.

"You mean to say you haven't heard of him? Why, my dear Mr. Ethridge! Dewar is a man of independent means--lives on his estate down in Maryland and writes stories between fox hunts. Enormously gifted."

She failed to add, however, that Dewar had offered to let her keep any money she received for the stories--provided she could get them printed.

Resting her white elbows on Ethridge's desk and eyeing him with calculating coyness, Lucy knew that he had not read the stories. She would make him wonder if she knew he hadn't.

"What do you yourself honestly think of them, Mr. Ethridge? Candidly, now. You're always so delightfully frank with me, Mr. Ethridge. That's why it's such a pleasure to deal with you. How did they strike you?"

"Really, Miss Leech, I don't see how in our magazine we could possibly--"

"Now, Mr. Ethridge!" She held up a reproving finger, laughing roguishly. "But what's the use of our trying to discuss imaginative literature here in your busy office with the telephone ringing every moment--or threatening to ring--and your discouragingly pretty blonde secretary--the minx!--popping in continually to see if we're behaving!"

Ethridge smiled complacently. Why be an ogre?

"I tell you what. Let's have supper at my studio this evening," continued Lucy. "It'll be so much more satisfactory to discuss things sensibly, without interruption."

So he did, and they did.

At breakfast it was finally decided that the series by Perth Dewar should consist of ten stories, including four still to be written.

Ethridge salved his conscience by resolving secretly that they should all be published in the back of the book.

In due course of time the first story appeared. It contained a mean reference to the Knights of Pythias, or Mormonism, or a former Vice-President of the United States, or something; for which reason the issue containing it was suppressed.

Whereupon the buried issue became a Living Issue. The intelligentsia rushed to the rescue with highbrow hue and cry. Round robins were circulated. Newspaper columnists got sarcastic. Liberal cliques chittered. Perth Dewar became suddenly significant.

The issue containing the second story was sold out the day it appeared.

By the time the third one was out, Professor Lion Whelps, of Yale, proved in an article in the Sunday _Times_, that Dewar's attitude toward women was like Turgeniev's, and Professor Brando Methuseleh, of Columbia, discovered he had cadences. Sinclair Lewis inserted a mention of him in the forty-ninth edition of "Babbitt." Nine British novelists hurried over to lecture on him.

And Ethridge?

He was made. In acknowledgement of his peerless editorial acumen that could discern true genius at a glance, the directors of the magazine doubled his salary and gave him a bonus to keep him from being coaxed away by the "Saturday Evening Pictorial."

And Lucy?

Ethridge married her to keep her quiet.

THE CREEPING FINGERS

Mrs. Whoffin's figure resembled that of the punch-bowl behind which she was standing: it was broad and squat, with a slight tapering at the base. And her mind was like the punch: sweetish and characterless, with scrappy rinds of things floating about in it. Each guest who presented a cup received the same dipperful and the same set of remarks.

"Good evening. I'm _so_ glad you could come! I just love hearing ghost-stories, don't you? See that log over there?" She pointed to a huge gray hulk that lay at the side of the open fireplace. "That's _real driftwood_, and it ought to give just the right kind of light. I found it myself on the beach, and had the gardener bring it home in a wheelbarrow. Look, it's all honeycombed with age."

A tall, serious-looking young man stepped forward and extended his glass. He knew that that was the way to please her, and she was the woman who he hoped and feared would be his mother-in-law.

She beamed.

"Do have another, Mr. Carson."

He did; for he was in a desperate mood. He was to leave for the city on the early morning train, and this evening would be his last chance to propose to Polly for several months. Somehow, despite his best efforts, the psychological moment had never arrived.

Just then Polly sailed into the room, fresh and rosy, in a flutter of white muslin. He put down the glass and hurried over to her.

"Good evening, Polly," he said in an ardent undertone. "Couldn't you slip away from this crowd and take a stroll on the beach?"

"No, George; I'm hostess tonight." She shook her head, including some airy little curls, which seemed to make light of her refusal. "We are all to gather around the hearth and listen to the stories." Then she added teasingly, "Besides, it is in your honor that mother is giving this party."

"Yes; she's very kind, I'm sure," he said awkwardly.

"Think of all the trouble she has taken over that log!"

Carson faced her with squared jaw.

"Listen to me, Polly. There is something serious I want to talk to you about. Before I leave you, I--"

"Polly," called Mrs. Whoffin, "isn't it time to begin?"

"Perhaps it is," she answered innocently. "What do you think, George?"

"I think the story-telling might as well begin at once," he said stiffly.

A few minutes later all lights were turned out. The score of young people had settled themselves about the room in comfortable attitudes, some on chairs and sofas, some on cushions on the floor, while in the midst of them sat the narrator, a girl of eighteen, who affected a deep morbidity. Gazing into the fire, she began her tale as though she were in a trance.

Carson sulkily picked his way after Polly toward a seat beside the hearth. Just as he was reaching it, he tripped over something bulky.

"Why, that's my log!" exclaimed Mrs. Whoffin, from the back of the room. "Dear! dear! Why hasn't anyone put it on the fire?" The story waited while Mrs. Whoffin scurried forward and personally supervised the placing of the log upon the andirons, and then sat down beside the hearth opposite Polly.

"Do go on!" cried several voices. "You stopped in the most exciting part."

The narrator, looking daggers at Mrs. Whoffin, paused long enough to show that she didn't _have_ to go on unless she wanted to, and then resumed her tale:

"Suddenly, as he lay there in the haunted room, on the very bed where the old man had been murdered, he felt an invisible hand on the bedclothes."

Mrs. Whoffin shuddered, and a large black ant peered out of a hole in the log to see what was going on.

"Then he felt a second hand more terrifying than the first."