Chapter 16

The body of Ram-tah was out of its case and half across the room, yards of the swathed linen unfurled; but, more terrible than all, the head of Ram-tah was not where it should have been.

In the far corner the crouching Nap gnawed at that head, tearing, mutilating, desecrating.

"Napoleon!" It was a cry of little volume, but tense and terrible. Napoleon, destroyer of kings! In this moment he once more put the creature's full name upon him. The dog found the name alarming; perceived that he had committed some one of those offences for which he was arbitrarily punished. He relaxed the stout jaws, crawled slinkingly to the couch, and leaped upon it. Once there, he whimpered protestingly. One of the few clear beliefs he had about a perplexing social system was that nothing hurtful could befall him once he had gained that couch. It was sanctuary.

Bean's next emotion was sympathy for the dog's fright. He tottered across to the couch, mumbling little phrases of reassurance to the abject Nap. He sat down beside him, and put a kindly arm about him.

"Why, why, Nappy! Yes, 'sall right, yes, he _was_--most beautiful doggie in the whole world; yes, he _was_."

He hardly dared look toward the scene of the outrage. The calamity was overwhelming, but how could dogs know any better? Timidly, at length, he raised his eyes, first to where the fragmentary head lay, then to the torn body.

Something about the latter electrified him. He leaped from the couch and seized an end of the linen that bound the mummy. He pulled, and the linen unwound. He curiously surveyed something at his feet. It was a tightly rolled wad of excelsior. The swathing of linen--he had unwound it to where the hands should have been folded on the breast--had enclosed excelsior.

Dazedly he looked into the empty case. Upon one of the new boards he saw marked with the careless brush of some shipping-clerk, "Watkins & Co., Hartford, Conn."

Again, as with the unstable lilac-bushes, his world spun about him; it drew in and darkened. He had the sensation of a grain of dust sucked down a vast black funnel.

Outside the quiet room, the city went on its ruthless, noisy way. In there where dynasties had fallen and a monarch lay prone, a spotted dog sporting with a _papier-mâché_ something, came suddenly on a cold hand flung out on the rug. Nap instantly forsook the sham for the real, deserted the head of Ram-tah, and laved Bean's closed eyes with a lolloping pink tongue.

XIV

The next morning at eight-thirty the door of the steam-heated apartment resounded to sharp knocking. There being no response, the knocking was repeated and prolonged. Retreating footsteps were heard in the hallway. Five minutes later a key rattled in the door and Cassidy entered, followed by the waster.

Bean was discovered in a flowered dressing-gown gazing open-eyed at the shut door of a closet. He sat on the couch and one of his arms clasped a sleeping dog. The floor was littered with wisps of excelsior.

"My word, old top, had to have the chap let me into your diggin's you know. You were sleeping like the dead." The waster was bustling and breezy.

"Busy," said Bean. He arose and went into the hall where Cassidy stood.

"He _would_ have in," explained Cassidy. "Say th' wor-r-d if he's no frind, an' he'll have out agin. I'll put him so. 'T would not be a refined thing to do, but nicissary if needed."

"'S all right," said Bean. "Friend of mine." He closed the door on Cassidy.

Inside, he found the waster interestedly poking with his stick at a roundish object on the floor.

"Dog's been at it," explained the waster brightly. "What's the idea? Private theatricals?"

"Yes," said Bean, "private theatricals," and resumed his place on the couch, staring dully at the closet door.

"But, look here, old chap, you must liven up. She would have it I should come for you. My word! I believe you're funking! You look absurdly rotten like it, you know."

"Toothache, right across here," muttered Bean. "Have to put it off."

"But that's not done, old top; really it's not done, you know. It ... it ... one doesn't do it at all, you know."

"Never?" asked Bean, brightening a little with alarm.

"Jolly well never," insisted the waster; "not for anything a dentist-fellow could manage. Come now!"

Bean was listless once more, deaf, unseeing.

"Righto," said the waster. "Bachelor dinner last night ... yes?"

The situation had become intelligible to him. He found the bathroom, and from it came the sound of running water. He had the air of a Master of Revels.

"Into it--only thing to do!"

He led Bean to the brink of the icy pool and skilfully flayed him of the flowered gown. He was thorough, the waster. He'd known chaps to pretend to get in by making a great splashing with one hand, after they were left alone. He overcame a few of the earlier exercises in jiu-jitsu and committed Bean's form to the deep.

"Righto!" he exclaimed. "Does it every time. Shiver all you like. Good for you! Now then--clothes! Clothes and things, Man! Oh, here they are to be sure! How stupid of me! Feel better already, yes? Knew it. Studs in shirt. My word! Studs! Studs! There! Let me tie it. Here! Look alive man! She would have it. She must have known you. There!"

He had finished by clamping Bean's hat tightly about his head. Bean was thinking that the waster possessed more executive talent than Grandma had given him credit for; also that he would find an excuse to break away once they were outside; also that Balthasar was keenly witty. Balthasar had _said_ it would disintegrate if handled.

He would leave Nap with Cassidy. He would return for him that night, then flee. He would go back to Wellsville, which he should never have left.

The waster had him in the car outside, a firm grasp on one of his arms.

"I'll allow you only one," said the waster judicially as the car moved off. "I know where the chap makes them perfectly--brings a mummy back to life--"

"A mum--what mummy?" asked Bean dreamily.

"Your own, if you had one, you silly juggins!"

Bean winced, but made no reply.

The car halted before an uptown hotel.

"Come on!" said the waster.

"Bring it out," suggested Bean, devising flight.

The waster prepared to use force.

"Quit. I'll go," said Bean.

He was before a polished bar, the white-jacketed attendant of which not only recognized the waster but seemed to divine his errand.

"Two," commanded the waster. The attendant had already reached for a bottle of absinthe, and now busied himself with two eggs, a shaker, and cracked ice.

"White of an egg, delicate but nourishing after bachelor dinners," said the waster expertly.

Bean, in the polished mirror, regarded a pallid and shrinking youth whom he knew to be himself--not a reincarnation of the Egyptian king, but just Bunker Bean. He could not endure a long look at the thing, and allowed his gaze to wander to the panelled woodwork of the bar.

"Fumed oak," he suggested to the waster.

But the waster pushed one of the slender-stemmed glasses toward him.

"There's the life-line, old top; cling to it! Here's a go!"

Bean drank. The beverage was icy, but it warmed him to life. The mere white of an egg mixed with a liquid of such perfect innocence that he recalled it from his soothing-syrup days.

"Have one with me," he said in what he knew to be a faultless bar manner.

"Oh, I say old top," the waster protested.

"One," said Bean stubbornly.

The attendant was again busy.

"Better be careful," warned the waster. "Those things come to you and steal their hands into yours like little innocent children, but--".

They drank. Bean felt himself bold for any situation. He would carry the farce through if they insisted on it. He no longer planned to elude the waster. They were in the speeding car.

"Fumed eggs!" murmured Bean approvingly.

They were inside that desolated house, the door closed fatefully upon them. The waster disappeared. Bean heard the flapper's voice calling cheerily to him from above stairs. A footman disapprovingly ushered him to the midst of an immense drawing-room of most ponderous grandeur, and left him to perish.

He sat on the edge of a chair and tried to clear his mind about this enormity he was going to commit. False pretenses! Nothing less. He was not a king at all. He was Bunker Bean, a stenographer, whose father drove an express wagon, and whose grandmother had smoked a pipe. He had never been anything more, nor ever would be. And here he was ... pretending.

No wonder Julia had fussed! She had seen through him. How they would all scorn him if they knew what that scoundrelly Balthasar knew. He'd made money, but he had no right to it. He had made that under false pretenses, too, believing money would come naturally to a king. Would they find him out at once, or not until it was too late? He shudderingly recalled a crisis in the ceremony of marriage where some one is invited to make trouble, urged to come forward and say if there isn't some reason why this man and this woman shouldn't be married at all. Could he live through that? Suppose a policeman rushed in, crying, "I forbid the banns! The man is an impostor!" He seemed to remember that banns were often forbidden in novels. Then would he indeed be a thing for contemptuous laughter.

Yet, in spite of this dismal foreboding, he was presently conscious of an unusual sense of well-being. It had been growing since they stopped for those eggs, in that fumed oak place. What about the Corsican? Better have been him than no one! He would look at that tomb. Then he would know. He was rather clinging to the idea of the Corsican. It gave him courage. Still, if he could get out peacefully ...

He stepped lightly to the hall and was on the point of seizing his hat when the flapper called down to him.

"You just perfectly don't leave this house again!"

"Not going to," he answered guiltily. "Looking to see what size hat I wear. Fumed eggs," he concluded triumphantly.

He was not again left alone. The waster came back and supposed he would do some golfing "over across."

Bean loathed golf and gathered the strange power to say so.

"Sooner be a mail-carrier than a golf-player," he answered stoutly. "Looks more fun, anyway."

"_My_ word!" exclaimed the waster, "aren't you even keen on watching it?"

"Sooner watch a lot of Italians tearing up a street-car track," Bean persisted.

"Oh, come!" protested the waster.

"Like to have another fumed egg," said Bean.

"You've had one too many," declared the waster, knowing that no sober man could speak thus of the sport of kings.

Grandma, the Demon, entered and portentously shook hands with him. She seemed to have discovered that marriage was very serious.

"Fumed eggs," said Bean, regarding her shrewdly.

"What?" demanded Grandma.

"Fumed eggs, hundred p'cent efficient," he declared stoutly.

The Demon eyed him more closely.

"My grandmother smoked, too," said Bean, "but I never went in for it much."

"U-u-u-mmm!" said the Demon. It was to be seen that she felt puzzled.

Breede slunk into the room, garbed in an unaccustomed frock coat. He went through the form of shaking hands with Bean.

Bean felt a sudden necessity to tell Breede a lot of things. He wished to confide in the man.

"Principle of the thing's all I cared about," he began. "Anybody make money that wants to be a Wall Street crook and take it away from the tired business man. What I want to be is one of the idle rich ... only not idle much of the time, you know. Good major league club for mine. Been looking the ground over; sound 'vestment; keep you out of bad company, lots time to read good books."

"Hanh! Wha's 'at?" exploded Breede.

"Fumed eggs," said Bean, feeling witty. He affected to laugh at his own jest as he perceived that the mourning mother had entered the room. Breede drew cautiously away from him. Mrs. Breede nodded to him bravely.

He mentioned the name of the world's greatest pitcher, with an impulse to take the woman down a bit.

"Get our shirts same place; he's going to have a suit just like this--no, like another one I have in that little old steamer trunk."

He was aware that they all eyed him too closely. The waster winked at him. Then he found himself shaking hands with a soothing old gentleman in clerical garb who called him his young friend and said that this was indeed a happy moment.

The three Breedes and the waster stood apart, studying him queerly. He was feeling an embarrassed need to make light conversation, and he was still conscious of that strange power to make it. He was going to tell the old gentleman, whose young friend he was, that fumed eggs were a hundred p'cent efficient.

But the flapper saved him from that. She came in, quiet but businesslike, and in a low yet distinct voices said she wished it to be perfectly over at once. She did not relax her grasp of Bean's arm after she approached him, and he presently knew that something solemn was going on in which he was to be seriously involved.

"Say, 'I do,'" muttered the old gentleman, and Bean did so. The flapper had not to be told.

There followed a blurred and formal shaking of his hand by those present, and the big sister whom he had not noticed before came up and kissed him.

Then he was conscious of the flapper still at his side. He turned to her and was amazed to discover that she was blinking tears from her eyes.

"There, _there_!" he muttered soothingly, and took her in his arms quite as if they were alone. He held her closely a moment, with little mumbled endearments, softly patting her cheek.

"There, there! No one ever going to hurt _you_. You're _dear_; yes, you are!"

He was much embarrassed to discover those staring others still present. But the flapper swiftly revived. It seemed to be perfectly over for the flapper. She announced that every one must hurry.

Hurriedly, with every one, it seemed, babbling nonsense of remote matters, they sat at a table, and ate of cold food from around a bed of flowers. Bean ate frankly. He was hungry, but he took his part in the talk as a gentleman should.

They were toasting the bride in champagne.

"Never drink," protested Bean to the proffered glass.

"Won't happen every day, old top," suggested the waster.

He drank. The sparkling stuff brought him new courage. He drained the glass.

"I knew they were trying to keep me off that board of directors," he confided to Breede, "specially that oldest one."

"That your first drink s'morning?" asked Breede in discreet tones.

"First drink I ever took. Had two eggs's morning."

"What board of directors?" asked Breede suspiciously.

"Fed'l Express. I wanted that stock for a technical purpose--so I could get on board of directors."

Breede looked across the table to Grandma. There seemed to be alarm in his face.

"Given it up, though," continued Bean. "Can't be robbing tired business men. Rather be a baseball king if you come down to that. I'll own three four major league clubs before year's out. See 'f I don't! 'S only kind of king I want to be--wake me up any time in the night and ask me--old George W. Baseball King. 'S my name. I been other kings enough. Nothing in it. You wouldn't believe it if I told you I was a king of Egypt once, 'way back, thous'n's years before you were ever born. I had my day; pomps and attentions and powers. But I was laid away in a mummy case--did that in those days--thous'n's and thous'n's of years before you were ever born--an' that time I was Napoleon ..."

He stopped suddenly, feeling that the room had grown still. He had been hearing a voice, and the voice was his own. What had he said? Had he told them he was nothing, after all? He gazed from face to face with consternation. They looked at him so curiously. There was an embarrassing pause.

The flapper, he saw, was patting his hand at the table's edge.

"No one ever hurt you while I'm around," he said, and then he glared defiantly at the others. The old gentleman, whose young friend he was, began an anecdote, saying that of course he couldn't render the Irish dialect, also that if they had heard it before they were to be sure and let him know. Apparently no one had heard it before, although Breede left the table for the telephone.

Bean kept the flapper's hand in his. And when the anecdote was concluded everybody arose under cover of the applause, and they were in that drawing-room again where the thing had happened.

The waster chattered volubly to every one. Grandma and the bride's mother were in earnest but subdued talk in a far corner. Breede came to them.

"Chap's plain dotty," said Breede. "Knew something was wrong."

"Your mother's doing," said Mrs. Breede.

"U-u-u-mm!" said the Demon. "I'll go with them."

"I shall also go with my child," said the mother. "James, you will go too."

But Breede had acted without waiting to talk.

"Other car'll be here, 'n' I telephoned for quarters on boat. 'S full up, but they'll manage. Chap might cut her throat."

"U-u-u-mm!" said the Demon.

"Half pas' ten," reminded Breede. "Hurry!"

Bean had accosted the waster.

"Always take fumed eggs for breakfast," he cautioned. "Of course, little fruit an' tea an' things."

"Your father's had a sudden call to Paris. We're going with him," said the Demon, appearing bonneted.

"What boat?" demanded the flapper in quick alarm.

"Your's," said the Demon.

"Jolly party, all together," said Bean cordially. "He coming, too?" He pointed to the old gentleman, but this it seemed had not been thought of.

"He better come too," insisted Bean. "I'm his young friend, and this is indeed a happy moment. Jus' little ol' las' year's steamer."

"You're tagging," accused the flapper viciously, turning to the Demon.

* * * * *

Bean awoke late that night, believing he was dead--that he had fallen in sleep and been laid unto his fathers. But the narrow grave was unstable. It heaved and rolled as if to expel him.

Slowly he remembered. First he identified his present location. He was in an upper berth of that little old steamer. Outside a little round window was the whole big ocean and beneath him slept a man from Hartford, Conn. He had caught the city's name on the end of the man's steamer trunk and been enraged by it. Hartford was a city of rascals. The man himself looked capable of any infamy. He was tall and thin, and wore closely trimmed side-whiskers of a vicious iron gray. He regarded Bean with manifest hostility and had ostentatiously locked a suit-case upon his appearance.

So much for his whereabouts. How had he come there? Laboriously, he went over the events of the afternoon. They were hazy, but certain peaks jutted above the haze. They were "tagged," as the flapper had surmised they were going to be. Aboard the little old steamer had appeared Breede and Julia and the Demon. They had called the flapper aside and apparently told her something for her own good, though the flapper had not liked it, and had told them with much spirit that they were to perfectly mind their own affairs.

Bean had fled into the throng on deck. His hat had received many dents, and when he emerged to a clear space at the far end of the boat he had discovered that his perfectly new watch was gone. He was being put upon, and meekly submitting to it as in that other time when he had not believed himself to be somebody. He stared moodily over the rail as the little old steamer moved out. Thousands of people on the dock were waving handkerchiefs and hats. They seemed to be waving directly at him and yelling. Above it all, he was back in the bird-and-animal store, hearing the parrot shriek over and over, "Oh, what a fool! Oh, what a fool!"

He made an adventurous way through all kinds of hurried people, back to that group of queerly behaving Breedes. The flapper was showing traces of tears, but also a considerable acrimony. She was threatening to tell the captain to just perfectly turn the little old steamer back. But it came to nothing. At least to nothing more than Bean's sharing the stateroom of the Hartford man, who had covered the lower berth with his belongings so that there might be no foolish mistake.

And that was because there had been no provision made on the little old steamer for this invasion of casual Breedes. Pops and Moms had secured an officer's room; the Demon, rather than sit up in the smoking-room of nights, had consented to share the flapper's suite; and Bean had been taken in charge by a cold-blooded steward who left him in the narrow quarters of the Hartford person.

And there, in the far night, he was wishing he might be back in the steam-heated apartment with Nap. He had a violent headache, and he had awakened from a dream of falling into a well of cool, clear water of which he thirstily drank. His narrow bed behaved abominably, rolling him from side to side, then letting his head sink to some far-off terrifying depth. And there was no way of leaving that little old steamer ... not for a man who couldn't swim a stroke.

So he suffered for long miserable hours. Light broke through the little round windows, and outside he could see the appalling waste of water, foaming, seething, rising to engulf him. He couldn't recall mounting to that high place where he had slept. He wondered if the callous steward would sometime come to take him down. Perhaps the steward would forget.

The man from Hartford bestirred himself and was presently shaving before the small glass. Bean looked sullenly down at him. The man was running a wicked-looking razor perilously about his restless Adam's apple. He was also lightly humming "The Holy City."

"Watkins," said Bean distinctly, recalling the name that had revealed the fictitious and Hartford origin of It.

"Adams," said the man, breaking off his song and tightening a leathery cheek for the razor.

"Adam's apple," said Bean, scornfully. "Watkins!"

The man glanced at him and painfully twisted up a corner of his mouth while he applied the razor to the other corner. But he did not speak.

"Think there's a doctor on this little old steamer?" demanded Bean.

The man from Hartford laid down his weapon and began to lave his face.

"I believe," he spluttered, "that medical attendance is provided for those still in mortal error."

"'S'at _so_?" demanded Bean, sullenly.

The man achieved another bar of "The Holy City," and fondly dusted his face with talcum powder, critically observing the effect.

"If you will go into the silence," he at length said, "and there hold the thought of the all-good, you will be freed from your delusion."

"Humph!" said Bean and turned his face from the Hartford man.

The latter locked his razor into a toilet-case, locked the toilet-case into a suit-case, and seemed to debate locking the suit-case into a little old steamer trunk. Deciding, however, that his valuables were sufficiently protected, and that nothing was left out to excite the cupidity of a man to whom he had not been properly introduced, the person from Hartford went forth with a final retort.

"'As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he!'"

"'S'at _so_?" said Bean insolently to the closed door.

He roused himself and descended precariously from his shelf. Once upon his feet he was convinced that the ship was foundering. He hurriedly dressed and adjusted a life-belt from one of a number he saw behind a rack. Over the belt he put on a serviceable rain-coat. It seemed to be the coat to wear.

Outside he plunged through narrow corridors until he came to a stairway. He mounted this to be as far away from the ocean as possible. He came out upon a deck where people were strangely not excited by the impending disaster. Innocent children romped, oblivious to their fate, while callous elders walked the deck or reclined in little old steamer chairs.