Part 5

“Now, boys,” said the story-teller, “I want to give ye a tip. Ye all know Higgins’ fine, high feelings about honor, an’ if he hears that Bill Wiley is goin’ around to see his lady he’ll come to Bill an’ tell him the truth about her, an’ it’ll be all off. Bill ain’t goin’ to marry a woman that lived with a man that she wasn’t married to. I know Bill.”

“Yes, you know Bill, but you don’t know human nature,” said John Hogan. “If Higgins goes to Bill an’ tells him about that woman’s past, Bill’ll think that Higgins wants the woman himself, an’ it’ll make him, more keen to marry her. He knows that he isn’t a circumstance to Higgins on looks, an’ he knows that Higgins is a real lady’s man; so, anyway, you take it, poor Bill is doomed.”

Bill was doomed. In less than a week he had showered presents of silk garments, necklaces, diamond rings, bracelets and other articles of adornment to the value of a thousand dollars upon Higgins’ lady. He refurnished her rooms in fine style and gave her five hundred dollars for pocket money. It was at this juncture that Higgins called upon Bill Wiley and asked him all about it.

“I love the lady; I adore her,” said Bill, in ecstacy.

It was then that Higgins told him of the woman’s past. They sat together on the veranda of the bachelor house, while John Hogan, the sleuths, the story-teller and some other bachelors sat huddled together awaiting the outcome. All believed that Bill would give the woman up, except John Hogan. He knew men, and, as he predicted, Higgins’ revelation made Bill more determined than ever to become attached to the lady by the bonds of holy wedlock. So, when the boys heard Bill say to Higgins, “Man, you’re only sore,” they coughed in unison.

“It’s none of your business. You’re a liar. You’re jealous,” etc.

“Poor Higgins is gettin’ it in the neck,” said the story-teller, “and it serves him darn well right.”

“Yes, here are us fellers, trying to get her took off his hands, an’, because of his fine notion of honor, he can’t keep his mouth shut. ’Tis goin’ to hurry things up, an’ in a week the lady will be tied up to Bill. Bill’ll be as happy as a big sunflower, an’ we’ll have young Higgins back with his fiddle and banjo to make things a bit lively for us.”

HIGGINS’ LADY.

(PART III.)

About a week after Higgins had had his heart-to-heart talk with Bill Wiley a wedding took place, which was attended by the story-teller, the sleuths, young Higgins and John Hogan. It was he who gave the bride away. When the final words were spoken which made Anita Calafain Mrs. William Wiley a sigh of relief went up from the assembled witnesses. Higgins’ face was alight with joy as he handed the bride into a carriage. Bill Wiley was a benedict. The bride wore a white satin gown, trimmed with Italian lace, and a very beautiful white hat that had been imported at much cost for the occasion of the wedding. They were whirled away to the strains of a full string band, and then Higgins said something that was strange for him to say. “Boys,” said he, “there is a God, after all, and he has heard my prayers. I have paid dearly for one hour’s frolic in my life, but I am glad to-night that I have done the right thing, according to my code, for that vain, miserable, wretched woman. I tried to save Bill, but he wouldn’t listen, so I have done everything according to the dictates of my conscience.”

“Bill is the happiest man alive, so what matter what will turn up later?” said John Hogan.

“Something will surely turn up,” said Higgins, “for that woman was born to torment her fellow-beings.”

“She’ll lead Bill around by the nose, poor devil, and he won’t know a thing about what will be going on when his back is turned,” said one of the sleuths.

“What the eyes can’t see, the heart can’t feel,” said the story-teller.

“Come, boys,” said Higgins, with sudden hilarity, “let us get drunk. I have never been drunk in my life, so I want to feel what the sensation is like.”

So young Higgins got drunk for the first time in his life, and Bill Wiley, on wings of love, went on his honeymoon. Six weeks later the big bachelor house was in a blaze of light. Every one was happy. It was Saturday night, and pay-night. The village ladies and their husbands wandered through the quiet streets, especially near to the house where the bachelors dwelt, for Higgins was playing the violin, and that meant something to that village.

“My! What a change there has been in the lad since that baggage got married,” whispered the story-teller to one of the sleuths.

“Looks like a different man,” put in John Hogan.

“I wonder how poor Bill is making out with her?” asked the story-teller.

“Gawd to tell,” said the sleuth.

“I bet she’s leadin’ him a devil of a race,” said the other sleuth.

“They ought to be here now. They went away six weeks ago to-day,” said John Hogan.

Just now Bill Wiley entered that bachelor quarter and walked slowly and painfully toward the group of men that were talking about him.

“Speak of the devil, and he’ll appear,” said John Hogan.

“Why, you’re looking all in, Bill,” said the story-teller.

“All in?” echoed Bill. “I’m worse than that, boys.”

“How is the lady?” asked one of the sleuths.

“I don’t know how she is now, and I don’t care.”

“You don’t care? You don’t?” said the group, in chorus.

“Why, Bill, what’s happened?”

“Why, that lady is a she-devil. She and her brother fleeced me of five thousand dollars. I ain’t had a night’s rest since I left the Isthmus with her. She never give me a lovin’ word nor a lovin’ look, nor a minute’s peace of mind.”

“And where is she now, Bill?” asked John Hogan.

“Gawd knows. I lit out and left her with the man that she said was her brother in Havana.”

“What sort of a looking man was he?” asked Higgins, becoming interested.

“He was the goldurndest lookin-pirate that I ever seen in all my life,” answered Bill, becoming very red in the face.

“Tell us all about it, Bill,” said Higgins, drawing his chair very near, and speaking in a kindly tone.

“Well, the night we left ye fellers and went to Colon, the pirate showed up for the first time, an’ he come with us to the hotel; so the lady said that she wanted a room all to herself, an’ I took a room for myself. In the morning I went and paid the bills, but I didn’t pay his, and he pulled a gun on me; he carried four all ready for use. Then I went an’ bought our ticket an’ she said she wouldn’t go unless I took her dear brother; so, for peace sake, I bought a ticket for him. Then she said she wanted her dear brother to have a stateroom next ours, an’ for peace sake I had to let him have it. Well, sir, they treated me like a nigger waiter during the trip, an’, for peace sake, I couldn’t say nothin’. All the men on the ship was in love with her, but they said that the pirate wan’t her brother at all; that he was a guy that she was in love with, an’ I had to stand for it. They said I was a fool for puttin’ up with things the way I did, an’, say, I sure was; but what could I do, when that guy had a gun in every pocket an’ didn’t think it was any more harm to use one on me than if I was a rat? Well, to make a long story short, they got me in a room in the hotel in Havana the night before I left, an’ they cleaned me out of every cent I had, then he pointed a gun at me an’ told me to leave the hotel without sayin’ anythin’, or he’d riddle me with bullets. I pretended to swaller the diamond ring, an’ they fell for that bluff, so I pawned it the next day to pay my passage down here; an’ here I am. Five thousand of me money is gone, an’ all me clothes, me gold watch and chain, an’ I’m feelin’ like a damn fool. My stomach ain’t workin’ any more, an’ the first thing I’ll have to do will be to see Dr. Deeks, for I’m feelin’ bum.”

During this narration the group exchanged meaning glances. Higgins looked like a man dazed, and beads of perspiration fell from his forehead. For five minutes there was silence, and then the story-teller said, with calmness: “No good ever yet come out of a man bein’ as honorable as Higgins. It ain’t right. If he hadn’t been so darned honorable about that lady he’d a sent her about her business, an’ poor Bill wouldn’t be in this mess.”

“My life is spoiled,” said Bill, with a sob. “I never could trust another lady in this world, an’ besides, I’m married to her now, anyway. Here’s the situation: I’m a ruined an’ broken man, an’ it’s all on account of Higgins.”

“Yes, you’re right, Bill,” said Higgins. “I’m the cause of all your troubles. The lady put it all over us for fair. She got about three thousand dollars out of me, and her bluff prevented me from marrying the best little girl in the U. S. A.”

“‘Tis no use talkin’, a woman can make a monkey of a man,” said John Hogan.

“But life is no good without ’em,” said the story-teller.

“I don’t see how I’m goin’ to live without her,” said Bill. “I can’t forget her.”

“You will have to, I’m afraid,” said Higgins, “for that man whom she called her brother was the fellow she used to call husband in the old war days.”

Some months later Bill Wiley was called to the great tribunal at Culebra. When he arrived there he was requested to support his wife, whom he had wilfully abandoned in Havana. Complaint had been made by the American Consul that the wife of Bill Wiley, of the Canal Zone, was suffering for the necessities of life.

“Well, here’s where I’ll take a hand,” said Higgins. “Gawd bless you,” said Bill Wiley, “for I sure am in bad.”

So Higgins took passage for Havana, and, some few days after, Bill Wiley received the following cablegram:

“Our lady and the pirate are in the penitentiary.

“HIGGINS.”

THE GANG IN NUMBER 10.

The highbrows of Number 10 were having an argument as they sat in the dim light of the veranda of the big bachelor house.

It was Saturday night, and the less intellectual inmates were in the city seeing the sights.

“I guess I’ll play a tune,” said Higgins, who was one of the group.

That was just what had happened every Saturday night since fate had brought the men together.

Iky Gillstein, who had formerly been a Jew, but who now read Schopenhauer and quoted him on every occasion, and John Hogan, who read such books as A. Kempis’ “Life of Christ,” and who quoted him whenever Iky quoted his favorite philosopher, had the argument, as was their custom, and when Higgins found that it had gone far enough he played his violin until the Celtic and Semetic tempers had cooled down to normal.

In the gang were Bill Wiley, who had been disappointed in love, and, later, in marriage, and had taken to reading deep books as an antidote for the poison of love, and George Toby, who read the books that John Hogan read, in order to criticize and argue about them; then there was Fuller, who stepped in with a final word that always put an end to the argument.

Fuller was, according to John Hogan, the “most knowledgable” man on the Isthmus of Panama, except, of course, the Colonel himself.

The men of Number 10 were nicknamed “The Highbrows” because of their studious habits and intellectual conversation. Higgins had reorganized that bachelor house and brought peace and harmony out of chaos. The clerks, or penpushers, he had segregated to one end of the building, and the men who were engaged in work of a more strenuous nature he placed farthest from the dude clerks, and because of this there was less ill-feeling than in most other habitations of the kind on the Isthmus.

As I said before, the highbrows were smoking on the dimly lit veranda, and Higgins had just started to play the violin.

“I’m glad to see you all, boys,” said a voice from somewhere outside. “Who’s that?” asked John Hogan, peering through the wire netting.

“‘Tis only me, boys,” answered the voice.

“It’s that damm fool Percy again,” said Iky, under his breath.

“Come in, Percy,” said Higgins, in a cordial tone.

“Well, she’s gone for good this time, boys, and I’m all in.” The listeners groaned.

“Have you tried to get her back?” asked Higgins.

“I’ve tried in every way, but she hides from me, and says she hates me. Oh, God! What shall I do? I can’t get along without my queen. I love her, boys. I love her more than my soul, and God knows I treated her well,” said Percy, dropping into a chair and mopping his brow; “but I won’t live long, boys. I feel the last string of my heart giving way. I’m a goner. I don’t want to live. I have a little bottle of poison in my pocket right now, and if my heart don’t break soon, I’ll take it and shuffle off.”

“How long have you been married to the lady?” asked John Hogan.

“Three years,” said Percy, with a long-drawn sigh.

“You ought to be pretty tired of her by this time,” said Iky Gillstein. “If I had a woman around the house with me for three years I’d be darned glad to get rid of her.”

“You’re a brute, Iky,” said Bill Wiley, “and you ain’t got no more heart than a woman. I kin put myself in your place, Percy; I’ve been through it, boy. Why, when that lady that I married throwed me down, two years ago, I couldn’t eat, sleep, nor think. If it hadn’t been for Higgins an’ Hogan, I’d ‘a’ gone mad, an’ took poison, an’ God knows I had poison enough in my system. What’s love but poison?”

“Love is a loco germ, Bill,” said Percy dramatically, “an’ when it enters a fellow’s system it ain’t any use squirmin’. He might as well take his medicine.”

“Love left many a man in a darned bad stew,” said John Hogan, “an’ a guy that ’ud fall in love twice ought to be put in the bughouse.”

“I’ve been there many a time,” said Percy. “That time I was in the Jameson raid in South Africa. I wouldn’t have been in it if I hadn’t been bad stuck on a girl that threw me down.” The listeners coughed and exchanged glances. They had heard many times of the Jameson raiders from Percy, and they had even seen the marks on his feet where he had been tied up by his heels.

“Schopenhauer says that women are--” “Shut up about that old Dutch heathen, for God’s sake,” said John Hogan, testily.

“There is a good deal of truth in what he says about women,” put in Toby.

“How in God’s name could a heathen tell the truth?” asked Hogan, as he refilled his pipe.

“Do you know,” said Fuller, “that I’ve been reading A. Kempis’ ‘Life of Christ,’ and it is the best life of Him that I ever read. He was a humorist, wasn’t He?”

“He was that, as well as every other thing,” said John Hogan, approvingly.

“I have never heard Him spoken of as a humorist before,” put in Higgins. Iky Gillstein grunted.

“Wasn’t it humorous of Him that time the Sheenies were going to stone that Merry Widow to death, when He said, ‘Prepare,’ and they all got ready with their little pile of rocks, and they stood scratching their heads, waiting for Christ to speak, and when He spoke He said, as the Merry Widow knelt at His feet, ‘Let ye that are without fault throw the first stone,’ and the devil a rock they threw, and the Merry Widow went her way in peace and behaved herself ever after?”

“The Merry Widow gave the gang the wink,” said Iky, cynically.

“That’s like something the Colonel would do,” said Percy. “In fact, he done something slick like that to me once. It was when I was living at Empire with my first wife, before she got the divorce and I married my darling that has just left me.

“I was an inspector then, and my job was to look after women that were supposed to be a little bit shady. My wife was jealous of me, and I had to pretend that I didn’t like the work.

“Well, anyway, there was one particular woman who was a little beauty, and I got kind of stuck on her, but there was nothing doing with me. She loved the guy that her husband was suspicious of, but she gave me an introduction to a woman who was almost as good-looking, but who didn’t have her charms.

“About this time her husband went on night duty, and he sent in to Culebra to have his wife watched, so I was sent out to do the watching. I prolonged the case all I could, and reported that I couldn’t find any clew, while all the time I was havin’ a howling time at her house nights. She used to have stuff to drink, and she and the guy I was supposed to shadow and the woman that she introduced me to would eat and drink, play cards and love.

“Finally the neighbors began to catch on, and I was afraid that they might come around with some other gumshoe man who’d report, and then the jig would be up, so I sent in a report that there was nothing wrong in the conduct of the woman.

“A copy of this letter was sent to her husband, and he was so tickled and so sorry that he had suspected her that he told her that she might have a vacation for three months, and he gave her five hundred dollars, and she went away to her home in the South; and the petted gink who didn’t have a cent to his name went on the next boat, met her in Kansas City, and they went to Quebec and stayed there till the five hundred was used up. Then she wrote to her husband that she couldn’t live any longer away from him, so he sent her a couple of hundred more to bring her back to the Isthmus.

“Meantime my affair was hot stuff with the other one, and I used to meet her in town three times a week. I was kept pretty busy, because the women were cutting up scandalously all along the line, and we deported a lot of them.

“To make a long story shorter, I had made a date to meet my loving kid in town one Saturday, but my wife said that she wanted to come in with me. I telephoned a guy who knew everything about me, a friend he was, and he sent me a telegram and signed it with the name of the Captain of Police. When my wife saw that she said she’d wait and go some other day, because she didn’t want to interfere with my duty.

“Right then a message came from the Colonel stating that he wanted to see me. I suspected that it was another case for me to go out on, so I hurried down to the station, jumped on to a hand-car and got to Culebra in time to have the interview over and catch the 1 p. m. train for Panama.

“I’ll never forget the look in the Colonel’s eyes when I went in and stood before him.

“‘What cases have you on hand now?’ says he, looking me over, from the crown of my head to the tops of my shoes.

“‘Women cases, Colonel,’ says I.

“‘That’s well,’ says he, kind of mild, and he gave me that funny look again. ‘You like to hunt them down?’

“I didn’t like his voice, but he turned away and began to sign some papers. He had said it, however, in that calm, even tone of his, and I thought he meant it, so I said, ‘I try to do my duty, Colonel.’

“Then he gave me a very funny look, and, says he, with awful calmness, as he picked up a big, fat envelope from the desk, ‘Take this and report to me Monday afternoon.’

“He turned again to his papers, and I tiptoed out. There was something strange about the atmosphere of that office that affected me, but I put the envelope in my inside pocket, and as I had to run like mad to catch the train, I forgot all about it.

“It wouldn’t be fair to the woman to tell about the good time I had in town that afternoon, and I didn’t get back home that night till the last train. The wife was waiting up for me, and she had some good grub ready for me to eat, a club sandwich, some salad and a bottle of cold beer. She chatted and laughed and said she was getting a new dress made and she wanted a couple of dollars to buy some lace for the sleeves and neck, but I told her I couldn’t give her any more money until after next pay day. When I told her that she gave me a funny look that made me feel like I felt when the Colonel looked at me in such a queer way that forenoon. She didn’t say another word, but went off to bed, and I took the envelope from my pocket and tore it open. I was going to read what was inside that night, but the lights went out and didn’t come on again, so I laid it on the sideboard in the dining-room, and turned in myself.

“In the morning I got up to eat my breakfast, but there was no breakfast ready, no wife in sight, and no fire. Thinks I, I’ll go to the mess hall an’ get my breakfast, so I went to put on my coat, and I found the big envelope pinned to the sleeve. When I opened it my wife’s wedding ring fell out. Tied to this was a bit of paper, and on this was written, in my wife’s handwriting, ‘If you had been honorable about the secrets of others, your own secrets would not have been betrayed to me.’

“I sat down then and read the papers. Everything that I had ever done on the Isthmus since I came was known to the Colonel.

“‘My God!’ says I to myself, ‘what am I going to do? There’s going to be about ten husbands around with shotguns, so I’d better get away.’

“I went to Culebra on Monday, though I hated to do it. I saw it was all over with me, so I put on a bold front when I went into the Colonel’s office. ‘Well,’ I says, when I was inside the door, ‘I guess I’m through.’

“‘Yes,’ says the Colonel calmly, ‘your wife will go to-morrow afternoon. Better prepare to follow her soon.’

“Well the wife went, and I have not seen her since. She got a divorce from me, and then I married my queen, who is gone astray now.”

The listeners coughed, and Gillstein, who had listened attentively during the whole of the recital, said: “But you didn’t tell us how you got back here.”

“I never went away,” said Percy. “I resigned from the Commission, but after a time I went to the Colonel again and told him I was hard up and my wife was sick in the States, and he gave me, for her sake, the dump foreman’s job. It was after that that I married again.”

“Where did you meet your second wife?” asked John Hogan.

“Suppose we change the subject,” said Higgins quickly.

Gillstein winked at Hogan, and there was a pause, which was finally broken by Percy, who said calmly: “I met her in a resort on Cash Street, Colon, and I’m afraid she’ll go back there now, and that’s what’s eatin’ my heart out.... Well, I must go out to Panama now. It’s nearly ten o’clock. I spend my nights watching her. Good night, fellows. Thanks for talking to me and trying to cheer me up.”

“Good night,” said the Highbrows in chorus.

Percy tiptoed out softly, and his stealthy footsteps had died away in the distance before the silence was broken, again by Gillstein, who said: “It can’t be true, after all, that all men are just dead, and that there’s no more about ’em. There’s a special little Hell somewhere for Percy Beckle.”

“Now you’re talking like a Christian,” said John Hogan. “Play us ‘The Wearing of the Green,’ Higgins.”

THE MAN FROM NUMBER 9.

“The fellows in Number 9 are all upset over that new man,” said Bill Wiley, as he filled his pipe and prepared to settle himself to read “Three Weeks,” a book that very much interested him.

“What new man?” asked John Hogan.

“A new man that the Colonel sent over. He’s a timekeeper, and is getting only about $75 a month,” answered Bill.

“What’s the matter with him?” quickly asked Higgins.

“The fellers say that he’s been a jailbird, an’ they don’t want him in the house. Some of ’em telephoned to the Colonel, but he did not give ’em any satisfaction, only said that he desired the man to stay in Number 9; that he sent him to Balboa, and that if any of the men complained about living with him they could get out themselves.”

“That’s just like the Colonel,” said Higgins. “What business is it of that bunch of mutts if the poor devil has been in jail, if he’s behaving himself now?”

“Schopenhauer says that all men are--” began Ikey.

“For the love of Mike, don’t spring him on us again,” said Wiley. “I thought you had given up reading his book, anyway,” he continued.

“He says some darn good things,” said Ikey.

“But not about his fellow-creatures, an’ the person under discussion is a man, an’ not a dawg,” said Hogan, tersely.

“Let’s hear more about this new man, Bill,” said Higgins.