Part 5

Rising from the table he kissed his unhappy daughter affectionately, and, bidding her good-night, he went to the club, where he paid his delinquent dues and house charges and set out once more upon a tolerably care-free existence for five days at least.

"A short life and a merry one!" he muttered to himself, as he paid in a hundred dollars for a supply of red and blue chips.

Meanwhile, poor Gasmerilda sat white-faced, and eyes wide with fear and perplexity, staring at that horrible bale of straw that occupied the middle of the floor of her dainty boudoir. She had no more idea of how to spin it into gold than she had of making over her last year's gingham bath-robe into this year's panne-velvet opera gown. Hourly her distress grew, until finally the floodgates of her tears broke, and she burst into a passionate convulsion of weeping. But, even as the tears began to flow, there came a faint golden tinkle on the jeweled 'phone that stood on her escritoire. At first she paid no attention to the unexpected tintinnabulation, but the tinkling soon became more pronounced and so persistent that she finally answered it.

"Is that you, Gasmerilda?" came a quaint little voice over the wire.

"Yes," she sobbed. "Who is this?"

"There are tears in your voice, Gasmerilda," came the quaint little voice.

"They are all over the place," wept the unhappy girl.

"And I know why," said the little voice, sympathetically. "I am your fairy godmother, Gasmerilda, and I have not ceased to watch over you. Your father has negotiated a loan on your remarkable gift of spinning straw into gold, has he not?"

"Yes," sobbed Gasmerilda, "and I have no such gift."

"Well, don't worry, my child," said the little voice. "When you were a baby you once offered a part of your school orange to a starving kitten, and she has not forgotten it. I was that kitten and I have kept my eye on you ever since, and now I am going to help you out. If you will do exactly what I tell you to do all will be well."

Gasmerilda, with a great sigh of relief, promised to be faithful to her fairy godmother's instructions.

"Oh, you dear!" she cried, impulsively.

"Go to-morrow, the first thing in the morning," said the fairy godmother, "to the United States Assay Office on Wall Street, taking with you the money your father gave you this evening at dinner, and buy a one-thousand-dollar bar of gold."

"But, Fairy Godmother," Gasmerilda interrupted, "I--I must use that money to pay off my bridge I. O. U.'s to-morrow."

"I have arranged for all that," laughed the fairy godmother. "Those I. O. U.'s will never be presented. Transforming myself into a mouse, I have entered the escritoires of the ladies holding your notes of hand, and have eaten every single one of them."

Gasmerilda's heart leaped with joy.

"Oh, Fairy Godmother!" she cried. "Can't you get rid of father's note in the same way?"

"No, my dear," sighed the little voice. "That note, unfortunately, is stored away in a steel vault, and my teeth are not strong enough to nibble through that. I have a more business-like method to get you both out of your troubles. After you have purchased the bar of gold, take it home with you and devise some convenient means of getting rid of the straw without anybody seeing you do it. The best way to do this will be to carry an armful of it at a time up on to the roof of your house and let it blow away; and then, when next Monday comes, and your father is required to deliver the first consignment of the precious metal to Colonel Midas, go with him to the Colonel's office, yourself, taking the gold bar with you, and see that it is really delivered. Wear your most bewitching hat, and don't fail to remember what a woman's eyes were given her for."

"Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!" cried Gasmerilda, a great wave of happiness sweeping over her. "If I could get at you, dear Fairy Godmother, over the 'phone, I should hug you to death."

"That is all right, child. My reward will come later," replied the fairy godmother. "When your profits begin to come in you may pay me a commission of ten per cent. on all you get."

"Gladly. I'll make it fifteen per cent.," cried the grateful girl. "But how shall you be paid?"

"By check, dear, drawn to the order of The Fairy's Aid Society of America, of which I am the president," was the answer. "The address is just Wall Street, New York. And now, sweet dreams, my beloved ward. The sun of your troubles has set, and the dawn of prosperity is here."

With a happy smile Gasmerilda wished her kindly friend good-night, and retired to her couch and slept the sleep of a weary child. Bright and early the next morning, with her little gold-chain purse containing the necessary funds dangling from her chatelaine, she appeared at the assay office, and purchased there a shining bar of the lustrous metal, returning to her home in time for luncheon.

"Well, daughter," said the miller, as he met her in the hallway, "how does the good work proceed?"

"Very well, indeed, father," she said, with a cheery smile. "I'm a little out of practise, but I managed to spin about ninety-eight dollars' worth last night before going to bed."

The miller blinked amazedly at his daughter. This answer was indeed the most extraordinary substitute for the floods of tears he had expected to greet his question.

"You--you--you dud--don't--m--m--mean to sus--say--" he stammered.

"Father, dear, did you ever try to cut calves-foot jelly with a steel knife?" she asked.

"Yes, child, yes--but what of that?" he demanded, completely nonplussed.

"Well, dear," she answered, kissing him on the tip end of his nose, "that is hard labor compared to spinning gold out of straw."

She ran from him, laughing merrily as she hurried up the stairs to her room, while he, staggering back against the newel-post of the staircase, leaned on it, breathing heavily.

"If that's the case," he said, as with trembling hands he took a set of false whiskers and a steerage ticket for Naples from his pocket, "I shall not need these."

Nevertheless, prudence bade him wait until he had seen the gold before destroying the paraphernalia of his possible flight, and oh, the joy of that Saturday morning, when Gasmerilda, having, by an almost super-human effort, having rid herself of the straw as her fairy godmother had bade her to do, led her trembling father into her boudoir and showed him the glittering bar!

"Are you sure it's real?" he quavered.

"I have had it stamped at the assay office, father," she replied. "See!"

And she showed him the stamps of the authorized government test.

"My child!" he cried, dancing about the room in a delirium of joy. "My beloved, my beautiful daughter--was ever miller so blessed as I! Wait!"

Rushing madly to the jeweled 'phone, he rang up Colonel Midas.

"Excuse me for bothering you, Colonel," he said, excitedly, "but this is Miller. I thought you would be interested to know that my daughter has turned the trick a little sooner than I expected. If you want to see the gold to-day instead of waiting until Monday, all you've got to do is to say so."

The wire fairly sizzled with the reply. Of course, Colonel Midas would not wait. In fact, he'd be right up. How much did the miller think the gold would pan out?

"Oh, about a thousand dollars," replied the miller.

"What?" roared Midas. "A thousand dollars' worth of gold from a seven-dollar bub--bale of straw?"

"That's the assay office estimate," said the miller, with a smile. "You can't very well go behind that."

The answer was a long, low whistle, and within twenty minutes the great financier's car came chugging up to the door, and he entered the house, bringing with him a chemist.

"By Jingo! Miller," he cried, after the chemist had applied every known test to the bar and declared it to be, beyond all question, the real stuff, "by Jingo, old man, our fortune is made. This is the greatest cinch in the history of finance."

"Looks that way," said the miller, calmly, leaning forward and tossing the steerage ticket into the waste-basket.

"We--er--we must keep it in the family, Miller," the Colonel added, slapping the proud father familiarly on the knee--for Gasmerilda had remembered the fairy godmother's injunction as to the use of her eyes.

"I intend to, Colonel," said the miller, dryly. "I'll keep it in _my_ family if you don't mind--"

Midas gasped, and then he laughed sheepishly.

"To think that I, a hardened old bachelor, should be a victim to love at first sight!" he said.

"Very funny indeed," laughed the miller.

"What would you say to me as a son-in-law, eh?" Midas went on. "You know I'm a decent chap, old man. No funny business about my private life--it's a good chance to get your daughter settled in life, and--"

"Well, I don't know," said the miller, coolly. "You are generally considered to be a fairly eligible sort of person, Midas, but my daughter can afford to marry for love as long as the straw crop holds good."

A glitter came into Midas's eye.

"What if I were to corner the market?" he demanded.

"That would be bad for Gasmerilda and me," the miller agreed. "Mind you, I haven't said I disapproved of the match, but let's be perfectly frank with each other. I'm not going to sell my daughter to you or to anybody else, but you know how things run these days. A man's a millionaire to-day and a member of the down-and-out club to-morrow. Now, I don't know the first blessed thing about your prospects. You are rich now, but who knows that before 1915 you won't be in a federal jail somewhere without a nickel?"

"I see your point," said Midas, "and I'll settle five million on her to-morrow."

"Real money?" he demanded.

"Real money," said Midas.

"Done!" ejaculated the miller.

And so the papers settling five million dollars in approved securities upon the miller's daughter were executed, and three months later that invincible old bachelor, John W. Midas, for whom countless widows had set their caps in vain, was led to the altar by the blushing and happy Gasmerilda. The groom's gift to the bride was a princely one, consisting of ten million dollars' worth of the preferred stock of the newly organized American Straw and Hay Trust, of which Colonel Midas was president, a concern controlling all the leading straw industries of the United States and some said of foreign lands as well. The papers called it the most brilliant match of the season, but, none the less, the bride had some misgivings. She knew, and somehow or other in the perspective of the vista of wedded bliss ahead of her, no larger than a pin-head, she seemed at times to see the first faint symptoms of a cloud which might sooner or later obscure the whole heavens; aye, even that vast stretch of blue that reached from the easternmost part of New York to the westernmost boundaries of Reno, Nevada. Still, back of this was a silver--nay, a golden--lining, for Gasmerilda was now the possessor in her own right of five million dollars in real money, and with such a possession in hand one can stand a good deal of domestic misunderstanding.

And even then there was the chance that the sporting instincts of Colonel Midas would prove to be such that he would admire the genius back of the transmutation that had originally won him--in addition to which was the other fact that already, without a bale in sight, he had sold the public over fifty millions' worth of the common stock in the United States Straw and Hay Trust at 97-7/8.

The first check out of Gasmerilda's new account was as follows:

New York, January 17, 1911

No. 1

Pay to the order of The Fairy's Aid Society of America Seven hundred and fifty thousand Dollars ($750,000.00)

GASMERILDA MILLER MIDAS

And she lived extravagantly forever afterward.

V

THE INVISIBLE CLOAK

"I am very sorry, sorr," said the janitor as he turned off the heat and disconnected the electric lights. "'Tain't me as is doin' ut--ut's the owner of the buildin'. He says the rint ain't been paid for six mont's, and while he ain't hard-hearted enough to turn nobody out on the sthreet such weather as this, he don't see no use in dandlin' tinants what don't pay in no lap o' luxury."

Jack looked at the man in silence, completely stunned by this new development in a situation already sufficiently distressing.

"'Let him enjye all the pleasures of the roof, Mike,' says he," continued the janitor, "'but no wooin' of his beauty sleep to the soft music of the steam-radiator, nor 'lectric lights to cheer the dark places of his sperrit whin twilight comes. Ut's the land of the Midnight Sun for his till I see th' color of his bank account.'"

"But I shall freeze if you turn off the heat," protested Jack.

"That's the answer, I guess," returned the janitor. "Ut's a pretty cold snap we do be havin'."

Jack buried his face in his hands and groaned. Things had gone ill for the unhappy lad for a long time now, and the sudden precipitation of winter weather found him practically penniless. For one reason or another no one seemed to care for his poetry, and his last story, from the proceeds of which he had expected to make enough to tide him over for a little while at least, had been returned by every editor in town.

"Ut's mighty sorry for you, I am," said the kindly janitor, his heart stirred by the pitiable picture of suffering before him. "I'd be afther leavin' t'ings as they are if I dared, but the old man's orders--"

"I know, I know," said Jack, wearily, "but it's awfully tough just the same. I can get along without food, but without light and heat I don't see how I can do my work."

"I'll lend yez a candle, sorr," said the janitor. "That'll help some. Ye can warm your hands over the flame of ut while you're doin' your t'inkin', and ut'll give ye light enough to put down what ye t'ink in between times."

"Good old Mike!" said Jack, wringing the other by the hand warmly. "When my ship comes in you shall have a good slice of the cargo for that."

"Sure an' she ain't la'nched yet, is she?" asked the janitor, with a grin, and then, as Jack seemed to have sunk into a dejected reverie, he gathered up his tools and left the room.

An hour passed before the miserable lad even so much as raised his head.

"Jove! it's cold!" He shivered, as he gazed around him, the room bathed in the gathering shadows of twilight. "And to think that it was only last summer that I was complaining because this place was so infernally hot!"

His teeth chattered as he spoke, and he suddenly bethought himself of his fur-lined overcoat hanging in the closet, his very last possession, and one he had worn persistently of late, not so much because the temperature of the town required it as to maintain publicly an appearance of prosperity.

"I'll take one last wear out of you," he said, as he put it on, "and to-morrow I'll put you in cold storage at the house of mine Uncle. He already has my watch, my scarf-pin, and everything else that I have that is negotiable--he might as well top his collection off with you."

The thought that the useful old garment was still good enough to act as a satisfactory bit of security for a temporary accommodation at the neighboring pawnshop cheered him up somewhat, and he went out, seeking a comfortable spot where with his last half-dollar he could assuage the growing pangs of hunger. As he left the house he noticed that the snow was beginning to fall, so he decided not to go very far afield for his meal. A cheap restaurant half-way down the block, on the avenue, attracted his eye, and he went in and ordered his dinner--twenty-five cents' worth of roast beef and a cup of coffee for himself, and the balance to tip the waiter. He ate slowly, though this was not his habit, merely because the place was warm and bright, and as he lingered over his coffee he wrote a sonnet on life on the back of the bill of fare. Then, his account paid, he started back to his apartment. As he left the cafe the wheezing notes of a minute hand-organ playing "The Good Old Summer-time" fell upon his ear. It sounded very much like a talking-machine in the last stages of bronchitis, and then, suddenly, in the midst of a "B-flat" that sounded more like a sneeze than a note, a heartrending picture of misery and desolation smote upon his vision. On the corner, exposed to all the icy winds that blew up the avenue, and over the cross-streets from the river, huddled up into a seeming mass of rags, over which the falling snow was drifting, was the form of an aged woman, turning the crank of a battered and broken organ with fitful twists of her poor blue hands.

"Holy smoke!" cried Jack, as his eye fell upon the old woman's bent figure. "And I have been sympathizing with myself for the last four hours!"

In an instant he had whipped off his overcoat--the fur-lined coat that had been his only hope for immediate financial relief--and had thrown it across the poor old shoulders.

"Excuse me, madam," he said, as the old woman stopped grinding the organ to look gratefully up into his face. "If I had any money I'd give it to you, but I'm dead broke myself, and I can't help you that way. But, by thunder! I can't stand seeing you freeze!"

"Oh, I cannot take your coat, sir," the old woman began.

"Yes, you can," said Jack. "If you don't want it as an act of charity, let me have a quarter to buy my breakfast to-morrow morning, and you can have the coat for the time being. I'll rent it to you over-night for a quarter. You can return it in the morning. I live right across the street at the Redmere."

The old woman muttered a scarcely audible word of thanks.

"Heaven will reward you for this," she began.

"That's all right," said Jack, cheerfully. "I'm not looking for dividends of that particular kind. I'll consider it a good bargain if you'll just rent this old horse-blanket for the night for twenty-five cents. Then nobody will be under obligation to anybody else."

The old woman smiled even as she shivered, and diving down into the mysterious depths of her ragged garments produced a handful of pennies which she handed to the unexpected philanthropist.

"I will return the coat in the morning," she said. "Good-night!"

And again the withered hand began to turn the crank, and the suffering organ, as Jack sped across the way to the Redmere again, began to wheeze as before, taking a turn this time at that popular melody, "There'll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town To-night."

"Poor old hag!" muttered Jack as, without removing his clothes, he climbed into bed and covered himself in addition with the bath-rug. "I may be ninety-seven different kinds of an ass, but here's to the Heart of Folly! I couldn't let that old creature freeze to death under my very window."

And warmed by the thought of a kindly deed done he turned over and went to sleep.

So weary was the poor lad after the troublesome experiences of a day so full of worry that he slept heavily and far into the next morning. Indeed, it required all the elbow power of Mike, the janitor, hammering with his great fist upon the door, to awaken him.

"Hello, there! What the dickens do you want?" cried Jack, sleepily, aroused at last from his slumbers by a thunderous kick upon the door from the janitorial foot.

"Ut's me, sorr," replied Mike.

"Oh, it's you, is it?" said Jack, opening the door. "What's the trouble now? Orders from the landlord to stop my sleeping?"

"No, sorr," replied the janitor. "Sure an' I'm just afther bringin' yez a package lift at the door."

"Confound you, Mike!" growled Jack, with a glance at the clock. "Nobody can economize with a noise trust like you around. If you had only let me sleep an hour longer I could have saved the price of a breakfast!"

"Well, the lady that lift this bundle tould me to give ut yez without anny delay," returned Mike. "And whin annybody gives me a dollar to get a move on I get ut."

"A lady gave you a dollar to hand this bundle to me?" demanded Jack, incredulously.

"She did that," said Mike. "She come drivin' up in her limybean motor-car, and give me the package, and tould me not to let anny weeds grow under me slippers."

Jack rubbed his eyes in astonishment, and gazed wonderingly at the brown-paper package. What could it be? Certainly not his fur coat. A limousine car and the lady of the wheezy hand-organ did not seem to go together. In an instant, consumed with curiosity, he tore off the brown-paper covering, and found within a white pasteboard box, oblong in shape, and tied up with blue ribbon. Attached to the middle was a note, which, on being opened, revealed the following message to Jack's staring eyes:

THE UNITED STATES FAIRY COMPANY 8976 WALL STREET NEW YORK, _December 12, 1910_.

DEAR JACK,--I return your cloak herewith with many thanks for your kindness to

Yours gratefully, TITANIA J. GODMOTHER, President The United States Fairy Co.

"Well, I'll be blowed!" ejaculated the lad as he read. "The old lady a fairy? I don't know about this--it has a phony look to me!"

As he spoke he cut the blue ribbon with his penknife and opened the box. The mystery, instead of being solved, now became all the deeper, for as far as Jack's eye was able to see the box was empty.

The janitor grinned unsympathetically.

"Quare toime for an April-fool joke!" he said, as he left the room.

For a few moments Jack was as silent as the Sphinx, and then, with a sudden surge of wrath that any one should play such a trick upon him, he gave the box a kick that sent it flying across the room. It landed on a chair, the cover fell off, and then, mystery of mysteries, three-quarters of the chair disappeared wholly from sight. Again Jack rubbed his eyes in amazement, and slowly, like a trapper passing along a forest trail, he crept over to where the chair stood and put out his hand to feel for its missing parts. In a moment he was reassured as to their existence, for he could feel the outlines of the missing sections, but something apparently lay across them. It was a soft, silky material, tangible enough, but absolutely invisible. It felt like a cloak, and as Jack passed his hands along its folds he found that it had sleeves, buttons, buttonholes, and a hood at the back of its collar, not to mention several capacious pockets within.

"Huh!" he ejaculated. "It feels like an invisible ulster. I wonder--"

An idea flashed across his mind, acting upon which he seized the cloak, and rushed into his bedroom, where, standing before the mirror on his bureau, he put it on, buttoning it all the way up to his neck. This done, he glanced at himself in the glass.

_Only his head, which had remained uncovered, was reflected there!_

"Well of all--" he began, astounded at the vision before him, or rather the lack of it. Hastily he pulled the hood over his head, and immediately, as far as the eye could see, he completely vanished.

And then Jack knew what had happened.

The fairy godmother had given him one of the choicest possessions of her kingdom--the famous invisible cloak!

Ten minutes later Jack found himself passing through the Subway gate at Forty-second Street, entirely unobserved by anybody, and therefore relieved of the necessity of paying his fare. The invisible cloak was doing its duty nobly, but a moment later the lad had an example of its dangers as well as of its virtues, for as he sat quietly by the door of the car trying to collect his flustered thoughts, a very stout German gentleman got aboard the train and sat down heavily upon him. He did not stay, however, but on the contrary, with a startled cry of alarm, rose up as quickly as he had sat down.

"Dere iss somedings in dot seadt, alretty yet!" he cried to the guard, excitedly.