CHAPTER VII

On a certain bleak day in the month of March, J. Addison Hammond, Jr., tenaciously at work upon certain plans and drawings that were destined at a not far distant date to bring him a measure of fame and fortune, started impatiently from his seat and cursed that "gosh-ding-danged telephone."

Jerry at this stage of his picturesque career occupied what is known in New York City, and possibly other equally enlightened cities, as a duplex studio. Called "duplex" for no very clear reason. It consists of one very large room (called "atelier" by artistic tenants and those who have lived or wanted to live in France). This room is notable not merely for its size, but its height, the ceiling not unsimilar to the vaulted one of a church, or a glorified attic. Adjustable skylights lend the desired light. About this main room, and midway of the wall, is a gallery which runs on all four sides, and on this gallery are doors opening into sundry rooms designated as bedrooms. The arrangement is an excellent one, since it gives one practically two floors. That, no doubt, is why we call it "duplex." We have a weakness for one floor bungalows when we build houses these days, but for apartments and studios the epicure demands the duplex.

In this especial duplex studio there also abode one t, or as he was familiarly known to the friends of Jerry Hammond, "Hatty." Hatty, then, was the valet and man of all work in the employ of Jerry. He was a marvellous cook, an extraordinary house cleaner, an incomparable valet, and to complete the perfections of this jewel, possessed solely by the apparently fortunate Jerry, his manners, his face and his form were of that ideal sort seen only in fiction and never in life. Nevertheless the incomparable Hatton, or Hatty, was a visible fact in the life and studio of Jerry Hammond.

Having detailed the talents of Hatty, it is painful here to admit a flaw in the character of the otherwise perfect valet. This flaw he had very honestly divulged to Jerry at the time of entering his employ, and the understanding was that upon such occasions when said flaw was due to have its day, the master was to forbear from undue criticism or from discharging said Hatton from his employ. Hatton, at this time, earnestly assured the man in whose employ he desired to enter, that he could always depend upon his returning to service in a perfectly normal state, and life would resume its happy way under his competent direction.

It so happened upon this especial night, when that "pestiferous" telephone kept up its everlasting ringing--a night when Jerry hugged his head in his hands, calling profanely and imploringly upon Christian and heathen saints and gods to leave him undisturbed--that Hatton lay on his bed above, in a state of oblivion from which it would seem a charge of dynamite could not have awakened him.

For the fiftieth or possibly hundredth time Jerry bitterly swore that he would fire that "damned Englishman" (Hatton was English) on the following day. He had had enough of him. Whenever he especially needed quiet and service, that was the time the "damned Englishman" chose to break loose and go on one of his infernal sprees. For the fourth time within half an hour Jerry seized that telephone and shouted into the receiver:

"What in hades do you want?"

The response was a long and continuous buzzing, through which a jabbering female tongue screeched that it was Y. Dubaday talking. It sounded like "Y. Dubaday," but Jerry knew no one of that name, and so emphatically stated, adding to the fact that he didn't know anyone of that name and didn't want to, and if this was their idea of a joke----"

He hung up at this juncture, seized his head, groaned, walked up and down swearing softly and almost weeping with nervousness and distraction. Finally with a sigh of hopelessness as he realised the impossibility of concentrating on that night, Jerry gathered up his tools and pads, packed them into a portfolio, which he craftily hid under a mass of papers--Jerry knew where he could put his hands on any desired one--got his pipe, pulled up before the waning fire, gave it a shove, put on a fresh log, lit his pipe, stretched out his long legs, put his brown head back against the chair, and sought what comfort there might be left to an exasperated young aspirant for fame who had been interrupted a dozen times inside of an hour or so. Hardly had he settled down into this comparative comfort when that telephone rang again. Jerry was angry now--"hopping mad." He lifted that receiver with ominous gentleness, and his voice was silken.

"What can I do for you, fair one?"

Curiously enough the buzzing had completely stopped and the fair one's reply came vibrating clearly into his listening ear.

"Mr. Hammond?"

"Well, what of it?"

"Mr. Hammond, manager of some corporation or company in Japan?"

"What are you talking about?"

"If you'll hold the wire long enough to take a message from a friend I'll deliver it."

"Friend, eh? Who is he? I'd like to get a look at him this moment. Take your time."

"Well, I've no time to talk nonsense. This is the Y. W. C. A. speaking, and there's a young lady here, who says she--er--belongs to you. She----"

"What? Say that again, please."

"A young lady that appears to be related to you--says you are her guardian or manager or something of the sort. She was delivered to the Y. by the Reverend Miss Miriam Richardson, in whose care she was placed by the Mission Society of--er--Naggysack, Japan. One minute, I'll get her name again."

A photograph of Jerry at this stage would have revealed a young man sitting at a telephone desk, registering a conflict of feelings and emotions indicative of consternation, guilt, tenderness, fear, terror, compunction, meanness and idiocy. When that official voice came over the wire a second time, Jerry all but collapsed against the table, holding the receiver uncertainly in the direction of that ear that still heard the incredible news and confirmed his fears:

"Name--Miss Sindicutt."

Silence, during which the other end apparently heard not that exclamation of desperation: "Ye gods and little fishes!" for it resumed complacently:

"Shall we send her up to you?"

"No, no, for heaven's sake don't. That is, wait a bit, will you? Give me a chance to get over the----" Jerry was about to say "shock," but stopped himself in time and with as much composure as he could muster he told the Y. W. C. A. that he was busy just now, but would call later, and advise them what to do in the--under his breath he said "appalling"--circumstances.

Slowly Jerry put the receiver back on the hook. He remained in the chair like one who has received a galvanic shock. That Japanese girl, of a preposterous dream, had actually followed him to America! She was here--right in New York City. It was fantastic, impossible! Ha, ha! it would be funny, if it were not so danged impossible. In the United States, of all places! She, who ought to be right among her heathens, making good converts. What in the name of common sense had she come to the States for? Why couldn't she let Jerry alone, when he was up to his neck in plans that he fairly knew were going to create an upheaval in the architectural world? Just because he had befriended her in his infernal youth, he could not be expected to be responsible for her for the rest of her days. Besides, he, Jerry, was not the only one in that comic opera Syndicate. The thought of his partners in crime, as they now seemed to him, brought him up again before that telephone, seizing upon it this time as a last straw.

He was fortunate to get in touch with all three of the members of the former Sunny Syndicate Limited. While Monty and Bobs rushed over immediately, Jinx escaped from the Appawamis Golf Club where for weeks he had been vainly trying to get rid of some of his superfluous flesh by chasing little red balls over the still snow bound course, flung himself into his powerful Rolls Royce, and went speeding along the Boston Post Road at a rate that caused an alarm to be sent out for him from point to point. Not swift enough, however, to keep up with the fat man in the massive car that "made the grade" to New York inside of an hour, and rushed like a juggernaut over the slick roads and the asphalt pavements of Manhattan.

Jerry's summons to his college friends had been in the nature of an S. O. S. call for help. On the telephone he vouchsafed merely the information that it was "a deadly matter of life and death."

The astounding news he flung like a bomb at each hastily arriving member of the late Syndicate. When the first excitement had subsided, the paramount feeling was one of consternation and alarm.

"Gosh!" groaned Jinx, "what in the name of thunderation are you going to do with a Japanese girl in New York City? I pity you, Jerry, for of course you are mainly responsible----"

"Responsible nothing----" from the indignant Jerry, wheeling about with a threatening look at that big "fathead." "I presume I was the _only_ member of that--er--syndicate."

"At least it was your idea," said Monty, extremely anxious to get back to the hospital, where he had been personally supervising a case of Circocele.

"You might have known," suggested Bobs, "that she was bound to turn out a Frankenstein. Of course, we'll all stand by you, old scout, but you know how I am personally situated."

Jerry's wrathful glare embraced the circle of his renegade friends.

"You're a fine bunch of snobs. I'm not stuck myself on having a Jap girl foisted on to my hands, and there'll be a mess of explanations to my friends and people, and the Lord only knows how I'll ever be able to put my mind back on my work and---- At the same time, I'm not so white livered that I'm going to flunk the responsibility. We encouraged--invited her to join us out here. I did. You did, so did you, and you! I heard you all--every last one of you, and you can't deny it."

"Well, it was one thing to sentimentalise over a pretty little Jap in Japan," growled Bobs, who was not a snob, but in spite of his profession at heart something of a stickler for the conventions, "but it's another proposition here. Of course, as I said, we fellows all intend to stand by you." (Grunts of unwilling assent from Monty and Jinx.) "We aren't going to welch on our part of the job, and right here we may as well plan out some scheme to work this thing properly. Suppose we make the most of the matter for the present. We'll keep her down there at that 'Y.' Do you see? Then, we can each do something to--er--make it--well uncomfortable for her here. We'll freeze her out if it comes down to that. Make her feel that this U. S. A. isn't all it's cracked up to be, and she'll get home-sick for her gods and goddesses and at the psychological moment when she's feeling her worst, why we'll just slip her aboard ship, and there you are."

"Great mind! Marvellous intellect you got, Bobs. In the first place, the 'Y' informed me on the 'phone that they are sending her here. They are waiting now for me to give the word when to despatch her, in fact. Now the question is"--Jerry looked sternly at his friends--"which one of your families would be decent enough to give a temporary home to Sunny? My folks as you know are out of the reckoning, as I'm an outlaw from there myself."

Followed a heated argument and explanations. Monty's people lived in Philadelphia. He himself abode at the Bellevue Hospital. That, so he said, let him out. Not at all, from Jerry's point of view. Philadelphia, said Jerry, was only a stone's throw from New York. Monty, exasperated, retorted that he didn't propose to throw stones at his folks. Monty, who had made such warm promises to Sunny!

Bobs shared a five-room bachelor flat with two other newspaper men. Their hours were uncertain, and their actions erratic. Often they played poker till the small hours of the morning. Sunny would not fit into the atmosphere of smoke and disorder, though she was welcome to come, if she could stand the "gaff." Bobs' people lived in Virginia. His several sisters, Bobs was amusedly assured, would hardly put the girl from Japan at her ease.

Jinx, on whom Jerry now pinned a hopeful eye, blustered shamelessly, as he tried to explain his uncomfortable position in the world. When not at his club in New York, he lived with a sister, Mrs. Vanderlump, and her growing family in the Crawford mansion at Newport. Said sister dominated this palatial abode and brother Jinx escaped to New York upon occasions in a true Jiggsian manner, using craft and ingenuity always to escape the vigilant eye and flaying tongue of a sister who looked for the worst and found it. It was hard for Jinx to admit to his friends that he was horribly henpecked, but he appealed to them as follows:

"Have a heart about this thing. I ask you, what is a fellow to do when he's got a sister on his back like that? If she suspects every little innocent chorus girl of the town, what is she going to say to Sunny when that kid goes up before her in tights?"

It is extraordinary how we think of people we have not seen in years as they were when first we saw them. In the heat of argument, no one troubled to point out to Jinx that the Sunny who had come upon the tight rope that first night must have long since graduated from that reprehensible type of dress or rather undress.

Finally, and as a last resort, a night letter was despatched to Professor Timothy Barrowes. All were now agreed that he was the one most competent to settle the matter of the disposition of Sunny, and all agreed to abide by his decision.

At this juncture, and when a sense of satisfaction in having "passed the buck" to the competent man of archæology had temporarily cheered them, a tapping was heard upon the studio door. Not the thumping of the goblin's head of the Italian iron knocker; not the shriek of the electric buzzer from the desk below, warning of the approach of a visitor. Just a soft taptapping upon the door, repeated several times, as no one answered, and increasing in noise and persistence.

A long, a silent, a deadly pause ensued. At that moment each found himself attributing to that girl they had known in Japan, and whom they realised was on the other side of that door, certain characteristic traits and peculiarities charming enough in Japan but impossible to think of as in America. To each young man there came a mental picture of a bizarre and curious little figure, adorned with blazingly bright kimona and obi--a brilliant patch of colour, her bobbed hair and straight bangs seeming somehow incongruous and adding to her fantastic appearance. After all, in spite of her hair, she was typical of that land of crooked streets, and paper houses, and people who walked on the wrong side and mounted their horses from the front. The thought of that girl in New York City grated against their sensibilities. She didn't belong and she never could belong was their internal verdict.

It may have been only a coincidence, but it seemed weird, that Hatton, lately so dead to the world, should appear at that psychological moment on the steps of the gallery, immaculate in dress and with that cool air of superiority and efficiency that was part of his assets, descend in his stately and perfect way, approach the door as a butler should, and softly, imperturbably fling that door open. His back retained its stiff straight line, that went so well with the uniform Hatton insisted upon donning, but his head went sideways forward in that inimitable bow that Hatton always reserved for anything especially attractive in the female line.

Upon the threshold there looked back at Hatton, and then beyond him, a girl whom the startled young men took at first to be a perfect stranger. She wore a plain blue serge suit, belted at the waist, with a white collar and jabot. A sailor hat, slightly rolled, crushed down the hair that still shone above the face whose remarkable beauty owed much to a certain quaintness of expression. She stood silently, without moving, for what seemed a long moment to them all, and then suddenly she spoke, breathlessly and with that little catch in her voice, and her tone, her look, her words, her quick motions so characteristic of the little girl they had known, broke the spell of silence and let loose a flood of such warm memories that all the mean and harsh and contemptible thoughts of but a moment since were dissipated forever.

They crowded about her, hanging upon and hungry for her unabashed and delighted words, and dazzled by the girl's uncanny loveliness.

"Jinx! Thad are you! I know you by your so nize fat!"

She had not lost her adorable accent. Indeed, if they could but have realised it, Sunny had changed not at all. She had simply grown up.

Jinx's soft hands were holding the two little fragrant ones thrust so joyously into his own. The fat fellow fought a sudden maddening desire to hug like a bear the girl whose bright eyes were searching his own so lovingly.

"Monty! Oh, you have grow into whole mans. _How_ it is nize. And you still smile on me troo those glass ad you eye."

Smile! Monty was grinning like the proverbial Cheshire cat. That case of Circocele at Bellevue hospital had vanished into the dim regions of young Monty's mind. Anyway there were a score of other Internes there, and Monty had his permit in his pocket.

"Bobs! Is thad youself, wiz those fonny liddle hair grow om your mout'. _How_ it is grow nize on you face. I lig' him there."

Any doubt that Bobs had experienced as to the desirability of that incipient moustache vanished then and there.

And Jerry! Jerry, for the last, to be looked at with shining eyes, till something tightened in his throat, and his mind leaped over the years and felt again that dizzy, tingling, electrical sensation when Sunny had asked him to kiss her.