Part 6

"Yes. Why?" amused at this queer turn in the conversation.

"I was wondering if your Mr. Sullivan will call them amateur cabbages?"

"Why did you remind me of him? I had almost forgotten him."

"If only I can keep a sober face!" said Caroline, clasping her hands. "If he wears a dress suit, it is sure to pucker across the shoulders, be short in the sleeves, and generally wrinkled. He will wear a huge yellow stone, and his hair will be clipped close to the skull. It will be covered with as many white scars as a map with railroad tracks. 'Mr. Sullivan, permit me to introduce the Reverend Richard Allen.' 'Sure.' Oh, it is rich!" And the laughter which followed smothered the sound of closing doors. "Nan, it is a tonic. I wish I were a novelist's wife. 'Mr. Sullivan, I am charmed to meet you.' I can imagine the rector's horror."

"And what is going to horrify the rector?" asked a manly voice from the doorway.

Both women turned guiltily, each uttering a little cry of surprise and dismay. They beheld a young man of thirty, of medium height, who looked shorter than he really was because of the breadth of his shoulders. His face was clean-shaven and manly; the head was well developed, the chin decided, the blue-gray eyes alight with animation and expectancy. The clerical frock was buttoned closely to the throat, giving emphasis to the splendid breathing powers concealed beneath. The Reverend Richard Allen looked all things save the mollycoddle, as the flush on Caroline's cheeks conceded. And as she arose, she vaguely wondered how much he had heard.

The rector, being above all things a gentleman, did not press his question. He came forward and shook hands, and then spread his fingers over the crackling log.

"What do you suppose has happened to me this day?" he began, turning his back to the blaze and looking first at Mrs. Cathewe because she was his hostess, and then at Caroline because she was the woman who lived first in his thoughts.

"You have found a worthy mendicant?" suggested Caroline, taking up the hand-screen and shading her eyes.

"Cold, cold."

"You have been asked to make an address before some woman's club," Mrs. Cathewe offered.

"Still cold. No. The _Morning Post_ has asked me, in the interests of reform, to write up the prize-fight to-morrow night between Sullivan and McManus, setting forth the contest in all its brutality."

The two women looked at each other and laughed nervously. The same thought had occurred to each.

"Mr. Allen," said Mrs. Cathewe, deciding immediately to explain the cause of her merriment, "as you entered you must have overheard us speak of a Mr. Sullivan. You know how eccentric Mr. Cathewe is. Well, when I invited you to dine this evening I had no idea that this husband of mine was going to bring home Mr. Sullivan in order to study him at close range, as a possible character in a new book he is writing."

The rector stroked his chin. Caroline, observing him shyly, was positive that the luster in his eyes was due to suppressed laughter.

"That will be quite a diversion," he said, seating himself. What a charming profile this girl possessed! Heigh-ho! between riches and poverty the chasm grew wide.

"And we have been amusing ourselves by dissecting Mr. Sullivan," added the woman with the charming profile. "I suggested that if he wore a dress suit it would be either too large or too small."

"Mercy!" exclaimed Mrs. Cathewe, rising suddenly as the hall door slammed, "I believe he has come already. Whatever shall I do, Carol, whatever shall I do?" in a loud whisper.

The rector got up and smiled at Caroline, who returned the smile. In the matter of appreciating humor, she and the rector stood upon common ground.

Presently the novelist and his guest entered. Both he and Mr. Sullivan appeared to be in the best of spirits, for their mouths were twisted in grins.

"My dear," began Cathewe, "this is Mr. Sullivan; Mr. Sullivan, Miss Boderick and the Reverend Richard Allen, of St. Paul's."

"I am delighted," said Mr. Sullivan, bowing.

There was not a wrinkle in Mr. Sullivan's dress suit; there were no diamond studs in his shirt bosom, no watch-chain; just the rims of his cuffs appeared, and these were of immaculate linen. His hair was black and thick and soft as hair always is that is frequently subjected to soap and water. In fact, there was only one sign which betrayed Mr. Sullivan's profitable but equivocal business in life, and this was an ear which somewhat resembled a withered mushroom.

Caroline was disconcerted; she was even embarrassed. This pleasant-faced gentleman bowing to her was as far removed from her preconceived idea of a pugilist as the earth is removed from the sun. She did not know--as the wise writer knows--that it is only pugilists who can not fight who are all scarred and battered. She saw the rector shake Mr. Sullivan's hand. From him her gaze roved to Mrs. Cathewe, and the look of perplexity on that young matron's face caused her to smother the sudden wild desire to laugh.

"My dear, I shall leave you to entertain Mr. Sullivan while I change my clothes;" and Cathewe rushed from the room. He was a man who could not hold in laughter very successfully.

"Come over to the fire and warm yourself," said the rector pleasantly. The look of entreaty in Mrs. Cathewe's eyes could not possibly be ignored.

Mr. Sullivan crossed the room, gazing about curiously.

"I haven't th' slightest idea, ma'am," said the famed pugilist, addressing his hostess, "what your husband's graft is; but I understand he's a literary fellow that writes books, an' I suppose he knows why he ast me here t' eat."

Caroline sighed with relief; his voice was very nearly what she expected it would be.

"An' besides," continued Mr. Sullivan, "I'm kind o' curious myself t' see you swells get outside your feed. I ain't stuck on these togs, generally; a man's afraid t' breathe hearty."

Mrs. Cathewe shuddered slightly; Mr. Sullivan was rubbing the cold from his fungus-like ear. What should she do to entertain this man? she wondered. She glanced despairingly at Caroline; but Caroline was looking at the rector, who in turn seemed absorbed in Mr. Sullivan. She was without help; telegraphic communication was cut off, as it were.

"Do you think it will snow to-night?" she asked.

"It looks like it would," answered Mr. Sullivan, with a polite but furtive glance at the window. "Though there'll be a bigger push out to-morrer if it's clear. It's goin' t' be a good fight. D' you ever see a scrap, sir?" he asked, turning to the rector.

Caroline wondered if it was the fire or the rector's own blood which darkened his cheek.

"I belong to the clergy," said the rector softly; "it is our duty not to witness fights, but to prevent them."

"Now, I say!" remonstrated Mr. Sullivan, "you folks run around in your autos, knock down people an' frighten horses, so's they run away; you go out an' kill thousands of birds an' deer an' fish, an' all that; an' yet you're th' first t' holler when two healthy men pummel each other for a livin'. You ain't consistent. Why, th' hardest punch I ever got never pained me more'n an hour, an' I took th' fat end of th' purse at that. When you're a kid, ain't you always quarrelin' an' scrappin'? Sure. Sometimes it was with reason an' cause, an' again jus' plain love of fightin'. Well, that's me. I fight because I like it, an' because it pays. Sure. It's on'y natural for some of us t' fight all th' time; an' honest, I'm dead weary of th' way th' papers yell about th' brutal prize-fight. If I want t' get my block punched off, that's my affair; an' I don't see what business some old fussies have in interferin'."

"It isn't really the fighting, Mr. Sullivan," replied the rector, who felt compelled to defend his point of view; "it's the rough element which is always brought to the surface during these engagements. Men drink and use profane language and wager money."

"As t' that, I don't say;" and Mr. Sullivan moved his hands in a manner which explained his inability to account for the transgressions of the common race.

"What's a block?" whispered Mrs. Cathewe into Caroline's ear.

Caroline raised her eyebrows; she had almost surrendered to the first natural impulse, that of raising her hands above her head, as she had often seen her brother do when faced by an unanswerable question.

The trend of conversation veered. Mr. Sullivan declared that he would never go upon the stage, and all laughed. Occasionally the women ventured timidly to offer an observation which invariably caused Mr. Sullivan to loose an expansive grin. And when he learned that the rector was to witness the fight in the capacity of a reporter, he enjoyed the knowledge hugely.

Presently Cathewe appeared, and dinner was announced. Mr. Sullivan sat between his host and hostess. No, he would not have a cocktail nor a highball; he never drank. Mrs. Cathewe straightway marked him down as a rank impostor. Didn't prize-fighters always drink and carouse and get locked up by the police officers?

"Well, this is a new one on me," Mr. Sullivan admitted, as he tasted of his caviar and quietly dropped his fork. "May I ask what it is?"

"It's Russian caviar. It is like Russian literature; one has to cultivate a taste for it." The novelist glanced amusedly at the rector.

"It reminds me of what happened t' me at White Plains a couple of years ago. I was in trainin' that fall at Mulligan's. You've heard of Mulligan; greatest man on th' mat in his time. Well, I bucked up against French spinach. Says he: 'Eat it.' Says I, 'I don't like it.' Says he, 'I don't care whether you like it or not. I don't like your mug, but I have t' put up with it. Eat that spinach.' Says I, 'I don't see how I can eat it if I don't like it.' An' an hour after he gives me th' bill, an' I'd have had on'y thirty minutes t' get out but for th' housekeeper, who patched it up. Those were great times. Sure. Well, no spinach or caviar in mine. Now say, what's th' game? Do you want my history, or jus' a scrap or two?"

"Describe how you won the championship from McGonegal," said Cathewe eagerly, nodding to the butler to serve the oysters.

Mr. Sullivan toyed with the filigree butter-knife, mentally deciding that its use was for cutting pie. He cast an oblique glance at the immobile countenance of the English butler, and ahemmed.

"Well," he began, "it was like this...."

As Mr. Sullivan went on, a series of whispered questions and answers was started between Caroline and the rector.

_Caroline_: What does he mean by "block"?

_The Rector_: His head, I believe.

_Caroline_: Oh!

_Mr. Sullivan_: There wasn't much doin' in th' third round. We fiddled a while. On'y once did either of us get t' th' ropes ... an' th' bell rang. Th' fourth was a hot one; hammer an' tongs from th' start off. He hooked me twice on th' wind, and I handed him out a jolt on th' jaw that put him t' th' mat.... I had th' best of th' round.

_Caroline_: In mercy's sake, what does he mean by "slats"?

_The Rector_ (seized with a slight coughing): Possibly his ribs.

_Caroline_: Good gracious! (Whether this ejaculation was caused by surprise or by the oyster on which she had put more horse-radish than was suited to her palate, will always remain a mystery.)

_Mr. Sullivan_: We were out for gore th' fift' round. He was gettin' strong on his hooks.

_Mrs. Cathewe_ (interrupting him with great timidity): What do you mean by "hooks"?

_Mr. Sullivan_: It's a blow like this. (Illustrates and knocks over the centerpiece. Water and flowers spread over the table.) I say, now, look at that. Ain't I a Mike now, t' knock over th' flower-pot like that?

_Cathewe_: Never mind that, Mr. Sullivan. Go on with the fight.

_Mr. Sullivan_: Where was I? Oh, yes; he put it all over me that round.... They had counted eight when th' bell rang an' saved me.

_Caroline_: Hit him on the _phonograph_!

_The Rector_ (reddening): It is possible that he refers to Mr. McGonegal's mouth.

_Caroline_: Well, I never! And I've got a slangy brother, too, at Harvard.

(The rector looks gravely at his empty oyster-shells.)

_Mr. Sullivan_: Things went along about even till th' tenth, when I blacked his lamps.

_Caroline_: Lamps?

_The Rector_: Eyes, doubtless.

_Caroline_: It's getting too deep for me.

_Mr. Sullivan_: The last round I saw that I had him goin' all right. In two seconds I had burgundy flowin' from his trombone.

(Cathewe leans back in his chair and laughs.)

_Mrs. Cathewe_ (bewilderingly): Burgundy?

_Mr. Sullivan_ (rather impatiently): A jolt on th' nose. Well, there was some more waltzin', and then a hook an' a swing, an' him on th' mat, down an' out. I made six thousand, an' on'y got this tin ear t' show for my trouble.

* * * * *

It was fully ten o'clock when the coffee was served. Mr. Sullivan may have lost not a few "e's" and "g's" in the passing, but for all that he proved no small entertainment; and when he arose with the remark that he was "for th' tall pines," both ladies experienced an amused regret.

"Which way do you go?" asked Mr. Sullivan, laying his hand on the rector's arm.

"I pass your hotel. I shall be pleased to walk with you."

"I say," suddenly exclaimed Mr. Sullivan, pressing his pudgy fingers into the rector's arm, "where did you get this arm? Why, it is as tough as a railroad tie."

"A course of physical culture," said the rector, visibly embarrassed.

"Physical culture? All right. But don't ever get mad at me," laughed Mr. Sullivan. "It's as big as a pile-driver."

The novelist told Mr. Sullivan that he was very much obliged for his company.

"Don't mention it. Drop int' th' fight to-morrer night. You'll get more ideas there'n you will hearin' me shoot hot air."

Cathewe looked slyly at his wife. He was a man, and more than once he had slipped away from the club and taken in the last few rounds, and then had returned home to say what a dull night he had had at the club.

Mrs. Cathewe had her arm lovingly around Caroline's waist. All at once she felt Caroline start.

"What is it?" she whispered.

"Nothing, nothing!" Caroline declared quickly.

But on the way home in her carriage Caroline wondered where the Reverend Richard Allen, rector of St. Paul's, had acquired _his_ tin ear.

II

"DEAR SIS--Yours received. Have hunted up the name, and have found that your Reverend Richard Allen is an '89 man, one of the best all-round men we ever had on the track. He was a terror, too, so an old grad tells me. Got kicked out in his senior year. It seems that his chum and roommate was very deeply in the hole, not extravagantly, like yours truly, but by a series of hard knocks. Allen had no cash himself. And you know when you haven't any money in sight, you can't borrow any. One night at the Museum (there was a cheap show on) a prize-fighter offered $300 to any one who would stand up before him for five rounds. Allen jumped up on the stage and licked the pug to a standstill. He got a bad swipe on the ear, however; and if your Allen has what they call a tin ear, an ear that looks as if my best bullpup had tried to make his dinner off it, _ecce homo_! He paid his mate's debts, and then was requested to call on the fac. The old ladies told him to pack up. He did. He has never returned to college since. But why do you want to know all about him? They say he was a handsome duffer. You know I haven't seen him yet, not having been home since last Easter time. Now, for Heaven's sake, Sis, don't go and get daffy on his Riverince. I've got a man in tow for you, the best fellow that ever lived.

Affectionately, JACK."

"P.S.--Can't you shove a couple of 50's in your next letter to me? The governor's liver wasn't in good shape the first of the month."

Caroline dropped the letter into her lap and stared out of the window. It was snowing great, soft, melting flakes. She did not know whether to laugh or to cry, nor what occasioned this impulse to do either. So he was a Cambridge man, and had been expelled for prize-fighting; for certainly it had been prize-fighting, even though the motive had been a good and manly one.

"A milksop!" There was no doubt, no hesitancy; her laughter rang out fresh and clear. What would her father say when he learned the truth? Her next thought was, why should the rector pose as a lamb, patient and unspeaking, when all the time he was a lion? She alone had solved the mystery. It was self-control, it was power. This discovery filled her with a quiet exultation. She was a woman, and to unravel a secret was as joyful a task for her as to invent a fashionable hat.

The bygone rectors had interested her little; they had been either pedants, fanatics, or social drones; while this man had gone about his work quietly and modestly. He never said: "I visited the poor to-day." It was the poor who said: "The rector was here to-day with money and clothes." But his past he let remain nebulous; not even the trustees themselves had peered far into it, at least not as far back as the Cambridge days. Thus, the element of mystery surrounding him first attracted her; the man's personality added to this. The knowledge that he was a college man seemed to place him nearer her social level, though she was not a person to particularize so long as a man proved himself; and the rector had, beyond a doubt, proved himself.

There were dozens of brilliant young men following eagerly in her train. They rode with her, drove with her, and fought for the privilege of playing caddy to her game. Yet, while she liked them all, she cared particularly for none. The rector, being a new species of man, became a study. Time and time again she had invited him to the Country Club; he always excused himself on the ground that he was taking a course of reading such as to demand all his spare time in the day. One morning she had been riding alone, and had seen him tramping across country. In the spirit of fun she took a couple of fences and caught up with him. He had appeared greatly surprised, even embarrassed, for her woman's eye had been quick to read. She had rallied him upon his stride. He had become silent. And this man had "jumped upon the stage and licked the pug to a standstill!"

"Carol, are you there?"

Caroline started and hid the letter. She arose and admitted her father.

"James says that you received a letter this afternoon. Was it from the boy? Begging for money? Well, don't you dare to send it to him. The ragamuffin has overdrawn seven hundred dollars this month. What's he think I am, a United States Steel Corporation?"

"He has asked me for one hundred dollars, and I am going to send it to the poor boy to-night."

"Oh, you are, are you? Who's bringing up the scalawag, you or I?"

"You are trying to, daddy, but I believe he's bent on bringing himself up." She ran her fingers through his hair. "I know the weather's bad, daddy, but don't be cross. Come over to the piano and I'll play for you."

"I don't want any music," gruffly.

"Come," dragging him.

"That's the way; I have no authority in this house. But, seriously, Carol, the boy's spending it pretty fast, and it will not do him a bit of good. I want to make a man out of him, not a spendthrift. Play that what-d'you-call-it from Chopin."

"The _Berceuse_?" seating herself at the piano.

The twilight of winter was fast settling down. The house across the way began to glow at various windows. Still she played. From Chopin she turned to Schumann, from Schumann to Rubinstein, back to Chopin's polonaise and the nocturne in E flat major.

"You play those with a livelier spirit than usual," was the general's only comment. How these haunting melodies took him back to the past, when the girl's mother played them in the golden courting days! He could not see the blush his comment had brought to his daughter's cheek. "My dear, my dear!" he said, with great tenderness, sliding his arm around her waist, "I know that I'm cross at times, but I'm only an old barking dog; don't do any harm. I'll tell you what, if my leg's all right next Saturday I'll ride out to the Country Club with you, and we'll have tea together."

She leaned toward him and kissed him. "Daddy, what makes you think so meanly of the rector? I was thinking of him when you came in."

"I don't think meanly of him; but, hang it, Carol, he always says 'Yes' when I want him to say 'No,' and _vise versa_. He's too complacent. I like a man who's a human being to kick once in a while, a man who's got some fight in him.... What are you laughing at, you torment?"

"At something which just occurred to me. There goes the gong for dinner. I am ravenous."

"By the way, I forgot to tell you what I saw in the evening edition of the _Post_. Your parson is going to report the prize-fight to-night. He'll be frightened out of his shoes. I'm going up to the club; going to play a few rubbers. It'll make me forget my grumbling leg. You run over to Cathewe's or telephone Mrs. Cathewe to run over here."

"Can't you stay in to-night? I don't want anybody but you."

"But I've half promised; besides, I'm sort of blue. I need the excitement."

"Very well; I'll telephone Nan. Mr. Cathewe will probably go to that awful fight in the interests of his new book. She'll come."

"Cathewe's going to the fight, you say? Humph!" The general scratched his ear thoughtfully.

III

THE auditorium was a great barn-like building which had been erected originally for the purpose of a roller-skating rink. Nowadays the charity bazaars were held there, the balls, political mass-meetings, amateur dramatics, and prize-fights.

Cathewe, as he gazed curiously around, pictured to himself the contrast between the Thanksgiving ball of the past week and the present scene, and fell into his usual habit of philosophizing. His seat was high up in the gallery. What faces he saw through the blue and choking haze of smoke! Saloon keepers, idlers, stunted youth, blasé men about town, with a sprinkling of respectable business men, who ever and anon cast hasty and guilty glances over their shoulders, and when caught would raise a finger as if to say: "You rogue, what are _you_ doing here?"--these and other sights met his interested eye. Even he confessed to himself that his presence here was not all due to the gathering of color for his new book. Self-analysis discovered to him that the animal in him was eagerly awaiting the arrival of the fighters. Such is human nature.

Down below he saw the raised platform, strongly protected by ropes. Around this were the reporters' tables, the telegraph operators' desks, a few chairs for the privileged friends of the press, and pails, towels and sponges. Yes, there was the rector, sitting at one of the reporters' tables, erect in his chair, his gaze bent upon his paper pad, apparently oblivious to his strange surroundings. Cathewe wondered what was going on in that somewhat mystifying mind. He certainly would have been surprised could he have read.

In fact, the rector was going over again his own memorable battle in Boston some ten years ago. He was thinking how it had changed his whole career, how it had swerved him from the bar to the pulpit.