Part 6

“Therefore be it _Resolved_, That we, as members of this club, have been most shamefully imposed upon;

“_Resolved_, That we hereby express our contempt for a man who, with every incentive to be always bad, should have so far forgotten himself as to lead a third of a worthy life.”

The secretary had not finished reading the resolutions when a messenger brought in a letter which he handed to the chairman as the clock pointed to eight fifty-eight.

It ran in this fashion:

FELLOW-MEMBERS: It is, by the time of reading this, probably plain to you that you have been taken in by me, and that, so far from my really having been a wicked person, I was a credit to my race and time.

True to my desire that to the rest of the world I should be accounted a bad man, I have caused to be delivered with this letter a box. It works its purpose at nine o’clock. Sit where you are and do not attempt to escape. The secret of my goodness rests, and shall rest, with you.

Yours insincerely, EPHRATA SYMONDS.

As the chairman finished reading he glanced at the clock. It was on the stroke of nine! He seized the box, and with a wild cry attempted to throw it through the window, but it was too late. A whirring noise was heard, followed by a terrific explosion, that left of club-house and -members naught save a hole in the ground.

Symonds’s culpable goodness remained unknown to the world.

XXXI

A STRANGER TO LUCK

When I got off the train at Darbyville, which, as all will remember, is the junction of the L. M. & N. and O. P. & Q. railroads, and found that, owing to an accident, it would be an hour before the train came in on the latter road, I was vexed. Although ordinarily my own thoughts are agreeable companions, yet events of the past week, in which my good judgment had not borne a conspicuous part, made it likely that for the nonce these thoughts of mine would be more or less unpleasant, and so I cast about for some human nature to study.

At one end of the platform three or four farmers were seated upon trunks. They were alert-looking men, and, like me, were waiting for the train. As I neared them, one of their number, a tall, lanky, sharp-boned, knife-featured fellow, imperturbably good-natured-looking, and with an expression of more than ordinary intelligence in his eyes, left them and sauntered off down the road with long, irregular strides.

It was one of those calm, clear, dry days when sounds carry well, and although I did not join them, yet I heard every word of the conversation. Indeed, as their glances from time to time showed, they were not averse to having an auditor.

“It’s cur’us,” said one of them, a ruddy-faced man with a white beard, “how unlucky a man c’n be an’ yit manage to live.” His eyes followed the shambling figure that had just left them. “I’ll help myself to some of thet terbacker, Jed. Left mine to hum, an’ I have the teethache--awful.” This to a short, stout man with a smooth face, who had just taken a liberal mouthful of tobacco from a paper that he drew from his hip-pocket.

“He’p ’se’f!” said the one addressed. Then he added, “Meanin’ Seth, I s’pose?”

“Yes,” replied the other. “I b’lieve thet ef Seth was to hev anythin’ really fort’nit happen to him, it would throw him off his balance.”

“’N’ yit ther’ never was a feller thet better deserved good luck than Seth. Most obligin’ man I ever saw. Ain’t no fool, nuther,” remarked the third and last member of the group, a typical Uncle Sam in appearance, with prominent front teeth, and a habit of laughing dryly at everything that he or any one else said.

“He don’t suffer fer the actooal needs of life, doos he?” asked the stout man whom the others called Jed.

“No--oh, no,” answered Sam (for it turned out that so the typical Yankee was called). “No; he gits enough to eat and wear, but he never hez a cent to lay by, and never will.”

“Don’t drink, doos he?” asked Jed, who seemed to belong to a different town from the one wherein the others and Seth abode. His acquaintance with the one under discussion was evidently by no means intimate.

“No; he ain’t got no vices ’t I know of. Jes’ onlucky.”

“It’s s’prisin’ haow tantalizin’ly clus good fortin hez come to him--different times,” said the one who had asked for the tobacco, and whom the others called Silas.

“You’re _right_, Silas,” assented Sam. “He c’n come nearer to good luck ’thout techin’ it ’an any man I ever see.”

“Don’t seem to worrit him much,” said Jed. “He seems cheerful.”

“Don’t nothin’ worrit _him_,” Sam continued. “Most easy-goin’ man on the face of the airth. _He_ don’t ask fer sympathy. He takes great doses of bad luck ’s ef ’twas good fer his health.”

“Never fergit,” said Silas, “the time when he bought a fine new milch Jarsey at auction fer five dollars. Why, he hed two offers fer her nex’ day, an’ I _know_ one of ’em was forty dollars--”

“Well, naow I call that purty lucky,” interrupted Jed.

“Wait!” continued Silas, seating himself more comfortably on a trunk. “Seth he wouldn’t sell. Said he never did hev his fill of milk, an’ he was goin’ to keep her. Very nex’ day, b’ George! she choked on a turnip, an’ when he faound her she was cold. Man sympathized with him. ‘Too bad, Seth,’ says he; ‘ye ’r’ aout forty dollars.’ ‘Five’s all I figger it at,’ says Seth. ‘Didn’t _keer_ to sell.’

“Closest call ’at fortune ever made him was time his uncle Ralzemon aout West died and left him $5000. Everybody was glad, fer every one likes Seth. I was with him when he got the letter f’om the lawyer sayin’ it was all in gold, an’ hed be’n expressed to him, thet bein’ one of the terms of the will. Mos’ shif’less way of sendin’ it, I thought,” declared Silas, compressing his lips. “‘What ye goin’ to do with it, Seth?’ says I. ‘Put it in the bank?’ ‘Ain’t got it yit,’ says he; ‘an’, what’s more, I never will.’ ‘Why d’ ye think so?’ says I. ‘On gin’al principles,’ says he, a-laafin’.

“Sure ’nough, a few days later it was printed in the paper thet a train aout in Wisconsin hed be’n held up by robbers. I was in the post-office when I saw it in the paper, an’ Seth was there too. ‘Bet ye a cooky thet my $5000 was on thet train,’ says he. ‘Won’t take ye,’ says I; ‘fer I’ll bet ye five dollars ’twas, myse’f.’ ‘I’ll take ye,’ says he. B’ George! he lost the five and the $5000 too, fer _’twas_ on the train, an’ they never could git a trace of it. The robbers hed took to the woods, an’ they never found ’em.”

“Well, I swan!” ejaculated Jed, chewing hard, and regarding with ominous look a knot-hole in the platform.

Silas continued: “I says, ‘I’m sorry fer ye, Seth.’ Says he: ‘I ain’t no poorer ’an I was before I heard he’d left it to me.’”

“He was aout the five dollars he bet, though,” said Jed.

“Wa’n’t, nuther,” said Silas, rather shamefacedly. “I told him thet the bet was off.”

“Why didn’t he sue the comp’ny?” asked Jed.

“’At’s what I advised him doin’, but he said ’twa’n’t no use.”

“I think I heard ’baout his havin’ a fortin left him at the time, but I thought it was f’om a cousin down in South America,” Jed went on, looking inquiringly at Sam.

“Heh, heh! thet was another time,” said Sam, with his dry little laugh. “Good nation! ef all the luck thet’s threatened to hit him hed _done_ it, he’d be the richest man in this caounty. I tell ye, good luck’s allers a-sniffin’ at his heels, but he don’t never git bit. This time he got a letter f’om his cousin, tellin’ him he’d allers felt sorry he hed sech poor luck, an’ he’d made him sole heir of his estate, prob’ly wuth a couple o’ thousand dollars. He hed some oncurable disease, he wrote, an’ the doctors didn’t give him over three months to live--”

“S’pose he lived forever,” put in Jed, chuckling.

“No, sir; he died in good shape, an’ in fac’ he bettered his word, for he didn’t live two months f’om the time he wrote to Seth; but I’m blessed ef they didn’t find there was some claim against the estate thet et it all up. Well, sir, I never saw any one laugh so hard ez Seth when he heard the news. It struck him ez a dretful good joke.”

“He must hev a purty paowerful sense of the ridikerlus,” said Jed, dryly.

“Well, he hez,” assented Sam, rubbing his knees with his horny hands. “Ain’t no better comp’ny ’an Seth. Ain’t never daownhearted.”

After a moment’s silence Silas smiled, and, closing his eyes, pinched them between thumb and forefinger as if calling up some pleasing recollection. At last he said: “Ye know, Seth allers works by the day. He gin’ally has enough to do to keep him busy, an’ allers doos his work up slick, but he never hed stiddy employment, on’y once, an’ then it lasted on’y one day. ’Member that, Sam? Time he went to work at the Nutmeg State clock-shop?”

“_Yes_, yes,” laughed Sam, driving a loose nail into the platform with his heel.

“Stiddy employment fer a day, eh?” said Jed, grinning. “Thet’s ’baout ez stiddy ez my hired man, an’ he ain’t stiddy at all.”

“It was this way,” Silas went on. “Seth allers was purty slick at han’lin’ tools, an’ Zenas Jordan was foreman of the shop, an’ he offered Seth a place there at twelve dollars a week, which was purty good pay an’ more ’n Seth could make outside, ’thout it was hayin’-time. I met him on his way to work fust mornin’. ‘Well, luck’s with you this time, Seth,’ says I. ‘Sh!’ says he. ‘Don’t say thet, or I’ll lose my job sure. It’s jes better ’n nothin’, thet’s all. _Don’t_ call it good luck’; an’ he laafed an’ went along a-whistlin’. B’ Gosht! ef the blamed ol’ shop didn’t burn daown thet very night, an’, ez ye know, they never rebuilt. Seth he come to me nex’ day, an’ he says, kinder reproachful: ‘You’d orter held yer tongue, Silas. I’d be’n hopin’ thet was a stroke er luck thet hed hit me by mistake, an’ I wasn’t goin’ to whisper its name for fear it’d reckernize me an’ leave me, and you hed to go an’ yell it aout when ye met me.’” And Silas laughed heartily at recollection of the whimsicality.

“Cur’us, ain’t it, what a grudge luck doos hev against some men?” remarked Jed, rubbing his smooth chin meditatively.

Far down the valley I heard the faint whistle of a locomotive.

“Las’ story they tell ’baout Seth ’s this,” Silas said, rising and stretching himself, and then leaning against the wall of the station. “He’s a very good judge o’ poultry, an’, in fac’, he gin’ally judges at the caounty fair every fall. Well, a man daown in Ansony told him he’d pay him ten dollars apiece for a couple of fine thoroughbred Plymouth Rock roosters. Seth knowed a man daown Smithfield way named Jones thet owned some full-blooded stock, but ez he on’y kep’ ’em fer home use he didn’t set a fancy price on ’em, an’ Seth knowed he could git ’em fer seventy-five cents or a dollar apiece. Well, it happened a day or two later he was engaged to do a day’s work fer this man Jones, an’ he went daown there. He see two all-fired fine roosters a-struttin’ raound the place, an’ he cal’lated to buy them; but fer some reason he didn’t say nothin’ ’baout it jes then to Jones, but went to work at choppin’ or sawin’ or whatever it was he was doin’.”

“Said nothin’, did he? _Must_ ha’ sawed wood, then,” interrupted Jed, looking over at me and winking.

“Sure! Well, when it kem time fer dinner he hed got up a good appetite, an’ he was glad to set daown to table, fer Jones is a purty good feeder an’ likes to see people hev enough. Hed stewed chicken fer dinner, an’ Seth says he never enjoyed any so much in his life. After dinner he says, ‘By the way, Jones, what’ll ye take fer those two Plymouth Rock roosters ’t I saw this mornin’?’ Jones bust aout a-laafin’, an’ he says, ‘Ye kin take what’s left on ’em home in a basket an’ welcome!’ Blamed ef Seth hedn’t be’n eatin’ a dinner that cost him nigh on to twenty dollars.”

“Thet _must_ hev riled him some,” remarked Jed.

“No, sir; he never seemed to realize the sitooation.”

XXXII

CUPID ON RUNNERS

Littlewood Phillips had been in love with Mildred Farrington for two years, ever since he first met her at the Hollowells’ card-party. He had no good reason to doubt that his love was returned, yet so fearful was he that he had misread her feelings that he had never hinted that she was more to him than any of the girls he met at the church sociables and card-parties in Newington.

So matters stood when a snowfall that brought sleighing in its wake visited Newington, and Littlewood became conscious of the fact that he had actually asked Miss Farrington to take a ride with him. Of course he must perforce bring matters to a crisis now.

The evening was soon at hand. A crescent moon shone in the west, and the stars were cold and scintillating. He walked to the livery-stable and asked for the cutter, and a few moments later he was driving a handsome chestnut to the house where his thought spent most of the time.

Miss Farrington kept him waiting a good half-hour, but he reflected that it was the privilege of her glorious sex, and it only made him love her the more. If she had come out and placed her dainty foot upon his neck he would have been overcome with rapture.

It was cold waiting, so he got out and hitched his horse and paced in front of her house, her faithful sentinel until death--if need be. Not that there was any reason to think that his services would be required, but it pleased his self-love to imagine himself dying for this lovely being of whom his tongue stood in such awe that it could scarce loose itself in her presence.

At last she appears. The restive horse slants his ears at her and paws the ground in admiration of her beauty, for Mildred was as pretty as regular features, a fair skin, and melting eyes could make her.

Littlewood handed her into the sleigh, stepped in himself, tucked in the robes, and chirruped to the horse.

That intelligent animal did not move. A flush of mortification overspread the face of the would-be amorous swain. A balky horse, and at the start! What chance would he have to deliver his precious message that was to make two hearts happy? He clicked again to the horse, but again the horse continued to stand still.

“You might unhitch him, Mr. Phillips. That would help,” said Mildred, in her sweet voice.

“Oh, yes--t-to be sure! I must have tied him. I mean I--er--I di--I think I did hitch--er--”

“There seems to have been a hitch somewhere,” she answered.

He stepped out of the sleigh and looked over his shoulder at her in a startled way. Could she mean anything? Was this encouragement? Oh, no! It was too soon. (Too soon, and he had been in love two years!) He unhitched the horse and once more placed himself beside his loved one.

The frosty night seemed to have set a seal upon her lips, for as they sped over the crunching snow and left the town behind them she was silent.

“I must have offended her. I’ve probably made a break of some kind,” said Littlewood to himself. “How unfortunate! But I must tell her to-night. It is now or never. She knows I never took anybody but my mother sleigh-riding before.”

Then began a process of nerving himself to the avowal. He ground his knees together until the bones ached. His breathing was feverish.

Finally he made bold to say: “Mildewed.” And then he stopped. He had never called her Mildred before. He had never called her Mildewed either, but that was accidental, and he hoped that she had not noticed the slip.

“I have something of the greatest importance to say to you.”

Did he imagine it, or did she nestle closer to him? He must have been mistaken, and to show that he was quite sure he edged away from her as much as the somewhat narrow confines of the sleigh would allow.

“What do you wish to say, Mr. Phillips?”

“Mr.” Phillips! Ah, then she was offended. To be sure, she had always called him that, but after his last remark it must have an added significance.

“I--er--do you like sleigh-riding?”

“Why, of course, or else I shouldn’t have come.”

Did she mean that as a slap at him? Was it only for the ride, and not for his company, that she had come? Oh, he could never make an avowal of love after that! He knew his place. This beautiful girl was not for a faint-hearted caitiff like himself.

“Nun--nun--no, to be sure not. I--er--thought that was why you came.”

Mildred turned her gazelle-like eyes upon him. “I’m afraid I don’t understand you.”

That settled it. If she didn’t understand him when he talked of nothing in particular, he must be very blind in his utterance, and he could never trust his tongue to carry such a heavy freight as a declaration of love. No, there was nothing to do but postpone it.

Mildred drank in the beauty of the scenes, and wished that it were decorous for women to propose.

Under the influence of sweet surroundings, Mildred at last said pointedly: “Is it so that more people get engaged in winter than in summer?”

She blushed as she spoke. It was unmaidenly, but he was such a dear gump. Now he would declare himself. But she did not know the capabilities for self-repression of her two-year admirer.

He said to himself: “What a slip! What a delightful slip! If I were unprincipled I would take advantage of it and propose, but I would bitterly reproach myself forever, whatever her answer was.”

So he said in as matter-of-fact tone as he could master when his heart was beating his ribs like a frightened cageling: “I really can’t answer offhand, but I’ll look it up for you.”

“Do. Write a letter to the newspaper.”

Her tones were as musical as ever, but Littlewood thought he detected a sarcastic ring in them, and he thanked his stars that he had not yielded to his natural desire to propose at such an inauspicious time.

“What was that important thing you wanted to say?” asked Miss Farrington, after several minutes of silence, save for the hoofs and the runners and the bells.

“Oh, it wasn’t of any importance! I mean it will keep. I--er--I was thinking of something else.”

“I think you have gone far enough,” said she, innocently, looking over her shoulder in the direction of home. Maybe the return would loosen his obdurate tongue.

His heart stopped beating and lay a leaden thing in his breast. Had he, then, gone too far? What had he said? Oh, why had he come out with this lovely being, the mere sight of whom was enough to make one cast all restraint to the winds and declare in thunderous tones that he loved her?

“I think that we’d better go back,” he said, and turned so quickly that he nearly upset the sleigh. “Your mother will be anxious.”

“Yes; when one is accountable to one’s mother one has to remember time. I suppose it is different when one is accountable to a--”

“Father?” said Littlewood, asininely.

“No; that wasn’t the word I wanted.”

“A-a-aunt?”

Could Mildred love him if he gave many more such proofs of being an abject idiot?

“No; husband is what I want.”

Littlewood’s brain swam. He had been tempted once too often. This naïve girl had innocently played into his hands, and now the Rubicon must be crossed, even if its angry waters engulfed him.

“Pardon me, Miss--er--Mildred,”--he did not say Mildewed this time,--“if I twist your words into another meaning, but if you--er--want a husband--do you think I would do?”

A head nestled on his shoulder, a little hand was in his, and when he passed the Farrington mansion neither he nor she knew it.

XXXIII

MY TRUTHFUL BURGLAR

I had an experience with a burglar night before last. My family are all away, and I have been living alone in the house, a detached villa in New Jersey, for upward of a month. Several burglaries have occurred in the vicinity.

Night before last I was awakened about four o’clock by a noise made by a clicking door, and opening my eyes, I saw a smooth-faced, determined-looking man at my bedside. I did not cry out, nor hide under the bedclothes, nor do any of the conventional things that one does when a burglar comes to him.

I looked at him calmly for a moment, and then I said, “How d’ do?”

An expression of surprise passed over his intelligent features, but he said mechanically, “Pretty well, thank you. And you?”

“Oh, I’m as well as could be expected under the circumstances. Are you the burglar who has been doing this village?”

“I am,” said he, drawing up a chair and sitting down.

“Why don’t you deny it?” I asked. I wasn’t afraid. He amused me, this nonchalant burglar.

“Well, because I’m not ashamed of my profession, for one reason, and mainly because I was brought up by my father to tell the truth.”

“You tell the truth, and yet you are a burglar. How can you reconcile those facts?”

“They are not irreconcilable,” said he, taking a corn-cob pipe out of his pocket and filling it. “I am a burglar, and my father was one before me, but he was a perfectly honorable man. He never lied, and I never lie. I steal because that is my profession, but I make it a rule to tell the truth upon all occasions. Why, if the success of my venture to-night depended upon my lying to you, I’d immediately leave this place, as innocent of plunder as when I came in. Where’s the silver?”

“Top drawer of the sideboard.” There was a magnetism, a bonhomie, about the man that captivated me.

“Are you armed?” asked he, as he puffed at his pipe.

“If I had been I’d have winged you before this,” said I, laughing.

“I believe you, and I honor you for being perfectly frank with me.”

“Why, as to that, I’m not to be outdone in frankness by a thief.”

“That will make my task so much the easier. After I’ve finished this pipe I want you to give me your word that you’ll lie still until I’ve taken all I want.”

I admired the man’s nerve, and I said: “For the time being I consider you my guest, and, Spanish fashion, my house is at your disposal.”

“Don’t put it on that basis, or I will leave at once. This is no time for aping the Spanish.”

“You are right. But I tell you candidly that I would far rather have found out that you were a liar than a burglar. Your lies would not be likely to injure me, but I’ll be out just so much by what you take. I’d much rather you were a liar.”

“And I would not. If I steal, I do but take something that, to paraphrase Shakspere, was yours, is mine, and has been slave to thousands; but to lie would be to ‘lay perjury to my soul,’ and that I would not do, ‘no, not for Venice’!”

“I see you know Shakspere,” said I, punching my pillow so that I could be more comfortable. I was reading this odd fellow, and I believed that I could dissuade him from his purpose.

“Know Shakspere? I was an actor once.”

I felt that I had him, for I know actors better than he knew Shakspere.

“Did you ever play Hamlet?” I asked, sitting up in bed.

“I did; and I made such a hit that if it hadn’t been for the venality of the press and my sense of honor, I would have been adjudged one of the greatest Hamlets of the day.”

“Give me the soliloquy. I give you my word that ordinarily I’d rather be robbed than hear it, but I like your voice and I believe that you can do it justice.”

A self-satisfied smile illuminated his face. He laid down the pipe and gave me the soliloquy, and it wasn’t bad.

“Bully!” I said, when he had finished. “Why, man, you make an indifferent thief, else you would have decamped long ago; but the stage has lost an actor that would have in time compelled the unwilling admiration of the press.”

And so I jollied him, and he gave me the trial scene from “The Merchant of Venice,” and other selections, until dawn began to show in the east, when he picked up his bag and said, “It would be a shame to rob a white man like you.” Then he bade me good-by and left.

And I congratulated myself upon my knowledge of human nature, until I began to dress, when I found that the fellow had finished his burgling before I woke, and he has all my silver.

XXXIV

THE MAN WITHOUT A WATCH