Chapter 10

Pudfut, in contrition of his offence, wrote his English friend Lord Something-or-other, who owned the yacht, and who was at Carlsbad, begging him to run up and see the "best ever" and "one of us"--and Malone never lost an opportunity to say how quick he was in repartee, or how he missed him. Stebbins kept his mouth shut.

He had started the crusade, he knew, and was personally responsible for the result. He had tried to arouse Joplin's obstinacy and had only aroused his fears. All he could do in reparation was to keep in touch with the exile and pave the way for his homecoming. If Joppy was ill, which he doubted, some of the German experts in whom the Bostonian believed would find the cause and the remedy. If he was "sound as a nut," to quote Joplin's own words, certainty of that fact, after an exhaustive examination by men he trusted, would relieve his nervous mind and make him all the happier.

The first letter came from Schonholz. Liberally translated, with the assistance of Mynheer, who spoke a little German, it conveyed the information that the Bostonian, after being put on a strict diet, had been douched, pounded and rubbed; was then on his second week of treatment; had one more to serve; was at the moment feeling like a fighting-cock, and after a fifth week at Stuckbad, in the mountains, where he was to take the after-cure, would be as strong as a three-year-old, and as frisky.

The second letter was from Joplin himself and was addressed to Stebbins. This last was authentic, and greatly relieved the situation. It read:

Nothing like a thoroughly trained expert, my dear Stebbins. These German savants fill me with wonder. The moment Dr. Stuffen fixed his eyes upon me he read my case like an open book. No nitrogenous food of any kind, was his first verdict; hot douches and complete rest packed in wet compresses, the next. I am losing flesh, of course, but it is only the "deadwood" of the body, so to speak. This Dr. Stuffen expects to replace with new shoots--predicts I will weigh forty pounds more--a charming and, to me, a most sane theory. You will be delighted also to hear that my epigastric nerve hasn't troubled me since I arrived. Love to the boys, whom I expect to see before the month is out. Joppy.

"Forty pounds heavier!" cried Marny from his end of the table. "He'll look like a toy balloon in knee pants. Bully for Joppy! I wouldn't let any Schweizerkase with a hot douche get within a hundred yards of me, but then I'm not a bunch of nerves like Joppy. Anyhow, boys, we'll give the lad a welcome that will raise the roof. Joppy thin was pretty good fun, but Joppy fat will be a roaring farce."

And so it was decided, and at once all sorts and kinds of welcomes were discussed, modified, rearranged and discussed again. Pudfut suggested meeting him in Rotterdam and having a night of it. Malone thought of chartering a steam launch, hiring a band and bringing him past the towns with flags flying. Stebbins and Marny favored some demonstration nearer home, where everybody could join in.

The programme finally agreed upon included a pathway of boughs strewn with wild flowers from the steamboat landing, across the planking, over the cobbles, under the old Gate of William of Orange, and so on to the door of the inn; the appointment of Tine, dressed in a Zeeland costume belonging to her grand-mother, as special envoy, to meet him with a wreath of laurel, and Johann in short clothes--also heirlooms--was to walk by his side as First Groom of the Bed Chamber.

The real Reception Committee, consisting of Mynheer in a burgomaster suit borrowed from a friend, and the four painters--Marny as a Dutch Falstaff, Pudfut as a Spanish Cavalier, Stebbins got up as a Night Watch, and Malone in the costume of a Man-at-Arms--all costumes loaned for the occasion by the antiquary in the next street--were to await Joplin's coming in the privacy of the Gate--almost a tunnel--and so close to the door of the inn that it might have passed for a part of the establishment itself.

Meantime the four painters were to collect material for the decoration of the coffee-room--wreaths of greens over the mantel and festoons of ivy hanging down the back of Joplin's chair being prominent features; while Mynheer, Tine and Johann were to concentrate their energies in preparing a dinner the like of which had never been eaten since the sluiceways in the dikes drowned out the Spanish duke. Not a word of all this, of course, had reached the ears of the Bostonian. Half, three-quarters, if not all, the enjoyment of the occasion would be realized when they looked on Joplin's face and read his surprise.

IV

The eventful day at last arrived. Stebbins, as prearranged, had begged the exile to telegraph the exact hour of his departure and mode of travel from Rotterdam, suggesting the boat as being by far the best, and Joplin had answered in return that Fop Smit's packet, due at sundown the following day, would count him among its passengers.

The deep tones of the whistle off Papendrecht sent every man to his post, the villagers standing back in amazement at the extraordinary spectacle, especially at Tine and Johann in their queer clothes, who, being instantly recognized, were plied with questions.

The boat slowed down; made fast; out came the gangplank; ashore went the little two-wheel carts drawn by the sleepy, tired dogs; then the baskets of onions were rolled off, and the few barrels of freight, and then two or three passengers--among them a small, feeble man, in a long coat reaching to his heels--made their way to the dock.

NO JOPPY!!

"That's the last man to come ashore here," said Marny. "What's become of the lad?"

"Maybe he's gone aft," cried Stebbins; "maybe--"

Here Tine gave a little scream, dropped her wreath and running toward the small, feeble man, threw her arms around his neck. Marny and the others bounded over the cobbles, tossing the bystanders out of the way as they forged ahead. When they reached Joplin he was still clinging to Tine, his sunken cheeks and hollow deep-set eyes telling only too plainly how great an effort he was making to keep on his legs. The four painters formed a close bodyguard and escorted their long-lost brother to the inn.

Mynheer, in his burgomaster suit, met the party at the door, conducted them inside and silently drew out the chairs at the coffee-room table. He was too overcome to speak.

Joplin dropped into the one hung with ivy and rested his hands on the table.

"Lord! how good it is to get here!" he said, gazing about him, a tremble in his voice. "You don't know what I've gone through, boys."

"Why, we thought you were getting fat, Joppy," burst out Marny at last. Up to this time his voice, like that of the others, seemed to have left him, so great was his surprise and anxiety.

Joplin waved his forefinger toward Marny in a deprecatory way, as if the memory of his experience was too serious for discussion, played with his fork a moment, and said slowly:

"Will you lay it up against me, fellows, if I tell you the truth? I'm not as strong as I was and a good deal of the old fight is out of me."

"Lay up nothin'!" cried Malone. "And when it comes to fightin' ye kin count on me every--"

"Dry up!" broke in Marny. "You're way off, Malone. No, Joppy, not a man here will open his head: say the rest."

"Well, then, listen," continued the Bostonian. "I did everything they told me: got up at daylight; walked around the spring seven times; sipped the water; ate what they prescribed; lay in wet sheets two hours every day; was kneaded by a man with a chest as hairy as a satyr's and arms like a blacksmith's; stood up and was squirted at; had everything about me looked into--even stuck needles in my arm for a sample of my blood; and at the end of three weeks was so thin that my trousers had to be lapped over in the back under a leather strap to keep them above my hips, and my coat hung down as if it were ashamed of me. Doctor Stuffen then handed me a certificate and his bill. This done he stood me up and repeated this formula--has it printed--all languages:

"'You have now thrown from your system every particle of foul tissues, Mr.--, ah, yes--Mr. Joblin, I believe.' And he looked at the paper. 'You thought you were reasonably fat, Mr. Joblin. You were not fat, you were merely bloated. Go now to Stuckbad for two weeks. There you will take the after-cure; keep strictly to the diet, a list of which I now hand you. At the expiration of that time you will be a strong man. Thank you--my secretary will send you a receipt.'

"Well, I went to Stuckbad--crawled really--put up at the hotel and sent for the resident doctor, Professor Ozzenbach, Member of the Board of Pharmacy of Berlin, Specialist on Nutrition, Fellow of the Royal Society of Bacteriologists, President of the Vienna Association of Physiological Research--that kind of man. He looked me all over and shook his head. He spoke broken English--badly.

"'Who has dreated you, may I ask, Meester Boblin?'

"'Doctor Stuffen, at Fizzenbad.'

"'Ah, yes, a fery goot man, but a leedle de times behindt. Vat did you eat?'

"I handed him the list.

"'No vonder dot you are thin, my frent--yoost as I oxpected--dis ees de olt deory of broteids. Dot is all oxbloded now. Eef you haf stay anuder mont you vould be dead. Everyting dot he has dold you vas yoost de udder way; no bread, no meelk, no vegebubbles--noddings of dis, not von leedle bit. I vill make von leest--come to-morrow.'"

"Did you go, Joppy?" inquired Stebbins.

"DID _I_ GO? Yes, back to the depot and on to Cologne. That night I ate two plates of sauerkraut, a slice of pork and a piece of cheese the size of my hand; slept like a top."

"So the proteids and carbohydrates didn't do your epigastric any good, old chap," remarked Pudfut in an effort to relieve the gloom.

"Proteids, carbohydrates and my epigastric be damned," exploded Joplin. "On your feet, boys, all of you. Here's to the food of our fathers, with every man a full plate. And here's to dear old Marny, the human kangaroo. May his appetite never fail and his paunch never shrink!"

MISS BUFFUM'S NEW BOARDER

I

He was seated near the top end of Miss Buffum's table when I first saw his good-natured face with its twinkling eyes, high cheekbones and broad, white forehead in strong contrast to the wizened, almost sour, visage of our landlady. Up to the time of his coming every one had avoided that end, or had gradually shifted his seat, gravitating slowly toward the bottom, where the bank clerk, the college professor and I hobnobbed over our soup and boiled mutton.

It was his laugh that attracted my attention--the first that had come from the upper end of the table in the memory of the oldest boarder. Men talk of the first kiss, the first baby, the first bluebird in the spring, but to me, who have suffered and know, the first, sincere, hearty laugh, untrammelled and unlimited, that rings down the hide-bound table of a dismal boarding-house, carries with it a surprise and charm that outclasses them all. The effect on this occasion was like the opening of a window letting in a gust of pure air. Some of the more sensitive shivered at its freshness, and one woman raised her eyeglasses in astonishment, but all the rest craned their heads in the new boarder's direction, their faces expressing their enjoyment. As for Miss Buffum and the schoolmistress, they so far forgot themselves as to join audibly in the merriment.

What the secret of the man's power, or why the schoolteacher--who sat on Miss Buffum's right--should have become suddenly hilarious, or how Miss Buffum herself could be prodded or beguiled into smiles, no one at my end of the table could understand; and yet, as the days went by, it became more and more evident that not only were these two cold, brittle exteriors being slowly thawed out, but that every one else within the sound of his seductive voice was yielding to his influence. Stories that had lain quiet in our minds for months for lack of a willing or appreciative ear, or had been told behind our hands,--small pipings most of them of club and social gossip, now became public property, some being bowled along the table straight at the new boarder, who sent his own rolling back in exchange, his big, sonorous voice filling the room as he replied with accounts of his life in Poland among the peasants; of his experiences in the desert; of a shipwreck off the coast of Ceylon in which he was given up for lost; of a trip he made across the Russian steppes in a sleigh--each adventure ending in some strangely humorous situation which put the table in a roar.

None of these narratives, however, solved the mystery of his identity or of his occupation. All our good landlady knew was that he had driven up in a hack one afternoon, bearing a short letter of introduction from a former lodger--a man who had lived abroad for the previous ten years--introducing Mr. Norvic Bing; that after its perusal she had given him the second-story front room, at that moment empty--a fact that had greatly influenced her--and that he had at once moved in. His trunks--there were two of them--had, she remembered, been covered with foreign labels (and still were)--all of which could be verified by any one who had a right to know and who would take the trouble to inspect his room when he was out, which occurred every day between ten in the morning and six in the afternoon, and more often between six in the afternoon and ten the next morning. The slight additional information she possessed came from the former lodger's letter, which stated that the bearer, Mr. Norvic Bing, was a native of Denmark, that he was visiting America for the first time, and that, desiring a place where he could live in complete retirement, the writer had recommended Miss Buffum's house.

As to who he was in his own country--and he certainly must have been some one of importance, judging from his appearance--and what the nature of his business, these things did not concern the dear lady in the least. He was courteous, treated her with marked respect, was exceedingly agreeable, and had insisted--and this she stated was the one particular thing that endeared him to her--had insisted on paying his board a MONTH IN ADVANCE, instead of waiting until the thirty days had elapsed. His excuse for this unheard-of idiosyncrasy was that he might some day be suddenly called away, too suddenly even to notify her of his departure, and that he did not want either his belongings or his landlady's mind disturbed during his absence.

Miss Buffum's summing up of Bing's courtesy and affability was shared by every one at my end of the table, although some of them differed as regarded his origin and occupation.

"Looks more like an Englishman than a Dane," said the bank clerk; "although I don't know any Danes. But he's a daisy, anyhow, and ought to have his salary raised for being so jolly."

"I don't agree with you," rejoined the professor. "He is unquestionably a Scandinavian--you can see that in the high cheekbones and flat nose. He is evidently studying our people with a view of writing a book. Nothing else would persuade a man of his parts to live here. I lived in just such a place the winter I spent in Dresden. You want to get close to the people when you study their peculiarities. But whoever he is, or wherever he comes from, he is a most delightful gentleman--perfectly simple, and so sincere that it is a pleasure to hear him talk."

As for myself, I am ashamed to say that I did not agree with either the bank clerk or the professor. Although I admitted Mr. Bing's wide experience of men and affairs, and his marvellous powers of conversation, I could not divest myself of the conviction that underneath it all there lay something more than a mere desire to be either kindly or entertaining; in fact, that his geniality, though outwardly spontaneous, was really a cloak to hide another side of his nature--a fog into which he retreated--and that some day the real man would be revealed.

I made no mention of my misgivings to any of my fellow-boarders. My knowledge of men of his class--brilliant conversationalists with a world-wide experience to draw upon--was slight, and my grounds for doubting his sincerity were so devoid of proof that few persons would have considered them anything but the product of a disordered mind.

And yet I still held to my opinion.

I had caught something, I fancied, that the others had missed. It occurred one night after he had told a story and was waiting for the laugh to subside. Soon a strange, weary expression crept over his face--the same look that comes into the face of a clown who has been hurt in a tumble and who, while wrestling with the pain, still keeps his face a-grin. Suddenly, from out of his merry, smooth-shaven face, there came a flash from his eyes so searching, so keen, so suspicious, so entirely unlike the man we knew, so foreign to his mood at the moment, that I instantly thought of the burglar peering through the painted spectacles of the family portrait while he watched his unconscious victim counting his gold.

This conviction so possessed me that I found myself for days after peering into Bing's face, watching for its repetition--so much so that the professor asked me with a laugh:

"Has Mr. Bing hypnotized you as badly as he has the ladies? They hang on his every word. Curious study of the effect of mind on matter, isn't it?"

The second time I caught the strange flash was BEFORE he had told his story--when his admonitory glance--his polite way of compelling attention--was sweeping the table. In its course his eyes rested for an instant on mine, kindled with suspicion, and then there flashed from their depths a light that seemed to illuminate every corner of my brain. When I looked again his face was wreathed in smiles, his eyes sparkling with merriment. Instantly my doubts returned with redoubled force. What had he found in that instantaneous flash, I wondered? Had he read my thoughts, or had he, from his place behind the painted canvas, caught some expression on some victim's face which had roused his fears?

Then a delightful thing happened to me. I was but a young fellow trying to get a foothold in literature, who had never been out of his own country, and who spoke no tongue but his own; he was a man of the world, a traveller over the globe and speaking five languages.

"If you're not going out," he said, that same night, "come and have a smoke with me." This in his heartiest manner, laying his hand on my shoulder as he spoke. "You'll find me in my room. I've some books that may interest you, and we can continue our talk by my coal-fire. Come with me now."

We had had no special talk--none that I could remember. I recalled that I had asked him an irrelevant question after the flash had vanished, and that he had answered me in return--but no talk followed.

"I never invite any one up here," he began when we reached his room; "the place is so small" Here he closed the door, drew up the only armchair in the room and placed me in it--"but it is large enough for a place to crawl into and sleep--much larger, I can tell you, than I have had in many other parts of the world. I can write here, too, without interruption. What else do we want, really?--To be warm, to be fed and then to have some congenial spirits about us! I am quite happy, I assure you, with all those dear, good people downstairs. They are so kind, and they are so human, and they are all honest, each in his way, which is always refreshing to me. Most people, you know, are not honest." And he looked me over curiously.

I made no answer except to nod my assent. My eyes were wandering over the room in the endeavor to find something to confirm my suspicions--over the two trunks with their labels; over a desk littered, piled, crammed with papers; over the mantel, on which was spread a row of photographs, among them the portrait of a distinguished-looking woman with a child resting in her lap, and next to it that of a man in uniform.

"Yes--some of my friends across the sea." I had not asked him--he had read my mind. "This one you did not see--I keep it behind the others--three of them, like a little pair of steps--all I have left. The oldest is named Olga, and that little one in the middle, with the cap on her head--that is Pauline."

"Your children?"

"Yes."

"Where are they?"

"Oh, many thousand miles from here! But we won't talk about it. They are well and happy. And this one"--here he took down the photograph of the man in full uniform--"is the Grand Duke Vladimir. Yes, a soldierly-looking man--none of the others are like him. But come now, tell me of yourself--you have some one at home, too?"

I nodded my head and mentioned my mother and the others at home.

"No sweetheart yet? No?--You needn't answer--we all have sweethearts at your age--at mine it is all over. But why did you leave her? It is so hard to do that. Ah, yes, I see--to make your bread. And how do you do it?"

"I write."

He lowered his brows and looked at me under his lids.

"What sort of writing? Books? What is called a novel?"

"No--not yet. I work on special articles for the newspapers, and now and then I get a short story or an essay into one of the magazines."

He was replacing the pictures as I talked, his back to me. He turned suddenly and again sought my eye.

"Don't waste your time on essays or statistics. You will not succeed as a machine. You have imagination, which is a real gift. You also dream, which is another way of saying that you can invent. If you can add construction to your invention, you will come quite close to what they call genius. I saw all this in your face to-night; that is why I wanted to talk to you. So many young men go astray for want of a word dropped into their minds at the right time. As for me, all I know is statistics, and so I will never be a genius." And a light laugh broke from his lips. "Worse luck, too. I must exchange them for money. Look at this--I have been all day correcting the proofs."

With this he walked to his table--he had not yet taken a seat, although a chair was next to my own--and laid in my lap a roll of galley-proofs.

"It is the new encyclopaedia. I do the biographies, you see--principally of men and the different towns and countries. I have got down now to the R's--Richelieu--Rochambeau--" his fingers were now tracing the lines. "Here is Romulus, and here is Russia--I gave that half a column, and--dry work, isn't it? But I like it, for I can write here by my fire if I please, and all my other time is my own. You see they are signed 'Norvic Bing.' I insisted on that. These publishers are selfish sometimes, and want to efface a writer's personality, but I would not permit it, and so finally they gave in. But no more of that--one must eat, and to eat one must work, so why quarrel with the spade or the ground? See that you raise good crops--that is the best of all."

Then he branched off into a description of a ball he had attended some years before at the Tuileries--of the splendor of the interior; the rich costumes of the women; the blaze of decorations worn by the men; the graciousness of the Empress and the charm of her beauty--then of a visit he had made to the Exile a few months after he had reached Chiselhurst. Throwing up his hands he said: "A feeble old man with hollow eyes and a cracked voice. Oh, such a pity! For he was royal--although all Europe laughed."

When the time came for me to go--it was near midnight, to my astonishment--he followed me to the door, bidding me good-night with both hands over mine, saying I should come again when he was at leisure, as he had been that night--which I promised to do, adding my thanks for what I declared was the most delightful evening I had ever spent in my life.