<h2>JONES</h2>
<h3>BY LLOYD OSBOURNE</h3>
<h3>I</h3>
<p>I could have taken "No" like a man, and would have gone away decently
and never bothered her again. I told her so straight out in the first
angry flush of my rejection—but this string business, with everything
left hanging in the air, so to speak, made a fellow feel like thirty
cents.</p>
<p>"It simply means that I'm engaged and you are not," I said.</p>
<p>"It's nothing of the kind," she returned tearfully. "You're as free as
free, Ezra. You can go away this moment, and never write or anything!"</p>
<p>Her lips trembled as she said this, and I confess it gave me a kind of
savage pleasure to feel that it was still in my power to hurt her.</p>
<p>It may sound unkind, but still you must admit that the whole situation
was exasperating. Here was five-foot-five of exquisite, blooming,
twenty-year-old American girlhood sending away the man she confessed to
care for, because, forsooth, she would not marry before her elder
sister! I always thought it was beautiful of Freddy (she was named
Frederica, you know) to be always so sweet and tender and grateful about
Eleanor; but sometimes gratitude can be carried altogether too far, even
if you <i>are</i> an orphan, and <i>were</i> brought up by hand. Eleanor was<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_1008" id="Page_1008"></SPAN></span>
thirty-four if a day—a nice enough woman, of course, and college bred,
and cultivated, and clever—but her long suit wasn't good looks. She was
tall and bony; worshipped genius and all that; and played the violin.</p>
<p>"No," repeated Freddy, "I shall never, never marry before Eleanor. It
would mortify her—I know it would—and make her feel that she herself
had failed. She's awfully frank about those things, Ezra—surprisingly
frank. I don't see why being an old maid is always supposed to be so
funny, do you? It's touching and tragic in a woman who'd like to marry
and who isn't asked!"</p>
<p>"But Eleanor must have had heaps of offers," I said, "surely—"</p>
<p>"Just one."</p>
<p>"Well, one's something," I remarked cheerfully. "Why didn't she take him
then?"</p>
<p>"She told me only last night that she was sorry she hadn't!"</p>
<p>Here, at any rate, was something to chew on. I saw a gleam of hope. Why
shouldn't Eleanor marry the only one—and make us all happy!</p>
<p>"That was three years ago," said Freddy.</p>
<p>"I have loved you for four," I retorted. I was cross with
disappointment. To be dashed to the ground, you know, just as I was
beginning—"Tell me some more about him," I went on. I'm a plain
business man and hang on to an idea like a bulldog; once I get my teeth
in they stay in, for all you may drag at me and wallop me with an
umbrella—metaphorically speaking, of course.</p>
<p>"Tell me his name, where he lives, and all."</p>
<p>"We were coming back from Colorado, and there was some mistake about our
tickets. They sold our Pullman drawing-room twice over—to Doctor Jones
and his mother, and also to ourselves. You never saw such a fight<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_1009" id="Page_1009"></SPAN></span>—and
that led to our making friends, and his proposing to Eleanor!"</p>
<p>"Then why in Heaven's name didn't she" (it was on the tip of my tongue
to say "jump at him") "take him?"</p>
<p>"She said she couldn't marry a man who was her intellectual inferior."</p>
<p>"And was he?"</p>
<p>"Oh, he was a perfect idiot—but nice, and all that, and tremendously in
love with her. Pity, wasn't it?"</p>
<p>"The obvious thing to do is to chase him up instantly. Where did you say
he lived?"</p>
<p>"His mother told me he was going to New York to practice medicine."</p>
<p>"But didn't you ever hear from him again? I mean, was that the end of it
all?"</p>
<p>"Yes."</p>
<p>"Then you don't even know if he has married since?"</p>
<p>"No!"</p>
<p>"Nor died?"</p>
<p>"No."</p>
<p>"Nor anything at all?"</p>
<p>"No."</p>
<p>"What was his first name?"</p>
<p>"Wait a moment ... let me think ... yes, it was Harry."</p>
<p>"Just Harry Jones, then, New York City?"</p>
<p>Freddy laughed forlornly.</p>
<p>"But he must have had antecedents," I cried out. "There are two ways of
doing this Sherlock Holmes business—backward and forward, you know.
Let's take Doctor Jones backward. As they say in post-office
forms?—what was his place of origin?"</p>
<p>"New York City."<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_1010" id="Page_1010"></SPAN></span></p>
<p>"He begins there and ends there, does he, then?"</p>
<p>"Yes."</p>
<p>"But how sure are you that Eleanor would marry him if I did manage to
find him and bring him back?"</p>
<p>"I'm not sure at all."</p>
<p>"No, but Freddy, listen—it's important. You told me yourself that
she—I want the very identical words she used."</p>
<p>Freddy reflected.</p>
<p>"She said she was almost sorry she hadn't accepted that silly doctor!"</p>
<p>"That doesn't seem much, does it?" I remarked gloomily.</p>
<p>"Oh, from Eleanor it does, Ezra. She said it quite seriously. She always
hides her feelings under a veil of sarcastic humor, you know."</p>
<p>"You're certainly a very difficult family to marry," I said.</p>
<p>"Being an orphan—" she began.</p>
<p>"Well, I'm going to find that Jones if I—!"</p>
<p>"Ezra, dear boy, you're crazy. How could you think for a moment that—"</p>
<p>"I'm off, little girl. Good-by!"</p>
<p>"Wait a second, Ezra!"</p>
<p>She rose and went into the next room, reappearing with something in her
hand. She was crying and smiling both at once. I took the little case
she gave me—it was like one of those things that pen-knives are put
in—and looked at her for an explanation.</p>
<p>"It's the h-h-hindleg of a j-j-jack-rabbit," she said, "shot by a
g-g-grave at the f-f-full of the moon. It's supposed to be l-l-lucky. It
was given to me by a naval officer who got drowned. It's the only way I
can h-h-help you!"</p>
<p>And thus equipped I started bravely for New York.<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_1011" id="Page_1011"></SPAN></span></p>
<h3>II</h3>
<p>In the directory I found eleven pages of Joneses; three hundred and
eighty-four Henry Joneses; and (excluding seventeen dentists)
eighty-seven Doctor Henry Joneses. I asked one of the typists in the
office to copy out the list, and prepared to wade in. We were on the eve
of a labor war, and it was exceedingly difficult for me to get away. As
the managing partner of Hodge & Westoby, boxers (not punching boxers,
nor China boxers, but just plain American box-making boxers), I had to
bear the brunt of the whole affair, and had about as much spare time as
you could heap on a ten-cent piece. I had to be firm, conciliatory,
defiant and tactful all at once, and every hour I took off for Jonesing
threatened to blow the business sky-high. It was a tight place and no
mistake, and it was simply jack-rabbit hindleg luck that pulled me
through!</p>
<p>My first Jones was a hoary old rascal above a drug store. He was a hard
man to get away from, and made such a fuss about my wasting his time
with idle questions that I flung him a dollar and departed. He followed
me down to my cab and insisted on sticking in a giant bottle of his
Dog-Root Tonic. I dropped it overboard a few blocks farther on, and
thought that was the end of it till the whole street began to yell at
me, and a policeman grabbed my horse, while a street arab darted up
breathless with the Dog-Root Tonic. I presented it to him, together with
a quarter, the policeman darkly regarding me as an incipient madman.</p>
<p>The second Jones was a man of about thirty, a nice, gentlemanly fellow,
in a fine office. I have usually been an off-hand man in business,
accustomed to quick decisions and very little beating about the bush.
But I confess I was rather nonplussed with the second Jones. How<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_1012" id="Page_1012"></SPAN></span> the
devil was I to <i>begin</i>? His waiting-room was full of people, and I
hardly felt entitled to sit down and gas about one thing and the other
till the chance offered of leading up to the Van Coorts. So I said I had
some queer, shooting sensations in the chest. In five minutes he had me
half-stripped and was pounding my midriff in. And the questions that man
asked! He began with my grandparents, roamed through my childhood and
youth, dissected my early manhood, and finally came down to coffee and
what I ate for breakfast.</p>
<p>Then it was my turn.</p>
<p>I asked him, as a starter, whether he had ever been in Colorado?</p>
<p>No, he hadn't.</p>
<p>After forty-five minutes of being hammered, and stethoscoped, and
punched, and holding my breath till I was purple, and hopping on one
leg, he said I was a very obscure case of something with nine syllables!</p>
<p>"At least, I won't be positive with one examination," he said; "but
kindly come to-morrow at nine, when I shall be more at leisure to go
into the matter thoroughly."</p>
<p>I paid him ten dollars and went sorrowfully away.</p>
<p>The third Jones was too old to be my man; so was the fourth; the fifth
had gone away the month before, leaving no address; the sixth, however,
was younger and more promising. I thought this time I'd choose something
easier than pains in the chest. I changed them to my left hand. I was
going to keep my clothes on, anyhow. But it wasn't any use. Off they
came. After a decent interval of thumping and grandfathers, and what I
had for breakfast, I managed to get in my question:</p>
<p>"Ever in Colorado, Doctor?"</p>
<p>"Oh, dear me, no!"</p>
<p>Another ten dollars, and nothing accomplished!<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_1013" id="Page_1013"></SPAN></span></p>
<p>The seventh Jones was again too old; the eighth was a pale hobbledehoy;
the ninth was a loathsome quack; the tenth had died that morning; the
eleventh was busy; the twelfth was a veterinary surgeon; the thirteenth
was an intern living at home with his widowed sister. Colorado? No, the
widowed sister was positive he had never been there. The fourteenth was
a handsome fellow of about thirty-five. He looked poor and threadbare,
and I had a glimpse of a shabby bed behind a screen. Patients obviously
did not often come his way, and his joy at seeing me was pitiful. I had
meant to try a bluff and get in my Colorado question this time free of
charge; but I hadn't the heart to do it. Slight pains in the head seemed
a safe complaint.</p>
<p>After a few questions he said he would have to make a thorough physical
examination.</p>
<p>"No clothes off!" I protested.</p>
<p>"It's essential," he said, and went on with something about the
radio-activity of the brain, and the vasomotor centers. The word motor
made me feel like a sick automobile. I begged to keep my clothes on; I
insisted; I promised to come to-morrow; but it wasn't any good, and in a
few minutes he was hitting me harder than either of the two before.
Maybe I was more tender! He electrocuted me extra from a switchboard,
ran red-hot needles into my legs, and finally, after banging me around
the room, said I was the strongest and wellest man who had ever entered
his office.</p>
<p>"There's a lot of make-believe in medicine," he said; "but I'm one of
those poor devils who can't help telling a patient the truth. There's
nothing whatever the matter with you, Mr. Westoby, except that your skin
has a slightly abrased look, and I seem to notice an abnormal
sensitiveness to touch."<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_1014" id="Page_1014"></SPAN></span></p>
<p>"Were you ever in Colorado, Doctor?" I asked while he was good enough to
help me into my shirt.</p>
<p>"Oh, yes, I know Colorado well!"</p>
<p>My heart beat high.</p>
<p>"Some friends of mine were out there three years ago," I said. "Wouldn't
it be strange if by any chance the Van Coorts—"</p>
<p>"Oh, I left Denver when I was fifteen."</p>
<p>Five dollars!</p>
<p>The fifteenth Jones was a doctor of divinity; the sixteenth was a
tapeworm specialist; the seventeenth was too old, the eighteenth was too
old, the nineteenth was too old—a trio of disappointing patriarchs. The
twentieth painted out black eyes; the twenty-first was a Russian who
could scarcely speak any English. He said he had changed his name from
Karaforvochristophervitch to something more suited to American
pronunciation. He seemed to think that Jones gave him a better chance. I
sincerely hope it did. He told me that all the rest of the Jones family
was in Siberia, but that he was going to bomb them out! The
twenty-second was a negro. The twenty-third—! He was a tall, youngish
man, narrow-shouldered, rather commonplace-looking, with beautiful blue
eyes, and a timid, winning, deprecatory manner. I told him I was
suffering from insomnia. After raking over my grandfathers again and
bringing the family history down by stages to the very moment I was
shown into his office he said he should have to ask me to undergo a
thorough physical—! But I was tired of being slapped and punched and
breathed on and prodded, and was bold enough to refuse point-blank. I'd
rather have the insomnia! We worked up quite a fuss about it, for there
was something tenacious in the fellow, for all his mild, kind, gentle
ways; and I had all I could do to get off by<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_1015" id="Page_1015"></SPAN></span> pleading press of
business. But I wasn't to escape scot-free. Medical science had to get
even somehow. He compromised by stinging my eye out with belladonna.
Have <i>you</i> ever had belladonna squirted in <i>your</i> eye? Well, don't.</p>
<p>He was sitting at the table, writing out some cabalistic wiggles that
stood for bromide of potassium, when I remarked casually that it was
strange how well I could always sleep in Colorado.</p>
<p>He laid down the pen with a sigh.</p>
<p>"A wonderful state—Colorado," I observed.</p>
<p>"To me it's the land of memories," he said. "Sad, beautiful, irrevocable
memories—try tea for breakfast—do you read Browning? Then you will
remember that line: 'Oh, if I—' And I insist on your giving up that
cocktail before dinner."</p>
<p>"Some very dear friends of mine were once in Colorado," I said.
"Morristown people—the Van Coorts."</p>
<p>"The Van Coorts!"</p>
<p>Doctor Jones sprang from his chair, his thin, handsome face flushing
with excitement.</p>
<p>"Do you mean to say that you know Eleanor Van Coort?" he gasped.</p>
<p>"All my life."</p>
<p>He dropped back into the chair again and mumbled something about cigars.
I was only to have blank a day. In his perturbation I believe he limited
me to a daily box. He was trying—and trying very badly—to conceal the
emotions I had conjured up.</p>
<p>"They were talking about you only yesterday," I went on. "That is, if it
<i>was</i> you! A Pullman drawing-room—"</p>
<p>"And a mistake about the tickets," he broke out. "Yes, yes, it's they
all right. Talking about me, did you say? Did Eleanor—I mean, did Miss
Van Coort—express—?"<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_1016" id="Page_1016"></SPAN></span></p>
<p>"She was wondering how she could find you," I said. "You see, they're
busy getting up a house-party and she was running over her men. 'If I
only knew where that dear Doctor Jones was,' she said, and then asked
me, if by any possible chance—"</p>
<p>His fine blue eyes were glistening with all sorts of tender thoughts. It
was really touching. And I was in love myself, you know.</p>
<p>"So she has remained unmarried!" he exclaimed softly. "Unmarried—after
all these years!"</p>
<p>"She's a very popular girl," I said. "She's had dozens of men at her
feet—but an unfortunate attachment, something that seems to go back to
about three years ago, has apparently determined her to stay out of the
game!"</p>
<p>Doctor Jones dropped his head on his hands and murmured something that
sounded like "Eleanor, Eleanor!" Then he looked up with one of the most
radiant smiles I ever saw on a man's face. "I hope I'm not presuming on
a very short acquaintance," he said, "but the fact is—why should I not
tell you?—Miss Van Coort was the woman in my life!"</p>
<p>I explained to him that Freddy was the woman in mine.</p>
<p>Then you ought to have seen us fraternize!</p>
<p>In twenty minutes I had him almost convinced that Eleanor had loved him
all these years. But he worried a lot about a Mr. Wise who had been on
the same train, and a certain Colonel Hadow who had also paid Eleanor
attention. Jones was a great fellow for wanting to be sure. I
pooh-poohed them out of the way and gave him the open track. Then,
indeed, the clouds rolled away. He beamed with joy. In his rich gush of
friendship he recurred to the subject of my insomnia with a new-born
enthusiasm. He subdivided all my symptoms. He dived again into my
physical being. He consulted German au<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_1017" id="Page_1017"></SPAN></span>thorities. I squirmed and lied
and resisted all I could, but he said he owed me an eternal debt that
could only be liquidated by an absolute cure. He wanted to tie me up and
shoot me with an X-ray. He ordered me to wear white socks. He had a
long, terrifying look at a drop of my blood. He jerked hairs out of my
head to sample my nerve force. He said I was a baffling subject, but
that he meant to make me well if it took the last shot in the scientific
locker. And he wound up at last by refusing point-blank to be paid a
cent!</p>
<p>I waltzed away on air to write an account of the whole affair to Freddy,
and dictate a plan of operations. I was justified in feeling proud of
myself. Most men would have tamely submitted to their fate instead of
chasing up all the Joneses of Jonesville! Freddy sent me an early
answer—a gay, happy, overflowing little note—telling me to try and
engage Doctor Jones for a three-day house-party at Morristown. I was to
telegraph when he could come, and was promised an official invitation
from Mrs. Matthewman. (She was the aunt, you know, that they lived
with—one of those old porcelain ladies with a lace cap and a
rent-roll.) However, I could not do anything for two days, for we had
reached a crisis in the labor troubles, and matters were approaching the
breaking point. We were threatened with one of those "sympathetic"
strikes that drive business men crazy. There was no question at issue
between ourselves and our employes; but the thing ramified off somewhere
to the sugar vacuum-boiler riveters' union. Finally the S.V.B.R.U. came
to a settlement with their bosses, and peace was permitted to descend on
Hodge & Westoby's.</p>
<p>I took immediate advantage of it to descend myself on Doctor Jones. He
received me with open arms and an insomniacal outburst. He had been
reading up; he had<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_1018" id="Page_1018"></SPAN></span> been seeing distinguished confrères; he had been
mastering the subject to the last dot, and was panting to begin. I hated
to dampen such friendship and ardor by telling him that I had completely
recovered. Under the circumstances it seemed brutal—but I did it. The
poor fellow tried to argue with me, but I insisted that I now slept like
a top. It sounded horribly ungrateful. Here I was spurning the treasures
of his mind, and almost insulting him with my disgusting good health. I
swerved off to the house-party; Eleanor's delight, and so on; Mrs.
Matthewman's pending invitation; the hope that he might have an early
date free—</p>
<p>He listened to it all in silence, walking restlessly about the office,
his blue eyes shining with a strange light. He took up a bronze
paper-weight and gazed at it with an intensity of self-absorption.</p>
<p>"I can't go," he said.</p>
<p>"Oh, but you have to," I exclaimed.</p>
<p>"Mr. Westoby," he resumed, "I was foolish enough to back a friend's
credit at a store here. He has skipped to Minnesota, and I am left with
three hundred and four dollars and seventy-five cents to pay. To take a
three days' holiday would be a serious matter to me at any time, but at
this moment it is impossible."</p>
<p>I gave him a good long look. He didn't strike me as a borrowing kind of
man. I should probably insult him by volunteering. Was there ever
anything so unfortunate?</p>
<p>"I can't go," he repeated with a little choke.</p>
<p>"You may never have another opportunity," I said. "Eleanor is doing a
thing I should never have expected from one of her proud and reserved
nature. The advances of such a woman—"</p>
<p>He interrupted me with a groan.<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_1019" id="Page_1019"></SPAN></span></p>
<p>"If it wasn't for my mother I'd throw everything to the winds and fly to
her," he burst out. "But I have a mother—a sainted mother, Mr.
Westoby—her welfare must always be my first consideration!"</p>
<p>"Is there no chance of anything turning up?" I said. "An appendicitis
case—an outbreak of measles? I thought there was a lot of scarlatina
just now."</p>
<p>He shook his head dejectedly.</p>
<p>"Doctor," I began again, "I am pretty well fixed myself. I'm blessed
with an income that runs to five figures. If all goes the way it should
we shall be brothers-in-law in six months. We are almost relations. Give
me the privilege of taking over this small obligation—"</p>
<p>I never saw a man so overcome. My proposal seemed to tear the poor devil
to pieces. When he spoke his voice was trembling.</p>
<p>"You don't know what it means to me to refuse," he said. "My
self-respect ... my—my...." And then he positively began to weep!</p>
<p>"You said three hundred and four dollars and seventy-five cents, I
believe?"</p>
<p>He waved it from him with a long, lean hand.</p>
<p>"I can not do it," he said; "and, for God's sake, don't ask me to!"</p>
<p>I argued with him for twenty minutes; I laid the question before him in
a million lights; I racked him with a picture of Eleanor, so deeply
hurt, so mortified, that in her recklessness and despair she would
probably throw herself away on the first man that offered! This was his
chance, I told him; the one chance of his life; he was letting a piece
of idiotic pride wreck the probable happiness of years. He agreed with
me with moans and weeps. He had the candor of a child and the torrential
sentiment of a German musician. Three hundred and four dollars<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_1020" id="Page_1020"></SPAN></span> and
seventy-five cents stood between him and eternal bliss, and yet he waved
my pocketbook from him! And all the while I saw myself losing Freddy.</p>
<p>I went away with his "no, no, no!" still ringing in my ears.</p>
<p>At the club I found a note from Freddy. She pressed me to lose no time.
Mrs. Matthewman was talking of going to Europe, and of course she and
Eleanor would have to accompany her. Eleanor, she said, had ordered two
new gowns and had brightened up wonderfully. "Only yesterday she told me
she wished that silly doctor would hurry up and come—and that, you
know, from Eleanor is almost a declaration!"</p>
<p>Some of my best friends happened to be in the club. It occurred to me
that poor Nevill was diabetic, and that Charley Crossman had been boring
everybody about his gout. I buttonholed them both, and laid my
unfortunate predicament before them. I said I'd pay all the expenses. In
fact, the more they could make it cost the better I'd be pleased.</p>
<p>"What," roared Nevill, "put myself in the hands of a young fool so that
he may fill his empty pockets with your money! Where do <i>I</i> come in?
Good heavens, Westoby, you're crazy! Think what would happen to me if it
came to Doctor Saltworthy's ears? He'd never have anything more to do
with me!"</p>
<p>Charley Crossman was equally rebellious and unreasonable.</p>
<p>"I guess you've never had the gout," he said grimly.</p>
<p>"But Charley, old man," I pleaded, "all that you'd have to do would be
to let him <i>talk</i> to you. I don't ask you to suffer for it. Just
pay—that's all—pay my money!"</p>
<p>"I'm awfully easily talked into things," said Charley. (There was never
such a mule on the Produce Ex<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_1021" id="Page_1021"></SPAN></span>change.) "He'd be saying, 'Take this'—and
I'm the kind of blankety-blank fool that would take it!"</p>
<p>Then I did a mean thing. I reminded Crossman of having backed some bills
of his—big bills, too—at a time when it was touch and go whether he'd
manage to keep his head above water.</p>
<p>"Westoby," he replied, "don't think that time has lessened my sense of
that obligation. I'd cut off my right hand to do you a good turn. But
for heaven's sake, don't ask me to monkey with my gout!"</p>
<p>The best I could get out of him was the promise of an anemic
servant-girl. Nevill generously threw in a groom with varicose veins.
Small contributions, but thankfully received.</p>
<p>"Now, what you do," said Nevill, "is to go round right off and interview
Bishop Jordan. He has sick people to burn!"</p>
<p>But I said Jones would get on to it if I deluged him with the misery of
the slums.</p>
<p>"That's just where the bishop comes in," said Nevill. "There isn't a man
more in touch with the saddest kind of poverty in New York—the decent,
clean, shrinking poverty that hides away from all the dead-head coffee
and doughnuts. If I was in your fix I'd fall over myself to reach
Jordan!"</p>
<p>"Yes, you try Jordan," said Charley, who, I'm sure, had never heard of
him before.</p>
<p>"Then it's me for Jordan," said I.</p>
<p>I went down stairs and told one of the bell-boys to look up the address
in the telephone-book. It seemed to me he looked pale, that boy.</p>
<p>"Aren't you well, Dan?" I said.</p>
<p>"I don't know what's the matter with me, sir. I guess it must be the
night work."<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_1022" id="Page_1022"></SPAN></span></p>
<p>I gave him a five-dollar bill and made him write down 1892 Eighth Avenue
on a piece of paper.</p>
<p>"You go and see Doctor Jones first thing," I said. "And don't mention my
name, nor spend the money on <i>Her Mad Marriage</i>."</p>
<p>I jumped into a hansom with a pleasant sense that I was beginning to
make the fur fly.</p>
<p>"That's a horrible cold of yours, Cabby," I said as we stopped at the
bishop's door and I handed him up a dollar bill. "That's just the kind
of a cold that makes graveyards hum!"</p>
<p>"I can't shake it off, sir," he said despondently. "Try what I can, and
it's never no use!"</p>
<p>"There's one doctor in the world who can cure anything," I said; "Doctor
Henry Jones, 1892 Eighth Avenue. I was worse than you two weeks ago, and
now look at me! Take this five dollars, and for heaven's sake, man, put
yourself in his hands quick."</p>
<p>Bishop Jordan was a fine type of modern clergyman. He was
broad-shouldered mentally as well as physically, and he brought to
philanthropic work the thoroughness, care, enthusiasm and capacity that
would have earned him a fortune in business.</p>
<p>"Bishop," I said, "I've come to see if I can't make a trade with you!"</p>
<p>He raised his grizzled eyebrows and gave me a very searching look.</p>
<p>"A trade," he repeated in a holding-back kind of tone, as though
wondering what the trap was.</p>
<p>"Here's a check for one thousand dollars drawn to your order," I went
on. "And here's the address of Doctor Henry Jones, 1892 Eighth Avenue. I
want this money to reach him via your sick people, and that without my
name being known or at all suspected."<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_1023" id="Page_1023"></SPAN></span></p>
<p>"May I not ask the meaning of so peculiar a request?"</p>
<p>"He's hard up," I said, "and I want to help him. It occurred to me that
I might make you—er—a confederate in my little game, you know."</p>
<p>His eyes twinkled as he slowly folded up my check and put it in his
pocket.</p>
<p>"I don't want any economy about it, Bishop," I went on. "I don't want to
make the best use of it, or anything of that kind. I want to slap it
into Doctor Jones' till, and slap it in quick."</p>
<p>"Would you consider two weeks—?"</p>
<p>"Oh, one, please!"</p>
<p>"It is understood, of course, that this young man is a duly qualified
and capable physician, and that in the event of my finding it otherwise
I shall be at liberty to direct your check to other uses?"</p>
<p>"Oh, I can answer for his being all right, Bishop. He's thoroughly
up-to-date, you know; does the X-ray act; and keeps the pace of modern
science."</p>
<p>"You say you can answer for him," said the bishop genially. "Might I
inquire who <i>you</i> are?"</p>
<p>"I'm named Westoby—Ezra Westoby—managing partner of Hodge & Westoby,
boxers."</p>
<p>"I like boxers," said the bishop in the tone of a benediction, rising to
dismiss me. "I like one thousand dollar checks, too. When you have any
more to spare just give them a fair wind in this direction!"</p>
<p>I went out feeling that the Episcopal Church had risen fifty per cent.
in my esteem. Bishops like that would make a success of any
denomination. I like to see a fellow who's on to his job.</p>
<p>I gave Jones a week to grapple with the new developments, and then
happened along. The anteroom was full, and there was a queue down the
street like a line of mu<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_1024" id="Page_1024"></SPAN></span>sic-loving citizens waiting to hear Patti.
Nice, decent-looking people, with money in their hands. (I always like
to see a cash business, don't you?) I guess it took me an hour to crowd
my way up stairs, and even then I had to buy a man out of the line.</p>
<p>Jones was carrying off the boom more quietly than I cared about. He wore
a curt, snappy air. I don't know why, but I felt misgivings as I shook
hands with him.</p>
<p>Of course I commented on the rush.</p>
<p>"The Lord only knows what's happened to my practice," he said. "The
blamed thing has gone up like a rocket. It seems to me there must be a
great wave of sickness passing over New York just now."</p>
<p>"Everybody's complaining," I said.</p>
<p>This reminded him of my insomnia till I cut him short.</p>
<p>"What's the matter with our going down to the Van Coorts' from Saturday
to Tuesday," I said. "They haven't given up the hope of seeing you
there, Doctor, and the thing's still open."</p>
<p>Then I waited for him to jump with joy.</p>
<p>He didn't jump a bit. He shook his head. He distinctly said "No."</p>
<p>"I told you it was the money side of it that bothered me," he explained.
"So it was at the time, for, of course, I couldn't foresee that my
practice was going to fill the street and call for policemen to keep
order. But, my dear Westoby, after giving the subject a great deal of
consideration I have come to the conclusion that it would be too painful
for me to revive those—those—unhappy emotions I was just beginning to
recover from!"</p>
<p>"I thought you loved her!" I exclaimed.</p>
<p>"That's why I've determined not to go," he said. "I have outlived one
refusal. How do I know I have the strength, the determination, the
hardihood to undergo the agonies of another?"<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_1025" id="Page_1025"></SPAN></span></p>
<p>It seemed a feeble remark to say that faint heart never won fair lady. I
growled it out more like a swear than anything else. I was disgusted
with the chump.</p>
<p>"She's the star above me," he said; "and I am crushed by my own
presumption. Is there any such fool as the man that breaks his heart
twice for the impossible?"</p>
<p>"But it isn't impossible," I cried. "Hasn't she—as far as a woman
can—hasn't she called you back to her? What more do you expect her to
do? A woman's delicacy forbids her screaming for a man! I think Eleanor
has already gone a tremendous way in just hinting—"</p>
<p>"You may be right," he said pathetically; "but then you may also be
wrong. The risk is too terrible for me to run. It will comfort me all my
life to think that perhaps she does love me in secret!"</p>
<p>"Do you mean to say you're going to give it all up?" I roared.</p>
<p>"You needn't get so warm about it," he returned. "After all, I have some
justification in thinking she doesn't care."</p>
<p>"What on earth do you suppose she invited you for, then?"</p>
<p>"Well, it would be different," he said, "if I had a note from her—a
flower—some little tender reminder of those dear old dead days in the
Pullman!"</p>
<p>"She's saving up all that for Morristown," I said.</p>
<p>For the first time in our acquaintance Doctor Jones looked at me with
suspicion. His blue eyes clouded. He was growing a little restive under
my handling.</p>
<p>"You seem to make the matter a very personal one," he observed.</p>
<p>"Well, I love Freddy," I explained. "It naturally brings your own case
very close to me. And then I am so positive that you love Eleanor and
that Eleanor loves you.<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_1026" id="Page_1026"></SPAN></span> Put yourself in my place, Doctor! Do you mean
that you'd do nothing to bring two such noble hearts together?"</p>
<p>He seized my hand and wrung it effusively. He really <i>did</i> love Eleanor,
you know. The only fault with him was his being so darned humble about
it. He was eaten up with a sense of his own inferiority. And yet I could
see he was just tingling to go to Morristown. Of course, I crowded him
all I could, but the best I could accomplish was his promise to "think
it over." I hated to leave him wabbling, but patients were scuffling at
the door and fighting on the stairs.</p>
<p>The next thing I did was to get Freddy on the long-distance 'phone.</p>
<p>"Freddy," I said, after explaining the situation, "you must get Eleanor
to telegraph to him direct!"</p>
<p>"What's the good of asking what she won't do?" bubbled the sweet little
voice.</p>
<p>"Can't you persuade her?"</p>
<p>"I know she won't do it!"</p>
<p>"Then you must forge it," I said desperately. "It needn't be anything
red-hot, you know. But something tender and sincere: 'Shall be awfully
disappointed if you don't come,' or, 'There was a time when you would
not have failed me!'"</p>
<p>"It's impossible."</p>
<p>"Then he won't budge a single inch!" I replied.</p>
<p>"Ezra?"</p>
<p>"Darling!"</p>
<p>"Suppose I just signed the telegram Van Coort?"</p>
<p>"The very thing!"</p>
<p>"If he misunderstood it—I mean if he thought it really came from
Eleanor—there couldn't be any fuss about it afterward, could there?"<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_1027" id="Page_1027"></SPAN></span></p>
<p>"And, of course, you'll send the official invitation from Mrs.
Matthewman besides?"</p>
<p>"For Saturday?"</p>
<p>"Yes, Saturday!"</p>
<p>"And <i>you'll</i> come?"</p>
<p>"Just watch me!"</p>
<p>"Ezra, are you happy?"</p>
<p>"That depends on Jones."</p>
<p>"Oh, isn't it exciting?"</p>
<p>"I have the ring in my pocket—"</p>
<p>"But touch wood, won't you?"</p>
<p>"Freddy?"</p>
<p>"Yes—"</p>
<p>"What's the matter with getting some forget-me-nots and mailing them to
Jones in an envelope?"</p>
<p>"All right, I'll attend to it. Eighteen ninety-two Eighth Avenue, isn't
it?"</p>
<p>"Be sure it <i>is</i> forget-me-nots, you know. Don't mix up the language of
flowers, and send him one that says: 'I'm off with a handsomer man,' or,
'You needn't come round any more!'"</p>
<p>"Oh, Ezra, Eleanor is really getting quite worked up!"</p>
<p>"So am I!"</p>
<p>"Wouldn't it be perfectly splendid if—Switch off quick, here's aunt
coming!"</p>
<p>"Mayn't I even say I love you?"</p>
<p>"I daren't say it back, Ezra—she's calling."</p>
<p>"But <i>do</i> you?"</p>
<p>"Yes, unfortunately—"</p>
<p>"Why unfortun—?"</p>
<p>Buzz-buzz-swizzleum-bux-bux!—Aunt had cut us off. However, short as my
talk with Freddy had been, it brightened my whole day.</p>
<p>Late the same afternoon I went back to Doctor Jones.<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_1028" id="Page_1028"></SPAN></span> I was prepared to
find him uplifted, but I hadn't counted on his being maudlin. The fellow
was drunk, positively drunk—with happiness. His tongue ran on like a
mill-stream. I had to sit down and have the whole Pullman-car episode
inflicted on me a second time. I was shown the receipt-slip. I was shown
the telegram from Eleanor. I was shown with a whoop the forget-me-nots!
Then he was going on Saturday? I asked. He said he guessed it would take
an earthquake to keep him away, and a pretty big earthquake, too!... Oh,
it was a great moment, and all the greater because I was tremendously
worked up, too. I saw Freddy floating before me, my sweet, girlish,
darling Freddy, holding out her arms ... while Jones gassed and gassed
and gassed....</p>
<p>I left him taking phenacetin for his headache.</p>
<h3>III</h3>
<p>The house-party had grown a little larger than was originally intended.
On Saturday night we sat down twelve to dinner. Doctor Jones and I
shared a room together, and I must say whatever misgivings I might have
had about him wore away very quickly on closer acquaintance. In the
first place he looked well in evening dress, carrying himself with a
sort of shy, kind air that became him immensely. At table he developed
the greatest of conversational gifts—that of the appreciative and
intelligent listener. I heard one of the guests asking Eleanor who was
that charming young man. Freddy and I hugged each other (I mean
metaphorically, of course) and gloried in his success. In the presence
of an admirer (such is the mystery of women) Eleanor instantly got
fifteen points better looking, and you wouldn't have known her for the
same girl. Freddy thought it<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_1029" id="Page_1029"></SPAN></span> was the two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar gown
she wore, but I could see it was deeper than that. She was thawing in
the sunshine of love, and I'll do Doctor Jones the justice to say that
he didn't hide his affection under a bushel. It was generous enough for
everybody to bask in, and in his pell-mell ardor he took us all to his
bosom. The women loved him for it, and entered into a tacit conspiracy
to gain him the right-of-way to wherever Eleanor was to be found. In
fact, he followed her about like a dog, and she could scarcely move
without stepping on him.</p>
<p>Sunday was even better. One of the housemaids drank some wood-alcohol by
mistake for vichy water, and the resulting uproar redounded to Jones'
coolness, skill and despatch. He dominated the situation and—well, I
won't describe it, this not being a medical work, and the reader
probably being a good guesser. Mrs. Matthewman remarked significantly
that it must be nice to be the wife of a medical man—one would always
have the safe feeling of a doctor at hand in case anything happened at
night! Eleanor said it was a beautiful profession that had for its
object the alleviation of human pain. Freddy jealously tried to get in a
good word for boxers, but nobody would listen to her except me. It was
all Jones, Jones, Jones, and the triumphs of modern medicine. Altogether
he sailed through that whole day with flying colors, first with the
housemaid, and then afterward at church, where he was the only one that
knew what Sunday after Epiphany it was. He made it plainer than ever
that he was a model young man and a pattern. Mrs. Matthewman compared
him to her departed husband, and talked about old-fashioned courtesy and
the splendid men of her youth. Everybody fell over everybody else to
praise him. It was a regular Jones boom. People<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_1030" id="Page_1030"></SPAN></span> began to write down his
address, and ask him if he'd be free Thursday, or what about Friday, and
started to book seats in advance.</p>
<p>That evening, as I was washing my hands before dinner and cheerfully
whistling <i>Hiawatha</i>, I became conscious that Jones was lolling back on
a sofa at the dark end of the room. What particularly arrested my
attention was a groan—preceded by a pack of heartrending sighs. It
worried me—when everything seemed to be going so well. He had every
right to be whistling <i>Hiawatha</i>, too.</p>
<p>"What's the matter, Jones?" said I.</p>
<p>He keeled over on the sofa, and groaned louder than ever.</p>
<p>"It isn't possible—that she's refused you?" I exclaimed. He muttered
something about his mother.</p>
<p>"Well, what about your mother?" I said.</p>
<p>"Westoby," he returned, "I guess I was the worst kind of fool ever to
put my foot into this house."</p>
<p>That was nice news, wasn't it? Just as I was settling in my head to buy
that Seventy-second Street place, and alter the basement into a garage!</p>
<p>"You see, old man, my mother would never consent to my marrying Eleanor.
I'm in the position of having to choose between her and the woman I
love. And I owe so much to my mother, Westoby. She stinted herself for
years to get me through college; she hardly had enough to eat; she...."
Then he groaned a lot more.</p>
<p>"I can't think that your mother—a mother like yours, Jones—would
consent to stand between you and your lifelong happiness. It's
morbid—that's what I call it—morbid, just to dream of such a thing."</p>
<p>"There's Bertha," he quavered.</p>
<p>"Great Scott, and who's Bertha?"<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_1031" id="Page_1031"></SPAN></span></p>
<p>"The girl my mother chose for me two years ago—Bertha McNutt, you know.
She'd really prefer me not to marry at all, but if I must—it's Bertha,
Westoby—Bertha or nothing!"</p>
<p>"It's too late to say that now, old fellow."</p>
<p>"It's not too late for me to go home this very night."</p>
<p>"Well, Jones," I broke out, "I can't think you'd do such a caddish thing
as that. Think it over for a minute. You come down here; you sweep that
unfortunate girl off her feet; you make love to her with the fury of a
stage villain; you force her to betray her very evident partiality for
you—and then you have the effrontery to say: 'Good-by. I'm off.'"</p>
<p>"My mother—" he began.</p>
<p>"You simply can not act so dishonorably, Jones."</p>
<p>He sat silent for a little while.</p>
<p>"My mother—" he started in again finally.</p>
<p>"Surely your mother loves you?" I demanded.</p>
<p>"That's the terrible part of it, Westoby, she—"</p>
<p>"Pooh!"</p>
<p>"She stinted herself to get me through col—"</p>
<p>"Then why did you ever come here?"</p>
<p>"That's just the question I'm asking myself now."</p>
<p>"I don't see that you have any right to assume all that about your mother,
anyway. Eleanor Van Coort is a woman of a thousand—unimpeachable social
position—a little fortune of her own—accomplished, handsome, charming,
sought after—why, if you managed to win such a girl as that your mother
would walk on air."</p>
<p>"No, she wouldn't. Bertha—"</p>
<p>"You're a pretty cheap lover," I said. "I don't set up to be a little
tin hero, but I'd go through fire and water for <i>my</i> girl. Good heavens,
love is love, and all the mothers—"<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_1032" id="Page_1032"></SPAN></span></p>
<p>He let out a few more groans.</p>
<p>"Then, see here, Jones," I went on, "you owe some courtesy to our
hostess. If you went away to-night it would be an insult. Whatever you
decide to do later, you've simply got to stay here till Tuesday
morning!"</p>
<p>"Must I?" he said, in the tone of a person who is ordered not to leave
the sinking ship.</p>
<p>"A gentleman has to," I said.</p>
<p>He quavered out a sort of acquiescence, and then asked me for the loan
of a white tie. I should have loved to give him a bowstring instead,
with somebody who knew how to operate it. He was a fluff, that fellow—a
tarnation fluff!</p>
<h3>IV</h3>
<p>It was a pretty glum evening all round. Most of them thought that Jones
had got the chilly mitt. Eleanor looked pale and undecided, not knowing
what to make of Jones' death's-head face. She was resentful and pitying
in turns, and I saw all the material lying around for a first-class
conflagration. Freddy was a bit down on me, too, saying that a smoother
method would have ironed out Jones, and that I had been headlong and
silly. She cried over it, and wouldn't kiss me in the dark; and I was
goaded into saying—well, the course of true love ran in bumps that
night. There was only one redeeming circumstance, and that was my
managing to keep Jones and Eleanor apart. I mean that I insisted on
being number three till at last poor Eleanor said she had a headache,
and forlornly went up to bed.</p>
<p>Jones was still asleep when I got up the next morning at six and dressed
myself quietly so as not to awake him. It was now Monday, and you can
see for yourself there was no time to spare. I gave the butler a dollar,
and or<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_1033" id="Page_1033"></SPAN></span>dered him to say that unexpected business had called me away
without warning, but that I should be back by luncheon. I rather overdid
the earliness of it all. At least, I hove off 1892 Eighth Avenue at
eight-fifteen <span class="smcap">a.m.</span> I loitered about; looked at pawnshop windows; gave a
careful examination to a forty-eight-dollar-ninety-eight-cent complete
outfit for a four-room flat; had a chat with a policeman; assisted at a
runaway; advanced a nickel to a colored gentleman in distress; had my
shoes shined by another; helped a child catch an escaped parrot—and
still it wasn't nine! Idleness is a grinding occupation, especially on
Eighth Avenue in the morning.</p>
<p>Mrs. Jones was a thin, straight-backed, brisk old lady, with a keen
tongue, and a Yankee faculty for coming to the point. I besought her
indulgence, and laid the whole Eleanor matter before her—at least, as
much of it as seemed wise. I appeared in the rôle of her son's warmest
admirer and best friend.</p>
<p>"Surely you won't let Harry ruin his life from a mistaken sense of his
duty to you?"</p>
<p>"Duty, fiddlesticks!" said she. "He's going to marry Bertha McNutt!"</p>
<p>"But he doesn't want to marry Bertha McNutt!"</p>
<p>"Then he needn't marry anybody."</p>
<p>She seemed to think this a triumphant answer. Indeed, in some ways I
must confess it was. But still I persevered.</p>
<p>"It puts me out to have him shilly-shallying around like this," she
said. "I'll give him a good talking to when he gets back. This other
arrangement has been understood between Mrs. McNutt and myself for
years."</p>
<p>She was an irritating person. I found it not a little difficult to keep
my temper with her. It's easier to fight dragons than to temporize with
them and appeal to their<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_1034" id="Page_1034"></SPAN></span> better nature. I appealed and appealed. She
watched me with the same air of interested detachment that one gives to
a squirrel revolving in a cage. I could feel that she was flattered; her
sense of power was agreeably tickled; my earnestness and despair
enhanced the zest of her reiterated refusals. I was a very nice young
man, but her son was going to marry Bertha McNutt or marry nobody!</p>
<p>Then I tried to draw a lurid picture of his revolt from her
apron-strings.</p>
<p>"Oh, Harry's a good boy," she said. "You can't make me believe that two
days has altered his whole character. I'll answer for his doing what I
want."</p>
<p>I felt a precisely similar conviction, and my heart sank into my shoes.</p>
<p>At this moment there was a tap at the door, and another old lady bounced
in. She was stout, jolly-looking and effusive. The greetings between the
pair were warm, and they were evidently old friends. But underneath the
new-comer's gush and noise I was dimly conscious of a sort of gay
hostility. She was exultant and frightened, both at once, and her eyes
were sparkling.</p>
<p>"Well, what do you think?" she cried out explosively.</p>
<p>Mrs. Jones' lips tightened. There was a mean streak in that old woman. I
could see she was feeling for her little hatchet, and was getting out
her little gun.</p>
<p>"Bertha!" exploded the old lady. "Bertha—"</p>
<p>(Mysterious mental processes at once informed me that this was none
other than Bertha's mother.)</p>
<p>Mrs. Jones was coolly taking aim. I was reminded of that old military
dictum: "Don't shoot till you see the whites of their eyes!"</p>
<p>"Bertha," vociferated the old lady fiercely—"Bertha has been secretly
married to Mr. Stuffenhammer for the last three months!"<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_1035" id="Page_1035"></SPAN></span></p>
<p>Another series of kinematographic mental processes informed me that Mr.
Stuffenhammer was an immense catch.</p>
<p>"Twenty thousand dollars a year, and her own carriage," continued Mrs.
McNutt gloatingly. "You could have knocked me down with a feather.
Bertha is such a considerate child; she insisted on marrying secretly so
that she could tone it down by degrees to poor Harry; though there was
no engagement or anything like that, she could not help feeling, of
course, that she owed it to the dear boy to gradually—"</p>
<p>Mrs. Jones never turned a hair or moved a muscle.</p>
<p>"You needn't pity Harry," she said. "I've just got the good news that
he's engaged to one of the sweetest and richest girls in Morristown."</p>
<p>I jumped for my hat and ran.</p>
<h3>V</h3>
<p>You never saw anybody so electrified as Jones. For a good minute he
couldn't even speak. It was like bringing a horseback reprieve to the
hero on the stage. He repeated "Stuffenhammer, Stuffenhammer," in tones
that Henry Irving might have envied, while I gently undid the noose
around his neck. I led him under a tree and told him to buck up. He did
so—slowly and surely—and then began to ask me agitated questions about
proposing. He deferred to me as though I had spent my whole life
Bluebearding through the social system. He wanted to be coached how to
do it, you know. I told him to rip out the words—any old words—and
then kiss her.</p>
<p>"Don't let there be any embarrassing pause," I said. "A girl hates
pauses."<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_1036" id="Page_1036"></SPAN></span></p>
<p>"It seems a great liberty," he returned. "It doesn't strike me as
r-r-respectful."</p>
<p>"You try it," I said. "It's the only way."</p>
<p>"I'll be glad when it's over," he remarked dreamily.</p>
<p>"Whatever you do, keep clear of set speeches," I went on. "Blurt it out,
no matter how badly—but with all the fire and ginger in you."</p>
<p>He gazed at me like a dead calf.</p>
<p>"Here goes," he said, and started on a trembling walk toward the house.</p>
<p>I don't know whether he was afraid, or didn't get the chance, or what
it was; but at any rate the afternoon wore on without the least sign
of his coming to time. I kept tab on him as well as I could—checkers
with Miss Drayton—half an hour writing letters—a long talk with the
major—and finally his getting lost altogether in the shrubbery with
an old lady. Freddy said the suspense was killing her, and was terribly
despondent and miserable. I couldn't interest her in the Seventy-second
Street house at all. She asked what was the good of working and
worrying, and figuring and making lists—when in all probability it
would be another girl that would live there. She had an awfully mean
opinion of my constancy, and was intolerably philosophical and
Oh-I-wouldn't-blame-you-the-least-little-bit-if-you-did-go-off-and-marry-somebody-else!
She took a pathetic pleasure in loving me, losing me, and then weeping
over the dear dead memory. She said nobody ever got what they wanted,
anyway; and might she come, when she was old and ugly and faded and
weary, to take care of my children and be a sort of dear old aunty in
the Seventy-second Street house. I said certainly not, and we had a
fight right away.</p>
<p>As we were dressing for dinner that night I took Jones<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_1037" id="Page_1037"></SPAN></span> to task, and
tried to stiffen him up. I guess I must have mismanaged it somehow, for
he said he'd thank me to keep my paws out of his affairs, and then went
into the bath-room, where he shaved and growled for ten whole minutes. I
itched to throw a bootjack at him, but compromised on doing a little
growling myself. Afterward we got into our clothes in silence, and as he
went out first he slammed the door.</p>
<p>It was a disheartening evening. We played progressive uchre for a silly
prize, and we all got shuffled up wrong and had to stay so. Then the
major did amateur conjuring till we nearly died. I was thankful to sneak
out-of-doors and smoke a cigar under the starlight. I walked up and
down, consigning Jones to—well, where I thought he belonged. I thought
of the time I had wasted over the fellow—the good money—the hopes—I
was savage with disappointment, and when I heard Freddy softly calling
me from the veranda I zigzagged away through the trees toward the lodge
gate. There are moments when a man is better left alone. Besides, I was
in one of those self-tormenting humors when it is a positive pleasure to
pile on the agony. When you're eighty-eight per cent. miserable it's
hell not to reach par. I was sore all over, and I wanted the balm—the
consolation—to be found in the company of those cold old stars, who had
looked down in their time on such countless generations of human asses.
It gave me a wonderful sense of fellowship with the past and future.</p>
<p>I was reflecting on what an infinitesimal speck I was in the general
scheme of things, when I heard the footfall of another human speck,
stumbling through the dark and carrying a dress-suit case. It was Jones
himself, outward bound, and doing five knots an hour. I was after him in
a second, doing six.<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_1038" id="Page_1038"></SPAN></span></p>
<p>"Jones!" I cried.</p>
<p>He never even turned round.</p>
<p>I grabbed him by the arm. He wasn't going to walk away from me like
that.</p>
<p>"Where are you going?" I demanded.</p>
<p>"Home!"</p>
<p>"But say, stop; you can't do that. It's too darned rude. We don't break
up till to-morrow."</p>
<p>"I'm breaking up now," he said.</p>
<p>"But—"</p>
<p>"Let go my arm—!"</p>
<p>"Oh, but, my dear chap—" I began.</p>
<p>"Don't you dear chap me!"</p>
<p>We strode on in silence. Even his back looked sullen, and his face under
the gaslights—</p>
<p>"Westoby," he broke out suddenly, "if there's one thing I'm sensitive
about it is my name. Slap me in the face, turn the hose on me, rip the
coat off my back—and you'd be astounded by my mildness. But when it
comes to my name I—I'm a tiger!"</p>
<p>"A tiger," I repeated encouragingly.</p>
<p>"It all went swimmingly," he continued in a tone of angry confidence.
"For five seconds I was the happiest man in the United States. I—I did
everything you said, you know, and I was dumfounded at my own success.
S-s-she loves me, Westoby."</p>
<p>I gazed inquiringly at the dress-suit case.</p>
<p>"We don't belong to any common Joneses. We're Connecticut Joneses. In
fact, we're the only Joneses—and the name is as dear to me, as sacred,
as I suppose that of Westoby is, perhaps, to you. And yet—and yet—do
you know what she actually said to me? Said to me, holding my hand, and,
and—that the only thing she didn't like about me was my <i>name</i>."<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_1039" id="Page_1039"></SPAN></span></p>
<p>I contrived to get out, "Good heavens!" with the proper astonishment.</p>
<p>"I told her that Van Coort didn't strike me as being anything very
extra."</p>
<p>"Wouldn't it have been wiser to—?"</p>
<p>"Oh, for myself, I'd do anything in the world for her. But a fellow has
to show a little decent pride. A fellow owes something to his family,
doesn't he? As a man I love the ground she walks on; as a Jones—well,
if she feels like that about it—I told her she had better wait for a De
Montmorency."</p>
<p>"But she didn't say she wouldn't marry you, did she?"</p>
<p>"N-o-o-o!"</p>
<p>"She didn't ask you to <i>change</i> your name, did she?"</p>
<p>"N-o-o-o!"</p>
<p>"And do you mean to say that just for one unfortunate remark—a remark
that any one might have made in the agitation of the moment—you're
deliberately turning your back on her, and her broken heart!"</p>
<p>"Oh, she's red-hot, too, you know, over what I said about the Van
Coorts."</p>
<p>"She couldn't have realized that you belonged to the Connecticut
Joneses. <i>I</i> didn't know it. <i>I</i>—"</p>
<p>"Well, it's all off now," he said.</p>
<p>It was a mile to the depot. For Jones it was a mile of reproaches,
scoldings, lectures and insults. For myself I shall ever remember it as
the mile of my life. I pleaded, argued, extenuated and explained. My
lifelong happiness—Freddy—the Seventy-second Street house—were
walking away from me in the dark while I jerked unavailingly at Jones'
coat-tails. The whole outfit disappeared into a car, leaving me on the
platform with the ashes of my hopes. Of all obstinate, mulish,
pig-headed, copper-riveted<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_1040" id="Page_1040"></SPAN></span>—</p>
<p>I was lucky enough to find Eleanor crying softly to herself in a corner
of the veranda. The sight of her tears revived my fainting courage. I
thought of Bruce and the spider, and waded in.</p>
<p>"Eleanor," I said, "I've just been seeing poor Jones off."</p>
<p>She sobbed out something to the effect that she didn't care.</p>
<p>"No, you can't care very much," I said, "or you wouldn't send a man like
that—a splendid fellow—a member of one of the oldest and proudest
families of Connecticut—to his death."</p>
<p>"Death?"</p>
<p>"Well, he's off for Japan to-morrow. They're getting through fifty
doctors a week out there at the front. They're shot down faster than
they can set them up."</p>
<p>I was unprepared for the effect of this on Eleanor. For two cents she
would have fainted then and there. It's awful to hear a woman moan, and
clench her teeth, and pant for breath.</p>
<p>"Oh, Eleanor, can't you do anything?"</p>
<p>"I am helpless, Ezra. My pride—my woman's pride—"</p>
<p>"Oh, how can you let such trifles stand between you? Think of him out
there, in his tattered Japanese uniform—so far from home, so lonely, so
heartbroken—standing undaunted in that rain of steel, while—"</p>
<p>"Oh, Ezra, stop! I can't bear it! I can't bear it!"</p>
<p>"Is the love of three years to be thrown aside like an old glove, just
because—"</p>
<p>Her face was so wild and strained that the lies froze upon my tongue.</p>
<p>"Oh, Ezra, I could follow him barefooted through the snow if only he—"<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_1041" id="Page_1041"></SPAN></span></p>
<p>"He's leaving Grand Central to-morrow at ten forty-five," I said.</p>
<p>She fumbled at her neck, and almost tore away the diamond locket that
reposed there.</p>
<p>"Take him this," she whispered hoarsely. "Take it to him at once, and
say I sent it. Say that I beg him to return—that my pride crumbles at
the thought of his going away so far into danger."</p>
<p>I put the locket carefully into my pocket.</p>
<p>"And, Eleanor, try and don't rub him the wrong way about his name. Is it
worth while? There have to be Joneses, you know."</p>
<p>"Tell him," she burst out, "tell him—oh, I never meant to wound
him—truly, I didn't ... a name that's good enough for him is good
enough for me!"</p>
<p>The next morning at nine I pulled up my Porcher-Mufflin car before
Jones' door. He was sitting at his table reading a book, and he made no
motion to rise as I came in. He gave me a pale, expressionless stare
instead, such as an ancient Christian might have worn when the call-boy
told him the lions were ready in the Colosseum. Resignation, obstinacy
and defiance—all nicely blended under a turn-the-other-cheek exterior.
He looked woebegone, and his thin, handsome face betrayed a sleepless
night and a breakfastless morning. I could feel that my presence was the
last straw to this unfortunate medical camel.</p>
<p>I threw in a genial remark about the weather, and took a seat.</p>
<p>Jones hunched himself together, and squirmed a sad little squirm.</p>
<p>"Mr. Westoby," he said, "I once made use of a very strong expression in
regard to you. I said, if you remember, that I'd be obliged if you'd
keep your paws—"<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_1042" id="Page_1042"></SPAN></span></p>
<p>"Don't apologize," I interrupted. "I forgot it long ago."</p>
<p>"You've taken me up wrong," he continued drearily. "I should like you to
consider the remark repeated now. Yes, sir, repeated."</p>
<p>"Oh, bosh!" I exclaimed.</p>
<p>"You have a very tough epidermis," he went on. "Quite the toughest
epidermis I have met with in my whole professional career. A paper
adequately treating your epidermis would make a sensation before any
medical society."</p>
<p>Somehow I couldn't feel properly insulted. The whole business struck me
as irresistibly comical. I lay back in my chair—my uninvited chair—and
roared with laughter.</p>
<p>I couldn't forbear asking him what treatment he'd recommend.</p>
<p>He pointed to the door, and said laconically: "Fresh air."</p>
<p>I retorted by laying the diamond locket before him.</p>
<p>"My dear fellow," I said, as he gazed at it transfixed, "don't let us go
on like a pair of fools. Eleanor charged me to give you this, and beg
you to return."</p>
<p>I don't believe he heard me at all. That flashing trinket was far more
eloquent than any words of mine. He laid his head in his hands beside
it, and his whole body trembled with emotion. He trembled and trembled,
till finally I got tired of waiting. I poked him in the back, and
reminded him that my car was waiting down stairs. He rose with a
strange, bewildered air, and submitted like a child to be led into the
street. He had the locket clenched in his hand, and every now and then
he would glance at it as though unable to believe his eyes. I shut him
into the tonneau, and took a seat beside my chauffeur.</p>
<p>"Let her out, James," I said.<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_1043" id="Page_1043"></SPAN></span></p>
<p>James let her out with a vengeance. There was a sunny-haired housemaid
at the Van Coorts' ... and it was a crack, new, four-cylinder car with a
direct drive on the top speed. Off we went like the wind, jouncing poor
Jones around the tonneau like a pea in a pill-box. But he didn't care.
Was he not seraphically whizzing through space, obeying the diamond
telegram of love? In the gentle whizzle and bang of the whole
performance he even ventured to raise his voice in song, and I could
overhear him behind me, adding a lyrical finish to the hum of the
machinery. It was a walloping run, and we only throttled down on the
outskirts of Morristown. You see I had to coach him about that Japanese
war business, or else there might be trouble! So I leaned over the back
seat and gently broke it to him. I thought I had managed it rather well.
I felt sure he could understand, I said, the absolute need of a
little—embellishing and—</p>
<p>"Let me out," he said.</p>
<p>I feverishly went on explaining.</p>
<p>"If you don't let me out I'll climb out," he said, and began to make as
good as his word over the tonneau.</p>
<p>Of course, there was nothing for it but to stop the car.</p>
<p>Jones deliberately descended and headed for New York.</p>
<p>I ran after him, while the chauffeur turned the car round and slowly
followed us both. It was a queer procession. First Jones, then I, then
the car.</p>
<p>Finally I overtook him.</p>
<p>"Jones," I panted. "Jones."</p>
<p>He muttered something about Ananias, and speeded up.</p>
<p>"But it was an awfully tight place," I pleaded. "Something had to be
done; you must make allowances; it was<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_1044" id="Page_1044"></SPAN></span> the first thing that came into
my head—and you must admit that it worked, Jones. Didn't she send you
the locket? Didn't she—?"</p>
<p>"What a prancing, show-off, matinée fool you've made me look!" he burst
out. "I have an old mother to support. I have an increasing practice. I
have already attracted some little attention in my chosen field—eye,
ear and throat. A nice figure I'd cut, traipsing around the battlefields
in a kimono, and looking for a kindly bullet to lay me low. If I were
ever tempted by such a thing—which God forbid—wouldn't I prefer to
spread bacilli on buttered toast?"</p>
<p>"I never thought of that," I said humbly.</p>
<p>"I have known retail liars," he went on. "But I guess you are the only
wholesaler in the business. When other people are content with ones and
twos, you get them out in grosses, packed for export!"</p>
<p>He went on slamming me like this for miles. Anybody else would have
given him up as hopeless. I don't want to praise myself, but if I have
one good quality it's staying power. I pleaded and argued, and
expostulated and explained, with the determination of a man whose back
is to the wall. I wasn't going to lose Freddy so long as there was
breath in my body. However, it wasn't the least good in the world. Jones
was as impervious as sole-leather, and as unshaken as a marble pillar.</p>
<p>Then I played my last card.</p>
<p>I told him the truth! Not the <i>whole</i> truth, of course, but within ten
per cent. of it. About Freddy, you know, and how she was determined not
to marry before her elder sister, and how Eleanor's only preference
seemed to be for him, and how with such a slender clue to work on I had
engineered everything up to this point.</p>
<p>"If I have seemed to you intolerably prying and of<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_1045" id="Page_1045"></SPAN></span>ficious," I said,
"well, at any rate, Jones, there's my excuse. It rests with you to give
me Freddy or take her from me. Turn back, and you'll make me the
happiest man alive; go forward, and—and—"</p>
<p>I watched him out of the corner of my eye.</p>
<p>His tread lost some of its elasticity. He was short-circuiting inside.
Positively he began to look sort of sympathetic and human.</p>
<p>"Westoby," he said at last, in a voice almost of awe, "when they get up
another world's fair you must have a building to yourself. You're
colossal, that's what you are!"</p>
<p>"I'm only in love," I said.</p>
<p>"Well, that's the love that moves mountains," he said. "If anybody had
told me that I should...." He stopped irresolutely on the word.</p>
<p>"Oh, to think I have to stand for all that rot!" he bleated.</p>
<p>I was too wise to say a word. I simply motioned James to switch the car
around and back up. I shooed Jones into the tonneau and turned the knob
on him. He snuggled back in the cushions, and smiled—yes smiled—with a
beautiful, blue-eyed, far-away, indulgent expression that warmed me like
spring sunshine. Not that I felt absolutely safe even yet—of course I
couldn't—but still—</p>
<p>We ran into Freddy and Eleanor at the lodge gates. I had already
telephoned the former to expect us, so as to have everything fall out
naturally when the time came. We stopped the car, and descended—Jones
and I—and he walked straight off with Eleanor, while I side-stepped
with Freddy.</p>
<p>She and I were almost too excited to talk. It was now or never, you
know, and there was an awfully solemn look about both their backs that
was either reassuring or<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_1046" id="Page_1046"></SPAN></span> alarming—we couldn't decide quite which.
Freddy and I simply held our breath and waited.</p>
<p>Finally, after an age, Jones and Eleanor turned, still close in talk,
still solemn and enigmatical, and drew toward us very slowly and
deliberately. When they had got quite close, and the tension was at the
breaking point, Eleanor suddenly made a little rush, and, with a loud
sob, threw her arms round Freddy's neck.</p>
<p>Jones fidgeted nervously about, and seemed to quail under my questioning
eyes. It was impossible to tell whether things had gone right or not. I
waited for him to speak.... I saw words forming themselves hesitatingly
on his lips ... he bent toward me quite confidentially....</p>
<p>"Say, old man," he whispered, "is there any place around here where a
fellow can buy an engagement ring?"<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_1047" id="Page_1047"></SPAN></span></p>
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