"Really?" came the startled query. There was a stir from within, the lock snapped and the door opened.
"I"ve got a little friend here that I want you to--" Mallow paused inside the threshold, his mouth fell open, he stared in frank amazement. "Sweet spirits of niter!" he gasped. "What happened to _you?_"
"I was playing tag in the hall with some other old men, and one of them struck me."
"My G.o.d, you"re a sight!" Mallow remained petrified. "I never saw a worse mess."
"Come in and close the door. I am vain, therefore I have a certain shyness about exposing my beauty to the curious gaze. Pardon me if I seat myself first; I find it more comfortable to sit than to stand, to recline than to sit." Stiffly the speaker let himself into an upholstered divan and fitted the cushions to his aches and his pains, his bruises and his abrasions. He sighed miserably. His features were discolored, shapeless; his lips were cut; strips of adhesive tape held the edges of a wound together; his left hand was tightly bandaged and the room reeked with the odor of liniment.
"You"ve been hit with a safe, or something," Mallow declared.
"Evidences of some blunt instrument, as the newspapers say; maybe a pair of chain tongs."
"Blunt and heavy, yes. Buddy Briskow and I had an argument--"
"That big b.u.m? Did he lay it on you like that? Say, he"s got the makings of a champ!"
"Pride impels me to state that he got the worst of it. He is scarcely presentable, while I--"
"Your side won?"
"It did. Now, where is the boy?"
"He"s outside." Without shifting his astonished gaze, Mallow raised his voice and cried, "Hey, Bennie!" The door opened, a trim, diminutive figure entered. "Bennie, mit my friend Colonel Gray."
The youngster, a boy of indeterminate age, advanced and shook hands.
There was no mistaking him; he was Margie Fulton"s son in size, in coloring, in features. "I told Bennie you could use a bright kid about his age. And he"s bright."
It required no clever a.n.a.lysis of the lad to convince Gray that he was indeed bright, as bright--and as hard--as a silver dollar. He had a likable face, or it would have been likable had it been in repose. It was twitching now, and Gray said, with a smile, "Go ahead and laugh, son."
The urchin"s lips parted in a wide grin, and he spoke for the first time. "Did the Germans do that?" The effect of his voice was startling, for it was deep and husky; it was the older man"s turn to be astonished.
"He could pa.s.s for fifteen on the street," Mallow said; "but when he talks I chalk him down for thirty-five. How old are you, Ben?"
"Seventeen. What"s the big idea, anyhow?" The question was directed impudently at the occupant of the divan. "Did you send all the way to Hot Springs to get a guy you can lick?"
"Your mother is here in Dallas, my boy."
"Yeah?" There was a pause. "How"s it breaking for her?"
"Um-m, very well. I thought she"d like to see you."
Bennie c.o.c.ked his head, he eyed the speaker curiously, suspiciously.
"Come clean," he rumbled. "Mallow said you could use me."
"I can. I will."
The boy shrugged. "All right, Sharkey. I s"pose it"ll come out, in time. Only remember, I"ve got twenty coming, win or lose."
"Of course" Gray waved toward the dresser, upon which was a handful of bills. "Help yourself. Better make it twenty-five. Then wait outside, please. We will join you in a few minutes."
"And don"t make it thirty," Bennie"s traveling companion sharply cautioned.
When the door had closed, Gray gave his friend certain instructions, after which he limped to the telephone and called Arline Montague. "May I ask you to step down to Buddy"s room?" he inquired, after making himself known. "Oh, it will be quite all right--We three must have a little talk--But he _couldn"t_ see you last night. He was quite ill, really; I sat up with him most of--" There was a longer hiatus then.
"Hadn"t we better argue that in Buddy"s presence? Thank you. In five minutes, then."
As he and Gray prepared to leave, Mallow said, sourly: "Margie is a good little dame, in her way, and I feel like a--like a d.a.m.ned"stool.""
"My dear fellow," the other told him, "I understand, and I"d gladly take another beating like this one to escape this wretched denouement."
When Ozark Briskow answered Gray"s request for admittance, he was deeply embarra.s.sed to find Miss Montague also waiting; his stammered protest was interrupted by her sharp inquiry:
"What is the meaning of all this mystery? He said you were too sick to see me."
"Permit me to explain," Gray began, as he closed the door behind them.
"Buddy and I came to blows over you; you were, in a manner of speaking, an apple of discord between us, and the melancholy results you behold.
Jealousy of your charms was not my motive; I merely asked Buddy to defer a contemplated action. He refused; I insisted. Argument failed to budge either of us and--"
The young woman"s sympathetic regard of Gray"s victim changed to a glare of hostility as she turned upon the speaker, crying: "You _brute!_ You ought to be arrested!"
"He ast me to wait, Arline--"
"To delay asking you a question which I felt should be more seriously considered. In the absence of his family I took it upon myself to--"
"To b.u.t.t in!" Miss Montague exclaimed, with curling lip.
"Quite so. I merit your disapproval, but not your disdain."
With some heat Buddy declared: "Pa an" Ma know that I got a mind of my own. It won"t do "em any good to come."
"See here," the woman demanded. "What have you been telling Buddy about me? I told him all there was to tell."
"Quite all? I fear you have not been as frank as you would have me believe. That, in fact, explains my connection with the affair. Believe me when I say that I am interested only in seeing justice done to both of you young people, and in making sure that you do not deceive each other. It is an impulse of artless youth to trick itself in glowing colors, but you should know the whole truth about Buddy and he about you. If, after you are thoroughly acquainted with each other, you still maintain a mutual regard I shall have nothing further to say--except to beg that I be allowed to show my true friendship for both of you."
"Well, spring the bad news," said Miss Montague. Briskow now displayed the first open resentment he had shown since his defeat of the day before. "You licked me, Mr. Gray, an" I took my medicine," he growled.
"You changed my looks, but you didn"t change my mind. I"m waitin" for the folks to come, but I ain"t goin" to listen to "em."
"Let him get this off his chest, Buddy. Go ahead with the scandal, Saint Anthony."
Gray bowed. "Suppose we ignore the early convent training and the Old Kentucky Home and agree that they are pleasant fictions, like the estate which you are in such imminent danger of inheriting. Those, I"m sure you will admit, are entirely imaginary." Buddy Briskow"s swollen eyelids opened wider, his tumid lips parted, and an expression of surprise spread over his dropsical countenance.
"Step on it," sneered Miss Montague. "Dish the dirt!"
"Buddy"s belief, however, that your stage career was blasted and your young life laid waste by the scion of a rich New York house should, in the interests of truth, be corrected."
"He knows I was married."
"True. But not to Bennie Fulton, the jockey."
"That is a--lie!"