Galusha found himself standing beside a couch, an old-fashioned sofa. It tempted him--oh, how it tempted him!--but he remembered the condition of his garments.
"I am very wet indeed," he faltered. "I"m afraid I may spoil your--your couch."
"Sit DOWN!"
Galusha sat. The room was doing a whirling dervish dance about him, but he still felt it his duty to explain.
"I fear you must think this--ah--very queer," he stammered. "I realize that I must seem--ah--perhaps insane, to you. But I have, as I say, been ill and I have walked several miles, owing to--ah--mistakes in locality, and not having eaten for some time, since breakfast, in fact, I--"
"Not since BREAKFAST? Didn"t you have any dinner, for mercy sakes?"
"No, madam. Nor luncheon. Oh, it is quite all right, no one"s fault but my own. Then, when I found the--the hotel closed, I--I sat down to rest and--and when I heard you call my name--"
"Wait a minute. What IS your name?"
"My name is Bangs, Galusha Bangs. It seems ridiculous now, as I tell it, but I certainly thought I heard you or some one call me by the name my relatives and friends used to use. Of course--"
"Wait. What was that name?"
Even now, dizzy and faint as he was, Mr. Bangs squirmed upon the sofa.
"It was--well, it was Loosh--or--ah--Looshy" he admitted, guiltily.
His hostess" face broke into smiles. Her "comfortable" shoulders shook.
"Well, if that doesn"t beat everything!" she exclaimed. "I was callin"
my cat; his name is Lucy--Lucy Larcom; sometimes we call him "Luce" for short.... Eh? Heavens and earth! Don"t do THAT!"
But Galusha had already done it. The dervish dance in his head had culminated in one grand merry-go-round blotting out consciousness altogether, and he had sunk down upon the sofa.
The woman sprang from her chair, bent over him, felt his pulse, and loosened his collar.
"Primmie," she called. "Primmie, come here this minute, I want you!"
There was the sound of scurrying feet, heavy feet, from the adjoining room, the door opened and a large, raw-boned female, of an age which might have been almost anything within the range of the late teens or early twenties, clumped in. She had a saucer in one hand and a dishcloth in the other.
"Yes"m," she said, "here I be." Then, seeing the p.r.o.ne figure upon the sofa, she exclaimed fervently, "Oh, my Lord of Isrul! Who"s that?"
"Now don"t stand there swearin" and askin" questions, but do as I tell you. You go to the--"
"But--but what AILS him? Is he drunk?"
"Drunk? What put such a notion as that in your head? Of course he isn"t drunk."
"He ain"t--he ain"t dead?"
"Don"t be so silly. He"s fainted away, that"s all. He"s tired out and half sick and half starved, I guess. Here, where are you goin"?"
"I"m a-goin" to fetch some water. They always heave water on fainted folks."
"Well, this one"s had all the water he needs already. The poor thing is soaked through. You go to the pantry and in the blue soup tureen, the one we don"t use, you"ll find a bottle of that cherry rum Cap"n Hallet gave me three years ago. Bring it right here and bring a tumbler and spoon with it. After that you see if you can get Doctor Powers on the telephone and ask him to come right down here as quick as he can. HURRY!
Primmie Cash, if you stop to ask one more question I--I don"t know what I"ll do to you. Go ALONG!"
Miss Cash went along, noisily along. Her mistress bent over the wet, pitiful little figure upon the sofa.
And thus, working by devious ways, did Fate bring about the meeting of Galusha Cabot Bangs, of the National Inst.i.tute, Washington, D. C., and Miss Martha Phipps, of East Wellmouth, which, it may be said in pa.s.sing, was something of an achievement, even for Fate.
CHAPTER II
And in order to make clear the truth of the statement just made, namely, that Fate had achieved something when it brought Galusha Bangs to the door of Martha Phipps" home that rainy night in October--in order to emphasize the truth of that statement it may be well, without waiting further, to explain just who Galusha Cabot Bangs was, and who and what his family was, and how, although the Bangses were all very well in their way, the Cabots--his mother"s family--were "the banking Cabots of Boston," and were, therefore, very great people indeed.
"The banking Cabots" must not be confused with any other branch of the Cabots, of which there are many in Boston. All Boston Cabots are "nice people," many are distinguished in some way or other, and all are distinctly worth while. But "the banking Cabots" have been deep in finance from the very beginning, from the earliest of colonial times.
The salary of the Reverend Cotton Mather was paid to him by a Cabot, and another Cabot banked whatever portion of it he saved for a rainy day.
In the Revolution a certain Galusha Cabot, progenitor of the line of Galusha Cabots, a.s.sisted the struggling patriots of Beacon Hill to pay their troops in the Continental army. During the Civil War his grandson, the Honorable Galusha Hanc.o.c.k Cabot, one of Boston"s most famous bankers and financiers, was of great a.s.sistance to his state and nation in the sale of bonds and the floating of loans. His youngest daughter, Dorothy Hanc.o.c.k Cabot, married--well, she should, of course, have married a financier or a banker or, at the very least, a millionaire stockbroker.
But she did not, she married John Capen Bangs, a thoroughly estimable man, a scholar, author of two or three scholarly books which few read and almost n.o.body bought, and librarian of the Acropolis, a library that Bostonians and the book world know and revere.
The engagement came as a shock to the majority of "banking Cabots." John Bangs was all right, but he was not in the least "financial." He was respected and admired, but he was not the husband for Galusha Hanc.o.c.k Cabot"s daughter. She should have married a Kidder or a Higginson or some one high in the world of gold and securities. But she did not, she fell in love with John Bangs and she married him, and they were happy together for a time--a time all too brief.
In the second year of their marriage a baby boy was born. His mother named him, her admiring husband being quite convinced that whatever she did was sure to be exactly the right thing. So, in order to keep up the family tradition and honors--"He has a perfect Cabot head. You see it, don"t you, John dear"--she named him Galusha Cabot Bangs. And then, but three years afterward, she died.
John Capen Bangs remained in Boston until his son was nine. Then his health began to fail. Years of pawing and paring over old volumes amid the dust and close air of book-lined rooms brought on a cough, a cough which made physicians who heard it look grave. It was before the days of Adirondack Mountain sanitariums. They told John Bangs to go South, to Florida. He went there, leaving his son at school in Boston, but the warm air and sunshine did not help the cough. Then they sent him to Colorado, where the boy Galusha joined him. For five years he and the boy lived in Colorado. Then John Capen Bangs died.
Dorothy Hanc.o.c.k Cabot had a sister, an older sister, Clarissa Peabody Cabot. Clarissa did not marry a librarian as her sister did, nor did she marry a financier, as was expected of her. This was not her fault exactly; if the right financier had happened along and asked, it is quite probable that he would have been accepted. He did not happen along; in fact, no one happened along until Clarissa was in her thirties and somewhat anxious. Then came Joshua Bute of Chicago, and when wooed she accepted and married him. More than that, she went with him to Chicago, where stood the great establishment which turned out "Bute"s Banner Brand b.u.t.terine" and "Bute"s Banner Brand Leaf Lard" and "Bute"s Banner Brand Back-Home Sausage" and "Bute"s Banner Brand Better Baked Beans." Also there was a magnificent mansion on the Avenue.
Aunt Clarissa had family and culture and a Boston manner. Uncle Joshua had a kind heart, a hemispherical waistcoat and a tremendous deal of money. Later on the kind heart stopped beating and Aunt Clarissa was left with the money, the mansion and--but of course the "manner" had been all her own all the time.
So when John Bangs died, Aunt Clarissa Bute sent for the son, talked with the latter, and liked him. She wrote to her relative, Augustus Adams Cabot, of Cabot, Bancroft and Cabot, in Boston, who, although still a young man, was already known as a financier, and looked out for her various investments, saying that she found young Galusha "a nice boy, though rather odd, like his father," and that she thought of taking his rearing and education into her own hands. "I have no children of my own, Augustus. What do you think of the idea?" Augustus thought it a good one; at least he wrote that he did. So Aunt Clarissa took charge of Galusha Bangs.
The boy was fourteen then, a dreamy, shy youngster, who wore spectacles and preferred curling up in a corner with a book to playing baseball. It was early spring when he came to live with Aunt Clarissa and before the summer began he had already astonished his relative more than once.
On one occasion a visitor, admiring the Bute library, asked how many volumes it contained. Aunt Clarissa replied that she did not know. "I have added from time to time such books as I desired and have discarded others. I really have no idea how many there are." Then Galusha, from the recess by the window, looked up over the top of the huge first volume of Ancient Nineveh and Its Remains which he was reading and observed: "There were five thousand six hundred and seventeen yesterday, Auntie."
Aunt Clarissa started so violently that her eyegla.s.ses fell from her aquiline nose to the end of their chain.
"Good heavens, child! I didn"t know you were there. What did you say?"
"I said there were five thousand six hundred and seventeen books on the shelves here yesterday."
"How do you know?"
"I counted them."
"COUNTED them? Mercy! What for?"
Galusha"s spectacles gleamed. "For fun," he said.
On another occasion his aunt found him still poring over Ancient Nineveh and Its Remains; it was the fifth volume now, however.