"And you know, of course, Kennedy, that he had no shirt on under that coat, don"t you?" rejoined Latrobe, rising from his seat as he spoke and joining St. George at the window.
"Do you think so?" echoed Mr. Kennedy.
"I am positive of it. He came to see me next day and wanted me to let him know whether he had been successful. He said if the committee only knew how much the prize would mean to him they would stretch a point in his favor. I am quite sure I told you about it at the time, St. George,"
and he laid his hand on his host"s shoulder.
"There was no need of stretching it, Latrobe," remarked Richard Horn in his low, incisive voice, his eyes on Kennedy"s face, although he was speaking to the counsellor. "You and Kennedy did the world a great service at the right moment. Many a man of brains--one with something new to say--has gone to the wall and left his fellow men that much poorer because no one helped him into the Pool of Healing at the right moment." (Dear Richard!--he was already beginning to understand something of this in his own experience.)
Todd"s entrance interrupted the talk for a moment. His face was screwed up into knots, both eyes lost in the deepest crease. "Fo" Gawd, Ma.r.s.e George," he whispered in his master"s ear--"dem woodc.o.c.k"ll be sp"iled if dat gemman don"t come!"
St. George shook his head: "We will wait a few minutes more, Todd. Tell Aunt Jemima what I say."
Clayton, who despite the thinness of his seersucker coat, had kept his palm-leaf fan busy since he had taken his seat, and who had waited until his host"s ear was again free, now broke in cheerily:
"Same old story of course, St. George. Another genius gone astray. Bad business, this bee of literature, once it gets to buzzing." Then with a quizzical glance at the author: "Kennedy is a lamentable example of what it has done for him. He started out as a soldier, dropped into law, and now is trying to break into Congress again--and all the time writes--writes--writes. It has spoiled everything he has tried to do in life--and it will spoil everything he touches from this on--and now comes along this man Poe, who--"
"--No, he doesn"t come along," chimed in Pancoast, who so far had kept silence, his palm-leaf fan having done all the talking. "I wish he would."
"You are right, judge," chuckled Clayton, "and that is just my point.
Here I say, comes along this man Poe and spoils my dinner. Something, I tell you, has got to be done or I shall collapse. By the way, Kennedy--didn"t you send Poe a suit of clothes once in which to come to your house?"
The distinguished statesman, who had been smiling at the major"s good-natured badinage, made no reply: that was a matter between the poet and himself.
"And didn"t he keep everybody waiting?" persisted Clayton, "until your man found him and brought him back in your own outfit--only the shirt was four sizes too big for his bean-pole of a body. Am I right?" he laughed.
"He has often dined with me, Clayton," replied Kennedy in his most courteous and kindly tone, ignoring the question as well as all allusion to his charity--"and never in all my experience have I ever met a more dazzling conversationalist. Start him on one of his weird tales and let him see that you are interested and in sympathy with him, and you will never forget it. He gave us parts of an unfinished story one night at my house, so tremendous in its power that every one was frozen stiff in his seat."
Again Clayton cut in, this time to St. George. He was getting horribly hungry, as were the others. It was now twenty minutes past the dinner hour and there were still no signs of Poe, nor had any word come from him. "For mercy"s sake, St. George, try the suit-of-clothes method--any suit of clothes--here--he can have mine! I"ll be twice as comfortable without them."
"He couldn"t get into them," returned St. George with a smile--"nor could he into mine, although he is half our weight; and as for our hats--they wouldn"t get further down on his head than the top of his crown."
"But I insist on the experiment," bubbled Clayton good-naturedly.
"Here we are, hungry as wolves and everything being burned up. Try the suit-of-clothes trick--Kennedy did it--and it won"t take your Todd ten minutes to go to Guy"s and bring him back inside of them."
"Those days are over for Poe," Kennedy remarked with a slight frown. The major"s continued allusions to a brother writer"s poverty, though pure badinage, had begun to jar on the author.
For the second time Todd"s face was thrust in at the door. It now looked like a martyr"s being slowly roasted at the stake.
"Yes, Todd--serve dinner!" called St. George in a tone that showed how great was his disappointment. "We won"t wait any longer, gentlemen.
Geniuses must be allowed some leeway. Something has detained our guest."
"He"s got an idea in his head and has stopped in somewhere to write it down," continued Clayton in his habitual good-natured tone: it was the overdone woodc.o.c.k--(he had heard Todd"s warning)--that still filled his mind.
"I could forgive him for that," exclaimed the judge--"some of his best work, I hear, has been done on the spur of the moment--and you should forgive him too, Clayton--unbeliever and iconoclast as you are--and you WOULD forgive him if you knew as much about new poetry as you do about old port."
Clayton"s stout body shook with laughter. "My dear Pancoast," he cried, "you do not know what you are talking about. No man living or dead should be forgiven who keeps a woodc.o.c.k on the spit five minutes over time. Forgive him! Why, my dear sir, your poet ought to be drawn and quartered, and what is left of him boiled in oil. Where shall I sit, St.
George?"
"Alongside of Latrobe. Kennedy, I shall put you next to Poe"s vacant chair--he knows and loves you best. Seymour, will you and Richard take your places alongside of Pancoast, and Harry, will you please sit opposite Mr. Kennedy?"
And so the dinner began.
CHAPTER XV
Whether it was St. George"s cheery announcement: "Well, gentlemen, I am sorry, but we still have each other, and so we will remember our guest in our hearts even if we cannot have his charming person," or whether it was that the absence of Poe made little difference when a dinner with St. George was in question--certain it is that before many moments the delinquent poet was for the most part forgotten.
As the several dishes pa.s.sed in review, Malachi in charge of the small arms--plates, knives, and forks--and Todd following with the heavier guns--silver platters and the like--the talk branched out to more diversified topics: the new omnibuses which had been allowed to run in the town; the serious financial situation, few people having recovered from the effects of the last great panic; the expected reception to Mr. Polk; the new Historical Society, of which every one present was a member except St. George and Harry; the successful experiments which the New York painter, a Mr. Morse, was making in what he was pleased to call Magnetic Telegraphy, and the absurdity of his claim that his invention would soon come into general use--every one commenting unfavorably except Richard Horn:--all these shuttlec.o.c.ks being tossed into mid-air for each battledore to crack, and all these, with infinite tact the better to hide his own and his companions" disappointment over the loss of his honored guest--did St. George keep on the move.
With the shifting of the cloth and the placing of the coasters--the nuts, crusts of bread, and finger-bowls being within easy reach--most of this desultory talk ceased. Something more delicate, more human, more captivating than sport, finance, or politics; more satisfying than all the poets who ever lived, filled everybody"s mind. Certain Rip Van Winkles of bottles with tattered garments, dust-begrimed faces, and cobwebs in their hair were lifted tenderly from the side-board and awakened to consciousness (some of them hadn"t opened their mouths for twenty years, except to have them immediately stopped with a new cork), and placed in the expectant coasters, Todd handling each one with the reverence of a priest serving in a temple. Crusty, pot-bellied old fellows, who hadn"t uttered a civil word to anybody since they had been shut up in their youth, now laughed themselves wide open. A squat, lean-necked, jolly little jug without legs--labelled in ink--"Crab-apple, 1807," spread himself over as much of the mahogany as he could cover, and admired his fat shape upside down in its polish.
Diamond-cut decanters--regular swells these--with silver chains and medals on their chests--went swaggering round, boasting of their ancestors; saying "Your good health" every time any one invited them to have a drop--or lose one--while a modest little demijohn--or rather a semi-demi-little-john--all in his wicker-basket clothes, with a card sewed on his jacket--like a lost boy (Peggy Coston of Wesley did the sewing) bearing its name and address--"Old Peach, 1796, Wesley, Eastern Sh.o.r.e," was placed on St. George"s right within reach of his hand. "It reminds me of the dear woman herself, gentleman, in her homely outside and her warm, loving heart underneath, and I wouldn"t change any part of it for the world."
"What Madeira is this, St. George?" It was the judge who was speaking--he had not yet raised the thin gla.s.s to his lips; the old wine-taster was too absorbed in its rich amber color and in the delicate aroma, which was now reaching his nostrils. Indeed a new--several new fragrances, were by this time permeating the room.
"It is the same, judge, that I always give you."
"Not your father"s Black Warrior?"
"Yes, the 1810. Don"t you recognize it? Not corked, is it?"
"Corked, my dear man! It"s a posy of roses. But I thought that was all gone."
"No, there are a few bottles still in my cellar--some--How many are there, Todd, of the Black Warrior?"
"Dat"s de las" "cept two, Ma.r.s.e George."
"Dying in a good cause, judge--I"ll send them to you to-morrow."
"You"ll do nothing of the kind, you spendthrift. Give them to Kennedy or Clayton."
"No, give them to n.o.body!" laughed Kennedy. "Keep them where they are and don"t let anybody draw either cork until you invite me to dinner again."
"Only two bottles left," cried Latrobe in consternation! "Well, what the devil are we going to do when they are gone?--what"s anybody going to do?" The "we" was the key to the situation. The good Madeira of Kennedy Square was for those who honored it, and in that sense--and that sense only--was common property.
"Don"t be frightened, Latrobe," laughed St. George--"I"ve got a lot of the Blackburn Reserve of 1812 left. Todd, serve that last bottle I brought up this morning--I put it in that low decanter next to--Ah, Malachi--you are nearest. Pa.s.s that to Mr. Latrobe, Malachi--Yes, that"s the one. Now tell me how you like it. It is a little p.r.i.c.ked, I think, and may be slightly bruised in the handling. I spent half an hour picking out the cork this morning--but there is no question of its value."
"Yes," rejoined Latrobe, moistening his lips with the topaz-colored liquid--"it is a little bruised. I wouldn"t have served it--better lay it aside for a month or two in the decanter. Are all your corks down to that, St. George?"
"All the 1810 and "12--dry as powder some of them. I"ve got one over on the sideboard that I"m afraid to tackle"--here he turned to Clayton: "Major, you are the only man I know who can pick out a cork properly.
Yes, Todd--the bottle at the end, next to that Burgundy--carefully now.
Don"t shake it, and--"
"Well--but why don"t YOU draw the cork yourself, St. George?"
interrupted the major, his eyes on Todd, who was searching for the rarity among the others flanking the sideboard.