"It"s good as that, but better as seasoning," said Hetty. "You come and stand outside the door till I ask my lady friend if she has any objections. And don"t run away with that letter of recommendation before I come out."
Hetty went into her room and closed the door. The young man waited outside.
"Cecilia, kid," said the shop-girl, oiling the sharp saw of her voice as well as she could, "there"s an onion outside. With a young man attached. I"ve asked him in to dinner. You ain"t going to kick, are you?"
"Oh, dear!" said Cecilia, sitting up and patting her artistic hair. She cast a mournful glance at the ferry-boat poster on the wall.
"Nit," said Hetty. "It ain"t him. You"re up against real life now. I believe you said your hero friend had money and automobiles. This is a poor skeezicks that"s got nothing to eat but an onion. But he"s easy-spoken and not a freshy. I imagine he"s been a gentleman, he"s so low down now. And we need the onion. Shall I bring him in? I"ll guarantee his behavior."
"Hetty, dear," sighed Cecilia, "I"m so hungry. What difference does it make whether he"s a prince or a burglar? I don"t care. Bring him in if he"s got anything to eat with him."
Hetty went back into the hall. The onion man was gone. Her heart missed a beat, and a gray look settled over her face except on her nose and cheek-bones. And then the tides of life flowed in again, for she saw him leaning out of the front window at the other end of the hall. She hurried there. He was shouting to some one below. The noise of the street overpowered the sound of her footsteps. She looked down over his shoulder, saw whom he was speaking to, and heard his words. He pulled himself in from the window-sill and saw her standing over him.
Hetty"s eyes bored into him like two steel gimlets.
"Don"t lie to me," she said, calmly. "What were you going to do with that onion?"
The young man suppressed a cough and faced her resolutely. His manner was that of one who had been bearded sufficiently.
"I was going to eat it," said he, with emphatic slowness; "just as I told you before."
"And you have nothing else to eat at home?"
"Not a thing."
"What kind of work do you do?"
"I am not working at anything just now."
"Then why," said Hetty, with her voice set on its sharpest edge, "do you lean out of windows and give orders to chauffeurs in green automobiles in the street below?"
The young man flushed, and his dull eyes began to sparkle.
"Because, madam," said he, in _accelerando_ tones, "I pay the chauffeur"s wages and I own the automobile--and also this onion--this onion, madam."
He flourished the onion within an inch of Hetty"s nose. The shop-lady did not retreat a hair"s-breadth.
"Then why do you eat onions," she said, with biting contempt, "and nothing else?"
"I never said I did," retorted the young man, heatedly. "I said I had nothing else to eat where I live. I am not a delicatessen store-keeper."
"Then why," pursued Hetty, inflexibly, "were you going to eat a raw onion?"
"My mother," said the young man, "always made me eat one for a cold.
Pardon my referring to a physical infirmity; but you may have noticed that I have a very, very severe cold. I was going to eat the onion and go to bed. I wonder why I am standing here and apologizing to you for it."
"How did you catch this cold?" went on Hetty, suspiciously.
The young man seemed to have arrived at some extreme height of feeling.
There were two modes of descent open to him--a burst of rage or a surrender to the ridiculous. He chose wisely; and the empty hall echoed his hoa.r.s.e laughter.
"You"re a dandy," said he. "And I don"t blame you for being careful. I don"t mind telling you. I got wet. I was on a North River ferry a few days ago when a girl jumped overboard. Of course, I--"
Hetty extended her hand, interrupting his story.
"Give me the onion," she said.
The young man set his jaw a trifle harder.
"Give me the onion," she repeated.
He grinned, and laid it in her hand.
Then Hetty"s infrequent, grim, melancholy smile showed itself. She took the young man"s arm and pointed with her other hand to the door of her room.
"Little Brother," she said, "go in there. The little fool you fished out of the river is there waiting for you. Go on in. I"ll give you three minutes before I come. Potatoes is in there, waiting. Go on in, Onions."
After he had tapped at the door and entered, Hetty began to peel and wash the onion at the sink. She gave a gray look at the gray roofs outside, and the smile on her face vanished by little jerks and twitches.
"But it"s us," she said, grimly, to herself, "it"s _us_ that furnished the beef."
THE HIDING OF BLACK BILL
A lank, strong, red-faced man with a Wellington beak and small, fiery eyes tempered by flaxen lashes, sat on the station platform at Los Pinos swinging his legs to and fro. At his side sat another man, fat, melancholy, and seedy, who seemed to be his friend. They had the appearance of men to whom life had appeared as a reversible coat--seamy on both sides.
"Ain"t seen you in about four years, Ham," said the seedy man. "Which way you been travelling?"
"Texas," said the red-faced man. "It was too cold in Alaska for me.
And I found it warm in Texas. I"ll tell you about one hot spell I went through there.
"One morning I steps off the International at a water-tank and lets it go on without me. "Twas a ranch country, and fuller of spite-houses than New York City. Only out there they build "em twenty miles away so you can"t smell what they"ve got for dinner, instead of running "em up two inches from their neighbors" windows.
"There wasn"t any roads in sight, so I footed it "cross country. The gra.s.s was shoe-top deep, and the mesquite timber looked just like a peach orchard. It was so much like a gentleman"s private estate that every minute you expected a kennelful of bulldogs to run out and bite you. But I must have walked twenty miles before I came in sight of a ranch-house. It was a little one, about as big as an elevated-railroad station.
"There was a little man in a white shirt and brown overalls and a pink handkerchief around his neck rolling cigarettes under a tree in front of the door.
""Greetings," says I. "Any refreshment, welcome, emoluments, or even work for a comparative stranger?"
""Oh, come in," says he, in a refined tone. "Sit down on that stool, please. I didn"t hear your horse coming."
""He isn"t near enough yet," says I. "I walked. I don"t want to be a burden, but I wonder if you have three or four gallons of water handy."
""You do look pretty dusty," says he; "but our bathing arrangements--"