--4
He woke feeling very strange, and not exactly as fresh as a daisy. He felt much more like a cauliflower cooled after boiling. His head buzzed a bit, with a sort of gay giddiness, but for all that he knew that he was not the same Hugh Braddy that had been catapulted from bed by an alarm clock in his Long Island City home the morning before.
"A man can do what he"s a mind to," he said to himself in a slightly husky voice. His first move was to get breakfast. The old Hugh Braddy would have gone humbly to a one-armed beanery for one black coffee and one doughnut--price, one dime. The new Hugh Braddy considered this breakfast, and dismissed it as beneath a man of his importance. Instead, he went to the Mortimore Grill and had a substantial club breakfast. He called up Angelica, his wife, and cut short her lecture with--"Unavoidable, m"dear. Inventory at the store." His tone, somehow, made her hesitate to question him further. "It"ll be all right about that raise," he added grandly. "Have a good supper to-night. G"by."
He bought himself an eleven-cent cigar, instead of his accustomed six-center, and, puffing it in calm defiance of a store rule, strode into the employees" entrance of the Great Store a little after nine.
Without wavering, he marched straight to the office of Mr. Berger, who looked up from his morning mail in surprise.
"Well, Mr. Braddy?"
Mr. Braddy blew a smoke ring, playfully stuck his finger through it, and said:
"Mr. Berger, I"m thinking of going with another concern. A fellow was in to see me the other day, and he says to me, "Braddy, you are the best rug man in this town." And he hinted that if I"d come over with his concern they"d double my salary. Now, I"ve been with the Great Store more than twenty years, and I like the place, Mr. Berger, and I know the ropes, so naturally I don"t want to change. But, of course, I must go where the most money is. I owe that to Mrs. B. But I"m going to do the square thing. I"m going to give you a chance to meet the ante. Sixty"s the figure."
He waved his cigar, signifying the utter inconsequence of whether Mr.
Berger met the ante or not. Before the amazed manager could frame a reply, Mr. Braddy continued:
"You needn"t make up your mind right away, Mr. Berger. I don"t have to give my final decision until to-night. You can think it over. I suggest you look up my sales record for last year before you reach any decision." And he was gone.
All that day Mr. Braddy did his best not to think of what he had done.
Even the new Mr. Braddy--philosophy and all--could not entirely banish the vision of Angelica if he had to break the news that he had issued an ultimatum for twice his salary and had been escorted to the exit.
He threw himself into the work of selling rugs so vigorously that his fellow salesmen whispered to each other, "What ails the Ole Hippopotamus?" He even got rid of a rug that had been in the department for uncounted years--showing a dark-red lion browsing on a field of rich pink roses--by pointing out to the woman who bought it that it would amuse the children.
At four o"clock a flip office boy tapped him on the shoulder and said, "Mr. Boiger wants to see you." Mr. Braddy, whose head felt as if a hive of bees were establishing a home there, but whose philosophy still burned clear and bright, let Mr. Berger wait a full ten minutes, and then, with dignified tread that gave no hint of his inward qualms, entered the office of the manager.
It seemed an age before Mr. Berger spoke.
"I"ve been giving your proposition careful consideration, Mr. Braddy,"
he said. "I have decided that we"d like to keep you in the rugs. We"ll meet that ante."
IX: _Gretna Greenhorns_
--1
The brown eyes of Chester Arthur Jessup, Jr., were fixed on the maroon banner of the Clintonia High School which adorned his bedroom wall, but they did not see that vivid emblem of the inst.i.tution in whose academic halls he was a senior. Rather, they appeared to look through it, beyond it, into some far-away land. Bright but unseeing, they proclaimed that their owner was in that state of mild hypnosis known as "turkey-dreaming." His lips were parted in a slight smile, and the shoe which he had been in the act of removing as he sat on his bed was poised in mid-air above the floor, for reverie had overcome him in the very midst of preparations for an evening call.
The object of his pensive musings was at that moment eating her evening meal some blocks away in the home of her parents. Fondly, with that inward eye which is alleged to be the bliss of solitude, Chester followed the process. It had only been lately that he could bring himself to admit that she ate at all. She was so dainty, so ethereal.
And yet reason, and the course he was taking in physiology, told him that she, even she, must sometimes give way to the unworthy promptings of necessity, and eat. But that she should eat as ordinary mortals do, was unthinkable. It was not the first time that Chester, in reverie, had permitted her a slight refection. The menu of her meals never varied. To-night, as on other occasions, it consisted of watercress salad, a mere nibble of it; a delicate dab of ice-cream, no bigger than a thimble; a small cup of tea, and, perhaps, a lady-finger. The lady-finger was a concession. On the occasion of his last call, Mildred had confessed that she could die eating lady-fingers. Of course, later in the evening she might have a candy or two, but then candy can hardly be considered food.
A mundane clatter of dishes in the kitchen below caused Chester to start from his dream, and drop the shoe. He leaped up and began to make elaborate and excited preparations for dressing.
From an ancient, battered chest of drawers he carefully took a tissue-paper package containing a Union Forever Suit, whose label proclaimed that "From Factory to You, No Human Hand Touches It." With brow puckered in abstract thought, Chester broke the seal and laid the crisp, immaculate garment on the bed. With intense seriousness, he regarded it for a moment; apparently it pa.s.sed his searching examination, for he turned again to the chest of drawers and drew forth a smaller package, from which he extracted new socks of l.u.s.trous blue.
These he placed on the bed. From beneath the bed he drew a pair of low shoes, which gleamed in the gaslight from arduous polishing. On their toes, fanciful artisans had p.r.i.c.ked curves and loops and b.u.t.terfly designs. Chester gave them a few final rubs with the shirt he had just discarded and placed them on the bed. At this point there was a hiatus in the wardrobe. He went out into the hall and shouted down the back stairs.
"Oh, Ma. Oh, Ma!"
"Well?" came his mother"s voice from the regions below.
"Are my trousers pressed yet?"
"My goodness, Chester," she called, "I haven"t had time yet. It"s only a little after six. Do come down and eat some supper."
"But I don"t want any supper," protested Chester.
"There"s apple pudding with cream," she announced.
"Oh, well," said Chester, reluctantly, "I suppose I"d better. Can I have a dish of it on the back stairs? I"m not dressed."
"Yes. But you have plenty of time. You know you shouldn"t make an evening call before eight-fifteen at the very earliest," said Mrs.
Jessup.
After he had disposed of two helpings of apple pudding, Chester returned to his room and spent some moments a.n.a.lyzing the comparative merits of a dozen neckties hanging in an imitation bra.s.s stirrup. He had eliminated all but two, a black one and a red one, when his mother"s voice floated up the back stairs.
"For goodness" sake, Chester, do be careful of that bathtub. It"s running over again. How many times do I have to tell you to watch it?"
Chester bounded to the bathroom and shut off the water. It had, indeed, started to overflow the tub, and Chester, accepting the Archimedian principle without ever having heard of it, perceived that he must let some of the water out before he could put himself in. Accordingly he pulled out the plug and returned to his own room to wait for a little of the water to run off.
He made the most of this idle moment. Throwing off his multi-hued Navajo bathrobe, he surveyed the reflection of his torso in the mirror. He contracted his biceps and eyed the resulting egg-like bulges with some satisfaction. Suddenly, his ordinarily amiable face took on a fierce, dark scowl. He crouched until he was bent almost double. He lowered at the mirror. His left fist was extended and his right drawn back in the most approved scientific style of the prize-ring.
"You will, will you?" came from between his clenched teeth, and his left fist darted out rapidly, three, four, five times, and then he shot out his right fist with such violence that he all but shattered the mirror.
This last blow seemed to have a cataclysmic effect on Chester"s opponent, for the victorious Chester backed off and waited, still crouching and lowering, for his victim to rise.
The opponent apparently was a tough one, and not the man to succ.u.mb easily. Chester waited for him to regain his feet and then they were at it again. Chester let loose a shower of savage uppercuts. From the way he leaped six inches into the air to deliver his blows it was evident that his opponent was considerably bigger than he. At length, when all but breathless from his exertions, Chester with one prodigious punch, a _coup de grace_ that there was no withstanding, knocked all the fight out of his foe. But, seemingly, he was not satisfied with flooring his giant opponent; with stern, set face, Chester walked to the corner where the fellow was sprawling, seized him by his collar, and dragged him across the room. Then, shaking him fiercely, Chester hissed:
"Now, you cad, apologize to this lady for daring to offer her an affront by pa.s.sing remarks about her."
The apology would, no doubt, have been forthcoming had not Chester at that moment heard an unmistakable sound from the bathroom. He abandoned his prostrate foe and rushed in just in time to see the last of his bath-water go gargling and gurgling out of the tub.
Chester sat moodily on the edge of the tub until enough hot water had bubbled into it for him to perform ablutions of appalling thoroughness.
He was red almost to rawness from his efforts with the bath brush, and was redolent of scented soap and talc.u.m powder when he again returned to his bedroom.
He dressed with a sort of feverish calmness, now and again pausing to sigh gently and gaze for a moment into nothingness. By now she had finished her lady-finger--
His mother had laid his freshly pressed trousers on the bed, and he ran an appreciative eye along their razor-blade crease. From the chest of drawers he brought forth a snowy shirt, which, from the piece of cardboard shoved down its throat and the numerous pins which Chester extracted impatiently, one could surmise was fresh from the laundry.
When he came to the collar-and-tie stage, he was halted for a time.
Three collars of various shapes were tried and deemed unworthy, and then, at the last minute, yielding to a sudden wild impulse, he discarded the black tie in favor of the red one. He slipped on a blue serge coat, the cut of which endeavored to promote his waist-line to his shoulder blades, and was all dressed but for the crowning task--to comb his hair.
By dint of many dismal experiences, Chester knew that this would be trying, for his hair was abundant but untamed. He tried first to induce it to part while it was still dry, but the results of this operation, as he had feared, were negligible. He then attempted to achieve a part with his hair slightly moistened with witch hazel. For fully five seconds it looked like a success, but, as Chester started to leave, one parting look told him that little spikes and wisps were rearing rebellious heads and quite ruining the perfection of his handiwork. With a sigh he fell back upon his last resort, the liberal application of a sticky, jelly-like substance derived from petroleum, which imparted to his brown hair an unwonted shine. But the part held as if it had been carved in marble. Arranging his white silk handkerchief so that it protruded a modish eighth of an inch from his breast pocket, Chester Arthur Jessup, Jr., sallied forth to make his call.
On the front porch was his family, and Chester would have avoided their critical eyes if he could. However, the gantlet had to be run, so he emerged into the family group with a saunter that he hoped might be described as "nonchalant." In the privacy of his room he often practiced that saunter; he had seen in the papers that a certain celebrated criminal had "sauntered nonchalantly into the court-room," and the phrase had fascinated him.