"I--my--_what_!"
"Certainly. Some shirk taxes, some jury duty. _You_ shirk fatherhood, and all its happy and sacred obligations! You deny posterity! You strike a blow at it! You flout it! You menace the future of this Republic!
Your inertia is a crime against the people! Instead of _pro bono publico_ your motto is _pro bono tempo_--for a good time! And, dog Latin or not, it"s the truth, and our great President"
"Splash!" said Kerns, rising.
"I"ve a good mind," said Gatewood indignantly, "to put the Tracer of Lost Persons on your trail. He"d rope you and tie you in record time!"
Kerns"s smile was a provocation.
"I"ll do it, too!" added Gatewood, losing his temper, "if you dare give me the chance."
"Seriously," inquired Kerns, delighted, "_do_ you think your friend, Mr.
Keen, could encompa.s.s my matrimony against my better sense and the full enjoyment of my unimpaired mental faculties?"
"Didn"t he--fortunately for me--force me into matrimony when I had never seen a woman I would look at twice? Didn"t you put him up to it? Very well, why can"t I put him on your trail then? Why can"t _he_ do the same for you?"
"Try it, dear friend," retorted Kerns courteously.
"Do you mean that you are not afraid? Do you mean you give me full liberty to set him on you? And do you realize what that means? No, you don"t; for you haven"t a notion of what that man, Westrel Keen, can accomplish. You haven"t the slightest idea of the machinery which he controls with a delicacy absolutely faultless; with a perfectly terrifying precision. Why, man, the Pinkerton system itself has become merely a detail in the immense complexity of the system of control which the Tracer of Lost Persons exercises over this entire continent. The urban police, the State constabulary of Pennsylvania, the rural systems of surveillance, the Secret Service, all munic.i.p.al, provincial, State, and national organizations form but a few strands in the universal web he has woven. Custom officials, revenue officers, the militia of the States, the army, the navy, the personnel of every city, State, and national legislative bodies form interdependent threads in the mesh he is master of; and, like a big beneficent spider, he sits in the center of his web, able to tell by the slightest tremor of any thread exactly where to begin investigations!"
Flushed, earnest, a trifle out of breath with his own eloquence, Gatewood waved his hand to indicate a Ciceronian period, adding, as Kerns"s incredulous smile broadened: "Say splash again, and I"ll put you at his mercy!"
"Ker-splash! dear friend," observed Kerns pleasantly. "If a man doesn"t want to marry, the army, the navy, the Senate, the white wings, and the great White Father at Washington can"t make him."
"I tell you I want to see you happy!" said Gatewood angrily.
"Then gaze upon me. I"m it!"
"You"re not! You don"t know what happiness is."
"Don"t I? Well, I don"t miss it, dear friend--"
"But if you"ve never had it, and therefore don"t miss it, it"s time somebody found some real happiness for you. Kerns, I simply can"t bear to see you missing so much happiness--"
"Why grieve?"
"Yes, I will! I do grieve--in spite of your grinning skepticism and your bantering att.i.tude. See here, Tom; I"ve started about a thousand times to say that I knew a girl--"
"Do you want to hear that splash again?"
Gatewood grew madder. He said: "I could easily lay your case before Mr.
Keen and have you in love and married and happy whether you like it or not!"
"If I were not going to Boston, my son, I should enjoy your misguided efforts," returned Kerns blandly.
"Your going to Boston makes no difference. The Tracer of Lost Persons doesn"t care where you go or what you do. If he starts in on your case, Tommy, you can"t escape."
"You mean he can catch me now? Here? At my own club? Or on the public highway? Or on the cla.s.sic Boston train?"
"He _could_. Yes, I firmly believe he could land you before you ever saw the Boston State House. I tell you he can work like lightning, Kerns. I know it; I am so absolutely convinced of it that I--I almost hesitate--"
"Don"t feel delicate about it," laughed Kerns; "you may call him on the telephone while I go uptown and get my suit case. Perhaps I"ll come back a blushing bridegroom; who knows?"
"If you"ll wait here I"ll call him up now," said Gatewood grimly.
"Oh, very well. Only I left my suit case in Billy"s room, and it"s full of samples of Georgia marble, and I"ve got to get it to the train."
"You"ve plenty of time. If you"ll wait until I talk to Mr. Keen I"ll dine with you here. Will you?"
"What? Dine in this abandoned joint with an outcast like me? Dear friend, are you dippy this lovely May evening?"
"I"ll do it if you"ll wait. Will you? And I"ll bet you now that I"ll have you in love and sprinting toward the altar before we meet again at this club. Do you dare bet?"
"The terms of the wager, kind friend?" drawled Kerns, delighted; and he fished out a notebook kept for such transactions.
"Let me see," reflected Gatewood; "you"ll need a silver service when you"re married. . . . Well, say, forks and spoons and things against an imported trap gun--twelve-gauge, you know."
"Done. Go and telephone to your friend, Mr. Keen." And Kerns pushed the electric b.u.t.ton with a jeering laugh, and asked the servant for a dinner card.
CHAPTER XIII
Gatewood, in the telephone booth, waited impatiently for Mr. Keen; and after a few moments the Tracer of Lost Persons" agreeable voice sounded in the receiver.
"It"s about Mr. Kerns," began Gatewood; "I want to see him happy, and the idiot won"t be. Now, Mr. Keen, you know what happiness you and he brought to me! You know what sort of an idle, selfish, aimless, meaningless life you saved me from? I want you to do the same for Mr.
Kerns. I want to ask you to take up his case at once. Besides, I"ve a bet on it. Could you attend to it at once?"
"To-night?" asked the Tracer, laughing.
"Why--ah--well, of course, that would be impossible. I suppose--"
"My profession is to overcome the impossible, Mr. Gatewood. Where is Mr.
Kerns?"
"Here, in this club, defying me and drinking c.o.c.ktails. He won"t get married, and I want you to make him do it."
"Where is he spending the evening?" asked the Tracer, laughing again.
"Why, he"s been stopping at the Danforth Lees" in Eighty-third Street until the workmen at the club here finish putting new paper on his walls. The Lees are out of town. He left his suit case at their house and he"s going up to get it and catch the 12.10 train for Boston."
"He goes from the Lenox Club to the residence of Mr. W. Danforth Lee, East Eighty-third Street, to get a suit case," repeated the Tracer. "Is that correct?"
"Yes."
"What is in the suit case?"