Chapter III: Foreword (3)

But shortly appeared Teller from the shore, where he had been thrusting some fodder and a pail of water up to the plateau. He had a new and disconcerting idea, which was that it was very possible that during the night the noose might fall loose and the cow be enabled to slip it off her horns. This horrible thought gave pause to all satisfaction. Walker retired into executive session with himself to grapple with the new problem. Finally he summoned the mate, and explained the difficulty.

"We've got to keep that noose from slipping open," said he, "and the only way to do it that I can see is to throw a half hitch, or something above it around the beast's horns. It can be done, I think, by flipping the slack of the rope in a sort of loop and giving it a twist that will cross it as it flips. See what I mean?"

The mate said that he did.

"Well, send one of the men over to try it. On no account must he get up onto the plateau with that crazy animal. I don't want any accidents."

He went below to finish his interrupted toilet, which he did leisurely. After a bath and a complete change he returned to the deck to find that he was absolutely alone on the yacht. On the last ledge below the pinnacle were closely grouped the missing ship's company intently watching a man who, head and shoulders above the level of the plateau, was painstakingly flipping in hopeful spirals the bight of the line toward a brace-legged and snortsome cow.

After a number of trials he desisted, and to an accompaniment of somewhat subdued jeers clambered down to the level of the company. Another man deposited something in a hat that lay on the ground, spat on his hands, climbed to the edge of the pinnacle, and in his turn began to flip the rope.

Walker glanced overside. At least they had had the grace to leave him his own dinghy. He dropped into it and rowed ashore.

On his appearance activities ceased, and a slight cloud of uneasy uncertainty fell upon the occasion. Jimmy Forbes took upon himself an explanation.

"It is a game," said he--"an excellent game in that it combines the elements of chance, of skill, and the hope of pecuniary gain. You deposit ten cents in the hat, and in return therefor you are allowed ten tries. If you succeed in throwing a half hitch, you are rewarded by the contents of the hat. I have myself already contributed twenty cents, which, I am bound to confess, I am beginning to believe irretrievably lost to me. Want to join? If you have not ten cents, I am sure your credit is good."

"Thanks. I've just cleaned up," replied Walker dryly. "But don't let me interrupt. I'll watch."

He went to seat himself by Aline, who was perched near by, a book in her lap. The game was renewed, at first a little deprecatingly, but soon with noisy hilarity. Walker picked up the book. It was Victor Hugo's _Toilers of the Sea_.

"I brought it as a textbook," Aline explained.

A wild cheer greeted Johnston's extremely lucky cast. He descended, emptied the hat.

"It's just a twist of the wrist," he announced loftily. "It's not unlike handling a bolo."

The next morning proved calm, so the yacht was run around to the other side of the island, moored fore and aft, and properly fended from the perpendicular cliffs. It was found that the end of the boom was just enough above the tiny plateau on which stood the marooned cow that with the six-foot rise that remained of the tide a sufficient hoist would be afforded.

But now a new complication was introduced by Teller. Where were they going to deposit the cow once she was swung clear? Walker said he had thought they would dump her into the sea and let her swim. Teller had no faith that the cow in her present condition could swim that far, and in such cold water and with so many currents. The alternative seemed to be to lower her to the deck. Walked looked a little dashed. The yacht's spick and span ultra-holystoned deck! He took the hurdle nobly, however, and the men set to work to arrange a suitable place on which to deposit her.

At last the great moment was at hand. Dispositions were carefully made. Each was assigned his job and minutely instructed as to just what he was to do. The men on the guy ropes braced themselves; those on the falls began slowly and cautiously to haul. A lookout at the foretop reported progress.

"She's afloat!" he shouted as the cow, hanging back and snorting, began to be forced, in spite of braced feet, inexorably toward the edge of the cliff. "Her bow's off bottom!" he yelled as the upward pull lifted her from her forefeet. Over the edge of the cliff, in a cloud of loose earth, the beast came into view.

"Hoist away! Smartly, men!" cried Walker.

She rose into the air; dangled. The yacht careened slightly as she took the weight so far offside and so high up.

"Hold the falls! Swing her!" shouted Walker.

The men on the guy ropes swung the boom. High in the air, kicking like a fish and uttering cries either of bovine profanity or of terror, the cow dangled by her horns.

"Oh, the poor thing!" exclaimed Aline.

"Lower away!" cried Walker.

The cow descended, swinging to and fro, rocking the yacht from side to side. The men at the falls watched their chance to catch her at center, lowering rapidly a few feet, then checking the descent. A dozen pairs of hands were outstretched to receive and guide the descending pendulum. For a moment or so there was imminent danger that the animal would either be dashed against the rocky wall or carry away some of the yacht's standing rigging. The lookout man, reaching up, managed to get hold of a hind leg. This was a mistake. He went overside and splashed into the sea as though he had been projected from a catapult. Somebody threw him a rope and he scrambled aboard dripping, against a volley of facetious remarks from those who were not too busy.

"Hurt?" snapped Walker.

"No, sir," replied the man, but he stood apart rubbing his shoulder, having had enough of cows for the moment. Some ingenious and more cautious spirit threw the loop of a small line over the beast. By means of it she was guided safely to the deck, where she stood, feet apart, blowing and rolling her eyes. The men cheered.

But the jubilation was cut short by a cry of warning from aloft. The calf was seen to be wabbling back and forth along the edge of the cliff, apparently getting ready to jump down after his parent. The lookout man waved his cap; those on deck shouted and threw up their arms and tossed up rope ends and cut antics in an effort to convince the child that in spite of appearances to the contrary cows cannot fly. Teller fell into the dinghy and began frantically to splash toward a point from which he could scale the cliff. All these maneuvers seemed doomed to failure; the calf had apparently every intention of casting itself into space. Suddenly it froze to immobility, staring fixedly straight out in front. All looked in the direction of that gaze. At the foretop crouched Johnston, humped up and gazing directly into the calf's bulging eyes. Calmly he held that calf with his glittering eye. The calf stared. For the second time Johnston had made good!

Breathless silence fell. If Teller could scale the cliff before the unprecedented spell broke! He did! Breathing heavily and perspiring freely, he was seen to creep upon the hypnotized calf, to grasp him firmly. Everybody cheered. Two of the sailors clasped each other and pulled off an impromptu dance.

But the celebration nearly proved fatal. In the excitement the two men at the falls had dropped their rope in order to do a little caper of triumph. This released the pressure on the cow. Whether her finer feelings had been outraged to the point of retaliation, or whether she was merely looking for her progeny, is obscure. At any rate, she uttered another bellow and took charge of the deck. There was no opposition. Men swarmed up the rigging. Aline and her brother dived down the hatch. The lookout man, caught unawares between wind and water, and with no other place to go, again went overside. But, then, he was already wet. Walker swung himself up on the boom, from which point he gave his view of the situation in no uncertain terms.

The flurry was, of course, momentary. The trailing rope was soon seized and the beast made fast. And at that moment the gentle and plaintive voice of Teller was heard alongside, begging for assistance in getting the calf aboard.

Excitement drained away as the sea drains from rocks, leaving the yacht and her people once more a part of the surroundings instead of a self-contained center of an unholy row. Walker looked about him. The deck was strewn with ropes and chairs and things. Rigging flapped idly at loose ends. The varnish on the masts and rails was scraped and marred. The yacht looked like a drunken harridan. Also the trip down and the excitement had made the cow seasick.

"Some job!" cried Walker, wiping his forehead. "I never expected to be skipper of a cattle ship, but I guess I am." He began to laugh. "I haven't had so much fun in a coon's age," he chuckled to Aline and her brother. "Now what?"

Teller, in his deprecating way, proffered a suggestion, or rather a request.

"You see," said he, "my gas boat is out of order and I've got to run in a new bearing; and I wouldn't dast to put the cow back on this island again, nohow; she might do the same thing again; and I thought as how it wouldn't be no more trouble for you now if you was to take her over back home again."

Walker stared at him a moment incredulously; then chuckled.

"All right, old-timer," he agreed; "anything goes. Where is it?"

Teller pointed. The other island was now in plain sight and about four miles distant.

"They's a bight with five fathom on the south side. You can't miss it. They's a good beach, and the water's still, so all you have to do is to drop her overside and let her swim. It's only about a hundred feet and she can make that. You'll find my partner across the neck. Just tell him I will be along as soon as I get my gas boat fixed up."

"All right," agreed Walker. "Here, Parks, you row him around to his boat in the dinghy and then come back. We'll wait here."

The dinghy departed.

"Good Lord, I'll be glad to be rid of her!" cried Walker, with a despairing glance toward the cow, which was now bellowing continuously and with more vigor. "How did we ever get into such a mess? What do you suppose is ailing her now?"

"It's so romantic!" pointed out Aline. "The rescue of a matron in distress! She's hungry, poor thing. What have we aboard that is fit for cows?" She approached the animal gingerly and held out something in her flattened palm. The cow smelled of it and resumed her awful racket. "She doesn't like green olives," observed Aline, regretfully throwing the rejected fruit overboard. "I thought there was no harm trying." She stopped as though thunderstruck. "Isn't there some proper thing we have neglected?" she inquired seriously. "Oughtn't we to run up the milk-white flag, for instance?"

Johnston appeared bearing a large white bowl.

"What have you there?" asked Walker.

"It's canned green peas, sir," answered Johnston. "It's all we've got in the stores that we ever used to feed cows when I was in the dairy business."

"How long were you in the dairy business, Johnston?" inquired Aline interestedly.

"Not long, madam, about a year."

"A hundred and sixty-eight," tallied Aline.

Johnston approached the rescued matron, holding out his bowl of canned peas. The cow ceased her racket and sniffed. Then she inserted her nose in the bowl. Johnston looked around in pardonable triumph. The cow apparently tasted and disapproved. Without troubling to remove her muzzle from the bowl she blew violently. Canned peas sprayed upward as from a fountain. Around both Johnston and the cow was a nimbus of green peas. They scattered over the already disgraceful deck. Johnston disappeared, spattered and discomfited. The howls of joy from all in sight were drowned by the renewed ululations of the cow. Johnston had leaned too heavily on his luck.

Sam was summoned. He suggested canned corn and dried beans and beets. A pail was produced and in it was prepared a marvelous bovine goulash. "We've got to quiet the beast somehow, or we'll go mad," said Walker. "We ought to have a vegetable garden aboard," said Aline. "It would be very simple: a foot or so of good garden soil in that flat place there just forward of that funny thingumajig." The cow accepted this; ate it; drank a pail of water; quieted down, began to lick her calf, which in turn applied itself to its own meal.

Parks and the dinghy returned. Preparations were made for getting under way.

"Two of the men will have to stand by while we're under way," Walker instructed his mate, "in case there's a swell outside or the confounded beast gets excited."

"The cow watch!" cried Aline delighted, "and it comes right before the dogwatch; and it's miles ahead of the dogwatch because the dogwatch hasn't any dog to watch, but the cow watch has a real cow to watch!"

The engine took up its rhythm; the moorings were loosed; the yacht swung slowly to the open. All was well. The cow had now apparently become the gentlest critter in the world, as so repeatedly advertised by her loving owner, and was dreamily chewing a placid cud. The calf was still in search of refreshments.

"Sweet rural scene!" murmured Aline.

But beyond the point the yacht encountered a dead swell which cradled her in long slow swoops from trough to crest. Thanks to the pen improvised for her by spare spars and canvas, the cow had no difficulty in holding her feet, but she stopped chewing her cud and into her eyes came a haunted, querying uneasiness.

"I've seen that expression before. And she's stopped chewing her cud!" cried Aline. "I believe she's going to regurgitate."

"The demoralization is complete," groaned Jimmy, "and I do not refer to the cow."

"Tell Johnston to bring a basin," suggested one of the crew.

The spirit, however, was one of hilarity. Everyone had his little joke. Some of those voiced by the crew out of hearing of the quarterdeck were not entirely decorous, having to do largely with possible safeguards of a no longer immaculate deck. Aline alone was silent, lost in a brown study. Walker noticed this most unusual condition and inquired about it.

"I'm composing a poem," she vouchsafed. "I haven't got very far with it. Only the first two lines."

"Let's have them," urged Walker.

Aline struck an attitude; her voice became deep and solemn.

"When canned goods take the place of grass and hay,
The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the sea,"

she declaimed in a stage-elocution voice.

The cove on the other island was found without difficulty, and after an interval of sounding the yacht came to anchor within a few hundred feet of a shelving beach. Preparations were made for the landing. The cow presented no difficulties: simply sling her overside, cast off the lines, and let her swim ashore. Teller had informed them that the cow could swim. But how about the calf? Nobody knew. It was a very young calf. Do such animals swim naturally, or do they have to be taught? Birds have to to be taught to fly, and flying is their natural mode of progression. Swimming is not a cow's natural mode of progression. Aline brought up these points, and argued them with great ability in face of much scoffing. Finally, more in disgusted yielding to feminine imbecility than from any conviction, Walker ordered life preservers to be hooked about the body of the little beast. The calf did not object. He had but one idea in his poor little head, and that was concerned solely with the meals at all hours of his conception.

"No meals will be served during the landing!" sang out one of the men.

It was finally considered advisable to lead the beasts while in the water. Walker, Jimmy and three men in the dinghy undertook this task. The other members of the ship's company lined the rail. The men beached the boat and disappeared in the small timber and brush, in search of Teller's partner. After a half hour they returned and rowed over. Jimmy was laughing.

"Did you find him?" asked Aline as soon as they had stepped on deck.

"Yes, we found him: across a little narrow peninsula. He was working in a garden. He was a long, lank, solemn individual, and he didn't even look up at us as we approached. Just grunted in answer to our greeting, and went right on working. He was planting potatoes, and he had a basket of seed potatoes and a sack of starfish. He'd lay a starfish in the hole, and put a potato on top of that, and then another starfish, and cover them up with earth."

"Probably planting a milky way for the cow," murmured Aline. "Go on."

"Finally Glenn told him his partner's boat was out of commission, so we'd brought back the cow for him, as the cow didn't like the other island. Didn't go into details, and the partner didn't ask for them.

"'That so?' said he. 'What kind of boat you got?'

"'Pretty good sized boat,' says Glenn.

"'Well now,' says the old boy, 'that's a piece of luck that don't often happen to me, because I was figuring on how we're going to get the old bull back there--he's getting mighty poor here, and our gas boat is too small. Could you take him back with you?'"

Jimmy chuckled. "What did you say?" Aline asked Walker.

"Say!" exploded the young man. "I said _no_ more forcefully than I ever said it in my life!"

LA BELLA GINA

_By_ Eleanor Mercein Kelly

ELEANOR MERCEIN KELLY

Eleanor Mercein Kelly was born in Milwaukee, Wis., on August 30, 1880, the daughter of Thomas Boyce Mercein, was graduated from the Georgetown Convent of the Visitation, Washington, in 1898, and was married to Robert Morrow Kelly, Jr., of Louisville, Ky., in 1901. Mr. Kelly died in 1926. She is the author of short stories of unusual excellence appearing in many of the magazines and of several novels of which the best known is perhaps _Kildares of Storm_. Her home is in Edgehill Road, Louisville.

"La Bella Gina," which was first published in _Harper's Magazine_ for September, 1926, is a fine example of thoroughly sophisticated and completely unobtrusive humor. In fact, there are experienced judges who will deny that it is a humorous story. In the same breath they express their admiration for the story itself; so that evidently the valuation of its humorous element, if it has one, depends upon temperament. Mrs. Kelly expressed willingness for its inclusion and I take it that this signifies that her intention, as author, was partly humorous. In a collection which presents humor open and unashamed, even on occasion a little riotous, this subtlest of stories surely finds a place as representative of the opposite extreme.

LA BELLA GINA[1]

[1] Copyright, 1926, by Eleanor Mercein Kelly.

One met the lady, as it were, by installments: first the dog Bijou, emerging from the _ascenseur_ like a jack from its box, wheezing; next the harassed little lady-secretary--or was she a duenna?--in leashed pursuit; next the maid Annette, very French and voluble, personally conducting the footsteps of greatness; last, but by no means nor in any respect least, La Bella Gina herself, leaning upon the arm of her devoted but practically invisible little cavalier, the Marchese. It was always an effective entrance; a gay wave of the hand for the gentleman at the desk, a coquettish smile for the staring lobby at large, and for us, who had come so far to be the guests of her Italy, a charming, courteous inclination of hospitality.

Then the Signor Direttore would hurry out of his office with a daily bouquet provided by the management; the concierge, so haughty with others, would abase himself backward before her; and the cortège would pass out into the street, there to be greeted by a small cheer from whatever public happened to be gathered about; flower-sellers, beggars, cameo-vendors, quarreling groups of _vetturini_, and the like. The latter would leap each to the box of his carriage, lifting a hopeful whip; but Madame Gina, wagging a forefinger sidewise in sign of friendly negation, as at a too insistent gallery, would turn her teetering footsteps in the direction of the Pincio, leaning partly upon the willing Marchese, and partly, _à la_ Tosca, upon a cane.

The secretary and Bijou would fall into line behind; or possibly, according to the whim of Bijou, they would lead the procession, at the run; and only Annette was left, gazing after them commiseratingly and shaking a well-coiffed head.

"Has it not of pathos?" she murmured to me on one occasion, observing that I too watched this daily little parade with interest.

"Pathos?" I repeated. I supposed her reference was to the diva's lameness, which had appeared to my skeptical American eye rather histrionic than pathetic; due perhaps more to the tightness of the lady's high-heeled satin boots than to any more serious infirmity.

The maid sighed. "Eh, that it should be La Gina, La Bella Gina herself, thus marching on two feet like anybody, like you or me!--trotting along the _pavé_ with no more _réclame_ than the _sale bête Bijou_" (evidently Annette shared my lack of enthusiasm for the poodle of the profession). "She who in a manner of speaking has not set heel to ground since the day of her début at San Carlo; whose carriage princes have been proud to draw, yes, and millionaires!--I who speak have seen it thus. But now, upon those exquisite feet which sculptors beg to model, she makes along rough streets the promenade, like any _Anglaise_. Daily, as you see!---- It is the imbecile doctors who have done this thing."

"In order to overcome her little lameness, perhaps?" I suggested.

Annette snapped her fingers. "The lameness, what of that? A habitude, a gesture! At her age, Madame finds the cane _un peu distingué_. No, it is for the--how shall I say?" Expressive hands fluttered about her person, indicatively. "The conformation, hein? the embonpoint. When last season an ankle sprained itself, as you remember" (it did not occur to Annette that anyone, even tourists from the Antipodes, could be ignorant of this event), "Madame was for some time confined to the sitting and reclining postures. So, the catastrophe commenced. Diet made nothing. My God, what misfortune! The smallest _gâteau_, the merest _soupçon_ of whip-cream on the morning chocolate, and spang! off pops another hook from the brassière. Madame increased, literally, before the eye. How it was tragic!"

"But," I said consolingly, "she carries her weight extremely well, and she is no fatter than many other opera singers."

"That is true. And it is not as if she were a coloratura, what? To the deeper voice must be allowed the wider latitudes. However, it is not with the appearance one concerns oneself; assuredly, with such beauty, appearance need not be considered--other than to add a dash of rouge here, a drop of belladonna there. It is the voice, voyez-vous, the voice itself! What if La Gina were to become short of breath in the upper register? Picture to yourself if she were compelled to wheeze, like the _sale bête Bijou_?"

I admitted that this would be indeed a misfortune.

"Therefore," shrugged Annette, "she makes daily the promenade. Also, she starves--it would bring tears to the eyes to see. What fortitude! Never a bon-bon, not so much as a pot of chocolate for the _déjeuner_. Only _café noir_--picture to yourself, on an empty digestion!" (She made a face of abhorrence.) "And to what avail? Ah, Mees, I ask of you as one woman to another, to what avail?"

I gazed critically after the retreating figure of the diva, hobbling heroically on toward the Pincian Gardens, three weary blocks away. She had indeed developed, beyond repair, a sitting-figure; or as it is known to my compatriots, the middle-aged spread. And quite seasonably. While it was difficult to detect other symptoms beneath the thick liquid-white of her face, the thin geranium-red of her lips, and the varied glories of her hair, I could not but recall that her début at San Carlo must have taken place at least thirty-odd years earlier.

My eyes and Annette's met in mutual regret, and we shook our heads together. A bond of sympathy was established between us; sympathy for a fellow-woman in distress.

It led to other conversations in passing, Annette being one of those to whom breath seems given entirely for purposes of conversation. La Bella Gina (I wondered whether the song had been named for her, or she for it) was making a pilgrimage, "as usual at this time of year." They merely paused at Rome, en route from Naples.... I should not have thought the singer so devout. One did not like to ask at what shrine she intended to pay her devotions. Or was it perhaps at the tomb of some lost loved one? Annette's manner, in speaking of the pilgrimage, seemed appropriately grave and subdued.

Monsieur le Marchese, also as usual, was accompanying them on the pilgrimage, although stopping at another hotel; which I thought extremely delicate of the little gentleman. He had made many journeys in the train of Madame, it appeared; had followed her triumphs even to the Americas, and to Mexico. It was on the latter occasion that he had taken with him his two young sons, in order that they might have the advantage, the inestimable privilege of intimate association with such an artist, such a woman of the world. But yes, Annette assured me, the young noblemen had indeed appreciated the privilege, Madame being excessively fond of children, particularly of boys. She had fed them sweets all day long. There had been afterwards a letter from Madame la Marchesa herself, thanking Madame Gina for her kindness to the little noblemen.

"What! from their mother?"

But it appeared Madame la Marchesa was their grandmother.

It seemed to me an interesting and unusual relationship. I said so.

Ah, yes, agreed Annette; such fidelity through so many years deserved its reward, _n'est-ce pas?_--a better reward than La Gina had felt herself able to bestow, she being wedded to her art.

"And of a discretion _incroyable_. Picture to yourself!--never so much as an hour alone tête-à-tête with monsieur; always a third person in attendance!--myself, or Signora the secretary, or the little noblemen--

"Or the dog Bijou?" I murmured.

"Or the dog Bijou," she assented seriously, "who has, if nothing else, a nature of the most jealous.... 'While I value your attachment, my Boncelli, above pearls and rubies' (I who speak have heard her say this to monsieur, although pearls and rubies are her favorite gems) 'still, a man may not serve two masters; particularly if a woman. The competition deranges. My heart'--she said to him, just like that--'is in my larynx, _cher_ Boncelli, in my diaphragm. These are your successful rivals.'--The poor Marchese!"

"You think," I asked, "that there is no hope for him whatever?"

She shrugged. "Hope, yes--but what a sad little hope! If ever the voice fails, then only will the Marchese receive his reward. He is content to wait. What patience! Each year now we make the pilgrimage; and some day, when the test is unfavorable..." She gave a deep sigh. "Even La Bella Gina grows obviously no younger. Ah, yes, for him there is hope--_hélas_!"

The good creature seemed torn between sentiment for this model lover and for the exigent voice.

When next I passed the little gentleman, I looked at him with a new regard. He had seemed before rather a negligible quantity, in his dapper yellow gloves and high-heeled patent leathers; rather like an alert elderly crow hopping along under the wing, as it were, of a resplendent pouter-pigeon. But such faithfulness, such undiscouraged devotion to an ideal which he might well have found somewhat faded, lent him dignity; argued powers of endurance which commanded respect. He engaged sympathy, too; and it was to his matrimonial aspirations, rather than to the famous larynx, the too-exacting diaphragm, that one wished success in the forthcoming test, whatever that might be.

I was surprised to find the party at Pisa some days later, when we came to the grave old scholars' city; stopping at the Hotel of Neptune, whose unpretentious, restful atmosphere seemed a trifle primitive to appeal to the highly cultivated taste in hotels of a Madame Gina. But there they were, in full possession, Bijou, the harassed lady-secretary, and all, with the Marchese still in discreet long-distance attendance. He was the guest, so Annette informed me with some pride, of Monsieur the Archbishop of the diocese, his cousin.

There was an air of tension, of peculiar gravity about the party by this time. I fancied that the pilgrimage was wearing toward its close. Yet I could think of no particular shrine to be visited in the vicinity, nor of any famous singing master nearer than Florence to whom La Gina might be bringing the sacred voice for its test. There were no waters to be taken: on the contrary. As a resort of either health or fashion, Pisa was nil; and I could not believe the diva a mere tourist in her native land, searching for atmosphere, leaning towers, and the like.

Very early the morning after we arrived, one heard them stirring; they were always easy to hear. Apparently the promenade was about to take place. But at such an hour? Only natives were abroad, market women rattling barrows of melons and ripe purple figs over the cobblestones; goats, the milk wagons of Italy, being made vociferously to yield of their wares; watchful waiters already manning the walls of the sleeping Arno, with bamboo poles, in hope that the early worm would catch the fish at last (there can hardly be more than one fish left in that ancient and enfeebled stream). The real Pisa, that of the tourists, would slumber on for at least another hour; or endeavor to do so.

Yet Madame Gina, who never appeared in public until after the midday siesta, was unmistakably up and doing; one recognized her deep chest tones addressing Bijou, evidently about to be left behind: "Na, na, _piccolo mio!_ mother's jewel cannot accompany us to the mass, it is not for such as thee. He must remain in his little bassinet and masticate his little ball, like a good dog of my heart, while his Gina who adores him goes forth alone to the ordeal!"--here the deep chest tones faltered and broke.

"Ah, ah, you tear at my heart strings!" sobbed the voice of the lady-secretary. "See, carissima, you are not alone! Are not _we_ with you?"

"Courage, but courage," came the firm, efficient murmur of Annette. "Myself I have not a doubt but that things will go quite well, even better than last year; when, as you remember, Madame was slightly _enrhumée)."

"_Cara mia_, how you console me!--Signora, pray do not sniffle again; it is a noise I detest! Quick, my cane! Am I to wait here forever?"

I hurried to the window. Outside stood an open _carrozza_, half filled with flowers; beside it the Marchese, tugging at his mustache with nervous yellow gloves. His doglike eyes, turned upon the door, had an expression of mingled hope and apprehension. Certainly this was no mere promenade.

Suddenly I understood. The moment of the test had come!

I hurried into some clothes and followed--not a difficult thing to do since everybody in the street had been seized with the same idea. Market barrows, milch goats, and fishermen, all of us hastened along together in the direction of the Duomo. At its doors I recognized the flower-filled carriage, empty, surrounded by interested spectators.

"Have we then a wedding?" they asked one another. "A first communion?"

"No, no!" replied somebody. "Did you not recognize her? La Gina, La Gina again, in person!"

The great doors of the Cathedral were not yet open, but I managed an entrance by means of a tip and a lesser door, of green baize; in some such manner, perhaps, as sinners may enter Paradise. My cavalcade was there, having a mass all its own, near that ancient swinging lamp whose constant motion gave Galileo the idea of the pendulum. Level rays of a new-risen sun, through prismatic glass, touched to pure glory the rich interior: the black-and-white striped marble of the walls, the mellowed sculptures, the old, dim saints and madonnas who are forever young, the burnished silver splendor of the altar. They knelt in a row at its rail; Gina and the other two women with black veils over their hair, the Marchese beside them, yellow gloves and a large plaid handkerchief neatly disposed in the high top hat at his feet, and beside him the driver of their carriage, in a black Fascist blouse; all of them receiving the Communion together at the hands of a sleepy priest. I lingered a moment, to register the picture in my memory.

Suddenly they rose and filed out past me, in the direction of the Baptistry. Annette and the secretary walked with bent heads, as if in prayer; but behind them Gina moved rather splendidly, with lifted face and a fine, exalted smile on her lips, a victim going forth to some self-appointed sacrifice. She had forgotten her cane, I saw it leaning against the altar rail; nor did she avail herself of the arm of the Marchese, who followed at her elbow.

I waited outside, for at last I knew what was occurring: La Bella Gina, like many another singer before her, had come to try out an aging voice by the test of the Baptistry's famous echo.

"Good luck!--Oh, good luck!" I whispered under my breath; not this time to the Marchese, waiting like a neat little crow for its pickings, but to the gallant old artist, facing perhaps the end of her career.

What sounds came out to us there in the young dewy morning; what trills and birdlike scales, invocations, fragments of arias--sometimes a trifle off the key, but how impassioned! Great, golden, contralto organ tones, soft whisperings of pure attenuated melody, all multiplied, repeated, continued on and on by the incomparable echo. It seemed to me, and to those who listened with me, a glorious exhibition of what the human voice could do. We smiled at one another happily.

"It goes well, eh?" asked my neighbors of one another and of me. Everybody seemed to realize what was happening. At times they could not resist applause.

"_Ancora, madonna mia!_" they shouted. "_Brava la Gina! La Gina bella, bellissima!_" In their humble persons, all Tuscany was at her feet.

Suddenly there fell a silence. Nobody moved or whispered. The door of the Baptistry was opening.

The singer came out alone, still with that calm, uplifted smile; but in her eyes as she gazed at us, those too expressive eyes of her race, was the look of a dying Mimi, of a terrified Carmen at bay. Behind her the others wept, even the Marchese, who blew his nose with candor.

Seeing the unexpected audience, she bowed quite charmingly; she had at all times and everywhere a most gracious stage presence. Then her tragic gaze encountered mine.

"So, my dear! thou?" she remarked familiarly, although we had never before exchanged a syllable; perhaps it was my sympathy she recognized. "Well, it is over! The years have conquered. I am done! The voice of Gina"--she made us a little cheery gesture of despair--"is no more."

"Ah, ah! you break my heart!" sobbed the lady-secretary.

The priest, the verger, others about her were quick with disclaiming protest. The coachman vociferated praise. Annette called upon her God with tears to witness that never in life had she, she who spoke, heard a high F attacked with greater purity.

"And what," shrilled Gina, turning upon them with sudden viciousness, "what do you know about it? Hein? I ask you! Always you lie to me, you flatter, you deceive! _Sapristi_! I trust none of you! Only the echoes do not lie, flatter, deceive, they being straight from Heaven. In the upper register I sharped--do you hear? I sharped! What have you to say to that? And the _sostenuto_--my God, there was no _sostenuto_! Add to these that in the middle register one had a huskiness--ah, bah! It is I who hear! Myself who am the judge, myself whom I trust! Not you--and you--and you!"

She snapped her fingers furiously under the nose of each of her attendants in turn, including the priest.

But the storm passed as suddenly as it had arisen. She turned upon the Marchese a rainbow smile; rather a wry attempt, but arch, and kind, and singularly sweet. I recalled how she had fed his young sons with sugarplums.

"For you, my friend," she murmured (and the smile took us all into their confidence) "this is perhaps not altogether an occasion of tragedy, eh?"

He tried visibly to utter a suitable disclaimer, to find some tactful protestation of regret, but it was useless; sudden happiness shone out from the man like a radiance. He could only bow over the hand held out to him and salute it reverently. The audience cheered.

Then, tucking her arm beneath his, he led his capture proudly away toward the flower-filled _carrozza_. It was a noble exit.

That evening we were aware of unusual activities afoot in the Hotel of Neptune. Waiters scurried about, under a good deal of personal direction; through a half-closed door into the grand salon, which is used as a rule only for wedding parties or masked balls, we caught glimpses of a table laid as for a banquet. I presently encountered Annette, also scurrying, but able as always to pause for a brief exchange of courtesies.

"My God, was it not pathetic?" she demanded of me, referring to the morning's experience. "And to-night, she celebrates defeat with a fête. What a gesture!"

I agreed with Annette. It was a gesture. "But she will have at least the pleased support of the Marchese," I commented smilingly.

The maid smiled back at me, as one woman to another. "Ah, yes, that! And also of Monsieur the Archbishop, who comes to the _festa_ in person, since he is of the family Boncelli.--Ah, Mees, if I could but show to you what a necklace Madame has received! Of pearls and rubies, _par exemple_, as big as my two eyes!" She made them very big indeed, to do justice to the princely offering. "And even I"--she touched complacently a brooch at her throat--"have not been neglected. It is the reward, one sees, of a sympathetic nature."

"How charming of him!" I exclaimed, delighted with such sentimental forethought on the part of the Marchese. He must have had the gift about him in readiness, since simple old Pisa would hardly be able to provide at such short notice a necklace of pearls and rubies as large as Annette's eyes.

"He has been carrying it _en poche_," she assured me, "for twenty years! Touching, _n'est-ce pas_? And it is now quite _démodé_. But we shall have the gems reset."

"So the engagement is to be announced already?" I asked. "The nuptials will soon follow?"

Annette looked puzzled. "Pardon?"

"Their marriage," I explained. "I thought possibly the Archbishop cousin might-- Surely," I interrupted myself, puzzled in turn by her expression, "you told me that when her voice failed your mistress had promised to marry the Marchese?"

"Ah!" Annette gave a nod of comprehension. "That, no; it is a misunderstanding. What, in such case, would monsieur do with the wife he already has, the mother of the young noblemen? And Madame Gina, too--can you conceive that one of her rich nature should content herself all these years with combing the tresses of Saint Catherine?" She laughed a little, pleasantly. "Eh, no, it was not of marriage that I spoke," she said with a tender sigh, "but of love. Assuredly the poor Marchese deserves at last his happiness.... Yet at what cost to the world, what cost! The voice of Gina, that voice of velvet edged with little silver bells, never to be heard again, never again! Unless," she added pensively as she hurried away, "upon the concert stage of America, perhaps--who knows?"

CLASSICS IN SLANG:
ROBINSON CRUSOE

_By_ H. C. Witwer

H. C. WITWER

Harry Charles Witwer was born in Athens, Pa., on March 11, 1890. He attended St. Joseph's College, Philadelphia, and his pre-literary career included: Errand boy in butcher shop, bellhop, managing prize fighters, and plain and fancy reporting on newspapers in Florida, Elizabeth, N.J., Newark, N.J., Atlanta, Ga., and New York (_American_ and _Sun_). In 1917 he was a war correspondent and the following year his popular stories in slang first achieved book publication (_From Baseball to Boches_). He has had approximately a book a year ever since, of which _The Leather Pushers_ was one of the most successful and _Bill Grimm's Progress_ is the most recent. Besides something like 400 magazine stories--over 100 of them for a single magazine--he is the author of at least 125 motion pictures, a couple of comic strips and one or two plays.

_Classics in Slang_ is a series of tales told by a prize fighter, One-Punch McTague, who has inherited a bookshop, conducted for him by an attractive young woman named Ethel Kingsley. At least she is attractive to McTague and he finds her altogether too attractive to a customer named Hootmon and probably Scotch. Ethel has been trying to instil in McTague a love for reading and in each story the prize fighter gives his own version of some literary classic she has put in his hands. There is also a running account of his own personal affairs, including fights in the ring and encounters in the bookshop.

CLASSICS IN SLANG: ROBINSON CRUSOE[1]

[1] Copyright, 1926, by H. C. Witwer.

I wish whoever ejaculates they's nothin' new under the son couldst of got a load of the gory conflict between them two fascinatin' heavyweights, Fifty-seven-Round McFoul and One-Punch McTague. In this epoch-makin' fracas One-Punch McTague done somethin' which was as new as the word itself; namely, he knocked _himself_ as cold as a mother-in-law's kiss!

Speakin' of artichokes, few people can give you as good a account of that brawl as I can, because by a odd coincidence I'm One-Punch McTague.

I suppose, gentle readers, all three of you remember I was left a book store by my defunct Uncle Angus and I know you're all agog over my romantical affair de heart with Ethel Kingsley, the blond panic which is governess of the volumes therein. Via the efforts of sweet Ethel I'm gettin' a mock education through a darin' method she worked out herself; viz., I read one of my books and then put down in black and white all I can remember about it, if anything. In this way I've dallied and toyed with a flock of the classicals, somethin' I missed in my youth, as my schoolin' went in one ear and out the other, there bein' nothin' in between to stop it.

The fly in the ointment is a boloney answerin' to the high-soundin' title of Jack Hootmon, only sun and air of the aged Elihu Hootmon, the trillionaire Thumb-Tack King. This milk-fed bozo is a inmate of Columbia's College and nearly every time I honor my book emporium with a visit he's acin' around Ethel tryin' to promote. She tolerates him on the account he always hurriedly buys a book when he sees me darken the threshold and as customers is at the premium Ethel won't give him the gate. The last time he was in our midst he hauled off and purchased a choice novel published in 1790 and give us a thousand bucks for same. Since then Ethel has been busy tryin' to find some more bed-time stories of that date and likewise some more Patsys like Jack Hootmon, both bein' exceedin'ly rare.

Well, to get to the plot, the day of my fatal muss with Fifty-seven Round McFoul I sauntered nimbly into my book bazaar, and, low and behold, the first thing which greets my sparklin' eye is Jack Hootmon.

The plentifully tubed triple superiodine I'd put in to amuse my delicious clerkess was playin' either a Charleston or St. Vitus dance, and I bet in another minute them two wouldst of been trippin' the light fantastical. Not so good! I ain't what you call jealous, what I mean, but for a counterfeit Chinese coin of nominal value I wouldst of clouted this Hootmon gil right in the whiskers. Ethel turned to the shelves with undue haste and nature's gift to Columbia's College gives me a sickly grin. "Hello, McTague," he says. "Nice day, isn't it?"

"Blah!" I growled courteously. "What are you doin' clutterin' up my store?"

"He's been helping me look for some rare first editions," speaks up Ethel, comin' to this dizzy boob's succor. "You know, I'm sure, this place is a treasure house of valuable old books."

"Of course!" yeses Stupid, in that male milliner's voice of his. "Wouldn't it be splendid if you'd come across a first folio Shakespeare?"

"It'd be even more splendid if you'd come across with the price of a couple books," I tells him. "What's the idea of the jazz? This ain't no dance hall!"

"We picked up Static, Wyoming, a little while ago!" brags Ethel, hopin' to stave off violence. "Tune in on a movie studio if you crave some real distance!" I says.

"You mean we can listen to a star?" butts in Hootmon, beatin' me to the giggle of my nifty and lookin' to the smilin' Ethel for admiration.

"Cop a sneak and make it snappy!" I barks, the bit infuriated. "If it wasn't for the facts that I'm goin' to box to-night I'd broadcast you!"

He looked somewhat alarmed and picked up a near-by book. "How much is this?" he asks, the bit nervous.

"Ten bucks!" I snaps promptly. "And at that price it's a steal!"

"Nonsense!" says Ethel, frownin' at me. "That Mother Goose is only two and a half dollars!"

"Not no more!" I says firmly. "Geese is out of season and has went up in price!"

"I love that!" says Hootmon.

"So's your elderly parent!" I returns, bein' unrivaled at repertoire.

"Here's a new history of the League of Nations, Mr. Hootmon," remarks Ethel in a futile effort to change the subject.

"I don't think so much of the League," says this tomato, and who cares if he don't? "With all the bickering they're havin' over there, I don't believe we should ever join it, do you, McTague?"

"What wouldst the League of Nations wish with you and me?" I asked him lightly. "C'mon, leave me book you! Have you scanned 'Ladies Prefer Brunettes,' by Anita Loose; 'Lightnin' on the Right,' by Christy More Lee; 'The--

"What do _you_ read?" he butts in, with a touch of evil curiosity.

"He's going to read Robinson Crusoe next," says Ethel, actin' as my counsel. "That will give him a breathing spell before he returns to the heavier classics."

"Why, he must have become familiar with Robinson Crusoe when he was in school!" exclaims Hootmon.

"I never get familiar with nobody, Ape!" I says. "And on top of that Robinson Crusoe didn't go to my school. We was particular in the trap _I_ studied at, what I mean--you had to get sent by a judge!"

"Who do you box this evening?" inquired Ethel, winkin' at me not to give this mug too much of my secret life story.

Says I: "A palooka named Fifty-seven-Round McFoul, heavyweight champeen of Saturn. I'll lay him like a pavement, and I don't mean I guess so! I wish you wouldst be there to see the fun. I already got you a ringside ducat, for that matter."

"But I couldn't go to a prize fight without a male escort!" cries Ethel in dismay.

"I'd be very glad to take you, Miss Kingsley," pipes up the chump.

I was on the brinks of breakin' his arm for him, pour le sport, when like the flash it strikes me that the best thing in the world wouldst be to let him go to the murder with Ethel. Then she couldst see for herself what a vast difference they was between a he-man of the wide open faces like me and a parlor pest like Hootmon. So I become ungruff and give my consent to the date, though I knew that sendin' this monkey anywheres with the breath-takin' Ethel was like sendin' somebody a cabbage leaf by a rabbit. How the so ever, I couldst always leap from the ring and ruin Monsieur Hootmon, shouldst he endeavor to hold Ethel's hand durin' the fight.

Well, lads and lassies, a few delicate hints, such as pushin' him out the door and slammin' it in his pan, soon made this Hootmon sapolio check out. Then me and Ethel searched high, low, jack and the game for some more choice old books but the only thing we discovered was that spiders is still makin' cobwebs. The hunt throwed me and Ethel into close contact which she didn't seem to find nauseatin' and I was doin' a fine piece of buildin' up for a evenin' in her parlor, when Red Higgins phones me. This clown's my manager and operates a stable of racin' snails on the side. I got the same cryin' need for him as I got for another thumb, what I mean!

"Hey, you big umpchay!" he greets me, with Old World politeness. "Shove off from 'at blonde and do some road work. I'll state you'll need it to-night in this pettin' party we got on with Fifty-seven-Round McFoul, because if you can't run he'll kill you!"

A nice, encouragin' manager, what? The big stiff!

"What have you found out about this catcher McFoul?" I inquired, with forgivable interest. "Can he hit?"

"And how!" says Red, with the gusto. "If you keep in close, he'll cave in your ribs, and if you box him off he'll left-hand you into a pulp. His best punch is his right, though nobody's ever yet got up from a sock with his left!"

"I see--just a tramp, eh? Well, I don't know my own strength, Red!"

"You wouldn't fool me, would you? 'At ain't _all_ you won't know when _this_ baby pastes you. You better give me a power of attorney so's I can act for you, Big Boy, just in case!"

"You can start right off actin' for me to-night," I suggests demurely, "by goin' in there with powers of attorney and boxin' this guy McFoul!"

"I can't," says Red. "The referee's McFoul's old man, and he knows me."

No kiddin', Red simply slays me!

Well, Ethel give me Robinson Crusoe for my home work, and I says good-by and left for the wars. First I got a shave and a haircut to ready myself for the battle of the centuries with Fifty-seven-Round McFoul, and then I went home and passed the few remainin' hours before my doom by readin' about Robby. It's a grand book, and I'll put you jerry to it the minute I get through describin' my thrillin' conflict with this McFoul scissor-bill--a fight which was the talk of the industry for many moons.

When I stumbled into the ring my first view of Fifty-seven-Round McFoul satisfied me that they wasn't the faintest chance of me yawnin' myself to death for the next half hour! I'll have you know this burly gorilla must of outweighed me eighty-odd pounds, and I personally tip the beams at two hundred, stark naked. He toured over me like Washington's monument, but faint heart never win no decisions, so I merely give this proper elephant a dirty look and sit down on my stool determined to show no quarter to _nobody_! I'm one of them two-fisted, fightin' idiots which makes boxin' a tough racket for the weaklin's.

The instant the old cowbell rings out I fairly skidded across the ring, and before McFoul couldst make a move I slammed him on the smeller with a horrible left. He looked somewhat nonpulsed at this little incident, and his seconds shrieked, "Don't leave him fox you, McFoul--use your head!" No sooner said than this big goiter butts me with that organ and the crowd howls, "Just a couple of bums!" meanin', of course, McFoul and the referee.