Chapter III: Part 3

"De hour has come," she chanted. "With this chalk, an' around this man, I make the mark of his image." Stooping, she began to trace his outline on the dull rag-carpet, speaking monotonously as she worked: "Gordon Lee Surrender Jones, I command all the aches an' the pains, all the miseries an' fool notions, includin' the cricket in yer leg, to pass outen yer real body into this heah image on the floor. Keep yer head still, nigger! I pass 'em through you into yer symbol, an' from thence I draws 'em out to satisfy yer mind now and forever more, amen. Now roll over to the right an' watch what's about to happen."

The patient by this time was so interested that he followed instructions mechanically. He saw Amanda dart into the kitchen and emerge with an object totally unfamiliar to him. It was a heavy, box-shaped object, attached to a long handle. This she placed on the chalked outline of his right leg. Then she stood with her eyes fixed on the floor and solemnly chanted:

"Draw, draw, 'cordin' to the law,
Lif' the hoodoo, now I beg,
An' draw the cricket
F'om this heah leg!"

And Gordon Lee, raised on his elbow, watching with protruding eyes, _heard_ it draw! He heard the heavy, panting breathing as Amanda ran the vacuum cleaner over every inch of the chalked outline, and when she stopped and, kneeling beside the box, removed a small bag of dust and lint, he was not in the least surprised to see a cricket jump from the debris.

"Praise be!" he cried in sudden ecstasy. "De pain's done lef me, do spell's done lifted!"

"An' the cricket's done removed," urged Amanda, skilfully getting the machine out of sight. "You seen it removed with yer own eyes."

"Wid my own eyes," echoed Gordon Lee, still in a state of self-hypnosis.

"An' now," she said, "I'm goin' to git that supper ready jes as quick ez I kin."

"Ain't you gwine help me back in bed fust?" he asked from where he still lay on the floor.

"What fer?" she exclaimed. "Ain't the spell lifted? I'm goin' to set the table in the kitchen, an' ef you wants any of that possum an' sweet pertater an' that apple-dumplin' an' hard sass, you got to walk in there to git em."

For ten minutes Gordon Lee Surrender Jones lay flat on his back on the floor, trying to trace the course of human events during the last half-hour. Against the dim suspicion that Amanda had in some way outwitted him rose the staggering evidence of that very live cricket that still hopped about the room, chirping contentedly.

Twice Amanda spoke to him, but he refused to answer. His silence did not seem to affect her good spirits, for she continued her work, singing softly to herself.

Despite himself, he became aware of the refrain, and before he knew it he was going over the familiar words with her:

"Oh, chicken-pie an 'pepper, oh!
Chicken-pie is good, I know;
So is wattehmillion, too;
So is rabbit in a stew;
So is dumplin's, b'iled with squab;
So is cawn, b'iled on de cob;
So is chine an' turkey breast;
So is aigs des f'om de nest."

Gordon Lee rose unsteadily. Holding to a chair, he reached the table, then the door, through which he shambled, and sheepishly took his old place at the foot of the table. Amanda outdid herself in serving him, emptying the larder in honor of the occasion; but neither of them spoke until the apple-dumpling was reached. Then Gordon Lee turned toward her and said confidentially:

"I wished we knowed some corpse we could sell dat coffin to."

A MATTER OF FRIENDSHIP

When a jovial young person in irreproachable pongee, and a wholly reproachable brown topi, scrambled up the lifting gang-plank of the big Pacific liner, setting sail from Yokohama, he was welcomed with acclaim. The Captain stopped swearing long enough to megaphone a greeting from the bridge, the First Officer slapped him on the back, while the half dozen sailors, tugging at the ropes, grinned as one man.

Three months before this good ship _East India_ had carried Frederick Reynolds out to the Orient and deposited him on the alien soil, an untried youth of unimpeachable morals with a fatal facility for making friends.

The temporary transplanting had had a strange and exotic effect. The East has a way of developing crops of wild oats that have been neglected in the West, and by the end of his sojourn Mr. Frederick Reynolds had seen more, felt more, and lived more than in all of his previous twenty-four years put together. He had learned the difference between a "straight flush" and a "full house" under the palms at Raffles Hotel in Singapore; he had been instructed in the ways of the wise in Shanghai by a sophisticated attache of the French Legation, who imparted his knowledge between sips of absinthe, as he looked down on the passing show from a teahouse on the Bubbling Well Road; he had rapturously listened to every sweet secret that Japan had to tell, and had left a wake of smiles from Nagasaki to Yokohama.

In fact, in three short months he was fully qualified to pass a connoisseur's judgment on a high-ball, to hold his own in a game of poker, and to carry on a fairly coherent flirtation in four different languages.

With this newly acquired wisdom he was now setting sail for home, having accomplished his downward career with such alacrity that he did not at all realize what had happened to him.

Nor did the return voyage promise much in the way of silent meditation and timely repentance. The Captain placed Reynolds next to him at table, declaring that he was like an electric fan on a sultry day; the Purser, with the elasticity of conscience peculiar to pursers, moved him from the inexpensive inside room which he had engaged, to a spacious state-room on the promenade deck, where sufficient corks were drawn nightly to make a small life preserver.

The one person who watched these proceedings with disfavor was a short, attenuated, bow-legged Chinaman, with a face like a grotesque brass knocker, and a taciturnity that enveloped him like a fog.

On the voyage out, Tsang Foo, the assistant deck steward, had gotten into a fight with a brother Chinaman, and had been saved from dismissal by Reynolds's timely intercession at headquarters. In dumb gratitude for this service, he had laid his celestial soul at the feet of the young American and sworn eternal allegiance.

From the day Reynolds reembarked, Tsang's silken, slippered feet silently followed him from smoking-room to bar, from bar back to smoking-room. Whatever emotion troubled the depths of his being, no sign of it rose to his ageless, youthless face. But whether he was silently performing his duties on deck, or sitting on the hatchway smoking his opium, his vigilant eyes from their long, narrow slits kept watch.

For thirteen days the sun sparkled on the blue waters of the Pacific, and favoring breezes gave every promise of landing the _East India_ in port with the fastest record of the season. Bets went higher and higher on each day's running, and the excitement was intense each evening in the smoking-room when the numbers most likely to win the next day's pool were auctioned off to the highest bidder.

It was the afternoon of the fourteenth day, thirty-six hours out from San Francisco, that Mr. Frederick Reynolds, who had bet more, drunk more, talked more, and laughed more than any man on board, suddenly came to his full senses. Then it was that he went quietly to his luxurious state-room with its brass bed and crimson hangings, and took a forty-two caliber revolver from his steamer trunk. Slipping a cartridge into the cylinder, he sat breathing heavily and staring impatiently before him.

From outside above the roar of the ocean, came the tramp of the passengers on deck, and the trivial scraps of conversation that floated in kept side-tracking his thoughts, preventing their reaching the desired destination.

The world, which he had sternly resolved to leave, seemed determined to stay with him as long as possible. He heard Glass, the actor, inquiring for him, and in spite of himself he felt flattered; he heard the pretty girl whose steamer chair was next his, make a conditional engagement with the high-voiced army-officer, and he knew why she left the matter open; even a plaintive old voice inquiring how long it would be before tea, caused him to wait for the answer.

At last, as if to present his misery in embodied form, he produced a note-book and tried to concentrate his attention upon the items therein recorded. Line after line of wavering figures danced in impish glee before him, defying inspection. But at the foot of the column, like soldiers waiting to shoot a prisoner, stood four formidable units unquestionably pointing his way to doom.

As be looked at them Reynolds's thoughts got back on the main track and rushed to a conclusion. Tearing the leaf from the book, and crushing it in his hand, he jumped to his feet. Seized with a fury of self-disgust, he pulled off his coat and collar, and with the reckless courage of a boy put the mouth of the revolver to his temple.

As he did so the room darkened. He involuntarily looked up. Framed in the circle of the port-hole were the head and shoulders of Tsang Foo. Not a muscle of the yellow face moved, not a tremor of the slanting eyelids showed surprise. The right hand, holding a bit of tow, mechanically continued polishing the brass around the port-hole, but the left--long, thin, and with claw-like nails, shot stealthily forward and snatched the pistol.

For a full minute the polishing continued, then face and figure vanished, and Reynolds was left staring in impotent rage at the empty port-hole.

When the room steward appeared in answer to an imperative summons, he was directed to send Tsang Foo to room No. 7 at once.

Tsang came almost immediately, bearing tea and anchovy sandwiches, which he urbanely placed on a camp-stool.

"Where's my pistol?" demanded Reynolds hotly, holding to the door to steady himself.

Tsang's eyes, earnest as a dog's, were lifted to his:

"He fall overboard," he explained suavely, "me velly solly."

Reynolds impulsively lifted his arm to strike, but a second impulse, engulfing the first, made him turn and fling himself upon his berth, struggling to master the heavy sobs that shook him from head to foot.

The Chinaman softly closed the door and slipped the bolt, then he dropped to a sitting posture on the floor and waited.

When the squall had passed, Reynolds addressed his companion from the depths of the pillows in language suited to his comprehension.

"Me belong large fool, Tsang!" he said savagely. "Have drink too much. No good. You go 'long, I'm all right now."

Tsang's eye swept the disordered room and returned to the figure on the bed. "Suppose me go," he said, "you makee one hole in head?"

"That's my business," said Reynolds, his wrath rekindling. "You go 'long, and get my pistol; there's a good chap."

Tsang did not stir; he sat with his hands clasped about his knees, and contemplated space with the abstract look of a Buddha gazing into Nirvana.

Reynolds passed from persuasion to profanity with no satisfactory result. His language, whether eloquent or fiery, beat upon an unresponsive ear. But being in that condition that demands sympathy, he found the mere talking a relief, and presently drifted into a recital of his woes.

"I'm up against it, in the hole, you know, much largee trouble," he amplified with many gestures, sitting on the side of his berth, and pounding out excited, incoherent phrases to the impassive figure opposite. "Company sent me out to collect money. My have spent all. No can go back home. Suppose my lose face, more better die!"

Tsang shifted his position and nodded gravely. Out of much that was unintelligible, the last statement loomed clear and incontrovertible.

"I'm a thief!" burst out Reynolds passionately, not to Tsang now, but to the world at large, "a plain, common thief. And the worst of it is there isn't a man in that San Francisco office that doesn't trust me down to the ground. Then there's the Governor. O God! I can't face the Governor!"

Tsang sat immovable, lost in thought. Stray words and phrases helped, but it was by some subtle working of his own complex brain that he was arriving at the truth.

"Father, him no can lend money?" he suggested presently.

"The Governor? Good heavens, no. There's not enough money in our whole family to wad a gun! They put up all they had to give me a start, and look where I have landed! Do you suppose I'd go back and ask them to put up a thousand more for my rotten foolishness?" He knotted his hands together until the nails grew white then, seeing the unenlightened face below, he added emphatically: "No, no, Tsang, no can askee!"

"How fashion you losee money!" asked Tsang.

"The money? Oh, belong gamble. Bet on ship's run. First day--win. Second day--win. Then lose, lose, keep on losing. Didn't know half the time what I was doing. To-day my settle up; no can pay office. A thousand dollars out! Lord! All same two thousand Mex', Tsang!"

An invisible calculation was made on the end of the steamer trunk by a long, pointed, fingernail, but no change of expression crossed the yellow face. For an incalculable time Tsang sat, lost in thought. All his conserved energy went to aid him in solving the problem. At last he reached a decision: this was clearly a case to be laid before the only god be knew, the god of Chance.

"Me gamble too," he said; "me no lose."

"But s'pose you _had_ lost? S'pose you lose what no belong you? What thing you do?"

"You do all same my talkee you?" asked Tsang, for the first time lifting his eyes.

It was a slender straw, to be sure, but Reynolds grasped at it.

"What thing you mean, Tsang? What can I do?"

"Two more night' to San Flancisco," said Tsang softly; "one more bet, maybe!"

"Oh, I've thought of that. What's the good of throwing good money after bad? No use, I no got chance."

"_My_ have got chance," announced Tsang emphatically, "you bet how fashion my talkee you, your money come back."

Reynolds studied the brass knocker of a face, but found no clue to the riddle. "What you mean, Tsang?" he asked. "What do you know? For the Lord's sake don't fool with me about it!"

"Me no fool," declared Tsang. "You le' me talkee number, him win big heap money."

"But how do you know?"

"Me savey," said Tsang enigmatically.

Again Reynolds studied the impassive face. "It's on the square, Tsang? You don't stand in with anybody below decks? The thing is on the level?" Then finding further elucidation necessary, he added, "No belong cheat!"

Tsang Foo shook his head positively. "No belong cheat, all belong ploper. No man savey, only me savey, this side," and he tapped his head significantly.

Reynolds gave a short, unpleasant laugh. "All right," he said, thrusting his hand in his pocket. "I'll give myself one more chance. There'll be time to-morrow to finish my job. I'll make a bargain with you, Tsang! Bet this, and this, and this, on the next run for me. You win, I no makee shoot; you lose, you promise bring back pistol, then go way. My can do what thing my wantchee, see?"

Tsang Foo looked at him cunningly: "I win, you belong good boy? Stop whisky-soda, maybe?"

Reynolds laughed in spite of himself: "Going to reform me, oh? All right, it's a bargain."

Tsang allowed his hand to be shaken, then he carefully counted over the express checks that had been given to him.

"My go now," he announced as eight bells sounded from the bridge.

As the door closed Reynolds sighed, then his eyes brightened as they fell upon the sandwiches. Even a desperate young man on the verge of suicide if he is hungry must needs cheer up temporarily at the sight of food. Reynolds had taken an early breakfast after being up all night, and had eaten nothing since. After devouring the sandwiches and tea with relish, he ordered a hot bath, and in less than an hour was wrapped in his berth sleeping the sleep that is not confined to the righteous.

It was high noon the next day when he awoke. His first feeling was one of exhilaration: the long sleep, the fresh sea air pouring in at the port-hole, and a sense of perfect physical well-being had made him forget, for a moment, the serious business the day might have in store for him.

As he lay, half dozing, he became dimly aware that something was wrong. The throb of the engines had ceased, and an ominous stillness prevailed. He sat up in bed and listened, then he thrust his head out of the port-hole, only to see a deserted deck. The passage was likewise deserted save for a hurried stewardess, who called back, over her shoulder, "It's a man overboard, sir, on the starboard side--"

Reynolds flung on his clothes. The boy in him was keen for excitement, and in five minutes he was on deck, and had joined the crowd of passengers that thronged the railing.

The life-boat was being lowered, groaning and protesting as it cleared the davits and swung away from the ship's side. Far behind, in the still shining wake of the steamer, a small black object bobbed helplessly in the gray expanse of waters.

"What's the matter?" "Did he fall overboard!" "Did he jump in?" "Was it suicide?" The air buzzed with questions. The sentimental contingent clung to the theory that it was some poor stoker who could no longer stand the heat, or a foreign refugee afraid to come into port. The more practical argued that it was probably one of the seamen who, while doing outside painting, had lost his balance and fallen into the sea.

A smug, well-dressed man, with close-cropped gray beard, and a detached gaze that seemed to go no further than his rimless glasses, turned and spoke to Reynolds:

"It has gotten to be quite the fashion for somebody in the steerage to create this sort of sensation. It happened as I went over. If a man sees fit to jump overboard, all well and good; in nine cases out of ten it's a good riddance to the community. But why in Heaven's name should the steamer put back? Why should several hundred people be delayed an hour or so for the sake of an inconsiderate, useless fool?"

Reynolds turned away sickened. From a point, apart from the rest, he strained his eyes to keep in sight the small black object now hidden, now revealed, by the waves. A fierce sense of kinship for that man in the water seized him. He, too, perhaps had grappled with some unendurable situation and been overcome. What if he was an utterly worthless asset on the great human ledger? He was a fellow-being, suffering, tempted, vanquished. Was it kind to bring him back, to go through with it all again?

For answer Reynolds's muscles strained with those of the sailors rowing below: all the life and youth in him rose in rebellion against unnecessary death. He watched with teeth hard set as the small boat climbed to the crest of a wave, then plunged into the trough again, crawling by imperceptible inches toward the bobbing spot in the water. He longed to be in the boat, in the water even, helping to save that human life that only on the verge of extinction had gained significance. What if the man wished to die? No matter, he must be saved, saved from himself, given another chance, made to face it out, whatever it was. Not until then did Reynolds remember another life that be had dared to threaten, that even now he meant to take if the wheel of chance swung against him. Suddenly he faced the awful judgment of his own act, and shuddered back as one who, standing upon a precipice, trembles in terror before the mad desire to leap.

"I'll stick it out!" he said half aloud as if in promise. "Whatever comes, I'll take my medicine, I'll--"

An eager murmur swept through the crowd. A sailor with a rope about him was being lowered from the life-boat.

For five tense minutes the two men rose and fell at the mercy of the high waves, and the distance between them did not lessen by an inch.

Then a passenger with a binocular announced that the sailor was swimming around to the far side to get the man between him and the boat.

With long, steady, overhand strokes, the sailor was gaining his way, and when at last he reached the apparently motionless object and got a rope under its arms, and the two were hauled into the life-boat, a rousing cheer went up from the big steamer above.

Reynolds drew in his breath sharply and turned away from the railing. As he did so he was hailed by a group of friends who were returning to their cards, waiting face downward on the small tables in the smoking-room.

"Behold His Nibs!" shouted Glass, the actor, "the luckiest duffer that ever hit a high-ball!"

"How did you happen to do it?" cried another.

Reynolds lifted his hand to his bewildered head. "Do what?" he asked dully. "I'm not on."

"Oh, come!" said Glass, shaking him by the shoulder; "that bet you sent in last night! When the Chink said you wanted to buy the low field for all six pools, and to bet five hundred to boot that you'd win, I thought you were either drunk or crazy. Yesterday's run was four-fifty-one, a regular corker, and yet with even better weather conditions, you took only the numbers below four-thirty-one. I argued with the Chinaman 'til I was blue in the face, but he stood pat, said, you were all right, and had told him what to do. Nothing but an accident could have saved you, and it arrived. You've won the biggest pool of the crossing, don't you think it's about time for you to set 'em up? Say Martini cocktails for the crowd, eh?"

Reynolds was jostled about in congratulation and good-humored banter. Everybody was glad of the boy's success, he was an all round favorite, and some of the men who had won his money felt relieved to return it.

"Here's your cocktail, Freddy," cried Glass, "and here's to you!"

Reynolds stood in the midst of the crowd, his face flushed, his hair tumbled. With a quick movement he sent the glass and its contents spinning out of a near-by port-hole.

"Not for Frederick!" he said with emphasis, "I've been that particular kind of a fool for the last time."

Some hours later when the crowd went below to dress for dinner, Reynolds dropped behind to ask the Second Officer about the man who had been rescued.

"He is still pretty full of salt water," said the Officer, "but he is being bailed out."

"How did it happen?" asked Reynolds.

"Give it up. He hasn't spoken yet. It looks as if he were getting ready to do some outside cleaning, for he had on a life-preserver. Funny thing about it, though, that's not his work. He's not even on duty during the starboard watch. The man in the lookout saw him climb out on the bow, shout something up to him, then fall backward into the water. I'll be hanged if I can make it out. Tsang Foo is one of the steadiest sailors on board."

"Tsang Foo!" shouted Reynolds. "You don't mean that man was Tsang?"

With headlong haste he seized the bewildered officer and made him pilot him below decks. Stumbling down the ladders and through dark passages, he at last reached the bunk where Tsang Foo lay with the ship's surgeon and a steward in attendance.

The Chinaman's lips were drawn tightly back over his prominent teeth, and his breath came in irregular gasps. Across the pillow in a straight black line lay his dripping queque. As his eyelids fluttered feebly, the doctor straightened his own tired back.

"He'll come round now, all right," he said to the steward. "Give him those drops and don't talk to him. He's had a close call. I'll be back in ten minutes."

Reynolds crowded into the narrow apace the doctor had left. The fact that he was saved from disgrace was utterly blotted out by the bigger fact that this ignorant, uncouth, foreign sailor had fearlessly risked his life to save him from facing a merited punishment. Reynolds's very soul seemed to grow bigger to accommodate the thought.

"Tsang!" he whispered, seizing the yellow hand, "You are a brick! Number one good man. But my no can take money,--I--"

The steward in attendance, who had stepped aside, made a warning gesture and laid his finger on his lips.

For five minutes the man in the bunk and the one beside it looked silently into each other's eyes, then the drawn lips moved, and Reynolds, bending his head to listen, heard the broken question:

"You--no--blake--bargain?"

Reynolds's mind dashed at two conclusions and recoiled from each. Should be follow his impulse to explain the whole affair, serious consequences would result for Tsang, while the other alternative of accepting the situation made him a party, albeit an innocent one, to a most reprehensible proceeding. It was to his credit, that of the two courses the latter was infinitely the more intolerable. He got up nervously, then sat down again.

"No--blake--bargain!" repeated Tsang anxiously.

Still Reynolds waited for some prompting from a conscience unaccustomed to being rusty. Any course that would involve the loyal little Chinaman, who had played the game according to the rules as he knew them, was out of the question. The money must be paid back, of course, but how, and when? If he cleared himself at the office it might be years before he could settle this new debt, but he could do it in time, he must do it. Then at last, light came to him. He would accept Tsang's sacrifice but it should stand for more than the mere material good it had purchased. It should pledge him to a fresh start, a clean life. He would justify the present by the future. He drew a deep breath of relief and leaned forward:

"Tsang," he said, and his voice trembled with the earnestness of his resolve, "I no break bargain. From now on my behave all same proper. It wasn't right, old fellow, you oughtn't--" then he gave it up and smiled helplessly, "you belong my good friend Tsang, what thing you wantchee?"

A slow smile broke the brass-like stillness of Tsang Foo's face:

"Pipe," he gasped softly, "opium velly good,--make land and sea--all same--by an' by!"

THE WILD OATS OF A SPINSTER

Judging from appearances Miss Lucinda Perkins was justifying her reason for being by conforming absolutely to her environment. She apparently fitted as perfectly into her little niche in the Locustwood Seminary for young ladies as Miss Joe Hill fitted into hers. The only difference was that Miss Joe Hill did not confine herself to a niche; she filled the seminary, as a plump hand does a tight glove.

It was the year after Miss Lucinda had come to the seminary to teach elocution that Miss Joe Hill discovered in her an affinity. As principal, Miss Joe Hill's word was never questioned, and Miss Lucinda, with pleased obedience, accepted the honor that was thrust upon her, and meekly moved her few belongings into Miss Joe Hill's apartment.

For four years they had lived in the rarified atmosphere of celestial friendship. They clothed their bodies in the same raiment, and their minds in the same thoughts, and when one was cold the other shivered.

If Miss Lucinda, in those early days found it difficult to live up to Miss Joe Hill's transcendental code she gave no sign of it. She laid aside her mildly adorned garments and enveloped her small angular person in a garb of sombre severity. Even the modest bird that adorned her hat was replaced by an uncompromising band. She foreswore meat and became a vegetarian. She stopped reading novels and devoted her spare time to essays and biography. In fact she and Miss Joe Hill became one and that one was Miss Joe Hill.

It was not until Floss Speckert entered the senior class at Locustwood Seminary that this sublimated friendship suffered a jar.

Floss's father lived in Chicago, and it was due to his unerring discernment in the buying and selling of live stock that Floss was being "finished" in all branches without regard to the cost.

"Learn her all you want to," he said magnanimously to Miss Lucinda, who negotiated the arrangement. "I ain't got but two children, her and Tom. He's just like me--don't know a blame thing but business; but Floss--" his bosom swelled under his checked vest--"she's on to it all. I pay for everything you get into her head. Dancin', singin', French--all them extries goes."

Miss Lucinda had consequently undertaken the management of Floss Speckert, and the result had been far-reaching in its consequences.

Floss was a person whose thoughts did not dwell upon the highest development of the spiritual life. Her mind was given over to the pursuit of worldly amusements, her only serious thought being a burning ambition to win histrionic honors. The road to this led naturally through the elocution classes, and Floss accepted Miss Lucinda as the only means toward the desired end.

A drop of water in a bottle of ink produces no visible result, but a drop of ink in a glass of water contaminates it at once. Miss Lucinda took increasing interest in her frivolous young pupil; she listened with half-suppressed eagerness to unlimited gossip about stage-land, and even sank to the regular perusal of certain bold theatrical papers. She was unmistakably becoming contaminated.

Meanwhile Miss Joe Hill, quite blind to the situation, condoned the friendship. "You are developing your own character," she told Miss Lucinda. "You are exercising self-control and forbearance in dealing with that crude, undisciplined girl. Florence is the natural outcome of common stock and newly acquired riches. It is your noble aspiration to take this vulgar clay and mold it into something higher. Your motive is laudable, Lucinda; your self-sacrifice in giving up our evening hour together is heroic. I read you like an open book, dear."

And Miss Lucinda listened and trembled. They were standing together before the window of their rigid little sitting room, the chastened severity of which banished all ideas of comfort. "What purpose do you serve?" Miss Joe Hill demanded of every article that went into her apartment, and many of the comforts of life failed to pass the examination.

After Miss Joe Hill had gone out, Miss Lucinda remained at the window and restlessly tapped her knuckles against the sill. The insidious spring sunshine, the laughter of the girls in the court below, the foolish happy birds telling their secrets under the new, green leaves, all worked together to disturb her peace of mind.

She resolutely turned her back to the window and took breathing exercises. That was one of Miss Joe Hill's sternest requirements--fifteen minutes three times a day and two pints of water between meals. Then she sat down in a straight-back chair and tried to read "The Power Through Poise." Her body was doing its duty, but it did not deceive her mind. She knew that she was living a life of black deception; evidences of her guilt were on every hand. Behind the books on her little shelf was a paper of chocolate creams; in the music rack, back to back with Grieg and Brahms, was an impertinent sheet of ragtime which Floss had persuaded her to learn as an accompaniment. And deeper and darker and falser than all was a plan which had been fermenting in her mind for days.

In a fortnight the school term would be over. Following the usual custom, Miss Lucinda was to go to her brother in the country and Miss Joe Hill to her sister for a week. This obligation to their respective families being discharged, they would repair to the seclusion of a Catskill farmhouse, there to hang upon each other's souls for the rest of the summer.

Miss Lucinda's visits to her brother were reminiscent of a multiplicity of children and a scarcity of room. To her the Inferno presented no more disquieting prospect than the necessity of sharing her bedroom. She always returned from these sojourns in the country with impaired digestion, and shattered nerves. She looked forward to them with dread and looked back on them with horror. Was it any wonder that when a brilliant alternative presented itself she was eager to accept it?

Floss Speckert had gained her father's consent to spend her first week out of school in New York provided she could find a suitable chaperon. She had fallen upon the first and most harmless person in sight and besieged her with entreaties.

Miss Lucinda would have flared to the project had not a forbidding presence loomed between her and the alluring invitation. She knew only too well that Miss Joe Hill would never countenance the proposition.

As she sat trying vainly to concentrate on her "Power Through Poise," she was startled by a noise at the window, followed immediately by a dishevelled figure that scrambled laughingly over the sill.

"I came down the fire escape!" whispered the invader breathlessly, "Miss Joe Hill caught us making fudge in the linen closet, and I gave her the slip."

"But Florence!" Miss Lucinda began reproachfully, but Floss interrupted her:

"Don't 'Florence' me, Miss Lucy! You're just pretending to be mad anyhow. You are a perfect darling and Miss Joe Hill is an old bear!"

Miss Lucinda was aghast at this irreverence but her halting protests had no effect on the torrent of Floss's eloquence.

"I am going to take you to New York," the girl declared "and I am going to give you the time of your life! Dad's got to put us up in style--a room and a bath apiece and maybe a sitting room. He likes me to splurge around a bit, says he'd hate to have a daughter that acted like she wasn't used to money."

Miss Lucinda glanced apprehensively at the door and then back at the sparkling face before her.

"I can't go," she insisted miserably, trying to free her hand from Floss's plump grasp. "My brother is expecting me and Miss Hill--"

"Oh, bother Miss Joe Hill! You don't have to tell her anything about it! You can pretend you are going to your brother's and meet me some place on the road instead."

Miss Lucinda looked horrified, but she listened. A material kept plastic by years of manipulation does not harden to a new hand. Her objections to Floss's plan grew fainter and fainter.

"Think of the theaters," went on the temptress, putting an arm around her neck, and ignoring the fact that caresses embarrassed Miss Lucinda almost to the point of tears; "think of it! A new show every night, and operas and pictures. There will be three Shakspere plays that week, 'Merchant of Venice,' 'Twelfth Night,' and 'Hamlet.'"

Miss Lucinda's heart fluttered in her bosom. Although she had spent a great part of her life interpreting the Bard of Avon, she had never seen one of his plays produced. In her secret soul she believed that her own rendition of "The quality of mercy," was not to be excelled.

"I--I haven't any clothes," she urged feebly, putting up her last defense.

"I have," declared Floss in triumph--"two trunks full, and we are almost the same size. It's just for a week, Miss Lucy; won't you come?"

Miss Lucinda, sitting rigid, felt a warm cheek pressed against her own, and a stray curl touched her lips. She sat for a moment with her eyes closed. It was more than disconcerting to be so close to youth and joy and life; it was infectious. The blood surged suddenly through her veins, and an exultation seized her.

"I'm going to do it," she cried recklessly; "I never had a real good time in my life."

Floss threw her arms about her and waltzed her across the room, but a step in the hall brought them to a halt.

"It's Miss Joe Hill," whispered Floss, with trepidation; "I am going out the way I came. Don't you forget; you have promised."

When Miss Joe Hill entered, she smiled complacently at finding Miss Lucinda in the straight-back chair, absorbed in the second volume of the "Power Through Poise."

At the Union Depot in Chicago, two weeks later, a small, nervous lady fluttered uncertainly from one door to another. She wore a short, brown coat suit of classic severity, and a felt hat which was fastened under her smoothly braided hair by a narrow elastic band.

On her fourth trip to the main entrance she stopped a train-boy. "Can you tell me where I can get a drink?" she asked, fanning her flushed face. He looked surprised. "Third door to the left," he answered. Miss Lucinda, carrying a hand-bag, a suit-case, and an umbrella, followed directions. When she pushed open the heavy door she was confronted by a long counter with shining glasses and a smiling bartender. Beating a confused retreat, she fled back to the main entrance, and stood there trembling. For the hundredth time that day she wished she had not come.

The arrangements, so glibly planned by Floss, had not been adhered to in any particular. At the last moment that mercurial young person had decided to go on two days in advance and visit a friend in Philadelphia. She wrote Miss Lucinda to come on to Chicago, where Tom would meet her and give her her ticket, and that she would meet her in New York.

With many misgivings and grievous twinges of conscience, Miss Lucinda had bade Miss Joe Hill a guilty farewell, and started ostensibly for her brother's home. At the Junction she changed cars for Chicago, missed two connections, and lost her lunch-box. Now that she had arrived In Chicago, three hours late, nervous and excited over her experiences, there was no one to meet her.

A sense of homesickness rushed over her, and she decided to return to Locustwood. It was the same motive that might prompt a newly hatched chicken, embarrassed by its sudden liberty, to return to its shell. Just as she was going in search of a time-table, a round-faced young man came up.

"Miss Perkins?" he asked, and when she nodded, he went on: "Been looking for you for half an hour. Sis told me what you looked like, but I couldn't find you." He failed to observe that Floss's comparison had been a squirrel.

"Isn't it nearly time to start?" asked Miss Lucinda, nervously.

"Just five minutes; but I want to explain something to you first." He looked through the papers in his pocket and selected one. "This is a pass," he explained; "the governor can get them over this road. I got there late, so I could only get one that had been made out for somebody else and not been used. It's all right, you know; you won't have a bit of trouble."

Miss Lucinda took the bit of paper, put on her glasses, and read, "Mrs. Lura Doring."

"Yes," said Tom; "that's the lady it was made out for. Nine chances out of ten they won't mention it; but if anything comes up, you just say yes, you are Mrs. Doring, and it will be all right."

"But," protested Miss Lucinda, ready to weep, "I cannot tell a falsehood."

"I don't think you'll have to," said Tom, somewhat impatiently; "but if you deny it, you'll get us both into no end of a scrape. Hello! there's the call for your train. I'll bring your bag."

In the confusion of getting settled in her section, and of expressing her gratitude to Tom, Miss Lucinda forgot for the time the deadly weight of guilt that rested upon her. It was not until the conductor called for her ticket that her heart grew cold, and a look of consternation swept over her face. It seemed to her that he eyed the pass suspiciously and when he did not return it a terror seized her. She knew he was coming back to ask her name, and what was her name? Mrs. Dora Luring, or Mrs. Dura Loring, or Mrs. Lura Doring?

In despair she fled to the dressing room and stood there concealed by the curtains. In a few moments the conductor passed, and she peeped at his retreating figure. He stopped in the narrow passage by the window and studied her pass, then he compared it with a telegram which he held in his hand. Just then the porter joined him, and she flattened herself against the wall and held her breath.

"It's the same name," she heard the conductor say in an undertone. "I'll wire back to headquarters at the next stop."

If ever retribution followed an erring soul, it followed Miss Lucinda on that trip. No one spoke to her, and nothing happened, but she sat in terrified suspense, looking neither to right nor left, her heart beating frantically at every approach, and the whirring wheels repeating the questioning refrain, "Dora Luring? Dura Loring? Lura Doring?"

In New York, Floss met her as she stepped off the train, fairly enveloping her in her enthusiasm.

"Here you are, you old darling! I have been having a fit a minute for fear you wouldn't come. This is my Cousin May. She is going to stay with us the whole week. New York is simply heavenly, Miss Lucy. We have made four engagements already. Matinee this afternoon, a dinner to-night--What's the matter? Did you leave anything on the train?"

"No, no," stammered Miss Lucinda, still casting furtive glances backward at the conductor. "Was he talking to a policeman?" she asked suspiciously.

"Who?"

"The conductor."

The girls laughed.

"I don't wonder you were scared," said Floss; "a policeman always does remind me of Miss Joe Hill."

They called a cab and, to Miss Lucinda's vast relief, were soon rolling away from the scene of danger.

* * * * *

It needed only one glance into a handsome suite of an up-town hotel one week later to prove the rapid moral deterioration of the prodigal.

Arrayed in a shell-pink kimono, she was having her nails manicured. Her gaily figured garment was sufficient in itself to give her an unusual appearance; but there was a more startling reason.

Miss Lucinda's hair, hitherto a pale drab smoothly drawn into a braided coil at the back, had undergone a startling metamorphosis. It was Floss's suggestion that Miss Lucinda wash it in "Golden Glow," a preparation guaranteed to restore luster and beauty to faded locks. Miss Lucinda had been over-zealous, and the result was that of copper in sunshine.

These outward manifestations, however, were insignificant compared with the evidences of Miss Lucinda's inner guilt. She was taking the keenest interest in the manicure's progress, only lifting her eyes occasionally to survey herself with satisfaction in the mirror opposite.

At first her sense of propriety had been deeply offended by her changed appearance. She wept so bitterly that the girls, seeking to console her, had overdone the matter.

"I never thought you _could_ look so pretty," Floss had declared; "you look ten years younger. It makes your eyes brighter and your skin clearer. Of course this awfully bright color will wear off, and then it will be just dear."

Miss Lucinda began to feel better; she even allowed May to arrange her changed locks in a modest pompadour.

The week she had spent in New York was a riotous round of dissipation. May's fiance had prepared a whirlwind of pleasures, and Miss Lucinda was caught up and revolved at a pace that made her dizzy. Dances, dinners, plays, roof-gardens, coaching parties, were all held together by a line of candy, telegrams, and roses.

There was only one time in the day when Miss Lucinda came down to earth. Every evening, no matter how exhausted she might he from the frivolities of the day, she conscientiously penned an affectionate letter to her celestial affinity, expressing her undying devotion, and incidentally mentioning the health and doings of her brother's family. These she sent under separate cover to her brother to be mailed.

Her conscience assured her that the reckoning would come, that sooner or later she would face the bar of justice and receive the verdict of guilty; but while one day of grace remained, she would still "in the fire of spring, her winter garments of repentance fling."

As the manicure put the finishing touch to her nails, Floss came rushing in:

"Hurry up, Miss Lucy dear! Dick Benson has just 'phoned that he is going to take us for a farewell frolic. We leave here at five, have dinner somewhere, then do all sorts of stunts. You are going to wear my tan coat-suit and light blue waist. Yes, you are, too! That's all foolishness; everybody wears elbow-sleeves. Blue's your color, and I've got the hat to match. May says she'll fix your hair, and you can wear her French-heel Oxfords again. They pitch you over? Oh, nonsense! you just tripped along the other day like a nice little jay-bird. Hurry, hurry!"

Even Miss Lucinda's week of strenuous living had not prepared her for what followed. First, there was a short trip on the train, during which she conscientiously studied a map. Then followed a dinner at a large and ostentatious hotel. The decorations were more brilliant, the music louder, and the dresses gayer, than at any place Miss Lucinda had yet been. She viewed the passing show through her glasses, and experienced a pleasant thrill of sophistication. This, she assured herself, was society; henceforth she was in a position to rail at its follies as one having authority.

In the midst of these complacent reflections she choked on a crumb, and, after groping with closed eyes for her tumbler, gulped down the contents. A strange, delicious tingle filled her mouth; she forgot she was choking, and opened her eyes. To her horror, she found that she had emptied her glass of champagne.

"Spirituous liquor!" she thought in dismay, as the shade of Miss Joe Hill rose before her.

Total abstinence was such a firm plank in the platform of the celestial affinity that, even in the chafing-dish, alcohol had been tabooed. The utter iniquity of having deliberately swallowed a glass of champagne was appalling to Miss Lucinda. She sat silent during the rest of the dinner, eating little, and plucking nervously at the ruffles about her elbows. The fear of rheumatism in her wrists which had assailed her earlier in the evening gave way to a deeper and more disturbing discomfort.

When the dinner was over, the party started forth on a hilarious round of sight-seeing. Miss Lucinda limped after them, vaguely aware that she was in a giant electric cage filled with swarming humanity, that bands were playing, drums beating, and that at every turn disagreeable men with loud voices were imploring her to "step this way."

"Come on!" cried Dick. "We are going on the scenic railway."

But the worm turned. "I--I'm not going," she protested. "I will wait here. All of you go; I will wait right here."

With a sigh of relief she slipped into a vacant corner, and gave herself up to the luxury of being miserable. She longed for solitude in which to face the full enormity of her misdeed, and to plan an immediate reformation. She would throw herself bodily upon the mercy of Miss Joe Hill, she would spare herself nothing; penance of any kind would be welcome, bodily pain even--

She shifted her weight to the slender support of one high-heeled shoe while she rested the other foot. Her hair, unused to its new arrangement, pulled cruelly upon every restraining hair-pin, and her head was beginning to ache.

"I deny the slavery of sense. I repudiate the bondage of matter. I affirm spirit and freedom," she quoted to herself, but the thought failed to have any effect.

A two-ringed circus was in progress at her right while at her left a procession of camels and Egyptians was followed by a noisy crowd of urchins. People were thronging in every direction, and she realized that she was occasionally the recipient of a curious glance. She began to watch rather anxiously for the return of her party. Ten minutes passed, and still they did not come.

Suddenly the awful possibility presented itself that they might have lost her. She had no money, and even with it, she knew she could not find her way back to the hotel alone. Anxiety gained upon her in leaps. In bitter remorse she upbraided herself for ever having strayed from the blessed protection of Miss Joe Hill's authority. Gulfs of hideous possibility yawned at her feet; imagination faltered at the things that might befall a lone and unprotected lady in this bedlam of frivolity.

Just as her fear was turning to terror the party returned.

"Oh, here you are!" cried Floss. "We thought we had lost you. It was just dandy, Miss Lucy; you ought to have gone. It makes you feel like your feet are growing right out of the top of your head. Come on; we are going to have our tintypes taken."

Strengthened by the fear of being left alone again, Miss Lucinda rallied her courage, and once more followed in their wake. She was faint and exhausted, but the one grain of comfort she extracted from the situation was that through her present suffering she was atoning for her sins.

At midnight Dick said: "There's only one other thing to do. It's more fun than all the rest put together. Come this way."

Miss Lucinda followed blindly. She had ceased to think; there were only two realities left in the world, French-heels and hair-pins.

At the foot of a flight of steps the party paused to buy tickets.

"You can wait for us here, Miss Lucy," said Floss.

Miss Lucinda protested eagerly that she was not too tired to go with them. The prospect of being left alone again nerved her to climb to any height.

"But," cried Floss, "if you get up there, there's only one way to come down. You have to--"

"Let her come!" interrupted the others in laughing chorus, and, to Miss Lucinda's great relief, she was allowed to pass through the little gate.

When she reached the top of the long stairs, she looked about for the attraction. A wide inclined plane slanted down to the ground floor, and on it were bumps of various sizes and shapes, all of a shining smoothness. She had a vague idea that it was a mammoth map for the blind, until she saw Dick and Floss sit down at the top and go sliding to the bottom.

"Come on, Miss Lucinda!" cried May. "You can't get down any other way, you know. Look out! Here I go!"

One by one the others followed, and Miss Lucinda could not distinguish them as they merged in the laughing crowd at the base.

Delay was fatal; they would lose her again if she hesitated. In desperation she gathered her skirts about her, and let herself cautiously down on the floor. For one awful moment terror paralyzed her, then, grasping her skirts with one hand and her hat with the other and closing her eyes, she slid.

Miss Lucinda did not "hump the bumps"; she slid gracefully around them, describing fanciful curves and loops in her airy flight. When she arrived in a confused bunch on the cushioned platform below, she was greeted with a burst of applause.

"Ain't it great?" cried Floss, straightening Miss Lucinda's hat and trying to get her to open her eyes. "Dick says you are the gamest chaperon he ever saw. Sit up and let me pin your collar straight."

But Miss Lucinda's sense of direction had evidently been disturbed, for she did not yet know which was up, and which was down. She leaned limply against Floss and tried to get her breath.

"Excuse me," said a man's voice above her, "but are either of you ladies Mrs. Lura Doring?"

The effect was electrical. Miss Lucinda sat bolt upright and stared madly about. Tom Speckert had told her to be sure to answer to that name. It would get him into trouble if she failed to do so.

"Yes, yes," she gasped; "I am Mrs. Lura Doring."

The members of her little party looked at her anxiously and ceased to laugh. The slide had evidently unsettled her mind.

"Why, this is Miss Perkins--Miss Lucinda Perkins of Locustwood, Ohio," explained Dick Benson to the officer, "She's rather upset by her tobogganing, and didn't understand you."

"I did," declared Miss Lucinda, making mysterious signs to Dick to be silent. "It's all right; I am Mrs. Doring."