Rumpety! rumpety! rumpety! rump!

Small wonder that the music was blaring forth again! For here were guests of great distinction—Mr. Carnegie (looking older than formerly), Mr. Rockefeller, Mr. Astor and Mr. Vanderbilt. There was no mistaking them, for they wore millionaire hats, soft and velvety, and coats with fur collars. All were strolling as leisurely and jauntily as only true plutocrats can afford to do.

When they reached Big Tom, they halted; and at the same moment they turned their four heads to stare at him, and showed him their four countenances in four cold frowns. Then—they turned their heads away, all snubbing him at once, and sauntered up the last step to the terrace, and so forward to where their young host stood.

"Gee, he hated what y' done t' him!" exclaimed Johnnie. After shaking hands with them, he passed them on to Uncas and his braves, the Indians receiving them with every indication of cordiality.

Bling-ell! bling-ell! bling-ell-dee-dee!—a fresh burst of melody.

This time the Prince and his gentlemen were approaching, all silk-hatted, and frock-coated, and gold-caned. His Royal Highness led—naturally—and was assisting dear, little Mrs. Kukor as he came, and she was beaming up at Royalty, and talking at him with both pudgy hands, and rocking madly in her effort to keep step.

Following on the proper salutations, the English Prince and Aladdin very properly got together, treating each other like old friends, while Johnnie faced about to greet Father Pat, who was puffing and blowing as he made the last step, and pointing back over a shoulder to where King Arthur was approaching with Guinevere, the former in royal robes, with four kings walking before him, bearing four golden swords; while the Queen had four queens ahead of her, bearing four white doves. There was a choir in this majestic train, and after the choir came fully two dozen knights whose chain mail shone in the sunlight like gold.

"Here she comes!"

Now hats waved wildly, and handkerchiefs fluttered—as into sight, her many rosy, silken sails filled to stiffness with the breeze, her scores of flags snapping in the glorious air, and all her lovely lines showing in sharp beauty against a violet-blue sky, came Jim Hawkins's superb ship, crewless, and unguided, but moving evenly, slowly, majestically, as if she were some living thing!

Roses garlanded her—pink roses by the thousands. They circled her rail like a monster wreath. They hung down from her yardarms, too, in mammoth festoons. And her cargo—forward, it was of watermelons, which were arranged in a huge heap at the prow; aft, her load was books! There were books in red bindings, and books in brown and green. Here and there on the piles of volumes a book would be open, showing attractive illustrations. To judge of the size of the consignment it was evident that not one book had been left in that certain Fifth Avenue store!

Cheers—as softly the Hispaniola came to a stop.

"All aboard!" shouted Johnnie. "All but Thomas Barber, who's goin' t' be left behind 'cause he was so mean!"

What a blow! The longshoreman, plainly crushed by it, sank lower on his step and covered his face.

But the company cared little how he felt. Shouting gayly, chatting, smiling, waving to one another, all swarmed across the rose-bordered rail to embark at Johnnie's bidding. Last of all stalked the haughty Buckle—to begin passing melon.

"Ready! Let 'er go!"

Now a soul-inspiring blending of choir and instruments—just as Johnnie gave his command, and the ship of his dreams moved off across the roofs of the city, with no rolling from side to side. Skillfully she steered her own way among the chimneys till she was lifted above them, all the while tossing the blue air to either side of her prow exactly as if it were water, so that it rose up in cloud-topped waves, and curled, and broke along her rose-trimmed sides in crystal, from where it fell to lay behind her in a long, tumbled, frothy path.

"Oh, Cis, we're sailin' the sky!" Johnnie shouted. His yellow hair was blowing straight back from his eager, happy face as he peered forward (as a good captain should) into the limitless, but astronomer-charted, leagues ahead. "We're floatin' in the ocean o' space!"

Here, close at hand, was a cloud, monster, dazzlingly white, and made all of dew which was heavenly cool. Gallantly the Hispaniola plunged into it, sending the bits of cloud from her in a milky spray, but catching some of them upon her sides and sails, so that as she came forth into the sun again, she seemed set with all of Aladdin's diamonds!

"On, and on, and on, and on!" Johnnie commanded. (He had no time even for a slice of watermelon!) Oh, how wonderful to think that there was no shore ahead upon which Jim Hawkins's ship would need to beach! that Johnnie and his friends could go on sailing and sailing for as long as they chose!

"Look out for the Great Bear and the Bull!"—another command for the Hispaniola, for now that the ship was higher, she was passing among the stars, all as perfectly round as so many toy balloons, all marvelously luminous, and each most accommodatingly marked across its round, golden face (in great, black, capital letters!) with its name—MARS, JUPITER, SATURN, VENUS.

It seemed to Johnnie as if he were meeting old friends. "Oh, Arcturus!" he hailed. "Aldebaran! Neptune!"

"Johnnie, don't bump the Moon!" cried the Prince and his gentlemen, waving their canes.

"Y' betcher life I won't!"

Any large body, the good ship most considerately avoided. As for the small ones, which had no names on them, if she struck one, it glanced off of her like a red-gold spark.

"Aw, gee!" cried Johnnie, easing his tortured little body by a shift of his weight across the table edge; "this is jus' fine!"



CHAPTER XXXII

HELP

KNOCK! knock! knock! knock!

At the first knock of the four, a sparrow to whom Johnnie had, for this long while, been giving good-turn crumbs, made a scrambling get-away from the window sill, followed in the same instant by a neat, brown mate who was equally startled at such a noise from somewhere just within. For dawn was only now coming upon the thousands of roofs that shelter the people of the Greatest City, the sun being still far down behind a sea-covered bulge of the world. And this was an hour when, usually, only early birds were abroad.

Rap! rap! rap! rap! rap! The summons was louder, more insistent, and quite unmistakably cross.

It roused Cis, and she lifted her head, and drew in a long, fluttering breath; but she was too stiff and weary and sore even to realize that a visitor was at the hall door. Once more she laid a pale, tear-stained cheek upon the table.

Bang! bang! bang! BANG!

Now she started up, understanding that help had come. And there was a creaking in the bedroom, where Barber was preparing to rise, while he swore and grumbled under his breath. Only Johnnie did not stir. Between his outstretched arms his yellow head lay as still as if it were stone. Tied as he was, after all the long night hours his legs, held straight down, had completely lost their feeling; and his arms were as dead as his legs.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

"Aw, that'll do!" cried the longshoreman. He came slouching out of his room. He was fully dressed, not having taken off his clothes the night before. For it had been his intention to leave Cis and Johnnie tied for an hour or two, then to get up and set them free. Now, seeing that it was morning, he first gave a nervous glance at the clock, then hurriedly dug into a pocket, fetched out his jack-knife, opened a blade, and cut the ropes holding Cis; next, and quickly, he severed those tighter strands which bound the boy.

Another bang, followed by an imperious rattling of the doorknob. Then, "Tom Barber, are ye in? If ye are, open this second, or I'll break down yer door!" It was Father Pat's voice, lacking breath, but deep with anger.

It was plain to Big Tom that the priest knew of the trouble. "Now, who's been runnin' t' you?" he snarled. "Never seen such a buildin' for tattle tales!—Here! Set up!" (This to Cis, who wavered dizzily in her chair as the longshoreman shoved her roughly against the back of it.)

"Let me in, I tell ye!" ordered the Father, "or I'll go out and find a policeman!"

"All right! All right!"—impatiently. "Wait one minute!" Now Big Tom hastened to lift Johnnie off the table and stand the boy upon his feet.

But the moment the support of Barber's hand was taken away, Johnnie collapsed, going down to the floor in a soft, little heap, from the top of which his blue-marked face looked up sightlessly at Big Tom.

Frightened, the latter lifted the boy and laid him in the morris chair. The small, cold body, partially covered by the rags of Grandpa's old undersuit, was so white and limp that it seemed lifeless. Hastily the longshoreman threw his own coat over Johnnie, after which he swept together the several lengths of clothesline and flung them out of sight under the stove.

"Barber!"

The admitting of the priest could be put off no longer. For even as he called, Father Pat had put his shoulder to the door, so that an old panel was bending inward; next, he fell to kicking at the bottom rail with a stout shoe.

Barber gave a quick glance round the kitchen, then went to pull aside the bolt. "Hold on!" he ordered roughly; and as he swung the door open, "Nice time t' be hammerin' a man out o' his bed!"

There was another in the hall besides the Father—Mrs. Kukor, in her street clothes, and wearing her best hat. Her face looked drawn, her black eyes weary. Her hard breathing proved that she had just come up three flights instead of descending one.

As Barber caught sight of her, he thrust his big frame into the doorway, blocking it. "There she is!" he declared hotly. "The tattler! The busybody! Hidin' books for a lazy kid! Helpin' him t' waste his time! She can't come in here!"

"Stand out o' me way!" cried the Father. "I'm comin' in, and this lady with me!"

"Don't y' try t' tell me what y're goin' t' do!" replied Big Tom. "Y' can't take the runnin' o' this flat out o' my hands—neither one o' y'! I ain't goin' t' stand for it!"

"Ha-a-a-a!" retorted the priest. "And is the abusin' o' two children what ye call runnin' a flat? And we can't take that out o' yer hands, can't we? Well, God be praised, there's police in this city, and there's societies t' handle such hulkin' brutes as yerself, and—and—!" Words failing him, he shook a warning finger in Barber's face.

Down the hall a door opened, and several heads appeared in it. This, as well as the priest's words, decided Big Tom (more gossip in the house would be a mistake). He stood aside and let his visitors enter, instantly slamming the door at their backs. "I won't have no girl out o' this flat settin' in a park with some stranger!" he declared. "I promised her ma I'd look after her!"

He got no answer. There being no movement in the morris chair, under Big Tom's coat, the Father and Mrs. Kukor had rushed past it to Cis, for the moment seeing only her. Now they were bending over her, and "Girl, dear! Girl, dear!" murmured the priest anxiously; and "So! so! so!" comforted the little Jewish lady.

Cis seemed not to know who was beside her. "He's dead!" she wept. "And it's my fault! All my fault! O-o-o-oh!" A trembling seized her slender body. Once more she swayed, then toppled forward upon the table, all her brown hair falling over her arms.

"Vot wass she sayink?" demanded Mrs. Kukor, frightened. Falling back to the big chair, she sat upon one arm of it, stared in horror at Cis for a moment, then began to cry and rock, beating her hands.

"Barber, ye've a right t' be killed for this!" cried Father Pat. "And where's the lad? What've ye done t' him? God help ye if ye've worked him rale harm!"

Cis turned her face, and spoke again. "Poor Johnnie died in the night!" she sobbed. "He couldn't talk to me! I tried! He couldn't get water! Oh, I want water! Give me a drink, Mrs. Kukor!"

Mrs. Kukor had risen as Cis talked, and Father Pat had come to her. There was horror in the faces of both. Standing, his back against the hall door, Barber began to laugh at them. "Aw, bosh!" he said, disgusted. "Dead nothin'! He's in the big chair there. Plenty o' kick in him yet, and plenty o' meanness!"

His lips moving prayerfully, the priest turned and looked down, then lifted the longshoreman's coat. As he caught sight of the rope-marked face and shut eyes of the boy, "Oh, little lad, dear!" he cried, heart stricken at the sight. "Oh, what's the crazy man done t' ye? Oh, God help us!"

Together, Father Pat and Mrs. Kukor brought out Johnnie's square of mattress, dropped it beside the morris chair, and laid the half-conscious boy upon it. Then kneeling beside him, one at each side, they began to rub the life back into his numbed limbs. "He's breathin', girl dear," the priest told Cis, who could not bring herself to look at Johnnie. Mrs. Kukor said not a word. But down the round, brown face the tears flowed steadily.

Having made a quick fire with kerosene and some kindling, Barber lounged at the stove, warming some milk for his father, setting his own coffee to boil, having a pull at his pipe, and keeping a scornful silence. Grandpa's breakfast ready, he carried it into the bedroom and fed the old man. After that, shutting the bedroom door, he helped himself to a slice of bread and some dried-apple sauce. His manner said that a great fuss was being made in the kitchen over nothing.

It was Cis who spoke next—when Mrs. Kukor, leaving Johnnie for a little, came to bring the girl a drink, and bathe her face. "I'm never going to lie down in this place again, Mrs. Kukor," she declared. "I'm going to leave here this morning, and I'm never coming back—never! Can you brush my hair right now, please? Because I know Mr. Perkins will be here soon."

At that, Big Tom launched into a sneering laugh. "Oh, is that so?" he demanded. "Fine! I'd like t' see Perkins, all right!" His great shoulders shook, and a horrible leer distorted his hairy face.

The Father glanced up from where he was kneeling. "Ye itch t' make trouble, don't ye?" he charged. "When ye ought t' be thankful that this young woman has found such a good man for a husband. I've watched the Perkins lad pretty close. I've been t' see him, and he's called t' see me. And by ev'ry way that a man who's a priest can judge another man, I find no fault in him."

"Well, s'pose y' don't," answered Big Tom. "It jus' happens that I do."

"Ye can't!" cried the other. "Not and be honest! Ye can't find fault where there isn't fault! Why, he served in France, and him far under age. And I'll ask ye, where was yerself durin' the late War? Supportin' a pensioned father, eh? And a girl that was earnin' her own livin'! And a boy who's never cost ye a cent!—Ah, don't answer me! Don't stain yer soul with anny more falsehoods! Money's what's irkin' ye—the girl's earnin's. They're more t' ye than her happiness, and a good home, and a grand husband!" Then to Johnnie, "Wee poet, won't ye wink a bright lash at the Father who loves ye?—or me heart'll split in two pieces!"

Johnnie sighed, and winked two bright lashes, whereupon the priest lifted the boy's head and gave him a sip from Cis's cup of water. "Aw, a drink o' tea'll fix him all right," asserted Barber. "He ain't half as bad off as he pretends."

"Don't talk t' me at all, Tom Barber!" commanded the priest. "For I've no temper for it as I look at the face and shoulders o' this lad that ye've whipped so cruel! Or at the girl that ye've tied up this whole long night!"

By now, Cis, wrapped in her own quilt, was combed and in the big chair, and was being plied with milk by Mrs. Kukor. She was out of pain now, and her concern was mostly for Johnnie. She watched him constantly, smiling down at him lovingly. And as he opened his eyes and looked back at her, she saw the stiff muscles of his face twist as if in a spasm, and at the sight of that twisting was frightened.

"Oh, Johnnie!" she faltered. "Oh, what's the matter?"

Johnnie's lips moved. "Noth—nothin'," he whispered back. "I—I'm jus' tryin' t' smile."

"Ah, there's a brave lad for ye!" exclaimed the Father, the tears shining in the green eyes. "Not a whine! Not a whimper! Where'd ye find another boy, Tom Barber, that'd take yer heavy hand in the spirit o' this one? Shure, there's not a look out o' him t' show that he's hatin' ye for what ye did t' him! Ha-a-a! It's a pearl, he is, cast under the feet o' a pig!"

"Y' can cut that out!" said the longshoreman. Putting down his pipe, he crossed the room to the priest.

Father Pat got to his feet, but he did not retract. "Ye old buzzard!" he stormed. "Do ye dare t' lift yer hand against the servant o' God?"

Big Tom fell back a step then, as if remembering who the man before him was. "Jus' the same, y' better go," he returned. "From now on, y' better keep out o' this!"

"I'll go," answered the priest, calmly, "when I'm tossed out o' the windy—or the door. But I'll not go by me own choosin'. I'm not lastin' long annyhow, so ye can drop me into the court if ye like. Then the law will take ye out o' the way o' these dear children."

Barber clenched and unclenched his fists, yearning to strike, yet not daring. "Go home and mind y'r own affairs," he counseled.

"Me own affairs is exactly what I'm mindin'," retorted the Father. Then, mournfully, "Oh, if only I had me old strength! If me lungs wasn't as full o' holes as a sieve! I'd say, 'Tom Barber, come ahead!' And as God's me witness, I'd thrash ye within' a inch o' yer black life!" And he shook a finger before the longshoreman's nose.

Mrs. Kukor was giving Johnnie some milk. He whispered to her, fearing from the look in her dark eyes that she was blaming herself bitterly for what had happened to his books. "Don't y' worry," he pleaded; "it wasn't nobody's fault. And if y' hadn't kept 'em upstairs long as y' did, he'd 've burned em 'fore ever I learned 'em."

"Chonnie!" she gasped. Concerned for the safety, yes, even the lives, of the two she loved, she had forgotten to inquire the fate of that basketful. Now she knew it! "Oy! oy! oy! oy!"

"Aw, shut up y'r oy-oy's," scolded Big Tom.

Father Pat had heard Johnnie, and understood him. "But we'll not be carin' about anny crazy destruction," he announced cheerfully; "for, shure, and there's plenty more o' 'em on sale in this town."

Johnnie stared up, trying to comprehend the good news. "The 'xact same ones?" he asked.

"Little book lover, I'll warrant there's a thousand o' each story—if a man was t' take count."

"Oh!"

The Father knelt. "Lad, dear!" he exclaimed tenderly. "Faith, and did ye think that ye owned the only copies in the world o' them classics?"

Now Johnnie fully realized the truth. "Oh, Father Pat!" he cried, and fell to laughing aloud in sheer joy.

"God love the lad!" breathed the priest, ready to weep with happiness at restoring that joy. "Was there ever such another? Why, in one hour, and without spendin' a penny, I could be readin' all seven o' yer books! Yes, yes! In that grand book temple I told ye about—the one with the steps that lead up (oh, but they're elegant), and the lions big as horses."

"I know," said Johnnie. "I remember. I—I was there 'way late last night—in a think."

"Why, little reader dear, in that temple, and out o' it, shure and there's enough Aladdins t' pave half a mile o' Fifth Avenue! and it's likely ye could put up a Woolworth Building with nothin' but Crusoes and Mohicans!"

"I'm so glad! So glad! My!"

"And Father Pat's glad," added the priest. As he stood once more, he lifted a smiling face to the ceiling; and up past the kitchen of the little Jewish lady he sent a prayer of gratitude to his Maker for the blessing of that instrument of man's genius, the printing press.

Then he fell to pacing the floor, now glancing at the clock, again taking out his watch and clicking its cover. Between these silent inquiries regarding the time, he played impatiently with the cross which hung against his coat on a black ribbon. It was plain that he was expecting some one.

Big Tom understood as much, and finally was moved to speech. "Y' won't bring no doctor in here," he announced. "I won't have no foolishness o' that kind."

Father Pat ignored him. But to Mrs. Kukor, "Shure, and ye could boil a leg o' mutton while ye wait for that gentleman," he observed.

After that, for a while, the kitchen was quiet. Mrs. Kukor left on an errand to her own flat, coming back almost at once with two eggs deliciously scrambled on toast, and some stewed berries, tart and tasty. These delicacies had a wonderfully reviving effect upon both Cis and Johnnie, and the latter even found himself able to sit up to eat.

"Now I'm so weak," he told Father Pat, "wouldn't this be a' awful fine time t' play shipwreck with Crusoe, and git washed on shore more dead'n alive?"

"Now, then, it just would!" agreed the priest. "But as ye've been near dead once this day, shure, ye'd best think o' stayin' alive for a change."

The last bit of egg was eaten, the last nibble of toast, too, and the fruit. "Oh, yes, I'm too tired t' think 'bout a wreck," admitted Johnnie.

"Rest, lad dear! Rest!" The quilt was tucked round the weary limbs.

One of those big-girl hands reached up and drew the priest's head lower. "I guess where I been is on the danger line, all right," Johnnie whispered. "And the Handbook said a scout don't flinch in the face o' danger, and this time, gee, I didn't!"

A rest and some good food had made Cis feel like her former self by now. Presently she walked into the little room, lit a nubbin of candle, and changed into her best clothes. While she was gone, Johnnie drew on his old, big trousers, and donned Barber's shirt, then moved to the morris chair. As for Mrs. Kukor, she was gone again, her face very sober, and the line of her mouth tight and straight. As she teetered out, it was plain that she was all but in a panic to get away.

For evidently things were to happen in the flat before long. The air of the room proclaimed this fact. And plainly Barber was uneasy, for he stalked about, starting nervously whenever Father Pat shut the watch, or when a footfall sounded beyond the hall door.

All at once a loud tramping was heard on the stairs—a determined tramping, as if half a dozen angry men were setting down their feet as one. Doors flew open, voices hailed one another up and down the building, and Mrs. Kukor could be heard pattering in a wide circle beyond the ceiling. All of this disturbance brought Cis out of her tiny room, pink-faced once more, and eager-eyed.

The next moment, with a stomp and a slam, and without knocking, One-Eye made a whirlwind entrance into the kitchen, and halted, his wide hat grotesquely over one ear, a quid of tobacco distending that cheek which the hat brim touched, a score of questions looking from that single eye, and every hair on the front of those shaggy breeches fairly standing out straight.

"Wal?" he demanded, banging the door so hard behind him that all the dishes in the cupboard rattled. He had on gauntlets. Their cuffs reached half-way to his elbows. These added mightily to his warlike appearance.

"A-a-a-a-h!" greeted Father Pat, joyously.

So this was the person whose arrival had been awaited! Nonchalantly Big Tom shifted his weight from foot to foot, and chuckled through the stubble of his beard.

"One-Eye!" cried Cis. "Oh, I'm so glad you've come! Oh, One-Eye, he tied us to the table all night! And he whipped Johnnie with the rope!"

That lone green eye began to roll—to Cis's face, seeing the truth written there, and the story of her long hours of suffering; to the countenance of the priest, to ask, dumbly, if any living man had ever heard anything more outrageous than this; then, "By the Great Horn Spoon!" he breathed, and again stomped one foot, like an angry steer.

Big Tom's smile widened.

Now, the Westerner crossed to Johnnie, bent, and with gentle fingers held under the boy's chin, studied those welts across the pale cheeks. "Crimini!" he murmured. "Crimini! Crimini!"

"Look at his chest, and his back!" Cis advised.

The cowboy lifted Johnnie forward in the morris chair, and held away the big shirt from breast and shoulders. What he saw brought him upright like a pistol shot, his face suddenly scarlet, his mustache whipping up and down, and that eye of his glowering at the longshoreman ferociously. "Caesar Augustus, Philobustus, Hennery Clay!" he burst out. "Bla-a-ack a-a-and blu-u-ue!"

"And, oh, listen what else he did!" Cis went on. "The uniform you gave to Johnnie——"

"Yas?"

"He put it in the stove!"

One-Eye stared. "He put it in the stove?" he repeated, but as if this really was quite beyond belief.

"My—my scout suit," added Johnnie, who was too worn out to weep.

"The priceless brute!" announced Father Pat.

"Yes, and all of Johnnie's books, he burned them, too," Cis added.

But One-Eye's mind dwelt upon the uniform. "He put it in the stove!" he drawled. "That khaki outfit I give t' the boy! He burned it! And it fresh outen the store!"

"The medal, too, One-Eye! Johnnie's father's medal! It was in the coat. So all that's left is the shoes!"

"All that's left is the shoes," growled One-Eye. "He burned the hat, and the coat, and—and all. After I'd paid good money fer 'em! The gall! The cheek! The impydence!" He drew a prodigious breath.

"Go ahead! Sing about it!" taunted Barber.

One-Eye was in anything but a singing mood. Spurred by that taunt, of a sudden he began to do several startling things: with a gurgle of rage, he snatched off the wide hat, flung it to the floor with all his might, sprang upon it, ground it into the boards with both heels; jerked off his gauntlets and hurled them down with the hat; next wriggled out of his coat and added it to the pile under his boots; then ran his hands wildly through his hair, so that it stood up as straight as the hair on his breeches stood out; and, last of all, fell to pushing back his sleeves.

Fascinated the others watched him. Was this the good-natured, shy, bashful, quiet One-Eye, this red-faced, ramping, stamping madman?

He addressed Barber: "Oh, y' ornery, mean, low-down, sneakin' coyote!" He took a long, leaping step over the things on the floor—a step in the direction of the longshoreman. As he sprang, he shifted his tobacco quid from one cheek to the other. "Say! I'm plumb chuck-full o' y'r goin's-on! I'm stuffed with y'r fool pre-form-ances! I'm fed up t' the neck with 'em! and sick o' 'em! and right here, and now, you and me is a-goin' t' have this business O-U-T!"

"He knows how t' spell it," remarked Barber, facetiously.

"Heaven strengthen the arm o' ye!" cried the Father.

Head ducked, hands out like a boxer, One-Eye again began an advance toward Big Tom, doing a sort of a skating step—a glide. And as he came on, Barber threw back his head and guffawed. "Oh, haw! haw! haw! haw! haw!" he shouted. "Y' don't mean y're goin' t' finish me! Oh, haw! haw! haw!"

"A haw-haw's aig in a hee-hee's nest!" returned One-Eye, and spat on his hands. "Finish y' is what I aim t' do! I been waitin' and waitin'!" (The cowboy was saying more in these few minutes, almost, than he had during all of his former visits to the flat!) "I've waited since the first time I clapped my eye on y'! I'm the mule that waited seven years! I been storin' up my kick! And now it's growed to a humdinger! Y've whaled this here boy, and tied up this here girl! His face is cut, and his back is black, and raw, and bleedin'! Wal, it's Tom Barber's turn t' git a hidin'!—the worst hidin' a polecat ever did git! So! Where'll y' take it? In this house, 'r outside?" The question was asked with a final, emphatic stomp, an up-throw of the disheveled head, a spreading outward of both gartered arms.

"That's the way t' talk!" vowed the Father. "Shure, a coward needs his own punishment handed t' him!—Take yer whippin', Tom Barber, and take it like a man! For it's a whippin' that's justly comin' t' ye this mornin', as all the neighborhood'll agree!"

"Where?" One-Eye insisted, for the longshoreman had not replied to the question. "Let's don't lose no time! I'm a-goin' t' hand y' a con-vul-sion! That's it! A con-vul-sion! I'm goin' t' pull the last, livin' kink outen y'! Two shakes o' a lamb's tail, and I'll show y' a civy-lized massacree! Yip-yip-yip-yee-ow!"

"Goin' t' wipe me out, eh? Goin' t' put me t' bed?" Barber laid down his pipe.

"Goin' t' ship y' t' the Hospital!" Side gliding to the stove, the cowboy delivered up his quid.

"Hee! hee!" giggled the longshoreman. "Guess I'll jus' knock that other eye out!"

One-Eye was waltzing back. "Don't count y'r chickens 'fore they're hatched!" he warned. "'Cause here y're gittin' a man o' y'r own size, y' great, big, overbearin' lummox!"

Barber held up a hand. "This ain't no place t' fight," he protested. "The old man'd hear."

"Y' can't git outen it that-a-way!" shouted One-Eye, arms in the air. "They's miles o' room outside! Come down into the yard! Mosey! Break trail! Vamose!" He waved the other out.

Buoyed up by so much excitement, Johnnie managed to stand for a moment. "One-Eye!" he cried, all gratitude and pride; and, "One-Eye!" Cis echoed, her palms together in a dumb plea for him to do his best.

The Westerner gave her a look which promised every result that lay in his power. Then with a jerk of the head at Father Pat, and again "Yip-yipping" lustily, he bore down upon the grinning longshoreman, who was filling the hall doorway.

They met, and seized each other. Big Tom took One-Eye by either shoulder, those great baboon hands clamping themselves over the top joints of the Westerner's arms. The latter had Barber by the front of his coat and by an elbow. For a moment they hung upon the sill. Then, pivoting, they swung beyond it. As Father Pat closed the door upon them, at once there came to the ears of the trio in the kitchen, the sounds of a rough-and-tumble battle.



CHAPTER XXXIII

ONE-EYE FIGHTS

THOSE sounds of combat which penetrated to an anxious kitchen were deep, rasping breathings, muttered exclamations and grunts, a shuffling of feet that was not unlike a musicless dance, a swish-swishing, as if the Italian janitress were mopping up the hall floor, and a series of soft poundings.

Yet the battle itself was not amounting to much. In fact, to speak strictly, no fight was going on at all.

In the first place, the hall was narrow, and gave small scope for a contest on broad, generous lines—even had One-Eye and Big Tom known how to wage such a bout; and both men knew little concerning the science of self-defense. What happened—without any further abusive language—was this: the longshoreman and the cowboy (while using due caution against coming too close to the flimsy railing of the stairs) each set about throwing his antagonist.

One-Eye sought to trip the longshoreman, but was unsuccessful, finding those two massive pillars, Big Tom's legs, as securely fixed to the rough flooring as if they were a part of the building itself. With his tonglike arms, Barber pressed down with all his might on the shoulders of the Westerner; and that moment in which One-Eye weakened the firmness of his own stand by thrusting out a boot to dislodge his enemy, the longshoreman had his chance; with a smothered voicing of his disgust (for One-Eye wished to make as little noise as possible in that semi-public place), down went the cowboy to his knees.

Several brunette heads were thrust out of doors above and below. Melodious Italian voices exclaimed and questioned and replied, mingling with cries in Yiddish and East Side English. All the while One-Eye clasped Big Tom about the legs, and held on grimly, and received, on either side of his weather-beaten countenance, a score of hard slaps.

These were skull-jarring, and not to be endured. So One-Eye thrust his head between Big Tom's spraddled legs; then, calling upon every atom of his strength, he forced his shoulders to follow his head, loosening the longshoreman's clutch; and with a grunt, down came the giant, falling upon the cowboy (which accounted for another grunt), and pinning him to the dusty floor.

Sprawled, as it were, head and tail, a contest for upper place now began. One-Eye writhed like a hairy animal (this the swish-swishing). Being both slender and agile, he managed to wriggle out from beneath Big Tom, who instantly turned about and caught him, and once more laid upon him the whole of his great, steel-constructed bulk.

The pair strained and rolled. After several changes of position, in which neither man was at all damaged except in his appearance, Barber came to the top and stayed there, like the largest potato in a basket. Then straddling the lighter man, who was blowing hoarsely, Big Tom cuffed him leisurely.

As Father Pat listened to all this, leaned against the door with his ear cocked, he hoped with all his heart for the triumph of right over might. "And I can but stand by t' give consolation and bear witness!" he mourned, though how he was bearing witness was not apparent.

"Oh, stop them! Stop them!" pleaded Cis, a hand over each ear, for her courage was lessening. "Oh, I'm afraid he's hurting One-Eye awful! Oh, Barber'll kill him, Father! And what good'll that do us?"

Thus implored, the priest took a swift survey of the hall. But, "Oh, don't go!" Cis begged. "And shut it! Shut it!"

"Who's on top?" Johnnie wanted to know.

"They're wrastlin'," announced the Father. "So don't be alarmed. And Mr. Gamboni's out there, and he'll not see bloodshed!"

"I don't worry!" boasted Johnnie. "Cis, what makes y' talk the way y' do? Barber, he can't lick a cowboy!"

"Y' pesky critter!"—this from the hall, in unmistakable westernese.

"Y' hear?" joyously demanded Johnnie, recognizing One-Eye's voice. "Y' hear, Father Pat? Oh, I don't have t' look! I know how it's goin'! I can see it! One-Eye's got him down! He's hammerin' him good!—Oh, go for him, One-Eye! Go for him! Go for him!"

Slap! slap! slap!

To judge from these sounds, the cowboy was carrying out Johnnie's wish. So with that rapt look, and that moving of the nostrils which betokened excited day-dreaming, Johnnie gladdened himself with a soul-satisfying picture of the contest: Big Tom prone on his face, spent, helpless, cowering, pleading, bleeding, while the dashing One-Eye rained blow after blow upon him—bing! bing! bing! ("Makin' a meal outen him," as the man from the West would say). Next, he saw the longshoreman stretched upon a bed of pain, admitting all of his shortcomings to Father Pat in weak whispers.

It was all so real to Johnnie that he fell to pitying Big Tom!

He pitied him more as the scene changed swiftly to that of a funeral (Barber's, of course), at which he—Johnnie—in a new suit, with Cis beside him, made one carriageful in an extended line of carriages, all rolling circumspectly along. That One-Eye's plight, under such circumstances, might be trying, to say the least, Johnnie forgot to consider, wholly passing over the small matter of an inquiry on the part of the police authorities! What he did anticipate, however, was a flat that, in the future, would be a peaceful, happy, quiet place—the home of just Grandpa, Cis, and himself.

"Oh, Father Pat, by now One-Eye's dead!" wailed Cis. "Oh, why didn't some one stop them! Oh! Oh, dear!"

This interruption to Johnnie's visioning was followed by a loud laugh, and the turning of the hall doorknob. Johnnie raised himself on an elbow, lifting a hopeful face. "One-Eye!" he cried. "Hooray! Hooray!"

But it was Barber who strode into the room.

He was grinning from one huge, outstanding ear to the other. "Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!" he chortled triumphantly. "Guess I'll have t' go t' the Hospital! Look how I'm all beat up! Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!"

As he stood laughing, his bristling face split across by the brown line that was his teeth, his bulging eyes shut with merriment, his wide, fat nose giving its sidewise jerk with each guffaw, Johnnie, staring up at him, thought of the terrible African magician: of the murderous, cruel Magua: of wicked Tom Watkins and all the man-eating savages whom the valiant Crusoe fought.

Here was a man worse than them all! Also—there was no doubt of it—here was the victor!

But what about One-Eye?

"One-Eye!" wailed Johnnie, in terror. For suddenly his imagination furnished him with a new picture, this time of the Westerner. And, oh, it was a sadly different picture from that other! It showed the cowboy, torn, broken, beaten, stretched dead in his own lifeblood.

"Oh, Dio mio!—Oy! oy! oy! oy! oy!—He oughta be pinched!"

The opening door let in this much of the heated opinion of a portion of the building. The opening door also admitted the cowboy. Slowly, soberly, almost crawling, he came.

He was mournfully changed. That single eye was puffing redly. His straw-colored hair was almost dark with sweat, and inclined to lie down. From either shoulder hung woefully a half of his vest, which had ripped straight down its back! And, yes, there was blood in evidence!—on the knuckles of both hands! This bright decoration was from a nose which dripped scarlet spots upon the front sections of the vest.

"Oh, One-Eye!" moaned Cis, yet not without relief. At least he was alive—could stand—could walk!

"Goodness!" Johnnie's exclamation had in it a note of pure chagrin. His cowboy had not won! "What did he do t' y'?" the boy wanted to know, almost blamefully.

"Do?" repeated the cowboy, wrathfully. "Say! He went and busted my fountain pen!" He began feeling his way toward the stove. When he got as far as the mattress, he first hunted his handkerchief and applied it to the stopping of that nasal stream, then, grunting painfully, he lay down.

"Git all y' wanted?" inquired the longshoreman.

"My land!" returned the Westerner. "I got a hay-wagonful!"

"Man dear!" gasped Father Pat, making for the wash basin.

Johnnie felt suddenly heartsick. Would not the tale of One-Eye's defeat scatter in the neighborhood? and if it did, would not his own proud position be threatened along with the cowboy's? Whipped by Tom Barber! That was all right for a kid! But for a man who wore hair on his breeches——!

The boy sank back in the morris chair. "I'd sooner Big Tom'd whip me again!" he declared under his breath.

Barber was mocking One-Eye. "Yes, man dear!" he said. "Heaven didn't make y'r arm as strong as y' wanted it, eh?" He was very cocky, and pushed out either cheek importantly with his tongue.

Father Pat was now washing a rapidly closing eye on a sadly battered countenance. "Shure, Heaven'll deal with ye in its own good time!" he promised, nodding a portentous head.

Big Tom snorted. "He's been waitin' and waitin'," he observed; "—ever since he first met me. That's why he give me such a hidin'!"

One-Eye, the stains of carnage wiped from lip and chin, peered up through a tiny slit between those puffing lids. "Big as a barn," he asserted, but without temper. "Big as a Poland Chinee pig! All beef! All fat!" And to Johnnie, sunk in his quilt, "Don't y' beller, sonny, I ain't got no grunt comin'. I done my best. But he's stronger'n me, that's all they is to it, and heftier. But it all goes to show that if I ain't no match for him, he's lower'n a sheep-eatin' greaser t' go hit a kid—'r a girl!" Before that eye slit closed, he crawled to where his hat, coat and gauntlets were, took them up, and fell to warping them into shape again. "But y'r time'll come, sonny!" he vowed. "Y'r time'll come! Jes' y' wait!"

"Well, I didn't keep you waitin'," bragged Barber, with another loud laugh. "And if there's anybody else—" His look sought the priest. "Why, say! You're a fighter, ain't y', Father Pat? Wasn't y' in the trenches? I wonder y' don't lick me y'reself. Ho! ha! ha! ha! ha!"

At that, the red anger spread itself among the stubble of the same hue on the Father's still unshaved jaws. "No," he answered grimly, speaking with the thicker brogue that always came into his English along with his wrath. "No, Oi can't give ye the dustin' that's comin' t' ye, Barber."

"It'll take a man t' lick me," declared the longshoreman proudly. He thumped his chest. "Yes, sir, a reg'lar-sized man! Now, Furman, he says that, barrin' the World Champion, 'r some guy like that, there ain't a man standin' on two feet in this whole country that can down me!" He thrust out his lower lip.

"Ha-a-a-a!" breathed the priest, scornful. He helped guide One-Eye to the kitchen chair. "Well, the man Oi once was, Oi presinted him t' me counthry. So here's what's left av me. But, Barber, punishment's comin' t' ye! Mar-rk me wor-r-rd!"

Suddenly Big Tom gave a shout. "Say!" he cried. "Maybe here's a gent that'd like t' try his hand at lickin' me!" For the hall door had opened again, and another visitor was entering—breathlessly, anxiously, swiftly. "What'd d' y' say, Mister Eye-Glassy, White-Spatty, Pinky-Face?"

"Yes, sir! I'll try to do just that! In fact, that's why I've come. Can't have you strike a girl, you know, Mr. Barber, or a little chap like Johnnie; not without trying to punish you. So if you'll oblige me——"

Thus, with one wave of a gloved hand, was Big Tom once more bidden to fight, this time by Mr. Perkins.

"Oblige?" repeated the longshoreman, delighted. "Dear Mister Perkins, y're one person that I'm jus' achin' t' spank!" Then once more showing his pipe-stained teeth in a grin, "Oh, but I hate awful t' muss y' up! I hate t' spoil y', Perksie! Y' look so nice and neat and sweet! Almost like a stick o' candy! And, nobody'll want t' look at y' after I git done with y'!"

Mr. Perkins was not ruffled by the longshoreman's attempt at humor. "Don't waste your breath on compliments, Mr. Barber," he advised; "you may need it." He laid a new, black bowler hat on the kitchen table, and proceeded to draw off his gloves.

"God grant he will!" cried Father Pat, fervently. "For besides what he's done to these children, look how he's treated our poor friend from Kansas!" And the priest stepped from between the scoutmaster and One-Eye.

The Westerner waved protesting hands. "Wy-o-ming!" he corrected, with more than a shade of irritation. "Not Kansas! Wy-o-ming!" He held up a countenance that was now wholly—if temporarily—blind.

"Wyoming," repeated Father Pat, hastily. "And here's Mr. Perkins, One-Eye, and he's wishin' t' shake yer hand."

At that, out shot the cowboy's right. It was still bloody over the knuckles, the Father having confined his washing to One-Eye's face. "Put 'er there!" invited the sightless one.

"How are you!" greeted Mr. Perkins, heartily; yet his tone carried with it just the right amount of sympathy.

"Jes' so-so," answered One-Eye. "Look how he slapped me in the eye!"

"Cis, my sweetheart, are you all right?" inquired Mr. Perkins.

She ran to him, and he took her hands. "Oh, yes!" she cried happily. "But, oh, I'm so glad you've come!"

As Father Pat said afterward, it was the sweetheart that did it. As those young hands met, of a sudden Barber's good humor went. "That'll do!" he ordered. "Jus' y' shut up on them pretty names!"

"Ah! You don't believe in affection, do you?" rejoined Mr. Perkins. His countenance wore an exasperating smile.

"I don't b'lieve in puppy love!" answered Big Tom. "I don't b'lieve in the soft, calf stuff! And I'd jus' like t' know how it happens that you two guys 're here at this time in the mornin'! How does it come? Some one must 've fetched y'! And I'm goin' t' know, 'r else I'm goin' t' break ev'ry last bone in y'r dude body!"

"Oh, my goodness!" quavered Johnnie. He turned and twisted in the big chair. And he wished with all his might that he was having either a very bad think, or a torturing nightmare. Seeing this second friend come, he had felt an awful sinking of the heart. If the Westerner, rough and ready and leathery as he was, could not conquer Big Tom, what would the young scoutmaster be able to do?—and he so slender and light when compared to the giant longshoreman! And now the latter was working himself into a rage! Johnnie, head thrust from the folds of the quilt, told himself that the whole world was coming to an end.

But Mr. Perkins did not seem to be disturbed by Barber's threats. "Fancy that!" he said calmly. "Every bone! But where will you take it, Mr. Barber?"

"Take what?" asked the longshoreman.

"Your whipping," answered Mr. Perkins; "—the good, sound, punching that I'm going to give you." He began to get out of his coat.

A shout of laughter—from Big Tom, who next addressed the ceiling. "Oh, listen t' this cute baby boy!" he cried. "He thinks he can lick me! Me!—one o' the strongest men on the whole water front! One-Eye, tell him how far you got! Oh, save his life, One-Eye! Save his life!"

"Wisht I had a chunk o' fresh beefsteak fer this lamp!" declared the cowboy, too miserable to care about what was going forward.

"Well," continued Mr. Perkins, "if you're so certain on the score of what you're going to do to me, Mr. Barber, then, of course, you'll be willing to make a bargain with me. Yes?"

Barber was in fine spirits. "Go ahead! Course I'll bargain! Anything y' like! Git it out o' y'r system!" He sucked his teeth noisily.

"If I come out winner," began the scoutmaster, very deliberately, "then I'm to have Narcissa for my wife—and you'll sign your consent. And we shall go at once—this morning—and be married."

"So that's y'r bargain, is it?" said Big Tom. "Well, I'll say this: if y' can lick me, which y' can't, then I'll make y' a present o' Cis——"

"Don't give away what isn't yours!" Cis interrupted sharply. "And please understand, bargain or no bargain, that I'm leaving here this morning. If I can't marry Mr. Perkins without your consent, then I'll just wait till I can."

The longshoreman ignored her. "I stick by what I've jus' said, Perksie," he went on, impudently. "BUT—if I lick you, and I'm goin' t', then out y' trot, and down, and y' lose her! Y' understand?"

"I understand that I lose her until she is old enough to do as she chooses," amended Mr. Perkins.

"After t'day, y' don't see her again," insisted Big Tom, "till she's growed up."

"I'll see him every day!" cried Cis. "Every day!—Don't agree to that, Algy! The marriage part, yes, because we can't help ourselves. But he's not going to part us! I'm leaving, but wherever I am, I'm going to see you!"

The longshoreman turned toward her now, and his look was full of hate. "I guess y'll do jus' about what I tell y' to," he said significantly. "Algy's goin' t' be too sick t' look after y'."

Johnnie emitted a woeful little peep. "Oo-oo! Mister Perkins!" he pleaded. "Couldn't y' put off fightin' till—till some other time?"

Johnnie's anxious demand amused Big Tom. It amused Cis, too, but for a wholly different reason. As they laughed together, each challenged the other with angry eyes.

Johnnie, feeling fainter every moment, marveled as he stared at Cis. There was no question as to her perfect confidence regarding the outcome of the fight. And he marveled even more when he looked at Mr. Perkins. The latter was cheerful—even gay! He forgot nothing. First, he shook hands with Father Pat; next with One-Eye. "Maybe you'd like to have me put you into a taxicab before this row starts," he said to the cowboy.

"Nope," was the answer. "I'm goin' t' stay fer the concert."

Mr. Perkins went to Cis, took her fingers in his, bent gallantly, and kissed them. "Wish me good luck!" he bade her.

"It won't be luck," she answered.

"Ain't his hands nice and clean!" mocked Barber. "Ain't his nails shiny!" There was an ugly glitter in the bulging eyes once more. A moment later, as he found himself close to Mr. Perkins (for the latter had come to join him), he acted upon a sudden temptation. Reaching out, with an impudent grin he tweaked the younger man lightly by the nose.

Biff!

The blow was so sudden, so powerful and straight to its mark (which was a jaw), that Big Tom's breath went—as his toes tipped up, and he began to reel backward, fanning the air with both arms.

"Ha-a-a-a!" cried the priest. "No wonder ye stand t' yer feet, Johnnie lad! Shure, that puts the faith into ye, don't it!"

Barber was against a wall, choking, spluttering. "You—you—you—!" he panted. "The idear o' hittin' a man without warnin'!"

"I know," agreed Mr. Perkins, good-naturedly. "Also, the idea of pulling a man's nose without warning."

Now Big Tom was in the proper frame of mind for the fight. "You go on downstairs!" he ordered. "And let me tell y' this: When I git done with y', they'll pick y' up on a quilt! Git that?—on a quilt!"

Mr. Perkins opened the hall door. "You lead the way downstairs," he said. "I trust you, Mr. Barber, but somehow I don't trust your feet."

Then the two went out, the longshoreman trembling with rage.



CHAPTER XXXIV

SIR ALGERNON

TO the right, at the rear end of the long, black hallway that connected the area with the street on the north, was a good-sized room which had once been used by a job printer—as proven by the rubbish in it: strips of wood, quantities of old type, torn paper, and ragged, inky cloths. The room had a pair of large windows looking out upon the brick pavement; but as these windows were smeared and dust-sprinkled, the place offered privacy. And Barber, leading the way down from his own flat, did not halt until he stood in the center of it.

"I'm not goin' t' have no cop stop this fight," he declared grimly.

Mr. Perkins, entering, shut the door at his back. "Neither am I," he answered quietly.

There was a moment's pause, as the two men, separated by several feet, gazed at each other. Physically, the contrast between them was horrific. Slight, neat, dapper, showing even no ill-temper, Mr. Perkins seemed but a poor match for Barber, whose appearance was more gorillalike than usual (hair disheveled, heavy shoulders humped, teeth grinding savagely under puffed and bristling lips, huge hands at the ends of long, curving arms, spreading and closing with the desire to clutch and rend). Yet Big Tom was plainly not so cocksure of himself as he had been, while the scoutmaster wore an air of complete confidence.

Suddenly, muttering a curse, the longshoreman lurched forward and reached for the younger man. In the same instant, Mr. Perkins clenched his own fists and held them before him on guard. But also he advanced, though elusively, slipping to one side of those great paws. As he side stepped, with a duck of the head he gathered himself together, snapped forward, and landed a jab square upon Barber's right eye.

"Ow-oo!" It was a bellow, mingling surprise with rage and pain. Involuntarily, the longshoreman fell back a pace, and lifted a hand to his face. As he did so, with another down-jerk of the chin, and another leap, once more the scoutmaster rammed him—upon the left eye. And followed this up with a lightning stroke on that big, twisted nose.

At this, Big Tom made a rush. So far, the fight was not of the kind he had waged with One-Eye—a rough-and-tumble affair in which brute strength and weight counted in his favor. But pounds, combined with lack of training, slowness, and awkwardness, put him at a sad disadvantage when facing this smaller, lighter man who had speed, and science, and was accustomed to bouts. Since Barber could not change his own method of fighting, he understood that he must change the tactics of his adversary; must grab the scoutmaster, bear him to the floor, and beat him. This he determined to do. Wildly he churned the air with those knuckles of steel.

"If I git my hands on y'," he stormed, "I'll tear y' in two!" The taste of his own blood was in his mouth now, for a warm stream of it was spreading from his nostrils to his lips and chin.

"You won't get your hands on me," promised Mr. Perkins. He dodged nimbly from side to side as the longshoreman came on, and kept just beyond the latter's grasp. Watching his chance, he darted in and landed a fourth blow—under an eye; then got away again, carefully preserving himself against being struck while doing the greatest amount of damage possible to the enemy.

All the time he watched to see that he was not cornered. A moment, and the junction of two walls came over close to his back; so under one of those flesh-and-blood flails he slipped; and, coming up behind Big Tom, struck the latter a whanging blow on an ear. "You're going to spank me, are you?" he taunted. "Well, come on and do it! Come on!"

More maddened than ever, and swearing horribly, the longshoreman whirled and started a second pursuit. He blew the blood from his lips, the better to breathe, spattering the scarlet countenance of Mr. Perkins with scores of dots which were a deeper red. And as he blew, he cut the air with his arms, hitting nothing.

"Why don't y' stand up and fight!" he raged. "Stop that jumpin' 'round!"

"Oh, you want to wrestle, don't you!" mocked Mr. Perkins. "But this time you've got to box!"

"Y' won't git ev'rything y'r own way!" vowed Big Tom, panting curses, and still whirling his arms like the fans of a windmill.

Changing his steps like a dancer, the scoutmaster fell back. But now he was at a disadvantage, for his face was toward those windows, and the light was in his eyes. As he flitted and shied, tiring Barber and shortening the big man's wind, he watched his chance to bolt under and by as before. Foot on foot the space between him and the rear wall of the room lessened. He sprang, now right, now left, on the alert for his opening. It came. He shot forward——

A staggering clout from a heavy hand hurled him against a side wall like a battering-ram. The breath was driven out of his lungs. Dizzily he plunged forward to his hands and knees among the debris on the floor.

"Ha-a-a-a-a!" It was a shout of triumph from the longshoreman.

But that wallop, hard as it was, had been delivered accidentally. And as Barber, whose eyes were now swelling from the scoutmaster's initial blows, scarcely knew where his opponent was, he failed to seize Mr. Perkins, who was up like a cat, and on, and facing round.

"Now I'll git y'!" cried Barber. As he, in turn, faced about, he began to kick out furiously, now with one foot, now with the other.

* * * * *

Each moment was passing in painful anxiety to the group in the Barber flat. Mrs. Kukor made one of that group, having teetered in directly Big Tom and Mr. Perkins were gone. Now her hat was off and her apron on; with the latter she constantly fanned a face which, its color sped, was a sickly shade of tan. All the while she murmured strange words under her breath, only breaking out every now and then with an "Ach! poor poy! Poor poy!" As she did not look at either Johnnie or One-Eye, it was evident that she had Mr. Perkins in mind.

As for Father Pat, he complained about himself. "If I only had me lungs!" he mourned. To and fro he walked, to and fro. "If only I could do annything except talk! Dear! dear! dear! dear!"

The cowboy, blinder than ever, comforted himself with praising the absent scoutmaster. "That young feller's O. K.," he asserted. "I can tell it by the way he grabbed my paw. Yas, ma'am! I liked the way he shook hands. He'll come out better'n me. Watch if I ain't right! I ain't worryin'!"—this though the sweat of concern was even then dampening his countenance!

Johnnie, listening and watching, curled himself farther and farther into his quilt, and feebly groaned. He was seeing, seeing, seeing, and what he saw was agonizing. "Oh, Mister Perkins'll be licked!" he faltered. "Oh, I wish I could've went along. But I'm weak! Oh, Father Pat, the next time I git licked, I'll keep it t' myself!"

"Oh, don't be silly!" admonished Cis, apprehensive, but calm, being buoyed up by hope based upon solid information. "Didn't I tell you, Johnnie, to 'wait till Mr. Perkins finds out'? Well, we waited, tied to the table like two thieves, or something. And Mr. Perkins has found out, and he's giving Tom Barber a sound thrashing! So I'm not worrying!"

"I can see y' ain't," declared One-Eye, admiringly. He was back at the sink once more, allowing Niagara to lave that injured eye, now a shining purplish-black. "Bully fer the gal! That's the stuff! Y' got backbone! And spirit, by thunder! And sand! Jes' paste that in yer sunbonnet! But, Cis, w'y don't y' skedaddle right now? Go whilst the goin's good! Gosh, I'm 'feard that some one's likely t' git hurt pretty bad, and it won't be Barber! So whoever it is will need t' be nursed."

"Oy! oy! oy! oy!" lamented Mrs. Kukor.

"I'll nurse him!" cried Johnnie, hardly able to keep back the tears. "I'll go with him, and take care of him, and cook for him."

"Don't you understand, Johnnie? I'm going with him! I'm to be Mrs. Perkins! And—I'll be right here when Algy comes in."

"But—but—!" whispered Johnnie. What he was thinking made allowance for no such charming event as a wedding; rather for the same sort of doleful procession he had pictured before, only now Big Tom was in the carriage with him, while poor Mr. Perkins——!

One-Eye had something of the sort in his own mind, for as he forsook the sink, Mrs. Kukor leading him, he shook a rumpled head at her. "Barber's bigger'n a barn!" he observed grimly.

"Pos-i-tivvle!"

Cis laughed, tossing her head. "I don't care how big he is," she declared, "or how mad! Algy can take care of himself."

Looking at her, Johnnie felt both pity and disgust—pity for the grief she would undoubtedly suffer soon, disgust for her girl's lack of understanding. Was not the young, boyish, slender scoutmaster fighting this very moment for his life, and that with a steel-constructed giant? "Aw, jus' look at One-Eye!" he counseled argumentatively, and groaned again.

"Wait for Algy," returned Cis, crossing to slip an affectionate arm about Mrs. Kukor's shoulders. "And don't fret. Because Algy's the amateur light-heavyweight champion of his club, and it's an athletic club, and——!"

"What-a-a-at?" roared Father Pat. "He's the—he's the—oh, say it again!"

But even as Cis opened her lips to speak, swift steps were heard on the stairs outside. She knew them. She rushed to the door and flung it wide. And the next moment, fairly bouncing in, and looking as pink-faced, and white-spatted, and dapper as ever, was none other than Mr. Perkins.

The dude had whipped his man.



CHAPTER XXXV

GOOD-BYS

A CHORUS of happy cries greeted him: "Dearest!"—"Oh, gee!"—"Satan's defeated!"—"Goli'th wass licked, und David wass boss!"—"Whoopee!"

Then, great excitement. Cis ran to Mr. Perkins, laughing, "Oh, you're safe! You're safe!" Whereupon he kissed her fingers again; and Johnnie, on his feet now, felt that here, indeed, was a young knight come from defending his lady. And he asked himself why he had ever thought that Mr. Perkins was too much of a gentleman to be awe-inspiring.

Meanwhile, Father Pat and Mrs. Kukor were shaking hands like mad, and mingling their broken English in a torrent of gratitude. To their voices, Grandpa, out of sight beyond the bedroom door, added his, not knowing what the celebration was about, yet cackling hilariously.

As for One-Eye, his conduct was extraordinary. Suddenly showing new life, once more he took off his coat, found his hat and gauntlets, flung all under him, and upon them did a grotesque dance of joy. And "Yip! yip! yip! yip!" he shouted. "Y' tole him he'd need his breath! Oh, peaches-'n'-cream! Oh, cute baby boy! Oh, who's on the quilt now?"

"One-Eye, did ye ever see annything like it in Kansas?" demanded the Father triumphantly.

"Wy-o-ming! Wy-o-ming!" roared the cowboy. "Yip! yip! yip! yee-ow!"

Johnnie was no less delighted, but he was still too weak to do very much. He contented himself with taking a turn up and down the room, walking like Mr. Perkins, holding his head like Mr. Perkins (so that an imaginary pince-nez should not fall off), and talking to himself in true scoutmaster style—"To insure a long life, to defend oneself, to protect others. Training, that's the idea! Be prepared!"

Next, he lost himself in a glorious think. This time it was far in the future. He was big and strong and brown. And he saw himself rising quietly in the very teeth of some stalwart villain to say that the matter of the beautiful young lady concerned (dimly she was a larger, but a perfect, copy of the little girl on the fire escape) would be taken up downstairs, where a fight would not disturb poor, old Mr. Tom Barber.

At that he fell to doing his exercises; first, the arm-movements—up, down! up down! then the leg—out, back! out, back! adding a bend or two of his sore body by way of good measure, and resolving to do better and better along these lines every morning of his life from now on.

Mr. Perkins was the only person who was perfectly calm. He found his coat and put it on; he adjusted his glasses. In fact, the scoutmaster, returned unscathed from his battle, might have been taken as a model for all victors. For he did not smile exultantly, did not swagger one step, but was grave and modest. "Put on your hat, sweetheart," he said to Cis. His voice was deep and tender.

At once there was hurry and bustle. Mrs. Kukor gave one prodigious doll-rock which turned her square about, and she disappeared into the tiny room, evidently to help with the packing. "Oh, but I'm all ready!" declared Cis, following the little Jewish lady. "And, Father Pat, you won't mind coming with us?" asked Mr. Perkins. "I'll do that with pleasure," answered the priest, heartily.

Johnnie felt a touch on his arm. "Sonny!" One-Eye whispered. "Can't y' hear somethin'? Listen!"

All listened. From the area below unmistakable cheers were rising, and taunting shouts. They came booming through the kitchen window. Barber was crossing the brick pavement to the door of the building, and his neighbors were triumphing in his defeat.

Father Pat came to Johnnie. "Lad dear," he said, "tell me: as ye hear 'em yell at him, and all on account o' what he did t' Cis and yerself, and because they're glad he's been whipped,—tell me, scout boy, how d' ye feel towards him in yer own heart?"

"We-e-ell,—" began Johnnie; "we-e-ell—" and stopped. Countless times he had punished Big Tom in his own way; and had looked ahead to the hour when, grown-up, and the longshoreman's physical equal, he could measure out to the latter punishment of a substantial kind. Yet now that Mr. Perkins had done just this, where was the overwhelming satisfaction? He was glad, of course, that Mr. Perkins had come out victor, and had not been beaten as One-Eye had been beaten; but so far as he himself was concerned, the truth was that Big Tom's mortification was dust in his mouth, and ashes, though, somehow, he shrank from admitting it. "Well, Father Pat," he added faintly, "I—I guess I—I'm not—er—what y'd call glad."

"Ah, me grand lad!" exclaimed the priest. "Ye feel like I want ye t' feel! Because that's how a fine, decent lad ought t' feel! Not glad! Not gloryin' over a bully that's had his desert! Not holdin' on t' hate once the fight is done! Lad dear, ye don't ever disappoint Father Pat! And, oh, he thanks God for it!"

Johnnie felt boyishly shy and awkward then, looking at the floor and wriggling his toes, and taking back into his cheeks quite a supply of color in the form of blushes.

One-Eye also broke forth with commendations. "That's the ticket!" he cried. "No crowin'! Aw, Johnnie, y're a blamed white kid!" Whereupon, feeling around close to the floor till he located one of Johnnie's ankles, he made his way up to those narrow—and sore—shoulders, and gave them such a hearty slap of approbation that tears started in a certain pair of yellow-gray eyes.

"I'm glad, too, that you feel as you do about it," said Mr. Perkins, earnestly. "And, Johnnie, have you done your good turn yet to-day?"

"No, sir," answered Johnnie, apologetically. "But y' see, I been tied t' the table, and also I jus' only come to, and——"

"I understand," broke in the scoutmaster quickly. "But perhaps when Mr. Barber comes in—his face, you know. Could you wash it up a bit?"

"Ye-e-e-es, sir,"—reluctantly; for young as he was, Johnnie realized that whatever his own feelings toward the longshoreman might be, they were no gauge of the feelings of the longshoreman toward him. However, dutifully he went to find the wash basin, and fill it; and he accepted from Mr. Perkins a most immaculate wash cloth, this one of those wonderful handkerchiefs which had colored borders.

He was prepared for his good turn not a moment too soon. For the stairs outside were creaking under slow and heavy steps. "The conq'rin' hero!" announced One-Eye, with a blind, but sweepin' bow in the general direction of the on-comer.

"Sh!" cautioned Mr. Perkins.

One-Eye did a comical collapse upon the mattress, his reinhand, as he chose to term his left, well stuffed into his mustached mouth. The others were silent, too—as the door opened and Big Tom came crawling in.

This was a woefully changed Big Tom. His great, hairy face was darker than usual, what with the battering it had received, and the blood which was drying upon it. There was a scarlet gap across one of those prominent ears, the lobe of which was as red as if set with a ruby. As he swung the door and advanced unsteadily, he tried to keep his face averted from those in the room, and hitched petulantly at a sleeve of his shirt, which had been ripped from end to end by a blow. Spent, bent, beaten, half-blind, puffing pink foam from his mouth at each breath, he stumbled toward the bedroom. The back of one hand was cut and raw, where he had driven it with all his might against a side of the old printing shop, hoping to strike the scoutmaster. From it fell drops which made small, round, black spots on the dusty floor.

At sight of the big man, so cowed and helpless, "God save us!" breathed Father Pat, astounded, and sat down.

"Mister Barber!" It was Johnnie, timidly. Yet he forced himself to go close to the longshoreman, and held the brimming basin well forward. "Can I—will y' let me wash y'r face?"

"Lemme alone!" almost screamed Big Tom. With a curse, and without turning his head, he made one of those flail-like sweeps with an arm, struck the basin, and sent it full in the face of the boy. It drenched the big, old shirt, emptied out the wet handkerchief, and whirled to the floor with a clatter.

Then, mumbling another curse, the longshoreman spat, and a large, brown tooth went skipping across the room. Its owner lumbered against the bedroom door, bumping it with knees and forehead, opened it awkwardly against himself, half fell upon the wheel chair as he crossed the sill, swore louder than ever, and slammed the door at his heels, shutting from the sight of the others his wounds and his injured pride.

For a little, no one said anything. Johnnie, with the water dripping from his yellow hair, was no longer in that generous, good-scout state of mind. On the contrary, he was enjoying some satisfaction over Big Tom's plight. How like a bully was his foster father acting!—bellowing with delight when he overcame a man smaller than himself, and one who had poor sight; and raging when a second smaller man met and bested him in a fair fight. But Johnnie made no comment as he picked up the handkerchief and the basin, wrung out the linen square and methodically hung it up to dry, and put away the pan.

"Man dear," whispered Father Pat to the scoutmaster, "don't ye ever be visitin' here agin! For, shure, Barber'll kill ye!"

"Oh!"—Johnnie was frightened. "And maybe he'll have y' 'rested!"

"No, old fellow," said Mr. Perkins, reassuringly. "He's lost out, and he's not likely to advertise it. —But I'm sorry about that tooth." He hunted it, found it, and examined it carefully. "It's a front tooth, too." He dropped it into the stove.

"Too-ooth?" drawled One-Eye, suddenly sitting up. Not being able to see, he had not been able to note the effect of the scoutmaster's art upon Big Tom. But now, understanding a little of the damage Mr. Perkins had done, the cowboy began to giggle like a girl, wrapped his arms about his fur-covered knees, laid his head upon them, and set his body to rocking hilariously. "Oh, gosh, a tooth!" he cried. "Oh! Ouch! And he begged me t' save this young feller's life!"

Mrs. Kukor came stealing out of the tiny room. "He wass fierce!" she declared, under her breath. "Nefer before wass he soch-like!"

"Oh, Mister Perkins, hurry up and git away!" begged Johnnie. (Suppose Big Tom should come bursting out of the bedroom to renew the trouble?) "It's been awful here ever since yesterday and it seems like I jus' couldn't stand no more!"

"All right, scout boy." Mr. Perkins took a paper from an inner pocket of his coat, and from another a fountain pen which Barber had not damaged. He handed both to Father Pat, who rose at once and boldly entered the bedroom. "That's the consent," the scoutmaster explained to Johnnie. He got One-Eye into a chair and bandaged his swollen eye in the masterly manner one might logically expect from the leader of a troop. This addition to the cowboy's already picturesque get-up gave him an altogether rakish and daring touch.

By the time the bandaging was done, here was Father Pat again, all wide, Irish smiles. "Signed!" said he. "And, shure, Mr. Perkins, he paid ye a grand compliment! Faith, and he did! It was after he scratched his name. 'That dude,' said he, 'if he was t' work on the docks,' said he, 'would likely out-lift the whole lot of us.' Think o' it! Those were his very words!"

Cis came forth from her room now, hatted, and carrying what she was taking—a few toilet articles and one or two cherished belongings of her mother's, all carefully wrapped in a shoe box. That it was pitiful, her having to go with so little, occurred neither to her nor to Johnnie. But it was just as well that they did not understand, as the older people in the kitchen did, how tragic that shoe box was.

She was carrying something which she was not taking: Edwarda, until recently so treasured and beloved. She laid the doll upon the oilcloth, glanced at One-Eye, and put a finger to her lips. "You can give it to some little girl, Johnnie," she said; "—some real poor little girl."'

"All right." (He had decided on the instant who should have Edwarda!) "But I'd go 'long fast, if I was you," he added, with a fearsome look toward the bedroom.

Cis came to him. "Mrs. Kukor'll be right upstairs," she reminded (the little Jewish lady was trotting out and away, not trusting herself to look on at their farewells).

"And I'll drop in often," interposed Father Pat; "—please God!"

One-Eye divined what was going forward. He got up uneasily. "Dang it, if I ain't sorry I'm goin' West so soon again!" he fretted. "But I'll tote y' back with me some day, sonny—see if I don't! Also, I'll peek in oncet 'r twicet afore I go—that is, if my lamp gits better."

"All right," said Johnnie again. He had but one idea now: to get every one safely away. So he was not sad.

"You—you can have my room now," Cis went on, swallowing, and trying to smile.

"Thank y'."

They shook hands, then, both a little awkwardly. Next, she bent to kiss him. Boylike, he was not eager for that, with Father Pat and Mr. Perkins looking on. So he backed away deprecatingly, and she succeeded only in touching her lips to a tuft of his bright hair. But at once, forgetting manly pride, he wound his arms about her, and laid his hurt cheek against her shoulder; and she patted his sore back gently, and dropped a tear or two among the tangles brushing her face.

When he drew away from her, he saw that neither Father Pat nor Mr. Perkins were watching them. The former had a hand across his eyes (was he praying, or just being polite?); while the scoutmaster, hands behind him, and chin in air, was staring out of the window.

"I'm ready, Algy,"—Cis tried to say it as casually as if she were going only to the corner. She joined Father Pat and One-Eye at the door.

Now it was Mr. Perkins's turn. He came over and held out a hand. "Well, John Blake," he said (he had never used "John" before), "you'll be in our thoughts every hour of the day—you, and Grandpa. You know you're not losing a sister; you're gaining a brother."

They shook hands then, as men should. But a moment later, by an impulse that was mutual, each put his arms about the other in a quick embrace.

"My little brother!"

"My—my big brother!"

"Hate to leave you, scout boy."

"Aw, that's all right. Y' know me, Mister Perkins. I don't mind this old flat. 'Cause,—well, I don't ever have t' stay in it if I don't want t'. I mean, I can be wherever I want t' be. And—and I'm with Aladdin most o' the time, 'r King Arthur. And this next day 'r so, I'm plannin' t' spend on Treasure Island." All this was intended to make them feel more cheerful. Now he smiled; and what with the shine of his tow hair, his light brows and his flaxen lashes, combined with the flash of his yellow-flecked eyes and white teeth, the effect was as if sunlight were falling upon that brave, freckleless, blue-striped face.

The four went then, the Father guiding One-Eye, and Cis with Mr. Perkins. They went, and the door closed upon them, and a hard moment was come to test his spirit—that moment just following the parting. Fortunately for him, however, Grandpa demanded attention. Beyond the bedroom door the little, old soldier, as if he guessed that something had happened, set up a sudden whimpering, and tried to turn the knob and come out.

Johnnie brought him, giving not a glance to the great figure bulking on Barber's bed, and shutting the door as soft as he could. He fed the old man, talking to him cheerily all the while. "Cis is goin' t' be married," he recounted, "and have, oh, a swell weddin' trip. And then some day, when she gits back, she'll pop in here again, and tell us a-a-all about it! So now you go s'eepy-s'eepy, and when y' wake, Johnnie'll have some dandy supper f'r y'!"

His boy's spirit buoyed up by this picture of great happiness for another, he began to sing as he wheeled Grandpa backward and forward—to sing under his breath, however, so as not to disturb Big Tom! He sang out of his joy over the joy of those two who were just gone out to their new life; and he sang to bring contentment to the heart of the little, old soldier, and sleep to those pale, tired eyes:

"Oh, Cis, she's goin' t' be Mrs. Algernon Perkins, And live in a' awful stylish flat. There's a carpet and curtains in the flat, And a man 'most as good as Buckle t' do all the work. And she's goin' t' have a velvet dress, I think, maybe, And plenty o' good things t' eat all the time— Butter ev-ry day, I guess, and eggs, too, And nice, red apples, if she wants 'em——"

And so, caroling on and on, he put old Grandpa to sleep.

* * * * *

But how his song would have died in his throat if he could have guessed that, of the four who had just left,—those four whom he loved so sincerely—one, and oh, what a dear, dear one, was never to pass across the threshold again!



CHAPTER XXXVI

LEFT BEHIND

EMPTY!

He did not enter the tiny room. Now, all at once, it seemed a sacred place, having for so long sheltered her who was sweet and fine. And he felt instinctively that the blue-walled retreat was not for him; that he should not stretch himself out in his soiled, ragged clothes on that dainty couch-shelf where she had lain.

He stood on the threshold to look in. How beautiful it was! From to-day forward, would she truly have another any handsomer? The faint perfume of it (just recently she had acquired a fresh stock of orris root) was like a breath from some flower-filled garden—such a garden as he had read about in The Story of Aladdin. And yes, the little cell itself was like one of Aladdin's caskets from which had been taken a precious jewel.

Just now it was a casket very much in disarray, for Cis had tumbled it in wind-storm fashion as she made ready to leave, carelessly throwing down several things that she had formerly handled delicately: the paper roses, the sliver of mirror, the pretty face of a moving-picture favorite. As for that box flounced with bright crepe paper, it was ignominiously heaved to one side. And that cherished likeness of Mr. Roosevelt was hanging slightly askew.

But Johnnie did not set straight the photograph of his hero, or stoop to pick anything up. He could think of just one thing: she was gone!

And she would never come back—never, never, never, never! He began to repeat the word, as he and Cis had been wont to repeat words, trying hard to realize the whole of their meaning: "Never! never! never! never." And once more there came over him that curious lost feeling that he had suffered after Aunt Sophie was gone in the clanging ambulance. Once more, too, he grew rebellious. "Oh, why does ev'rything have t' go 'n' bust up!" he questioned brokenly, voicing again the eternal protest of youth against an unexpected, pain-dealing shift in Life's program.

That time he had run away, she had promised that she would never leave him!—had said it with many nevers. "And she ain't ever before stayed out in the evenin' like this," he told himself. No, not in all the years he had been at the Barber flat.

However, he felt no resentment toward her for going. How could he? Now that she was away, she seemed unspeakably dear, faultlessly perfect.

But, left behind, what was he? what did he have? what would become of him? To all those questions there was only one answer: Nothing. He was alone with a helpless, childish, old man and that other. "And I've tried 'n' tried!" he protested (he meant that he had tried to please Barber, tried to do his work better, tried to deserve more consideration from the longshoreman). And this was what had come of all his striving: Cis had been driven away.

"Oh, nothin' worse can happen t' me!" he declared despairingly. "Nothin'! nothin'!" What a staff she had always been, and how much he had leaned upon that staff, he did not suspect till now, when it was wrenched from under his hand. He had a fuller understanding, too, of what a comfort she had steadily been—she, the only bright and beautiful thing in the dark, poor flat! And to think that, boylike, he had ever shrunk out from under her caressing fingers, or fled from her proffered kiss! O his darling comrade and friend! O little mother and sister in one!

"Cis!" he faltered. "Cis!"

An almost intolerable sense of loss swept him, like a wave brimming the cup of his grief. His forehead seemed to be bulging, as if it would burst. His heart was bursting, too. And something was tearing, clawlike, at his throat and at his vitals. Just where the lower end of his breastbone left off was the old, awful, aching, gnawing, "gone" feeling. Much in his short life he had found hard to bear; but never anything so appalling as this! If only he might cry a little!

"Sir Gawain, he c-cried," he remembered, "when he found out he was f-fightin' his own b-brother. And Sir G-Gareth, he c-cried too." Also, no law of the twelve in the Handbook forbade a scout to weep.

His eyes closed, his mouth lengthened out pathetically, his cheeks puckered, his chin drew up grotesquely, trembling as if tortured; then he bent his head and began to sob, terribly, yet silently, for he feared to waken Grandpa. Down his hurt face streamed the tears, to fall on the big, old shirt, and on his feet, while he leaned against the door-jamb, a drooping, shaking, broken-hearted little figure.

"Oh, I can't git along without her!" he whispered. "I can't stand it! Oh, I want her back! I want her back!"

When he had cried away the sharp edge of his grief, a deliciously sad mood came over him. In The Legends of King Arthur, more than one grieving person had succumbed to sorrow. He wondered if he would die of his; and he saw himself laid out, stricken, on a barge, attended by three Queens, who were putting to sea to take him to the Vale of Avilion.

The picture brought him peace.

There followed one of his thinks. He brought Cis back into the little room, seated her on her narrow bed, with her slender shoulders leaned against the excelsior pillow which once she had prized. In her best dress, which was white, she showed ghostily among the shadows. But he could see her violet eyes clearly, and the look in them was tender and loving.

He held out his arms to her.

Somewhere, far off, a bell rang. It was like a summons. The wraith of his own making vanished. He wiped his eyes, now with one fringed sleeve, now with the other, stooped and felt round just inside the little room for his scrap of mattress and the quilt, took them up, softly shut the door, and turned about.

That same moment the hall door began slowly to open, propelled from without by an unseen hand. "St!" came a low warning. Next, a dim hand showed itself, reaching in at the floor level with a large yellow bowl. It placed the bowl to one side, disappeared, returned again at once with a goodish chunk of schwarzbrod, laid the bread beside the bowl, traveled up to the outside knob, and drew the door to.

He knew that the dim hand was plump and brown, and that it belonged to the little Jewish lady, who never yet had been forgetful of him, who was always prompt with motherly help. He knew that; and yet, as he watched it all, there was something of a sweet mystery about it, and he was reminded of that wonderful arm, clothed in white samite, which had come thrusting up out of the lake to give the sword Excalibur to great King Arthur.

He did not go to get what had been left (noodles, he guessed, tastily thickening a broth). Grandpa was already fed for the night, and asleep in the wheel chair, where Johnnie intended to leave him, not liking to rap on the bedroom door and disturb Big Tom. As for his own appetite, it seemed to have deserted him forever.

Noiselessly he put down his bedding beside the table. And it was then that he made out, by the faint light coming in at the window, the two dolls, Letitia and Edwarda, huddled together on the oilcloth. Letitia, small, old, worn out in long service to her departed mistress, had one sawdust arm thrown across Edwarda. And Edwarda, proud though she was, and beautiful in her silks and laces, had a smooth, round, artfully jointed arm thrown across Letitia. It was as if each was comforting the other!

Johnnie picked up the old doll. Somehow she seemed closer and dearer to him than the new one. Perhaps—who knew?—she, also, was mourning the absent beloved. (If there was any feeling in her, she had been inconsolable this long time, what with being cast aside for a grander rival.) "Well, Letitia," he whispered, "here we are, you and—and me!"

It was growing dark in the kitchen. Besides, no one was there to mark his weakness and taunt him with it. He put his face against faithful Letitia's faded dress—that dress which Cis herself had made, pricking her pink fingers scandalously in the process, and had washed and ironed season after season. That was it! He loved the old doll the better because she was a part of Cis.

"Oh, dear Letitia!" he whispered again, and strained the doll to his heart.

Then he took up Edwarda, who opened her eyes with a sharp click. Edwarda, favorite of her young owner, smelled adorably—like the tiny room, like the birthday roses, like apples. And her dainty presence, exhaling the familiar scent of the dressing-table box, brought Cis even nearer to him than had Letitia. With a choking exclamation, he caught the new doll to him along with the old, and held both tight.

Then dropping to the mattress, he laid the pair side by side before crumpling down with them, digging his nose into one of Edwarda's fragrant sleeves. The instant her head struck the bed, Edwarda had clicked her eyes shut, as if quite indifferent to all that had happened that day (not to speak of the previous night), and had fallen asleep like a shot. Not so the sterling Letitia, who lay staring, open-eyed, at the ceiling.

But Johnnie, worn with emotion, weak from yesterday's whipping, sick and weary from last night's long hours across the table edge, sank into a deep and merciful and repairing sleep.



CHAPTER XXXVII

UPS AND DOWNS

HE awoke a changed boy. How it had come about, or why, he did not try to reason; but on opening his gray eyes at dawn, he felt distinctly two astonishing differences in himself: first, his sorrow over Cis's going seemed entirely spent, as if it had taken leave of him some time in the night; second, and more curious than the other, along with that sorrow had evidently departed all of his old fear of Big Tom!

The fact that Johnnie no longer stood in dread of Barber was, doubtless, due to the fact that he had seen the giant outmatched and brought to terms. He hated him still (perhaps even more than ever); yet holding him in contempt, did not indulge in a single revenge think. He understood that, with Cis away, the longshoreman needed him as he had never needed him before. So Barber would not dare to be ugly or cruel again, lest he lose Johnnie too. "If I followed Cis where'd he be?" the boy asked himself. "Huh! He better be careful!"

As to Cis, now that he had had a good rest, it was easy for him to see that this change which had come into her life was a thing to be grateful for, not a matter to be mourned about. After her trouble with Barber, she could not stay on in the flat and be happy. Granting this, how fortunate it was that she could at once marry the man she loved. (And what a man!)

He saw her in that splendid, imaginary apartment in which he had long ago installed Mr. Perkins. And was he, John Blake, wishing that she would stay in a tiny, if beautiful, room without a window?

"Aw, shucks, no!" he cried. "I don't want y' back! I miss y', but I'm awful glad y'r gone! And I don't mind bein' left here."

He felt hopeful, ambitious, independent.

He rose with a will. He was stiff, just at first, but strong and steady on his feet. As in the past he had never made a habit of pitying himself, he did not pity himself now, but took his aches and pains as he had taken them many a time before, that is, by dismissing them from his mind. He was hungry. He was eager for his daily wash. He wanted to get at his morning exercises, and take with them a whiff of the outdoors coming in at the window. By a glance at his patch of sky he could tell that this whiff would be pleasant. For how clear and blue was that bit of Heaven which he counted as a personal belonging! And just across the area the sun was already beginning to wash all the roofs with its aureate light.

Three sparrows hailed him from the window ledge, shrilly demanding crumbs. Crumbs made him think of Mrs. Kukor's stealthy gift. Sure enough, the yellow bowl held soup. In the soup was spaghetti—the wide, ribbony, slippery kind he especially liked, coiled about in a broth which smelled deliciously of garlic. As for the black bread, some nibbling visitor of the night had helped himself to one corner of it, and this corner, therefore, went at once to the birds.

"My goodness!" soliloquized Johnnie. "How the mice do love Mrs. Kukor's bread!" And he could not blame them. It was so good!

Then, a trifle startled, he noted that the wheel chair was not in the kitchen; but guessed at once that Barber had quietly rolled Grandpa into the bedroom at a late hour. Next, his roving glance dropped back to the old mattress, and he caught sight of the dolls. Forgetting what a comfort they had been to him the evening before, this while feeling boyishly ashamed and foolish at having had them with him, in a panic he caught them up and flung them, willy-nilly, out of sight upon Cis's couch; after which, looking sheepish, and wondering if Big Tom had, by any chance, seen them, he put away his bedding, filled the teakettle, and reached down the package of oatmeal.

It was not till he started to build a fire that he remembered! In the fire box still was all that remained of his uniform, his books, and the Carnegie medal. He lifted a stove lid; then as a mourner looks down into a grave that has received a dear one, so, for a long, sad moment, he gazed into the ashes. "Oh, my stories!" he faltered. "Oh, my peachy suit o' clothes!"

But it was the medal he hunted. On pressing the ashes through into the ash-box, something fell with a clear tinkle, and he dug round till he found a burned and blackened disk. Fire had harmed it woefully. That side bearing the face of its donor was roughened and scarred, so that no likeness of Mr. Carnegie survived; but on the other side, near to the rim, several words still stood out clearly—that a man lay down his life for his friends.

After more poking around he found all the metal buttons off the uniform, each showing the scout device, for, being small, the buttons had dropped into the ashes directly their hold upon the cloth was loosened by the flames, and so escaped serious damage. Also, following a more careful search, he discovered—the tooth.

The clock alarm rang, and he surmised that Big Tom had wound it when he came out for Grandpa.

"John!"

Somehow that splintered bit of Barber's tusk made Johnnie feel more independent than ever. With it between a thumb and finger, he dared be so indifferent to the summons that he did not reply at once. Instead, he took the buttons to the sink and rinsed them; rinsed the tooth, too. Then he put the medal into the shallow dish holding the dead rose leaves, filled a cracked coffee cup with the buttons, and tossed the tooth into the drawer of the kitchen table.

"John!"—an anxious John this time, as if the longshoreman half feared the boy was gone.

"I'm up."

"Wish y'd come here."

Johnnie smiled grimly as he went. That "wish" was new! Always heretofore it had been "You do this" and "You do that." Evidently something of a change had also been wrought in Big Tom! The bedroom door was ajar an inch or two. Through the narrow crack Johnnie glimpsed Grandpa, in his chair, ready to be trundled out. But Barber was lying down, his face half turned away.

"Wheel the old man into the kitchen," said the latter as he heard Johnnie. He spoke with a lisp (that tooth!), and his voice sounded weak. "And then bring me somethin' t' eat, will y'?"

Having said Yes without a Sir, Johnnie wagged his head philosophically, the while he steered the chair skilfully across the sill. "Plenty o' good turns t' do now," he told himself; "and all o' 'em for him!"

But—a scout is faithful. He built the fire and cooked a tasty meal—toast, with the grease of bacon trimmings soaking it, coffee, and rolled oats—and placed it on Grandpa's bed, handy to the longshoreman. Then he shut the bedroom door smartly, as a signal that Big Tom was to have privacy, and returned to his own program.

He scampered downstairs for Grandpa's milk and his own, taking time to exchange a grin with the janitress, to whom Barber's defeat of yesterday was no grief. Then back he raced, washed, combed and fed the little, old soldier, helping him to think the gruel a "swell puddin'," and the service Buckle's best. After that there was a short trip to Madison Square Garden where, despite all facts to the contrary, a colossal circus had moved in. Johnnie summoned lions before the wheel chair, and tigers, camels, Arab steeds and elephants, Cis's room serving admirably as the cage which contained these various quadrupeds. And, naturally, there was a deal of growling and roaring and kicking and neighing, while the camels barked surprisingly like Boof, and the elephants conversed with something of a Hebrew accent. All of which greatly delighted Grandpa, and he cackled till his scraggly beard was damp with happy tears.

When he was asleep there was sweeping to do (with wet, scattered tea leaves, and a broom drenched frequently at Niagara falls, all this to help keep down the dust). A few dishes of massy gold needed washing, too. The stove—that iron urn holding precious dust—called for the polishing rag. Of all these duties Johnnie made quick work.

Then, without a thought that Big Tom might come forth, see, and seeing, disapprove, Johnnie switched to the floor that square of oilcloth which so often covered the Table Round, rolled the wash-tub into place at the cloth's center, and partly filled it. At once there followed such a soaping and scrubbing, such a splashing and rinsing! Whenever the cold water struck a sore spot there were gasps and ouches.

A close attention to details was not lacking. Ears were not forgotten, nor the areas behind them; nor was the neck (all the way around); nor were such soil-gathering spots as knee-knobs and elbow-points; nor even the black-and-blue streaks across an earnest face. And presently, the drying process over, and Cis's old toothbrush laid away, a pink and glowing body was bending and twisting close to the window, and shooting out its limbs.

When Johnnie was dressed, and stood, clean and combed and straight on his pins, his chest heaving as he glanced around a kitchen which was shipshape, and upon his aged friend, who was as presentable as possible, it occurred to him that when a caller happened in this morning—Mrs. Kukor, Father Pat, or Cis; or when he, himself, fetched King Arthur, or Mr. Roosevelt, or Robinson Crusoe, no excuses of any kind would have to be made. He and his house were in order.

Mrs. Kukor. So far he had not noticed a sound from overhead. When the brown shoes were on, he rapped an I'm-coming-up signal on the sink pipe. There was no answer. He rapped it again, and louder, watching the clock this time, in order to give the little Jewish lady a full minute to rise from her rocking chair. But she did not rise; and no steps went doll-walking across the ceiling. At this early hour could Mrs. Kukor be out? He went up.

Another surprise. Another change. Another blow. At her door was her morning paper, with its queer lettering; on the door, pinned low, was what looked like a note. Feeling sure that it had been left for him, Johnnie carried it half-way to the roof to get a light on its message, which was sorry news indeed:

Der Jony my rebeka has so bad sicknus i needs to go by hir love Leah Kukor.

He was so pained by the explanation, so saddened to learn that his devoted friend would be gone all day, that he descended absentmindedly to the flat directly below Barber's, where he walked in unceremoniously upon nine Italians of assorted sizes—the Fossis, all swarmed about their breakfast in a smoke-filled room.

With a hasty excuse, he darted out; then, his heart as lead, climbed home. Poor Mrs. Kukor! Poor daughter Rebecca! Poor baby, whose mamma had a "bad sicknus!" And, yes, poor husband, Mr. Reisenberger!—even though he was "awful rich."

The broom had swept from under the stove those lengths of clothesline. With more philosophical wags of the head, Johnnie fastened them end to end with weaver's knots, and rehung the rope, knowing as he worked that he could never again bear to telephone along that mended line.

"Gee! Barber spoils ev'rything!" he declared.

After the rope was up he felt weak. He sat down at the table, thin legs curled round the rungs of the kitchen chair, clean elbows on the restored oilcloth, a big fist propping each cheek; and presently found himself listening, waiting, his eyes on the hall door. At every noise, he gave a start, and hope added its shine to that other shine which soap had left on his face.

And so the long morning passed. Shortly after noon, he carried dinner in to Big Tom, and took away the breakfast dishes. Grandpa went as far as the door with him, and opened grave, baby eyes at sight of his prostrate son. "Oh, Tommie sick!" he whispered, frightened. "Poor Tommie sick!"

"Shut up!" growled "poor Tommie," roughly, and Grandpa backed off quickly, with soft tap-taps.

"Maybe y' better have a doctor," essayed Johnnie, practically, and as calmly as he might have said it to Cis.

"You mind your business."

The afternoon was longer than the morning. Johnnie sat at the table again. His face was hot, and he kept a dipper of water in front of him so that he could take frequent draughts. Sometimes he watched his patch of sky; sometimes he shut his eyes and read from the burned books, or looked at their pictures; now and then he slept—a few minutes at a time—his head on his arms.

Toward evening, though rested physically, he found his spirits again drooping. Bravely as he had started the day, its hours of futile waiting had tried him. (Could it be possible that grief was a matter of the clock?) As twilight once more moved upon the city it brought with it the misery, the loneliness and the pain which had been his just twenty-four hours before. Oh, where, he asked himself, was the light step, the tender voice, the helpful hand of her who had hurried home to him every nightfall of the past?

He understood then what a difference there could be between bodily suffering and mental suffering. His whipping, severe as it had been, was over and done, and all but forgotten. But this sorrow—! "Gee!" he breathed, marveling; "how it sticks!"

No; he had not realized when Cis left how hard it would be to stay on at the flat without her. And ahead of him were how many days like this one? He seemed there to stay for a time that was all but forever!

That night it was Boof who shared the mattress with him. He whispered to the dog for a long while, recounting his troubles. Afterward, he said over the tenth law, that one having to do with bravery. "Defeat does not down him" the Handbook had said; and he was not downed. He thought of every valiant soul he knew—Aladdin, Heywood, Uncas, Jim Hawkins, Lancelot, Crusoe. He fought the tears. But he felt utterly stricken, wholly deserted.