PICCADILLY JIM

By Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I — A RED-HAIRED GIRL

The residence of Mr. Peter Pett, the well-known financier, on Riverside
Drive is one of the leading eyesores of that breezy and expensive
boulevard. As you pass by in your limousine, or while enjoying ten cents
worth of fresh air on top of a green omnibus, it jumps out and bites at
you. Architects, confronted with it, reel and throw up their hands
defensively, and even the lay observer has a sense of shock. The place
resembles in almost equal proportions a cathedral, a suburban villa, a
hotel and a Chinese pagoda. Many of its windows are of stained glass, and
above the porch stand two terra-cotta lions, considerably more repulsive
even than the complacent animals which guard New York's Public Library. It
is a house which is impossible to overlook: and it was probably for this
reason that Mrs. Pett insisted on her husband buying it, for she was a
woman who liked to be noticed.

Through the rich interior of this mansion Mr. Pett, its nominal
proprietor, was wandering like a lost spirit. The hour was about ten of a
fine Sunday morning, but the Sabbath calm which was upon the house had not
communicated itself to him. There was a look of exasperation on his
usually patient face, and a muttered oath, picked up no doubt on the
godless Stock Exchange, escaped his lips.

"Darn it!"

He was afflicted by a sense of the pathos of his position. It was not as
if he demanded much from life. He asked but little here below. At that
moment all that he wanted was a quiet spot where he might read his Sunday
paper in solitary peace, and he could not find one. Intruders lurked
behind every door. The place was congested.

This sort of thing had been growing worse and worse ever since his
marriage two years previously. There was a strong literary virus in Mrs.
Pett's system. She not only wrote voluminously herself—the name
Nesta Ford Pett is familiar to all lovers of sensational fiction—but
aimed at maintaining a salon. Starting, in pursuance of this aim, with a
single specimen,—her nephew, Willie Partridge, who was working on a
new explosive which would eventually revolutionise war—she had
gradually added to her collections, until now she gave shelter beneath her
terra-cotta roof to no fewer than six young and unrecognised geniuses. Six
brilliant youths, mostly novelists who had not yet started and poets who
were about to begin, cluttered up Mr. Pett's rooms on this fair June
morning, while he, clutching his Sunday paper, wandered about, finding,
like the dove in Genesis, no rest. It was at such times that he was almost
inclined to envy his wife's first husband, a business friend of his named
Elmer Ford, who had perished suddenly of an apoplectic seizure: and the
pity which he generally felt for the deceased tended to shift its focus.

Marriage had certainly complicated life for Mr. Pett, as it frequently
does for the man who waits fifty years before trying it. In addition to
the geniuses, Mrs. Pett had brought with her to her new home her only son,
Ogden, a fourteen-year-old boy of a singularly unloveable type. Years of
grown-up society and the absence of anything approaching discipline had
given him a precocity on which the earnest efforts of a series of private
tutors had expended themselves in vain. They came, full of optimism and
self-confidence, to retire after a brief interval, shattered by the boy's
stodgy resistance to education in any form or shape. To Mr. Pett, never at
his ease with boys, Ogden Ford was a constant irritant. He disliked his
stepson's personality, and he more than suspected him of stealing his
cigarettes. It was an additional annoyance that he was fully aware of the
impossibility of ever catching him at it.

Mr. Pett resumed his journey. He had interrupted it for a moment to listen
at the door of the morning-room, but, a remark in a high tenor voice about
the essential Christianity of the poet Shelley filtering through the oak,
he had moved on.

Silence from behind another door farther down the passage encouraged him
to place his fingers on the handle, but a crashing chord from an unseen
piano made him remove them swiftly. He roamed on, and a few minutes later
the process of elimination had brought him to what was technically his own
private library—a large, soothing room full of old books, of which
his father had been a great collector. Mr. Pett did not read old books
himself, but he liked to be among them, and it is proof of his pessimism
that he had not tried the library first. To his depressed mind it had
seemed hardly possible that there could be nobody there.

He stood outside the door, listening tensely. He could hear nothing. He
went in, and for an instant experienced that ecstatic thrill which only
comes to elderly gentlemen of solitary habit who in a house full of their
juniors find themselves alone at last. Then a voice spoke, shattering his
dream of solitude.

"Hello, pop!"

Ogden Ford was sprawling in a deep chair in the shadows.

"Come in, pop, come in. Lots of room."

Mr. Pett stood in the doorway, regarding his step-son with a sombre eye.
He resented the boy's tone of easy patronage, all the harder to endure
with philosophic calm at the present moment from the fact that the latter
was lounging in his favourite chair. Even from an aesthetic point of view
the sight of the bulging child offended him. Ogden Ford was round and
blobby and looked overfed. He had the plethoric habit of one to whom
wholesome exercise is a stranger and the sallow complexion of the
confirmed candy-fiend. Even now, a bare half hour after breakfast, his
jaws were moving with a rhythmical, champing motion.

"What are you eating, boy?" demanded Mr. Pett, his disappointment turning
to irritability.

"Candy."

"I wish you would not eat candy all day."

"Mother gave it to me," said Ogden simply. As he had anticipated, the shot
silenced the enemy's battery. Mr. Pett grunted, but made no verbal
comment. Ogden celebrated his victory by putting another piece of candy in
his mouth.

"Got a grouch this morning, haven't you, pop?"

"I will not be spoken to like that!"

"I thought you had," said his step-son complacently. "I can always tell. I
don't see why you want to come picking on me, though. I've done nothing."

Mr. Pett was sniffing suspiciously.

"You've been smoking."

"Me!!"

"Smoking cigarettes."

"No, sir!"

"There are two butts in the ash-tray."

"I didn't put them there."

"One of them is warm."

"It's a warm day."

"You dropped it there when you heard me come in."

"No, sir! I've only been here a few minutes. I guess one of the fellows
was in here before me. They're always swiping your coffin-nails. You ought
to do something about it, pop. You ought to assert yourself."

A sense of helplessness came upon Mr. Pett. For the thousandth time he
felt himself baffled by this calm, goggle-eyed boy who treated him with
such supercilious coolness.

"You ought to be out in the open air this lovely morning," he said feebly.

"All right. Let's go for a walk. I will if you will."

"I—I have other things to do," said Mr. Pett, recoiling from the
prospect.

"Well, this fresh-air stuff is overrated anyway. Where's the sense of
having a home if you don't stop in it?"

"When I was your age, I would have been out on a morning like this—er—bowling
my hoop."

"And look at you now!"

"What do you mean?"

"Martyr to lumbago."

"I am not a martyr to lumbago," said Mr. Pett, who was touchy on the
subject.

"Have it your own way. All I know is—"

"Never mind!"

"I'm only saying what mother . . ."

"Be quiet!"

Ogden made further researches in the candy box.

"Have some, pop?"

"No."

"Quite right. Got to be careful at your age."

"What do you mean?"

"Getting on, you know. Not so young as you used to be. Come in, pop, if
you're coming in. There's a draft from that door."

Mr. Pett retired, fermenting. He wondered how another man would have
handled this situation. The ridiculous inconsistency of the human
character infuriated him. Why should he be a totally different man on
Riverside Drive from the person he was in Pine Street? Why should he be
able to hold his own in Pine Street with grown men—whiskered,
square-jawed financiers—and yet be unable on Riverside Drive to
eject a fourteen-year-old boy from an easy chair? It seemed to him
sometimes that a curious paralysis of the will came over him out of
business hours.

Meanwhile, he had still to find a place where he could read his Sunday
paper.

He stood for a while in thought. Then his brow cleared, and he began to
mount the stairs. Reaching the top floor, he walked along the passage and
knocked on a door at the end of it. From behind this door, as from behind
those below, sounds proceeded, but this time they did not seem to
discourage Mr. Pett. It was the tapping of a typewriter that he heard, and
he listened to it with an air of benevolent approval. He loved to hear the
sound of a typewriter: it made home so like the office.

"Come in," called a girl's voice.

The room in which Mr. Pett found himself was small but cosy, and its
cosiness—oddly, considering the sex of its owner—had that
peculiar quality which belongs as a rule to the dens of men. A large
bookcase almost covered one side of it, its reds and blues and browns
smiling cheerfully at whoever entered. The walls were hung with prints,
judiciously chosen and arranged. Through a window to the left, healthfully
open at the bottom, the sun streamed in, bringing with it the pleasantly
subdued whirring of automobiles out on the Drive. At a desk at right
angles to this window, her vivid red-gold hair rippling in the breeze from
the river, sat the girl who had been working at the typewriter. She turned
as Mr. Pett entered, and smiled over her shoulder.

Ann Chester, Mr. Pett's niece, looked her best when she smiled. Although
her hair was the most obviously striking feature of her appearance, her
mouth was really the most individual thing about her. It was a mouth that
suggested adventurous possibilities. In repose, it had a look of having
just finished saying something humorous, a kind of demure appreciation of
itself. When it smiled, a row of white teeth flashed out: or, if the lips
did not part, a dimple appeared on the right cheek, giving the whole face
an air of mischievous geniality. It was an enterprising, swashbuckling
sort of mouth, the mouth of one who would lead forlorn hopes with a jest
or plot whimsically lawless conspiracies against convention. In its
corners and in the firm line of the chin beneath it there lurked, too,
more than a hint of imperiousness. A physiognomist would have gathered,
correctly, that Ann Chester liked having her own way and was accustomed to
get it.

"Hello, uncle Peter," she said. "What's the trouble?"

"Am I interrupting you, Ann?"

"Not a bit. I'm only copying out a story for aunt Nesta. I promised her I
would. Would you like to hear some of it?"

Mr. Pett said he would not.

"You're missing a good thing," said Ann, turning the pages. "I'm all
worked up over it. It's called 'At Dead of Night,' and it's full of crime
and everything. You would never think aunt Nesta had such a feverish
imagination. There are detectives and kidnappers in it and all sorts of
luxuries. I suppose it's the effect of reading it, but you look to me as
if you were trailing something. You've got a sort of purposeful air."

Mr. Pett's amiable face writhed into what was intended to be a bitter
smile.

"I'm only trailing a quiet place to read in. I never saw such a place as
this house. It looks big enough outside for a regiment. Yet, when you're
inside, there's a poet or something in every room."

"What about the library? Isn't that sacred to you?"

"The boy Ogden's there."

"What a shame!"

"Wallowing in my best chair," said Mr. Pett morosely. "Smoking
cigarettes."

"Smoking? I thought he had promised aunt Nesta he wouldn't smoke."

"Well, he said he wasn't, of course, but I know he had been. I don't know
what to do with that boy. It's no good my talking to him. He—he
patronises me!" concluded Mr. Pett indignantly. "Sits there on his
shoulder blades with his feet on the table and talks to me with his mouth
full of candy as if I were his grandson."

"Little brute."

Ann was sorry for Mr. Pett. For many years now, ever since the death of
her mother, they had been inseparable. Her father, who was a traveller,
explorer, big-game hunter, and general sojourner in the lonelier and
wilder spots of the world and paid only infrequent visits to New York, had
left her almost entirely in Mr. Pett's care, and all her pleasantest
memories were associated with him. Mr. Chester's was in many ways an
admirable character, but not a domestic one; and his relations with his
daughter were confined for the most part to letters and presents. In the
past few years she had come almost to regard Mr. Pett in the light of a
father. Hers was a nature swiftly responsive to kindness; and because Mr.
Pett besides being kind was also pathetic she pitied as well as loved him.
There was a lingering boyishness in the financier, the boyishness of the
boy who muddles along in an unsympathetic world and can never do anything
right: and this quality called aloud to the youth in her. She was at the
valiant age when we burn to right wrongs and succour the oppressed, and
wild rebel schemes for the reformation of her small world came readily to
her. From the first she had been a smouldering spectator of the trials of
her uncle's married life, and if Mr. Pett had ever asked her advice and
bound himself to act on it he would have solved his domestic troubles in
explosive fashion. For Ann in her moments of maiden meditation had
frequently devised schemes to that end which would have made his grey hair
stand erect with horror.

"I've seen a good many boys," she said, "but Ogden is in a class by
himself. He ought to be sent to a strict boarding-school, of course."

"He ought to be sent to Sing-Sing," amended Mr. Pett.

"Why don't you send him to school?"

"Your aunt wouldn't hear of it. She's afraid of his being kidnapped. It
happened last time he went to school. You can't blame her for wanting to
keep her eye on him after that."

Ann ran her fingers meditatively over the keys.

"I've sometimes thought . . ."

"Yes?"

"Oh, nothing. I must get on with this thing for aunt Nesta."

Mr. Pett placed the bulk of the Sunday paper on the floor beside him, and
began to run an appreciative eye over the comic supplement. That lingering
boyishness in him which endeared him to Ann always led him to open his
Sabbath reading in this fashion. Grey-headed though he was, he still
retained both in art and in real life a taste for the slapstick. No one
had ever known the pure pleasure it had given him when Raymond Green, his
wife's novelist protege, had tripped over a loose stair-rod one morning
and fallen an entire flight.

From some point farther down the corridor came a muffled thudding. Ann
stopped her work to listen.

"There's Jerry Mitchell punching the bag."

"Eh?" said Mr. Pett.

"I only said I could hear Jerry Mitchell in the gymnasium."

"Yes, he's there."

Ann looked out of the window thoughtfully for a moment. Then she swung
round in her swivel-chair.

"Uncle Peter."

Mr. Pett emerged slowly from the comic supplement.

"Eh?"

"Did Jerry Mitchell ever tell you about that friend of his who keeps a
dogs' hospital down on Long Island somewhere? I forget his name. Smithers
or Smethurst or something. People—old ladies, you know, and people—bring
him their dogs to be cured when they get sick. He has an infallible
remedy, Jerry tells me. He makes a lot of money at it."

"Money?" Pett, the student, became Pett, the financier, at the magic word.
"There might be something in that if one got behind it. Dogs are
fashionable. There would be a market for a really good medicine."

"I'm afraid you couldn't put Mr. Smethurst's remedy on the market. It only
works when the dog has been overeating himself and not taking any
exercise."

"Well, that's all these fancy dogs ever have the matter with them. It
looks to me as if I might do business with this man. I'll get his address
from Mitchell."

"It's no use thinking of it, uncle Peter. You couldn't do business with
him—in that way. All Mr. Smethurst does when any one brings him a
fat, unhealthy dog is to feed it next to nothing—just the simplest
kind of food, you know—and make it run about a lot. And in about a
week the dog's as well and happy and nice as he can possibly be."

"Oh," said Mr. Pett, disappointed.

Ann touched the keys of her machine softly.

"Why I mentioned Mr. Smethurst," she said, "it was because we had been
talking of Ogden. Don't you think his treatment would be just what Ogden
needs?"

Mr. Pett's eyes gleamed.

"It's a shame he can't have a week or two of it!"

Ann played a little tune with her finger-tips on the desk.

"It would do him good, wouldn't it?"

Silence fell upon the room, broken only by the tapping of the typewriter.
Mr. Pett, having finished the comic supplement, turned to the sporting
section, for he was a baseball fan of no lukewarm order. The claims of
business did not permit him to see as many games as he could wish, but he
followed the national pastime closely on the printed page and had an
admiration for the Napoleonic gifts of Mr. McGraw which would have
gratified that gentleman had he known of it.

"Uncle Peter," said Ann, turning round again.

"Eh?"

"It's funny you should have been talking about Ogden getting kidnapped.
This story of aunt Nesta's is all about an angel-child—I suppose
it's meant to be Ogden—being stolen and hidden and all that. It's
odd that she should write stories like this. You wouldn't expect it of
her."

"Your aunt," said Mr. Pett, "lets her mind run on that sort of thing a
good deal. She tells me there was a time, not so long ago, when half the
kidnappers in America were after him. She sent him to school in England—or,
rather, her husband did. They were separated then—and, as far as I
can follow the story, they all took the next boat and besieged the place."

"It's a pity somebody doesn't smuggle him away now and keep him till he's
a better boy."

"Ah!" said Mr. Pett wistfully.

Ann looked at him fixedly, but his eyes were once more on his paper. She
gave a little sigh, and turned to her work again.

"It's quite demoralising, typing aunt Nesta's stories," she said. "They
put ideas into one's head."

Mr. Pett said nothing. He was reading an article of medical interest in
the magazine section, for he was a man who ploughed steadily through his
Sunday paper, omitting nothing. The typewriter began tapping again.

"Great Godfrey!"

Ann swung round, and gazed at her uncle in concern. He was staring blankly
at the paper.

"What's the matter?"

The page on which Mr. Pett's attention was concentrated was decorated with
a fanciful picture in bold lines of a young man in evening dress pursuing
a young woman similarly clad along what appeared to be a restaurant
supper-table. An enjoyable time was apparently being had by both. Across
the page this legend ran:

            PICCADILLY JIM ONCE MORE

            The Recent Adventures of Young Mr. Crocker

            of New York and London

It was not upon the title, however, nor upon the illustration that Mr.
Pett's fascinated eye rested. What he was looking at was a small
reproduction of a photograph which had been inserted in the body of the
article. It was the photograph of a woman in the early forties, rather
formidably handsome, beneath which were printed the words:

            Mrs. Nesta Ford Pett

            Well-Known Society Leader and Authoress

Ann had risen and was peering over his shoulder. She frowned as she caught
sight of the heading of the page. Then her eye fell upon the photograph.

"Good gracious! Why have they got aunt Nesta's picture there?"

Mr. Pett breathed a deep and gloomy breath.

"They've found out she's his aunt. I was afraid they would. I don't know
what she will say when she sees this."

"Don't let her see it."

"She has the paper downstairs. She's probably reading it now."

Ann was glancing through the article.

"It seems to be much the same sort of thing that they have published
before. I can't understand why the Chronicle takes such an interest
in Jimmy Crocker."

"Well, you see he used to be a newspaper man, and the Chronicle was
the paper he worked for."

Ann flushed.

"I know," she said shortly.

Something in her tone arrested Mr. Pett's attention.

"Yes, yes, of course," he said hastily. "I was forgetting."

There was an awkward silence. Mr. Pett coughed. The matter of young Mr.
Crocker's erstwhile connection with the New York Chronicle was one
which they had tacitly decided to refrain from mentioning.

"I didn't know he was your nephew, uncle Peter."

"Nephew by marriage," corrected Mr. Pett a little hurriedly. "Nesta's
sister Eugenia married his father."

"I suppose that makes me a sort of cousin."

"A distant cousin."

"It can't be too distant for me."

There was a sound of hurried footsteps outside the door. Mrs. Pett
entered, holding a paper in her hand. She waved it before Mr. Pett's
sympathetic face.

"I know, my dear," he said backing. "Ann and I were just talking about
it."

The little photograph had not done Mrs. Pett justice. Seen life-size, she
was both handsomer and more formidable than she appeared in reproduction.
She was a large woman, with a fine figure and bold and compelling eyes,
and her personality crashed disturbingly into the quiet atmosphere of the
room. She was the type of woman whom small, diffident men seem to marry
instinctively, as unable to help themselves as cockleshell boats sucked
into a maelstrom.

"What are you going to do about it?" she demanded, sinking heavily into
the chair which her husband had vacated.

This was an aspect of the matter which had not occurred to Mr. Pett. He
had not contemplated the possibility of actually doing anything. Nature
had made him out of office hours essentially a passive organism, and it
was his tendency, when he found himself in a sea of troubles, to float
plaintively, not to take arms against it. To pick up the slings and arrows
of outrageous fortune and fling them back was not a habit of his. He
scratched his chin and said nothing. He went on saying nothing.

"If Eugenia had had any sense, she would have foreseen what would happen
if she took the boy away from New York where he was working too hard to
get into mischief and let him run loose in London with too much money and
nothing to do. But, if she had had any sense, she would never have married
that impossible Crocker man. As I told her."

Mrs. Pett paused, and her eyes glowed with reminiscent fire. She was
recalling the scene which had taken place three years ago between her
sister and herself, when Eugenia had told her of her intention to marry an
obscure and middle-aged actor named Bingley Crocker. Mrs. Pett had never
seen Bingley Crocker, but she had condemned the proposed match in terms
which had ended definitely and forever her relations with her sister.
Eugenia was not a woman who welcomed criticism of her actions. She was
cast in the same formidable mould as Mrs. Pett and resembled her
strikingly both in appearance and character.

Mrs. Pett returned to the present. The past could look after itself. The
present demanded surgery.

"One would have thought it would have been obvious even to Eugenia that a
boy of twenty-one needed regular work."

Mr. Pett was glad to come out of his shell here. He was the Apostle of
Work, and this sentiment pleased him.

"That's right," he said. "Every boy ought to have work."

"Look at this young Crocker's record since he went to live in London. He
is always doing something to make himself notorious. There was that
breach-of-promise case, and that fight at the political meeting, and his
escapades at Monte Carlo, and—and everything. And he must be
drinking himself to death. I think Eugenia's insane. She seems to have no
influence over him at all."

Mr. Pett moaned sympathetically.

"And now the papers have found out that I am his aunt, and I suppose they
will print my photograph whenever they publish an article about him."

She ceased and sat rigid with just wrath. Mr. Pett, who always felt his
responsibilities as chorus keenly during these wifely monologues, surmised
that a remark from him was indicated.

"It's tough," he said.

Mrs. Pett turned on him like a wounded tigress.

"What is the use of saying that? It's no use saying anything."

"No, no," said Mr. Pett, prudently refraining from pointing out that she
had already said a good deal.

"You must do something."

Ann entered the conversation for the first time. She was not very fond of
her aunt, and liked her least when she was bullying Mr. Pett. There was
something in Mrs. Pett's character with which the imperiousness which lay
beneath Ann's cheerful attitude towards the world was ever at war.

"What can uncle Peter possibly do?" she inquired.

"Why, get the boy back to America and make him work. It's the only
possible thing."

"But is it possible?"

"Of course it is."

"Assuming that Jimmy Crocker would accept an invitation to come over to
America, what sort of work could he do here? He couldn't get his place on
the Chronicle back again after dropping out for all these years and
making a public pest of himself all that while. And outside of newspaper
work what is he fit for?"

"My dear child, don't make difficulties."

"I'm not. These are ready-made."

Mr. Pett interposed. He was always nervously apprehensive of a clash
between these two. Ann had red hair and the nature which generally goes
with red hair. She was impulsive and quick of tongue, and—as he
remembered her father had always been—a little too ready for combat.
She was usually as quickly remorseful as she was quickly pugnacious, like
most persons of her colour. Her offer to type the story which now lay on
her desk had been the amende honourable following on just such a scene
with her aunt as this promised to be. Mr. Pett had no wish to see the
truce thus consummated broken almost before it had had time to operate.

"I could give the boy a job in my office," he suggested.

Giving young men jobs in his office was what Mr. Pett liked doing best.
There were six brilliant youths living in his house and bursting with his
food at that very moment whom he would have been delighted to start
addressing envelopes down-town.

Notably his wife's nephew, Willie Partridge, whom he looked on as a
specious loafer. He had a stubborn disbelief in the explosive that was to
revolutionise war. He knew, as all the world did, that Willie's late
father had been a great inventor, but he did not accept the fact that
Willie had inherited the dead man's genius. He regarded the experiments on
Partridgite, as it was to be called, with the profoundest scepticism, and
considered that the only thing Willie had ever invented or was likely to
invent was a series of ingenious schemes for living in fatted idleness on
other people's money.

"Exactly," said Mrs. Pett, delighted at the suggestion. "The very thing."

"Will you write and suggest it?" said Mr. Pett, basking in the sunshine of
unwonted commendation.

"What would be the use of writing? Eugenia would pay no attention.
Besides, I could not say all I wished to in a letter. No, the only thing
is to go over to England and see her. I shall speak very plainly to her. I
shall point out what an advantage it will be to the boy to be in your
office and to live here. . . ."

Ann started.

"You don't mean live here—in this house?"

"Of course. There would be no sense in bringing the boy all the way over
from England if he was to be allowed to run loose when he got here."

Mr. Pett coughed deprecatingly.

"I don't think that would be very pleasant for Ann, dear."

"Why in the name of goodness should Ann object?"

Ann moved towards the door.

"Thank you for thinking of it, uncle Peter. You're always a dear. But
don't worry about me. Do just as you want to. In any case I'm quite
certain that you won't be able to get him to come over here. You can see
by the paper he's having far too good a time in London. You can call Jimmy
Crockers from the vasty deep, but will they come when you call for them?"

Mrs. Pett looked at the door as it closed behind her, then at her husband.

"What do you mean, Peter, about Ann? Why wouldn't it be pleasant for her
if this Crocker boy came to live with us?"

Mr. Pett hesitated.

"Well, it's like this, Nesta. I hope you won't tell her I told you. She's
sensitive about it, poor girl. It all happened before you and I were
married. Ann was much younger then. You know what schoolgirls are, kind of
foolish and sentimental. It was my fault really, I ought to have . . ."

"Good Heavens, Peter! What are you trying to tell me?"

"She was only a child."

Mrs. Pett rose in slow horror.

"Peter! Tell me! Don't try to break it gently."

"Ann wrote a book of poetry and I had it published for her."

Mrs. Pett sank back in her chair.

"Oh!" she said—it would have been hard to say whether with relief or
disappointment. "Whatever did you make such a fuss for? Why did you want
to be so mysterious?"

"It was all my fault, really," proceeded Mr. Pett. "I ought to have known
better. All I thought of at the time was that it would please the child to
see the poems in print and be able to give the book to her friends. She
did give it to her friends," he went on ruefully, "and ever since she's
been trying to live it down. I've seen her bite a young fellow's head off
when he tried to make a grand-stand play with her by quoting her poems
which he'd found in his sister's book-shelf."

"But, in the name of goodness, what has all this to do with young
Crocker?"

"Why, it was this way. Most of the papers just gave Ann's book a mention
among 'Volumes Received,' or a couple of lines that didn't amount to
anything, but the Chronicle saw a Sunday feature in it, as Ann was
going about a lot then and was a well-known society girl. They sent this
Crocker boy to get an interview from her, all about her methods of work
and inspirations and what not. We never suspected it wasn't the straight
goods. Why, that very evening I mailed an order for a hundred copies to be
sent to me when the thing appeared. And—" pinkness came upon Mr.
Pett at the recollection "it was just a josh from start to finish. The
young hound made a joke of the poems and what Ann had told him about her
inspirations and quoted bits of the poems just to kid the life out of
them. . . . I thought Ann would never get over it. Well, it doesn't worry
her any more—she's grown out of the school-girl stage—but you
can bet she isn't going to get up and give three cheers and a tiger if you
bring young Crocker to live in the same house."

"Utterly ridiculous!" said Mrs. Pett. "I certainly do not intend to alter
my plans because of a trivial incident that happened years ago. We will
sail on Wednesday."

"Very well, my dear," said Mr. Pett resignedly.

"Just as you say. Er—just you and I?"

"And Ogden, of course."

Mr. Pett controlled a facial spasm with a powerful effort of the will. He
had feared this.

"I wouldn't dream of leaving him here while I went away, after what
happened when poor dear Elmer sent him to school in England that time."
The late Mr. Ford had spent most of his married life either quarrelling
with or separated from his wife, but since death he had been canonised as
'poor dear Elmer.' "Besides, the sea voyage will do the poor darling good.
He has not been looking at all well lately."

"If Ogden's coming, I'd like to take Ann."

"Why?"

"She can—" he sought for a euphemism.

"Keep in order" was the expression he wished to avoid. To his mind Ann was
the only known antidote for Ogden, but he felt it would be impolitic to
say so."—look after him on the boat," he concluded. "You know you
are a bad sailor."

"Very well. Bring Ann—Oh, Peter, that reminds me of what I wanted to
say to you, which this dreadful thing in the paper drove completely out of
my mind. Lord Wisbeach has asked Ann to marry him!"

Mr. Pett looked a little hurt. "She didn't tell me." Ann usually confided
in him.

"She didn't tell me, either. Lord Wisbeach told me. He said Ann had
promised to think it over, and give him his answer later. Meanwhile, he
had come to me to assure himself that I approved. I thought that so
charming of him."

Mr. Pett was frowning.

"She hasn't accepted him?"

"Not definitely."

"I hope she doesn't."

"Don't be foolish, Peter. It would be an excellent match."

Mr. Pett shuffled his feet.

"I don't like him. There's something too darned smooth about that fellow."

"If you mean that his manners are perfect, I agree with you. I shall do
all in my power to induce Ann to accept him."

"I shouldn't," said Mr. Pett, with more decision than was his wont. "You
know what Ann is if you try to force her to do anything. She gets her ears
back and won't budge. Her father is just the same. When we were boys
together, sometimes—"

"Don't be absurd, Peter. As if I should dream of trying to force Ann to do
anything."

"We don't know anything of this fellow. Two weeks ago we didn't know he
was on the earth."

"What do we need to know beyond his name?"

Mr. Pett said nothing, but he was not convinced. The Lord Wisbeach under
discussion was a pleasant-spoken and presentable young man who had called
at Mr. Pett's office a short while before to consult him about investing
some money. He had brought a letter of introduction from Hammond Chester,
Ann's father, whom he had met in Canada, where the latter was at present
engaged in the comparatively mild occupation of bass-fishing. With their
business talk the acquaintance would have begun and finished, if Mr. Pett
had been able to please himself, for he had not taken a fancy to Lord
Wisbeach. But he was an American, with an American's sense of hospitality,
and, the young man being a friend of Hammond Chester, he had felt bound to
invite him to Riverside Drive—with misgivings which were now, he
felt, completely justified.

"Ann ought to marry," said Mrs. Pett. "She gets her own way too much now.
However, it is entirely her own affair, and there is nothing that we can
do." She rose. "I only hope she will be sensible."

She went out, leaving Mr. Pett gloomier than she had found him. He hated
the idea of Ann marrying Lord Wisbeach, who, even if he had had no faults
at all, would be objectionable in that he would probably take her to live
three thousand miles away in his own country. The thought of losing Ann
oppressed Mr. Pett sorely.

Ann, meanwhile, had made her way down the passage to the gymnasium which
Mr. Pett, in the interests of his health, had caused to be constructed in
a large room at the end of the house—a room designed by the original
owner, who had had artistic leanings, for a studio. The tap-tap-tap
of the leather bag had ceased, but voices from within told her that Jerry
Mitchell, Mr. Pett's private physical instructor, was still there. She
wondered who was his companion, and found on opening the door that it was
Ogden. The boy was leaning against the wall and regarding Jerry with a
dull and supercilious gaze which the latter was plainly finding it hard to
bear.

"Yes, sir!" Ogden was saying, as Ann entered. "I heard Biggs asking her to
come for a joyride."

"I bet she turned him down," said Jerry Mitchell sullenly.

"I bet she didn't. Why should she? Biggs is an awful good-looking fellow."

"What are you talking about, Ogden?" said Ann.

"I was telling him that Biggs asked Celestine to go for a ride in the car
with him."

"I'll knock his block off," muttered the incensed Jerry.

Ogden laughed derisively.

"Yes, you will! Mother would fire you if you touched him. She wouldn't
stand for having her chauffeur beaten up."

Jerry Mitchell turned an appealing face to Ann. Ogden's revelations and
especially his eulogy of Biggs' personal appearance had tormented him. He
knew that, in his wooing of Mrs. Pett's maid, Celestine, he was
handicapped by his looks, concerning which he had no illusions. No Adonis
to begin with, he had been so edited and re-edited during a long and
prosperous ring career by the gloved fists of a hundred foes that in
affairs of the heart he was obliged to rely exclusively on moral worth and
charm of manner. He belonged to the old school of fighters who looked the
part, and in these days of pugilists who resemble matinee idols he had the
appearance of an anachronism. He was a stocky man with a round, solid
head, small eyes, an undershot jaw, and a nose which ill-treatment had
reduced to a mere scenario. A narrow strip of forehead acted as a kind of
buffer-state, separating his front hair from his eyebrows, and he bore
beyond hope of concealment the badge of his late employment, the
cauliflower ear. Yet was he a man of worth and a good citizen, and Ann had
liked him from their first meeting. As for Jerry, he worshipped Ann and
would have done anything she asked him. Ever since he had discovered that
Ann was willing to listen to and sympathise with his outpourings on the
subject of his troubled wooing, he had been her slave.

Ann came to the rescue in characteristically direct fashion.

"Get out, Ogden," she said.

Ogden tried to meet her eye mutinously, but failed. Why he should be
afraid of Ann he had never been able to understand, but it was a fact that
she was the only person of his acquaintance whom he respected. She had a
bright eye and a calm, imperious stare which never failed to tame him.

"Why?" he muttered. "You're not my boss."

"Be quick, Ogden."

"What's the big idea—ordering a fellow—"

"And close the door gently behind you," said Ann. She turned to Jerry, as
the order was obeyed.

"Has he been bothering you, Jerry?"

Jerry Mitchell wiped his forehead.

"Say, if that kid don't quit butting in when I'm working in the gym—You
heard what he was saying about Maggie, Miss Ann?"

Celestine had been born Maggie O'Toole, a name which Mrs. Pett stoutly
refused to countenance in any maid of hers.

"Why on earth do you pay any attention to him, Jerry? You must have seen
that he was making it all up. He spends his whole time wandering about
till he finds some one he can torment, and then he enjoys himself. Maggie
would never dream of going out in the car with Biggs."

Jerry Mitchell sighed a sigh of relief.

"It's great for a fellow to have you in his corner, Miss Ann."

Ann went to the door and opened it. She looked down the passage, then,
satisfied as to its emptiness, returned to her seat.

"Jerry, I want to talk to you. I have an idea. Something I want you to do
for me."

"Yes, Miss Ann?"

"We've got to do something about that child, Ogden. He's been worrying
uncle Peter again, and I'm not going to have it. I warned him once that,
if he did it again, awful things would happen to him, but he didn't
believe me. I suppose, Jerry—what sort of a man is your friend, Mr.
Smethurst?"

"Do you mean Smithers, Miss Ann?"

"I knew it was either Smithers or Smethurst. The dog man, I mean. Is he a
man you can trust?"

"With my last buck. I've known him since we were kids."

"I don't mean as regards money. I am going to send Ogden to him for
treatment, and I want to know if I can rely on him to help me."

"For the love of Mike."

Jerry Mitchell, after an instant of stunned bewilderment, was looking at
her with worshipping admiration. He had always known that Miss Ann
possessed a mind of no common order, but this, he felt, was genius. For a
moment the magnificence of the idea took his breath away.

"Do you mean that you're going to kidnap him, Miss Ann?"

"Yes. That is to say, you are—if I can persuade you to do it
for me."

"Sneak him away and send him to Bud Smithers' dog-hospital?"

"For treatment. I like Mr. Smithers' methods. I think they would do Ogden
all the good in the world."

Jerry was enthusiastic.

"Why, Bud would make him part-human. But, say, isn't it taking big
chances? Kidnapping's a penitentiary offence."

"This isn't that sort of kidnapping."

"Well, it's mighty like it."

"I don't think you need be afraid of the penitentiary. I can't see aunt
Nesta prosecuting, when it would mean that she would have to charge us
with having sent Ogden to a dogs' hospital. She likes publicity, but it
has to be the right kind of publicity. No, we do run a risk, but it isn't
that one. You run the risk of losing your job here, and I should certainly
be sent to my grandmother for an indefinite sentence. You've never seen my
grandmother, have you, Jerry? She's the only person in the world I'm
afraid of! She lives miles from anywhere and has family prayers at
seven-thirty sharp every morning. Well, I'm ready to risk her, if you're
ready to risk your job, in such a good cause. You know you're just as fond
of uncle Peter as I am, and Ogden is worrying him into a breakdown. Surely
you won't refuse to help me, Jerry?"

Jerry rose and extended a calloused hand.

"When do we start?"

Ann shook the hand warmly.

"Thank you, Jerry. You're a jewel. I envy Maggie. Well, I don't think we
can do anything till they come back from England, as aunt Nesta is sure to
take Ogden with her."

"Who's going to England?"

"Uncle Peter and aunt Nesta were talking just now of sailing to try and
persuade a young man named Crocker to come back here."

"Crocker? Jimmy Crocker? Piccadilly Jim?"

"Yes. Why, do you know him?"

"I used to meet him sometimes when he was working on the Chronicle
here. Looks as if he was cutting a wide swathe in dear old London. Did you
see the paper to-day?"

"Yes, that's what made aunt Nesta want to bring him over. Of course, there
isn't the remotest chance that she will be able to make him come. Why
should he come?"

"Last time I saw Jimmy Crocker," said Jerry, "it was a couple of years
ago, when I went over to train Eddie Flynn for his go with Porky Jones at
the National. I bumped into him at the N. S. C. He was a good deal
tanked."

"He's always drinking, I believe."

"He took me to supper at some swell joint where they all had the
soup-and-fish on but me. I felt like a dirty deuce in a clean deck. He
used to be a regular fellow, Jimmy Crocker, but from what you read in the
papers it begins to look as if he was hitting it up too swift. It's always
the way with those boys when you take them off a steady job and let them
run around loose with their jeans full of mazuma."

"That's exactly why I want to do something about Ogden. If he's allowed to
go on as he is at present, he will grow up exactly like Jimmy Crocker."

"Aw, Jimmy Crocker ain't in Ogden's class," protested Jerry.

"Yes, he is. There's absolutely no difference between them."

"Say! You've got it in for Jim, haven't you, Miss Ann?" Jerry looked at
her wonderingly. "What's your kick against him?"

Ann bit her lip. "I object to him on principle," she said. "I don't like
his type. . . . Well, I'm glad we've settled this about Ogden, Jerry. I
knew I could rely on you. But I won't let you do it for nothing. Uncle
Peter shall give you something for it—enough to start that
health-farm you talk about so much. Then you can marry Maggie and live
happily ever afterwards."

"Gee! Is the boss in on this, too?"

"Not yet. I'm going to tell him now. Hush! There's some one coming."

Mr. Pett wandered in. He was still looking troubled.

"Oh, Ann—good morning, Mitchell—your aunt has decided to go to
England. I want you to come, too."

"You want me? To help interview Jimmy Crocker?"

"No, no. Just to come along and be company on the voyage. You'll be such a
help with Ogden, Ann. You can keep him in order. How you do it, I don't
know. You seem to make another boy of him."

Ann stole a glance at Jerry, who answered with an encouraging grin. Ann
was constrained to make her meaning plainer than by the language of the
eye.

"Would you mind just running away for half a moment, Jerry?" she said
winningly. "I want to say something to uncle Peter."

"Sure. Sure."

Ann turned to Mr. Pett as the door closed.

"You'd like somebody to make Ogden a different boy, wouldn't you, uncle
Peter?"

"I wish it was possible."

"He's been worrying you a lot lately, hasn't he?" asked Ann
sympathetically.

"Yes," sighed Mr. Pett.

"Then that's all right," said Ann briskly. "I was afraid that you might
not approve. But, if you do, I'll go right ahead."

Mr. Pett started violently. There was something in Ann's voice and, as he
looked at her, something in her face which made him fear the worst. Her
eyes were flashing with an inspired light of a highly belligerent nature,
and the sun turned the red hair to which she owed her deplorable want of
balance to a mass of flame. There was something in the air. Mr. Pett
sensed it with every nerve of his apprehensive person. He gazed at Ann,
and as he did so the years seemed to slip from him and he was a boy again,
about to be urged to lawless courses by the superior will of his boyhood's
hero, Hammond Chester. In the boyhood of nearly every man there is a
single outstanding figure, some one youthful hypnotic Napoleon whose will
was law and at whose bidding his better judgment curled up and died. In
Mr. Pett's life Ann's father had filled this role. He had dominated Mr.
Pett at an age when the mind is most malleable. And now—so true is
it that though Time may blunt our boyish memories the traditions of
boyhood live on in us and an emotional crisis will bring them to the
surface as an explosion brings up the fish that lurk in the nethermost mud—it
was as if he were facing the youthful Hammond Chester again and being
irresistibly impelled to some course of which he entirely disapproved but
which he knew that he was destined to undertake. He watched Ann as a
trapped man might watch a ticking bomb, bracing himself for the explosion
and knowing that he is helpless. She was Hammond Chester's daughter, and
she spoke to him with the voice of Hammond Chester. She was her father's
child and she was going to start something.

"I've arranged it all with Jerry," said Ann. "He's going to help me
smuggle Ogden away to that friend of his I told you about who keeps the
dog-hospital: and the friend is going to keep him until he reforms. Isn't
it a perfectly splendid idea?"

Mr. Pett blanched. The frightfulness of reality had exceeded anticipation.

"But, Ann!"

The words came from him in a strangled bleat. His whole being was
paralysed by a clammy horror. This was beyond the uttermost limit of his
fears. And, to complete the terror of the moment, he knew, even while he
rebelled against the insane lawlessness of her scheme, that he was going
to agree to it, and—worst of all—that deep, deep down in him
there was a feeling toward it which did not dare to come to the surface
but which he knew to be approval.

"Of course Jerry would do it for nothing," said Ann, "but I promised him
that you would give him something for his trouble. You can arrange all
that yourselves later."

"But, Ann! . . . But, Ann! . . . Suppose your aunt finds out who did it!"

"Well, there will be a tremendous row!" said Ann composedly. "And you will
have to assert yourself. It will be a splendid thing for you. You know you
are much too kind to every one, uncle Peter. I don't think there's any one
who would put up with what you do. Father told me in one of his letters
that he used to call you Patient Pete as a boy."

Mr. Pett started. Not for many a day had a nickname which he considered
the most distasteful of all possible nicknames risen up from its grave to
haunt him. Patient Pete! He had thought the repulsive title buried forever
in the same tomb as his dead youth. Patient Pete! The first faint glimmer
of the flame of rebellion began to burn in his bosom.

"Patient Pete!"

"Patient Pete!" said Ann inexorably.

"But, Ann,"—there was pathos in Mr. Pett's voice—"I like a
peaceful life."

"You'll never have one if you don't stand up for yourself. You know quite
well that father is right. You do let every one trample on you. Do you
think father would let Ogden worry him and have his house filled with
affected imitation geniuses so that he couldn't find a room to be alone
in?"

"But, Ann, your father is different. He likes fusses. I've known your
father contradict a man weighing two hundred pounds out of sheer
exuberance. There's a lot of your father in you, Ann. I've often noticed
it."

"There is! That's why I'm going to make you put your foot down sooner or
later. You're going to turn all these loafers out of the house. And first
of all you're going to help us send Ogden away to Mr. Smithers."

There was a long silence.

"It's your red hair!" said Mr. Pett at length, with the air of a man who
has been solving a problem. "It's your red hair that makes you like this,
Ann. Your father has red hair, too."

Ann laughed.

"It's not my fault that I have red hair, uncle Peter. It's my misfortune."

Mr. Pett shook his head.

"Other people's misfortune, too!" he said.

CHAPTER II — THE EXILED FAN

London brooded under a grey sky. There had been rain in the night, and the
trees were still dripping. Presently, however, there appeared in the
leaden haze a watery patch of blue: and through this crevice in the clouds
the sun, diffidently at first but with gradually increasing confidence,
peeped down on the fashionable and exclusive turf of Grosvenor Square.
Stealing across the square, its rays reached the massive stone walls of
Drexdale House, until recently the London residence of the earl of that
name; then, passing through the window of the breakfast-room, played
lightly on the partially bald head of Mr. Bingley Crocker, late of New
York in the United States of America, as he bent over his morning paper.
Mrs. Bingley Crocker, busy across the table reading her mail, the rays did
not touch. Had they done so, she would have rung for Bayliss, the butler,
to come and lower the shade, for she endured liberties neither from Man
nor from Nature.

Mr. Crocker was about fifty years of age, clean-shaven and of a
comfortable stoutness. He was frowning as he read. His smooth,
good-humoured face wore an expression which might have been disgust,
perplexity, or a blend of both. His wife, on the other hand, was looking
happy. She extracted the substance from her correspondence with swift
glances of her compelling eyes, just as she would have extracted guilty
secrets from Bingley, if he had had any. This was a woman who, like her
sister Nesta, had been able all her life to accomplish more with a glance
than other women with recrimination and threat. It had been a popular
belief among his friends that her late husband, the well-known Pittsburg
millionaire G. G. van Brunt, had been in the habit of automatically
confessing all if he merely caught the eye of her photograph on his
dressing table.

From the growing pile of opened envelopes Mrs. Crocker looked up, a smile
softening the firm line of her lips.

"A card from Lady Corstorphine, Bingley, for her at-home on the
twenty-ninth."

Mr. Crocker, still absorbed, snorted absently.

"One of the most exclusive hostesses in England. . . . She has influence
with the right sort of people. Her brother, the Duke of Devizes, is the
Premier's oldest friend."

"Uh?"

"The Duchess of Axminster has written to ask me to look after a stall at
her bazaar for the Indigent Daughters of the Clergy."

"Huh?"

"Bingley! You aren't listening. What is that you are reading?"

Mr. Crocker tore himself from the paper.

"This? Oh, I was looking at a report of that cricket game you made me go
and see yesterday."

"Oh? I am glad you have begun to take an interest in cricket. It is simply
a social necessity in England. Why you ever made such a fuss about taking
it up, I can't think. You used to be so fond of watching baseball and
cricket is just the same thing."

A close observer would have marked a deepening of the look of pain on Mr.
Crocker's face. Women say this sort of thing carelessly, with no wish to
wound: but that makes it none the less hard to bear.

From the hall outside came faintly the sound of the telephone, then the
measured tones of Bayliss answering it. Mr. Crocker returned to his paper.

Bayliss entered.

"Lady Corstorphine desires to speak to you on the telephone, madam."

Half-way to the door Mrs. Crocker paused, as if recalling something that
had slipped her memory.

"Is Mr. James getting up, Bayliss?"

"I believe not, madam. I am informed by one of the house-maids who passed
his door a short time back that there were no sounds."

Mrs. Crocker left the room. Bayliss, preparing to follow her example, was
arrested by an exclamation from the table.

"Say!"

His master's voice.

"Say, Bayliss, come here a minute. Want to ask you something."

The butler approached the table. It seemed to him that his employer was
not looking quite himself this morning. There was something a trifle wild,
a little haggard, about his expression. He had remarked on it earlier in
the morning in the Servants' Hall.

As a matter of fact, Mr. Crocker's ailment was a perfectly simple one. He
was suffering from one of those acute spasms of home-sickness, which
invariably racked him in the earlier Summer months. Ever since his
marriage five years previously and his simultaneous removal from his
native land he had been a chronic victim to the complaint. The symptoms
grew less acute in Winter and Spring, but from May onward he suffered
severely.

Poets have dealt feelingly with the emotions of practically every variety
except one. They have sung of Ruth, of Israel in bondage, of slaves pining
for their native Africa, and of the miner's dream of home. But the sorrows
of the baseball bug, compelled by fate to live three thousand miles away
from the Polo Grounds, have been neglected in song. Bingley Crocker was
such a one, and in Summer his agonies were awful. He pined away in a
country where they said "Well played, sir!" when they meant "'at-a-boy!"

"Bayliss, do you play cricket?"

"I am a little past the age, sir. In my younger days . . ."

"Do you understand it?"

"Yes, sir. I frequently spend an afternoon at Lord's or the Oval when
there is a good match."

Many who enjoyed a merely casual acquaintance with the butler would have
looked on this as an astonishingly unexpected revelation of humanity in
Bayliss, but Mr. Crocker was not surprised. To him, from the very
beginning, Bayliss had been a man and a brother who was always willing to
suspend his duties in order to answer questions dealing with the thousand
and one problems which the social life of England presented. Mr. Crocker's
mind had adjusted itself with difficulty to the niceties of class
distinction: and, while he had cured himself of his early tendency to
address the butler as "Bill," he never failed to consult him as man to man
in his moments of perplexity. Bayliss was always eager to be of
assistance. He liked Mr. Crocker. True, his manner might have struck a
more sensitive man than his employer as a shade too closely resembling
that of an indulgent father towards a son who was not quite right in the
head: but it had genuine affection in it.

Mr. Crocker picked up his paper and folded it back at the sporting page,
pointing with a stubby forefinger.

"Well, what does all this mean? I've kept out of watching cricket since I
landed in England, but yesterday they got the poison needle to work and
took me off to see Surrey play Kent at that place Lord's where you say you
go sometimes."

"I was there yesterday, sir. A very exciting game."

"Exciting? How do you make that out? I sat in the bleachers all afternoon,
waiting for something to break loose. Doesn't anything ever happen at
cricket?"

The butler winced a little, but managed to smile a tolerant smile. This
man, he reflected, was but an American and as such more to be pitied than
censured. He endeavoured to explain.

"It was a sticky wicket yesterday, sir, owing to the rain."

"Eh?"

"The wicket was sticky, sir."

"Come again."

"I mean that the reason why the game yesterday struck you as slow was that
the wicket—I should say the turf—was sticky—that is to
say wet. Sticky is the technical term, sir. When the wicket is sticky, the
batsmen are obliged to exercise a great deal of caution, as the stickiness
of the wicket enables the bowlers to make the ball turn more sharply in
either direction as it strikes the turf than when the wicket is not
sticky."

"That's it, is it?"

"Yes, sir."

"Thanks for telling me."

"Not at all, sir."

Mr. Crocker pointed to the paper.

"Well, now, this seems to be the box-score of the game we saw yesterday.
If you can make sense out of that, go to it."

The passage on which his finger rested was headed "Final Score," and ran
as follows:

                SURREY

             First Innings

    Hayward, c Wooley, b Carr ....... 67
    Hobbs, run out ................... 0
    Hayes, st Huish, b Fielder ...... 12
    Ducat, b Fielder ................ 33
    Harrison, not out ............... 11
    Sandham, not out ................. 6
    Extras .......................... 10

    Total (for four wickets) ....... 139

Bayliss inspected the cipher gravely.

"What is it you wish me to explain, sir?"

"Why, the whole thing. What's it all about?"

"It's perfectly simple, sir. Surrey won the toss, and took first knock.
Hayward and Hobbs were the opening pair. Hayward called Hobbs for a short
run, but the latter was unable to get across and was thrown out by mid-on.
Hayes was the next man in. He went out of his ground and was stumped.
Ducat and Hayward made a capital stand considering the stickiness of the
wicket, until Ducat was bowled by a good length off-break and Hayward
caught at second slip off a googly. Then Harrison and Sandham played out
time."

Mr. Crocker breathed heavily through his nose.

"Yes!" he said. "Yes! I had an idea that was it. But I think I'd like to
have it once again, slowly. Start with these figures. What does that
sixty-seven mean, opposite Hayward's name?"

"He made sixty-seven runs, sir."

"Sixty-seven! In one game?"

"Yes, sir."

"Why, Home-Run Baker couldn't do it!"

"I am not familiar with Mr. Baker, sir."

"I suppose you've never seen a ball-game?"

"Ball-game, sir?"

"A baseball game?"

"Never, sir."

"Then, Bill," said Mr. Crocker, reverting in his emotion to the bad habit
of his early London days, "you haven't lived. See here!"

Whatever vestige of respect for class distinctions Mr. Crocker had managed
to preserve during the opening stages of the interview now definitely
disappeared. His eyes shone wildly and he snorted like a war-horse. He
clutched the butler by the sleeve and drew him closer to the table, then
began to move forks, spoons, cups, and even the contents of his plate
about the cloth with an energy little short of feverish.

"Bayliss!"

"Sir?"

"Watch!" said Mr. Crocker, with the air of an excitable high priest about
to initiate a novice into the Mysteries.

He removed a roll from the basket.

"You see this roll? That's the home plate. This spoon is first base. Where
I'm putting this cup is second. This piece of bacon is third. There's your
diamond for you. Very well, then. These lumps of sugar are the infielders
and the outfielders. Now we're ready. Batter up? He stands here. Catcher
behind him. Umps behind catcher."

"Umps, I take it, sir, is what we would call the umpire?"

"Call him anything you like. It's part of the game. Now here's the box,
where I've put this dab of marmalade, and here's the pitcher, winding up."

"The pitcher would be equivalent to our bowler?"

"I guess so, though why you should call him a bowler gets past me."

"The box, then, is the bowler's wicket?"

"Have it your own way. Now pay attention. Play ball! Pitcher's winding up.
Put it over, Mike, put it over! Some speed, kid! Here it comes, right in
the groove. Bing! Batter slams it and streaks for first. Outfielder—this
lump of sugar—boots it. Bonehead! Batter touches second. Third? No!
Get back! Can't be done. Play it safe. Stick around the sack, old pal.
Second batter up. Pitcher getting something on the ball now besides the
cover. Whiffs him. Back to the bench, Cyril! Third batter up. See him rub
his hands in the dirt. Watch this kid. He's good! He lets two alone, then
slams the next right on the nose. Whizzes around to second. First guy, the
one we left on second, comes home for one run. That's a game! Take it from
me, Bill, that's a game!"

Somewhat overcome with the energy with which he had flung himself into his
lecture, Mr. Crocker sat down and refreshed himself with cold coffee.

"Quite an interesting game," said Bayliss. "But I find, now that you have
explained it, sir, that it is familiar to me, though I have always known
it under another name. It is played a great deal in this country."

Mr. Crocker started to his feet.

"It is? And I've been five years here without finding it out! When's the
next game scheduled?"

"It is known in England as Rounders, sir. Children play it with a soft
ball and a racquet, and derive considerable enjoyment from it. I had never
heard of it before as a pastime for adults."

Two shocked eyes stared into the butler's face.

"Children?" The word came in a whisper.

"A racquet?"

"Yes, sir."

"You—you didn't say a soft ball?"

"Yes, sir."

A sort of spasm seemed to convulse Mr. Crocker. He had lived five years in
England, but not till this moment had he realised to the full how utterly
alone he was in an alien land. Fate had placed him, bound and helpless, in
a country where they called baseball Rounders and played it with a soft
ball.

He sank back into his chair, staring before him. And as he sat the wall
seemed to melt and he was gazing upon a green field, in the centre of
which a man in a grey uniform was beginning a Salome dance. Watching this
person with a cold and suspicious eye, stood another uniformed man,
holding poised above his shoulder a sturdy club. Two Masked Marvels
crouched behind him in attitudes of watchful waiting. On wooden seats all
around sat a vast multitude of shirt-sleeved spectators, and the air was
full of voices.

One voice detached itself from the din.

"Pea-nuts! Get y'r pea-nuts!"

Something that was almost a sob shook Bingley Crocker's ample frame.
Bayliss the butler gazed down upon him with concern. He was sure the
master was unwell.

The case of Mr. Bingley Crocker was one that would have provided an
admirable "instance" for a preacher seeking to instil into an impecunious
and sceptical flock the lesson that money does not of necessity bring with
it happiness. And poetry has crystallised his position in the following
stanza.

    An exile from home splendour dazzles in vain.
    Oh, give me my lowly thatched cottage again;
    The birds singing gaily, that came at my call,
    Give me them, and that peace of mind dearer than all.

Mr. Crocker had never lived in a thatched cottage, nor had his relations
with the birds of his native land ever reached the stage of intimacy
indicated by the poet; but substitute "Lambs Club" for the former and
"members" for the latter, and the parallel becomes complete.

Until the time of his second marriage Bingley Crocker had been an actor, a
snapper-up of whatever small character-parts the gods provided. He had an
excellent disposition, no money, and one son, a young man of twenty-one.
For forty-five years he had lived a hand-to-mouth existence in which his
next meal had generally come as a pleasant surprise: and then, on an
Atlantic liner, he met the widow of G. G. van Brunt, the sole heiress to
that magnate's immense fortune.

What Mrs. van Brunt could have seen in Bingley Crocker to cause her to
single him out from all the world passes comprehension: but the
eccentricities of Cupid are commonplace. It were best to shun examination
into first causes and stick to results. The swift romance began and
reached its climax in the ten days which it took one of the smaller
Atlantic liners to sail from Liverpool to New York. Mr. Crocker was on
board because he was returning with a theatrical company from a failure in
London, Mrs. van Brunt because she had been told that the slow boats were
the steadiest. They began the voyage as strangers and ended it as an
engaged couple—the affair being expedited, no doubt, by the fact
that, even if it ever occurred to Bingley to resist the onslaught on his
bachelor peace, he soon realised the futility of doing so, for the cramped
conditions of ship-board intensified the always overwhelming effects of
his future bride's determined nature.

The engagement was received in a widely differing spirit by the only
surviving blood-relations of the two principals. Jimmy, Mr. Crocker's son,
on being informed that his father had plighted his troth to the widow of a
prominent millionaire, displayed the utmost gratification and enthusiasm,
and at a little supper which he gave by way of farewell to a few of his
newspaper comrades and which lasted till six in the morning, when it was
broken up by the flying wedge of waiters for which the selected restaurant
is justly famous, joyfully announced that work and he would from then on
be total strangers. He alluded in feeling terms to the Providence which
watches over good young men and saves them from the blighting necessity of
offering themselves in the flower of their golden youth as human
sacrifices to the Moloch of capitalistic greed: and, having commiserated
with his guests in that a similar stroke of luck had not happened to each
of them, advised them to drown their sorrows in drink. Which they did.

Far different was the attitude of Mrs. Crocker's sister, Nesta Pett. She
entirely disapproved of the proposed match. At least, the fact that in her
final interview with her sister she described the bridegroom-to-be as a
wretched mummer, a despicable fortune-hunter, a broken-down tramp, and a
sneaking, grafting confidence-trickster lends colour to the supposition
that she was not a warm supporter of it. She agreed wholeheartedly with
Mrs. Crocker's suggestion that they should never speak to each other again
as long as they lived: and it was immediately after this that the latter
removed husband Bingley, step-son Jimmy, and all her other goods and
chattels to London, where they had remained ever since. Whenever Mrs.
Crocker spoke of America now, it was in tones of the deepest dislike and
contempt. Her friends were English, and every year more exclusively of
England's aristocracy. She intended to become a leading figure in London
Society, and already her progress had been astonishing. She knew the right
people, lived in the right square, said the right things, and thought the
right thoughts: and in the Spring of her third year had succeeded in
curing Bingley of his habit of beginning his remarks with the words "Say,
lemme tell ya something." Her progress, in short, was beginning to assume
the aspect of a walk-over.

Against her complete contentment and satisfaction only one thing
militated. That was the behaviour of her step-son, Jimmy.

It was of Jimmy that she spoke when, having hung the receiver on its hook,
she returned to the breakfast-room. Bayliss had silently withdrawn, and
Mr. Crocker was sitting in sombre silence at the table.

"A most fortunate thing has happened, Bingley," she said. "It was most
kind of dear Lady Corstorphine to ring me up. It seems that her nephew,
Lord Percy Whipple, is back in England. He has been in Ireland for the
past three years, on the staff of the Lord Lieutenant, and only arrived in
London yesterday afternoon. Lady Corstorphine has promised to arrange a
meeting between him and James. I particularly want them to be friends."

"Eugenia," said Mr. Crocker in a hollow voice, "do you know they call
baseball Rounders over here, and children play it with a soft ball?"

"James is becoming a serious problem. It is absolutely necessary that he
should make friends with the right kind of young men."

"And a racquet," said Mr. Crocker.

"Please listen to what I am saying, Bingley. I am talking about James.
There is a crude American strain in him which seems to grow worse instead
of better. I was lunching with the Delafields at the Carlton yesterday,
and there, only a few tables away, was James with an impossible young man
in appalling clothes. It was outrageous that James should have been seen
in public at all with such a person. The man had a broken nose and talked
through it. He was saying in a loud voice that made everybody turn round
something about his left-scissors hook—whatever that may have been.
I discovered later that he was a low professional pugilist from New York—a
man named Spike Dillon, I think Captain Wroxton said. And Jimmy was giving
him lunch—at the Carlton!"

Mr. Crocker said nothing. Constant practice had made him an adept at
saying nothing when his wife was talking.

"James must be made to realise his responsibilities. I shall have to speak
to him. I was hearing only the other day of a most deserving man,
extremely rich and lavishly generous in his contributions to the party
funds, who was only given a knighthood, simply because he had a son who
had behaved in a manner that could not possibly be overlooked. The present
Court is extraordinarily strict in its views. James cannot be too careful.
A certain amount of wildness in a young man is quite proper in the best
set, provided that he is wild in the right company. Every one knows that
young Lord Datchet was ejected from the Empire Music-Hall on Boat-Race
night every year during his residence at Oxford University, but nobody
minds. The family treats it as a joke. But James has such low tastes.
Professional pugilists! I believe that many years ago it was not
unfashionable for young men in Society to be seen about with such persons,
but those days are over. I shall certainly speak to James. He cannot
afford to call attention to himself in any way. That breach-of-promise
case of his three years ago, is, I hope and trust, forgotten, but the
slightest slip on his part might start the papers talking about it again,
and that would be fatal. The eventual successor to a title must be quite
as careful as—"

It was not, as has been hinted above, the usual practice of Mr. Crocker to
interrupt his wife when she was speaking, but he did it now.

"Say!"

Mrs. Crocker frowned.

"I wish, Bingley—and I have told you so often—that you would
not begin your sentences with the word 'Say'! It is such a revolting
Americanism. Suppose some day when you are addressing the House of Lords
you should make a slip like that! The papers would never let you hear the
end of it."

Mr. Crocker was swallowing convulsively, as if testing his larynx with a
view to speech. Like Saul of Tarsus, he had been stricken dumb by the
sudden bright light which his wife's words had caused to flash upon him.
Frequently during his sojourn in London he had wondered just why Eugenia
had settled there in preference to her own country. It was not her wont to
do things without an object, yet until this moment he had been unable to
fathom her motives. Even now it seemed almost incredible. And yet what
meaning would her words have other than the monstrous one which had
smitten him as a blackjack?

"Say—I mean, Eugenia—you don't want—you aren't trying—you
aren't working to—you haven't any idea of trying to get them to make
me a Lord, have you?"

"It is what I have been working for all these years!"

"But—but why? Why? That's what I want to know. Why?"

Mrs. Crocker's fine eyes glittered.

"I will tell you why, Bingley. Just before we were married I had a talk
with my sister Nesta. She was insufferably offensive. She referred to you
in terms which I shall never forgive. She affected to look down on you, to
think that I was marrying beneath me. So I am going to make you an English
peer and send Nesta a newspaper clipping of the Birthday Honours with your
name in it, if I have to keep working till I die! Now you know!"

Silence fell. Mr. Crocker drank cold coffee. His wife stared with gleaming
eyes into the glorious future.

"Do you mean that I shall have to stop on here till they make me a lord?"
said Mr. Crocker limply.

"Yes."

"Never go back to America?"

"Not till we have succeeded."

"Oh Gee! Oh Gosh! Oh Hell!" said Mr. Crocker, bursting the bonds of years.

Mrs. Crocker though resolute, was not unkindly. She made allowances for
her husband's state of mind. She was willing to permit even American
expletives during the sinking-in process of her great idea, much as a
broad-minded cowboy might listen indulgently to the squealing of a mustang
during the branding process. Docility and obedience would be demanded of
him later, but not till the first agony had abated. She spoke soothingly
to him.

"I am glad we have had this talk, Bingley. It is best that you should
know. It will help you to realise your responsibilities. And that brings
me back to James. Thank goodness Lord Percy Whipple is in town. He is
about James' age, and from what Lady Corstorphine tells me will be an
ideal friend for him. You understand who he is, of course? The second son
of the Duke of Devizes, the Premier's closest friend, the man who can
practically dictate the Birthday Honours. If James and Lord Percy can only
form a close friendship, our battle will be as good as won. It will mean
everything. Lady Corstorphine has promised to arrange a meeting. In the
meantime, I will speak to James and warn him to be more careful."

Mr. Crocker had produced a stump of pencil from his pocket and was writing
on the table-cloth.

    Lord Crocker
    Lord Bingley Crocker
    Lord Crocker of Crocker
    The Marquis of Crocker
    Baron Crocker
    Bingley, first Viscount Crocker

He blanched as he read the frightful words. A sudden thought stung him.

"Eugenia!"

"Well?"

"What will the boys at the Lambs say?"

"I am not interested," replied his wife, "in the boys at the Lambs."

"I thought you wouldn't be," said the future baron gloomily.

CHAPTER III — FAMILY JARS

It is a peculiarity of the human mind that, with whatever apprehension it
may be regarding the distant future, it must return after a while to face
the minor troubles of the future that is immediate. The prospect of a
visit to the dentist this afternoon causes us to forget for the moment the
prospect of total ruin next year. Mr. Crocker, therefore, having tortured
himself for about a quarter of an hour with his meditations on the subject
of titles, was jerked back to a more imminent calamity than the appearance
of his name in the Birthday Honours—the fact that in all probability
he would be taken again this morning to watch the continuation of that
infernal cricket-match, and would be compelled to spend the greater part
of to-day, as he had spent the greater part of yesterday, bored to the
verge of dissolution in the pavilion at Lord's.

One gleam of hope alone presented itself. Like baseball, this pastime of
cricket was apparently affected by rain, if there had been enough of it.
He had an idea that there had been a good deal of rain in the night, but
had there been sufficient to cause the teams of Surrey and Kent to
postpone the second instalment of their serial struggle? He rose from the
table and went out into the hall. It was his purpose to sally out into
Grosvenor Square and examine the turf in its centre with the heel of his
shoe, in order to determine the stickiness or non-stickiness of the
wicket. He moved towards the front door, hoping for the best, and just as
he reached it the bell rang.

One of the bad habits of which his wife had cured Mr. Crocker in the
course of the years was the habit of going and answering doors. He had
been brought up in surroundings where every man was his own door-keeper,
and it had been among his hardest tasks to learn the lesson that the
perfect gentleman does not open doors but waits for the appropriate menial
to come along and do it for him. He had succeeded at length in mastering
this great truth, and nowadays seldom offended. But this morning his mind
was clouded by his troubles, and instinct, allaying itself with
opportunity, was too much for him. His fingers had been on the handle when
the ring came, so he turned it.

At the top of the steps which connect the main entrance of Drexdale House
with the sidewalk three persons were standing. One was a tall and
formidably handsome woman in the early forties whose appearance seemed
somehow oddly familiar. The second was a small, fat, blobby, bulging boy
who was chewing something. The third, lurking diffidently in the rear, was
a little man of about Mr. Crocker's own age, grey-haired and thin with
brown eyes that gazed meekly through rimless glasses.

Nobody could have been less obtrusive than this person, yet it was he who
gripped Mr. Crocker's attention and caused that home-sick sufferer's heart
to give an almost painful leap. For he was clothed in one of those roomy
suits with square shoulders which to the seeing eye are as republican as
the Stars and Stripes. His blunt-toed yellow shoes sang gaily of home. And
his hat was not so much a hat as an effusive greeting from Gotham. A long
time had passed since Mr. Crocker had set eyes upon a biped so
exhilaratingly American, and rapture held him speechless, as one who after
long exile beholds some landmark of his childhood.

The female member of the party took advantage of his dumbness—which,
as she had not unnaturally mistaken him for the butler, she took for a
silent and respectful query as to her business and wishes—to open
the conversation.

"Is Mrs. Crocker at home? Please tell her that Mrs. Pett wishes to see
her."

There was a rush and scurry in the corridors of Mr. Crocker's brain, as
about six different thoughts tried to squash simultaneously into that main
chamber where there is room for only one at a time. He understood now why
this woman's appearance had seemed familiar. She was his wife's sister,
and that same Nesta who was some day to be pulverised by the sight of his
name in the Birthday Honours. He was profoundly thankful that she had
mistaken him for the butler. A chill passed through him as he pictured
what would have been Eugenia's reception of the information that he had
committed such a bourgeois solecism as opening the front door to Mrs. Pett
of all people, who already despised him as a low vulgarian. There had been
trouble enough when she had found him opening it a few weeks before to a
mere collector of subscriptions for a charity. He perceived, with a
clarity remarkable in view of the fact that the discovery of her identity
had given him a feeling of physical dizziness, that at all costs he must
foster this misapprehension on his sister-in-law's part.

Fortunately he was in a position to do so. He knew all about what butlers
did and what they said on these occasions, for in his innocently curious
way he had often pumped Bayliss on the subject. He bowed silently and led
the way to the morning-room, followed by the drove of Petts: then, opening
the door, stood aside to allow the procession to march past the given
point.

"I will inform Mrs. Crocker that you are here, madam."

Mrs. Pett, shepherding the chewing child before her, passed into the room.
In the light of her outspoken sentiments regarding her brother-in-law, it
is curious to reflect that his manner at this, their first meeting, had
deeply impressed her. After many months of smouldering revolt she had
dismissed her own butler a day or so before sailing for England, and for
the first time envy of her sister Eugenia gripped her. She did not covet
Eugenia's other worldly possessions, but she did grudge her this supreme
butler.

Mr. Pett, meanwhile, had been trailing in the rear with a hunted
expression on his face. He wore the unmistakable look of a man about to be
present at a row between women, and only a wet cat in a strange back-yard
bears itself with less jauntiness than a man faced by such a prospect. A
millionaire several times over, Mr. Pett would cheerfully have given much
of his wealth to have been elsewhere at that moment. Such was the agitated
state of his mind that, when a hand was laid lightly upon his arm as he
was about to follow his wife into the room, he started so violently that
his hat flew out of his hand. He turned to meet the eyes of the butler who
had admitted him to the house, fixed on his in an appealing stare.

"Who's leading in the pennant race?" said this strange butler in a
feverish whisper.

It was a question, coming from such a source, which in another than Mr.
Pett might well have provoked a blank stare of amazement. Such, however,
is the almost superhuman intelligence and quickness of mind engendered by
the study of America's national game that he answered without the
slightest hesitation.

"Giants!"

"Wow!" said the butler.

No sense of anything strange or untoward about the situation came to mar
the perfect joy of Mr. Pett, the overmastering joy of the baseball fan who
in a strange land unexpectedly encounters a brother. He thrilled with a
happiness which he had never hoped to feel that morning.

"No signs of them slumping?" enquired the butler.

"No. But you never can tell. It's early yet. I've seen those boys lead the
league till the end of August and then be nosed out."

"True enough," said the butler sadly.

"Matty's in shape."

"He is? The old souper working well?"

"Like a machine. He shut out the Cubs the day before I sailed!"

"Fine!"

At this point an appreciation of the unusualness of the proceedings began
to steal upon Mr. Pett. He gaped at this surprising servitor.

"How on earth do you know anything about baseball?" he demanded.

The other seemed to stiffen. A change came over his whole appearance. He
had the air of an actor who has remembered his part.

"I beg your pardon, sir. I trust I have not taken a liberty. I was at one
time in the employment of a gentleman in New York, and during my stay I
became extremely interested in the national game. I picked up a few of the
American idioms while in the country." He smiled apologetically. "They
sometimes slip out."

"Let 'em slip!" said Mr. Pett with enthusiasm. "You're the first thing
that's reminded me of home since I left. Say!"

"Sir?"

"Got a good place here?"

"Er—oh, yes, sir."

"Well, here's my card. If you ever feel like making a change, there's a
job waiting for you at that address."

"Thank you, sir." Mr. Crocker stooped.

"Your hat, sir."

He held it out, gazing fondly at it the while. It was like being home
again to see a hat like that. He followed Mr. Pett as he went into the
morning-room with an affectionate eye.

Bayliss was coming along the hall, hurrying more than his wont. The ring
at the front door had found him deep in an extremely interesting piece of
news in his halfpenny morning paper, and he was guiltily aware of having
delayed in answering it.

"Bayliss," said Mr. Crocker in a cautious undertone, "go and tell Mrs.
Crocker that Mrs. Pett is waiting to see her. She's in the morning-room.
If you're asked, say you let her in. Get me?"

"Yes, sir," said Bayliss, grateful for this happy solution.

"Oh, Bayliss!"

"Sir?"

"Is the wicket at Lord's likely to be too sticky for them to go on with
that game to-day?"

"I hardly think it probable that there will be play, sir. There was a
great deal of rain in the night."

Mr. Crocker passed on to his den with a lighter heart.

It was Mrs. Crocker's habit, acquired after years of practice and a
sedulous study of the best models, to conceal beneath a mask of well-bred
indifference any emotion which she might chance to feel. Her dealings with
the aristocracy of England had shown her that, while the men occasionally
permitted themselves an outburst, the women never did, and she had
schooled herself so rigorously that nowadays she seldom even raised her
voice. Her bearing, as she approached the morning-room was calm and
serene, but inwardly curiosity consumed her. It was unbelievable that
Nesta could have come to try to effect a reconciliation, yet she could
think of no other reason for her visit.

She was surprised to find three persons in the morning-room. Bayliss,
delivering his message, had mentioned only Mrs. Pett. To Mrs. Crocker the
assemblage had the appearance of being a sort of Old Home Week of Petts, a
kind of Pett family mob-scene. Her sister's second marriage having taken
place after their quarrel, she had never seen her new brother-in-law, but
she assumed that the little man lurking in the background was Mr. Pett.
The guess was confirmed.

"Good morning, Eugenia," said Mrs. Pett.

"Peter, this is my sister, Eugenia. My husband."

Mrs. Crocker bowed stiffly. She was thinking how hopelessly American Mr.
Pett was, how baggy his clothes looked, what absurdly shaped shoes he
wore, how appalling his hat was, how little hair he had and how deplorably
he lacked all those graces of repose, culture, physical beauty,
refinement, dignity, and mental alertness which raise men above the level
of the common cock-roach.

Mr. Pett, on his side, receiving her cold glance squarely between the
eyes, felt as if he were being disembowelled by a clumsy amateur. He could
not help wondering what sort of a man this fellow Crocker was whom this
sister-in-law of his had married. He pictured him as a handsome, powerful,
robust individual with a strong jaw and a loud voice, for he could imagine
no lesser type of man consenting to link his lot with such a woman. He
sidled in a circuitous manner towards a distant chair, and, having lowered
himself into it, kept perfectly still, pretending to be dead, like an
opossum. He wished to take no part whatever in the coming interview.

"Ogden, of course, you know," said Mrs. Pett.

She was sitting so stiffly upright on a hard chair and had so much the
appearance of having been hewn from the living rock that every time she
opened her mouth it was as if a statue had spoken.

"I know Ogden," said Mrs. Crocker shortly. "Will you please stop him
fidgeting with that vase? It is valuable."

She directed at little Ogden, who was juggling aimlessly with a handsome
objet d'art of the early Chinese school, a glance similar to that
which had just disposed of his step-father. But Ogden required more than a
glance to divert him from any pursuit in which he was interested. He
shifted a deposit of candy from his right cheek to his left cheek,
inspected Mrs. Crocker for a moment with a pale eye, and resumed his
juggling. Mrs. Crocker meant nothing in his young life.

"Ogden, come and sit down," said Mrs. Pett.

"Don't want to sit down."

"Are you making a long stay in England, Nesta?" asked Mrs. Crocker coldly.

"I don't know. We have made no plans."

"Indeed?"

She broke off. Ogden, who had possessed himself of a bronze paper-knife,
had begun to tap the vase with it. The ringing note thus produced appeared
to please his young mind.

"If Ogden really wishes to break that vase," said Mrs. Crocker in a
detached voice, "let me ring for the butler to bring him a hammer."

"Ogden!" said Mrs. Pett.

"Oh Gee! A fellow can't do a thing!" muttered Ogden, and walked to the
window. He stood looking out into the square, a slight twitching of the
ears indicating that he still made progress with the candy.

"Still the same engaging child!" murmured Mrs. Crocker.

"I did not come here to discuss Ogden!" said Mrs. Pett.

Mrs. Crocker raised her eyebrows. Not even Mrs. Otho Lanners, from whom
she had learned the art, could do it more effectively.

"I am still waiting to find out why you did come, Nesta!"

"I came here to talk to you about your step-son, James Crocker."

The discipline to which Mrs. Crocker had subjected herself in the matter
of the display of emotion saved her from the humiliation of showing
surprise. She waved her hand graciously—in the manner of the Duchess
of Axminster, a supreme hand-waver—to indicate that she was all
attention.

"Your step-son, James Crocker," repeated Mrs. Pett. "What is it the New
York papers call him, Peter?"

Mr. Pett, the human opossum, came to life. He had contrived to create
about himself such a defensive atmosphere of non-existence that now that
he re-entered the conversation it was as if a corpse had popped out of its
tomb like a jack-in-the-box.

Obeying the voice of authority, he pushed the tombstone to one side and
poked his head out of the sepulchre.

"Piccadilly Jim!" he murmured apologetically.

"Piccadilly Jim!" said Mrs. Crocker. "It is extremely impertinent of
them!"

In spite of his misery, a wan smile appeared on Mr. Pett's death-mask at
this remark.

"They should worry about—!"

"Peter!"

Mr. Pett died again, greatly respected.

"Why should the New York papers refer to James at all?" said Mrs. Crocker.

"Explain, Peter!"

Mr. Pett emerged reluctantly from the cerements. He had supposed that
Nesta would do the talking.

"Well, he's a news-item."

"Why?"

"Well, here's a boy that's been a regular fellow—raised in America—done
work on a newspaper—suddenly taken off to England to become a London
dude—mixing with all the dukes, playing pinochle with the King—naturally
they're interested in him."

A more agreeable expression came over Mrs. Crocker's face.

"Of course, that is quite true. One cannot prevent the papers from
printing what they wish. So they have published articles about James'
doings in English Society?"

"Doings," said Mr. Pett, "is right!"

"Something has got to be done about it," said Mrs. Pett.

Mr. Pett endorsed this.

"Nesta's going to lose her health if these stories go on," he said.

Mrs. Crocker raised her eyebrows, but she had hard work to keep a
contented smile off her face.

"If you are not above petty jealousy, Nesta . . ."

Mrs. Pett laughed a sharp, metallic laugh.

"It is the disgrace I object to!"

"The disgrace!"

"What else would you call it, Eugenia? Wouldn't you be ashamed if you
opened your Sunday paper and came upon a full page article about your
nephew having got intoxicated at the races and fought a book-maker—having
broken up a political meeting—having been sued for breach-of-promise
by a barmaid . . ."

Mrs. Crocker preserved her well-bred calm, but she was shaken. The
episodes to which her sister had alluded were ancient history, horrors of
the long-dead past, but it seemed that they still lived in print. There
and then she registered the resolve to talk to her step-son James when she
got hold of him in such a manner as would scourge the offending Adam out
of him for once and for all.

"And not only that," continued Mrs. Pett. "That would be bad enough in
itself, but somehow the papers have discovered that I am the boy's aunt.
Two weeks ago they printed my photograph with one of these articles. I
suppose they will always do it now. That is why I have come to you. It
must stop. And the only way it can be made to stop is by taking your
step-son away from London where he is running wild. Peter has most kindly
consented to give the boy a position in his office. It is very good of
him, for the boy cannot in the nature of things be of any use for a very
long time, but we have talked it over and it seems the only course. I have
come this morning to ask you to let us take James Crocker back to America
with us and keep him out of mischief by giving him honest work. What do
you say?"

Mrs. Crocker raised her eyebrows.

"What do you expect me to say? It is utterly preposterous. I have never
heard anything so supremely absurd in my life."

"You refuse?"

"Of course I refuse."

"I think you are extremely foolish."

"Indeed!"

Mr. Pett cowed in his chair. He was feeling rather like a nervous and
peace-loving patron of a wild western saloon who observes two cowboys
reach for their hip-pockets. Neither his wife nor his sister-in-law paid
any attention to him. The concluding exercises of a duel of the eyes was
in progress between them. After some silent, age-long moments, Mrs.
Crocker laughed a light laugh.

"Most extraordinary!" she murmured.

Mrs. Pett was in no mood for Anglicisms.

"You know perfectly well, Eugenia," she said heatedly, "that James Crocker
is being ruined here. For his sake, if not for mine—"

Mrs. Crocker laughed another light laugh, one of those offensive rippling
things which cause so much annoyance.

"Don't be so ridiculous, Nesta! Ruined! Really! It is quite true that, a
long while ago, when he was much younger and not quite used to the ways of
London Society, James was a little wild, but all that sort of thing is
over now. He knows"—she paused, setting herself as it were for the
punch—"he knows that at any moment the government may decide to give
his father a Peerage . . ."

The blow went home. A quite audible gasp escaped her stricken sister.

"What!"

Mrs. Crocker placed two ringed fingers before her mouth in order not to
hide a languid yawn.

"Yes. Didn't you know? But of course you live so out of the world. Oh yes,
it is extremely probable that Mr. Crocker's name will appear in the next
Honours List. He is very highly thought of by the Powers. So naturally
James is quite aware that he must behave in a suitable manner. He is a
dear boy! He was handicapped at first by getting into the wrong set, but
now his closest friend is Lord Percy Whipple, the second son of the Duke
of Devizes, who is one of the most eminent men in the kingdom and a
personal friend of the Premier."

Mrs. Pett was in bad shape under this rain of titles, but she rallied
herself to reply in kind.

"Indeed?" she said. "I should like to meet him. I have no doubt he knows
our great friend, Lord Wisbeach."

Mrs. Crocker was a little taken aback. She had not supposed that her
sister had even this small shot in her locker.

"Do you know Lord Wisbeach?" she said.

"Oh yes," replied Mrs. Pett, beginning to feel a little better. "We have
been seeing him every day. He always says that he looks on my house as
quite a home. He knows so few people in New York. It has been a great
comfort to him, I think, knowing us."

Mrs. Crocker had had time now to recover her poise.

"Poor dear Wizzy!" she said languidly.

Mrs. Pett started.

"What!"

"I suppose he is still the same dear, stupid, shiftless fellow? He left
here with the intention of travelling round the world, and he has stopped
in New York! How like him!"

"Do you know Lord Wisbeach?" demanded Mrs. Pett.

Mrs. Crocker raised her eyebrows.

"Know him? Why, I suppose, after Lord Percy Whipple, he is James' most
intimate friend!"

Mrs. Pett rose. She was dignified even in defeat. She collected Ogden and
Mr. Pett with an eye which even Ogden could see was not to be trifled
with. She uttered no word.

"Must you really go?" said Mrs. Crocker. "It was sweet of you to bother to
come all the way from America like this. So strange to meet any one from
America nowadays. Most extraordinary!"

The cortege left the room in silence. Mrs. Crocker had touched the
bell, but the mourners did not wait for the arrival of Bayliss. They were
in no mood for the formalities of polite Society. They wanted to be
elsewhere, and they wanted to be there quick. The front door had closed
behind them before the butler reached the morning-room.

"Bayliss," said Mrs. Crocker with happy, shining face, "send for the car
to come round at once."

"Very good, madam."

"Is Mr. James up yet?"

"I believe not, madam."

Mrs. Crocker went upstairs to her room. If Bayliss had not been within
earshot, she would probably have sung a bar or two. Her amiability
extended even to her step-son, though she had not altered her intention of
speaking eloquently to him on certain matters when she could get hold of
him. That, however, could wait. For the moment, she felt in vein for a
gentle drive in the Park.

A few minutes after she had disappeared, there was a sound of slow
footsteps on the stairs, and a young man came down into the hall. Bayliss,
who had finished telephoning to the garage for Mrs. Crocker's limousine
and was about to descend to those lower depths where he had his being,
turned, and a grave smile of welcome played over his face.

"Good morning, Mr. James," he said.

CHAPTER IV — JIMMY'S DISTURBING NEWS

Jimmy Crocker was a tall and well-knit young man who later on in the day
would no doubt be at least passably good-looking. At the moment an
unbecoming pallor marred his face, and beneath his eyes were marks that
suggested that he had slept little and ill. He stood at the foot of the
stairs, yawning cavernously.

"Bayliss," he said, "have you been painting yourself yellow?"

"No, sir."

"Strange! Your face looks a bright gamboge to me, and your outlines
wobble. Bayliss, never mix your drinks. I say this to you as a friend. Is
there any one in the morning-room?"

"No, Mr. James."

"Speak softly, Bayliss, for I am not well. I am conscious of a strange
weakness. Lead me to the morning-room, then, and lay me gently on a sofa.
These are the times that try men's souls."

The sun was now shining strongly through the windows of the morning-room.
Bayliss lowered the shades. Jimmy Crocker sank onto the sofa, and closed
his eyes.

"Bayliss."

"Sir?"

"A conviction is stealing over me that I am about to expire."

"Shall I bring you a little breakfast, Mr. James?"

A strong shudder shook Jimmy.

"Don't be flippant, Bayliss," he protested. "Try to cure yourself of this
passion for being funny at the wrong time. Your comedy is good, but tact
is a finer quality than humour. Perhaps you think I have forgotten that
morning when I was feeling just as I do to-day and you came to my bedside
and asked me if I would like a nice rasher of ham. I haven't and I never
shall. You may bring me a brandy-and-soda. Not a large one. A couple of
bath-tubs full will be enough."

"Very good, Mr. James."

"And now leave me, Bayliss, for I would be alone. I have to make a series
of difficult and exhaustive tests to ascertain whether I am still alive."

When the butler had gone, Jimmy adjusted the cushions, closed his eyes,
and remained for a space in a state of coma. He was trying, as well as an
exceedingly severe headache would permit, to recall the salient events of
the previous night. At present his memories refused to solidify. They
poured about in his brain in a fluid and formless condition, exasperating
to one who sought for hard facts.

It seemed strange to Jimmy that the shadowy and inchoate vision of a
combat, a fight, a brawl of some kind persisted in flitting about in the
recesses of his mind, always just far enough away to elude capture. The
absurdity of the thing annoyed him. A man has either indulged in a fight
overnight or he has not indulged in a fight overnight. There can be no
middle course. That he should be uncertain on the point was ridiculous.
Yet, try as he would, he could not be sure. There were moments when he
seemed on the very verge of settling the matter, and then some invisible
person would meanly insert a red-hot corkscrew in the top of his head and
begin to twist it, and this would interfere with calm thought. He was
still in a state of uncertainty when Bayliss returned, bearing healing
liquids on a tray.

"Shall I set it beside you, sir?"

Jimmy opened one eye.

"Indubitably. No mean word, that, Bayliss, for the morning after. Try it
yourself next time. Bayliss, who let me in this morning?"

"Let you in, sir?"

"Precisely. I was out and now I am in. Obviously I must have passed the
front door somehow. This is logic."

"I fancy you let yourself in, Mr. James, with your key."

"That would seem to indicate that I was in a state of icy sobriety. Yet,
if such is the case, how is it that I can't remember whether I murdered
somebody or not last night? It isn't the sort of thing your sober man
would lightly forget. Have you ever murdered anybody, Bayliss?"

"No, sir."

"Well, if you had, you would remember it next morning?"

"I imagine so, Mr. James."

"Well, it's a funny thing, but I can't get rid of the impression that at
some point in my researches into the night life of London yestreen I fell
upon some person to whom I had never been introduced and committed mayhem
upon his person."

It seemed to Bayliss that the time had come to impart to Mr. James a piece
of news which he had supposed would require no imparting. He looked down
upon his young master's recumbent form with a grave commiseration. It was
true that he had never been able to tell with any certainty whether Mr.
James intended the statements he made to be taken literally or not, but on
the present occasion he seemed to have spoken seriously and to be
genuinely at a loss to recall an episode over the printed report of which
the entire domestic staff had been gloating ever since the arrival of the
halfpenny morning paper to which they subscribed.

"Do you really mean it, Mr. James?" he enquired cautiously.

"Mean what?"

"You have really forgotten that you were engaged in a fracas last night at
the Six Hundred Club?"

Jimmy sat up with a jerk, staring at this omniscient man. Then the
movement having caused a renewal of the operations of the red-hot
corkscrew, he fell back again with a groan.

"Was I? How on earth did you know? Why should you know all about it when I
can't remember a thing? It was my fault, not yours."

"There is quite a long report of it in to-day's Daily Sun, Mr.
James."

"A report? In the Sun?"

"Half a column, Mr. James. Would you like me to fetch the paper? I have it
in my pantry."

"I should say so. Trot a quick heat back with it. This wants looking
into."

Bayliss retired, to return immediately with the paper. Jimmy took it,
gazed at it, and handed it back.

"I overestimated my powers. It can't be done. Have you any important
duties at the moment, Bayliss?"

"No, sir."

"Perhaps you wouldn't mind reading me the bright little excerpt, then?"

"Certainly, sir."

"It will be good practice for you. I am convinced I am going to be a
confirmed invalid for the rest of my life, and it will be part of your job
to sit at my bedside and read to me. By the way, does the paper say who
the party of the second part was? Who was the citizen with whom I went to
the mat?"

"Lord Percy Whipple, Mr. James."

"Lord who?"

"Lord Percy Whipple."

"Never heard of him. Carry on, Bayliss."

Jimmy composed himself to listen, yawning.

CHAPTER V — THE MORNING AFTER

Bayliss took a spectacle-case from the recesses of his costume, opened it,
took out a pair of gold-rimmed glasses, dived into the jungle again, came
out with a handkerchief, polished the spectacles, put them on his nose,
closed the case, restored it to its original position, replaced the
handkerchief, and took up the paper.

"Why the hesitation, Bayliss? Why the coyness?" enquired Jimmy, lying with
closed eyes. "Begin!"

"I was adjusting my glasses, sir."

"All set now?"

"Yes, sir. Shall I read the headlines first?"

"Read everything."

The butler cleared his throat.

"Good Heavens, Bayliss," moaned Jimmy, starting, "don't gargle. Have a
heart! Go on!"

Bayliss began to read.

         FRACAS IN FASHIONABLE NIGHT-CLUB

             SPRIGS OF NOBILITY BRAWL

Jimmy opened his eyes, interested.

"Am I a sprig of nobility?"

"It is what the paper says, sir."

"We live and learn. Carry on."

The butler started to clear his throat, but checked himself.

         SENSATIONAL INTERNATIONAL CONTEST

                   BATTLING PERCY

                     (England)

                         V —                     CYCLONE JIM

                     (America)

           FULL DESCRIPTION BY OUR EXPERT

Jimmy sat up.

"Bayliss, you're indulging that distorted sense of humour of yours again.
That isn't in the paper?"

"Yes, sir. Very large headlines."

Jimmy groaned.

"Bayliss, I'll give you a piece of advice which may be useful to you when
you grow up. Never go about with newspaper men. It all comes back to me.
Out of pure kindness of heart I took young Bill Blake of the Sun to
supper at the Six Hundred last night. This is my reward. I suppose he
thinks it funny. Newspaper men are a low lot, Bayliss."

"Shall I go on, sir?"

"Most doubtless. Let me hear all."

Bayliss resumed. He was one of those readers who, whether their subject be
a murder case or a funny anecdote, adopt a measured and sepulchral
delivery which gives a suggestion of tragedy and horror to whatever they
read. At the church which he attended on Sundays, of which he was one of
the most influential and respected members, children would turn pale and
snuggle up to their mothers when Bayliss read the lessons. Young Mr.
Blake's account of the overnight proceedings at the Six Hundred Club he
rendered with a gloomy gusto more marked even than his wont. It had a
topical interest for him which urged him to extend himself.

"At an early hour this morning, when our myriad readers were enjoying that
refreshing and brain-restoring sleep so necessary to the proper
appreciation of the Daily Sun at the breakfast table, one of the
most interesting sporting events of the season was being pulled off at the
Six Hundred Club in Regent Street, where, after three rounds of fast
exchanges, James B. Crocker, the well-known American welter-weight
scrapper, succeeded in stopping Lord Percy Whipple, second son of the Duke
of Devizes, better known as the Pride of Old England. Once again the
superiority of the American over the English style of boxing was
demonstrated. Battling Percy has a kind heart, but Cyclone Jim packs the
punch."

"The immediate cause of the encounter had to do with a disputed table,
which each gladiator claimed to have engaged in advance over the
telephone."

"I begin to remember," said Jimmy meditatively. "A pill with
butter-coloured hair tried to jump my claim. Honeyed words proving
fruitless, I soaked him on the jaw. It may be that I was not wholly
myself. I seem to remember an animated session at the Empire earlier in
the evening, which may have impaired my self-control. Proceed!"

"One word leading to others, which in their turn led to several more,
Cyclone Jim struck Battling Percy on what our rude forefathers were
accustomed to describe as the mazzard, and the gong sounded for

                "ROUND ONE

"Both men came up fresh and eager to mix things, though it seems only too
probable that they had already been mixing more things than was good for
them. Battling Percy tried a right swing which got home on a waiter.
Cyclone Jim put in a rapid one-two punch which opened a large gash in the
atmosphere. Both men sparred cautiously, being hampered in their movements
by the fact, which neither had at this stage of the proceedings perceived,
that they were on opposite sides of the disputed table. A clever
Fitzsimmons' shift on the part of the Battler removed this obstacle, and
some brisk work ensued in neutral territory. Percy landed twice without a
return. The Battler's round by a shade.

                "ROUND TWO

"The Cyclone came out of his corner with a rush, getting home on the
Battler's shirt-front and following it up with a right to the chin. Percy
swung wildly and upset a bottle of champagne on a neighbouring table. A
good rally followed, both men doing impressive in-fighting. The Cyclone
landed three without a return. The Cyclone's round.

                "ROUND THREE

"Percy came up weak, seeming to be overtrained. The Cyclone waded in,
using both hands effectively. The Battler fell into a clinch, but the
Cyclone broke away and, measuring his distance, picked up a haymaker from
the floor and put it over. Percy down and out.

"Interviewed by our representative after the fight, Cyclone Jim said: 'The
issue was never in doubt. I was handicapped at the outset by the fact that
I was under the impression that I was fighting three twin-brothers, and I
missed several opportunities of putting over the winning wallop by
attacking the outside ones. It was only in the second round that I decided
to concentrate my assault on the one in the middle, when the affair
speedily came to a conclusion. I shall not adopt pugilism as a profession.
The prizes are attractive, but it is too much like work.'"

Bayliss ceased, and silence fell upon the room.

"Is that all?"

"That is all, sir."

"And about enough."

"Very true, sir."

"You know, Bayliss," said Jimmy thoughtfully, rolling over on the couch,
"life is peculiar, not to say odd. You never know what is waiting for you
round the corner. You start the day with the fairest prospects, and before
nightfall everything is as rocky and ding-basted as stig tossed full of
doodlegammon. Why is this, Bayliss?"

"I couldn't say, sir."

"Look at me. I go out to spend a happy evening, meaning no harm to any
one, and I come back all blue with the blood of the aristocracy. We now
come to a serious point. Do you think my lady stepmother has read that
sporting chronicle?"

"I fancy not, Mr. James."

"On what do you base these words of comfort?"

"Mrs. Crocker does not read the halfpenny papers, sir."

"True! She does not. I had forgotten. On the other hand the probability
that she will learn about the little incident from other sources is great.
I think the merest prudence suggests that I keep out of the way for the
time being, lest I be fallen upon and questioned. I am not equal to being
questioned this morning. I have a headache which starts at the soles of my
feet and gets worse all the way up. Where is my stepmother?"

"Mrs. Crocker is in her room, Mr. James. She ordered the car to be brought
round at once. It should be here at any moment now, sir. I think Mrs.
Crocker intends to visit the Park before luncheon."

"Is she lunching out?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then, if I pursue the excellent common-sense tactics of the lesser
sand-eel, which as you doubtless know buries itself tail upwards in the
mud on hearing the baying of the eel-hounds and remains in that position
till the danger is past, I shall be able to postpone an interview. Should
you be questioned as to my whereabouts, inflate your chest and reply in a
clear and manly voice that I have gone out, you know not where. May I rely
on your benevolent neutrality, Bayliss?"

"Very good, Mr. James."

"I think I will go and sit in my father's den. A man may lie hid there
with some success as a rule."

Jimmy heaved himself painfully off the sofa, blinked, and set out for the
den, where his father, in a deep arm-chair, was smoking a restful pipe and
reading the portions of the daily papers which did not deal with the game
of cricket.

Mr. Crocker's den was a small room at the back of the house. It was not
luxurious, and it looked out onto a blank wall, but it was the spot he
liked best in all that vast pile which had once echoed to the tread of
titled shoes; for, as he sometimes observed to his son, it had the
distinction of being the only room on the ground floor where a fellow
could move without stubbing his toe on a countess or an honourable. In
this peaceful backwater he could smoke a pipe, put his feet up, take off
his coat, and generally indulge in that liberty and pursuit of happiness
to which the Constitution entitles a free-born American. Nobody ever came
there except Jimmy and himself.

He did not suspend his reading at his son's entrance. He muttered a
welcome through the clouds, but he did not raise his eyes. Jimmy took the
other arm-chair, and began to smoke silently. It was the unwritten law of
the den that soothing silence rather than aimless chatter should prevail.
It was not until a quarter of an hour had passed that Mr. Crocker dropped
his paper and spoke.

"Say, Jimmy, I want to talk to you."

"Say on. You have our ear."

"Seriously."

"Continue—always, however, keeping before you the fact that I am a
sick man. Last night was a wild night on the moors, dad."

"It's about your stepmother. She was talking at breakfast about you. She's
sore at you for giving Spike Dillon lunch at the Carlton. You oughtn't to
have taken him there, Jimmy. That's what got her goat. She was there with
a bunch of swells and they had to sit and listen to Spike talking about
his half-scissors hook."

"What's their kick against Spike's half-scissors hook? It's a darned good
one."

"She said she was going to speak to you about it. I thought I'd let you
know."

"Thanks, dad. But was that all?"

"All."

"All that she was going to speak to me about? Sure there was nothing
else?"

"She didn't say anything about anything else."

"Then she doesn't know! Fine!"

Mr. Crocker's feet came down from the mantelpiece with a crash.

"Jimmy! You haven't been raising Cain again?"

"No, no, dad. Nothing serious. High-spirited Young Patrician stuff, the
sort of thing that's expected of a fellow in my position."

Mr. Crocker was not to be comforted.

"Jimmy, you've got to pull up. Honest, you have. I don't care for myself.
I like to see a boy having a good time. But your stepmother says you're
apt to queer us with the people up top, the way you're going on. Lord
knows I wouldn't care if things were different, but I'll tell you exactly
how I stand. I didn't get wise till this morning. Your stepmother sprang
it on me suddenly. I've often wondered what all this stuff was about, this
living in London and trailing the swells. I couldn't think what was your
stepmother's idea. Now I know. Jimmy, she's trying to get them to make me
a peer!"

"What!"

"Just that. And she says—"

"But, dad, this is rich! This is comedy of a high order! A peer! Good
Heavens, if it comes off, what shall I be? This title business is all so
complicated. I know I should have to change my name to Hon. Rollo
Cholmondeley or the Hon. Aubrey Marjoribanks, but what I want to know is
which? I want to be prepared for the worst."

"And you see, Jimmy, these people up top, the guys who arrange the giving
of titles, are keeping an eye on you, because you would have the title
after me and naturally they don't want to get stung. I gathered all that
from your stepmother. Say, Jimmy, I'm not asking a lot of you, but there
is just one thing you can do for me without putting yourself out too
much."

"I'll do it, dad, if it kills me. Slip me the info!"

"Your stepmother's friend Lady Corstorphine's nephew . . ."

"It's not the sort of story to ask a man with a headache to follow. I hope
it gets simpler as it goes along."

"Your stepmother wants you to be a good fellow and make friends with this
boy. You see, his father is in right with the Premier and has the biggest
kind of a pull when it comes to handing out titles."

"Is that all you want? Leave it to me. Inside of a week I'll be playing
kiss-in-the-ring with him. The whole force of my sunny personality shall
be directed towards making him love me. What's his name?"

"Lord Percy Whipple."

Jimmy's pipe fell with a clatter.

"Dad, pull yourself together! Reflect! You know you don't seriously mean
Lord Percy Whipple."

"Eh?"

Jimmy laid a soothing hand on his father's shoulder.

"Dad, prepare yourself for the big laugh. This is where you throw your
head back and roar with honest mirth. I met Lord Percy Whipple last night
at the Six Hundred Club. Words ensued. I fell upon Percy and beat his
block off! How it started, except that we both wanted the same table, I
couldn't say. 'Why, that I cannot tell,' said he, 'but 'twas a famous
victory!' If I had known, dad, nothing would have induced me to lay a hand
upon Perce, save in the way of kindness, but, not even knowing who he was,
it would appear from contemporary accounts of the affair that I just
naturally sailed in and expunged the poor, dear boy!"

The stunning nature of this information had much the same effect on Mr.
Crocker as the announcement of his ruin has upon the Good Old Man in
melodrama. He sat clutching the arms of his chair and staring into space,
saying nothing. Dismay was written upon his anguished countenance.

His collapse sobered Jimmy. For the first time he perceived that the
situation had another side than the humorous one which had appealed to
him. He had anticipated that Mr. Crocker, who as a general thing shared
his notions of what was funny and could be relied on to laugh in the right
place, would have been struck, like himself, by the odd and pleasing
coincidence of his having picked on for purposes of assault and battery
the one young man with whom his stepmother wished him to form a firm and
lasting friendship. He perceived now that his father was seriously upset.
Neither Jimmy nor Mr. Crocker possessed a demonstrative nature, but there
had always existed between them the deepest affection. Jimmy loved his
father as he loved nobody else in the world, and the thought of having
hurt him was like a physical pain. His laughter died away and he set
himself with a sinking heart to try to undo the effect of his words.

"I'm awfully sorry, dad. I had no idea you would care. I wouldn't have
done a fool thing like that for a million dollars if I'd known. Isn't
there anything I can do? Gee whiz! I'll go right round to Percy now and
apologise. I'll lick his boots. Don't you worry, dad. I'll make it all
right."

The whirl of words roused Mr. Crocker from his thoughts.

"It doesn't matter, Jimmy. Don't worry yourself. It's only a little
unfortunate, because your stepmother says she won't think of our going
back to America till these people here have given me a title. She wants to
put one over on her sister. That's all that's troubling me, the thought
that this affair will set us back, this Lord Percy being in so strong with
the guys who give the titles. I guess it will mean my staying on here for
a while longer, and I'd liked to have seen another ball-game. Jimmy, do
you know they call baseball Rounders in this country, and children play it
with a soft ball!"

Jimmy was striding up and down the little room. Remorse had him in its
grip.

"What a damned fool I am!"

"Never mind, Jimmy. It's unfortunate, but it wasn't your fault. You
couldn't know."

"It was my fault. Nobody but a fool like me would go about beating people
up. But don't worry, dad. It's going to be all right. I'll fix it. I'm
going right round to this fellow Percy now to make things all right. I
won't come back till I've squared him. Don't you bother yourself about it
any longer, dad. It's going to be all right."

CHAPTER VI — JIMMY ABANDONS PICCADILLY

Jimmy removed himself sorrowfully from the doorstep of the Duke of
Devizes' house in Cleveland Row. His mission had been a failure. In answer
to his request to be permitted to see Lord Percy Whipple, the butler had
replied that Lord Percy was confined to his bed and was seeing nobody. He
eyed Jimmy, on receiving his name, with an interest which he failed to
conceal, for he too, like Bayliss, had read and heartily enjoyed Bill
Blake's spirited version of the affair of last night which had appeared in
the Daily Sun. Indeed, he had clipped the report out and had been
engaged in pasting it in an album when the bell rang.

In face of this repulse, Jimmy's campaign broke down. He was at a loss to
know what to do next. He ebbed away from the Duke's front door like an
army that has made an unsuccessful frontal attack on an impregnable
fortress. He could hardly force his way in and search for Lord Percy.

He walked along Pall Mall, deep in thought. It was a beautiful day. The
rain which had fallen in the night and relieved Mr. Crocker from the
necessity of watching cricket had freshened London up.

The sun was shining now from a turquoise sky. A gentle breeze blew from
the south. Jimmy made his way into Piccadilly, and found that thoroughfare
a-roar with happy automobilists and cheery pedestrians. Their gaiety
irritated him. He resented their apparent enjoyment of life.

Jimmy's was not a nature that lent itself readily to introspection, but he
was putting himself now through a searching self-examination which was
revealing all kinds of unsuspected flaws in his character. He had been
having too good a time for years past to have leisure to realise that he
possessed any responsibilities. He had lived each day as it came in the
spirit of the Monks of Thelema. But his father's reception of the news of
last night's escapade and the few words he had said had given him pause.
Life had taken on of a sudden a less simple aspect. Dimly, for he was not
accustomed to thinking along these lines, he perceived the numbing truth
that we human beings are merely as many pieces in a jig-saw puzzle and
that our every movement affects the fortunes of some other piece. Just so,
faintly at first and taking shape by degrees, must the germ of civic
spirit have come to Prehistoric Man. We are all individualists till we
wake up.

The thought of having done anything to make his father unhappy was bitter
to Jimmy Crocker. They had always been more like brothers than father and
son. Hard thoughts about himself surged through Jimmy's mind. With a
dejectedness to which it is possible that his headache contributed he put
the matter squarely to himself. His father was longing to return to
America—he, Jimmy, by his idiotic behaviour was putting obstacles in
the way of that return—what was the answer? The answer, to Jimmy's
way of thinking, was that all was not well with James Crocker, that, when
all the evidence was weighed, James Crocker would appear to be a fool, a
worm, a selfish waster, and a hopeless, low-down skunk.

Having come to this conclusion, Jimmy found himself so low in spirit that
the cheerful bustle of Piccadilly was too much for him. He turned, and
began to retrace his steps. Arriving in due course at the top of the
Haymarket he hesitated, then turned down it till he reached Cockspur
Street. Here the Trans-Atlantic steamship companies have their offices,
and so it came about that Jimmy, chancing to look up as he walked,
perceived before him, riding gallantly on a cardboard ocean behind a
plate-glass window, the model of a noble vessel. He stopped, conscious of
a curious thrill. There is a superstition in all of us. When an accidental
happening chances to fit smoothly in with a mood, seeming to come as a
direct commentary on that mood, we are apt to accept it in defiance of our
pure reason as an omen. Jimmy strode to the window and inspected the model
narrowly. The sight of it had started a new train of thought. His heart
began to race. Hypnotic influences were at work on him.

Why not? Could there be a simpler solution of the whole trouble?

Inside the office he would see a man with whiskers buying a ticket for New
York. The simplicity of the process fascinated him. All you had to do was
to walk in, bend over the counter while the clerk behind it made dabs with
a pencil at the illustrated plate of the ship's interior organs, and hand
over your money. A child could do it, if in funds. At this thought his
hand strayed to his trouser-pocket. A musical crackling of bank-notes
proceeded from the depths. His quarterly allowance had been paid to him
only a short while before, and, though a willing spender, he still
retained a goodly portion of it. He rustled the notes again. There was
enough in that pocket to buy three tickets to New York. Should he? . . .
Or, on the other hand—always look on both sides of the question—should
he not?

It would certainly seem to be the best thing for all parties if he did
follow the impulse. By remaining in London he was injuring everybody,
himself included. . . . Well, there was no harm in making enquiries.
Probably the boat was full up anyway. . . . He walked into the office.

"Have you anything left on the Atlantic this trip?"

The clerk behind the counter was quite the wrong sort of person for Jimmy
to have had dealings with in his present mood. What Jimmy needed was a
grave, sensible man who would have laid a hand on his shoulder and said
"Do nothing rash, my boy!" The clerk fell short of this ideal in
practically every particular. He was about twenty-two, and he seemed
perfectly enthusiastic about the idea of Jimmy going to America. He beamed
at Jimmy.

"Plenty of room," he said. "Very few people crossing. Give you excellent
accommodation."

"When does the boat sail?"

"Eight to-morrow morning from Liverpool. Boat-train leaves Paddington six
to-night."

Prudence came at the eleventh hour to check Jimmy. This was not a matter,
he perceived, to be decided recklessly, on the spur of a sudden impulse.
Above all, it was not a matter to be decided before lunch. An empty
stomach breeds imagination. He had ascertained that he could sail on the
Atlantic if he wished to. The sensible thing to do now was to go
and lunch and see how he felt about it after that. He thanked the clerk,
and started to walk up the Haymarket, feeling hard-headed and practical,
yet with a strong premonition that he was going to make a fool of himself
just the same.

It was half-way up the Haymarket that he first became conscious of the
girl with the red hair.

Plunged in thought, he had not noticed her before. And yet she had been
walking a few paces in front of him most of the way. She had come out of
Panton Street, walking briskly, as one going to keep a pleasant
appointment. She carried herself admirably, with a jaunty swing.

Having become conscious of this girl, Jimmy, ever a warm admirer of the
sex, began to feel a certain interest stealing over him. With interest
came speculation. He wondered who she was. He wondered where she had
bought that excellently fitting suit of tailor-made grey. He admired her
back, and wondered whether her face, if seen, would prove a
disappointment. Thus musing, he drew near to the top of the Haymarket,
where it ceases to be a street and becomes a whirlpool of rushing traffic.
And here the girl, having paused and looked over her shoulder, stepped off
the sidewalk. As she did so a taxi-cab rounded the corner quickly from the
direction of Coventry Street.

The agreeable surprise of finding the girl's face fully as attractive as
her back had stimulated Jimmy, so that he was keyed up for the exhibition
of swift presence-of-mind. He jumped forward and caught her arm, and swung
her to one side as the cab rattled past, its driver thinking hard thoughts
to himself. The whole episode was an affair of seconds.

"Thank you," said the girl.

She rubbed the arm which he had seized with rather a rueful expression.
She was a little white, and her breath came quickly.

"I hope I didn't hurt you," said Jimmy.

"You did. Very much. But the taxi would have hurt me more."

She laughed. She looked very attractive when she laughed. She had a small,
piquant, vivacious face. Jimmy, as he looked at it, had an odd feeling
that he had seen her before—when and where he did not know. That
mass of red-gold hair seemed curiously familiar. Somewhere in the
hinterland of his mind there lurked a memory, but he could not bring it
into the open. As for the girl, if she had ever met him before, she showed
no signs of recollecting it. Jimmy decided that, if he had seen her, it
must have been in his reporter days. She was plainly an American, and he
occasionally had the feeling that he had seen every one in America when he
had worked for the Chronicle.

"That's right," he said approvingly. "Always look on the bright side."

"I only arrived in London yesterday," said the girl, "and I haven't got
used to your keeping-to-the-left rules. I don't suppose I shall ever get
back to New York alive. Perhaps, as you have saved my life, you wouldn't
mind doing me another service. Can you tell me which is the nearest and
safest way to a restaurant called the Regent Grill?"

"It's just over there, at the corner of Regent Street. As to the safest
way, if I were you I should cross over at the top of the street there and
then work round westward. Otherwise you will have to cross Piccadilly
Circus."

"I absolutely refuse even to try to cross Piccadilly Circus. Thank you
very much. I will follow your advice. I hope I shall get there. It doesn't
seem at all likely."

She gave him a little nod, and moved away. Jimmy turned into that
drug-store at the top of the Haymarket at which so many Londoners have
found healing and comfort on the morning after, and bought the pink drink
for which his system had been craving since he rose from bed. He wondered
why, as he drained it, he should feel ashamed and guilty.

A few minutes later he found himself, with mild surprise, going down the
steps of the Regent Grill. It was the last place he had had in his mind
when he had left the steamship company's offices in quest of lunch. He had
intended to seek out some quiet, restful nook where he could be alone with
his thoughts. If anybody had told him then that five minutes later he
would be placing himself of his own free will within the range of a
restaurant orchestra playing "My Little Grey Home in the West"—and
the orchestra at the Regent played little else—he would not have
believed him.

Restaurants in all large cities have their ups and downs. At this time the
Regent Grill was enjoying one of those bursts of popularity for which
restaurateurs pray to whatever strange gods they worship. The more
prosperous section of London's Bohemia flocked to it daily. When Jimmy had
deposited his hat with the robber-band who had their cave just inside the
main entrance and had entered the grill-room, he found it congested. There
did not appear to be a single unoccupied table.

From where he stood he could see the girl of the red-gold hair. Her back
was towards him, and she was sitting at a table against one of the pillars
with a little man with eye-glasses, a handsome woman in the forties, and a
small stout boy who was skirmishing with the olives. As Jimmy hesitated,
the vigilant head-waiter, who knew him well, perceived him, and hurried
up.

"In one moment, Mister Crockaire!" he said, and began to scatter commands
among the underlings. "I will place a table for you in the aisle."

"Next to that pillar, please," said Jimmy.

The underlings had produced a small table—apparently from up their
sleeves, and were draping it in a cloth. Jimmy sat down and gave his
order. Ordering was going on at the other table. The little man seemed
depressed at the discovery that corn on the cob and soft-shelled crabs
were not to be obtained, and his wife's reception of the news that clams
were not included in the Regent's bill-of-fare was so indignant that one
would have said that she regarded the fact as evidence that Great Britain
was going to pieces and would shortly lose her place as a world power.

A selection having finally been agreed upon, the orchestra struck up "My
Little Grey Home in the West," and no attempt was made to compete with it.
When the last lingering strains had died away and the violinist-leader,
having straightened out the kinks in his person which the rendition of the
melody never failed to produce, had bowed for the last time, a clear,
musical voice spoke from the other side of the pillar.

"Jimmy Crocker is a WORM!"

Jimmy spilled his cocktail. It might have been the voice of Conscience.

"I despise him more than any one on earth. I hate to think that he's an
American."

Jimmy drank the few drops that remained in his glass, partly to make sure
of them, partly as a restorative. It is an unnerving thing to be despised
by a red-haired girl whose life you have just saved. To Jimmy it was not
only unnerving; it was uncanny. This girl had not known him when they met
on the street a few moments before. How then was she able to display such
intimate acquaintance with his character now as to describe him—justly
enough—as a worm? Mingled with the mystery of the thing was its
pathos. The thought that a girl could be as pretty as this one and yet
dislike him so much was one of the saddest things Jimmy had ever come
across. It was like one of those Things Which Make Me Weep In This Great
City so dear to the hearts of the sob-writers of his late newspaper.

A waiter bustled up with a high-ball. Jimmy thanked him with his eyes. He
needed it. He raised it to his lips.

"He's always drinking—"

He set it down hurriedly.

"—and making a disgraceful exhibition of himself in public! I always
think Jimmy Crocker—"

Jimmy began to wish that somebody would stop this girl. Why couldn't the
little man change the subject to the weather, or that stout child start
prattling about some general topic? Surely a boy of that age, newly
arrived in London, must have all sorts of things to prattle about? But the
little man was dealing strenuously with a breaded cutlet, while the stout
boy, grimly silent, surrounded fish-pie in the forthright manner of a
starving python. As for the elder woman, she seemed to be wrestling with
unpleasant thoughts, beyond speech.

"—I always think that Jimmy Crocker is the worst case I know of the
kind of American young man who spends all his time in Europe and tries to
become an imitation Englishman. Most of them are the sort any country
would be glad to get rid of, but he used to work once, so you can't excuse
him on the ground that he hasn't the sense to know what he's doing. He's
deliberately chosen to loaf about London and make a pest of himself. He
went to pieces with his eyes open. He's a perfect, utter, hopeless WORM!"

Jimmy had never been very fond of the orchestra at the Regent Grill,
holding the view that it interfered with conversation and made for an
unhygienic rapidity of mastication; but he was profoundly grateful to it
now for bursting suddenly into La Boheme, the loudest item in its
repertory. Under cover of that protective din he was able to toy with a
steaming dish which his waiter had brought. Probably that girl was saying
all sorts of things about him still but he could not hear them.

The music died away. For a moment the tortured air quivered in comparative
silence; then the girl's voice spoke again. She had, however, selected
another topic of conversation.

"I've seen all I want to of England," she said, "I've seen Westminster
Abbey and the Houses of Parliament and His Majesty's Theatre and the Savoy
and the Cheshire Cheese, and I've developed a frightful home-sickness. Why
shouldn't we go back to-morrow?"

For the first time in the proceedings the elder woman spoke. She cast
aside her mantle of gloom long enough to say "Yes," then wrapped it round
her again. The little man, who had apparently been waiting for her vote
before giving his own, said that the sooner he was on board a New
York-bound boat the better he would be pleased. The stout boy said
nothing. He had finished his fish-pie, and was now attacking jam roll with
a sort of morose resolution.

"There's certain to be a boat," said the girl. "There always is. You've
got to say that for England—it's an easy place to get back to
America from." She paused. "What I can't understand is how, after having
been in America and knowing what it was like, Jimmy Crocker could stand
living . . ."

The waiter had come to Jimmy's side, bearing cheese; but Jimmy looked at
it with dislike and shook his head in silent negation. He was about to
depart from this place. His capacity for absorbing home-truths about
himself was exhausted. He placed a noiseless sovereign on the table,
caught the waiter's eye, registered renunciation, and departed soft-footed
down the aisle. The waiter, a man who had never been able to bring himself
to believe in miracles, revised the views of a life-time. He looked at the
sovereign, then at Jimmy, then at the sovereign again. Then he took up the
coin and bit it furtively.

A few minutes later, a hat-check boy, untipped for the first time in his
predatory career, was staring at Jimmy with equal intensity, but with far
different feelings. Speechless concern was limned on his young face.

The commissionaire at the Piccadilly entrance of the restaurant touched
his hat ingratiatingly, with the smug confidence of a man who is
accustomed to getting sixpence a time for doing it.

"Taxi, Mr. Crocker?"

"A worm," said Jimmy.

"Beg pardon, sir?"

"Always drinking," explained Jimmy, "and making a pest of himself."

He passed on. The commissionaire stared after him as intently as the
waiter and the hat-check boy. He had sometimes known Mr. Crocker like this
after supper, but never before during the luncheon hour.

Jimmy made his way to his club in Northumberland Avenue. For perhaps half
an hour he sat in a condition of coma in the smoking-room; then, his mind
made up, he went to one of the writing-tables. He sat awaiting inspiration
for some minutes, then began to write.

The letter he wrote was to his father:

Dear Dad:

I have been thinking over what we talked about this morning, and it seems
to me the best thing I can do is to drop out of sight for a brief space.
If I stay on in London, I am likely at any moment to pull some boner like
last night's which will spill the beans for you once more. The least I can
do for you is to give you a clear field and not interfere, so I am off to
New York by to-night's boat.

I went round to Percy's to try to grovel in the dust before him, but he
wouldn't see me. It's no good grovelling in the dust of the front steps
for the benefit of a man who's in bed on the second floor, so I withdrew
in more or less good order. I then got the present idea. Mark how all
things work together for good. When they come to you and say "No title for
you. Your son slugged our pal Percy," all you have to do is to come back
at them with "I know my son slugged Percy, and believe me I didn't do a
thing to him! I packed him off to America within twenty-four hours. Get me
right, boys! I'm anti-Jimmy and pro-Percy." To which their reply will be
"Oh, well, in that case arise, Lord Crocker!" or whatever they say when
slipping a title to a deserving guy. So you will see that by making this
getaway I am doing the best I can to put things straight. I shall give
this to Bayliss to give to you. I am going to call him up on the phone in
a minute to have him pack a few simple tooth-brushes and so on for me. On
landing in New York, I shall instantly proceed to the Polo Grounds to
watch a game of Rounders, and will cable you the full score. Well. I think
that's about all. So good-bye—or even farewell—for the
present.

J.

P.S. I know you'll understand, dad. I'm doing what seems to me the only
possible thing. Don't worry about me. I shall be all right. I'll get back
my old job and be a terrific success all round. You go ahead and get that
title and then meet me at the entrance of the Polo Grounds. I'll be
looking for you.

P.P.S. I'm a worm.

The young clerk at the steamship offices appeared rejoiced to see Jimmy
once more. With a sunny smile he snatched a pencil from his ear and
plunged it into the vitals of the Atlantic.

"How about E. a hundred and eight?"

"Suits me."

"You're too late to go in the passenger-list, of course."

Jimmy did not reply. He was gazing rigidly at a girl who had just come in,
a girl with red hair and a friendly smile.

"So you're sailing on the Atlantic, too!" she said, with a glance
at the chart on the counter. "How odd! We have just decided to go back on
her too. There's nothing to keep us here and we're all homesick. Well, you
see I wasn't run over after I left you."

A delicious understanding relieved Jimmy's swimming brain, as thunder
relieves the tense and straining air. The feeling that he was going mad
left him, as the simple solution of his mystery came to him. This girl
must have heard of him in New York—perhaps she knew people whom he
knew and it was on hearsay, not on personal acquaintance, that she based
that dislike of him which she had expressed with such freedom and
conviction so short a while before at the Regent Grill. She did not know
who he was!

Into this soothing stream of thought cut the voice of the clerk.

"What name, please?"

Jimmy's mind rocked again. Why were these things happening to him to-day
of all days, when he needed the tenderest treatment, when he had a
headache already?

The clerk was eyeing him expectantly. He had laid down his pencil and was
holding aloft a pen. Jimmy gulped. Every name in the English language had
passed from his mind. And then from out of the dark came inspiration.

"Bayliss," he croaked.

The girl held out her hand.

"Then we can introduce ourselves at last. My name is Ann Chester. How do
you do, Mr. Bayliss?"

"How do you do, Miss Chester?"

The clerk had finished writing the ticket, and was pressing labels and a
pink paper on him. The paper, he gathered dully, was a form and had to be
filled up. He examined it, and found it to be a searching document. Some
of its questions could be answered off-hand, others required thought.

"Height?" Simple. Five foot eleven.

"Hair?" Simple. Brown.

"Eyes?" Simple again. Blue.

Next, queries of a more offensive kind.

"Are you a polygamist?"

He could answer that. Decidedly no. One wife would be ample—provided
she had red-gold hair, brown-gold eyes, the right kind of mouth, and a
dimple. Whatever doubts there might be in his mind on other points, on
that one he had none whatever.

"Have you ever been in prison?"

Not yet.

And then a very difficult one. "Are you a lunatic?"

Jimmy hesitated. The ink dried on his pen. He was wondering.

                    *   *   *

In the dim cavern of Paddington Station the boat-train snorted
impatiently, varying the process with an occasional sharp shriek. The
hands of the station clock pointed to ten minutes to six. The platform was
a confused mass of travellers, porters, baggage, trucks, boys with buns
and fruits, boys with magazines, friends, relatives, and Bayliss the
butler, standing like a faithful watchdog beside a large suitcase. To the
human surf that broke and swirled about him he paid no attention. He was
looking for the young master.

Jimmy clove the crowd like a one-man flying-wedge. Two fruit and bun boys
who impeded his passage drifted away like leaves on an Autumn gale.

"Good man!" He possessed himself of the suitcase. "I was afraid you might
not be able to get here."

"The mistress is dining out, Mr. James. I was able to leave the house."

"Have you packed everything I shall want?"

"Within the scope of a suitcase, yes, sir."

"Splendid! Oh, by the way, give this letter to my father, will you?"

"Very good, sir."

"I'm glad you were able to manage. I thought your voice sounded doubtful
over the phone."

"I was a good deal taken aback, Mr. James. Your decision to leave was so
extremely sudden."

"So was Columbus'. You know about him? He saw an egg standing on its head
and whizzed off like a jack-rabbit."

"If you will pardon the liberty, Mr. James, is it not a little rash—?"

"Don't take the joy out of life, Bayliss. I may be a chump, but try to
forget it. Use your willpower."

"Good evening, Mr. Bayliss," said a voice behind them. They both turned.
The butler was gazing rather coyly at a vision in a grey tailor-made suit.

"Good evening, miss," he said doubtfully.

Ann looked at him in astonishment, then broke into a smile.

"How stupid of me! I meant this Mr. Bayliss. Your son! We met at the
steamship offices. And before that he saved my life. So we are old
friends."

Bayliss, gaping perplexedly and feeling unequal to the intellectual
pressure of the conversation, was surprised further to perceive a warning
scowl on the face of his Mr. James. Jimmy had not foreseen this thing, but
he had a quick mind and was equal to it.

"How are you, Miss Chester? My father has come down to see me off. This is
Miss Chester, dad."

A British butler is not easily robbed of his poise, but Bayliss was
frankly unequal to the sudden demand on his presence of mind. He lowered
his jaw an inch or two, but spoke no word.

"Dad's a little upset at my going," whispered Jimmy confidentially. "He's
not quite himself."

Ann was a girl possessed not only of ready tact but of a kind heart. She
had summed up Mr. Bayliss at a glance. Every line of him proclaimed him a
respectable upper servant. No girl on earth could have been freer than she
of snobbish prejudice, but she could not check a slight thrill of surprise
and disappointment at the discovery of Jimmy's humble origin. She
understood everything, and there were tears in her eyes as she turned away
to avoid intruding on the last moments of the parting of father and son.

"I'll see you on the boat, Mr. Bayliss," she said.

"Eh?" said Bayliss.

"Yes, yes," said Jimmy. "Good-bye till then."

Ann walked on to her compartment. She felt as if she had just read a whole
long novel, one of those chunky younger-English-novelist things. She knew
the whole story as well as if it had been told to her in detail. She could
see the father, the honest steady butler, living his life with but one
aim, to make a gentleman of his beloved only son. Year by year he had
saved. Probably he had sent the son to college. And now, with a father's
blessing and the remains of a father's savings, the boy was setting out
for the New World, where dollar-bills grew on trees and no one asked or
cared who any one else's father might be.

There was a lump in her throat. Bayliss would have been amazed if he could
have known what a figure of pathetic fineness he seemed to her. And then
her thoughts turned to Jimmy, and she was aware of a glow of kindliness
towards him. His father had succeeded in his life's ambition. He had
produced a gentleman! How easily and simply, without a trace of snobbish
shame, the young man had introduced his father. There was the right stuff
in him. He was not ashamed of the humble man who had given him his chance
in life. She found herself liking Jimmy amazingly . . .

The hands of the clock pointed to three minutes to the hour. Porters
skimmed to and fro like water-beetles.

"I can't explain," said Jimmy. "It wasn't temporary insanity; it was
necessity."

"Very good, Mr. James. I think you had better be taking your seat now."

"Quite right, I had. It would spoil the whole thing if they left me
behind. Bayliss, did you ever see such eyes? Such hair! Look after my
father while I am away. Don't let the dukes worry him. Oh, and, Bayliss"—Jimmy
drew his hand from his pocket—"as one pal to another—"

Bayliss looked at the crackling piece of paper.

"I couldn't, Mr. James, I really couldn't! A five-pound note! I couldn't!"

"Nonsense! Be a sport!"

"Begging your pardon, Mr. James, I really couldn't. You cannot afford to
throw away your money like this. You cannot have a great deal of it, if
you will excuse me for saying so."

"I won't do anything of the sort. Grab it! Oh, Lord, the train's starting!
Good-bye, Bayliss!"

The engine gave a final shriek of farewell. The train began to slide along
the platform, pursued to the last by optimistic boys offering buns for
sale. It gathered speed. Jimmy, leaning out the window, was amazed at a
spectacle so unusual as practically to amount to a modern miracle—the
spectacled Bayliss running. The butler was not in the pink of condition,
but he was striding out gallantly. He reached the door of Jimmy's
compartment, and raised his hand.

"Begging your pardon, Mr. James," he panted, "for taking the liberty, but
I really couldn't!"

He reached up and thrust something into Jimmy's hand, something crisp and
crackling. Then, his mission performed, fell back and stood waving a snowy
handkerchief. The train plunged into the tunnel.

Jimmy stared at the five-pound note. He was aware, like Ann farther along
the train, of a lump in his throat. He put the note slowly into his
pocket.

The train moved on.

CHAPTER VII — ON THE BOAT-DECK

Rising waters and a fine flying scud that whipped stingingly over the side
had driven most of the passengers on the Atlantic to the shelter of
their staterooms or to the warm stuffiness of the library. It was the
fifth evening of the voyage. For five days and four nights the ship had
been racing through a placid ocean on her way to Sandy Hook: but in the
early hours of this afternoon the wind had shifted to the north, bringing
heavy seas. Darkness had begun to fall now. The sky was a sullen black.
The white crests of the rollers gleamed faintly in the dusk, and the wind
sang in the ropes.

Jimmy and Ann had had the boat-deck to themselves for half an hour. Jimmy
was a good sailor: it exhilarated him to fight the wind and to walk a deck
that heaved and dipped and shuddered beneath his feet; but he had not
expected to have Ann's company on such an evening. But she had come out of
the saloon entrance, her small face framed in a hood and her slim body
shapeless beneath a great cloak, and joined him in his walk.

Jimmy was in a mood of exaltation. He had passed the last few days in a
condition of intermittent melancholy, consequent on the discovery that he
was not the only man on board the Atlantic who desired the society
of Ann as an alleviation of the tedium of an ocean voyage. The world, when
he embarked on this venture, had consisted so exclusively of Ann and
himself that, until the ship was well on its way to Queenstown, he had not
conceived the possibility of intrusive males forcing their unwelcome
attentions on her. And it had added bitterness to the bitter awakening
that their attentions did not appear to be at all unwelcome. Almost
immediately after breakfast on the very first day, a creature with a small
black moustache and shining teeth had descended upon Ann and, vocal with
surprise and pleasure at meeting her again—he claimed, damn him!, to
have met her before at Palm Beach, Bar Harbor, and a dozen other places—had
carried her off to play an idiotic game known as shuffle-board. Nor was
this an isolated case. It began to be borne in upon Jimmy that Ann, whom
he had looked upon purely in the light of an Eve playing opposite his Adam
in an exclusive Garden of Eden, was an extremely well-known and popular
character. The clerk at the shipping-office had lied absurdly when he had
said that very few people were crossing on the Atlantic this
voyage. The vessel was crammed till its sides bulged, it was loaded down
in utter defiance of the Plimsoll law, with Rollos and Clarences and
Dwights and Twombleys who had known and golfed and ridden and driven and
motored and swum and danced with Ann for years. A ghastly being entitled
Edgar Something or Teddy Something had beaten Jimmy by a short head in the
race for the deck-steward, the prize of which was the placing of his
deck-chair next to Ann's. Jimmy had been driven from the promenade deck by
the spectacle of this beastly creature lying swathed in rugs reading
best-sellers to her.

He had scarcely seen her to speak to since the beginning of the voyage.
When she was not walking with Rolly or playing shuffle-board with
Twombley, she was down below ministering to the comfort of a chronically
sea-sick aunt, referred to in conversation as "poor aunt Nesta". Sometimes
Jimmy saw the little man—presumably her uncle—in the
smoking-room, and once he came upon the stout boy recovering from the
effects of a cigar in a quiet corner of the boat-deck: but apart from
these meetings the family was as distant from him as if he had never seen
Ann at all—let alone saved her life.

And now she had dropped down on him from heaven. They were alone together
with the good clean wind and the bracing scud. Rollo, Clarence, Dwight,
and Twombley, not to mention Edgar or possibly Teddy, were down below—he
hoped, dying. They had the world to themselves.

"I love rough weather," said Ann, lifting her face to the wind. Her eyes
were very bright. She was beyond any doubt or question the only girl on
earth. "Poor aunt Nesta doesn't. She was bad enough when it was quite
calm, but this storm has finished her. I've just been down below, trying
to cheer her up."

Jimmy thrilled at the picture. Always fascinating, Ann seemed to him at
her best in the role of ministering angel. He longed to tell her so, but
found no words. They reached the end of the deck, and turned. Ann looked
up at him.

"I've hardly seen anything of you since we sailed," she said. She spoke
almost reproachfully. "Tell me all about yourself, Mr. Bayliss. Why are
you going to America?"

Jimmy had had an impassioned indictment of the Rollos on his tongue, but
she had closed the opening for it as quickly as she had made it. In face
of her direct demand for information he could not hark back to it now.
After all, what did the Rollos matter? They had no part in this little
wind-swept world: they were where they belonged, in some nether hell on
the C. or D. deck, moaning for death.

"To make a fortune, I hope," he said.

Ann was pleased at this confirmation of her diagnosis. She had deduced
this from the evidence at Paddington Station.

"How pleased your father will be if you do!"

The slight complexity of Jimmy's affairs caused him to pause for a moment
to sort out his fathers, but an instant's reflection told him that she
must be referring to Bayliss the butler.

"Yes."

"He's a dear old man," said Ann. "I suppose he's very proud of you?"

"I hope so."

"You must do tremendously well in America, so as not to disappoint him.
What are you thinking of doing?"

Jimmy considered for a moment.

"Newspaper work, I think."

"Oh? Why, have you had any experience?"

"A little."

Ann seemed to grow a little aloof, as if her enthusiasm had been damped.

"Oh, well, I suppose it's a good enough profession. I'm not very fond of
it myself. I've only met one newspaper man in my life, and I dislike him
very much, so I suppose that has prejudiced me."

"Who was that?"

"You wouldn't have met him. He was on an American paper. A man named
Crocker."

A sudden gust of wind drove them back a step, rendering talk impossible.
It covered a gap when Jimmy could not have spoken. The shock of the
information that Ann had met him before made him dumb. This thing was
beyond him. It baffled him.

Her next words supplied a solution. They were under shelter of one of the
boats now and she could make herself heard.

"It was five years ago, and I only met him for a very short while, but the
prejudice has lasted."

Jimmy began to understand. Five years ago! It was not so strange, then,
that they should not recognise each other now. He stirred up his memory.
Nothing came to the surface. Not a gleam of recollection of that early
meeting rewarded him. And yet something of importance must have happened
then, for her to remember it. Surely his mere personality could not have
been so unpleasant as to have made such a lasting impression on her!

"I wish you could do something better than newspaper work," said Ann. "I
always think the splendid part about America is that it is such a land of
adventure. There are such millions of chances. It's a place where anything
may happen. Haven't you an adventurous soul, Mr. Bayliss?"

No man lightly submits to a charge, even a hinted charge, of being
deficient in the capacity for adventure.

"Of course I have," said Jimmy indignantly. "I'm game to tackle anything
that comes along."

"I'm glad of that."

Her feeling of comradeship towards this young man deepened. She loved
adventure and based her estimate of any member of the opposite sex largely
on his capacity for it. She moved in a set, when at home, which was more
polite than adventurous, and had frequently found the atmosphere
enervating.

"Adventure," said Jimmy, "is everything."

He paused. "Or a good deal," he concluded weakly.

"Why qualify it like that? It sounds so tame. Adventure is the biggest
thing in life."

It seemed to Jimmy that he had received an excuse for a remark of a kind
that had been waiting for utterance ever since he had met her. Often and
often in the watches of the night, smoking endless pipes and thinking of
her, he had conjured up just such a vision as this—they two walking
the deserted deck alone, and she innocently giving him an opening for some
low-voiced, tender speech, at which she would start, look at him quickly,
and then ask him haltingly if the words had any particular application.
And after that—oh, well, all sorts of things might happen. And now
the moment had come. It was true that he had always pictured the scene as
taking place by moonlight and at present there was a half-gale blowing,
out of an inky sky; also on the present occasion anything in the nature of
a low-voiced speech was absolutely out of the question owing to the uproar
of the elements. Still, taking these drawbacks into consideration, the
chance was far too good to miss. Such an opening might never happen again.
He waited till the ship had steadied herself after an apparently suicidal
dive into an enormous roller, then, staggering back to her side, spoke.

"Love is the biggest thing in life!" he roared.

"What is?" shrieked Ann.

"Love!" bellowed Jimmy.

He wished a moment later that he had postponed this statement of faith,
for their next steps took them into a haven of comparative calm, where
some dimly seen portion of the vessel's anatomy jutted out and formed a
kind of nook where it was possible to hear the ordinary tones of the human
voice. He halted here, and Ann did the same, though unwillingly. She was
conscious of a feeling of disappointment and of a modification of her mood
of comradeship towards her companion. She held strong views, which she
believed to be unalterable, on the subject under discussion.

"Love!" she said. It was too dark to see her face, but her voice sounded
unpleasantly scornful. "I shouldn't have thought that you would have been
so conventional as that. You seemed different."

"Eh?" said Jimmy blankly.

"I hate all this talk about Love, as if it were something wonderful that
was worth everything else in life put together. Every book you read and
every song that you see in the shop-windows is all about Love. It's as if
the whole world were in a conspiracy to persuade themselves that there's a
wonderful something just round the corner which they can get if they try
hard enough. And they hypnotise themselves into thinking of nothing else
and miss all the splendid things of life."

"That's Shaw, isn't it?" said Jimmy.

"What is Shaw?"

"What you were saying. It's out of one of Bernard Shaw's things, isn't
it?"

"It is not." A note of acidity had crept into Ann's voice. "It is
perfectly original."

"I'm certain I've heard it before somewhere."

"If you have, that simply means that you must have associated with some
sensible person."

Jimmy was puzzled.

"But why the grouch?" he asked.

"I don't understand you."

"I mean, why do you feel that way about it?"

Ann was quite certain now that she did not like this young man nearly as
well as she had supposed. It is trying for a strong-minded, clear-thinking
girl to have her philosophy described as a grouch.

"Because I've had the courage to think about it for myself, and not let
myself be blinded by popular superstition. The whole world has united in
making itself imagine that there is something called love which is the
most wonderful happening in life. The poets and novelists have simply
hounded them on to believe it. It's a gigantic swindle."

A wave of tender compassion swept over Jimmy. He understood it all now.
Naturally a girl who had associated all her life with the Rollos,
Clarences, Dwights, and Twombleys would come to despair of the possibility
of falling in love with any one.

"You haven't met the right man," he said. She had, of course, but only
recently: and, anyway, he could point that out later.

"There is no such thing as the right man," said Ann resolutely, "if you
are suggesting that there is a type of man in existence who is capable of
inspiring what is called romantic love. I believe in marriage. . . ."

"Good work!" said Jimmy, well satisfied.

" . . . But not as the result of a sort of delirium. I believe in it as a
sensible partnership between two friends who know each other well and
trust each other. The right way of looking at marriage is to realise,
first of all, that there are no thrills, no romances, and then to pick out
some one who is nice and kind and amusing and full of life and willing to
do things to make you happy."

"Ah!" said Jimmy, straightening his tie, "Well, that's something."

"How do you mean—that's something? Are you shocked at my views?"

"I don't believe they are your views. You've been reading one of these
stern, soured fellows who analyse things."

Ann stamped. The sound was inaudible, but Jimmy noticed the movement.

"Cold?" he said. "Let's walk on."

Ann's sense of humour reasserted itself. It was not often that it remained
dormant for so long. She laughed.

"I know exactly what you are thinking," she said. "You believe that I am
posing, that those aren't my real opinions."

"They can't be. But I don't think you are posing. It's getting on for
dinner-time, and you've got that wan, sinking feeling that makes you look
upon the world and find it a hollow fraud. The bugle will be blowing in a
few minutes, and half an hour after that you will be yourself again."

"I'm myself now. I suppose you can't realise that a pretty girl can hold
such views."

Jimmy took her arm.

"Let me help you," he said. "There's a knothole in the deck. Watch your
step. Now, listen to me. I'm glad you've brought up this subject—I
mean the subject of your being the prettiest girl in the known world—"

"I never said that."

"Your modesty prevented you. But it's a fact, nevertheless. I'm glad, I
say, because I have been thinking a lot along those lines myself, and I
have been anxious to discuss the point with you. You have the most
glorious hair I have ever seen!"

"Do you like red hair?"

"Red-gold."

"It is nice of you to put it like that. When I was a child all except a
few of the other children called me Carrots."

"They have undoubtedly come to a bad end by this time. If bears were sent
to attend to the children who criticised Elijah, your little friends were
in line for a troupe of tigers. But there were some of a finer fibre?
There were a few who didn't call you Carrots?"

"One or two. They called me Brick-Top."

"They have probably been electrocuted since. Your eyes are perfectly
wonderful!"

Ann withdrew her arm. An extensive acquaintance of young men told her that
the topic of conversation was now due to be changed.

"You will like America," she said.

"We are not discussing America."

"I am. It is a wonderful country for a man who wants to succeed. If I were
you, I should go out West."

"Do you live out West?"

"No."

"Then why suggest my going there? Where do you live?"

"I live in New York."

"I shall stay in New York, then."

Ann was wary, but amused. Proposals of marriage—and Jimmy seemed to
be moving swiftly towards one—were no novelty in her life. In the
course of several seasons at Bar Harbor, Tuxedo, Palm Beach, and in New
York itself, she had spent much of her time foiling and discouraging the
ardour of a series of sentimental youths who had laid their unwelcome
hearts at her feet.

"New York is open for staying in about this time, I believe."

Jimmy was silent. He had done his best to fight a tendency to become
depressed and had striven by means of a light tone to keep himself
resolutely cheerful, but the girl's apparently total indifference to him
was too much for his spirits. One of the young men who had had to pick up
the heart he had flung at Ann's feet and carry it away for repairs had
once confided to an intimate friend, after the sting had to some extent
passed, that the feelings of a man who made love to Ann might be likened
to the emotions which hot chocolate might be supposed to entertain on
contact with vanilla ice-cream. Jimmy, had the comparison been presented
to him, would have endorsed its perfect accuracy. The wind from the sea,
until now keen and bracing, had become merely infernally cold. The song of
the wind in the rigging, erstwhile melodious, had turned into a damned
depressing howling.

"I used to be as sentimental as any one a few years ago," said Ann,
returning to the dropped subject. "Just after I left college, I was quite
maudlin. I dreamed of moons and Junes and loves and doves all the time.
Then something happened which made me see what a little fool I was. It
wasn't pleasant at the time, but it had a very bracing effect. I have been
quite different ever since. It was a man, of course, who did it. His
method was quite simple. He just made fun of me, and Nature did the rest."

Jimmy scowled in the darkness. Murderous thoughts towards the unknown
brute flooded his mind.

"I wish I could meet him!" he growled.

"You aren't likely to," said Ann. "He lives in England. His name is
Crocker. Jimmy Crocker. I spoke about him just now."

Through the howling of the wind cut the sharp notes of a bugle. Ann turned
to the saloon entrance.

"Dinner!" she said brightly. "How hungry one gets on board ship!" She
stopped. "Aren't you coming down, Mr. Bayliss?"

"Not just yet," said Jimmy thickly.

CHAPTER VIII — PAINFUL SCENE IN A CAFE

The noonday sun beat down on Park Row. Hurrying mortals, released from a
thousand offices, congested the sidewalks, their thoughts busy with the
vision of lunch. Up and down the canyon of Nassau Street the crowds moved
more slowly. Candy-selling aliens jostled newsboys, and huge dray-horses
endeavoured to the best of their ability not to grind the citizenry
beneath their hooves. Eastward, pressing on to the City Hall, surged the
usual dense army of happy lovers on their way to buy marriage-licenses.
Men popped in and out of the subway entrances like rabbits. It was a
stirring, bustling scene, typical of this nerve-centre of New York's vast
body.

Jimmy Crocker, standing in the doorway, watched the throngs enviously.
There were men in that crowd who chewed gum, there were men who wore white
satin ties with imitation diamond stick-pins, there were men who, having
smoked seven-tenths of a cigar, were eating the remainder: but there was
not one with whom he would not at that moment willingly have exchanged
identities. For these men had jobs. And in his present frame of mind it
seemed to him that no further ingredient was needed for the recipe of the
ultimate human bliss.

The poet has said some very searching and unpleasant things about the man
"whose heart has ne'er within him burned as home his footsteps he has
turned from wandering on some foreign strand," but he might have excused
Jimmy for feeling just then not so much a warmth of heart as a cold and
clammy sensation of dismay. He would have had to admit that the words
"High though his titles, proud his name, boundless his wealth as wish can
claim" did not apply to Jimmy Crocker. The latter may have been
"concentred all on self," but his wealth consisted of one hundred and
thirty-three dollars and forty cents and his name was so far from being
proud that the mere sight of it in the files of the New York Sunday
Chronicle, the record-room of which he had just been visiting, had
made him consider the fact that he had changed it to Bayliss the most
sensible act of his career.

The reason for Jimmy's lack of enthusiasm as he surveyed the portion of
his native land visible from his doorway is not far to seek. The Atlantic
had docked on Saturday night, and Jimmy, having driven to an excellent
hotel and engaged an expensive room therein, had left instructions at the
desk that breakfast should be served to him at ten o'clock and with it the
Sunday issue of the Chronicle. Five years had passed since he had
seen the dear old rag for which he had reported so many fires, murders,
street-accidents, and weddings: and he looked forward to its perusal as a
formal taking seisin of his long-neglected country. Nothing could
be more fitting and symbolic than that the first morning of his return to
America should find him propped up in bed reading the good old Chronicle.
Among his final meditations as he dropped off to sleep was a gentle
speculation as to who was City editor now and whether the comic supplement
was still featuring the sprightly adventures of the Doughnut family.

A wave of not unmanly sentiment passed over him on the following morning
as he reached out for the paper. The sky-line of New York, seen as the
boat comes up the bay, has its points, and the rattle of the Elevated
trains and the quaint odour of the Subway extend a kindly welcome, but the
thing that really convinces the returned traveller that he is back on
Manhattan Island is the first Sunday paper. Jimmy, like every one else,
began by opening the comic supplement: and as he scanned it a chilly
discomfort, almost a premonition of evil, came upon him. The Doughnut
Family was no more. He knew that it was unreasonable of him to feel as if
he had just been informed of the death of a dear friend, for Pa Doughnut
and his associates had been having their adventures five years before he
had left the country, and even the toughest comic supplementary hero
rarely endures for a decade: but nevertheless the shadow did fall upon his
morning optimism, and he derived no pleasure whatever from the artificial
rollickings of a degraded creature called Old Pop Dill-Pickle who was
offered as a substitute.

But this, he was to discover almost immediately, was a trifling disaster.
It distressed him, but it did not affect his material welfare. Tragedy
really began when he turned to the magazine section. Scarcely had he
started to glance at it when this headline struck him like a bullet:

            PICCADILLY JIM AT IT AGAIN

And beneath it his own name.

Nothing is so capable of diversity as the emotion we feel on seeing our
name unexpectedly in print. We may soar to the heights or we may sink to
the depths. Jimmy did the latter. A mere cursory first inspection of the
article revealed the fact that it was no eulogy. With an unsparing hand
the writer had muck-raked his eventful past, the text on which he hung his
remarks being that ill-fated encounter with Lord Percy Whipple at the Six
Hundred Club. This the scribe had recounted at a length and with a
boisterous vim which outdid even Bill Blake's effort in the London Daily
Sun. Bill Blake had been handicapped by consideration of space and the
fact that he had turned in his copy at an advanced hour when the paper was
almost made up. The present writer was shackled by no restrictions. He had
plenty of room to spread himself in, and he had spread himself. So liberal
had been the editor's views in the respect that, in addition to the
letter-press, the pages contained an unspeakably offensive picture of a
burly young man in an obviously advanced condition of alcoholism raising
his fist to strike a monocled youth in evening dress who had so little
chin that Jimmy was surprised that he had ever been able to hit it. The
only gleam of consolation that he could discover in this repellent drawing
was the fact that the artist had treated Lord Percy even more scurvily
than himself. Among other things, the second son of the Duke of Devizes
was depicted as wearing a coronet—a thing which would have excited
remark even in a London night-club.

Jimmy read the thing through in its entirety three times before he
appreciated a nuance which his disordered mind had at first failed
to grasp—to wit, that this character-sketch of himself was no mere
isolated outburst but apparently one of a series. In several places the
writer alluded unmistakeably to other theses on the same subject.

Jimmy's breakfast congealed on its tray, untouched. That boon which the
gods so seldom bestow, of seeing ourselves as others see us, had been
accorded to him in full measure. By the time he had completed his third
reading he was regarding himself in a purely objective fashion not unlike
the attitude of a naturalist towards some strange and loathesome
manifestation of insect life. So this was the sort of fellow he was! He
wondered they had let him in at a reputable hotel.

The rest of the day he passed in a state of such humility that he could
have wept when the waiters were civil to him. On the Monday morning he
made his way to Park Row to read the files of the Chronicle—a
morbid enterprise, akin to the eccentric behaviour of those priests of
Baal who gashed themselves with knives or of authors who subscribe to
press-clipping agencies.

He came upon another of the articles almost at once, in an issue not a
month old. Then there was a gap of several weeks, and hope revived that
things might not be as bad as he had feared—only to be crushed by
another trenchant screed. After that he set about his excavations
methodically, resolved to know the worst. He knew it in just under two
hours. There it all was—his row with the bookie, his bad behaviour
at the political meeting, his breach-of-promise case. It was a complete
biography.

And the name they called him. Piccadilly Jim! Ugh!

He went out into Park Row, and sought a quiet doorway where he could brood
upon these matters.

It was not immediately that the practical or financial aspect of the
affair came to scourge him. For an appreciable time he suffered in his
self-esteem alone. It seemed to him that all these bustling persons who
passed knew him, that they were casting sidelong glances at him and
laughing derisively, that those who chewed gum chewed it sneeringly and
that those who ate their cigars ate them with thinly-veiled disapproval
and scorn. Then, the passage of time blunting sensitiveness, he found that
there were other and weightier things to consider.

As far as he had had any connected plan of action in his sudden
casting-off of the flesh-pots of London, he had determined as soon as
possible after landing to report at the office of his old paper and apply
for his ancient position. So little thought had he given to the minutiae
of his future plans that it had not occurred to him that he had anything
to do but walk in, slap the gang on the back, and announce that he was
ready to work. Work!—on the staff of a paper whose chief diversion
appeared to be the satirising of his escapades! Even had he possessed the
moral courage—or gall—to make the application, what good would
it be? He was a by-word in a world where he had once been a worthy
citizen. What paper would trust Piccadilly Jim with an assignment? What
paper would consider Piccadilly Jim even on space rates? A chill dismay
crept over him. He seemed to hear the grave voice of Bayliss the butler
speaking in his car as he had spoken so short a while before at Paddington
Station.

"Is it not a little rash, Mr. James?"

Rash was the word. Here he stood, in a country that had no possible use
for him, a country where competition was keen and jobs for the unskilled
infrequent. What on earth was there that he could do?

Well, he could go home. . . . No, he couldn't. His pride revolted at that
solution. Prodigal Son stuff was all very well in its way, but it lost its
impressiveness if you turned up again at home two weeks after you had
left. A decent interval among the husks and swine was essential. Besides,
there was his father to consider. He might be a poor specimen of a fellow,
as witness the Sunday Chronicle passim, but he was not so
poor as to come slinking back to upset things for his father just when he
had done the only decent thing by removing himself. No, that was out of
the question.

What remained? The air of New York is bracing and healthy, but a man
cannot live on it. Obviously he must find a job. But what job?

What could he do?

A gnawing sensation in the region of the waistcoat answered the question.
The solution—which it put forward was, it was true, but a temporary
one, yet it appealed strongly to Jimmy. He had found it admirable at many
crises. He would go and lunch, and it might be that food would bring
inspiration.

He moved from his doorway and crossed to the entrance of the subway. He
caught a timely express, and a few minutes later emerged into the sunlight
again at Grand Central. He made his way westward along Forty-second Street
to the hotel which he thought would meet his needs. He had scarcely
entered it when in a chair by the door he perceived Ann Chester, and at
the sight of her all his depression vanished and he was himself again.

"Why, how do you do, Mr. Bayliss? Are you lunching here?"

"Unless there is some other place that you would prefer," said Jimmy. "I
hope I haven't kept you waiting."

Ann laughed. She was looking very delightful in something soft and green.

"I'm not going to lunch with you. I'm waiting for Mr. Ralstone and his
sister. Do you remember him? He crossed over with us. His chair was next
to mine on the promenade deck."

Jimmy was shocked. When he thought how narrowly she had escaped, poor
girl, from lunching with that insufferable pill Teddy—or was it
Edgar?—he felt quite weak. Recovering himself, he spoke firmly.

"When were they to have met you?"

"At one o'clock."

"It is now five past. You are certainly not going to wait any longer. Come
with me, and we will whistle for cabs."

"Don't be absurd!"

"Come along. I want to talk to you about my future."

"I shall certainly do nothing of the kind," said Ann, rising. She went
with him to the door. "Teddy would never forgive me." She got into the
cab. "It's only because you have appealed to me to help you discuss your
future," she said, as they drove off. "Nothing else would have induced me
. . ."

"I know," said Jimmy. "I felt that I could rely on your womanly sympathy.
Where shall we go?"

"Where do you want to go? Oh, I forget that you have never been in New
York before. By the way, what are your impressions of our glorious
country?"

"Most gratifying, if only I could get a job."

"Tell him to drive to Delmonico's. It's just around the corner on
Forty-fourth Street."

"There are some things round the corner, then?"

"That sounds cryptic. What do you mean."

"You've forgotten our conversation that night on the ship. You refused to
admit the existence of wonderful things just round the corner. You said
some very regrettable things that night. About love, if you remember."

"You can't be going to talk about love at one o'clock in the afternoon!
Talk about your future."

"Love is inextricably mixed up with my future."

"Not with your immediate future. I thought you said that you were trying
to get a job. Have you given up the idea of newspaper work, then?"

"Absolutely."

"Well, I'm rather glad."

The cab drew up at the restaurant door, and the conversation was
interrupted. When they were seated at their table and Jimmy had given an
order to the waiter of absolutely inexcusable extravagance, Ann returned
to the topic.

"Well, now the thing is to find something for you to do."

Jimmy looked round the restaurant with appreciative eyes. The summer
exodus from New York was still several weeks distant, and the place was
full of prosperous-looking lunchers, not one of whom appeared to have a
care or an unpaid bill in the world. The atmosphere was redolent of
substantial bank-balances. Solvency shone from the closely shaven faces of
the men and reflected itself in the dresses of the women. Jimmy sighed.

"I suppose so," he said. "Though for choice I'd like to be one of the Idle
Rich. To my mind the ideal profession is strolling into the office and
touching the old dad for another thousand."

Ann was severe.

"You revolt me!" she said. "I never heard anything so thoroughly
disgraceful. You need work!"

"One of these days," said Jimmy plaintively, "I shall be sitting by the
roadside with my dinner-pail, and you will come by in your limousine, and
I shall look up at you and say 'You hounded me into this!' How will
you feel then?"

"Very proud of myself."

"In that case, there is no more to be said. I'd much rather hang about and
try to get adopted by a millionaire, but if you insist on my working—Waiter!"

"What do you want?" asked Ann.

"Will you get me a Classified Telephone Directory," said Jimmy.

"What for?" asked Ann.

"To look for a profession. There is nothing like being methodical."

The waiter returned, bearing a red book. Jimmy thanked him and opened it
at the A's.

"The boy, what will he become?" he said. He turned the pages. "How about
an Auditor? What do you think of that?"

"Do you think you could audit?"

"That I could not say till I had tried. I might turn out to be very good
at it. How about an Adjuster?"

"An adjuster of what?"

"The book doesn't say. It just remarks broadly—in a sort of spacious
way—'Adjuster.' I take it that, having decided to become an
adjuster, you then sit down and decide what you wish to adjust. One might,
for example, become an Asparagus Adjuster."

"A what?"

"Surely you know? Asparagus Adjusters are the fellows who sell those
rope-and-pulley affairs by means of which the Smart Set lower asparagus
into their mouths—or rather Francis the footman does it for them, of
course. The diner leans back in his chair, and the menial works the
apparatus in the background. It is entirely superseding the old-fashioned
method of picking the vegetable up and taking a snap at it. But I suspect
that to be a successful Asparagus Adjuster requires capital. We now come
to Awning Crank and Spring Rollers. I don't think I should like that.
Rolling awning cranks seems to me a sorry way of spending life's
springtime. Let's try the B's."

"Let's try this omelette. It looks delicious." Jimmy shook his head.

"I will toy with it—but absently and in a distrait manner, as
becomes a man of affairs. There's nothing in the B's. I might devote my
ardent youth to Bar-Room Glassware and Bottlers' Supplies. On the other
hand, I might not. Similarly, while there is no doubt a bright future for
somebody in Celluloid, Fiberloid, and Other Factitious Goods, instinct
tells me that there is none for—" he pulled up on the verge of
saying, "James Braithwaite Crocker," and shuddered at the nearness of the
pitfall. "—for—" he hesitated again—"for Algernon
Bayliss," he concluded.

Ann smiled delightedly. It was so typical that his father should have
called him something like that. Time had not dimmed her regard for the old
man she had seen for that brief moment at Paddington Station. He was an
old dear, and she thoroughly approved of this latest manifestation of his
supposed pride in his offspring.

"Is that really your name—Algernon?"

"I cannot deny it."

"I think your father is a darling," said Ann inconsequently.

Jimmy had buried himself in the directory again.

"The D's," he said. "Is it possible that posterity will know me as Bayliss
the Dermatologist? Or as Bayliss the Drop Forger? I don't quite like that
last one. It may be a respectable occupation, but it sounds rather
criminal to me. The sentence for forging drops is probably about twenty
years with hard labour."

"I wish you would put that book away and go on with your lunch," said Ann.

"Perhaps," said Jimmy, "my grandchildren will cluster round my knee some
day and say in their piping, childish voices, 'Tell us how you became the
Elastic Stocking King, grandpa!' What do you think?"

"I think you ought to be ashamed of yourself. You are wasting your time,
when you ought to be either talking to me or else thinking very seriously
about what you mean to do."

Jimmy was turning the pages rapidly.

"I will be with you in a moment," he said. "Try to amuse yourself somehow
till I am at leisure. Ask yourself a riddle. Tell yourself an anecdote.
Think of life. No, it's no good. I don't see myself as a Fan Importer, a
Glass Beveller, a Hotel Broker, an Insect Exterminator, a Junk Dealer, a
Kalsomine Manufacturer, a Laundryman, a Mausoleum Architect, a Nurse, an
Oculist, a Paper-Hanger, a Quilt Designer, a Roofer, a Ship Plumber, a
Tinsmith, an Undertaker, a Veterinarian, a Wig Maker, an X-ray apparatus
manufacturer, a Yeast producer, or a Zinc Spelter." He closed the book.
"There is only one thing to do. I must starve in the gutter. Tell me—you
know New York better than I do—where is there a good gutter?"

At this moment there entered the restaurant an Immaculate Person. He was a
young man attired in faultlessly fitting clothes, with shoes of flawless
polish and a perfectly proportioned floweret in his buttonhole. He
surveyed the room through a monocle. He was a pleasure to look upon, but
Jimmy, catching sight of him, started violently and felt no joy at all;
for he had recognised him. It was a man he knew well and who knew him well—a
man whom he had last seen a bare two weeks ago at the Bachelors' Club in
London. Few things are certain in this world, but one was that, if
Bartling—such was the Vision's name—should see him, he would
come over and address him as Crocker. He braced himself to the task of
being Bayliss, the whole Bayliss, and nothing but Bayliss. It might be
that stout denial would carry him through. After all, Reggie Bartling was
a man of notoriously feeble intellect, who could believe in anything.

The monocle continued its sweep. It rested on Jimmy's profile.

"By Gad!" said the Vision.

Reginald Bartling had landed in New York that morning, and already the
loneliness of a strange city had begun to oppress him. He had come over on
a visit of pleasure, his suit-case stuffed with letters of introduction,
but these he had not yet used. There was a feeling of home-sickness upon
him, and he ached for a pal. And there before him sat Jimmy Crocker, one
of the best. He hastened to the table.

"I say, Crocker, old chap, I didn't know you were over here. When did you
arrive?"

Jimmy was profoundly thankful that he had seen this pest in time to be
prepared for him. Suddenly assailed in this fashion, he would undoubtedly
have incriminated himself by recognition of his name. But, having
anticipated the visitation, he was able to say a whole sentence to Ann
before showing himself aware that it was he who was addressed.

"I say! Jimmy Crocker!"

Jimmy achieved one of the blankest stares of modern times. He looked at
Ann. Then he looked at Bartling again.

"I think there's some mistake," he said. "My name is Bayliss."

Before his stony eye the immaculate Bartling wilted. It was a perfectly
astounding likeness, but it was apparent to him when what he had ever
heard and read about doubles came to him. He was confused. He blushed. It
was deuced bad form going up to a perfect stranger like this and
pretending you knew him. Probably the chappie thought he was some kind of
a confidence johnnie or something. It was absolutely rotten! He continued
to blush till one could have fancied him scarlet to the ankles. He backed
away, apologising in ragged mutters. Jimmy was not insensible to the
pathos of his suffering acquaintance's position; he knew Reggie and his
devotion to good form sufficiently well to enable him to appreciate the
other's horror at having spoken to a fellow to whom he had never been
introduced; but necessity forbade any other course. However Reggie's soul
might writhe and however sleepless Reggie's nights might become as a
result of this encounter, he was prepared to fight it out on those lines
if it took all summer. And, anyway, it was darned good for Reggie to get a
jolt like that every once in a while. Kept him bright and lively.

So thinking, he turned to Ann again, while the crimson Bartling tottered
off to restore his nerve centres to their normal tone at some other
hostelry. He found Ann staring amazedly at him, eyes wide and lips parted.

"Odd, that!" he observed with a light carelessness which he admired
extremely and of which he would not have believed himself capable. "I
suppose I must be somebody's double. What was the name he said?"

"Jimmy Crocker!" cried Ann.

Jimmy raised his glass, sipped, and put it down.

"Oh yes, I remember. So it was. It's a curious thing, too, that it sounds
familiar. I've heard the name before somewhere."

"I was talking about Jimmy Crocker on the ship. That evening on deck."

Jimmy looked at her doubtfully.

"Were you? Oh yes, of course. I've got it now. He is the man you dislike
so."

Ann was still looking at him as if he had undergone a change into
something new and strange.

"I hope you aren't going to let the resemblance prejudice you against me?"
said Jimmy. "Some are born Jimmy Crockers, others have Jimmy Crockers
thrust upon them. I hope you'll bear in mind that I belong to the latter
class."

"It's such an extraordinary thing."

"Oh, I don't know. You often hear of doubles. There was a man in England a
few years ago who kept getting sent to prison for things some genial
stranger who happened to look like him had done."

"I don't mean that. Of course there are doubles. But it is curious that
you should have come over here and that we should have met like this at
just this time. You see, the reason I went over to England at all was to
try to get Jimmy Crocker to come back here."

"What!"

"I don't mean that I did. I mean that I went with my uncle and
aunt, who wanted to persuade him to come and live with them."

Jimmy was now feeling completely out of his depth.

"Your uncle and aunt? Why?"

"I ought to have explained that they are his uncle and aunt, too. My
aunt's sister married his father."

"But—"

"It's quite simple, though it doesn't sound so. Perhaps you haven't read
the Sunday Chronicle lately? It has been publishing articles about
Jimmy Crocker's disgusting behaviour in London—they call him
Piccadilly Jim, you know—"

In print, that name had shocked Jimmy. Spoken, and by Ann, it was loathly.
Remorse for his painful past tore at him.

"There was another one printed yesterday."

"I saw it," said Jimmy, to avert description.

"Oh, did you? Well, just to show you what sort of a man Jimmy Crocker is,
the Lord Percy Whipple whom he attacked in the club was his very best
friend. His step-mother told my aunt so. He seems to be absolutely
hopeless." She smiled. "You're looking quite sad, Mr. Bayliss. Cheer up!
You may look like him, but you aren't him he?—him?—no, 'he' is
right. The soul is what counts. If you've got a good, virtuous,
Algernonish soul, it doesn't matter if you're so like Jimmy Crocker that
his friends come up and talk to you in restaurants. In fact, it's rather
an advantage, really. I'm sure that if you were to go to my aunt and
pretend to be Jimmy Crocker, who had come over after all in a fit of
repentance, she would be so pleased that there would be nothing she
wouldn't do for you. You might realise your ambition of being adopted by a
millionaire. Why don't you try it? I won't give you away."

"Before they found me out and hauled me off to prison, I should have been
near you for a time. I should have lived in the same house with you,
spoken to you—!" Jimmy's voice shook.

Ann turned her head to address an imaginary companion.

"You must listen to this, my dear," she said in an undertone. "He speaks
wonderfully! They used to call him the Boy Orator in his home-town.
Sometimes that, and sometimes Eloquent Algernon!"

Jimmy eyed her fixedly. He disapproved of this frivolity.

"One of these days you will try me too high—!"

"Oh, you didn't hear what I was saying to my friend, did you?" she said in
concern. "But I meant it, every word. I love to hear you talk. You have
such feeling!"

Jimmy attuned himself to the key of the conversation.

"Have you no sentiment in you?" he demanded.

"I was just warming up, too! In another minute you would have heard
something worth while. You've damped me now. Let's talk about my lifework
again."

"Have you thought of anything?"

"I'd like to be one of those fellows who sit in offices, and sign checks,
and tell the office-boy to tell Mr. Rockerfeller they can give him five
minutes. But of course I should need a check-book, and I haven't got one.
Oh well, I shall find something to do all right. Now tell me something
about yourself. Let's drop the future for awhile."

An hour later Jimmy turned into Broadway. He walked pensively, for he had
much to occupy his mind. How strange that the Petts should have come over
to England to try to induce him to return to New York, and how galling
that, now that he was in New York, this avenue to a prosperous future was
closed by the fact that something which he had done five years ago—that
he could remember nothing about it was quite maddening—had caused
Ann to nurse this abiding hatred of him. He began to dream tenderly of
Ann, bumping from pedestrian to pedestrian in a gentle trance.

From this trance the seventh pedestrian aroused him by uttering his name,
the name which circumstances had compelled him to abandon.

"Jimmy Crocker!"

Surprise brought Jimmy back from his dreams to the hard world—surprise
and a certain exasperation. It was ridiculous to be incognito in a city
which he had not visited in five years and to be instantly recognised in
this way by every second man he met. He looked sourly at the man. The
other was a sturdy, square-shouldered, battered young man, who wore on his
homely face a grin of recognition and regard. Jimmy was not particularly
good at remembering faces, but this person's was of a kind which the
poorest memory might have recalled. It was, as the advertisements say,
distinctively individual. The broken nose, the exiguous forehead, and the
enlarged ears all clamoured for recognition. The last time Jimmy had seen
Jerry Mitchell had been two years before at the National Sporting Club in
London, and, placing him at once, he braced himself, as a short while ago
he had braced himself to confound immaculate Reggie.

"Hello!" said the battered one.

"Hello indeed!" said Jimmy courteously. "In what way can I brighten your
life?"

The grin faded from the other's face. He looked puzzled.

"You're Jimmy Crocker, ain't you?"

"No. My name chances to be Algernon Bayliss."

Jerry Mitchell reddened.

"'Scuse me. My mistake."

He was moving off, but Jimmy stopped him. Parting from Ann had left a
large gap in his life, and he craved human society.

"I know you now," he said. "You're Jerry Mitchell. I saw you fight Kid
Burke four years ago in London."

The grin returned to the pugilist's face, wider than ever. He beamed with
gratification.

"Gee! Think of that! I've quit since then. I'm working for an old guy
named Pett. Funny thing, he's Jimmy Crocker's uncle that I mistook you
for. Say, you're a dead ringer for that guy! I could have sworn it was him
when you bumped into me. Say, are you doing anything?"

"Nothing in particular."

"Come and have a yarn. There's a place I know just round by here."

"Delighted."

They made their way to the place.

"What's yours?" said Jerry Mitchell. "I'm on the wagon myself," he said
apologetically.

"So am I," said Jimmy. "It's the only way. No sense in always drinking and
making a disgraceful exhibition of yourself in public!"

Jerry Mitchell received this homily in silence. It disposed definitely of
the lurking doubt in his mind as to the possibility of this man really
being Jimmy Crocker. Though outwardly convinced by the other's denial, he
had not been able to rid himself till now of a nebulous suspicion. But
this convinced him. Jimmy Crocker would never have said a thing like that
nor would have refused the offer of alcohol. He fell into pleasant
conversation with him. His mind eased.

CHAPTER IX — MRS. PETT IS SHOCKED

At five o'clock in the afternoon some ten days after her return to
America, Mrs. Pett was at home to her friends in the house on Riverside
Drive. The proceedings were on a scale that amounted to a reception, for
they were not only a sort of official notification to New York that one of
its most prominent hostesses was once more in its midst, but were also
designed to entertain and impress Mr. Hammond Chester, Ann's father, who
had been spending a couple of days in the metropolis preparatory to
departing for South America on one of his frequent trips. He was very fond
of Ann in his curious, detached way, though he never ceased in his private
heart to consider it injudicious of her not to have been born a boy, and
he always took in New York for a day or two on his way from one wild and
lonely spot to another, if he could manage it.

The large drawing-room overlooking the Hudson was filled almost to
capacity with that strange mixture of humanity which Mrs. Pett chiefly
affected. She prided herself on the Bohemian element in her parties, and
had become during the past two years a human drag-net, scooping Genius
from its hiding-place and bringing it into the open. At different spots in
the room stood the six resident geniuses to whose presence in the home Mr.
Pett had such strong objections, and in addition to these she had
collected so many more of a like breed from the environs of Washington
Square that the air was clamorous with the hoarse cries of futurist
painters, esoteric Buddhists, vers libre poets, interior
decorators, and stage reformers, sifted in among the more conventional
members of society who had come to listen to them. Men with new religions
drank tea with women with new hats. Apostles of Free Love expounded their
doctrines to persons who had been practising them for years without
realising it. All over the room throats were being strained and minds
broadened.

Mr. Chester, standing near the door with Ann, eyed the assemblage with the
genial contempt of a large dog for a voluble pack of small ones. He was a
massive, weather-beaten man, who looked very like Ann in some ways and
would have looked more like her but for the misfortune of having had some
of his face clawed away by an irritable jaguar with whom he had had a
difference some years back in the jungles of Peru.

"Do you like this sort of thing?" he asked.

"I don't mind it," said Ann.

"Well, I shall be very sorry to leave you, Ann, but I'm glad I'm pulling
out of here this evening. Who are all these people?"

Ann surveyed the gathering.

"That's Ernest Wisden, the playwright, over there, talking to Lora Delane
Porter, the feminist writer. That's Clara What's-her-name, the sculptor,
with the bobbed hair. Next to her—"

Mr. Chester cut short the catalogue with a stifled yawn.

"Where's old Pete? Doesn't he come to these jamborees?"

Ann laughed.

"Poor uncle Peter! If he gets back from the office before these people
leave, he will sneak up to his room and stay there till it's safe to come
out. The last time I made him come to one of these parties he was pounced
on by a woman who talked to him for an hour about the morality of Finance
and seemed to think that millionaires were the scum of the earth."

"He never would stand up for himself." Mr. Chester's gaze hovered about
the room, and paused. "Who's that fellow? I believe I've seen him before
somewhere."

A constant eddying swirl was animating the multitude. Whenever the mass
tended to congeal, something always seemed to stir it up again. This was
due to the restless activity of Mrs. Pett, who held it to be the duty of a
good hostess to keep her guests moving. From the moment when the room
began to fill till the moment when it began to empty she did not cease to
plough her way to and fro, in a manner equally reminiscent of a hawk
swooping on chickens and an earnest collegian bucking the line. Her guests
were as a result perpetually forming new ententes and combinations,
finding themselves bumped about like those little moving figures which one
sees in shop-windows on Broadway, which revolve on a metal disc until,
urged by impact with another little figure, they scatter to regroup
themselves elsewhere. It was a fascinating feature of Mrs. Pett's at-homes
and one which assisted that mental broadening process already alluded to
that one never knew, when listening to a discussion on the sincerity of
Oscar Wilde, whether it would not suddenly change in the middle of a
sentence to an argument on the inner meaning of the Russian Ballet.

Plunging now into a group dominated for the moment by an angular woman who
was saying loud and penetrating things about the suffrage, Mrs. Pett had
seized and removed a tall, blonde young man with a mild, vacuous face. For
the past few minutes this young man had been sitting bolt upright on a
chair with his hands on his knees, so exactly in the manner of an end-man
at a minstrel show that one would hardly have been surprised had he burst
into song or asked a conundrum.

Ann followed her father's gaze.

"Do you mean the man talking to aunt Nesta? There, they've gone over to
speak to Willie Partridge. Do you mean that one?"

"Yes. Who is he?"

"Well, I like that!" said Ann. "Considering that you introduced him to us!
That's Lord Wisbeach, who came to uncle Peter with a letter of
introduction from you. You met him in Canada."

"I remember now. I ran across him in British Columbia. We camped together
one night. I'd never seen him before and I didn't see him again. He said
he wanted a letter to old Pete for some reason, so I scribbled him one in
pencil on the back of an envelope. I've never met any one who played a
better game of draw poker. He cleaned me out. There's a lot in that
fellow, in spite of his looking like a musical comedy dude. He's clever."

Ann looked at him meditatively.

"It's odd that you should be discovering hidden virtues in Lord Wisbeach,
father. I've been trying to make up my mind about him. He wants me to
marry him."

"He does! I suppose a good many of these young fellows here want the same
thing, don't they, Ann?" Mr. Chester looked at his daughter with interest.
Her growing-up and becoming a beauty had always been a perplexity to him.
He could never rid himself of the impression of her as a long-legged child
in short skirts. "I suppose you're refusing them all the time?"

"Every day from ten to four, with an hour off for lunch. I keep regular
office hours. Admission on presentation of visiting card."

"And how do you feel about this Lord Wisbeach?"

"I don't know," said Ann frankly. "He's very nice. And—what is more
important—he's different. Most of the men I know are all turned out
of the same mould. Lord Wisbeach—and one other man—are the
only two I've met who might not be the brothers of all the rest."

"Who's the other?"

"A man I hardly know. I met him on board ship—"

Mr. Chester looked at his watch.

"It's up to you, Ann," he said. "There's one comfort in being your father—I
don't mean that exactly; I mean that it is a comfort to me AS your father—to
know that I need feel no paternal anxiety about you. I don't have to give
you advice. You've not only got three times the sense that I have, but
you're not the sort of girl who would take advice. You've always known
just what you wanted ever since you were a kid. . . . Well, if you're
going to take me down to the boat, we'd better be starting. Where's the
car?"

"Waiting outside. Aren't you going to say good-bye to aunt Nesta?"

"Good God, no!" exclaimed Mr. Chester in honest concern. "What! Plunge
into that pack of coyotes and fight my way through to her! I'd be torn to
pieces by wild poets. Besides, it seems silly to make a fuss saying
good-bye when I'm only going to be away a short time. I shan't go any
further than Colombia this trip."

"You'll be able to run back for week-ends," said Ann.

She paused at the door to cast a fleeting glance over her shoulder at the
fair-haired Lord Wisbeach, who was now in animated conversation with her
aunt and Willie Partridge; then she followed her father down the stairs.
She was a little thoughtful as she took her place at the wheel of her
automobile. It was not often that her independent nature craved outside
support, but she was half conscious of wishing at the present juncture
that she possessed a somewhat less casual father. She would have liked to
ask him to help her decide a problem which had been vexing her for nearly
three weeks now, ever since Lord Wisbeach had asked her to marry him and
she had promised to give him his answer on her return from England. She
had been back in New York several days now, but she had not been able to
make up her mind. This annoyed her, for she was a girl who liked swift
decisiveness of thought and action both in others and in herself. She was
fond of Mr. Chester in much the same unemotional, detached way that he was
fond of her, but she was perfectly well aware of the futility of expecting
counsel from him. She said good-bye to him at the boat, fussed over his
comfort for awhile in a motherly way, and then drove slowly back. For the
first time in her life she was feeling uncertain of herself. When she had
left for England, she had practically made up her mind to accept Lord
Wisbeach, and had only deferred actual acceptance of him because in her
cool way she wished to re-examine the position at her leisure. Second
thoughts had brought no revulsion of feeling. She had not wavered until
her arrival in New York. Then, for some reason which baffled her, the idea
of marrying Lord Wisbeach had become vaguely distasteful. And now she
found herself fluctuating between this mood and her former one.

She reached the house on Riverside Drive, but did not slacken the speed of
the machine. She knew that Lord Wisbeach would be waiting for her there,
and she did not wish to meet him just yet. She wanted to be alone. She was
feeling depressed. She wondered if this was because she had just departed
from her father, and decided that it was. His swift entrances into and
exits from her life always left her temporarily restless. She drove on up
the river. She meant to decide her problem one way or the other before she
returned home.

Lord Wisbeach, meanwhile, was talking to Mrs. Pett and Willie, its
inventor, about Partridgite. Willie, on hearing himself addressed, had
turned slowly with an air of absent self-importance, the air of a great
thinker disturbed in mid-thought. He always looked like that when spoken
to, and there were those—Mr. Pett belonged to this school of thought—who
held that there was nothing to him beyond that look and that he had built
up his reputation as a budding mastermind on a foundation that consisted
entirely of a vacant eye, a mop of hair through which he could run his
fingers, and the fame of his late father.

Willie Partridge was the son of the great inventor, Dwight Partridge, and
it was generally understood that the explosive, Partridgite, was to be the
result of a continuation of experiments which his father had been working
upon at the time of his death. That Dwight Partridge had been trying
experiments in the direction of a new and powerful explosive during the
last year of his life was common knowledge in those circles which are
interested in such things. Foreign governments were understood to have
made tentative overtures to him. But a sudden illness, ending fatally, had
finished the budding career of Partridgite abruptly, and the world had
thought no more of it until an interview in the Sunday Chronicle,
that store-house of information about interesting people, announced that
Willie was carrying on his father's experiments at the point where he had
left off. Since then there had been vague rumours of possible sensational
developments, which Willie had neither denied nor confirmed. He preserved
the mysterious silence which went so well with his appearance.

Having turned slowly so that his eyes rested on Lord Wisbeach's ingenuous
countenance, Willie paused, and his face assumed the expression of his
photograph in the Chronicle.

"Ah, Wisbeach!" he said.

Lord Wisbeach did not appear to resent the patronage of his manner. He
plunged cheerily into talk. He had a pleasant, simple way of comporting
himself which made people like him.

"I was just telling Mrs. Pett," he said, "that I shouldn't be surprised if
you were to get an offer for your stuff from our fellows at home before
long. I saw a lot of our War Office men when I was in England, don't you
know. Several of them mentioned the stuff."

Willie resented Partridgite as being referred to as "the stuff," but he
made allowance. All Englishmen talked that way, he supposed.

"Indeed?" he said.

"Of course," said Mrs. Pett, "Willie is a patriot and would have to give
our own authorities the first chance."

"Rather!"

"But you know what officials are all over the world. They are so sceptical
and they move so slowly."

"I know. Our men at home are just the same as a rule. I've got a pal who
invented something-or-other, I forget what, but it was a most decent
little contrivance and very useful and all that; and he simply can't get
them to say Yes or No about it. But, all the same, I wonder you didn't
have some of them trying to put out feelers to you when you were in
London."

"Oh, we were only in London a few hours. By the way, Lord Wisbeach, my
sister—"—Mrs. Pett paused; she disliked to have to mention her
sister or to refer to this subject at all, but curiosity impelled her—"my
sister said that you are a great friend of her step-son, James Crocker. I
didn't know that you knew him."

Lord Wisbeach seemed to hesitate for a moment.

"He's not coming over, is he? Pity! It would have done him a world of
good. Yes, Jimmy Crocker and I have always been great pals. He's a bit of
a nut, of course, . . . I beg your pardon! . . . I mean . . ." He broke
off confusedly, and turned to Willie again to cover himself. "How are you
getting on with the jolly old stuff?" he asked.

If Willie had objected to Partridgite being called "the stuff," he was
still less in favour of its being termed "the jolly old stuff." He replied
coldly.

"I have ceased to get along with the jolly old stuff."

"Struck a snag?" enquired Lord Wisbeach sympathetically.

"On the contrary, my experiments have been entirely successful. I have
enough Partridgite in my laboratory to blow New York to bits!"

"Willie!" exclaimed Mrs. Pett. "Why didn't you tell me before? You know I
am so interested."

"I only completed my work last night."

He moved off with an important nod. He was tired of Lord Wisbeach's
society. There was something about the young man which he did not like. He
went to find more congenial company in a group by the window.

Lord Wisbeach turned to his hostess. The vacuous expression had dropped
from his face like a mask. A pair of keen and intelligent eyes met Mrs.
Pett's.

"Mrs. Pett, may I speak to you seriously?"

Mrs. Pett's surprise at the alteration in the man prevented her from
replying. Much as she liked Lord Wisbeach, she had never given him credit
for brains, and it was a man with brains and keen ones who was looking at
her now. She nodded.

"If your nephew has really succeeded in his experiments, you should be
awfully careful. That stuff ought not to lie about in his laboratory,
though no doubt he has hidden it as carefully as possible. It ought to be
in a safe somewhere. In that safe in your library. News of this kind moves
like lightning. At this very moment, there may be people watching for a
chance of getting at the stuff."

Every nerve in Mrs. Pett's body, every cell of a brain which had for years
been absorbing and giving out sensational fiction, quivered irrepressibly
at these words, spoken in a low, tense voice which gave them additional
emphasis. Never had she misjudged a man as she had misjudged Lord
Wisbeach.

"Spies?" she quavered.

"They wouldn't call themselves that," said Lord Wisbeach. "Secret Service
agents. Every country has its men whose only duty it is to handle this
sort of work."

"They would try to steal Willie's—?" Mrs. Pett's voice failed.

"They would not look on it as stealing. Their motives would be patriotic.
I tell you, Mrs. Pett, I have heard stories from friends of mine in the
English Secret Service which would amaze you. Perfectly straight men in
private life, but absolutely unscrupulous when at work. They stick at
nothing—nothing. If I were you, I should suspect every one,
especially every stranger." He smiled engagingly. "You are thinking that
that is odd advice from one who is practically a stranger like myself.
Never mind. Suspect me, too, if you like. Be on the safe side."

"I would not dream of doing such a thing, Lord Wisbeach," said Mrs. Pett
horrified. "I trust you implicitly. Even supposing such a thing were
possible, would you have warned me like this, if you had been—?"

"That's true," said Lord Wisbeach. "I never thought of that. Well, let me
say, suspect everybody but me." He stopped abruptly. "Mrs. Pett," he
whispered, "don't look round for a moment. Wait." The words were almost
inaudible. "Who is that man behind you? He has been listening to us. Turn
slowly."

With elaborate carelessness, Mrs. Pett turned her head. At first she
thought her companion must have alluded to one of a small group of young
men who, very improperly in such surroundings, were discussing with raised
voices the prospects of the clubs competing for the National League
Baseball Pennant. Then, extending the sweep of her gaze, she saw that she
had been mistaken. Midway between her and this group stood a single
figure, the figure of a stout man in a swallow-tail suit, who bore before
him a tray with cups on it. As she turned, this man caught her eye, gave a
guilty start, and hurried across the room.

"You saw?" said Lord Wisbeach. "He was listening. Who is that man? Your
butler apparently. What do you know of him?"

"He is my new butler. His name is Skinner."

"Ah, your new butler? He hasn't been with you long, then?"

"He only arrived from England three days ago."

"From England? How did he get in here? I mean, on whose recommendation?"

"Mr. Pett offered him the place when we met him at my sister's in London.
We went over there to see my sister, Eugenia—Mrs. Crocker. This man
was the butler who admitted us. He asked Mr. Pett something about
baseball, and Mr. Pett was so pleased that he offered him a place here if
he wanted to come over. The man did not give any definite answer then, but
apparently he sailed on the next boat, and came to the house a few days
after we had returned."

Lord Wisbeach laughed softly.

"Very smart. Of course they had him planted there for the purpose."

"What ought I to do?" asked Mrs. Pett agitatedly.

"Do nothing. There is nothing that you can do, for the present, except
keep your eyes open. Watch this man Skinner. See if he has any
accomplices. It is hardly likely that he is working alone. Suspect
everybody. Believe me . . ."

At this moment, apparently from some upper region, there burst forth an
uproar so sudden and overwhelming that it might well have been taken for a
premature testing of a large sample of Partridgite; until a moment later
it began to resemble more nearly the shrieks of some partially destroyed
victim of that death-dealing invention. It was a bellow of anguish, and it
poured through the house in a cascade of sound, advertising to all beneath
the roof the twin facts that some person unknown was suffering and that
whoever the sufferer might be he had excellent lungs.

The effect on the gathering in the drawing-room was immediate and
impressive. Conversation ceased as if it had been turned off with a tap.
Twelve separate and distinct discussions on twelve highly intellectual
topics died instantaneously. It was as if the last trump had sounded.
Futurist painters stared pallidly at vers libre poets, speech
smitten from their lips; and stage performers looked at esoteric Buddhists
with a wild surmise.

The sudden silence had the effect of emphasising the strange noise and
rendering it more distinct, thus enabling it to carry its message to one
at least of the listeners. Mrs. Pett, after a moment of strained attention
in which time seemed to her to stand still, uttered a wailing cry and
leaped for the door.

"Ogden!" she shrilled; and passed up the stairs two at a time, gathering
speed as she went. A boy's best friend is his mother.

CHAPTER X — INSTRUCTION IN DEPORTMENT

While the feast of reason and flow of soul had been in progress in the
drawing-room, in the gymnasium on the top floor Jerry Mitchell, awaiting
the coming of Mr. Pett, had been passing the time in improving with
strenuous exercise his already impressive physique. If Mrs. Pett's guests
had been less noisily concentrated on their conversation, they might have
heard the muffled tap-tap-tap that proclaimed that Jerry Mitchell
was punching the bag upstairs.

It was not until he had punched it for perhaps five minutes that,
desisting from his labours, he perceived that he had the pleasure of the
company of little Ogden Ford. The stout boy was standing in the doorway,
observing him with an attentive eye.

"What are you doing?" enquired Ogden.

Jerry passed a gloved fist over his damp brow.

"Punchin' the bag."

He began to remove his gloves, eyeing Ogden the while with a disapproval
which he made no attempt to conceal. An extremist on the subject of
keeping in condition, the spectacle of the bulbous stripling was a
constant offence to him. Ogden, in pursuance of his invariable custom on
the days when Mrs. Pett entertained, had been lurking on the stairs
outside the drawing-room for the past hour, levying toll on the
food-stuffs that passed his way. He wore a congested look, and there was
jam about his mouth.

"Why?" he said, retrieving a morsel of jam from his right cheek with the
tip of his tongue.

"To keep in condition."

"Why do you want to keep in condition?"

Jerry flung the gloves into their locker.

"Fade!" he said wearily. "Fade!"

"Huh?"

"Beat it!"

"Huh?" Much pastry seemed to have clouded the boy's mind.

"Run away."

"Don't want to run away."

The annoyed pugilist sat down and scrutinised his visitor critically.

"You never do anything you don't want to, I guess?"

"No," said Ogden simply. "You've got a funny nose," he added
dispassionately. "What did you do to it to make it like that?"

Mr. Mitchell shifted restlessly on his chair. He was not a vain man, but
he was a little sensitive about that particular item in his make-up.

"Lizzie says it's the funniest nose she ever saw. She says it's something
out of a comic supplement."

A dull flush, such as five minutes with the bag had been unable to
produce, appeared on Jerry Mitchell's peculiar countenance. It was not
that he looked on Lizzie Murphy, herself no Lillian Russell, as an
accepted authority on the subject of facial beauty; but he was aware that
in this instance she spoke not without reason, and he was vexed, moreover,
as many another had been before him, by the note of indulgent patronage in
Ogden's voice. His fingers twitched a little eagerly, and he looked
sullenly at his tactless junior.

"Get out!"