from you by running away. In this way you, at least, will be saved.”
“Noble fellow!” thought Eleanor to herself. “If he were to ask me, I think I might marry him.”
Meanwhile Van Squibber had investigated, and was horror-struck to find his misgivings entirely too well founded. It was the lion from the park menagerie that had escaped, and was now waiting in ambush to pounce upon the chance pedestrian.
“Remember, Eleanor,” he cried, forgetting for the moment that he had never called her by any but her last name with its formal prefix – “remember to be brave. That will awe him, and then when he sees me running he will pursue me.”
Removing his shoes, Van Squibber, with a cry which brought the hungry beast bounding out into the path, started on a dead run, while Miss Huyler, full of confidence that the story would end happily whatever she might do, walked boldly up to the tawny creature, wondering much, however, why her rescuer had removed his shoes. It was strange that, knowing Van Squibber as well as she did, she did not at once perceive his motive in declining to run in walking-shoes, but in moments of peril we are all excusable for our vagaries of thought! You never can tell, when you are in danger, what may happen next, for if you could you would know how it is all going to turn out; but as it is, mental disturbance is quite to be expected.
For once Van Squibber failed. He ran fast enough and betrayed enough cowardice to attract the attention of ten lions, but this special lion, by some fearful idiosyncrasy of fate, which you never can count on, was not to be deceived. With a louder roar than any he had given, he pounced upon the brave woman, and in an instant she was no more. Van Squibber, turning to see how matters stood, was just in time to witness the final engulfment of the fair girl in the lion’s jaws.
“Egad!” he cried. “I have failed! And now what remains to be done? Shall I return and fight the lion, or shall I keep on and go to the club? If I kill the lion, people will know that I have been walking in the park before breakfast. If I continue my present path and go to the club, the fellows will all want to know what I mean by coming without my shoes on. What a dilemma! Ah! I have it; I will go home.”
And that is what Van Squibber did. He went back to his rooms in the Quigmore at once, hastily undressed, and when, an hour later, his man returned with the soda mint drop, he was sleeping peacefully.
That night he met Travers at the club reading the Evening Moon.
“Hello, Van!” said Travers. “Heard the news?”
“No. What?” asked Van Squibber, languidly.
“Eleanor Huyler has disappeared.”
“By Jove!” cried Van Squibber, with well-feigned surprise. “I heard the boys crying ‘Extra,’ but I never dreamed they would put out an extra for her.”
“They haven’t,” said Travers. “The extra’s about the lion.”
“Ah! And what’s happened to the lion?” cried Van Squibber, nervously.
“He’s dead. Got loose this morning early, and was found at ten o’clock dying of indigestion. It is supposed he has devoured some man, name unknown, for before his nose was an uneaten patent-leather pump, size 9¾ B, and in his throat was stuck the other, half eaten.”
“Ha!” muttered Van Squibber, turning pale. “And they don’t know whose shoes they were?” he added, in a hoarse whisper.
“No,” said Travers. “There’s no clew, even.”
Van Squibber breathed a sigh of relief.
“Robert!” he cried, addressing the waiter, “bring me a schooner of absinthe, and ask Mr. Travers what he’ll have.” And then, turning, he said, sotto voce, to himself, “Saved! And Eleanor is revenged. Van Squibber may have failed, but his patent-leather pumps have conquered.”
III
IN WHICH A MINCE-PIE IS RESPONSIBLE FOR A REMARKABLE COINCIDENCE
When Mr. Snobbe sat down after the narration of his story, there was a thunderous outburst of applause. It was evident that the exciting narrative had pleased his fellow-diners very much – as, indeed, it was proper that it should, since it dealt in a veiled sort of way with characters for whom all right-minded persons have not only a deep-seated admiration, but a feeling of affection as well. They had, one and all, in common with the unaffected portion of the reading community, a liking for the wholesome and clean humor of Mr. Van Bibber, and the fact that Snobbe’s story suggested a certain original, even in a weak sort of fashion, made them like it in spite of its shortcomings.
“Good work,” cried Hudson Rivers. “Of course it’s only gas in comparison with the sun, but it gives light, and we like it.”
“And it’s wholly original, too, even though an imitation in manner. The real Van Bibber never failed in anything he undertook,” said Tenafly Paterson. “I’ve often wished he might have, just once – it would have made him seem more human – and for that reason I think Tom is entitled to praise.”
“I don’t know about that,” observed Monty St. Vincent. “Tom hadn’t anything to do with it – it was the dinner. Honor to whom honor is due, say I. Praise the cook, or the caterer.”
“That’s the truth,” put in Billie Jones. “Fact is, when this book of ours comes out, I think, instead of putting our names on the title-page as authors, the thing to do is to print the menu.”
“You miss the point of this association,” interjected Snobbe. “We haven’t banded ourselves together to immortalize a Welsh rabbit or a mince-pie – nay, nor even a ruddy duck. It’s our own glory we’re after.”
“That’s it,” cried Monty St. Vincent – “that’s the beauty of it. The scheme works two ways. If the stuff is good and there is glory in it, we’ll have the glory; but if it’s bad, we’ll blame the dinner. That’s what I like about it.”
“It’s a valuable plan from that point of view,” said the presiding officer. “And now, if the gentleman who secured the ball numbered two will make himself known, we will proceed.”
Hudson Rivers rose up. “I have number two,” he said, “but I have nothing to relate. The coffee I drank kept me awake all night, and when I finally slept, along about six o’clock next morning, it was one of those sweet, dreamless sleeps that we all love so much. I must therefore ask to be excused.”
“But how shall you be represented in the book?” asked Mr. Harry Snobbe.
“He can do the table of contents,” suggested St. Vincent.
“Or the fly-leaves,” said Tenafly Paterson.
“No,” said Huddy; “I shall ask that the pages I should have filled be left blank. There is nothing helps a book so much as the leaving of something to the reader’s imagination. I heard a great critic say so once. He said that was the strong point of the French writers, and he added that Stockton’s Lady or the Tiger took hold because Stockton didn’t insist on telling everything.”
“It’s a good idea,” said Mr. Jones. “I don’t know but that if those pages are left blank they’ll be the most interesting in the book.”
Mr. Rivers sat down with a smile of conscious pride, whereupon Mr. Tenafly Paterson rose up.
“As I hold the number three ball, I will give you the fruits of my dinner. I attribute the work which I am about to present to you to the mince-pie. Personally, I am a great admirer of certain latter-day poets who deal with the woes and joys of more or less commonplace persons. I myself would rather read a sonnet to a snow-shovel than an ode to the moon, but in my dream I seem to have conceived a violent hatred for authors of homely verse, as you will note when I have finished reading my dream-poem called ‘Retribution.’”
“Great Scott!” murmured Billie Jones, with a deep-drawn sigh. “Poetry! From Tenafly Paterson! Of all the afflictions of man, Job could have known no worse.”
“The poem reads as follows,” continued Paterson, ignoring the chairman’s ill-timed