"On the level, have you been left some money?"
"Honest as the day is long. Not enough to buy lobsters every night, but enough for my uses. And some day, according to the magazine there, I'm coming back from a long voyage and marry you."
"On your way, Aloysius! I don't look like a girl who would marry for money, do I?"
"If I wasn't afraid the dye 'd leak through this bean of mine, I'd go and have it dyed purple. Say, what's all this noise about red hair, anyhow?"
"Don't ask me. Personally I ain't got anything against it. But I never saw a man with red hair that wasn't always looking for trouble and finding it."
"It's tough to be Irish."
"Irish? Why, I wouldn't have believed it! Well, good luck, and keep away from the bright lights."
"The same to you, only more so;" and William left the shop.
"Hey, Nellie, who's the chrysanthemum?"
"Was that Reginald?"
The object of these kindly attentions held up the half-dollar.
"Did he forget his change?"
"What's his home town—Troy?"
"Aw, you girls make me weary! You can't tell a real man from a tailor's dummy, take it from me, free of charge." Nellie took her gum from under the table. "He may have red hair, but he beats Mike the baggage-man for shoulders."
"Mebbe that's what he is, a trunk-hop."
The manageress in charge intervened. "You girls lay off that kidding."
From then on it became a series of sudden chuckles with William. These broke out as he walked the streets, as he ate his beefsteak lunch, as he idled an hour at a movie, as, later, he took the tube. Out of a perfectly sober countenance they rumbled, stirred into life, now at the sight of his hands, now at the feel of the crisp receipt in his inside pocket. For all that he chuckled over them, his hands were a source of real embarrassment. He was afraid to put them in his pockets, to touch the evening papers, to hang on the Subway strap. He was also certain that everybody noticed the discrepancy between his nails and his general outfit.
"A celluloid collar and ten pink nails! What do you know about that, Isobel? If I went over to the engine-house to-night, the boys 'd drop dead."
Of course he told his landlady all about his marvelous windfall, that he was going on a trip around the world, and all that. She cackled over him like a hen that discovers a pheasant in her brood.
"Willie Grogan, an' you stand there tellin' th' likes o' that t' me!"
"Nix, mother, I'm giving it to you straight. Look at this!" He showed her his bank-book. The Widow Hanlon gasped when she saw those noble five figures.
"God bless me, it's true! 'Tis glad I am for your luck, boy. My, an' you'll be wearin' dress-suits an' patent-lither an' passin' your ol' friends on th' street. Well, you were always a good boy. You'll not be leavin'?"
"Not on your tin-type! This 'll be my hangout for a long time to come. But, gee! I sure forgot about the dress-suit stuff. I'll see to that to-morrow. Anyhow, this rubber collar is headed for the ash-can. I never thought, with this topknot of mine, that I might set fire to it—eh, mother? And mum's the word to the rest of the bunch. I'm hungry and don't want to answer questions. Whadjuh got for supper?"
"Corn' beef an' cabbige."
"Lead me to it!"
The whole house reeked with the odor of boiled cabbage; but William was used to it. He knew that he was never going to play the snob; he was going through life simple and unchanged by his good fortune; he was never going to forget the old order of things, the plain, homely food, the plain, homely people who shared it with him. I'll wager he found more relish in his corned beef and cabbage that night than ever Lucullus found in his nightingales' tongues.
After supper he went to the home of his employer. Mrs. Dolan was ready to sell; the transfer could be made on the morrow. This news delighted William. But he did not tell Burns about his visit to Cook's. He thought it wiser to say nothing until after the transfer was drawn up and signed. Somewhere around eleven he started for home afoot. His boarding-house was only a mile away, and walking was always good on summer nights.
Along his route on one of the streets which cut Broadway, there was a restaurant famed for its quiet and remoteness from the town's glitter. William knew something about it. He had passed it dozens of times. Other men's wives and other wives' husbands patronized this restaurant, so it was said.
William was perhaps within ten feet of the restaurant when he paused. Through the painted screened windows came the strange surging melodies of a Magyar rhapsody. William loved music; even the thin pinkapank of the hurdy-gurdies held charm for him. As he listened to this wild gipsy music it seemed as though his senses had been gathered up and swept into the gipsy hills themselves, through the forests on the forewings of a storm, to be caught by the tempest itself and swirled, buffeted, smothered, finally to be let down gently into the succeeding calm; all as elusive as the shadows which tumble over the pebbled floor of a brook.
"Gee! but that was great!" he murmured, leaning against the lamp-post. He hoped there might be more of it.
Suddenly the upper door opened and a young woman came hurriedly down the steps. The moment she reached the sidewalk she started off at a brisk run. Her hat obscured her features. William got a whiff of lavender as she whisked by. Had hubby turned up? he wondered, cynically.
As a rule William always walked on. He never meddled with an affair he knew nothing about, being a New-Yorker. To-night, however, he was in a mischievous mood. He'd see what the game was.
A man in evening dress came out, looked east and west, and ran down to the sidewalk. He did not pursue the young woman, for the very reason that William stood in his way.
"Nothing doing, bo," he said, quietly. "When a young lady hits into the bleachers like that, she's off for the home-plate."
"Who the devil are you? Get out of my way."
"Beat it. I don't like your accent. Handsome-Is."
"Will you stand aside? Or, is this a hold-up?"
"Ye-ah, it's a kind of a hold-up. But what are you doing off your beat? What's the matter with old Forty-second Street stuff? Ain't they young enough?"
"Why, damn your impudence. … "
"Sir Hurlbert, unsay them cruel woids." Suddenly the banter left William's voice. "Listen to me. That young girl was running away from you; I don't need any inside information to get that. It's a hunch. Now, there's just two things on the card. Either you sashay back to your bucket of suds or you take the flat of my lily-white on your kazoozle. Are you wise?"
Had the stranger spoken gruffly that the young woman under discussion was his wife, William would have side-stepped the issue and gone on. But the hesitance, the indecision, were enough to convince William that this was an old story.
"Well, bo?"
The man shrugged, turned abruptly, and re-entered the restaurant.
"A good hunch," said William, eying the door speculatively. "Well, Bill, let's waltz."
And waltz he did. Not that he was afraid, but these upper Broadway swells had a way of convincing the police that the hoi polloi (which included William) were eternally in the wrong, no matter what the argument might be, and he appreciated the weakness of his case. The girl had disappeared, and it was up to him to follow her example.
His "Haw-haw!" suddenly broke the silence in the deserted street. A seven-dollar meerschaum and a trip around the world!
"And ten pink nails, Isobel! The luck of the Irish."
CHAPTER