"Me. It took me only twelve minutes to say 'Good-by, Dolly Gray, I must leave you'. Huh?"
The clerk laughed.
"So I saddle the elephant in Bombay? Ye-ah. And say, have you got me labeled with the queer ones?"
"No, Mr. Grogan." The clerk laughed again. "You're the real thing; and I wish I were in your shoes. Everybody perks up when you drop in."
William pocketed his folder on Burma and departed. He found that he could not put completely from his mind the thought of the young woman. Her face haunted him persistently. Was she running away from her husband? Was there a Handsome-Is in the background somewhere? Like as not. William, it has already been remarked, retained few illusions; and he generally drew upon hard facts when in doubt. He never picked up a newspaper these benighted times that something of this sort wasn't going on. Wives were eternally running away from husbands, who didn't always bother to pursue them. The causes were as thick as the sparrows in the Park. Mismated; the devil did a good job there, was William's opinion. The hullabaloo of a Fifth Avenue wedding, money and caste, they generally came to this, flight and scandal. Not that he was particularly prejudiced against the rich; but they set a mighty bad example for the poor, who were more or less imitative, like the apes.
Wednesday came. William got up before dawn so as to be thoroughly awake when the day began. He had a lot of things to do. First and foremost, he had to pass away the time. He was for all the world like you and I were those bygone Christmases and Fourth-of-Julys; we never had any candy or fireworks left for the afternoon and evening. He bubbled with life. He had health and wealth and youth. And if the devil had come along just then and offered mere beauty in exchange for a tithe of health or wealth or youth, William would have seized him by the scruff of his neck and flung him into the alley.
I sha'n't attempt to chronicle all the happy, foolish things he did that marvelous morning. Among other things he visited the shop and bade good-by to every one. The little bookkeeper sniveled openly. She never expected to see William Grogan again. If he wasn't eaten by sharks, he would fall into the hands of cannibals. Burns poohhooed this idea; all Bill had to do was to keep his eye on his cash. There were worse sharks out of water than in it.
At one o'clock William went aboard. He saw his steamer trunk and grips safely stowed away in his cabin, which he was to share with two others as yet unknown. The little card at the left of the door read:
Mr. Grogan.
Mr. Greenwood.
Mr. Henrik Clausen.
He hoped that they were neither professional gamblers nor whisky merchants; outside of that he didn't care what they were.
He went on deck again and began to explore. By two o'clock he had been everywhere except in the stoke-hole, and he was saving that against some rainy day. He was unobtrusive; and the busy officers he quizzed understood that his interest was purely legitimate, though somewhat inopportune. There was something of the eager boy in William, despite his cynical outlook. The great steel cañon, which went down to the very keel of the ship, fascinated him more than anything else. The chief engineer was Irish; so William told him the history of his life and clung to him as long as he could.
It is a fine thing to go on a voyage of discovery, for the true pleasures of life are not to be found in recurrences. And to William, what marvelous discoveries were on the threshold, waiting to be unfolded before his eyes! Strange seas, strange lands, strange peoples; and, above all, there was that elephant with the silk-and-spangle cupola or thingumy on his back. There was, as you may readily believe, no corner in his thoughts given over to a longing to see the Roman Forum, or the Greek Parthenon, or Michelangelo, or Rafael, or Tiziano. I may as well confess right here and now and have done with it: William never went into ecstasies over the wonders of antiquity.
The living things, the quick, not the dead, stirred his interest. It is true that the pyramids stunned him; but this was due to his appreciation of the tremendous labor involved in piling those granite blocks one upon the other without the aid of steam-hoists.
At length he went down into the huge shed where everything was bustle and seeming confusion. Bale after bale and trunk after trunk sailed skyward, to disappear mysteriously into the bowels of the ship. People were hurrying to and fro, and there was much kissing and hand-shaking.
William suddenly awoke to the dismal fact that he was dreadfully alone. In all his busy years this thought had never before come home to him so keenly. There was not a soul in all the wide world who really cared what became of him, where he went, what he did, or how he died. Burns was all right, and so were the boys over at the engine-house, but they lacked something. He had no regret in leaving them; he would have no real joy in returning to them. He eyed with envy the noisy, excited groups of the happy family (see Cook's folders). These groups were made up of pilgrims coming down from small cities, country towns, farms, West and Middle West. They were making the trip in dozens and double-dozens; and shortly they would build little glass-topped walls around themselves, and woe betide the trespasser, especially if he happened to be a red-headed, lonesome guy named William Grogan.
He fell back upon his innate philosophy. All his life he had been jogging along on his own. Why worry over this bunch of male and female fossils? He was here to see the world; and if he made any friendships these would be by-products purely. After all, old Mother Hanlon would be glad to see him back. And wouldn't the rest of the bunch sit up and take notice when he began to gab-fest! "When I was in Hong-Kong I licked four chinks one night." Think of starting the fire in that offhand manner!
All at once he remembered why he had gone down into the shed and taken his place by the gang-plank. He wanted to see if that girl came on board alone. He hoped she would. She looked too nice to be mixed up in anything shady. Funny thing, he mused, how you could spot a woman who was off-color. You couldn't give your reasons; there wasn't any way of explaining it; you just knew, that was all. This girl didn't look the part, and that was all there was to it.
She came into view at length. He sighed relievedly. There was no one with her. Lonesome kind like himself. She walked confidently to the gang-plank, looking neither right nor left. Her face was lighted by subdued eagerness; there was neither anxiety in her eyes nor dissatisfaction on her lips. William dropped in behind her, rather automatically.
A well-dressed man, a fat suit-case in each hand, crowded past him rudely. William stretched out a detaining hand, none the less powerful because the nails shone pinkly.
"Say, bo, why the unseemly haste?"
"Beg pardon!" mumbled the offender, none too politely, as he wrenched himself loose and went on.
"Well, if that guy's with us," thought William, "how we're going to love each other by the time we get to Bombay! For a nickel. … "
M-m-m-m! boomed the whistle. William ducked instinctively, and hurried on board.
"Nothing the matter with the old lady's lungs. That was some toot! Well, I guess this is good-by to little New York. See you later!"
As the ship drew out into the river he stood in the waist, watching the men close the hatches. He chanced to look up toward the promenade-deck. A young woman was in the act of crossing from starboard to port. The first thing that came into his range of vision was a pair of twinkling tan shoes. This range of vision, be it noted, was identical to that he had from his cellar window. His heart gave a great bound. His school-teacher was on board!
CHAPTER IV
WILLIAM was never able to explain with any lucidity why he leaped so abruptly to such a conclusion. He just knew, that was all. He had seen those feet go past his cellar window too many times to have the slightest doubt of their identity.
He had not seen her face, the railing