The Mother

"Did the Duchess cry?"

"Oh, my, no! 'Waiter,' says the Duchess, 'open another bottle of that wine. I feel faint.'"

"What did Lord Wychester do then?"

"He paid for the wine." It occurred to her that she might now surely delight him. "Then he wanted to buy a bottle for me," she continued, eagerly, "just to spite the Duchess. 'If she can have wine,' says he, 'there isn't no good reason why you got to go dry.' But I couldn't see it. 'Oh, come on!' says he. 'What's the matter with you? Have a drink.' 'No, you don't!' says I. 'Why not?' says he." She drew the boy a little closer, and, in the pause she patted his hand. "'Because,' says I," she whispered, tenderly, "'I got a son; and I don't want him to do no drinking when he grows up!'" She paused again – that the effect of the words and of the caress might not be interrupted. "'Come off!' says Lord Wychester," she went on; "'you haven't got no son.' 'You wouldn't think to look at me,' says I, 'that I got a son seven years old the twenty-third of last month.' 'To the tall timber!' says he. 'You're too young and pretty. I'll give you a thousand dollars for a kiss.' 'No, you don't!' says I. 'Why not?' says he. 'Because,' says I, 'you don't.' 'I'll give you two thousand,' says he."

She was interrupted by the boy; his arms were anxiously stealing round her neck.

"'Three thousand!' says he."

"Mother," the boy whispered, "did you give it to him?"

Again, she drew him to her: as all mothers will, when, in the twilight, they tell tales to their children, and the climax approaches.

"'Four thousand!' says he."

"Mother," the boy implored, "tell me quick! What did you say?"

"'Lord Wychester,' says I, 'I don't give kisses,' says I, 'because my son doesn't want me to do no such thing! No, sir! Not for a million dollars!'"

She was then made happy by his rapturous affection; and she now first perceived – in a benighted way – that virtue was more appealing to him than the sum of her physical attractions. Upon this new thought she pondered. She was unable to reduce it to formal terms, to be sure; but she felt a new delight, a new hope, and was uplifted, though she knew not why. Later – at the crisis of their lives – the perception returned with sufficient strength to illuminate her way…

Presently the boy broke in upon her musing. "It was blondes Lord Wychester liked," he remarked, with pride; "wasn't it, mother?"

"Slim blondes," she corrected.

"Bleached blondes?"

She was appalled by the disclosure; and she was taken unaware: nor did she dare discover the extent, the significance, of this new sophistication, nor whence it came, lest she be all at once involved in a tangle of explanation, from which there could be no sure issue. She sighed; her head drooped, until it rested on his shoulder, her wet lashes against his cheek – despairing, helpless.

"What makes you sad?" he asked.

Then she gathered impetuous courage. She must be calm, she knew; but she must divert him. "See," she began, "what it says about your mother in the paper!" She ran her finger down a long column of the fulsome description of the great Multon ball – the list of fashionables, the costumes. "Here it is! 'She was the loveliest woman at the dance.' That's me. 'All the men said so. What if she is a bleached blonde? Some people says that bleached blondes is no good. It's a lie!'" she cried, passionately, to the bewilderment of the boy. "'God help them! There's honest people everywhere.' Are you listening? Here's more about me. 'She does the best she can. Maybe she don't amount to much, maybe she is a bleached blonde; but she does the best she can. She never done no wrong in all her life. She loves her son too much for that. Oh, she loves her son! She'd rather die than have him feel ashamed of her. There isn't a better woman in the world, There isn't a better mother – '"

He clapped his hands.

"Don't you believe it?" she demanded. "Don't you believe what the paper says?"

"It's true!" he cried. "It's all true!"

"How do you know," she whispered, intensely, "that it's all true?"

"I – just —feel it!"

They were interrupted by the clock. It struck seven times…

In great haste and alarm she put him from her knee; and she caught up her hat and cloak, and kissed him, and ran out, calling back her good-night, again and again, as she clattered down the stairs… In the streets of the place to which she hurried, there were flaming lights, the laughter of men and flaunting women, the crash and rumble and clang of night-traffic, the blatant clamour of the pleasures of night; shuffling, blear-eyed derelicts of passion, creeping beldames, peevish children, youth consuming itself; rags and garish jewels, hunger, greasy content – a confusion of wretchedness, of greed and grim want, of delirious gaiety, of the sins that stalk in darkness… Through it all she brushed, unconscious – lifted from it by the magic of this love: dwelling only upon the room that overlooked the river, and upon the child within; remembering the light in his eyes and the tenderness of his kiss.

THE CELEBRITY IN LOVE

While the boy sat alone, in wistful idleness, there came a knock at the door – a pompous rat-tat-tat, with a stout tap-tap or two added, once and for all to put the quality of the visitor beyond doubt. The door was then cautiously pushed ajar to admit the head of the personage thus impressively heralded. And a most extraordinary head it was – of fearsome aspect; nothing but long and intimate familiarity could resign the beholder to the unexpected appearance of it. Long, tawny hair, now sadly unkempt, fell abundantly from crown to shoulders; and hair as tawny, as luxuriantly thick, almost as long, completely covered the face, from every part of which it sprang, growing shaggy and rank at the eyebrows, which served to ambush two sharp little eyes: so that the whole bore a precise resemblance to an ill-natured Skye terrier. It is superfluous to add that this was at once the face and the fortune of Toto, the Dog-faced Man, known in private life, to as many intimates as a jealous profession can tolerate, as Mr. Poddle: for the present disabled from public appearance by the quality of the air supplied to the exhibits at Hockley's Musee, his lungs being, as he himself expressed it, "not gone, by no means, but gittin' restless."

"Mother gone?" asked the Dog-faced Man.

"She has gone, Mr. Poddle," the boy answered, "to dine with the Mayor."

"Oh!" Mr. Poddle ejaculated.

"Why do you say that?" the boy asked, frowning uneasily. "You always say, 'Oh!'"

"Do I? 'Oh!' Like that?"

"Why do you do it?"

"Celebrities," replied Mr. Poddle, testily, entering at that moment, "is not accountable. Me bein' one, don't ask me no questions."

"Oh!" said the boy.

Mr. Poddle sat himself in a chair by the window: and there began to catch and vent his breath; but whether in melancholy sighs or snorts of indignation it was impossible to determine. Having by these violent means restored himself to a state of feeling more nearly normal, he trifled for a time with the rings flashing on his thin, white fingers, listlessly brushed the dust from the skirt of his rusty frock coat, heaved a series of unmistakable sighs: whereupon – and by this strange occupation the boy was quite fascinated – he drew a little comb, a little brush, a little mirror, from his pocket; and having set up the mirror in a convenient place, he proceeded to dress his hair, with particular attention to the eyebrows, which, by and by, he tenderly braided into two limp little horns: so that 'twas not long before he looked much less like a frowsy Skye terrier, much more like an owl.

"The hour, Richard," he sighed, as he deftly parted his hair in the middle of his nose, "has came!"

With such fond and hopeless feeling were these enigmatical words charged that the boy could do nothing but heave a sympathetic sigh.

"You see before you, Richard, what you never seen before. A man in the clutches," Mr. Poddle tragically pursued, giving a vicious little twist to his left eyebrow, "of the tender passion!"

"Oh!" the boy muttered.

"'Fame,'" Mr. Poddle continued, improvising a newspaper head-line, to make himself clear, "'No Shield Against the Little God's Darts.' Git me? The high and the low gits the arrows in the same place."

"Does it – hurt?"

"Hurt!" cried Mr. Poddle, furiously. "It's perfectly excrugiating! Hurt? Why – "

"Mr. Poddle, excuse me," the boy interrupted, "but you are biting your mustache."

"Thanks," said Mr. Poddle, promptly. "Glad to know it. Can't afford to lose no more hirsute adornment. And I'm give to ravagin' it in moments of excitement, especially sorrow. Always tell me."

"I will," the boy gravely promised.

"The Pink-eyed Albino," Mr. Poddle continued, now released from the necessity of commanding his feelings, in so far as the protection of his hair was concerned, "was fancy; the Circassian Beauty was fascination; the Female Sampson was the hallugination of sky-blue tights; but the Mexican Sword Swallower," he murmured, with a melancholy wag, "is – "

"Mr. Poddle," the boy warned, "you are – at it again."

"Thanks," said Mr. Poddle, hastily eliminating the danger. "What I was about to remark," was his lame conclusion, "was that the Mexican Sword Swallower is love."

"Oh!"