The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VII

"It is sort of funny. I'd saved a good deal—I'm the saving sort—and the tenner you gave me that night—you remember, the night of the dinner—happened to fetch my pile up to exactly five hundred. So I says to myself that here was my chance to make a break for freedom—independence, you understand."

"We're the very deuce for independence down our way."

"Yes, indeed, sir. I was awfully sorry to hear about the trouble you got in at college; but, if you don't mind my saying so now, you boys were going it a little that night."

"Going it? What night? There were several."

"The red-fire night. You tipped me ten for that dinner."

"Did I? I hope you have it yet, Mr.—"

"James Wilkins, sir. Did you see Mr. Thorpe and Mr. Culver as you passed through San Francisco?"

"I did. How did you happen to know that I knew them?"

"I remember that they were chums of yours at college. We heard lots of college gossip at St. Dunstan's. I called on them in San Francisco, and Mr. Thorpe got me half-fare rates here. I've opened a restaurant here, and am doing a good business. Some of the officers who knew me at the St. Dunstan kind of made my place fashionable. Lieutenant Sommers, of the cavalry, won't dine anywhere else."

"Sommers? I expected to find him here."

"He's just gone out with an expedition. He told me that you'd be along, and that I was to see that you didn't starve. I've named my place the St. Dunstan, and I'd like you to call there—I remember your favorite dishes."

"That's very decent of you."

Mr. Wilkins looked frequently toward the entrance, with seeming anxiety. "I wish the proprietor of this place would come in," he said at last. "Lieutenant Sommers left me a check on this house for a hundred—Mr. Sommers roomed here, and left his money with the office. I need the cash to pay a carpenter who has built an addition for me. Kind of funny to be worth not a cent less than five thousand gold, in stock and good will, and be pushed for a hundred cash."

"If you've Mr. Sommers' check, I'll let you have the money—for St. Dunstan's sake."

"If you could? Of course, you know the lieutenant's signature?"

"As well as my own. Quite right. Here you are. Where is your restaurant?"

"You cross the Lunette, turn toward the bay—ask anybody. Hope to see you soon. Good day."

Some officers called on Carrington, as they had been told to do by the absent Sommers. When introductions were over, one of them handed a paper to Carrington, saying gravely: "Sommers told me to give this to you. It was published in San Francisco the day after you left, and reached here while you were in Japan."

What Carrington saw was a San Francisco newspaper story of his encounter with the Palace Hotel detective, an account of his famous dinner at the St. Dunstan, some selections of his other college pranks, allusion to the fact that he was a classmate of two San Franciscans, Messrs. Thorpe and Culver, the whole illustrated with pictures of Carrington and Presidio—the latter taken from the rogues' gallery. "Very pretty, very pretty, indeed," murmured Carrington, his eyes lingering with thoughtful pause on the picture of Presidio. "Could we not celebrate my fame in some place of refreshment—the St. Dunstan, for instance?"

They knew of no St. Dunstan's.

"I foreboded it," sighed Carrington. He narrated his recent experience with one James Wilkins, "who, I now opine, is Mr. Presidio. It's not worth troubling the police about, but I'd give a pretty penny to see Mr. Presidio again. Not to reprove him for the error of his ways, but to discover the resemblance which has led to this winsome newspaper story."

The next day one of the officers told Carrington that he had learned that Presidio and his wife, known to the police by a number of names, had taken ship the afternoon before.

"I see," remarked Carrington. "He needed exactly my tip to move to new fields. He worked me from the article in the paper, which he had seen and I had not. Clever Presidio!"

When Tommy, the hall-boy, on the night of Mr. Holt's first Tenderloin assignment, went to inform the police, Carrington, looking about the apartment to discover the extent of his loss, found on a table a letter superinscribed, "Before sending for the police, read this." He read:

"Dear Mr. Carrington: Since we met in Manila I have been to about every country on top of the earth where a white man's show could be worked. It's been up and down, and down and up, the last turn being down. In India I got some sleight-of-hand tricks which are new to this country; but here we land, wife and me, broke. Nothing but our apparatus, which we can't eat; and not able to use it, because we are shy on dress clothes demanded by the houses where I could get engagements. In that condition I happened to see you on the street, and thought to try a touch; and would, but you might be sore over the little fun we had in Manila. I heard in South Africa that you wouldn't let the army officers start the police after me; and wife says that was as square a deal as she ever heard of, and to try a touch. But I says we will make a forced loan, and repay out of our salaries. We hocked our apparatus to get me a suit of clothes which looked something like those you wear, and the rest was easy: finding out Tommy's name and then conning him. I've taken some clothes and jewelry, to make a front at the booking office, and some cash. You should empty your pockets of loose cash: I found some in all your clothes. Give me and wife a chance, and we will live straight after this, and remit on instalment. You can get me pinched easy, for we'll be playing the continuous circuit in a week; but wife says you won't squeal, and I'll take chances. Yours, sincerely as always, Presidio."

So Carrington told the superintendent to drop the matter.

The Great Courvatals, Monsieur and Madame, showed their new tricks to the booking agent and secured a forty weeks' engagement at a salary which only Presidio's confidence could have asked.

Presidio liked New York, and exploited it in as many directions as possible. With his new fashionable clothing and his handsome face, he was admitted to resorts of a character his boldest dreams had never before penetrated. He especially liked the fine restaurants. None so jocund, so frank and free as Presidio in ordering the best at the best places. Mrs. Presidio did not accompany him; she was enjoying the more poignant pleasure of shopping, with a responsible theater manager as her reference! At a restaurant one midday, as Presidio was leisurely breakfasting, he became aware that he was the object of furtive observation by a young lady, seated with an elderly companion at a table somewhat removed. Furtive doings were in his line, and he made a close study of the party, never turning more than a scant half-face to do so. The manner of the young lady was puzzling. None so keen as Presidio in reading expression, but hers he could not understand. That she was not trying to flirt with him he decided promptly and definitively; yet her looks were intended to attract his attention, and to do so secretly. The elderly companion, when the couple was leaving the restaurant, stopped in the vestibule to allow an attendant to adjust her wrap, and Presidio seized that chance to pass close to the young lady, moving as slowly as he dared without seeming to be concerned in her actions. Her head was averted, but Presidio distinctly heard her breathe, rather than whisper, "Pass by the house to-morrow afternoon."

Presidio pondered. He was supposed to know where her house was; he was unwelcome to some one there; he was mistaken for some one else—Carrington!

When he told his wife about it she was in a fever of romantic excitement. Bruising knocks in the world, close approaches to the shades of the prison house, hardships which would have banished romance from a nature less robustly romantic, had for Mrs. Presidio but more glowingly suffused with the tints of romance all life—but her own! "Mr. Carrington has done us right, Willie," she declared; "once in Manila, when we simply had to get to Hong Kong; and here, where we wouldn't have had no show on earth if he hadn't lent you the clothes and cash for the start. There's something doing here, Willie; and I'm all lit up with excitement."

Presidio, who, of course, had followed the young lady to learn where she lived, passed the house the next day, the sedatest looking man on the sedate block. Presently a maid came from the house, gave him a beckoning nod, and hurried on round the corner. There she slipped him a note, saying as she walked on, "I was to give you this, Mr. Carrington."

Presidio took the note to his wife, and she declared for opening it. It was sealed, and addressed to another person; but to let such an informality as opening another's letters stand in the way of knowing what was going on around them would have been foreign to the nature of Presidio activities. This was the note:

"Dear Porter: Your letters to papa will not be answered. I heard him say so to mamma, yesterday. He is angry that you wrote to him on the very day I returned from Europe. He will send me back there if you try to see me, as you say you will, but dear, even at that cost I must see you once more. I have never forgotten, never ceased to love; but there is no hope! A companion accompanies me always, the one you saw in the restaurant; but the maid who will hand you this is trustworthy, and will bring me any message you give to her. If you can arrange for a moment's meeting it will give me something to cherish in my memory through the remainder of my sad and hopeless life. Only for a moment, dear.

    "Caroline."

Mrs. Presidio wept. Here was romance sadder, and therefore better, than any she had ever read; better, even, than that in the one-act dramas which followed their turns on the stage. "Have you ever studied his writing?" she asked her husband; and, promptly divining her plan, he replied, "I made a few copies of his signature on the Manila hotel register. You never know what will turn up." After a pause, he added eagerly, "Better yet!—there was some of his writing in the overcoat I borrowed from his rooms."

"Write to her; make an appointment, and have him on hand to keep it."

Here was work right in Presidio's line; his professional pride was fired, and he wrote with grave application:

"Darling Caroline: Thank you, sweetheart, for words which have kept me from suicide. Love of my life, I can not live until we meet! But only for a moment? Nay, for ever and ever!"

"That's beautiful!" declared Mrs. Presidio, looking over Willie's shoulder. He continued:

"I shall hand this to your maid; but you must not meet me there; it would be too dangerous. Leave your house one-half hour after receiving this, and go around the corner where you will see a lady, a relative of mine, who will drive with you to a safe tryst. Trust her, and heaven speed the hour! With undying love. Porter."

This was all written in a good imitation of Carrington's rather unusual handwriting, and approved by Mrs. Presidio; who, however, thought there should be some reference to the young lady's home as a beetled tower, and to her father as several things which Presidio feared might not be esteemed polite in the social plane they were operating in. He passed the house the next day, and the maid soon appeared. He learned from her that her mistress's companion was not at home; and then, hopeful because of this opportune absence, hurried off, leaving Mrs. Presidio round the corner in a carriage. He went to a club where, he had ascertained, Carrington usually was at that hour, and sent in the card of "M. Courvatal," on which he wrote, "Presidio." Carrington came out to him at once. "My dear Mr. Presidio, this is so kind of you," he said, regarding his caller with interest. "We've not met since Manila. I hope Mrs. Presidio is well, and that your professional engagements prosper. I went to see you perform last night, and was delighted."

"Thank you," the caller said, much pleased with this reception. "I'll be sending the balance of my little debt to you as soon as the wife has her dressmaking bills settled."

"Pray do not incommode the wife. The amount you have already sent was a pleasant—surprise. Can I be of any service to you to-day?"

"Well, it's like this, Mr. Carrington: I have an appointment for you this afternoon."

"For me?"

"With Miss Caroline Curtis."

"What do you mean?"

"Don't be offended, sir. Come with me, and see what you'll see. If I try any game, pitch into me, that's all."

The man's manner was now so earnest that Carrington, without a word, started with him. In the club entrance Presidio whispered, "Follow; don't walk with me. There's not much chance that any one here will recognize me, but if I was pinched on any old score you'd better not be in my company." He went ahead, and Carrington followed. They had walked down Fifth Avenue several blocks when Mr. Francis Holt cut in between them, and shadowed Presidio with elaborate caution. Carrington saw this, and mused. "I think I know that young man who has so plainly got friend Presidio under observation. Surely, it's Holt, a year or two after me. What can he—Hello, I say!"

Holt saw the intention of Presidio to turn off the avenue toward a little church round the corner, and advancing suddenly, laid a strong hand on Presidio's shoulder, saying, "Come quietly with me, and I'll make no fuss; but if you don't, I'll call a policeman."