A Jolly Fellowship Part 26

He unfastened my arms first,--that is, as soon as he had taken the handkerchief off my mouth,--and the moment he had taken the bandage from around my ankles, he put for the door. But I was ready. I sprang out of bed, made one jump over his bed, around which he had to go, and caught him just at the door.

He forgot that he should have left my ankles for me to untie for myself.

I guess the people in the next rooms must have thought there was something of a rumpus in our room when I caught him.

There was considerable coolness between Colbert and me after that. In fact, we didn't speak. I was not at all anxious to keep this thing up, for I was satisfied, and was perfectly willing to call it square; but for the first time since I had known him, Colbert was angry. I suppose every fellow, no matter how good-natured he may be, must have some sort of a limit to what he will stand, and Colbert seemed to have drawn his line at a good thrashing.

It wasn't hard for me to keep my promise to him, for I didn't call him anything; but I should have kept it all the same if we had been on the old terms.

Of course, Corny soon found out that there was something the matter between us two, and she set herself to find out what it was.

"What's the matter with you and Rectus?" she asked me the next day. I was standing in the carriage-way before the hotel, and she ran out to me.

"You mustn't call him Rectus," said I. "He doesn't like it."

"Well, then, I wont," said she. "But what is it all about? Did you quarrel about calling him that? I hate to see you both going about, and not speaking to each other."

I had no reason to conceal anything, and so I told her the whole affair, from the very beginning to the end.

"I don't wonder he's mad," said she, "if you thrashed him."

"Well, and oughtn't I to be mad after the way he treated me?" I asked.

"Yes," she said. "It makes me sick just to think of being tied up in that way,--and the black paint, too! But then you are so much bigger than he is, that it don't seem right for you to thrash him."

"That's one reason I did it," said I. "I didn't want to fight him as I should have fought a fellow of my own size. I wanted to punish him. Do you think that when a father wants to whip his son he ought to wait until he grows up as big as he is?"

"No," said Corny, very gravely. "Of course not. But Rectus isn't your son. What shall I call him? Samuel, or Sam? I don't like either of them, and I wont say Mr. Colbert. I think 'Rectus' is a great deal nicer."

"So do I," I said; "but that's his affair. To be sure, he isn't my son, but he's under my care, and if he wasn't, it would make no difference.

I'd thrash any boy alive who played such a trick on me."

"Unless he was bigger than you are," said Corny.

"Well, then I'd get you to help me. You'd do it; wouldn't you, Corny?"

She laughed.

"I guess I couldn't help much, and I suppose you're both right to be angry at each other; but I'm awful sorry if things are going on this way. It didn't seem like the same place yesterday. n.o.body did anything at all."

"I tell you what it is, Corny," said I. "You're not angry with either of us; are you?"

"No, indeed," said she, and her face warmed up and her eyes shone.

"That's one comfort," said I, and I gave her a good hand-shake.

It must have looked funny to see a boy and a girl shaking hands there in front of the hotel, and a young darkey took advantage of our good-humor, and, stealing out from a shady corner of the court, sold us seven little red and black liquorice-seed for fourpence,--the worst swindle that had been worked on us yet.

CHAPTER XVI.

MR. CHIPPERTON KEEPS PERFECTLY COOL.

It's of no use to deny the fact that Na.s.sau was a pretty dull place, just about this time. At least Corny and I found it so, and I don't believe young Mr. Colbert was very happy, for he didn't look it. It's not to be supposed that our quarrel affected the negroes, or the sky, or the taste of bananas; but the darkeys didn't amuse me, and my recollection of those days is that they were cloudy, and that I wasn't a very good customer down in the market-house by the harbor, where we used to go and buy little fig-bananas, which they didn't have at the hotel, but which were mighty good to eat.

Colbert and I still kept up a frigid reserve toward each other. He thought, I suppose, that I ought to speak first, because I was the older, and I thought that he ought to speak first because he was the younger.

One evening, I went up into my room, having absolutely nothing else to do, and there I found Colbert, writing. I suppose he was writing a letter, but there was no need of doing this at night, as the mail would not go out for several days, and there would be plenty of time to write in the daytime. He hadn't done anything but lounge about for two or three days. Perhaps he came up here to write because he had nothing else to do.

There was only one table, and I couldn't write if I had wanted to, so I opened my trunk and began to put some of my things in order. We had arranged, before we had fallen out, that we should go home on the next steamer, and Mr. and Mrs. Chipperton were going too. We had been in Na.s.sau nearly a month, and had seen about as much as was to be seen--in an ordinary way. As for me, I couldn't afford to stay any longer, and that had been the thing that had settled the matter, as far as Colbert and I were concerned. But now he might choose to stay, and come home by himself. However, there was no way of my knowing what he thought, and I supposed that I had no real right to make him come with me. At any rate, if I had, I didn't intend to exercise it.

While I was looking over the things in my trunk, I came across the box of dominoes that Corny had given us to remember her by. It seemed like a long time ago since we had been sitting together on the water-battery at St. Augustine! In a few minutes I took the box of dominoes in my hand and went over to Colbert. As I put them on the table he looked up.

"What do you say to a game of dominoes?" I said. "This is the box Corny gave us. We haven't used it yet."

"Very well," said he, and he pushed away his paper and emptied the dominoes out on the table. Then he picked up some of them, and looked at them as if they were made in some new kind of a way that he had never noticed before; and I picked up some, too, and examined them. Then we began to play. We did not talk very much, but we played as if it was necessary to be very careful to make no mistakes. I won the first game, and I could not help feeling a little sorry, while Colbert looked as if he felt rather glad. We played until about our ordinary bed-time, and then I said:

"Well, Colbert, I guess we might as well stop," and he said:

"Very well."

But he didn't get ready to go to bed. He went to the window and looked out for some time, and then he came back to the table and sat down. He took his pen and began to print on the lid of the domino-box, which was of smooth white wood. He could print names and t.i.tles of things very neatly, a good deal better than I could.

When he had finished, he got up and began to get ready for bed, leaving the box on the table. Pretty soon I went over to look at it, for I must admit I was rather curious to see what he had put on it. This was the inscription he had printed on the lid:

"GIVEN TO WILL AND RECTUS BY CORNY.

ST. AUGUSTINE, FLORIDA."

There was a place left for the date, which I suppose he had forgotten. I made no remark about this inscription, for I did not know exactly what remark was needed; but the next morning I called him "Rectus," just the same as ever, for I knew he had printed our names on the box to show me that he wanted to let me off my promise. I guess the one time I called him Colbert was enough for him.

When we came down stairs to breakfast, talking to each other like common people, it was better than most shows to see Corny's face. She was standing at the front door, not far from the stairs, and it actually seemed as if a candle had been lighted inside of her. Her face shone.

I know I felt first-rate, and I think Rectus must have felt pretty much the same, for his tongue rattled away at a rate that wasn't exactly usual with him. There was no mistaking Corny's feelings.

After breakfast, when we all got together to talk over the plans of the day,--a thing we hadn't done for what seemed to me about a week,--we found out--or rather remembered--that there were a lot of things in Na.s.sau that we hadn't seen yet, and that we wouldn't miss for anything.

We had been wasting time terribly lately, and the weather was now rather better for going about than it had been since we came to the place.

We agreed to go to Fort Charlotte that morning, and see the subterranean rooms and pa.s.sage-ways, and all the underground dreariness of which we had heard so much. The fort was built about a hundred years ago, and has no soldiers in it. To go around and look at the old forts in this part of the world might make a person believe the millennium had come.

They seem just about as good as ever they were, but they're all on a peace-footing. Rectus said they were played out, but I'd rather take my chances in Fort Charlotte, during a bombardment, than in some of the new-style forts that I have seen in the North. It is almost altogether underground, in the solid calcareous, and what could any fellow want better than that? The cannon-b.a.l.l.s and bombs would have to plow up about an acre of pretty solid rock, and plow it deep, too, before they would begin to scratch the roof of the real strongholds of this fort. At least, that's the way I looked at it.

We made up a party and walked over. It's at the western end of the town, and about a mile from the hotel. Mr. and Mrs. Chipperton were with us, and a lady from Chicago, and Mr. Burgan. The other yellow-legs went out riding with his wife, but I think he wanted to go with us. The fort is on the top of a hill, and a colored shoemaker is in command. He sits and cobbles all day, except when visitors come, and then he shows them around. He lighted a lamp and took us down into the dark, quiet rooms and cells, that were cut out of the solid rock, down deep into the hill, and it was almost like being in a coal-mine, only it was a great deal cleaner and not so deep. But it seemed just as much out of the world. In some of the rooms there were bats hanging to the ceilings. We didn't disturb them. One of the rooms was called the governor's room. There wasn't any governor there, of course, but it had been made by the jolly old earl who had the place cut out,--and who was governor here at the time,--as a place where he might retire when he wanted to be private. It was the most private apartment I ever saw. This earl was the same old Dunmore we used to study about in our histories. He came over here when the Revolution threw him out of business in our country. He had some good ideas about chiselling rock.

This part of the fort was so extremely subterranean and solemn that it wasn't long before Mrs. Chipperton had enough of it, and we came up. It was fine to get out into the open air, and see the blue sky and the bright, sparkling water of the harbor just below us, and the islands beyond, and still beyond them the blue ocean, with everything so bright and cheerful in the sunlight. If I had been governor of this place, I should have had my private room on top of the fort, although, of course, that wouldn't do so well in times of bombardment.