A Man's Man Part 12

Allerton noticed his host's momentary distance of manner, and leaned across the table with an air of contrition.

"I'm afraid," he said apologetically, "that I'm getting most infernally full. You see how it is with me, don't you? I'm that sort of bloke.

Always have been, from a nipper. Thash--That's why I'm here. It's a pity. And the worst of it is," he added, in a sudden burst of candour, "that I'm going to get much fuller. It's a long time since I tasted this." He touched his gla.s.s. "It isn't served out on the Orinoco. Do you--er--mind?"

Hughie, with a queer feeling of compa.s.sion, smiled rea.s.suringly, and ordered another bottle. If Allerton was about to get drunk, he should get drunk like a gentleman for once in a way.

Then his attention reverted to the piano.

There had been a development. The girl was mechanically playing one of the compositions of that delicate weaver of subtle harmonies, Mr. John Philip Sousa; but she was not reading her music. Her eyelids were resolutely lowered, as if she wished to avoid seeing something. The reason resolved itself into a gentleman who was leaning over the front of the piano, gazing amorously down upon the musician, and endeavouring, with surprising success, to make himself heard above one of the composer's most characteristic efforts.

Hughie looked him up and down. He was a big man, powerfully built, with little pig's eyes set close together, and a ponderous and vicious-looking lower jaw. Was _he_ her husband? wondered the deeply interested Hughie. No: he was too obviously endeavouring to make himself agreeable.

"Marrable, my son," suddenly interpolated the convivial but observant Allerton, "you're cut out! No use bidding against that customer. Do you know who he is?"

"No. Who?"

"That," replied the deck-hand with an air of almost proprietary pride, "is Noddy Kinahan."

"Oh! And who may he be?"

"Gee! (Sorry! One picks up these rotten Yankee expressions somehow.) I mean, I am surprised you haven't heard of him. He's rather a big man here. In fact, to be explish--explicit,"--Mr. Allerton was fast arriving at that stage of intoxication which cannot let well alone, but must tempt Providence by dragging in unnecessarily hard words,--"he is my employer."

"Anything else."

"Political boss of sorts. _Inter alia_--that's good! I'm glad I remembered that. _Inter alia_ rhymes with Australia, doesn't it? We'll make up a Limerick on it some time--let me see, where was I? Oh, yesh--yes, I mean--_inter alia_, he owns the Orinoco and about a dozen more mouldy old coffins; and very well he does out of them, too! Buys them cheap, and--but excuse further details at present, ole man. To tell you the truth I'm getting so screwed that I'm afraid of saying something that in my calmer moments I shall subsequently regret. A cigar? I thank you. You're a white man, Marrable. Chin chin!"

After this burst of discretion Mr. Allerton returned to the joint worship of Bacchus and Vesta, the difficulty which he experienced in keeping the lighted end of the cigar out of his mouth increasing as the evening advanced, but leaving his cheerfulness unimpaired. His condition was due not so much to the depths of his potations as to the shallowness of his accommodation for the same; and strong-headed Hughie, as he surveyed the weak chin and receding forehead on the other side of the table, mused not altogether without envy upon the strange inequality of that law of nature which decrees that what is a toothful for one man shall be a skinful for another and an anaesthetic for a third.

He was recalled from these musings by the remembrance of the girl at the piano, and turned to see what was happening now.

Mr. Noddy Kinahan was returning from an expedition to the bar, carrying a bottle of champagne and a long tumbler. These accessories to conviviality he placed on the top of the piano, and departed on a second trip, returning shortly with a wine-gla.s.sful of brandy. The girl, though she probably observed more of his movements than her low-drooping lashes would seem to allow, made no sign, but continued to play the ragtime tune with a mechanical precision which caused the tumbler on the top of the piano to tread a lively and self-accompanied measure round its more stolid and heavily weighted companion.

Mr. Kinahan next proceeded to pour himself out a tumblerful of champagne, liberally lacing the foaming liquid with brandy. Then, with an ingratiating gesture toward the shrinking girl, he proceeded to swallow the mixture with every appearance of enjoyment.

"King's peg!" commented Hughie to himself. "Wonder how much of _that_ he can stand? I'd back him against friend Allerton, though, if it came--Hallo! The hound! This must stop!"

He half rose to his feet. Mr. Kinahan, having satisfied his present needs, had refilled the tumbler with champagne, added the rest of the brandy, and was now proffering the potion, in the self-same vessel which he had just honoured with his own august lips, to the girl at the piano.

The girl turned crimson and shook her head, but kept on playing.

Noddy Kinahan was not accustomed to bestow favours in vain. He walked round behind the piano, and, taking the girl firmly by the shoulders with his left arm, held the sizzling tumbler to her lips. She uttered a strangled cry, left off playing, and struggled frantically to seize the gla.s.s with her hands.

Now Hughie Marrable had a healthy prejudice in favour of minding his own business. He had witnessed scenes of this description before, and he knew that, place and company considered, the girl at the piano was probably not unaccustomed to accept refreshment at the hands of gentlemen, even when the gentleman was half-drunk, the hands dirty, and the refreshment (after allowing a generous discount for spillings) sufficiently potent to deprive any ordinary woman, within ten minutes, of any sort of control over her own actions or behaviour. Moreover, Hughie had a truly British horror of a scene. _But_--

He was surprised to feel himself leap from his chair and bound toward the piano. His surprise, however, was nothing to that experienced a moment later by Mr. Noddy Kinahan, who, having succeeded in pinning the desperately resisting girl's arms to her sides, was now endeavouring to prise her lips open with the edge of the tumbler. But there are slips even after the cup has reached the lip. Just as success appeared to be about to crown Mr. Kinahan's hospitable efforts, a large and sinewy hand shot over his right shoulder and s.n.a.t.c.hed away the gla.s.s, which it threw under the piano. Simultaneously an unseen force in the rear shook him till his teeth rattled, and then, depressing his head to the level of the keyboard, began to play a lively if staccato tune thereon with the point of Mr. Kinahan's rubicund and fleshy nose.

These operations were more or less screened from the public view by the body of the piano, which was an "upright" of the cottage variety. But the sudden cessation of "The Washington Post" in favour of what sounded like "The Cat's Polka" played by a baby with its feet, brought the proprietor of the establishment hurrying across the room. He arrived just in time to be present at the conclusion of a florid chromatic scale of about four octaves, executed under the guidance of Hughie Marrable's heavy hand by Mr. Kinahan's somewhat abraded nasal organ.

The instrumental part of the entertainment now terminated in favour of a vocal interlude. Hughie released his grip of Mr. Noddy Kinahan's collar, and stood back a pace waiting for a rush. He was confident that, given a clear floor and no interference, he could offer his burly opponent a lesson in manners which he would never forget.

But Mr. Kinahan, being a mover in high political alt.i.tudes, was not in the habit of doing his own dirty work. He reviled his opponent, it is true, in terms which an expert could not but have admitted were masterly, but it was obvious to the unruffled Hughie that he was doing so chiefly to keep his courage up and "save his face." There was a cunning, calculating look in his piggy eyes which did not quite fit in with the unrestrained _abandon_ of his utterances, and Hughie began to realise that there are deeper schemes of retaliation than mere a.s.sault and battery.

Once or twice Mr. Kinahan, in pausing for breath, turned and looked over his shoulder toward the curious crowd which was gathering behind him. Presently Hughie noticed a couple of "toughs" of the most uncompromisingly villainous appearance advancing in a leisurely fashion from a corner by the door, where they had been supping. They kept their eyes on Kinahan, as if for an order. Evidently that great man never took his walks abroad without his jackals.

Things were beginning to look serious. The Hebraic proprietor, half crazy with fright at the gratuitous advertis.e.m.e.nt which the fracas was conferring upon his establishment,--an advertis.e.m.e.nt which was receiving a gratifying response from an influx of curious sightseers,--was frantically begging people to go away. The girl, the source (as ever!) of all the trouble, was still sitting on the music-stool, trembling like a fluttered bird, with Hughie, feeling slightly self-conscious, standing over her. In the middle distance, Mr. Allerton, gloriously oblivious to the ephemeral and irrelevant disturbance around him, sat contentedly before two empty bottles, endeavouring with erratic fingers to adorn the lapel of his blue pea-jacket with a silver-plated fork (the property of the establishment), upon which he had impaled a nodding banana of pantomimic proportions.

Suddenly Hughie heard himself addressed in casual tones by some one standing close behind him.

"Say, Johnny Bull, you'd best get out of here, right now. Skip! Those two toughs of Noddy's won't touch you till they get the word, but when they do you'll be sorry. Get out this way, by the side of the stage. It leads around to the back door."

Having delivered himself of this undoubtedly sound piece of advice, the unhealthy-looking young gentleman from behind the bar picked up the champagne bottle and broken gla.s.s, and lounged back to his base of operations.

Hughie, realising the wisdom of his words, and making a hasty note that one should never judge even a mottle-faced bar-tender by his appearance, reluctantly abandoned his half-projected scheme of hurling Noddy Kinahan into the arms of his two sinister supporters and then knocking their collective heads together, and turned to the small door behind him.

Suddenly he caught sight of the piano-girl. He paused and surveyed her thoughtfully.

"You'd better come with me," he said.

Without a word, the girl rose and preceded him to the door. Hughie opened it for her, and they both pa.s.sed through and hurried down a narrow pa.s.sage, which gave direct into the alley at the back of the establishment.

Once outside, Hughie took the girl's arm and fairly ran, never pausing till they reached the brightly lighted sea-front. He had an idea that a cheerful and crowded thoroughfare would prove more salubrious than deserted and ill-lit byways.

Once clear of their late surroundings the two slackened pace, and Hughie surveyed his charge with comical perplexity.

"Now what am I to do with _you_?" he inquired.

"Take me home," said the girl, sobbing.

Her pluck and fort.i.tude, having brought her dry-eyed through the worst of the conflict, had now taken their usual leave of absence, and she was indulging very properly in a few reactionary and comforting tears.

"Where do you live?" asked Hughie.

"Brooklyn."

"That's a matter for a trolley-car. Come along."

He took her arm again, rather diffidently this time,--his old masculine self-consciousness was returning,--and hurried off to what the Coney Islanders call a "deepo." Here they ensconced themselves in the corner of a fairly empty car, and started on their twenty-mile run, _via_ Sheepshead Bay and other delectable spots, to Brooklyn Bridge.

As soon as the car started, Hughie turned to his companion.

"Look here," he said bluntly. "I know a lady when I meet one. What were you doing in that place at all? You are English, too."

"Yes. I can't blame you for wondering. I'll tell you. I come from London. My father was a small schoolmaster in Sydenham. He--he was unfortunate, and died three years ago, and I was left alone in the world, with hardly two sixpences to rub together. Just as things were looking none too promising for me, I met and married"--she flushed proudly--"one of the best men that ever stepped--Dennis Maclear. He is an electrical engineer. We came out here together to make our fortunes, and settled in New York. We were beginning to do fairly well after a long struggle, when one day Dennis crushed his left arm and leg in a cog-wheel arrangement of some kind, and for three months he has not been able even to get out of bed without help. Bad luck, wasn't it? He is getting better slowly, and some day, the doctor says, he will be able to get about again. But--well, savings don't last for ever, you know; so I--"

"I see," said Hughie; "the upkeep of the establishment has devolved on you in the meanwhile?"

"Yes. Piano-playing is about the only accomplishment I possess. A girl friend of mine told me she was giving up her billet at old Bercotti's, and asked if I would like it. She wouldn't recommend it to most girls, she said, but perhaps it would suit me all right, being married. I took it; but as you saw, my being married wasn't sufficient protection after all."

She shuddered, for she was very young, and badly shaken; but presently she smiled bravely.