Burnham Breaker Part 17

There was a man standing on the next corner, and Ralph stopped and asked him if he was on the right road to get to the station. The man laughed good-naturedly, and told him he was on the right road to get away from it, and advised him to retrace his steps for four blocks, then to go two blocks to the left, and there he would find a street running diagonally across the town, which, if he would follow it, would take him very near to the station. He would have to hurry, too, the man said, if he wanted to catch the noon train.

So Ralph turned back, counting the blocks as he went, turning at the right place, and coming, at last, to the street described. But, instead of one street running diagonally from this point there were two or three; and Ralph did not know which one to follow. He asked a boy, who was pa.s.sing by with a basket on his shoulder, where the station was, and the boy, bending his neck and looking at him, said,--

"I guess this's the way you want to go, sonny," pointing down one of the streets, as he spoke, and then whistling a merry tune as he trudged on with his burden.

Ralph turned into the street designated, and hurried down it, block after block; but he did not reach the station, nor did he see any place that looked like it. He seemed to be in the suburbs, too, in a locality the surroundings of which impressed him unpleasantly. The buildings were small and dilapidated, there was a good deal of rubbish on the sidewalks and in the streets, a few ragged children were playing in the gutter near by, shivering with cold as they ran about in bare, dirty feet, and a drunken man, leaning against a post on the opposite corner, was talking affectionately to some imaginary person in the vicinity. Ralph thought that this, certainly, was not where he ought to be. He walked more slowly, trying to find some one who would give him reliable directions.

At the corner of the block there was a house that looked somewhat better than its neighbors. It had a show-window projecting a few inches into the street, and in the window was a display of wine-bottles, and a very dirty placard announcing that oysters would be served to customers, in every style. On the ground-gla.s.s comprising the upper part of the door, the words "Sample Room" were elaborately lettered. Ralph heard some one talking inside, and, after a moment of hesitation, concluded to go in there and make his inquiry, as the need of finding his way had come to be very pressing. Coming in, as he did, from the street, the room was quite dark to his eyes, and he could not well make out, at first, who were in it. But he soon discovered a man standing, in his shirt-sleeves, behind a bar, and he went up to him and said:--

"Will you please tell me, sir, which is the nearest way to the railroad station?"

"Which station d'ye want to go to, bub?" inquired the man, leaning over the bar to look at him.

"The one you take the train for Scranton from."

"Which train for Scranton d'ye want to take?"

"The one't leaves at noon."

"Why that train goes in just five minutes. You couldn't catch that train now, my little cupid, if you should spread your wings and fly to the station."

It was not the bar-tender who spoke this time; it was a young man who had left his chair by the stove and had come up closer to get a better look at the boy. He was just slipping a silver watch back into his vest pocket. It was a black silk vest, dotted with little red figures.

Below the vest, encasing the wearer's legs very tightly, were a pair of much soiled corduroy pantaloons that had once been of a lavender shade. Over the vest was a short, dark, double-breasted sack coat, now unb.u.t.toned. A large gaudy, flowing cravat, and an ill-used silk hat, set well back on the wearer's head, completed this somewhat noticeable costume.

There was a good-natured looking face under the hat though, smooth and freckled; but the eyes were red and heavy, and the tip of the straight nose was of quite a vermilion hue.

"No, my dear boy," he continued,--

"You can't catch it, And I can't fetch it,

"so you may as well take it easy and wait for the next one."

"When does the next one go?" inquired Ralph, looking up at the strange young man, but with his eyes still unaccustomed to the darkness of the room.

"Four o'clock, my cherub; not till four o'clock. Going up on that train myself, and I'll see you right through:--

"Oh, sonny! if you'll wait and go with me, How happy and delighted I should be."

Then the young man did a strange thing; he took hold of Ralph's arm, led him to the window, turned his face to the light and scrutinized it closely.

"Well, I'll be kicked to death by gra.s.shoppers!" he exclaimed, at last, "have I found--do I behold--is this indeed the long lost Ralph?"

The boy had broken away from him, and stood with frightened, wondering face, gazing steadily on the young man, as if trying to call something to memory. Then a light of recognition came into his eyes, and a smile to his lips.

"Why!" he exclaimed, "it's Joe; it's Rhymin' Joe!"

"A happy meeting," said the young man, "and a mutual remembrance.

Heart speaks to heart.

"The hand of friendship, ever true, Brings you to me and me to you.

"Mr. b.u.mmerton," turning to the bar-tender, "allow me to introduce my esteemed young friend, Mr. Ralph Craft, the worthy grandson of an old acquaintance."

Mr. b.u.mmerton reached a burly hand over the bar and shook hands cordially with Ralph. "Glad to meet your young friend," he said.

"Well," continued Rhyming Joe, "isn't it strange how and under what circ.u.mstances old cronies sometimes meet? I cast my eyes on you and I said to myself, 'that young man has a familiar look to me.' I listened to your voice and I remarked to my inner consciousness, 'that voice lingers somewhere in the depths of of memory.' I turn your face to the light, and lo and behold! I reveal to my astonished gaze the features of my old friend, Ralph.

"No tongue can tell my great delight, At seeing you again to-night.

"Of course it isn't night yet, you know, but the pressing exigencies of rhyme often demand the elimination, as it were, of a small portion of time."

Ralph was glancing uneasily about the room. "Gran'pa Simon ain't anywheres around is he?" he asked, letting his eyes rest, with careful scrutiny, on a drunken man asleep in a chair in a dark corner.

"No, my boy," answered Joe, "he isn't. I haven't seen the dear old saint, for, lo, these many moons. Ah!--let me see! did you not leave the patriarch's sweet home circle, somewhat prematurely, eh?

"Gave the good old man the slip Ere the cup could touch the lip?"

"Yes," said Ralph, "I did. I run away. He didn't use me right."

"No, he didn't, that's so. Come, be seated--tell me about it. Oh!

you needn't fear. I'll not give it away. Your affectionate grandpa and I are not on speaking terms. The unpleasant bitterness of our estrangement is sapping the juices of my young life and dragging the roses from my cheeks.

"How sad when lack of faith doth part The tender from the toughened heart!"

Rhyming Joe had drawn two chairs near to the stove, and had playfully forced Ralph into one of them, while he, himself, took the other.

The bar-tender came out from behind his bar and approached the couple.

"Oh, by the way," he asked, "did ye have a ticket for your pa.s.sage up, or was ye goin' to pay your fare?"

"Oh, no!" said Ralph, "I ain't got any ticket. Mr. Sharpman paid my fare down, but I was goin' to pay it back, myself."

The man stood, for a few minutes, listening to the reminiscences of their Philadelphia life which Ralph and Joe were recalling, then he interrupted again:--

"How'd ye like to have some dinner, me boy? Ain't ye gittin' a little hungry? it's after noon now."

"Well, I am a bit hungry," responded Ralph, "that's a fact. Do you get dinners here for people?"

"Oh, certainly! jest as good a dinner as ye'll git anywhere. Don't charge ye for nothing more'n ye actially eat, neither. Have some?"

"Well, yes," said the boy, "I guess so; I won't have no better chance to get any, 'fore I get home."

"I think," said Rhyming Joe, as the man shuffled away, "that my young friend would like a dish of soup, then a bit of tenderloin, and a little chicken-salad, and some quail on toast, with the vegetables and accessories. For dessert we will have some ices, a few chocolate eclairs and lady-fingers, and a cup of black coffee. You had better bring the iced champagne with the dinner, and don't forget the finger-bowls."

Before the last words were out of the speaker's mouth, the bar-tender had disappeared through a door behind the bar, with a wicked smile on his face.

It seemed a long time, to Ralph, before the man came back, but when he did come, he carried in his hands a tray, on which were bowls of oyster soup, very thin, a few crackers, and two little plates of dirty b.u.t.ter. He placed them on a round table at one side of the room, and Ralph and Joe drew up their chairs and began to eat.