Felix O'Day Part 12

"I want you to come over with me to my shop. You won't object, will you, Otto? I won't keep him a minute."

"Let me come a little later, sir, say about nine o'clock. I have work here until six and an engagement, which is important, until nine. You are open as late as that?"

"Oh, I am always open, or can be," Kelsey answered. "What would I shut up shop for except to keep out the rats--human and otherwise? I live in my place, and, as I live alone, n.o.body ever disturbs me--n.o.body I want to see--and I do want you, and want you very much. Well, then, come at nine, and if the blinds are up, ring the bell." And so the acquaintance began.

And yet, interesting as he found these diversions with his neighbors, there were moments when, despite his determination to be cheerful and to add his quota to the general fund of good-fellowship, he had to summon all his courage to prevent his spirit sinking to its lowest ebb. It was then he would turn to the thing that lay nearest to hand, his work--work often so irksome to him that, but for his sense both of obligation and of justice to his employer and his love for Masie, he would have abandoned it altogether.

A possible relief came when through the protests of a customer he had begun to realize the clearer Kling's deficiencies and had, in consequence, cast about for some plan of helping him to do a larger and more remunerative business.

Several ways by which this could be accomplished were outlined in his mind. The disorder everywhere apparent in the shop should first come to an end. The present chaos of tables, chairs, bureaus, and sideboards, heaped higgledy-piggledy one upon the other--the customers edging their way between lanes of dusty furniture--must next be abolished. So must the jumble of gla.s.s, china, curios, and lamps. This completed, color and form would be considered, each taking its proper place in the general scheme.

To accomplish these results, all the unsalable, useless, and ugly furniture taking up valuable s.p.a.ce must be carted away to some auction room and sold for what it would bring. Light, air, and much-needed room would then follow, and prices advanced to make up for the loss on the "rattletrap" and the "rickety." Stuffs which had been poked away in worthless bureau drawers for years, as being too ragged even to show, were next to be hauled out, patched, and darned, and then hung on the bare white walls, concealing the dirt and the cracks.

And these improvements, strange to say--Kling being as obstinate as the usual Dutch cabinetmaker, and as set in his ways--were finally carried out; slowly at first, and with a rush later when every customer who entered the door began by complimenting Otto on the improvement. Soon the sales increased to such an extent and the stock became so depleted that Kling was obliged to look around for articles of a better and higher grade to take its place.

At this juncture a happy and unforeseen accident came to his aid. A bric-a-brac dealer with a shop in Jersey City filled with some very good English and Italian patterns and a fine a.s.sortment of European gatherings--most of them rare, and all of them good--fell ill and was ordered to Colorado for his health. His wife had insisted on going with him, and thus the whole concern, including its good-will--worthless to Kling--was offered to him at half its value.

O'Day spent the entire morning crawling in and out of the interstices of the choked-up Jersey City shop; Masie, as his valuable a.s.sistant, propped up with Fudge on a big table until he had finished. The next day the bargain was made. Mike, Bobby, the two Dutchies, and both Kitty's teams were then called in and the transfer began.

It was when this collection of things really worth having were being moved into their new home under Felix's personal direction that Masie announced to him an important event. They were on the second floor at the time, overlooking Hans and Mike, who had just brought up-stairs the first of the purchase, a huge, high-backed gilt chair, stately in its proportions--Spanish, Felix thought--with a few renovations about the arms and back, but a good specimen withal. The chair had evidently excited her imagination, reminding her, perhaps, of some of the pictures in Tim Kelsey's fairy books, for after looking at it for a moment she began clapping her hands and whirling about the room.

"I've thought of such a lovely thing, Uncle Felix! Let's play kings and queens! I will sit in this chair and will dress Fudge up like a page and everybody will come up and courtesy, or I will be the fairy princess and you will be my beauty prince, and--"

Felix, who was holding up the heavy end of a piece of tapestry while the two men were clearing a place for it behind the chair, called out, "When's all this to happen, Tootcoms?"--one of his pet names; he had a dozen of them.

"Next Sat.u.r.day."

"Why next Sat.u.r.day?"

"Because then I'm eleven years old, and you know that a great many fairy princesses are never any older."

Down went the tapestry. "Your birthday! You blessed little angel! Eleven years old! My goodness, how time flies! Pretty soon you will be in long dresses, with your hair in a knot on the top of your head. You never told me a word about it!"

"No, but I do now. And I am just going to have a party--a real party.

And I am going to invite everybody, all the girls I know and all the boys and all the old people."

Felix had her beside him now, her fresh young cheek against his. "You don't tell me! Well! I never heard anything like it! And what will your father say?"

Her face fell. "Don't let's tell him! Let's have a surprise."

Felix shook his head. "I am afraid we could never do that, unless we locked him up in the cellar and did not give him a thing to eat until everything was ready. Oh, just think how he would beg for mercy!"

Masie rubbed her cheek up and down that of Felix in disapproval. "No, you wouldn't be so mean to poor Popsy."

"Well, then, suppose--suppose--" and he held her teasingly from him to note the effect of his words--"suppose we make him go away--way off somewhere, to buy something--so far away that he could not come back until the next day. How would that do?"

"No, that won't do--not a little bit! I've got a better plan. You go right down-stairs this minute and tell him it's all fixed, and that I'm going out this very afternoon to invite everybody myself."

Felix made a wry fate. "Suppose he sends me about my business?"

"He won't. He thinks you are the most WONDERFUL man in the world--he told Mr. Kelsey so; I heard him--and he won't refuse you anything--oh, Uncle Felix"--both arms were around his neck now, always her last argument--"I do so want a birthday party and I want it right here in this room."

Felix smoothed back the hair from her pleading eyes and kissed her tenderly on the forehead. For a moment there was silence between them, he continuing to smooth back her hair, she cuddling the tighter, her usual way. She always let him think a while and it always came out right. But he had made up his mind. It had been years since a birthday of his own had been celebrated; nor had he ever helped, so far as he could recollect, to celebrate the birthday of any child. Yes, Masie should have her birthday, if he could bring it about, and it should be the happiest of all her life.

Suddenly he rose, releasing his neck from her grasp, and ran his eyes around the almost bare interior--the big chair being the only article, so far, in place. "It will make a grand banquet hall, Masie," he said, as if speaking more to himself than to her. "Let me see!" He walked half the length of the floor and began studying the walls and the bare rafters of the ceiling. These last had once been yellow-washed, age and dust having turned the kalsomine to an old-gold tint, reminding him of a ceiling belonging to a Venetian palace.

"Yes," he continued, with the same abstracted air, his head upturned, "there's a good place for hanging a big lamp, if there is one in the new lot, and there are spots where I can hang twenty or more smaller ones.

I will cover the side walls with stuffs and embroideries and put those long Italian settees against--yes, Tweety-kins, it will come out all right. It will make a splendid banquet hall! And after the party we will leave it just so. Fine, my child! And I have an idea, too--a brilliant idea. Hans, ask Mr. Kling to be good enough to come up here!"

With the surrender of her Uncle Felix, Masie resumed her spinning around the room and kept it up until the father's bald head showed clear above the top of the stairs.

"Masie has had one brilliant idea, Mr. Kling, and I have another. I will tell you mine first." It was wonderful how thoroughly he understood the Dutchman.

"Vell, vot is it?" Otto had sniffed something unusual in the atmosphere and was on the defensive. When there was only one to deal with he sometimes had his way; never when they were leagued together.

"I propose," continued O'Day, "to turn this whole floor into the sort of a room one could live in--like many of the great halls I have seen abroad--and I think we have enough material to make a success of it, plenty of s.p.a.ce in which to put everything where it belongs. Leave that big chair where I have placed it, throw some rugs on the floor, nail the stuffs and tapestries to the walls, fasten the brackets and sconces and appliques on top of them, filled with candles, and hang the lanterns and church lamps to the rafters. When I finish with it, you will have a room to which your customers will flock."

Kling, bewildered, followed the play of O'Day's fingers in the air as if he were already placing the ornaments and hangings with which his mind was filled.

"Vell, vot ve do vid de stuff dot's comin'--all dem sideboards and chairs and de pig tables? Ve ain't got de s.p.a.ce."

"Half of them will go here, and the balance we will pile away on the top floor. When these are sold then we'll bring down the others--always keeping up the character of the room. That is my idea. What do you think of it?"

The shopkeeper hesitated, his fat features twisted in calculation.

Every move of his new salesman had brought him in double his money. The placing of his goods so that a customer would be compelled to crawl over a table in order to see whether a chair had three whole legs or two, dust and darkness helping, had always seemed to him one of the tricks of the trade and not to be abandoned lightly.

"You mean dot ve valk 'round loose in de middle, and everyting is shoved back de Vall behind, so you can see it all over?"

Felix smothered a smile. "Certainly, why not?"

"Vell, Mr. O'Day, I don't know." Then, noticing the quickly drawn brows of his clerk's face and the shadow of disappointment: "Of course, ve can try it, and if it don't vork ve do it over, don't ve?"

Masie slipped her arm through O'Day's and began a joyous tattoo with her foot. She knew now that Felix had carried the day.

"And now for Masie's idea, Mr. Kling."

"Oh, dere is someting else, eh? I tought dere vould be ven you puts your two noddles togedder--Vell, vot is dot all about, eh?"

"She is to have a birthday. She will be eleven years old next Sat.u.r.day."

"By Jeminy, yes, dot's so! I forgot dot, Masie. Yes, it comes on de tventy-fust. Vy you don't tell me before, little Beesvings?"

"Yes, next Sat.u.r.day; only four days off," continued Felix, forging ahead to avoid any side-tracking of his main theme. "And what are you going to do for her? Not many more of them before she will be out of the window like a bird, and off with somebody else."

Otto ruminated. He loved his daughter, even if he did sometimes forget her very existence. "Oh, I don't know. I guess ve buy her sometings putty--vot you like to have, Beesvings? Or maybe you like to go to de teater vid Auntie Gossburger. I get de tickets."

The child disengaged her hand from O'Day's arm, pushed back her hair and tiptoed to her father. "I want a party, Popsy--a real party," she whispered, tipping his chin back with her fingers, so he could look at her through his spectacles--not over them, like an ogre.