Saturday's Child Part 14

"b.u.t.ter, please," said William briskly.

"Beg pardon?"

"b.u.t.tER. We've no b.u.t.ter."

"Oh, certainly!" He was gone in a second, and in another the b.u.t.ter was served, and Susan and Billy began on the rolls.

"Here comes Miss---, your friend," said William presently.

Susan whirled. Miss Saunders and the very young man were looking toward their table, as they went out. Catching Susan's eye, they came over to shake hands.

"How do you do, Miss Brown?" said the young woman easily. "My cousin, Mr. Brice. He's nicer than he looks. Mr. Oliver? Were you at the Columbia?"

"We were--How do you do? No, we weren't at the Columbia," Susan stammered, confused by the other's languid ease of manner, by the memory of the playhouse they had attended, and by the arrival of the sardines and ginger-ale, which were just now placed on the table.

"I'm coming to take you to lunch with me some day, remember," said Miss Saunders, departing. And she smiled another farewell from the door.

"Isn't she sweet?" said Susan.

"And how well she would come along just as our rich and expensive order is served!" Billy added, and they both laughed.

"It looks good to ME!" Susan a.s.sured him contentedly. "I'll give you half that other sandwich if you can tell me what the orchestra is playing now."

"The slipper thing, from 'Boheme'," Billy said scornfully. Susan's eyes widened with approval and surprise. His appreciation of music was an incongruous note in Billy's character.

There was presently a bill to settle, which Susan, as became a lady, seemed to ignore. But she could not long ignore her escort's scowling scrutiny of it.

"What's that?" demanded Mr. Oliver, scowling at the card. "Twenty cents for WHAT?"

"For bread and b.u.t.ter, sir," said the waiter, in a hoa.r.s.e, confidential whisper. "Not served with sandwiches, sir." Susan's heart began to thump.

"Billy--" she began.

"Wait a minute," Billy muttered. "Just wait a minute! It doesn't say anything about that."

The waiter respectfully indicated a line on the menu card, which Mr.

Oliver studied fixedly, for what seemed to Susan a long time.

"That's right," he said finally, heavily, laying a silver dollar on the check. "Keep it." The waiter did not show much grat.i.tude for his tip.

Susan and Billy, ruffled and self-conscious, walked, with what dignity they could, out into the night.

"d.a.m.n him!" said Billy, after a rapidly covered half-block.

"Oh, Billy, don't! What do you care!" Susan said, soothingly.

"I don't care," he snapped. Adding, after another brooding minute, "we ought to have better sense than to go into such places!"

"We're as good as anyone else!" Susan a.s.serted, hotly.

"No, we're not. We're not as rich," he answered bitterly.

"Billy, as if MONEY mattered!"

"Oh, of course, money doesn't matter," he said with fine satire. "Not at all! But because we haven't got it, those fellows, on thirty per, can throw the hooks into us at every turn. And, if we threw enough money around, we could be the rottenest man and woman on the face of the globe, we could be murderers and thieves, even, and they'd all be falling over each other to wait on us!"

"Well, let's murder and thieve, then!" said Susan blithely.

"I may not do that--"

"You mayn't? Oh, Bill, don't commit yourself! You may want to, later."

"I may not do that," repeated Mr. Oliver, gloomily, "but, by George, some day I'll have a wad in the bank that'll make me feel that I can afford to turn those fellows down! They'll know that I've got it, all right."

"Bill, I don't think that's much of an ambition," Susan said, candidly, "to want so much money that you aren't afraid of a waiter! Get some crisps while we're pa.s.sing the man, Billy!" she interrupted herself to say, urgently, "we can talk on the car!"

He bought them, grinning sheepishly.

"But honestly, Sue, don't you get mad when you think that about the only standard of the world is money?" he resumed presently.

"Well, we know that we're BETTER than lots of rich people, Bill."

"How are we better?"

"More refined. Better born. Better ancestry."

"Oh, rot! A lot they care for that! No, people that have money can get the best of people who haven't, coming and going. And for that reason, Sue," they were on the car now, and Billy was standing on the running board, just in front of her, "for that reason, Sue, I'm going to MAKE money, and when I have so much that everyone knows it then I'll do as I darn please. And I won't please to do the things they do, either!"

"You're very sure of yourself, Bill! How are you going to make it?"

"The way other men make it, by gosh!" Mr. Oliver said seriously. "I'm going into blue-printing with Ross, on the side. I've got nearly three thousand in Panhandle lots--"

"Oh, you have NOT!"

"Oh, I have, too! Spence put me onto it. They're no good now, but you bet your life they will be! And I'm going to stick along at the foundry until the old man wakes up some day, and realizes that I'm getting more out of my men than any other two foremen in the place. Those boys would do anything for me--"

"Because you're a very unusual type of man to be in that sort of place, Bill!" Susan interrupted.

"Shucks," he said, in embarra.s.sment. "Well," he resumed, "then some day I'm going to the old man and ask him for a year's leave. Then I'll visit every big iron-works in the East, and when I come back, I'll take a job of casting from my own blue-prints, at not less than a hundred a week. Then I'll run up some flats in the Panhandle--"

"Having married the beautiful daughter of the old man himself--" Susan interposed. "And won first prize in the Louisiana lottery--"

"Sure," he said gravely. "And meanwhile," he added, with a business-like look, "Coleman has got a crush on you, Sue. It'd be a dandy marriage for you, and don't you forget it!"

"Well, of all nerve!" Susan said unaffectedly, and with flaming cheeks.

"There is a little motto, to every nation dear, in English it's forget-me-not, in French it's mind your own business, Bill!"

"Well, that may be," he said doggedly, "but you know as well as I do that it's up to you--"