The Depot Master Part 35

"'If I'd only got his middle letter,' says he, mournful, ''twould have been easier. He had four middle names, if I remember right--the old man was great on names--and 'twas too much trouble to write 'em all down.

Well, I've done my duty, anyhow. We'll go and call on Ase Baker.'

"But 'twas after eleven o'clock then, and the doughnuts and cheese I had for breakfast was beginnin' to feel as if they wanted company. So we decided to go back to the Golconda and have some dinner first.

"We had ham and eggs for dinner, some that was left over from the last time Jonadab stopped there, I cal'late. Lucky there was hot bread and coffee on the bill or we'd never got a square meal. Then we went up to our room and the Cap'n laid down on the bed. He was beat out, he said, and wanted to rest up a spell afore haulin' anchor for another cruise."

CHAPTER XII

A VISION SENT

"Where's the arrestin' come in?" demanded St.i.tt.

"Comes quick now, Bailey. Plenty quick enough for me and Jonadab, I tell you that! After we got to our room the Cap'n went to sleep pretty soon and I set in the one chair, readin' the newspaper and wishin' I hadn't ate so many of the warm bricks that the Golconda folks hoped was biscuit. They made me feel like a schooner goin' home in ballast. I guess I was drowsin' off myself, but there comes a most unearthly yell from the bed and I jumped ha'f out of the chair. There was Jonadab settin' up and lookin' wild.

"'What in the world?' says I.

"'Oh! Ugh! My soul!' says he.

"'Your soul, hey?' says I. 'Is that all? I thought mebbe you'd lost a quarter.'

"'Barzilla,' he says, comin' to and starin' at me solemn, 'Barzilla, I've had a dream--a wonderful dream.'

"'Well,' I says, 'I ain't surprised. A feller that h'isted in as much fried dough as you did ought to expect--'

"'But I tell you 'twas a WONDERFUL dream,' he says. 'I dreamed I was on Blank Street, where we was this mornin', and Patrick Kelly comes to me and p'ints his finger right in my face. I see him as plain as I see you now. And he says to me--he said it over and over, two or three times--Seventeen," says he, "Seventeen." Now what do you think of that?'

"'Humph!' I says. 'I ain't surprised. I think 'twas just seventeen of them biscuits that you got away with. Wonder to me you didn't see somebody worse'n old Pat.'

"But he was past jokin'. You never see a man so shook up by the nightmare as he was by that one. He kept goin' over it and tellin' how natural old Kelly looked and how many times he said 'Seventeen' to him.

"'Now what did he mean by it?' he says. 'Don't tell me that was a common dream, 'cause twa'n't. No, sir, 'twas a vision sent to me, and I know it. But what did he mean?'

"'I think he meant you was seventeen kinds of an idiot,' I snorts, disgusted. 'Get up off that bed and stop wavin' your arms, will you?

He didn't mean for you to turn yourself into a windmill, that's sartin sure.'

"Then he hits his knee a slap that sounds like a window blind blowin'

to. 'I've got it!' he sings out. 'He meant for me to go to number seventeen on that street. That's what he meant.'

"I laughed and made fun of him, but I might as well have saved my breath. He was sure Pat Kelly's ghost had come hikin' back from the hereafter to tell him to go to 17 Blank Street and find his boy. 'Else why was he ON Blank Street?' he says. 'You tell me that.'

"I couldn't tell him. It's enough for me to figger out what makes live folks act the way they do, let alone dead ones. And Cap'n Jonadab was a Spiritu'list on his mother's side. It ended by my agreein' to give the Jimmie chase one more try.

"'But it's got to be the last,' I says. 'When you get to number seventeen don't you say you think the old man meant to say "seventy" and stuttered.'

"Number 17 Blank Street was a little combination fruit and paper store run by an Eyetalian with curly hair and the complexion of a mola.s.ses cooky. His talk sounded as if it had been run through a meat chopper.

All he could say was, 'Nica grape, genta'men? On'y fifteen cent a pound.

Nica grape? Nica apple? Nica pear? Nica ploom?'

"'Kelly?' says Jonadab, hollerin' as usual. 'Kelly! d'ye understand?

K-E-L-Kel L-Y-ly, Kelly. YOU know, KELLY! We want to find him.'

"And just then up steps a feller about six feet high and three foot through. He was dressed in checkerboard clothes, some gone to seed, and you could hardly see the blue tie he had on for the gla.s.s di'mond in it. Oh, he was a little wilted now--for the lack of water, I judge--but 'twas plain that he'd been a sunflower in his time. He'd just come out of a liquor store next door to the fruit shop and was wipin' his mouth with the back of his hand.

"'What's this I hear?' says he, fetchin' Jonadab a welt on the back like a mast goin' by the board. 'Is it me friend Kelly you're lookin' for?'

"I was just goin' to tell him no, not likin' his looks, but Jonadab cut in ahead of me, out of breath from the earthquake the feller had landed him, but excited as could be.

"'Yes, yes!' says he. 'It's Mr. Kelly we want. Do you know him?'

"'Do I know him? Why, me bucko, 'tis me old college chum he is. Come on with me and we'll give him the glad hand.'

"He grabs Jonadab by the arm and starts along the sidewalk, steerin' a toler'ble crooked course, but gainin' steady by jerks.

"'I was on me way to Kelly's place now,' says he. 'And here it is. Sure didn't I bate the bookies blind on Rosebud but yesterday--or was it the day before? I don't know, but come on, me lads, and we'll do him again.'

"He turned in at a little narrer entry-like, and went stumblin' up a flight of dirty stairs. I caught hold of Jonadab's coat tails and pulled him back.

"'Where you goin', you crazy loon?' I whispered. 'Can't you see he's three sheets in the wind? And you haven't told him what Kelly you want, nor nothin'.'

"But I might as well have hollered at a stone wall. 'I don't care if he's as fur gone in liquor as Belshazzer's goat,' sputters the Cap'n, all worked up. 'He's takin' us to a Kelly, ain't he? And is it likely there'd be another one within three doors of the number I dreamed about? Didn't I tell you that dream was a vision sent? Don't lay to NOW, Barzilla, for the land sakes! It's Providence a-workin'.'

"'Cording to my notion the sunflower looked more like an agent from t'other end of the line than one from Providence, but just then he commenced to yell for us and upstairs we went, Jonadab first.

"'Whisht!' says the checkerboard, holdin' on to Jonadab's collar and swingin' back and forth. 'Before we proceed to blow in on me friend Kelly, let us come to an understandin' concernin' and touchin'

on--and--and--I don't know. But b'ys,' says he, solemn and confidential, 'are you on the square? Are yez dead game sports, hey?'

"'Yes, yes!' says Jonadab. 'Course we be. Mr. Kelly and us are old friends. We've come I don't know how fur on purpose to see him. Now where's--'

"'Say no more,' hollers the feller. 'Say no more. Come on with yez.' And he marches down the dark hall to a door with a 'To let' sign on it and fetches it a bang with his fist. It opens a little ways and a face shows in the crack.

"'h.e.l.lo, Frank!' hails the sunflower, cheerful. 'Will you take that ugly mug of yours out of the gate and lave me friends in?'

"'What's the matter wid you, Mike?' asks the chap at the door. 'Yer can't bring them two yaps in here and you know it. Gwan out of this.'

"He tried to shut the door, but the checkerboard had his foot between it and the jamb. You might as well have tried to shove in the broadside of an ocean liner as to push against that foot.

"'These gents are friends of mine,' says he. 'Frank, I'll do yez the honor of an introduction to Gin'ral Grant and Dan'l O'Connell. Open that door and compose your face before I'm obliged to break both of 'em.'

"'But I tell you, Mike, I can't,' says the door man, lookin' scared.

'The boss is out, and you know--'

"'WILL you open that door?' roars the big chap. And with that he hove his shoulder against the panels and jammed the door open by main force, all but flattenin' the other feller behind it. 'Walk in, Gin'ral,' he says to Jonadab, and in we went, me wonderin' what was comin' next, and not darin' to guess.

"There was a kind of part.i.tioned off hallway inside, with another door in the part.i.tion. We opened that, and there was a good-sized room, filled with men, smokin' and standin' around. A high board fence was acrost one end of the room, and from behind it comes a jinglin' of telephone bells and the sounds of talk. The floor was covered with torn papers, the window blinds was shut, the gas was burnin' blue, and, between it and the smoke, the smells was as various as them in a fish glue factory. On the fence was a couple of blackboards with 'Belmont'

and 'Brighton' and suchlike names in chalk wrote on 'em, and beneath that a whole mess in writin' and figures like, 'Red Tail 4--Wt--108--Jock Smith--5--1,' 'Sourcrout 5--Wt--99--Jock Jones--20--5,'