The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him Part 94

"Are you sure?" said Leonore, pleadingly. "You are not deceiving me?"

"Begobs," said Dennis, "do yez think Oi could stand here wid a dry eye if he was dead?"

Leonore put her head on Dennis's shoulder, and began to sob softly. For a moment Dennis looked aghast at the results of his speech, but suddenly his face changed. "Shure," he whispered, "we all love him just like that, an that's why the Blessed Virgin saved him for us."

Then Leonore, with tears in her eyes, said, "I felt it," in the most joyful of voices. A voice that had a whole _Te Deum_ in it.

"Won't you let me see him?" she begged. "I won't wake him, I promise you."

"That yez shall," said Dennis. "Will yez take my arm?" The four pa.s.sed within the lines. "Step careful," he continued. "There's pavin' stones, and rails, and plate-gla.s.s everywheres. It looks like there'd been a primary itself."

All thought that was the best of jokes and laughed. They pa.s.sed round a great chasm in the street and sidewalk. Then they came to long rows of bodies stretched on the gra.s.s, or rather what was left of the gra.s.s, in the Park. Leonore shuddered. "Are they all dead?" she whispered. "Dead!

Shurely not. It's the regiment sleepin'," she was told. They pa.s.sed between these rows for a little distance. "This is him," said Dennis, "sleepin' like a babby." Dennis turned his back and began to describe the explosion to Mrs. D'Alloi and Watts.

There, half covered with a blanket, wrapped in a regulation great coat, his head pillowed on a roll of newspapers, lay Peter. Leonore knelt down on the ground beside him, regardless of the proprieties or the damp. She listened to hear if he was breathing, and when she found that he actually was, her face had on it a little thanksgiving proclamation of its own. Then with the prettiest of motherly manners, she softly pulled the blanket up and tucked it in about his arms. Then she looked to see if there was not something else to do. But there was nothing. So she made more. "The poor dear oughtn't to sleep without something on his head. He'll take cold." She took her handkerchief and tried to fix it so that it should protect Peter's head. She tried four different ways, any one of which would have served; but each time she thought of a better way, and had to try once more. She probably would have thought of a fifth, if Peter had not suddenly opened his eyes.

"Oh!" said Leonore, "what a shame? I've waked you up. And just as I had fixed it right."

Peter studied the situation calmly, without moving a muscle. He looked at the kneeling figure for some time. Then he looked up at the arc light a little distance away. Then he looked at the City Hall clock. Then his eyes came back to Leonore. "Peter," he said finally, "this is getting to be a monomania. You must stop it."

"What?" said Leonore, laughing at his manner as if it was intended as a joke.

Peter put out his hand and touched Leonore's dress. Then he rose quickly to his feet. "What is the matter?" he asked.

"h.e.l.lo," cried Watts. "Have you come to? Well. Here we are, you see. All the way from Newport to see you in fragments, only to be disappointed.

Shake!"

Peter said nothing for a moment. But after he had shaken hands, he said, "It's very good of you to have thought of me."

"Oh," explained Leonore promptly, "I'm always anxious about my friends.

Mamma will tell you I am."

Peter turned to Leonore, who had retired behind her mother. "Such friends are worth having," he said, with a strong emphasis on "friends."

Then Leonore came out from behind her mother. "'How nice he's stupid,"

she thought. "He is Peter Simple, after all."

"Well," said Watts, "'your friends are nearly dying with hunger and want of sleep, so the best thing we can do, since we needn't hunt for you in sc.r.a.ps, is to go to the nearest hotel. Where is that?"

"You'll have to go uptown," said Peter. "Nothing down here is open at this time."

"I'm not sleepy," said Leonore, "but I am so hungry!"

"Serves you right for eating no din--" Watts started to say, but Leonore interjected, in an unusually loud voice. "Can't you get us something?"

"Nothing; that will do for you, I'm afraid," said Peter. "I had Dennett send up one of his coffee-boilers so that the men should have hot coffee through the night, and there's a sausage-roll man close to him who's doing a big business. But they'll hardly serve your purpose."

"The very thing," cried Watts. "What a lark!"

"I can eat anything," said Leonore.

So they went over to the stands. Peter's blanket was spread on the sidewalk, and three Newport swells, and the Democratic nominee for governor sat upon it, with their feet in the gutter, and drank half-bean coffee and ate hot sausage rolls, made all the hotter by the undue amount of mustard which the cook would put in. What is worse, they enjoyed it as much as if it was the finest of dinners. Would not society have been scandalized had it known of their doings?

How true it is that happiness is in a mood rather than in a moment. How eagerly we prepare for and pursue the fickle sprite, only to find our preparations and chase giving nothing but dullness, fatigue, and ennui.

But then how often without exertion or warning, the sprite is upon us, and tinges the whole atmosphere. So it was at this moment, with two of the four. The coffee might have been all beans, and yet it would have been better than the best served in Viennese cafes. The rolls might have had even a more weepy amount of mustard, and yet the burning and the tears would only have been the more of a joke. The sun came up, as they ate, talked and laughed, touching everything about them with gold, but it might have poured torrents, and the two would have been as happy.

For Leonore was singing to herself: "He isn't dead. He isn't dead."

And Peter was thinking: "She loves me. She must love me."

CHAPTER LVIII.

GIFTS.

After the rolls and coffee had been finished, Peter walked with his friends to their cab. It had all been arranged that they were to go to Peter's quarters, and get some sleep. These were less than eight blocks away, but the parting was very terrific! However, it had to be done, and so it was gone through with. Hard as it was, Peter had presence of mind enough to say, through the carriage window.

"You had better take my room, Miss D'Alloi, for the spare room is the largest. I give you the absolute freedom of it, minus the gold-box. Use anything you find."

Then Peter went back to the chaotic street and the now breakfasting regiment, feeling that strikes, anarchists, and dynamite were only minor circ.u.mstances in life.

About noon Leonore came back to life, and succeeded in making a very bewitching toilet despite the absence of her maid. Whether she peeped into any drawers or other places, is left to feminine readers to decide.

If she did, she certainly had ample authority from Peter.

This done she went into the study, and, after sticking her nose into some of the window flowers, she started to go to the bookshelves. As she walked her foot struck something which rang with a metallic sound, as it moved on the wood floor. The next moment, a man started out of a deep chair.

"Oh!" was all Leonore said.

"I hope I didn't startle you. You must have kicked my sword."

"I--I didn't know you were here!" Leonore eyed the door leading to the hall, as if she were planning for a sudden flight.

"The regiment was relieved by another from Albany this morning. So I came up here for a little sleep."

"What a shame that I should have kept you out of your room," said Leonore, still eyeing the door. From Leonore's appearance, one would have supposed that she had purloined something of value from his quarters, and was meditating a sudden dash of escape with it.

"I don't look at it in that light," said Peter. "But since you've finished with the room for the moment, I'll borrow the use temporarily.

Strikers and anarchists care so little for soap and water themselves, that they show no consideration to other people for those articles."

Peter pa.s.sed through the doorway towards which Leonore had glanced. Then Leonore's anxious look left her, and she no longer looked at the door.

One would almost have inferred that Leonore was afraid of Peter, but that is absurd, since they were such good friends, since Leonore had come all the way from Newport to see him, and since Leonore had decided that Peter must do as she pleased.

Yet, curiously enough, when Peter returned in about twenty minutes, the same look came into Leonore's face.

"We shall have something to eat in ten minutes," Peter said, "for I hear your father and mother moving."

Leonore looked towards the door. She did not intend that Peter should see her do it, but he did.