The Intrusion of Jimmy Part 3

"Well?" said Arthur Mifflin, at length.

"Well, what?"

"What I meant was, is this silence to be permanent, or are you going to begin shortly to amuse, elevate, and instruct? Something's happened to you, Jimmy. There was a time when you were a bright little chap, a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy.

Where be your gibes now; your gambols, your songs, your flashes of merriment that were wont to set the table in a roar when you were paying for the dinner? Yon remind me more of a deaf-mute celebrating the Fourth of July with noiseless powder than anything else on earth. Wake up, or I shall go. Jimmy, we were practically boys together. Tell me about this girl--the girl you loved, and were idiot enough to lose."

Jimmy drew a deep breath.

"Very well," said Mifflin complacently, "sigh if you like; it's better than nothing."

Jimmy sat up.

"Yes, dozens of times," said Mifflin.

"What do you mean?"

"You were just going to ask me if I had ever been in love, weren't you?"

"I wasn't, because I know you haven't. You have no soul. You don't know what love is."

"Have it your own way," said Mifflin, resignedly.

Jimmy b.u.mped back on the sofa.

"I don't either," he said. "That's the trouble."

Mifflin looked interested.

"I know," he said. "You've got that strange premonitory fluttering, when the heart seems to thrill within you like some baby bird singing its first song, when--"

"Oh, cut it out!"

"--when you ask yourself timidly, 'Is it? Can it really be?' and answer shyly, 'No. Yes. I believe it is!' I've been through it dozens of times; it is a recognized early symptom. Unless prompt measures are taken, it will develop into something acute. In these matters, stand on your Uncle Arthur. He knows."

"You make me sick," Jimmy retorted.

"You have our ear," said Mifflin, kindly. "Tell me all."

"There's nothing to tell."

"Don't lie, James."

"Well, practically nothing."

"That's better."

"It was like this."

"Good."

Jimmy wriggled himself into a more comfortable position, and took a sip from his gla.s.s.

"I didn't see her until the second day out."

"I know that second day out. Well?"

"We didn't really meet at all."

"Just happened to be going to the same spot, eh?"

"As a matter of fact, it was like this. Like a fool, I'd bought a second-cla.s.s ticket."

"What? Our young Rockerbilt Astergould, the boy millionaire, traveling second-cla.s.s! Why?"

"I had an idea it would be better fun. Everybody's so much more cheery in the second cabin. You get to know people so much quicker.

Nine trips out of ten, I'd much rather go second."

"And this was the tenth?"

"She was in the first-cabin," said Jimmy.

Mifflin clutched his forehead.

"Wait!" he cried. "This reminds me of something--something in Shakespeare. Romeo and Juliet? No. I've got it--Pyramus and Thisbe."

"I don't see the slightest resemblance."

"Read your 'Midsummer Night's Dream.' 'Pyramus and Thisbe,' says the story, 'did talk through the c.h.i.n.k of a wall,'" quoted Mifflin.

"We didn't."

"Don't be so literal. You talked across a railing."

"We didn't."

"Do you mean to say you didn't talk at all?"

"We didn't say a single word."

Mifflin shook his head sadly.

"I give you up," he said. "I thought you were a man of enterprise.

What did you do?"

Jimmy sighed softly.

"I used to stand and smoke against the railing opposite the barber's shop, and she used to walk round the deck."