The Veiled Lady, and Other Men and Women Part 17

"'No vonder dot you are thin, my frent--yoost as I oxpected--dis ees de olt deory of broteids. Dot is all oxbloded now. Eef you haf stay anuder mont you vould be dead. Everyting dot he has dold you vas yoost de udder way; no bread, no meelk, no vegebubbles--noddings of dis, not von leedle bit. I vill make von leest--come to-morrow.'"

"Did you go, Joppy?" inquired Stebbins.

"DID _I_ GO? Yes, back to the depot and on to Cologne. That night I ate two plates of sauerkraut, a slice of pork and a piece of cheese the size of my hand; slept like a top."

"So the proteids and carbohydrates didn't do your epigastric any good, old chap," remarked Pudfut in an effort to relieve the gloom.

"Proteids, carbohydrates and my epigastric be d.a.m.ned," exploded Joplin.

"On your feet, boys, all of you. Here's to the food of our fathers, with every man a full plate. And here's to dear old Marny, the human kangaroo. May his appet.i.te never fail and his paunch never shrink!"

MISS BUFFUM'S NEW BOARDER

I

He was seated near the top end of Miss Buffum's table when I first saw his good-natured face with its twinkling eyes, high cheekbones and broad, white forehead in strong contrast to the wizened, almost sour, visage of our landlady. Up to the time of his coming every one had avoided that end, or had gradually shifted his seat, gravitating slowly toward the bottom, where the bank clerk, the college professor and I hobn.o.bbed over our soup and boiled mutton.

It was his laugh that attracted my attention--the first that had come from the upper end of the table in the memory of the oldest boarder.

Men talk of the first kiss, the first baby, the first bluebird in the spring, but to me, who have suffered and know, the first, sincere, hearty laugh, untrammelled and unlimited, that rings down the hide-bound table of a dismal boarding-house, carries with it a surprise and charm that outcla.s.ses them all. The effect on this occasion was like the opening of a window letting in a gust of pure air. Some of the more sensitive shivered at its freshness, and one woman raised her eyegla.s.ses in astonishment, but all the rest craned their heads in the new boarder's direction, their faces expressing their enjoyment. As for Miss Buffum and the schoolmistress, they so far forgot themselves as to join audibly in the merriment.

What the secret of the man's power, or why the schoolteacher--who sat on Miss Buffum's right--should have become suddenly hilarious, or how Miss Buffum herself could be prodded or beguiled into smiles, no one at my end of the table could understand; and yet, as the days went by, it became more and more evident that not only were these two cold, brittle exteriors being slowly thawed out, but that every one else within the sound of his seductive voice was yielding to his influence. Stories that had lain quiet in our minds for months for lack of a willing or appreciative ear, or had been told behind our hands,--small pipings most of them of club and social gossip, now became public property, some being bowled along the table straight at the new boarder, who sent his own rolling back in exchange, his big, sonorous voice filling the room as he replied with accounts of his life in Poland among the peasants; of his experiences in the desert; of a shipwreck off the coast of Ceylon in which he was given up for lost; of a trip he made across the Russian steppes in a sleigh--each adventure ending in some strangely humorous situation which put the table in a roar.

None of these narratives, however, solved the mystery of his ident.i.ty or of his occupation. All our good landlady knew was that he had driven up in a hack one afternoon, bearing a short letter of introduction from a former lodger--a man who had lived abroad for the previous ten years--introducing Mr. Norvic Bing; that after its perusal she had given him the second-story front room, at that moment empty--a fact that had greatly influenced her--and that he had at once moved in. His trunks--there were two of them--had, she remembered, been covered with foreign labels (and still were)--all of which could be verified by any one who had a right to know and who would take the trouble to inspect his room when he was out, which occurred every day between ten in the morning and six in the afternoon, and more often between six in the afternoon and ten the next morning. The slight additional information she possessed came from the former lodger's letter, which stated that the bearer, Mr. Norvic Bing, was a native of Denmark, that he was visiting America for the first time, and that, desiring a place where he could live in complete retirement, the writer had recommended Miss Buffum's house.

As to who he was in his own country--and he certainly must have been some one of importance, judging from his appearance--and what the nature of his business, these things did not concern the dear lady in the least. He was courteous, treated her with marked respect, was exceedingly agreeable, and had insisted--and this she stated was the one particular thing that endeared him to her--had insisted on paying his board a MONTH IN ADVANCE, instead of waiting until the thirty days had elapsed. His excuse for this unheard-of idiosyncrasy was that he might some day be suddenly called away, too suddenly even to notify her of his departure, and that he did not want either his belongings or his landlady's mind disturbed during his absence.

Miss Buffum's summing up of Bing's courtesy and affability was shared by every one at my end of the table, although some of them differed as regarded his origin and occupation.

"Looks more like an Englishman than a Dane," said the bank clerk; "although I don't know any Danes. But he's a daisy, anyhow, and ought to have his salary raised for being so jolly."

"I don't agree with you," rejoined the professor. "He is unquestionably a Scandinavian--you can see that in the high cheekbones and flat nose.

He is evidently studying our people with a view of writing a book.

Nothing else would persuade a man of his parts to live here. I lived in just such a place the winter I spent in Dresden. You want to get close to the people when you study their peculiarities. But whoever he is, or wherever he comes from, he is a most delightful gentleman--perfectly simple, and so sincere that it is a pleasure to hear him talk."

As for myself, I am ashamed to say that I did not agree with either the bank clerk or the professor. Although I admitted Mr. Bing's wide experience of men and affairs, and his marvellous powers of conversation, I could not divest myself of the conviction that underneath it all there lay something more than a mere desire to be either kindly or entertaining; in fact, that his geniality, though outwardly spontaneous, was really a cloak to hide another side of his nature--a fog into which he retreated--and that some day the real man would be revealed.

I made no mention of my misgivings to any of my fellow-boarders. My knowledge of men of his cla.s.s--brilliant conversationalists with a world-wide experience to draw upon--was slight, and my grounds for doubting his sincerity were so devoid of proof that few persons would have considered them anything but the product of a disordered mind.

And yet I still held to my opinion.

I had caught something, I fancied, that the others had missed. It occurred one night after he had told a story and was waiting for the laugh to subside. Soon a strange, weary expression crept over his face--the same look that comes into the face of a clown who has been hurt in a tumble and who, while wrestling with the pain, still keeps his face a-grin. Suddenly, from out of his merry, smooth-shaven face, there came a flash from his eyes so searching, so keen, so suspicious, so entirely unlike the man we knew, so foreign to his mood at the moment, that I instantly thought of the burglar peering through the painted spectacles of the family portrait while he watched his unconscious victim counting his gold.

This conviction so possessed me that I found myself for days after peering into Bing's face, watching for its repet.i.tion--so much so that the professor asked me with a laugh:

"Has Mr. Bing hypnotized you as badly as he has the ladies? They hang on his every word. Curious study of the effect of mind on matter, isn't it?"

The second time I caught the strange flash was BEFORE he had told his story--when his admonitory glance--his polite way of compelling attention--was sweeping the table. In its course his eyes rested for an instant on mine, kindled with suspicion, and then there flashed from their depths a light that seemed to illuminate every corner of my brain. When I looked again his face was wreathed in smiles, his eyes sparkling with merriment. Instantly my doubts returned with redoubled force. What had he found in that instantaneous flash, I wondered? Had he read my thoughts, or had he, from his place behind the painted canvas, caught some expression on some victim's face which had roused his fears?

Then a delightful thing happened to me. I was but a young fellow trying to get a foothold in literature, who had never been out of his own country, and who spoke no tongue but his own; he was a man of the world, a traveller over the globe and speaking five languages.

"If you're not going out," he said, that same night, "come and have a smoke with me." This in his heartiest manner, laying his hand on my shoulder as he spoke. "You'll find me in my room. I've some books that may interest you, and we can continue our talk by my coal-fire. Come with me now."

We had had no special talk--none that I could remember. I recalled that I had asked him an irrelevant question after the flash had vanished, and that he had answered me in return--but no talk followed.

"I never invite any one up here," he began when we reached his room; "the place is so small" Here he closed the door, drew up the only armchair in the room and placed me in it--"but it is large enough for a place to crawl into and sleep--much larger, I can tell you, than I have had in many other parts of the world. I can write here, too, without interruption. What else do we want, really?--To be warm, to be fed and then to have some congenial spirits about us! I am quite happy, I a.s.sure you, with all those dear, good people downstairs. They are so kind, and they are so human, and they are all honest, each in his way, which is always refreshing to me. Most people, you know, are not honest." And he looked me over curiously.

I made no answer except to nod my a.s.sent. My eyes were wandering over the room in the endeavor to find something to confirm my suspicions--over the two trunks with their labels; over a desk littered, piled, crammed with papers; over the mantel, on which was spread a row of photographs, among them the portrait of a distinguished-looking woman with a child resting in her lap, and next to it that of a man in uniform.

"Yes--some of my friends across the sea." I had not asked him--he had read my mind. "This one you did not see--I keep it behind the others--three of them, like a little pair of steps--all I have left.

The oldest is named Olga, and that little one in the middle, with the cap on her head--that is Pauline."

"Your children?"

"Yes."

"Where are they?"

"Oh, many thousand miles from here! But we won't talk about it. They are well and happy. And this one"--here he took down the photograph of the man in full uniform--"is the Grand Duke Vladimir. Yes, a soldierly-looking man--none of the others are like him. But come now, tell me of yourself--you have some one at home, too?"

I nodded my head and mentioned my mother and the others at home.

"No sweetheart yet? No?--You needn't answer--we all have sweethearts at your age--at mine it is all over. But why did you leave her? It is so hard to do that. Ah, yes, I see--to make your bread. And how do you do it?"

"I write."

He lowered his brows and looked at me under his lids.

"What sort of writing? Books? What is called a novel?"

"No--not yet. I work on special articles for the newspapers, and now and then I get a short story or an essay into one of the magazines."

He was replacing the pictures as I talked, his back to me. He turned suddenly and again sought my eye.

"Don't waste your time on essays or statistics. You will not succeed as a machine. You have imagination, which is a real gift. You also dream, which is another way of saying that you can invent. If you can add construction to your invention, you will come quite close to what they call genius. I saw all this in your face to-night; that is why I wanted to talk to you. So many young men go astray for want of a word dropped into their minds at the right time. As for me, all I know is statistics, and so I will never be a genius." And a light laugh broke from his lips. "Worse luck, too. I must exchange them for money. Look at this--I have been all day correcting the proofs."

With this he walked to his table--he had not yet taken a seat, although a chair was next to my own--and laid in my lap a roll of galley-proofs.

"It is the new encyclopaedia. I do the biographies, you see--princ.i.p.ally of men and the different towns and countries. I have got down now to the R's--Richelieu--Rochambeau--" his fingers were now tracing the lines. "Here is Romulus, and here is Russia--I gave that half a column, and--dry work, isn't it? But I like it, for I can write here by my fire if I please, and all my other time is my own. You see they are signed 'Norvic Bing.' I insisted on that. These publishers are selfish sometimes, and want to efface a writer's personality, but I would not permit it, and so finally they gave in. But no more of that--one must eat, and to eat one must work, so why quarrel with the spade or the ground? See that you raise good crops--that is the best of all."

Then he branched off into a description of a ball he had attended some years before at the Tuileries--of the splendor of the interior; the rich costumes of the women; the blaze of decorations worn by the men; the graciousness of the Empress and the charm of her beauty--then of a visit he had made to the Exile a few months after he had reached Chiselhurst. Throwing up his hands he said: "A feeble old man with hollow eyes and a cracked voice. Oh, such a pity! For he was royal--although all Europe laughed."

When the time came for me to go--it was near midnight, to my astonishment--he followed me to the door, bidding me good-night with both hands over mine, saying I should come again when he was at leisure, as he had been that night--which I promised to do, adding my thanks for what I declared was the most delightful evening I had ever spent in my life.

And it had been--and with it there had oozed out of my mind every drop of my former suspicion. There was another side that he was hiding from us, but it was the side of tenderness for his children--for those he loved and from whom he was parted. I had boasted to myself of my intuition and had looked, as I supposed, deep into his heart, and all I found were three little faces. With this came a certain feeling of shame that I had been stupid enough to allow my imagination to run away with my judgment. Hereafter I would have more sense.