What's-His-Name Part 27

He gave up in despair at this. On Sunday he allowed Mrs. Davis to bullyrag him into a tentative engagement. Then he began to droop. He had done a bit of investigating on his own account before going up to dine with her. She had been married to Davis forty-two years and then he died. If their only daughter had lived she would be forty-one years of age, and, if married, would doubtless be the mother of a daughter who might also in turn be the mother of a child. Figuring back, he made out that under these circ.u.mstances Mrs. Davis might very easily have been a great-grandmother. With this appalling thought in mind, he was quite firm in his determination to reject the old lady's proposal. Mrs. Davis taking Nellie's place! Pretty, gay, vivacious Nellie! It was too absurd for words.

But he went home an engaged man, just the same.

They were to be married in September of the following year, many months off.

That afternoon he saw a few gray hairs just above his ears and pulled them out. After that he looked for them every day. It was amazing how rapidly they increased despite his efforts to exterminate them. He began to grow careless in the matter of dress. His much talked of checked suits and lavender waistcoats took on spots and creases; his gaudy neckties became soiled and frayed; his fancy Newmarket overcoat, the like of which was only to be seen in Blakeville when some travelling theatrical troupe came to town, looked seedy, unbrushed, and sadly wrinkled. He forgot to shave for days at a time.

His only excuse to himself was, What's the use?

During the holidays, in the midst of a cheerful season of buying presents for Phoebe--and a bracelet for Nellie--he saw in the _Patriot_, under big headlines, the thing that served as the last straw for his already sagging back. The announcement was being made in all the metropolitan newspapers that "Nellie Duluth, the most popular and the most beautiful of all the comic opera stars," was to quit the stage forever on the first of the year to become the wife of "the great financier, L. Z. Fairfax, long a devoted admirer."

The happy couple were to spend the honeymoon on the groom's yacht, sailing in February for an extended cruise of the Mediterranean and other "sunny waters of the globe," primarily for pleasure but actually in the hope of restoring Miss Duluth to her normal state of health. A breakdown, brought on no doubt by the publicity attending her divorce a few months earlier, made it absolutely imperative, said the newspapers, for her to give up the arduous work of her chosen profession.

Harvey did not send the bracelet to her.

The long winter pa.s.sed. Spring came and in its turn gave way to summer. September drew on apace. He went about with an ever increasing tendency to look at the wall calendar with a fixed stare when he should have been paying attention to the congratulations that came to him from the opposite side of the counter or showcase. His baby-blue eyes wore the mournful, distressed look of an offending dog; his once trim little moustache drooped over the corners of his mouth; his shoulders sagged and his feet shuffled as he walked.

"Harvey," said Mrs. Davis, not more than a fortnight before the wedding day, "You look terribly peaked. You must perk up for the wedding."

"I'm going into a decline," he said, affecting a slight cough.

"You are going to decline!" she shrilled, in her high, querulous voice.

"I said 'into,' Minerva," he explained, dully.

"I do believe I'm getting a bit deaf," she said, p.r.o.nouncing it "deef."

"It will be mighty tough on you if I should suddenly go into quick consumption," said he, somewhat hopefully.

"You mustn't think of such a thing, dearie," she protested.

"No," said he, letting his shoulders sag again. "I suppose it's no use."

Just a week to the day before the 6th of September--the one numeral on the calendar he could see with his eyes closed--he shuffled over to the tailor's to try on the new Prince Albert coat and striped trousers that Mrs. Davis was giving him for a wedding present. He puffed weakly at the cigarette that hung from his lips and stared at the window without the slightest interest in what was going on outside.

A new train of thought was taking shape in his brain, as yet rather indefinite and undeveloped, but quite engaging as a matter for contemplation.

"Do you know how far it is to Reno?" he asked of the tailor, who paused in the process of ripping off the collar of the new coat.

"Couple of thousand miles, I guess. Why?"

"Oh, nothing," said Harvey, blinking his eyes curiously. "I just asked."

"You're not thinking of going out there, are you?"

"My health isn't what it ought to be," said Harvey, staring westward over the roof of the church down the street. "If I don't get better I may have to go West."

"Gee, is it as bad as all that?"

Harvey's lips parted to give utterance to a vigorous response, but he caught himself up in time.

"Maybe it won't amount to anything," he said, noncommittally. "I've got a little cough, that's all." He coughed obligingly, in the way of ill.u.s.tration.

"Don't wait too long," advised the kindly tailor. "If you get after it in time it can be checked, they say, although I don't believe it. In the family?"

"Not yet," said his customer, absently. "A week from to-day." A reflection which puzzled the tailor vastly.

Whatever may have been in Harvey's mind at the moment was swept away forever by the sudden appearance in the shop door of Bobby Nixon, the "boy" at Davis'.

"Say, Harvey," bawled the lad, "come on, quick! Mrs. Davis is over at the store and she's red-headed because you've been away for more'n an hour. She's got a telegram from some'eres and----"

"A telegram!" gasped Harvey, turning pale. "Who from?"

"How should I know?" shouted Bobby. "But she's got blood in her eye, you can bet on that."

Harvey did not wait for the tailor to strip the skeleton of the Prince Albert from his back, but dashed out of the shop in wild haste.

Mrs. Davis was behind the prescription counter. She had been weeping.

At the sight of him she burst into fresh lamentations.

"Oh, Harvey, I've got terrible news for you--just terrible! But I won't put up with it! I won't have it! It's abominable! She ought to be tarred and feathered and----"

Harvey began to tremble.

"Somebody's doing it for a joke, Mrs. Davis," he gulped. "I swear to goodness I never had a thing to do with a woman in all my life.

n.o.body's got a claim on me, honest to----"

"What are you talking about, Harvey?" demanded Mrs. Davis, wide-eyed.

"What does it say?" cried he, pulling himself up with a jerk. "I'm innocent, whatever it is."

"It's from your wife," said Mrs. Davis, shaking the envelope in his face. "Read it! Read the awful thing!"

"From--from Nellie?" he gasped.

"Yes, Eller! Read it!"

"Hold it still! I can't read it if you jiggle it around----"

She held the envelope under his nose.

"Do you see who it's addressed to?" she grated out. "To me, as your wife. She thinks I'm already married to you. Read that name there, Harvey."

He read the name on the envelope in a sort of stupefaction. Then she whisked the message out and handed it to him, plumping herself down in a chair to fan herself vigorously while the prescription clerk hastened to renew his ministrations with the ammonia bottle, a task that had been set to him some time prior to the advent of Harvey.

Suddenly Harvey gave a squeal of joy and inst.i.tuted a series of hops and bounds that threatened to create havoc in the narrow, bottle-encircled s.p.a.ce behind the prescription wall. He danced up and down, waving the telegram on high, the tails of his half-finished wedding garment doing a mad obbligato to the tune of his nimble legs.