Whispering Smith Part 20

"I wish I could forget we are in trouble at home," said d.i.c.ksie, taking the badinage gracefully. "Worrying people are such a nuisance.

Don't protest, for every one knows they are."

"But we are all in trouble," insisted Whispering Smith. "Trouble! Why, bless you, it really is a blessing; pretty successfully disguised, I admit, sometimes, but still a blessing. I'm in trouble all the time, right now, up to my neck in trouble, and the water rising this minute.

Look at this man," he nodded toward McCloud. "He is in trouble, and the five hundred under him, they are in all kinds of trouble. I shouldn't know how to sleep without trouble," continued Whispering Smith, warming to the contention. "Without trouble I lose my appet.i.te.

McCloud, don't be tight; pa.s.s the bread."

"Never heard him do so well," declared McCloud, looking at Marion.

"Seriously, now," Whispering Smith went on, "don't you know people who, if they were thoroughly prosperous, would be intolerable--simply intolerable? I know several such. All thoroughly prosperous people are a nuisance. That is a general proposition, and I stand by it. Go over your list of acquaintances and you will admit it is true. Here's to trouble! May it always chasten and never overwhelm us: our greatest bugbear and our best friend! It sifts our friends and unmasks our enemies. Like a lovely woman, it woos us----"

"Oh, never!" exclaimed Marion. "A lovely woman doesn't woo, she is wooed!"

"What are you looking for, perfection in rhetorical figure? This is extemporaneous."

"But it won't do!"

"And asks to be conquered," suggested Whispering Smith.

"Asks! Oh, scandalous, Mr. Smith!"

"It is easy to see why _he_ never could get any one to marry him,"

declared McCloud over the bacon.

"Hold on, then! Like lovely woman, it does not seek us, we seek it,"

persisted the orator, "_That_ at least is so, isn't it?"

"It is better," a.s.sented Marion.

"And it waits to be conquered. How is that?"

Marion turned to d.i.c.ksie. "You are not helping a bit. What do you think?"

"I don't think woman and trouble ought to be a.s.sociated even in figure; and I think 'waits' is horrid," and d.i.c.ksie looked gravely at Whispering Smith.

McCloud, too, looked at him. "You're in trouble now yourself."

"And I brought it on myself. So we do seek it, don't we? And trouble, I must hold, _is_ like woman. 'Waits' I strike out as unpleasantly suggestive; let it go. So, then, trouble is like a lovely woman, loveliest _when_ conquered. Now, Miss Dunning, if you have a spark of human kindness you won't turn me down on that proposition. By the way, I have something put down about trouble."

He was laughing. d.i.c.ksie asked herself if this could be the man about whom floated so many accusations of coldness and cruelty and death. He drew a note-book from a waistcoat pocket.

"Oh, it's in the note-book! There comes the black note-book,"

exclaimed McCloud.

"Don't make fun of my note-book!"

"I shouldn't dare." McCloud pointed to it as he spoke to d.i.c.ksie. "You should see what is in that note-book: the record, I suppose, of every man in the mountains and of a great many outside."

"And countless other things," added Marion.

"Such as what?" asked d.i.c.ksie.

"Such as you, for example," said Marion.

"Am I a thing?"

"A sweet thing, of course," said Marion ironically. "Yes, you; with color of eyes, hair, length of index finger of the right hand, curvature of thumb, disposition--whether peaceable or otherwise, and prison record, if any."

"And number of your watch," added McCloud.

"How dreadful!"

Whispering Smith eyed d.i.c.ksie benignly. "They are talking this nonsense to distract us, of course, but I am bound to read you what I have here, if you will graciously submit."

"Submit? I _wait_ to hear it," laughed d.i.c.ksie.

"My training in prosody is the slightest, as will appear," he continued, "and _synecdoche_ and _Schenectady_ were always on the verge of getting mixed when I went to school. My sentiment may be termed obvious, but I want to offer a slight apology on behalf of trouble; it is abused too much. I submit this

"SONG TO TROUBLE

"Here's to the measure of every man's worth, Though when men are wanting it grieves us.

Hearts that are hollow we're better without, Hearts that are loyal it leaves us.

"Trouble's the dowry of every man's birth, A nettle adversity flings us; It yields to the grip of the masterful hand, When we play coward it stings us.

"Chorus."

"Don't say chorus; that's common."

"I have to say chorus. My verses don't speak for themselves, and no one would know it was a chorus if I didn't explain. Besides, I'm short a line in the chorus, and that is what I'm waiting for to finish the song.

"Chorus:

"Then here's to the b.u.mper that proves every friend!

And though in the drinking it wrings us, Here's to the cup that we drain to the end, And here's to--

There I stick. I can't work out the last line."

"And here's to the hearts that it brings us!" exclaimed d.i.c.ksie.

"Fine!" cried McCloud. "'Here's to the hearts that it brings us!'"

d.i.c.ksie threw back her head and laughed with the others. Then Whispering Smith looked grave. "There is a difficulty," said he, knitting his brows. "You have spoiled my song."

"Oh, Mr. Smith, I hope not! Have I?"

"Your line is so much better than what I have that it makes my stuff sound cheap."

"Oh, no, Gordon!" interposed McCloud. "You don't see that one reason why Miss Dunning's line sounds better than yours is owing to the differences in your voices. If she will repeat the chorus, finishing with her line, you will see the difference."