“Your father’s looking for you, Buzzy,” said Sticky.
“He is? I thought he was looking for some one when I passed him out there just now. Here, waiter, take the orders.” He sat upon the edge of a table and swung one leg aimlessly while the servant took the orders.
“I’ll take a Bronx,” he said, after the others had spoken.
The drawler took it upon himself to instruct the waiter to find Mr. Van Pycke, senior, and tell him that his son was in the lounge.
“Never mind,” countermanded Bosworth, sharply. “I’ll look him up directly. Beastly night, isn’t it?”
Every one said it was. It dawned upon them that Bosworth was not taking his first cocktail. It was quite plain that already he had taken several. They were unwilling to believe their senses. Buzzy never got tight! He always had said it made him dreadfully ill the next day, and a man who is ill the next day—in that way—suffers tremendously during the period of upheaval in the additional loss of self-respect. Be that as it may, he appeared to have forgotten his squeamishness. Young Mr. Van Pycke—he of the sleek blond hair and dark gray eyes—was quite palpably drunk.
“This is the sixth for me in the last half hour,” he remarked, but not proudly, as he took up the cocktail. A spoonful or more leaked over the top of the glass as he raised it to his lips. “Here’s how.”
“Six!” exclaimed the drawler. “What’s got into you, Buzzy? I thought your limit was two.”
Buzzy appeared to be thinking. “Two’s my limit when I’m perfectly sober,” he said sagely. He waited a moment. “Say, did you fellers see that thing in the paper’s mor—this morning about the party?”
“What party?” demanded several.
He looked aggrieved. “Why, there was only one. I haven’t heard of another. The one at Mrs. Thistlethorpe’s. By Jove, that’s a—a hard name to pronounce. Didn’t you see in the papers that they played a new game between the Bridge and the pantry? Jus’ before supper Mrs. This—Thissus Miss—the same one I said before—introduced her new trained dog. It was Willy Buttsford. Willy—the silly ass—came into the room on all fours. She was leadin’ him by a leash. Willy’s got such a deuced thin neck that her poodle’s diamond-studded collar fits’m all right. Then she had him beg for candy, roll over an’ play dead, jump over her leg, and—say, he almost broke his nose doin’ that! Awful mess he made of himself, slippin’ on the rug. He closed the show by tellin’ the age of every woman present, barkin’ the numbers. I thought I’d die of fatigue when he gave Mrs. Thisum—ahem!—when he gave her age. He thought it would be smart to run it up into the hundreds. The dam’ fool barked for three quarters of an hour without stoppin’! I never was so disgusted in my life. Thass—that’s why I’m gettin’ full tonight.”
“I don’t see why you should get full,” said Sticky.
“Sticky, you would see if you knew the horrible thought that’s been botherin’ me all day. Mos’ dreadful thought.”
“What is it?”
“It occurred to me that, next thing I know, I’ll be doin’ some idiotic trick like that. I’ve got a feelin’—an awful feelin’—that I won’t be able to get out of it. Some woman’ll want me to play a cow, or a goat, or a crocodile, sure’s your’re born, and I’ll be it. Awful thought!”
Everybody laughed but Bosworth. He flushed and looked very much hurt.
“I’m not foolin’, boys,” he said quite seriously. “I feel it coming. I haven’t money enough to tell ’em to go to the devil, and they know it. That’s the trouble in not havin’ money. So, I’ve made up my mind to follow the governor’s advice. I’m going to marry it.”
“Good boy!” cried the drawler, humoring him.
“Either that or go to work,” said Bosworth, slowly, impressively. Again they laughed, and again he flushed. “I mean it. I’m either going to marry some one who can support me in the latest and most approved fashion, or I’m going to chuck the whole business and devote my time to solving the labor problem by trying to hold a job somewhere. Twelve thousand a year is all right if a chap’s working part of the time. He’s at least earning the interest on what he spends. But twelve thousand isn’t even pin money in the crowd I’m trying to keep up with.”
“I’ve always said you’d marry a wad as big as the best of ’em,” said Sticky, greatly encouraged.
“If I don’t marry pretty soon, the governor will,” mused Buzzy. “The Lord knows he won’t marry for love or experience. No, gentlemen, you can’t expect to be much more than a poodle dog on twelve thousand. I had to lick a feller at college once for calling me a pup. I’d hate it like the deuce if I should live to see his statement proved true. No, I won’t be a trained dog. I’ll get married and pay my debts. And—I say, what time’s it getting to be? Eight forty-five? Well, I must be on my way.”
He swung his leg down from the table, straightened his slender, elegant figure with a palpable effort, and smiled his most genial farewells to the crowd.
“Rotten night,” he said once more.
The drawler took his arm and accompanied him to the door. They were very good friends.
“Better stay in tonight, Buzzy,” he said.
Bosworth looked at him in haughty surprise.
“You think I’m tight,” he retorted. “There, forgive me, old chap; I didn’t mean to snap you off like that. Le’ me tell you about those cocktails. I took ’em to brace me up. I’m going to do it tonight.” This in a whisper.
“Do it? Do what?”
“Ask her!”
“What the dev—Ask who what?”
“I don’t know just who yet, but I certainly know what. I’m going to ask some one to become Mrs. Van Pycke. There are three of ’em who are eligible, according to the governor. He’s ding-donged ’em at me for three months. I’ve got a taxicab waiting for me out there. The chances are that it’ll get stuck in the snow somewhere. That’s why I can’t say which one I’m going to ask. It all depends on which one lives nearest to the snowdrift in which we get stuck. They’re all the same to me. And I think they are to the governor. But, see here, George, I’m not going to ask more than one of ’em. If I get turned down tonight, that ends it. I’m going to work!”
“I don’t wish you any bad luck, Buzzy, but I hope you’ll be turned down,” said his friend, earnestly.
Van Pycke was staring straight before him. His brain seemed clearer when he replied. There was a distinctly plaintive note in his voice.
“I wonder if I could make good at work of any kind. Do you suppose any one would give me a trial?”
“In a minute, Buzzy! And you would make good. Better stay in tonight. Let the—”
“No,” said Buzzy, resolutely. “I’m going to try the other thing first. That’s what I’ve been trained for. Good night, George. Don’t tell the fellows, will you? They’ll guy me to death. I just wanted you to understand that I can’t go on as I’m going on twelve thousand a year.”
“I quite understand, old boy.”
Buzzy held his hand for a moment, looking quite steadily into his eyes. “You don’t think I’m as useless as the rest of ’em think I am, do you, George?”
“God bless you, no! No one thinks that of you!”
“George, I hate a liar,” said Buzzy, but his face glowed with a happy smile.
In the lobby he met his father.
“Where the devil have you been?” demanded Van Pycke, senior. “Damitall, I’ve wasted half an hour waiting for you.”
“I didn’t know you were waiting, dad. Why didn’t you send in your card?”
“Send in my—why, confound you, Bosworth, I’m a member of this club. Why should I send in—”
“Don’t lose your temper, dad. I apologize for keeping you waiting. Don’t let me keep you any longer.”
Mr. Van Pycke looked his son over very carefully. A pained expression came into his face.
“Bosworth, I am sorry to see you in this condition. It grieves me beyond measure. You have never—”
“It’s
an awful night, isn’t it, dad? Can’t I give you a lift in my taxicab? I see you’ve got on your overcoat and hat.” Bosworth was moving toward the clubhouse entrance. The old gentleman resolutely kept pace with him.
“That’s just what I meant to ask you,” said he, with some celerity. “I—I can’t get a cab of any sort for love or money. It’s generous—”
“You can’t get much of anything for love in these days, dad, except love.”
Mr. Van Pycke pondered this while Bosworth got into his coat and hat.
“I am very sorry to see you intox—”
“Dad, I ‘m celebrating,” said his son, halting just inside the door.
“Celebrating what?”
“My approaching marriage, sir.”
Mr. Van Pycke dropped the glove he was pulling on. He went very white, except for his nose. That seemed redder by contrast.
“Not—not a chorus girl?” he stammered, his hand shaking as he raised it to his brow.
“No, dad. Not yet. I expect to marry some one else first. I’ll save the other for a rainy day.”
“Who—who is it, my boy? Who is it?”
“That, sir, is still a matter of conjecture. I haven’t quite got down to the point of selecting—”
“You insufferable booby,” roared his father. “You gave me a—a dreadful shock, sir! Never do that again.”
“I thought you’d like to know, sir,” said Bosworth, politely. He winked gravely at a mahogany doorpost, and motioned for his father to precede him through the storm doors.
“By the way,” muttered his father, obstructing the way, as if recalling something he had forgotten to attend to inside the club, “would you mind lending me fifty for a couple of days? I meant to speak to you about it in—”
“Will ten do, dad? It’s all I have with me, except a tip for the driver. We mustn’t forget the driver on a night like this.” Bosworth was feeling in his trousers pocket, no sign of resentment in his face.
“I dare say I can borrow forty from Stone,” said the other, readily. “No,” he went on, after he had pocketed the crumpled bank note and was fastening his baby lamb collar close up to his shrivelled throat; “no, we can’t forget the driver on a night like this. You really won’t mind dropping me up town, will you, Bosworth? I don’t mind walking if you’d rather not.”
“Come along, governor,” said the other, pushing through the doors. “Ah, that cold air feels good!” The young man drew in a long, deep breath.
“Good? It might feel good to a polar bear, but I don’t see how—”
“Sh! Be careful, dad! Don’t let the driver hear you call me a polar bear. He wouldn’t understand, and it might get into the papers—the very thing I’m trying to avoid.”
Mr. Van Pycke attributed this remarkable utterance to the cup that cheers and befuddles. At best he seldom appreciated or understood Bosworth’s wit.
The taxicab plowed and sputtered its way through a city block of pelting snow before he gave over trying to analyze this latest example. Then he broke the silence, in the shrill, chattering tones of one who is very cold.
“I don’t think I told the driver where he could put me down,” he said.
“Eh?” mumbled Bosworth, coming out of a dream. “Oh, I dare say it won’t matter. I’ll tell him when he puts me down.”
“But,” expostulated his father, from the recesses of the baby lamb, “you may be going to—to Harlem.” He could think of nothing worse. “I’ve been delayed in keeping my appointment on your account, as it is. It’s very annoying, Bosworth, that I should be kept waiting a whole hour there in the club while you puttered your time away at—”
“Where do you want to get out, dad?” interrupted the scion of the house of Van Pycke.
Mr. Van Pycke had been thinking. He was not sure that he wanted Bosworth to know just where he was going on this momentous night. It occurred to him that the walk of a block would not only throw the young man off the track, but might also serve to soften the heart of the lady for whom he was risking so much in the shape of health by venturing forth afoot in a storm so relentless. Moreover, he could tell her that he had walked all the way up from the club, cabless because even the hardiest of drivers balked at the prospect. A statement like that, attended by a bushel or more of snow in the vestibule where it had been brushed off by the butler, ought to convince the lady in mind that his devotion was thinly divorced from recklessness. So he told Bosworth that he would get out at Mr. Purdwell’s house.
The announcement caused Bosworth mentally to eliminate one of the ladies from his list. He gave a deep sigh of relief at that. The daughter of the shamelessly rich Mr. Purdwell was so homely and so vain that she was almost certain to have said “yes”—with all her millions—if he had asked her. He remembered that Miss Hebbins, almost as rich and quite as eager to get into the Four Hundred, was the next on his list. She lived a few blocks farther up the street.
“All right, dad. Just push the button when we get to Purdwell’s corner. I’m going beyond.”
Mr. Van Pycke hesitated for a moment. “Would it be too much trouble for you to stop for me on your way down, Bosworth?”
“Not at all, dad.” As an afterthought he added: “Something tells me I won’t be up here long. Can you be ready at half-past ten?”
“I think so,” said his father, who had some misgivings.
The taxi struggled bravely along for a couple of blocks. Bosworth was dozing comfortably. His father, seized by an unwelcome sense of compunction, was turning something over in his mind. In the end, he concluded to break a certain piece of news to his son.
“Your mother has been dead for sixteen years, Bosworth.”
Bosworth opened his eyes.
“Yes, sir,” he said, trying to guess what was coming.
“She was a noble woman, my boy. I—I shall never forget her.”
“I loved her,” said Bosworth, vaguely.
“I have always said that a man shouldn’t marry a second time,” proceeded Mr. Van Pycke. Bosworth sniffed. Mr. Van Pycke went on: “That is, until his first wife has been—er—at rest for fifteen years or more. It’s only decent.”
“I see,” said Bosworth, comprehending.
“You do?” demanded his father, a bit upset.
“Who is she, dad?”
Mr. Van Pycke’s chin was so far down in the baby lamb that his reply was barely audible. “I hope to be able to tell you in the morning—perhaps late this evening, my son.”
The young man was smiling in his corner of the cab. “Are you quite sure you love her, dad?” he asked, without guile.
Mr. Van Pycke coughed.
“Perhaps you’d better wait till morning to tell me that, too,” said his son, coming to the rescue.
CHAPTER II
A YOUNG LADY ENTERS
Mr. Van Pycke got down in front of the Purdwell mansion. It must be admitted that he almost funked when he opened the door of the cab and let in a gust of wind and snow that almost took his breath away. But he steeled himself and slipped out into the seething blizzard. He blinked around in all directions as the taxicab chortled off into the white whirlwind. So dense was the flying snow that he could scarcely see the houses on the inner side of the pavement; he was nearly a minute in getting his bearings. Then he shuffled off through the great drifts on the walk, pointed toward a fashionable apartment building whose lights glimmered fantastically against the whistling, shifting screen.
It may be added that Mr. Van Pycke was cursing himself for a fool at every wretched step of the way. Never, in all his life, had he seen snowdrifts so deep and never so stubborn. He said to himself that he’d be d—d if he pay a cent of taxes until civic affairs were administered by an assembly that knew enough to keep the sidewalks clear of snow. He also experienced the doleful fear that his nose was freezing in spite of all that he could do to prevent it.
Bosworth’s taxicab floundered heroically on for two blocks. Then it gave out and came to a frantic stop, pulsing and th
robbing and jerking its very vitals out in the effort to go ahead.
“She’s stuck, sir,” said the driver, opening the door.
“Where are we?” demanded young Mr. Van Pycke. “Please come inside and close the door. I hate a draft. That’s better. Now we can talk it over. Are we lost?”
“Lost, sir? C’tainly not. I know w’ere we are, all right. Only we can’t budge out of this snowdrift. It’s the woist ever.”
“I suppose we’ll have to sleep here,” said Bosworth, resignedly. He was comfortably sleepy by this time.
The driver struck a match, the better to inspect his amiable fare. “Not if I know myself,” he growled. “If you should happen to lose your watch while you’re in this condition, I’d be jugged for it. I’ll take you to the Lackaday Hotel in the next block below and turn you over to the chambermaids. Come along, pardner. I’ll see that you get there all right.”
Buzzy sat up and glared at him in the darkness. “Strike another match, confound you,” he commanded. “How the devil am I to see your number? Never mind; I sha’n’t report your impertinence, after all. I dare say you meant well. I am a bit drunk. But I can get along all right by myself. You say the Lackaday is back there in the next block?”
“Yes, sir. The number you wanted is about three blocks furder up. If it hadn’t a been—”
“Let me out. I’ll walk back. You—you’ve taken me past the number I wanted.”
“The ticket says 714, sir, plain as day,” began the driver. “You didn’t say nothin’ about the Lackaday—”
“You’re quite right, my man. And you didn’t say anything about stopping in the middle of the block for the night, did you? Well, there you are! That squares us.”
He clambered out into the snowdrift and unbuttoned his overcoat. The man seemed undecided whether to let him go or to drag him back into the vehicle. Bosworth found what he was looking for in his waistcoat pocket. He pressed it into the driver’s hand.
“I’m sorry it isn’t more,” he said regretfully. “It may be a dollar, or it may be a five, but no matter which it is, it ought to be more. Now I’ll tell you what I want you to do. If you can’t get this thing going by ‘leven o’clock, I want you to go up to Martin’s and have ’em send a four-horse sleigh to No. 511. It’s the first residence north of the Lackaday, and it’s the number I’ve been compelled to select as a last resort. Understand?”
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