Works of W. W. Jacobs

by Jacobs, W. W.

  The Major shrugged his shoulders.

  “It won’t do, Halibut,” he said, grimly; “it won’t do. I’m too old a soldier to be caught that way.”

  There was a long pause. The Major mopped his brow again. “I’ve got it,” he said at last.

  Halibut looked at him curiously.

  “We must play for first proposal,” said the Major, firmly. “We’re pretty evenly matched.”

  “Chess?” gasped the other, a whole world of protest in his tones.

  “Chess,” repeated the Major.

  “It is hardly respectful,” demurred Halibut. “What do you think the lady would do if she heard of it?”

  “Laugh,” replied the Major, with conviction.

  “I believe she would,” said the other, brightening. “I believe she would.”

  “You agree, then?”

  “With conditions.”

  “Conditions?” repeated the Major.

  “One game,” said Halibut, speaking very slowly and distinctly; “and if the winner is refused, the loser not to propose until he gives him permission.”

  “What the deuce for?” inquired the other, suspiciously.

  “Suppose I win,” replied Halibut, with suspicious glibness, “and was so upset that I had one of my bilious attacks come on, where should I be? Why, I might have to break off in the middle and go home. A fellow can’t propose when everything in the room is going round and round.”

  “I don’t think you ought to contemplate marriage, Halibut,” remarked the Major, very seriously and gently.

  “Thanks,” said Halibut, dryly.

  “Very well,” said the Major, “I agree to the conditions. Better come to my place and we’ll decide it now. If we look sharp, the winner may be able to know his fate to-day, after all.”

  Halibut assenting, they walked back together. The feverish joy of the gambler showed in the Major’s eye as they drew their chairs up to the little antique chess table and began to place their pieces ready for the fray. Then a thought struck him, and he crossed over to the sideboard.

  “If you’re feeling a bit off colour, Halibut,” he said, kindly, “you’d better have a little brandy to pull yourself together. I don’t wish to take a mean advantage.”

  “You’re very good,” said the other, as he eyed the noble measure of liquid poured out by his generous adversary.

  “And now to business,” said the Major, as he drew himself a little soda from a siphon.

  “Now to business,” repeated Halibut, rising and placing his glass on the mantel-piece.

  The Major struggled fiercely with his feelings, but, despite himself, a guilty blush lent colour to the other’s unfounded suspicions.

  “Remember the conditions,” said Halibut, impressively.

  “Here’s my hand on it,” said the other, reaching over.

  Halibut took it, and, his thoughts being at the moment far away, gave it a tender, respectful squeeze. The Major stared and coughed. It was suggestive of practice.

  If the history of the duel is ever written, it will be found not unworthy of being reckoned with the most famous combats of ancient times. Piece after piece was removed from the board, and the Major drank glass after glass of soda to cool his heated brain. At the second glass Halibut took an empty tumbler and helped himself. Suddenly there was a singing in the Major’s ears, and a voice, a hateful, triumphant voice, said,

  “Checkmate!”

  Then did his gaze wander from knight to bishop and bishop to castle in a vain search for succour. There was his king defied by a bishop — a bishop which had been hobnobbing with pawns in one corner of the board, and which he could have sworn he had captured and removed full twenty minutes before. He mentioned this impression to Halibut.

  “That was the other one,” said his foe. “I thought you had forgotten this. I have been watching and hoping so for the last half-hour.”

  There was no disguising the coarse satisfaction of the man. He had watched and hoped. Not beaten him, so the Major told himself, in fair play, but by taking a mean and pitiful advantage of a pure oversight. A sheer oversight. He admitted it.

  Halibut rose with a sigh of relief, and the Major, mechanically sweeping up the pieces, dropped them one by one into the box.

  “Plenty of time,” said the victor, glancing at the clock. “I shall go now, but I should like a wash first.”

  The Major rose, and in his capacity of host led the way upstairs to his room, and poured fresh water for his foe. Halibut washed himself delicately, carefully trimming his hair and beard, and anxiously consulting the Major as to the set of his coat in the back, after he had donned it again.

  His toilet completed, he gave a satisfied glance in the glass, and then followed the man of war sedately down stairs. At the hall he paused, and busied himself with the clothes-brush and hat-pad, modestly informing his glaring friend that he could not afford to throw any chances away, and then took his departure.

  The Major sat up late that night waiting for news, but none came, and by breakfast-time next morning his thirst for information became almost uncontrollable. He toyed with a chop and allowed his coffee to get cold. Then he clapped on his hat and set off to Halibut’s to know the worst.

  “Well?” he inquired, as he followed the other into his dining-room.

  “I went,” said Halibut, waving him to a chair.

  “Am I to congratulate you?”

  “Well, I don’t know,” was the reply; “perhaps not just yet.”

  “What do you mean by that?” said the Major, irascibly.

  “Well, as a matter of fact,” said Halibut, “she refused me, but so nicely and so gently that I scarcely minded it. In fact, at first I hardly realized that she had refused me.”

  The Major rose, and regarding his poor friend kindly, shook and patted him lightly on the shoulder.

  “She’s a splendid woman,” said Halibut. “Ornament to her sex,” remarked the Major.

  “So considerate,” murmured the bereaved one.

  “Good women always are,” said the Major, decisively. “I don’t think I’d better worry her to-day, Halibut, do you?”

  “No, I don’t,” said Halibut, stiffly.

  “I’ll try my luck to-morrow,” said the Major.

  “I beg your pardon,” said Halibut.

  “Eh?” said the Major, trying to look puzzled.

  “You are forgetting the conditions of the game,” replied Halibut. “You have to obtain my permission first.”

  “Why, my dear fellow,” said the Major, with a boisterous laugh. “I wouldn’t insult you by questioning your generosity in such a case. No, no, Halibut, old fellow, I know you too well.”

  He spoke with feeling, but there was an anxious note in his voice.

  “We must abide by the conditions,” said Halibut, slowly; “and I must inform you, Brill, that I intend to renew the attack myself.”

  “Then, sir,” said the Major, fuming, “you compel me to say — putting all modesty aside — that I believe the reason Mrs. Riddel would have nothing to do with you was because she thought somebody else might make a similar offer.”

  “That’s what I thought,” said Halibut, simply; “but you see now that you have so unaccountably — so far as Mrs. Riddel is concerned — dropped out of the running, perhaps, if I am gently persistent, she’ll take me.”

  The Major rose and glared at him.

  “If you don’t take care, old chap,” said Halibut, tenderly, “you’ll burst something.”

  “Gently persistent,” repeated the Major, staring at him; “gently persistent.”

  “Remember Bruce and his spider,” smiled the other.

  “You are not going to propose to that poor woman nine times?” roared his incensed friend.

  “I hope that it will not be necessary,” was the reply; “but if it is, I can assure you, my dear Brill, that I’m not going to be outclassed by a mere spider.”

  “But think of her feelings!” gasped the Major.

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sp; “I have,” was the reply; “and I’m sure she’ll thank me for it afterward. You see, Brill, you and I are the only eligibles in the place, and now you are out of it, she’s sure to take me sooner or later.”

  “And pray how long am I to wait?” demanded the Major, controlling himself with difficulty.

  “I can’t say,” said Halibut; “but I don’t think it’s any good your waiting at all, because if I see any signs that Mrs. Riddel is waiting for you I may just give her a hint of the hopelessness of it.”

  “You’re a perfect Mephistopheles, sir!” bawled the indignant Major. Halibut bowed.

  “Strategy, my dear Brill,” he said, smiling; “strategy. Now why waste your time? Why not make some other woman happy? Why not try her companion, Miss Philpotts? I’m sure any little assistance—”

  The Major’s attitude was so alarming that the sentence was never finished, and a second later the speaker found himself alone, watching his irate friend hurrying frantically down the path, knocking the blooms off the geraniums with his cane as he went. He saw no more of him for several weeks, the Major preferring to cherish his resentment in the privacy of his house. The Major also refrained from seeing the widow, having a wholesome dread as to what effect the contemplation of her charms might have upon his plighted word.

  He met her at last by chance. Mrs. Riddel bowed coldly and would have passed on, but the Major had already stopped, and was making wild and unmerited statements about the weather.

  “It is seasonable,” she said, simply.

  The Major agreed with her, and with a strong-effort regained his composure.

  “I was just going to turn back,” he said, untruthfully; “may I walk with you?”

  “I am not going far,” was the reply.

  With soldierly courage the Major took this as permission; with feminine precision Mrs. Riddel walked about fifty yards and then stopped. “I told you I wasn’t going far,” she said sweetly, as she held out her hand. “Goodby.”

  “I wanted to ask you something,” said the Major, turning with her. “I can’t think what it was.

  They walked on very slowly, the Major’s heart beating rapidly as he told himself that the lady’s coldness was due to his neglect of the past few weeks, and his wrath against Halibut rose to still greater heights as he saw the cruel position in which that schemer had placed him. Then he made a sudden resolution. There was no condition as to secrecy, and, first turning the conversation on to indoor amusements, he told the astonished Mrs. Riddel the full particulars of the fatal game. Mrs. Riddel said that she would never forgive them; it was the most preposterous thing she had ever heard of. And she demanded hotly whether she was to spend the rest of her life in refusing Mr. Halibut.

  “Do you play high as a rule?” she inquired, scornfully.

  “Sixpence a game,” replied the Major, simply.

  The corners of Mrs. Riddel’s mouth relaxed, and her fine eyes began to water; then she turned her head away and laughed. “It was very foolish of us, I admit,” said the Major, ruefully, “and very wrong. I shouldn’t have told you, only I couldn’t explain my apparent neglect without.”

  “Apparent neglect?” repeated the widow, somewhat haughtily.

  “Well, put it down to a guilty conscience,” said the Major; “it seems years to me since I have seen you.”

  “Remember the conditions, Major Brill,” said Mrs. Riddel, with severity.

  “I shall not transgress them,” replied the Major, seriously.

  Mrs. Riddel gave her head a toss, and regarded him from the corner of her eyes.

  “I am very angry with you, indeed,” she said, severely. The Major apologized again. “For losing,” added the lady, looking straight before her.

  Major Brill caught his breath and his knees trembled beneath him. He made a half-hearted attempt to seize her hand, and then remembering his position, sighed deeply and looked straight before him. They walked on in silence.

  “I think,” said his companion at last, “that, if you like, you can get back at cribbage what you lost at chess. That is, of course, if you really want to.”

  “He wouldn’t play,” said the Major, shaking his head.

  “No, but I will,” said Mrs. Riddel, with a smile. “I think I’ve got a plan.”

  She blushed charmingly, and then, in modest alarm at her boldness, dropped her voice almost to a whisper. The Major gazed at her in speechless admiration and threw back his head in ecstasy. “Come round to-morrow afternoon,” said Mrs. Riddel, pausing at the end of the lane. “Mr. Halibut shall be there, too, and it shall be done under his very eyes.”

  Until that time came the Major sat at home carefully rehearsing his part, and it was with an air of complacent virtue that he met the somewhat astonished gaze of the persistent Halibut next day. It was a bright afternoon, but they sat indoors, and Mrs. Riddel, after an animated description of a game at cribbage with Miss Philpotts the night before, got the cards out and challenged Halibut to a game.

  They played two, both of which the diplomatic Halibut lost; then Mrs. Riddel, dismissing him as incompetent, sat drumming on the table with her fingers, and at length challenged the Major. She lost the first game easily, and began the second badly. Finally, after hastily glancing at a new hand, she flung the cards petulantly on the table, face downward.

  “Would you like my hand, Major Brill?” she demanded, with a blush.

  “Better than anything in the world,” cried the Major, eagerly.

  Halibut started, and Miss Philpotts nearly had an accident with her crochet hook. The only person who kept cool was Mrs. Riddel, and it was quite clear to the beholders that she had realized neither the ambiguity of her question nor the meaning of her opponent’s reply.

  “Well, you may have it,” she said, brightly.

  Before Miss Philpotts could lay down her work, before Mr. Halibut could interpose, the Major took possession of Mrs. Riddel’s small white hand and raised it gallantly to his lips. Mrs. Riddel, with a faint scream which was a perfect revelation to the companion, snatched her hand away. “I meant my hand of cards,” she said, breathlessly.

  “Really, Brill, really,” said Halibut, stepping forward fussily.

  “Oh!” said the Major, blankly; “cards!”

  “That’s what I meant, of course,” said Mrs. Riddel, recovering herself with a laugh. “I had no idea still — if you prefer—” The Major took her hand again, and Miss Philpotts set Mr. Halibut an example — which he did not follow — by gazing meditatively out of the window. Finally she gathered up her work and quitted the room. Mrs. Riddel smiled over at Mr. Halibut and nodded toward the Major.

  “Don’t you think Major Brill is somewhat hasty in his conclusions?”

  “Don’t you think Major Brill is somewhat hasty in his conclusions?” she inquired, softly.

  “I’ll tell Major Brill what I think of him when I get him alone,” said the injured gentleman, sourly.

  AN ADULTERATION ACT

  Dr. Frank Carson had been dreaming tantalizing dreams of cooling, effervescent beverages. Over and over again in his dreams he had risen from his bed, and tripping lightly down to the surgery in his pajamas, mixed himself something long and cool and fizzy, without being able to bring the dream to a satisfactory termination.

  With a sudden start he awoke. The thirst was still upon him; the materials for quenching it, just down one flight of stairs. He would have smacked his lips at the prospect if they had been moist enough to smack; as it was, he pushed down the bedclothes, and throwing one leg out of bed-became firmly convinced that he was still dreaming.

  For the atmosphere was stifling and odorous, and the ceiling descended in an odd bulging curve to within a couple of feet of his head. Still half asleep, he raised his fist and prodded at it in astonishment — a feeling which gave way to one of stupefaction as the ceiling took another shape and swore distinctly.

  “I must be dreaming,” mused the doctor; “even the ceiling seems alive.”

  He prodded i
t again-regarding it closely this time. The ceiling at once rose to greater altitudes, and at the same moment an old face with bushy whiskers crawled under the edge of it, and asked him profanely what he meant by it. It also asked him whether he wanted something for himself, because, if so, he was going the right way to work.

  “Where am I?” demanded the bewildered doctor. “Mary! Mary!”

  He started up in bed, and brought his head in sudden violent contact with the ceiling. Then, before the indignant ceiling could carry out its threat of a moment before, he slipped out of bed and stood on a floor which was in its place one moment and somewhere else the next.

  In the smell of bilge-water, tar, and the foetid atmosphere generally his clouded brain awoke to the fact that he was on board ship, but resolutely declined to inform him how he got there. He looked down in disgust at the ragged clothes which he had on in lieu of the usual pajamas; and then, as events slowly pieced themselves together in his mind, remembered, as the last thing that he could remember, that he had warned his friend Harry Thomson, solicitor, that if he had any more to drink it would not be good for him.

  He wondered dimly as he stood whether Thomson was there too, and walking unsteadily round the forecastle, roused the sleepers, one by one, and asked them whether they were Harry Thomson, all answering with much fluency in the negative, until he came to one man who for some time made no answer at all.

  The doctor shook him first and then punched him. Then he shook him again and gave him little scientific slaps, until at length Harry Thomson, in a far-away voice, said that he was all right.

  “Well, I’m glad I’m not alone,” said the doctor, selfishly. “Harry! Harry! Wake up!”

  “All ri’!” said the sleeper; “I’m all ri’!”

  The doctor shook him again, and then rolled him backward and forward in his bunk. Under this gentle treatment the solicitor’s faculties were somewhat brightened, and, half opening his eyes, he punched viciously at the disturber of his peace, until threatening voices from the gloom promised to murder both of them.

  “Where are we?” demanded the doctor, of a deep voice from the other side of the forecastle which had been particularly threatening.