The Complete Works of O. Henry

by O. Henry

  "Excuse me," said Kerner, with his wan, amiable smile; "was I talking to myself? I think it is getting to be a habit with me."

  The Fool-Killer turned and walked out of Far- ronils.

  "Wait here for me," said I, rising; "I must speak to that man. Had you no answer for him? Because you are a fool must you die like a mouse under his foot? Could you not utter one squeak in your own defence?

  "You are drunk," said Kerner, heartlessly. "No one addressed me."

  "The destroyer of your mind," said I, "stood above you just now and marked you for his victim. You are not blind or deaf."

  "I recognized no such person," said Kerner. "I have seen no one but you at this table. Sit down. Hereafter you shall have no more absinthe drips."

  "Wait here," said I, furious; "if you don't care for your own life, I will save it for you."

  I hurried out and overtook the man in gray half- way down the block. He looked as I bad seen him in my fancy a thousand times - truculent, gray and awful. He walked with the white oak staff, and but for the street-sprinkler the dust would have been fly- ing under his tread. I caught him by the sleeve and steered him to a dark angle of a building. I knew he was a myth, and I did not want a cop to see me conversing with va- cancy, for I might land in Bellevue minus my silver matchbox and diamond ring.

  "Jesse Holmes," said I, facing him with apparent bravery, "I know you. I have heard of you all my life. I know now what a scourge you have been to your country. Instead of killing fools you have been murdering the youth and genius that are necessary to make a people live and grow great. You are a fool yourself, Holmes; you began killing off the brightest and best of our countrymen three generations ago, when the old and obsolete standards of society and honor and orthodoxy were narrow and bigoted. You proved that when you put your murderous mark upon my friend Kerner -- the wisest chap I ever knew in my life."

  The Fool-Killer looked at me grimly and closely.

  "You've a queer jag," said he, curiously. "Oh, yes; I see who you are now. You were sitting with him at the table. Well, if I'm not mistaken, I heard you call him a fool, too."

  "I did," said I. "I delight in doing so. It is from envy. By all the standards that you know he is the most egregious and grandiloquent and gorgeous fool in all the world. That's why you want to kill him."

  "Would you mind telling me who or what you think I am?" asked the old man.

  I laughed boisterously and then stopped suddenly, for I remembered that it would not do to be seen so hilarious in the company of nothing but a brick wall.

  "You are Jesse Holmes, the Fool-Killer," I said, solemnly, "and you are going to kill my friend Ker- ner. I don't know who rang you up, but if you do kill him I'll see that you get pinched for it. That is," I added, despairingly, "if I can get a cop to see you. They have a poor eye for mortals, and I think it would take the whole force to round up a myth mur- derer."

  "Well," said the Fool-Killer, briskly, "I must be going. You had better go home and sleep it off. Good-night."

  At this I was moved by a sudden fear for Kerner to a softer and more pleading mood. I leaned against the gray man's sleeve and besought him:

  "Good Mr. Fool-Killer, please don't kill little Ker- ner. Why can't you go back South and kill Con- gressmen and clay-caters and let us alone? Why don't you go up on Fifth Avenue and kill millionaires that keep their money locked up and won't let young fools marry because one of 'em lives on the wrong street? Come and have a drink, Jesse. Will you never get on to your job?"

  "Do you know this girl that your friend has made himself a fool about?" asked the Fool-Killer.

  "I have the honor," said I, "and that's why I called Kerner a fool. He is a fool because he has waited so long before marrying her. He is a fool because be has been waiting in the hopes of getting the consent of some absurd two-million-dollar-fool parent or something of the sort."

  "Maybe," said the Fool-Killer -- " maybe I -- I might have looked at it differently. Would you mind going back to the restaurant and bringing your friend Kerner here?"

  "OH, what's the use, Jesse," I yawned. "He can't see you. He didn't know you were talking to him at the table, You are a fictitious character, you know."

  "Maybe He can this time. Will you go fetch him?"

  "All right," said I, "but I've a suspicion that you're not strictly sober, Jesse. You seem to be wa- vering and losing your outlines. Don't vanish before I get back."

  I went back to Kerner and said:

  "There's a man with an invisible homicidal mania waiting to see you outside. I believe he wants to murder you. Come along. You won't see him, so there's nothing to be frightened about."

  Kerner looked anxious.

  "Why," said be, "I had no idea one absinthe would do that. You'd better stick to Wurzburger. I'll walk home with you."

  I led him to Jesse Holmes's.

  "Rudolf," said the Fool-Killer, "I'll give in. Bring her up to the house. Give me your hand, boy.",

  "Good for you, dad," said Kerner, shaking hands with the old man. You'll never regret it after you know her."

  "So, you did see him when he was talking to you at the table?" I asked Kerner.

  "We hadn't spoken to each other in a year," said Kerner. "It's all right now."

  I walked away.

  "Where are you going?" called Kerner.

  "I am going to look for Jesse Holmes," I an- swered, with dignity and reserve.

  TRANSIENTS IN ARCADIA

  There is a hotel on Broadway that has escaped discovery by the summer-resort promoters. It is deep and wide and cool. Its rooms are finished in dark oak of a low temperature. Home-made breezes and deep-green shrubbery give it the delights without the inconveniences of the Adirondacks. One can mount its broad staircases or glide dreamily upward in its aerial elevators, attended by guides in brass but- tons, with a serene joy that Alpine climbers have never attained. There is a chef in its kitchen who will prepare for you brook trout better than the White Mountains ever served, sea food that would turn Old Point Comfort -- "by Gad, sah!" -- green with envy, and Maine venison that would melt the official heart of a game warden.

  A few have found out this oasis in the July desert of Manhattan. During that month you will see the hotel's reduced array of guests scattered luxuriously about in the cool twilight of -- its lofty dining-room, gazing at one another across the snowy waste of un- occupied tables, silently congratulatory.

  Superfluous, watchful, pneumatically moving wait- ers hover near, supplying every want before it is ex- pressed. The temperature is perpetual April. The ceiling is painted in water colors to counterfeit a sum- mer sky across which delicate clouds drift and do not vanish as those of nature do to our regret.

  The pleasing, distant roar of Broadway is trans- formed in the imagination of the happy guests to the noise of a waterfall filling the woods with its restful sound. At every strange footstep the guests turn an anxious ear, fearful lest their retreat be discovered and invaded by the restless pleasure-seekers who are forever hounding nature to her deepest lairs.

  Thus in the depopulated caravansary the little band of connoisseurs jealously bide themselves during the heated season, enjoying to the uttermost the de- lights of mountain and seashore that art and skill have gathered and served to them.

  In this July came to the hotel one whose card that she sent to the clerk for her name to be registered read "Mme. He1oise D'Arcy Beaumont."

  Madame Beaumont was a guest such as the Hotel Lotus loved. She possessed the fine air of the e1ite, tempered and sweetened by a cordial graciousness that made the hotel employees her slaves. Bell-boys fought for the honor of answering her ring; the clerks, but for the question of ownership, would have deeded to her the hotel and its contents; the other guests regarded her as the final touch of feminine exclusiveness and beauty that rendered the entourage perfect.

  This super-excellent guest rarely left the hotel. Her habits were consonant with the customs of the dis- criminating patrons of the Hotel Lotus. To enjoy that
delectable hostelry one must forego the city as though it were leagues away. By night a brief ex- cursion to the nearby roofs is in order; but during the torrid day one remains in the umbrageous fast- nesses of the Lotus as a trout hangs poised in the pel- lucid sanctuaries of his favorite pool.,

  Though alone in the Hotel Lotus, Madame Beau- mont preserved the state of a queen whose loneliness was of position only. She breakfasted at ten, a cool, sweet, leisurely, delicate being who glowed softly in the dimness like a jasmine flower in the dusk.

  But at dinner was Madame's glory at its height. She wore a gown as beautiful and immaterial as the mist from an unseen cataract in a mountain gorge. The nomenclature of this gown is beyond the guess of the scribe. Always pale-red roses reposed against its lace-garnished front. It was a gown that the bead-waiter viewed with respect and met at the door. You thought of Paris when you saw it, and maybe of mysterious countesses, and certainly of Versailles and rapiers and Mrs. Fiske and rouge-et-noir. There was an untraceable rumor in the Hotel Lotus that Madame was a cosmopolite, and that she was pulling with her slender white bands certain strings between the nations in the favor of Russia. Being a citi- zeness of the world's smoothest roads it was small wonder that she was quick to recognize in the refined purlieus of the Hotel Lotus the most desirable spot in America for a restful sojourn during the heat of mid- summer.

  On the third day of Madame Beaumont's residence in the hotel a young man entered and registered him- self as a guest. His clothing -- to speak of his points in approved order -- was quietly in the mode; his features good and regular; his expression that of a poised and sophisticated man of the world. He in- formed the clerk that he would remain three or four days, inquired concerning the sailing of European steamships, and sank into the blissful inanition of the nonpareil hotel with the contented air of a traveller in his favorite inn.

  The young man -- not to question the veracity of the register -- was Harold Farrington. He drifted into the exclusive and calm current of life in the Lotus so tactfully and silently that not a ripple alarmed his fellow-seekers after rest. He ate in the Lotus and of its patronym, and was lulled into blissful peace with the other fortunate mariners. In one day he acquired his table and his waiter and the fear lest the panting chasers after repose that kept Broadway warm should pounce upon and destroy this contiguous but covert haven.

  After dinner on the next day after the arrival of Harold Farrington Madame Beaumont dropped her handkerchief in passing out. Mr. Farrington recov- ered and returned it without the effusiveness of a seeker after acquaintance.

  Perhaps there was a mystic freemasonry between the discriminating guests of the Lotus. Perhaps they were drawn one to another by the fact of their common good fortune in discovering the acme of sum- mer resorts in a Broadway hotel. Words delicate in courtesy and tentative in departure from formality passed between the two. And, as if in the expedient atmosphere of a real summer resort, an acquaintance grew, flowered and fructified on the spot as does the mystic plant of the conjuror. For a few moments they stood on a balcony upon which the corridor ended, and tossed the feathery ball of conversation.

  "One tires of the old resorts," said Madame Beau- mont, with a faint but sweet smile. "What is the use to fly to the mountains or the seashore to escape noise and dust when the very people that make both follow us there?"

  "Even on the ocean," remarked Farrington, sadly, "the Philistines be upon you. The most exclusive steamers are getting to be scarcely more than ferry boats. Heaven help us when the summer resorter dis- covers that the Lotus is further away from Broadway than Thousand Islands or Mackinac."

  "I hope our secret will be safe for a week, any- how," said Madame, with a sigh and a smile. "I do not know where I would go if they should descend upon the dear Lotus. I know of but one place so de- lightful in summer, and that is the castle of Count Polinski, in the Ural Mountains."

  "I hear that Baden-Baden and Cannes are almost deserted this season," said Farrington. "Year by year the old resorts fall in disrepute. Perhaps many others, like ourselves, are seeking out the quiet nooks that are overlooked by the majority."

  "I promise myself three days more of this delicious rest," said Madame Beaumont. "On Monday the Cedric sails."

  Harold Farrington's eyes proclaimed his regret. "I too must leave on Monday," he said, "but I do not go abroad."

  Madame Beaumont shrugged one round shoulder in a foreign gesture.

  "One cannot bide here forever, charming though it may be. The chateau has been in preparation for me longer than a month. Those house parties that one must give -- what a nuisance! But I shall never for- get my week in the Hotel Lotus."

  "Nor shall I," said Farrington in a low voice, and I shall never forgive the Cedric."

  On Sunday evening, three days afterward, the two sat at a little table on the same balcony. A discreet waiter brought ices and small glasses of claret cup.

  Madame Beaumont wore the same beautiful even- ing gown that she had worn each day at dinner. She seemed thoughtful. Near her hand on the table lay a small chatelaine purse. After she had eaten her ice she opened the purse and took out a one-dollar bill.

  "Mr. Farrington," she said, with the smile that had won the Hotel Lotus, "I want to tell you some- thing. I'm going to leave before breakfast in the morning, because I've got to go back to my work. I'm behind the hosiery counter at Casey's Mammoth Store, and my vacation's up at eight o'clock to- morrow. That paper-dollar is the last cent I'll see till I draw my eight dollars salary next Saturday night. You're a real gentleman, and you've been good to me, and I wanted to tell you before I went. I've been saving up out of my wages for a year just for this vacation. I wanted to spend one week like a lady if I never do another one. I wanted to get up when I please instead of having to crawl out at seven every morning; and I wanted to live on the best and be waited on and ring bells for things just like rich folks do. Now I've done it, and I've had the happiest time I ever expect to have in my life. I'm going back to my work and my little hall bedroom satisfied for another year. I wanted to tell you about it, Mr. Farrington, because I -- I thought you kind of liked me, and I -- I liked you. But, oh, I couldn't help deceiving you up till now, for it was all just like a fairy tale to me. So I talked about Europe and the things I've read about in other countries, and made you think I was a great lady.

  "This dress I've got on -- it's the only one I have that's fit to wear -- I bought from O'Dowd & Levin- sky on the instalment plan."

  "Seventy-five dollars is the price, and it was made to measure. I paid $10 down, and they're to collect $1 a week till it's paid for. That'll be about all I have to say, Mr. Farrington, except that my name is Mamie Siviter instead of Madame Beaumont, and I thank you for your attentions. This dollar will pay the instalment due on the dress to-morrow. I guess I'll go up to my room now."

  Harold Farrington listened to the recital of the Lotus's loveliest guest with an impassive countenance. When she had concluded he drew a small book like a checkbook from his coat pocket. He wrote upon a blank form in this with a stub of pencil, tore out the leaf, tossed it over to his companion and took up the paper dollar.

  "I've got to go to work, too, in the morning," he said, "and I might as well begin now. There's a receipt for the dollar instalment. I've been a col- lector for O'Dowd & Levinsky for three years. Funny, ain't it, that you and me both had the same idea about spending our vacation? I've always wanted to put up at a swell hotel, and I saved up out of my twenty per, and did it. Say, Mame, how about a trip to Coney Saturday night on the boat what?"

  The face of the pseudo Madame Heloise D'Arcy Beaumont beamed.

  "Oh, you bet I'll go, Mr. Farrington. The store closes at twelve on Saturdays. I guess Coney'll be all right even if we did spend a week with the swells."

  Below the balcony the sweltering city growled and buzzed in the July night. Inside the Hotel Lotus the tempered, cool shadows reigned, and the solicitous waiter single-footed near the low windows, ready at a nod to serve Madame and her
escort.

  At the door of the elevator Farrington took his leave, and Madame Beaumont made her last ascent. But before they reached the noiseless cage be said: "Just forget that 'Harold Farrington,' will you? McManus is the name -- James McManus. Some call me Jimmy."

  "Good-night, Jimmy," said Madame.

  THE RATHSKELLER AND THE ROSE

  Miss Posie Carrington had earned her suc- cess. She began life handicapped by the family name of "Boggs," in the small town known as Cranberry Corners. At the age of eighteen she had acquired the name of "Carrington" and a position in the chorus of a metropolitan burlesque company. Thence upward she had ascended by the legitimate and delectable steps of "broiler," member of the famous "Dickey-bird" octette, in the successful musical comedy, "Fudge and Fellows," leader of the potato- bug dance in "Fol-de-Rol," and at length to the part of the maid "'Toinette" in "The King's Bath-Robe," which captured the critics and gave her her chance. And when we come to consider Miss Carrington she is in the heydey of flattery, fame and fizz; and that astute manager, Herr Timothy Goldstein, has her signature to iron-clad papers that she will star the coming season in Dyde Rich's new play, "Paresis by Gaslight."