THE PRODIGAL
CLUNIE ROBERT
BY
MARY/HALLOCK) FOOTE
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY THE AUTHOR
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
(Cfte ftifccrjjitJc press, Cambribgc
1900
COPYRIGHT, IQOO, BY MARY HALLOCK FOOTE
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
H-b i ^7
Bancroft Library
of 31Utt$tt:atfott!$
* PAGB
. CLUNIE ROBERT . . . Frontispiece
o
^ THE SUMBAWA HAD BEEN SIGNALED AS OFF THE
<I HEADS . . . . . . 38
* ANNIE DUNSTAN . . . . . -74
y
Q A STRONG TIDE RUNNING OUT . . . 92
C)
tr.
O
j
5
Cfje
" Let him commute his eternal fear -with a temporal
suffering, preventing God's judgment by choosing one
of his own." JEREMY TAYLOR.
AN August fog was drifting inland from
JLJL- the bay. In thin places the blue Con-
tra Costa hills showed through, and the general
grayness was tinged with pearl. San Fran-
cisco dripped and steamed along her bristling
water-front ; derricks loomed black, and yards
and topmasts reddened, as a fringe of winter
woodland colors up at the turn of the year.
Morton Day, a young New Englander who
filled the place of " outside man " for Bradshaw
& Company, was working over some cargo
lists in the general office on Sansome Street.
The Bradshaws represented one of the oldest
1
shipping and commission houses in the South
Sea and Oriental trade ; the time being nearly
twenty years ago, before the decay of the great
clipper lines, and before the " moral sense " of
the laboring man of California had rebelled
against the importation of coolies.
Morton Day looked up. A tall figure came
between him and the light, bringing the smell
of the docks, and advertising its owner's con-
dition in scareheads of shabbiness.
"What can I do for you?" asked Day.
Neither his time nor sympathies were subject
to draught that morning. The answer came
coolly, in the accent of an English gentleman.
It is not always safe to place an American
by his speech : there are so many variations of
us, geographical and racial, and we run so to
slang and the dialects. But an Englishman's
class accent is bred in the bone. He cannot
pawn it like his watch, or stake and lose it like
his money. Such, at least, had been Day's
experience on the water-front of the City of
Strangers. When he heard that rich chest
register, emanating from the disguise of a com-
mon seaman the night before he ships, he said
to himself : " Here 's another of them ; another
gentleman wool-gatherer, come back shorn."
The stranger had asked with his hands in
the pockets of his greasy overalls to speak
with " one of the heads of the firm."
An ironical pause followed. Day had the
advantage of his vis-a-vis, who saw in him but
an every-day type of the well-equipped young
business man, while presenting in himself the
sort of quarry a romancer or a reporter would
hunt down. White he appeared to be, by his
features and his bold, blue, roving eye ; Apache,
by his skin, over which a recent shave had
spread a bloom like a light hoarfrost. His
utter destitution, verging on nakedness, in a
feebler frame would have been pitiful, but in
such a sturdy young tramp, so splendidly set
up, it gave him rather an outrageous and trucu-
lent air.
" Very sorry," said the shipping clerk dryly.
" Mr. Bradshaw is not down yet."
" Mr. Felix Bradshaw ? "
" Neither of them. Better try again later."
3
The other did not move. " I Ve an appetite
for breakfast," he remarked, " that is cutting
me in two. Could you manage to push my
little interview with your chiefs'? Sorry I
haven't a card about me." He laughed, with
a flash of big white teeth lighting his extraor-
dinary mask of tan ; and, to point the jest, he
stripped open his one upper garment and showed
a forty-four-inch chest as bare as the breast of
Hermes and the color of manzanita wood in
sunshine.
" Jove ! what a swell he 'd be in an outrig-
ger ! " thought Day. " He must have peeled a
dozen times before he got that lacquer on him ! "
Aloud, he said : " Trees were scarce where you
came from, I take it ? "
The stranger did not dally with conversation.
He clapped both hands upon his yearning epi-
gastrium and doubled himself over them ex-
pressively. " I shall turn turtle here in the
shop unless somebody fills me up with some-
thing!"
" We will see about that ! " said Day, and
was wiping his pen when Mr. Bradshaw, senior,
4.
came in. Now, the firm had had a long-suffering
acquaintance with interesting dead-beats, foreign
and domestic. Fathers of wild boys, who knew
not else what to do with them, sent them out
to their San Francisco agents with firm instruc-
tions to put them through the mill ; and blamed
the miller when their rotten grain made worth-
less flour, and was thrown upon the heap.
Every young remittance man who had over-
drawn his home allowance came to them for a
temporary loan, on the strength of his connec-
tions, which the connections seldom made good.
The chief's welcome, therefore, to this stal-
wart child of calamity was not effusive.
"That young man will attend to your busi-
ness," he said, indicating Day, and walked to-
ward his private office.
The stranger stood in his path. " I beg
your pardon, Mr. Bradshaw ; my business is
with you. I am starving, Andrew Robert's
son, here in your counting-room, where you
have made your thousands out of him ! "
The chief smiled grimly. " I have no re-
membrance of making any thousands out of
5
' Andrew Robert's son.' Where do you come
from ] "
"I shipped from Sydney, last February, in
the bark Woolahra, that foundered off Cape St.
Lucas. Don't you answer letters, up here 1 I
think I have written you by every steamer."
Mr. Bradshaw looked the youngster over
from head to foot, from the grimy yachting
cap on the back of his head to the sickly bro-
gans bulging on his sockless feet, and he
spoke slowly, as to one possibly of deficient un-
derstanding.
"Mr. Robert, of Auckland, is one of our
oldest correspondents," he said, giving the name
of the New Zealand banker and capitalist its
fullest value. " Some months ago he advised
us to look out for his son, Clunie "
" Clunie is my name," the boy broke in.
" I 'm the only, original "
"To look out for his son, by the Woolahra,
consigned to us from Sydney," Mr. Bradshaw
pursued. " There were some special instruc-
tions which may or may not concern your case.
The Woolahra was wrecked, as you say, and
6
the survivors, as they found their way up the
coast, reported to us. Glume Robert was not
among them."
" Naturally, when he was writing you all
the while from the Cape ! "
" One moment, please. I was going to say
that a person signing himself Clunie Robert
has been claiming our assistance from the Cape.
Granting you may be that person, you must be
aware that no business house can honor an un-
known signature. Mr. Robert has an account
with us, but we cannot permit a stranger, how-
ever unfortunate, to draw on it, in the name of
his son, unless he were able to give us some
proof of his identity."
" Great God above ! Did you ever try to
prove your own identity, stark naked, sir, on a
strip of sand, six thousand miles from home I I
was in the boat that was smashed on Los Tres
Hermanos, the only man of us who ever
breathed again. That was my introduction to
your blessed continent. And I have n't acquired
much " he surveyed the rags he stood in
" by way of identity since."
7
Mr. Bradshaw felt of his legal side whisker
and appeared to consider.
" May I ask," inquired the castaway, " why
my signature was not submitted to my father ?
Does he know by chance that I 'm alive 1 "
" The Cape letters have all been forwarded,"
said Mr. Bradshaw distinctly, " including a re-
quisition for certain articles in the nature of a
lady's wardrobe, to be procured by us, charged
to account of Mr. Robert. The order footed
up to some hundreds of dollars, and professed
to have reference to an approaching wedding at
the Cape."
" Mine," said the scapegrace. " The bride
was the lightkeeper's daughter. I 'd been liv-
ing on the old man, wearing his clothes, smok-
ing his cigars, and drinking his mescal. Had
to square accounts somehow. The proposition
pleased him as long as he thought I had credit
up here. But when you gave me the go-by,
things were not so pleasant. Did you forward
that list to the pater ] "
" Certainly," said Mr. Bradshaw.
A long, low whistle was the comment of its
8
author. " Well ! it was a blazing bluff," he
sighed. " I was trying for a stay of proceed-
ings. Had to keep the band playing. The cur-
tain wouldn't rise. They were howling for
their money at the door ! "
Day felt inclined to laugh at these mixed
metaphors; but in a moment the situation
changed. " D' you mean to say you have n't
heard from my father, not since he got that
list?"
" Sit down," said Mr. Bradshaw, not un-
kindly. " There is no possible way of verify-
ing your claim at present, and if it were
established, we have no authority to assist you
to the extent you probably expect. Quite other-
wise, in fact. Mr. Robert, the gentleman you
refer to as your father, will not be heard from
in a long time, I fear. He has gone on a jour-
ney, of indefinite duration with no fixed "
" What are you getting at? Is my father
dead 1 " The youngster struck his hands to-
gether passionately.
Mr. Bradshaw blinked. He hated all vio-
lence, gesturing, and sudden noises, being in his
9
habits not unlike an elderly and well-bred house
cat. " Did I say he was dead 1 " he retorted
irritably. " He is traveling, for his health,
I presume. You would better get something to
eat, sir. It might help you to compose yourself.
Go with him, Day," he turned to the outside
man. "See that he has what he needs. Get
him some clothes," he added in an undertone.
"He's really!"
Clunie had promptly risen at the first allusion
to a breakfast. He faced Mr. Bradshaw with
an ugly laugh. " If this is my official recep-
tion, well and good. But I am Clunie Robert,
and I '11 swear it, on the hide of a black
man and the blood of an Englishman ! " The
last-named witness burned in his mahogany-
colored face as he spoke. " And you know I
am not lying, even if I don't carry a house
flag and can't show my papers. Papers, by
thunder ! " (" Thunder " was not the word he
used.) He shrugged his shoulders and went
out.
In the street, with a man of his own age, he
recovered his nonchalance quickly. " Would he
10
own me in private, d* you suppose ? A pocket
handkerchief with my name on it a birth-
mark would be handy But my kit is at
the bottom of the sea, and personally I 'm
made like any other man's son. There 's no
patent on me ! No ; thanks ! " he pleasantly
demurred, when Day invited him to step into
a clothing-store, in passing. "Beefsteak first!
I '11 eat it off the curbstone, but I can't
wait."
They walked down Sansome Street to Mar-
ket, every man and woman they met staring
after them, the blue-eyed Apache with his
head in the air, his collarless throat exposed,
sniffing the bakeshop odors and the scent of
violets which street hawkers humorously thrust
upon him.
"Buy a bunch for your ladyl Put 'em in
your buttonhole ! " they grinned.
At Winteringham's, Day had the pleasure of
watching him storm his way through a four-
course breakfast, casting expressive looks across
the cloth at his host. On the last course he
began to pick and play a little; almost he
11
Cije
seemed ready to talk. They brought him a
finger-bowl, and he lay back and gazed at it,
and then at his hands. Day had been looking
at those hands, and marveling greatly.
" What a pair of flippers, eh ! Pretty
things to dabble in a finger-glass ! Gad, what
wouldn't I have given for that, not so long
ago as the fruit was on the tree ! " He fished
out the slice of lemon awkwardly, for his hands
were cramped inward like claws, and held it up
between a horny thumb and finger. " Here 's
to the thirst I had in the whaleboats off St.
Lucas ! " and he popped it into his mouth,
to the scandal of the waiter, and the open
amusement of the neighboring tables.
" You were in that, were you 1 " Day inter-
posed, trying to tone him down to a conversa-
tional level. "Rattling good sport, they say
it is, offshore whaling 1 "
" Oh, ripping for the boat-steerer. But
the man at the oars " He gazed at his hands
commiseratingly. "That is work they give
their peons. Feel of those things ! " They
felt like the foot of an ostrich, and they looked
12
as if he had dug wells with them, or come up
from the Cape on all fours.
" Where did you get them, how did you
get them 1 " Day inquired.
The stranger lighted a cigar and crossed his
long legs, regardless that he showed a yard of
naked tibia, as dark and coarse as a plantation
negro's.
" I got them in the tide-rip off St. Lucas,"
said the castaway, between glorious puffs of his
cigar. " Seven days a week, and thirteen hours
a day, at the business end of an eighteen-foot
sweep. It would have put calluses on a shark's
fin!"
"By George!" said Day, "they used you
pretty hard. I thought they would treat a man
white, down there."
" As long as he is ' white.' But when he
begins to turn a little shady, figuratively
speaking, you know. See, what was the last
you had from me, up here ? " By the nar-
rator's manner, one might have supposed the
entire business of the house had been hanging
on his dispatches from the Cape.
13
" I think you were ordering 1 the a
trousseau for your bride," Day reminded him.
"Quite so," he assented affably. "Well,
the shadows were falling then. Happen to
know anything about those good Samaritans,
down there I They would split their last frijole
for you or give it you whole, but when you Ve
worn out your welcome you had better go if
you can go. For a month or so, at first, it was
' Don Pepe ' and c Don Clunio,' and ' I kiss your
hands, senor,' and the same to your feet, seiiorita !
You know how they go on ! And not a pair
of Christian trousers in the whole shebang.
Bags, cotton bags, that flap around your shins,
mine were halfway up my calves, or goat-
skin chap's with the hair outside, make you
look like a blooming satyr. Then your gov-
ernors sweetly ignored me, and that took the
wind out of my sails, as I was saying.
" The Pacific Mail captains swore they de-
livered my letters ; 't was no go. It was stay,
all the time ! My name to a piece of paper
was worth no more than a bird track in the
sand ; and for all my father's connections I had
talked of maybe I talked a bit too much,
at first I was obviously without a friend on
earth. Then my stock went very low indeed.
They thought if there was a Father of Lies, I
was his true and only son. It was then I wrote
for the trousseau. They had to pause and con-
sider that. I flourished it before the old man's
horns ; he was a covetous old brute. He didn't
half believe it would come ; still, it might. So
he pawed up the ground, and waited over an-
other steamer.
" Poor little Concha, with her bare feet, run-
ning like a plover on the beach, and her che-
mise slipping off her shoulder ! It was a sin.
But she had a month of pure felicity expecting
that lace parasol and the slippers with French
heels.
"How should I know your governors had
no bowels ? They might have come down for
something to save a poor devil's credit on a
foreign shore.
" Think where I was, great Scott ! in a
place where a man will do anything, leave him
there long enough. It's the very doormat
15
and scraper of the continent, where the sea is
forever wiping its feet. And not a sign that
any soul on earth cared a tuppenny post stamp
whether I lived or died ! "
By this time the young men were largely
occupying the attention of the room. Busy
clerks were prolonging their luncheons, to stare
at the Prince of Tramps, with his case-hardened
features, and drawing-room accent, and enga-
ging manner of the family black sheep. Day
expected that a reporter would be down upon
them shortly. It was a fit interruption when
the head waiter he had been restless for
some time proposed that he move their seats
to a side window, intimating that they were ob-
structing trade at the busiest hour.
The young men took the hint and went out.
Robert, as Day did not scruple to call him,
fell into step, with a long, joyful stride, declar-
ing there was no music to compare with the
beat of civilized shoe leather on the pavements
of the cities of the world. Sick to death he
was of treading beach sand, of the pad, pad of
bare feet, and the sluff, sluff of sandals. White
16
men for a white man forever ! As for the
ladies ! He pretended to require Day's instant
support, overcome by the sight of a pretty girl
tacking across the street in one of the triced-back
overskirts which were the fashion then. By
the way she looked Day surmised that he had
kissed his hand to her. In front of Scheiffler's
he stopped and admired his full-length reflection
in their plate-glass windows, humming an appro-
priate verse from " Poor old Robinson Crusoe ! "
Day dragged him inside, where he conde-
scendingly pulled over their ready-made stock.
The needful articles having been selected, the
pair boarded a cable car, and sailed up the windy
sandhills to Day's lodgings, where the castaway
dressed himself, grumbling like a lord at the fit
of his clothes, which made him look, he said,
like a discharged convict in a suit presented
him by the State.
Whether this was pure animal spirits the
intoxication of a good meal or a sort of
heartsick bravado, or was put on merely to
bother Day (who had a certain New England
star chine ss about him), cannot be said. He
17
roamed about Day's room, oppressively big for
the place, till his host persuaded him to sit down
and finish his story. Then he pulled off his'
coat, which cut him in the armholes, he said, so
that he couldn't talk, and sitting in his shirt
sleeves by the open window he lighted a pipe
and resumed :
" Well, the Don, you see, had got tired of
feeding me. And it was like sand under his
eyelids to lose the rich son-in-law he had
promised himself. I was ready to do my part.
I 'd have married anything for three meals a
day for two ! But he did n't want me as
another cipher in the greatest common divisor,
if it was on him to furnish the dividend. It
was your Dutch uncles up here who stopped
the proceedings. If they had sent the cash or
the clothes, or recognized me in any way, there
would have been a wedding at the Cape, and
I should have had to furnish the bridegroom.
Just as well for me ; but it 's a rum thing,
when you think of it, my father's son, all
the heir he has got, refused by an old beggar of
a Mexican lightkeeper. Refused with scorn
18
and contumely, and worse ! He took back the
precious wardrobe he had loaned me, to the very
last stitch. He turned me out in a breechclout,
so help me ! Talk of Indian politeness ! For
a hat he gave me a rag to tie round my head,
and the sun hits hard down there. He sold my
time to the whalers : convict labor or the gal-
leys, call it what you will, it 's their little
way of foreclosing on an insolvent debtor. If
you can't put up the dinero, you pays in the
sweat of your brow. I paid in the sweat of
my whole person and the aches of my entire
bones. I was baked alive and basted ; my lips
were like a piece of pork crackling ; my eyelids
were puffed out even with my forehead; my
back was a running sore. I paid that debt,
by ! if I never pay another."
" And how about the lady ] " Day inquired.
" How did you stand on her books ? "
If young Theseus had ever had a conscience
about his Ariadne of the Cape, he had com-
pounded with it, like the child of nature he was,
for the price of his physical suffering. The
New England boy inferred that his moral sense
19
went no deeper than his skin ; hence his pride
in a few blisters.
" Bless you, a woman is a woman, down
there ! It is He that made them, not they
themselves." (This was the use he made of his
prayer book.) " I might have opened a fresh
account with Don Pepe, through Conchita's pity
for me. But I 'm not vindictive," said he,
reaching for a match, "and," pausing to re-
light, " what would I have done with the girl,
footing it up to Ensenada ! It 's a good bit of
a walk, y' know."
" So you did not get your discharge I "
asked Day.
" Not in due form. But they were easy on
me toward the last. They kept a slack watch.
I believe the beggars were honest. They took
no more out of me than they thought was their
due. It was a good few miles between meal
stations, but I fetched it through. And I
shipped on the brig Noyo for my grub and
passage. Those slops I had on belong to a big
Finlander, one of my late shipmates. I must n't
forget to return them."
20
He folded up those foul and gritty lendings
as if they had been his maiden dress suit, and
expressed them tenderly, at Day's expense, to
one of the worst waterside dens in the city.
" And now," said he, " we will arise and go
to our Elder Brother. This is the Prodigal
who came home when the Old Man was
away."
But for all his high jocosity Day could see
that he was nervous, that he dreaded the inter-
view on which his status in the city would de-
pend.
" What is this for ? " he inquired, when
Mr. Bradshaw gravely presented him with a
fifty-cent piece. It was explained that he might
apply each day and receive the same amount,
until he should have found work, which the firm
would help him to procure if he could give them
some idea of his general qualification.
He listened with amusement and contempt.
" I Ve been at work for the past eight months,"
said he. " Not a man you know has worked
harder. I feel qualified now for a bit of recre-
ation."
" Recreate, then," laughed Mr. Felix, " if
you know how to do it on fifty cents a day."
" We are acting," Mr. Bradshaw interposed,
" in obedience to Mr. Robert's latest instructions
concerning his son, whom we understand you
claim to be. We will humor your claim, under
the conditions prescribed, until we hear what
Mr. Robert himself has to say further in the
matter."
"You will humor it to the extent of fifty
cents a day ! "
It was pointed out to him how easily he
might be an impostor, how difficult it would be
to prove that he was not, and, incidentally, that
his record at the Cape had not helped him
much. That he passed over as beside the
mark.
" So this is not my father's money 1 " He
weighed the silver lightly in his hand. " This
is your personal half-dollar, which you risk on
grounds of humanity] Well, thanks, gentle-
men, thanks awfully ! I need it very much,"
he laid the money down, " and I shall
need it more to-morrow, but I think I '11 make
shift to get on without it." And, perfectly
good-humored, he walked to the door.
" He could n't resist getting even with us on
a technical scruple," laughed Mr. Felix ; but
he was nettled. Mr. Bradshaw looked grave.
" Go after him," he said, laying some gold on
Morton's desk. " Pilot him to a decent lodg-
ing, and keep him off a lee shore if you
can."
New England overtook New Zealand (both
were of unmitigated British descent) on the
corner by Lotta's Fountain, which the queen of
opera bouffe presented to an appreciative city.
A row of flower-peddlers' handcarts banked the
slippery sidewalk. Twilight with a heavy fog
was darkening in.
" Go away, child ! " Day heard him exclaim
to a girl who was pestering him with her un-
sold stock. " I 've no one to take flowers to ! "
" Get some one, then," she laughed, and
threw a piece of myrtle at him, and a hard-
voiced woman called her back to her place.
Day proposed that they go somewhere and
dine together.
" Not to-night," said Clunie. " You Ve had
enough of me for one sitting."
But he found no difficulty in accepting a
small loan from Day, not knowing its source,
or not caring. He was given some advice as
to lodgings and eating-places; but he made
straight for the wharves, and the sea fog took
him home.
At the last he had said, half defensively, as
to a friend :
" I should n't mind going to work on any
decent invitation ; but hanged if I '11 be scourged
to it, like the 'galley slave at night' ! I Ve been
galley slave too long ! "
Day did not press on him his own opinion
that he was one still, and so the young men
parted.
On Day's return, Mr. Felix laid a letter be-
fore him. " This is in your bailiwick," said he.
" I see you 've taken a liking to the young
scamp. I have myself, rather; but it won't
do to show it. Not at present.''
" Then you think he is young Robert 1 "
" Oh, by Jove ! every inch of him ! The old
man right over again. He was a high-roller
himself, in early colony days. He 's no cause
to complain. But they are the very worst when
they get it back in their sons. And the mother,
you know," Mr. Felix added, with his free, tol-
erant smile, " she cut her cables years ago.
Roaming the high seas now, a 6 derelict,' as
somebody says, of the divorce courts. It broke
the old man up terribly. You 'd take that for
the handwriting of an octogenarian. He 's in
fact not sixty-five ! "
Day was glancing over the letter of paternal
instructions to which Mr. Felix had alluded.
" Was n't the Woolahra rather cheap trans-
portation for a millionaire's only son 1 " he
asked.
" Part of the scheme of redemption," Mr.
Felix replied. " He had shut down on the
boy all at once, after giving him his head
since he was a kid. Moreover, the old gentle-
man is canny. Observe how he figures on the
penitential allowance. He does n't propose to
butter the bread of idleness. If Clunie wants
to eat it, he '11 eat it dry."
25
" It 's disgusting to make him come for it, in
person," said Day, still reading. " It seems
he 's not to have the cash for two days' rations
in hand at once ! "
" Oh, it takes an old boy who has been there
to reckon with the deceitfulness of youth."
" That was why he did not write direct to
his father, perhaps \ "
" Exactly. But you see, by that letter, we
are forbidden to give him any assistance at long
range. The old gentleman is sound on that
head. You can't lead a wild colt with a long
halter. So you will just keep track of the fes-
tive Clunie as well as you can, but don't
meddle with him. It 's his own fight, now.
It would be a pity to interfere when Mother
Nature takes him across her knee. She gave
him a foretaste down at the Cape, but it 's
nothing to what she has in soak for him, if I
know this city." Day listened, and fed his
youthful cynicism with thinking on what Mr.
Felix was and had been, and how well he did
know the city ! In his case Mother Nature had
shown thus far the partiality of the weakest
human parent. He had had the luck of a prize
scholar, and, except for a tendency to obesity,
which he shared with many of the godly, ap-
peared to have a constitution to match his theory
of life.
A few days later, the outside man came
across young Robert's course over in Brooklyn
Basin, where a race was on between the ships'
boats of some British vessels anchored there.
He promptly borrowed every cent that Day
had about him, and staked it on the Rathdown's
boat. The Rathdowns were plunging tremen-
dously, taking any odds that offered ; they
seemed to regard the race as already theirs.
Clunie explained that the Rathdown had been
rough-handled in a hurricane in the south lati-
tudes, had lost one of her port boats, and put
into Auckland to replace it. The boat they
were entering was the Maorilander. Clunie's
eyes sparkled as he studied her.
" She 's of kauri pine," said he. " She 's
out of an Auckland yard, and they are betting
against her on their thundering old British
plank ! Man, it 's a walk-over ! "
27
It was a great little race. Day left their mu-
tual winnings with Clunie, and dined with him
and the British shipmasters at the Poodle Dog.
Business called him away before the songs and
toasts began ; but when he left them they were
talking of Auckland, Clunie's mother Auck-
land, and raking all the latitudes and longi-
tudes for mutual acquaintances.
Thereafter, for a time, he seemed to have
friends and money enough. He came to the
office, inquiring for letters, in a suit of Dean
& Cramseys', which showed his beautiful,
clean build. His hands were gloved. His
bleached hair had recovered its life and lustre.
The hollows were gone from around his eyes,
and the high, hard burnish from his cheek
bones. He looked his age, or his youth, once
more. Mr. Felix frankly delighted in him:
like King Hal, he loved a man. But Morton
the Wise warned Clunie that neither of them
could sit up nights with Mr. Felix. He was
one generation nearer than they, to that tough
old stock whose Plimsoll mark was the third
bottle ; who bequeathed their nerves and appe-
28
tites without their sledge-hammer wills and
ironclad stomachs.
Clunie laughed, and said, " Sour grapes ! "
And, indeed, he had quite cut out Morton with
his former patron. The grim old chief, mean-
while, was faithfully urging a trial of the boy,
in some situation or other, among his friends ;
but business men who saw the company he
kept smiled and had no use for him.
Mr. Felix then went to London, and the face
of the city changed for Clunie. His sky-rocket
life of pleasure, founded on the fancy of an idle
man, had gone up like a spark, and he was left
with the stick in his hand. There was nothing
then in San Francisco that could have been
called society. Mr. Felix lived with the noto-
rious set, and laughed at them in certain inner
circles, professional and family cliques, to which
he presumably belonged. And a few persons
in quiet homes were building up the sort of
lives that can save any city. But of these
Clunie could have known nothing, and prob-
ably deserved to know nothing.
The firm was aware of a growing anxiety
29
and constraint in his manner when he made his
periodical inquiries for letters or news of his
father. After a while he ceased to inquire by
name: he would drop in casually, and, hearing
nothing to his advantage, would feign a rather
careworn interest in general topics and depart,
carrying the house's sympathy with him. For
there was no longer any reasonable, comforting
explanation of his father's silence. There was
no relenting, to the effect of, " This my son
was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and
is found."
At length, out of the pitiless region of the
Unexpected, came a staggering blow. An uncle
of Clunie's, in England, his father's brother,
whom he had never seen, wrote to the firm,
stating that Mr. Robert had arrived among his
kindred in a most deplorable condition, mental
and physical. He had since improved in health,
but his mind had failed to such a degree that
medical experts pronounced him unfit for the
management of his own affairs ; and the under-
signed, together with another brother, had been
appointed his guardians and the administrators
SO
of his estate. As to the presumptive heir in
America, it seemed better not to act in haste.
Steps were being taken toward his identifica-
tion. Large property interests were at stake,
and it would require time to sift his claim.
Meanwhile, as his conduct appeared to have
been not in all ways satisfactory, it might be
well, in any case, to continue the policy which
Mr. Robert had marked out for his son, of
throwing him as far as possible on his own re-
sources, that he might learn the value of money
through the need of earning it, and of friends
by endeavoring to deserve them.
The chief made this communication as gently
as possible, forbearing altogether to rub it in.
But his attitude of sympathy was not well re-
ceived ; possibly it had come too late.
From this time forth Clunie made no further
scruple about accepting the despised allowance.
He took it carelessly, asking no questions as to
its source. He came for it every day, like a dog
to the kitchen door for his bone, with far less
shame than Morton had in doling it out to him,
the great, strapping fellow with his home-
31
sick eyes ! He was the true Islander, of all
provincials the most self-centred and haughty.
Their world was not his world ; he loved them
too little to mind accepting their help, or care
what might be their opinion of him in so
doing.
San Francisco is a city where good food is
exceedingly, astonishingly cheap ; but fifty cents
a day, including a night's lodging, does not
leave much margin for incidentals. A man
living at that figure, and gambling on his in-
come, as Clunie probably did, cannot keep him-
self at the level of the polite occupations ; the
mark of the slums is on him. To the slums
he must go for employment. But Morton,
seeing that the chiefs had done what they could
for the prodigal and failed in their sphere of
influence, thought that he might try an elder-
brotherly experiment of his own.
In a cold-blooded way he informed him that
the firm, through their outside man, was paying
from sixty to seventy-five dollars per month in
boat hire, and proposed that Clunie should rent
a boat, till he could afford to buy one, and set
32
up as a harbor boatman. Day would prefer
him to the patronage of the house.
" Have n't the capital, y' know, to start me
in business," was the answer. " I could n't
rent the dingiest dory in the slips, on tick."
That obstacle being removed, he fell in with
the plan listlessly, with the air of anything-to-
oblige-a-friend. But hard and regular exer-
cise and the spell of life on the water soon
began to tone him up. His eye brightened, his
skin cleared. He picked up his self-respect,
the more that his place, humble as it was, by
no means wanted him as he needed it. His
rivals of the water front put him through a stiff
competitive examination. They saw no room for
an interloper with what appeared to be a " pull."
He fought them between whiles, and raced
them, man to man, and captured even the reluc-
tant admiration of those swells in port, the men-
o'-war's men.
" You pulls a narsty scull, sir ! " said one of
the gig's crew of H. M. S. the Royal Arthur,
lying out in the Bay, on her way to join the
Northwest Squadron.
S3
" Now, why does he give you ' sir ' I " asked
Day. " How does he know you are not a pro-
fessional 1 "
" It 's easy to know things," Clunie answered
sulkily. " He could n't hide the cut of his jib
if he was carryin' home the wash. It is n't
knowing things ; it's knowing when to keep 'em
to yourself, eh, Missus 1 Better let sleeping
dogs lie 1 "
The " Missus " was one of many brevet
titles bestowed at random by Clunie on a name-
less pup of the undesirable sex which he had
lately acquired. She was the butt of his prac-
tical jokes, the suffering medium of his high
spirits, the text of his errant philosophy. She
was a buffer when the two young men, in their
now almost daily intercourse, drifted too close
to each other's moorings. Above all, she was
a proof that he was putting out roots on for-
eign soil. When an Englishman takes a dog
to bring up, it is equivalent to a Frenchman's
planting a salad bed.
By the following spring, Clunie, in partner-
ship with Day (who represented the capital
34
invested), was the respected and generally re-
spectable owner of a Whitehall boat, which he
christened the Salvation Lassie, in mock de-
ference to the popular belief in the regenerative
influence of hard work.
< This is the Way I long have sought,
And wept because I found it not,' "
he would shout, at the top of his brazen head
tones, in imitation of a Salvationers' chorus,
and drum with his oars in the oarlocks.
But there were deviations from the Way.
When Morton would find the boat dirty and
neglected, and Clunie, in a similar condition,
the worse for his chief weakness, broaching
acquaintance with every species of waterside
vagabond, he would ignore his partner, and go
out with another man. And Clunie would have
to submit to the jeers of his rivals in conse-
quence.
But this was business.
II
THE British tramp steamer, Sumbawa, had
heen signaled as off the Heads. Day
rushed down for Clunie and the boat, for it
was altogether desirable that he should meet
her before the customs officers came aboard.
She was consigned to the Bradshaws, from
Hong-Kong, with a chowchow cargo, and she
had fifteen hundred coolies between decks.
There were points in maritime law on which
the coolie-trade in those days considered itself
forced to jibe a little. The law, it was claimed,
having been made for the Western Ocean, did
not fit the Asiatic. A coolie-ship's bunks were
put in athwartships, which is a thing no cus-
toms officer must see. " But the heathen likes
to sleep that way," argued the trade. "He
battens on bad air, and he does n't mind how
close he stows if he can get his passage
cheaper."
36
Day took the second pair of sculls, and they
pulled out beyond Point Lobos, where he met
his steamer and climbed aboard of her. While
he was below, watching the carpenters knock
out the bunks, a case of smallpox was uncov-
ered, which the heathen had been hiding, hop-
ing to smuggle it ashore, and so keep the
patient out of the clutches of the foreign devils'
doctors.
Day was overside like a shot, and he discussed
the matter at long range with the captain. He
had known nothing of it, of course, and he was
wild. But the Sumbawa got her sixty days
in quarantine, with seventeen hundred persons,
white, brown, and yellow, on board. And the
cost of that case of smallpox to the consignees
was fifty-eight thousand dollars.
Every day the two young men rowed out to
quarantine grounds to inquire after the ship's
health, and superintend the unloading of fresh
cases for the pest-house. They would pull to
windward of her, dropping astern under her
cabin ports, to heave a bundle of newspapers
aboard and condole with the raging captain.
37
He was one of the old stripe, with little by way
of education, but such as is got at a rope's end,
aboard of a " hot " ship ; but Heaven had sent
him a good little wife, a pretty one, too,
and she was the only woman on board. Often
her little white face would look down from a
porthole next the one that framed the captain's
red chaps. Their two heads, against the ship's
black, blistered side, were a curious contrast,
the extremes of a union made of spirit and flesh.
Her eyebrows and eyelashes were as black as a
bayadere's, but her eyes were true Northern
gray.
She grew pinched in the face and paler, day
by day, for the foul sickness was spreading, and
that ship was a floating hell. The coolies for-
ward were in open mutiny, as far as uproar and
intention went, resisting vaccination and fight-
ing like demons when they were carried off the
ship.
The captain became confidential, and sounded
the young men, when his wife was not by, on
a scheme for smuggling her ashore, in which
he was frankly counting on their assistance.
38
He was not delicate of speech, but in his rough
way he felt her situation keenly.
" She 's a countrywoman of yours, boys," he
began diplomatically. " She 's an American.
I found her in Hong-Kong teaching."
" I 'm not an American ! " sang out Clunie
from the boat.
The captain changed his quid and touched
his cap to Clunie. " I thought ye were born
under the old rag. The less you cares for the
laws of a foreign port, eh 1 "
" Quarantine laws are the laws of civiliza-
tion," Day warned him.
" Grant you that ! Ain't we a-keeping them I
But my wife don't come into this case. What
has she got to do with them pigtails down be-
low ? 'Ere she is in a home port, the first time
in seven years, and caught in this infernal
plague-trap. . . . And every day," he lowered
his voice, " brings her nearer to her time, when
a woman needs a woman's help. Whoever
comes aboard of us stays in hell with us to the
end. Where 's the female who '11 do that, I
ask you ? The wife's sister might, but she 's
39
Cfje
not here. She 's up in one o' the Puget Sound
ports. And I would n't allow it, anyhow. It 's
not justifiable. But something, I say, has got
to be done. You 're not family men yourselves,
but you may be. And every man is the woman's
brother in a case like this. Come, boys, for
the sake of the mother that was, for the sake
of the wife that will be ! "
It was strong talk, and the tone of the cap-
tain's eloquence was very strong of whiskey.
The combined effect, with other considerations,
was decidedly repellant to Day. They were
not the men for the emergency, he told the cap-
tain ; it was work for their betters.
The captain recognized the excuse, and it
angered him. " Where are your betters \ The
best man for me is him that 'elps me now !
She can't afford to wait, if you was to charter
us an angel."
" Had he spoken to the doctors'? " Day asked.
" To the devil with the doctors ! Did they
know by chance what a coolie-ship doctor would
The quarantine doctor \ He cursed him as
40
well. He was a part of their blankety-blanked
political machine. " 'E would n't risk 'is job to
save every life on board. 'E farms us out,
so many vaccinations at a dollar the 'ead, and
a sweet time they 'as with some of us ! You
'ear those devils now t "
The coolies were confined behind the iron
bulkheads forward ; they were banging on their
prison walls and howling like the damned.
Clunie dipped his oars softly, to keep the
boat off her proper length from the ship. The
ten feet of water that divided them was the
Gulf of Common Sense. Day, for his part,
had no mission to cross it.
The captain's angry, troubled eye fixed itself
suddenly on a point behind Day's head. Turn-
ing, the latter caught a lightning wink pass
from Clunie to the captain, who dropped his
eyes and pretended that some one had called him.
Clunie gave his partner a forcible hint in the
back, for just then the quarantine watch strolled
over to the side, and warned them not to come
too near.
Nothing was said in the boat going home.
41
Clunie knew that Day must know of his tacit
offer to the captain. He also knew that Day
would neither argue with him nor interfere.
When the misty August nights grew darker
by the absence of a moon, Clunie informed his
partner that he need not look for him on his
beat for a day or two or three. He brought
him the Missus, and requested him to care for
her, with obliging particulars as to the diet best
suited to the period of canine dentition.
" Have you found your second man I " asked
Day.
" I shall have to make it alone," said Clunie.
" Too many in the secret now. Speke has fixed
it up with Black Jake, one of the stevedores,
for a place on shore. A shady outfit they are.
The house has been empty a year. It is up
Petaluma Creek, a little this side of Vallejo."
" Forty miles, if it 's one ! " said Day. " And
you will have to start with the tide against you,
or you won't get high water in the creek; and
you can't get up it without. It is full of nasty
shoals and eelgrass. You need another man,
Clunie."
" Dare say I do. I need a steam launch !
But it 's this way : the sort of help you could
hire for a job like this might sell you out to the
harbor police. Blest if I know any man we
could trust. Why won't you come, yourself?
Traid of the smallpox I "
" Well, yes" said Day, though Clunie knew
this was not his reason. " Are n't you ? But
I 'm a good deal more afraid of the pesthouse.
If you catch it, old man, shoot yourself, drop
yourself into the bay, but don't go there ! "
" It 's no barge picnic," Clunie admitted.
" But they will do the proper thing about disin-
fecting, of course. That 's understood."
" They think they will. But who ever does,
unless it 's done under orders "? You can't
persuade a woman to burn her clothes. She
will make some doting exception, and that will
fix you."
" Hang it ! There is the bay, then ! If I
turn up missing, you need n't inquire for me at
the bourn whence no traveler returns."
Missing he was, and still absent, when, four
days later, Day rowed out alone, to quarantine
43
for a quiet word with the captain. In the interval
he had avoided speech with him, not feeling
entitled to seek his confidence, after refusing
him his help.
The captain was on deck, pacing back and
forth against the one low strip of color in the west.
The yellow quarantine flag was at half-mast.
He did not perceive Day the surface of the
water being muffled in light fog until the
customary signal had been given. Then he
stopped, looked toward the boat without reply-
ing to her hail, and went below. Directly his
head appeared at the more confidential level of
his cabin windows. Outwardly the man was
changed for the worse in the brief interval since
Day had seen him near. His unshaven dew-lap
hung over a soiled collar ; his flesh looked flabby
and old. Yet there was an effect of dumb dig-
nity about him which Day, out of an uneasy
consciousness, mistook at first for resentment.
He began to question him cautiously.
" Have you seen anything of Robert, captain ?
He has n't been around lately."
The captain cleared his throat. " 'Ave n't
44.
you 'card, then I Bad news, they say, travels
fast."
" Not a word, captain. Sorry it 's bad news."
Day was thinking only of Clunie, persuaded
that he had made a mess of his heroics, some-
how.
" Come in closer fetch 'er in ! You 've
no more to fear from us. We 've 'ad our last
case. It takes the best you 've got, and then it
quits."
" Captain, you don't mean your wife, she
has n't got it ] " The sickness they always
spoke of as " it."
" Naw, naw ! " the captain groaned. " She 's
past all that. It 's all in the same bill o' goods,
though. A piece o' foul mismanagement from
the start. I 've no wish to be 'ard on Robert.
'E 's pretty much a fool ; but 'e done the work,
'e got her there, Lord knows how ! Forty
miles inside of eight hours. You can tell 'em
that when you 'ears 'em throwin'off on Clunie."
" Captain, it 's impossible ! " said Day. And
though the outside man has told this story in
select company many times since, he invariably
45
balks at the distance when he tells it to any one
who happens to know that course : the tide rip
off Alcatraz and the eight or ten miles of heavy
work above. Then, when you have reached your
bottom reserve, when you have settled to your
stroke and can just hold it, if nothing jars you
or throws you out, when every change of
course, or slightest motion in the boat, is pure,
utter agony, then to wash into the weeds and
shoals and maddening windings of the creek!
The perspiration started as he thought of it.
" Captain, why did he make it a race ] Were
they chased ] "
u A race it was for the life of the child.
Her time was come, unexpected, mind. I
would n't 'ave played that trick on no man. But
it was more than nature could bear, what we
undertook to do, with such 'elp as the Lord
allowed us. You may say it was work for our
betters !
" If we 'ad rigged a bo'sun's chair and sent
her down comfortable an' handy The watch
would 'ave seen her, you say ! They 're men :
they 'ad to wink at the job as it was ; they
46
might 'ave winked a little 'arder. But we low-
ered her damn fools ! from one o' the
lumber ports, away aft. We 'ad to put her in
the sling, and she was frightened going over-
side."
" Don't talk of it, captain." Day tried to
spare him. But he went on, like a man trans-
fixed, tugging at the shaft in his breast. His
speech was hot with pain.
"Talk ! What 's left but talk ? She 'ad the
bearin' of it ! If you 're too damn delicate to
listen, why sheer off, in God's name ! I know
the sort you are ! " he raved. " You left 'er to
Providence and the doctors ! If you 'ad a stood
by Clunie as he stood by her as he tried to
she might be a livin', 'appy mother now.
Arsk Clunie ! It has taken his blood down.
" The house was back, a cable's length from
the creek, and up a hill. 'E 'ad to carry her,
and 'e said 'e could n't 'ardly see. His under-
lip was draggin' in the sand. But 'e fetched her
in. Then he lay down in the porch, for there
was no more in him. He remembers the black
woman telling him he must up and go for help,
47
and 'e says, ' Give me a drink, anything at
all, and maybe I can start.' He gives her the
credit for denying him, but 'ave it 'e would, and
more than 'e needed. And that night, that next
night all that time, and yet for want of help !
But the woman could n't leave her ; and she was
ignorant as a horse. She was n't for that work.
And Clunie sleepin' off his liquor !
" He 's doin' now what the law won't let me
do for my own flesh and blood. Did I tell you
she left me a fine boy ? But I don't wish to
see his face nor 'ave 'im come anigh this cursed
ship. We 'ave sent for the little sister, and if
she 's true to the breed she '11 do. I want to find
a berth for her here in the city, if she '11 bide
and keep the child and bring him up right and
proper, as his mother would. But everything
is out o' my reach. I 'm chained up 'ere like
a house dog. I can bark till I burst ; it won't
help nor hinder.
" Well, give a grip of my 'and to Robert,
and bid him quit calling of himself a beast,
the more as I count on him now to take my
place ashore. He says the black woman has
48
froze onto that baby : let 'er tie up, then, along-
side the little sister. But you look her up, and
see what sort she is."
Day accepted this humble trust as a proof of
the captain's forgiveness, and silently pulled off
from the ship. A night of fog cloaked the
water ; he rowed home slowly, piloted by red
and green lanterns that pricked through the
murk from invisible docks and ferry slips along-
shore and from ghostly vessels in the harbor.
The city's crown of lights arched upward in the
distance like an announcement of moonrise in
some dream country where mists take the shape
of mountains and the mountains are like brood-
ing mists.
He thought of that house up Petaluma Creek,
where the young mother lay among strangers ;
and he thought of* Clunie. sleeping his brutish
sleep at the door of the holy of holies, while the
great angels of Life and Death fairly brushed
him with their wings. His absence, his reti-
cence when he did appear, his loss of flesh and
averted eye, seemed to promise some approach
to seriousness in the Prodigal; but whether
49
the change in him would outlast the shock of
his failure, the shame of it in the very hour
of triumph, there were none who knew him or
his forbears well enough to prophesy.
The Sumbawa had cleared for Hong-Kong,
and the captain's son was left in charge of the
maiden aunt. She had come up to everybody's
expectations of her in all possible ways, Day
learned from hearsay ; he was offered no
opportunity of judging for himself. Clunie ap-
peared to be taking full and jealous advantage
of the responsibility magnanimously conferred
upon him by the captain, and was by no means
as generous in sharing it.
" About what age is she ? " Day inquired.
" Is she a suitable age for an aunt 1 "
That question Clunie put beneath his feet.
" Is she pretty *? "
This also was ignored ; but the boy's face
answered for him, chiefly in a forced stolidity
which did not deceive. Day pleaded with him
to introduce him to the baby, at least.
" It 's a house of mourning, you blasphemer !
50
Cije
Do you think I go there to amuse myself ? I
am their striker. When she is ready to make
acquaintances if you want to know how old
she is she is old enough to choose them for
herself."
About this time it became evident that Clunie
was " making a deal with himself " on the
question of drink. Naturally, his best friends
were incredulous that it would come to any-
thing. Bets were exchanged as to the issue.
But, seeing him tested on one or two occasions,
with no sign of his weakening, Day challenged
an explanation, " Whence and how is this ? "
Clunie turned a fighting red on the instant,
a color that showed the heart of his en-
deavor, for which he blushed before the eyes of
men. That it had a heart was all Day asked
to know.
One evening he met him again at Lotta's
Fountain, and again the flower sellers were be-
sieging him, but he was not standing them off,
as before. Morton waylaid him, and the friends
walked uptown together, Clunie ostentatiously
explaining that his violets were for the captain's
51
baby. At Marteau's he stopped for a box of
confectionery ordered, evidently, and waiting
for him.
" Also for the baby ? " Day inquired.
He gave a short laugh, an irrepressible crow,
as if the question had touched him under the
short ribs of recollection or pleased reminiscence.
" These for the baby ! " he chuckled. " She
thinks that sweet stuff for that infant is the sum
of all earthly wickedness."
" And eats it herself to save him the temp-
tation, I suppose 3 "
" You are to remember that she takes these
things seriously. It 's quite the greatest thing
out to hear them argue."
" Them ! Does that boy argue with his aunt
already 1. "
" She argues with old Egypt, the nurse,
whatever her shady title is."
" Is ' she ' carrying the gospel into Egypt 1 "
" Quite so ! " said Clunie. " She has the
latest advices on the food question. Remark-
ably sound she is, too. But the old mammy
kicks like a steer. * Honey knows what he
52
Cfje
wants,' she says, ' an' he knows when he wants
it. Talk 'bout hours ! All hours is his hours,
and he ought to have it, too.'
" But he does n't get it, all the same. She
has him down to the fraction of a minute, and
he does n't get it any sooner by howling.
What am I talking about I His bottle, of
course ! "
Day said that he blushed for him, but Clunie,
insensible to the obligation, continued to revel
in details the most ignoble, declaring it was his
own doctrine long ago applied in the training
of thoroughbred pups.
" ' Just little creatures of habit,' she says they
are ; and they might as well be learning good
habits as bad. You educate their stomachs
first because that is the seat of their ideas;
that 's where the tussle between will and appe-
tite begins. She claims that a four-months
babe can be taught self-control. He can learn
to have faith that his grub basket 's going to be
filled when the time comes, and it won't come a
minute sooner for his yelling.
" It 's great to see them when feed-time is
53
almost up ! He gets nasty in his temper ; he
stuffs his fists into his mouth ; he breaks out
into howls. He digs his gums into her cheek
he bites, by Jove ! And she hauls him
around where she can look him in the eye, and
she appeals to his higher faculties. She shows
him things ; she interests him. He forgets
the old Adam in his belly."
" Ethics of the Nursing Bottle ! " said Day,
in high derision. " The doctrine may be sound,
but it has chosen a weird mouthpiece."
" I 'm telling you a thing which you ought
to respect. If you don't, so much the worse
for you. / was brought up on the plan of give
him whatever he howls for. I can appreciate
what she is doing for him ! "
" Just give me the key to that feminine pro-
noun, once for all, will you ] Does c she ' in-
variably stand for Miss Dunstan 1 "
" Oh, be blowed ! " said Clunie parentheti-
cally. " The method you might get out of
books," he went on, infatuated with his subject,
or with some train of associations born of it ;
" but the practice, mind you, is another thing.
Cije
The patience, the cleverness, the jolly little
dodges by way of passing the time, and the
downright, on-the-square way she treats him,
when the time won't pass and all the dodges
fail.
" ' Now, hold on to yourself, sonny,' she says
when he 's raging mad for his bottle, and the
old darky waltzes round as if she 'd like to kill
anybody that kept it from him. ' Hold on to
yourself ! ' she says. And she shows him how
to do it ! She is building up his digestion and
his manners and his character generally on the
basis of that bottle."
" You ought to go on the lecture tour, you
and your Bottle ; with lantern views of the sub-
ject Being Educated to Wait : his appearance
and behavior during the first hour ; the second,
second and a half. Perhaps Miss Dunstan
would consent to accompany you, and furnish
illustrations with a living subject."
" Have you heard of a certain kind of per-
son that came to scoff and stayed to pray^
You '11 get there if you keep on ! " Clunie re-
torted, not altogether displeased with this badi-
55
nage. " You see she has to fight against old
Egypt all the time. The old girl tries to un-
dermine his morals with poking things into him
between meals. She seduces him with forbid-
den goodies that make him wink his eyes and
look thoughtful.
" ' I don' know noffin' 'bout books,' she says^
4 an' I don 1 b'liebe much in doctahs, but I 'se
had ten chillen, and buried seben of 'em ! Books
can't larn me noffin'.'
" Then a Miss Dunstan lets down her
eyelashes, for fear she 'd have to smile. She 's
awfully nice to that old beast, on account of her
saving the boy's life at the start, perhaps. It 's
well she saved something ! "
" Has ' she ' got eyelashes, too I " Day in-
quired.
" Has she got what 1 "
" Do you remember what wonderful eye-
lashes the sister had ? "
" Do you want me to chuck you out of that
window ? You '11 be good enough to listen to
what I 'm saying, or keep your unsightly
thoughts to yourself."
" You have told me all I want to know,"
laughed Day, rising, " and more than I ever
expected to know, without seeing the lady her-
self. She '11 have a bib tucked under your chin,
my son, and be teaching you to wait, before you
know it ! "
" By the Lord, I wish she could ! " said
Clunie devoutly.
But, profane jesting aside, Day was im-
mensely interested to see how simply the Pro-
digal of a civilization both older and younger
than ours took himself in this phase of what
might have been called driveling innocency.
He longed to have Mr. Felix hear Clunie hold
forth. That he should set up as a gospeler
of the nursery, and preach sermons on the
Bottle, as unembarrassed as the day he related
his adventures at the Cape ! His moral naivete
was delicious.
So the irrepressible conflict went on between
the powers of light and of darkness ; and Day
learned from that awestruck disciple, Clunie,
that " she " was now reaping her reward. The
proof of the pudding had come, and the four-
57
months babe was a Christian philosopher won-
derful to see. The hour for refreshment arrived
on wings of balmy expectation. He never lost
hold of himself now. He had succumbed to the
law, and was safe in the arms of a faith that
had never yet deceived him.
" I don't believe she has forgotten him once ! "
said Clunie, as if speaking of miracles. " She
keeps the watches herself. Old Egypt has no
sense of time or anything else."
Day had observed the insulting harshness
with which Clunie invariably spoke of his former
associate in a certain dark night's work of dis-
tressful memory. The sore spot had not healed
with time and the compensations time had
brought. It might also imply that he was sen-
sitive in a new quarter ; as well he might be,
for the negress held his reputation, such as it
was, at the mercy of her coarse and rambling
tongue. And Miss Dunstan was no doubt a
frequent if an unwilling listener.
Clunie remarked, one day, with an absent
half smile on his features, that " she " had a will
" as fine and soft as steel ; but there 's no let go."
8
Cfje
And Day, being in a mood to spare him,
merely added that " she " seemed to be on the
whole a good deal of a person, to have come
out of " one of the Puget Sound ports."
Clunie sat up at that. " The captain's boy
will have reason to think so ! It 's the safest
port he '11 ever make. Luckiest little beggar I
know ! "
" One would hardly have said so four months
ago ! " Day reminded him. It struck them
both, in silence, the awful and condign way life
has of getting on without us, any one of us,
the most necessary and dear. Nature has
always a stopgap ready. She gets her work
done at any cost, and out of destruction and
waste new issues are framed which she adopts
as calmly as if they had been part of the origi-
nal plan.
Poor little Mrs. Speke, wiped out of exist-
ence at the moment, it would seem, of her su-
preme usefulness, had bequeathed to that tropical
infant, Clunie Robert, his one effective spiritual
opportunity, while her own child had never
missed her, was better off perhaps without her ;
59
and her husband was consoling himself, after
the manner of his species, in a foreign port.
The fool had rushed in, but the angels were
not far behind him.
" What is the young gentleman's schedule at
present 1 Is he on for dog-watches still ? "
Morton asked one day.
" I believe he has to go three hours now,"
said Clunie gravely. He was perfect in their
" nursery patter," as Day called it, so that it
was " sickening " to hear him.
" Then what do you say : if ' she ' can be
off duty three hours at a stretch, suppose we get
tickets for ' A Scrap of Paper ' I "
" Scrap of your aunt ! " said Clunie roughly.
" Be careful, my son ! There is an aunt
whose name may not be taken in vain. Such,
at least, was my impression. It might do
' your aunt ' good to have a little change from
the society of infants and What is the old
colored female's name ? Has she got a name 1 "
" Dare say she has, but it does n't matter.
Miss Dunstan would n't go, anyhow, on account
of her mourning."
60
" Of course." Day admitted he should have
remembered that. He then proposed that they
take the boat and the baby, bottle, and all, and
go up Here he came near to making a
second blunder on his friend's account.
" No, thanks," said Clunie. " No barge pic-
nics for me in that direction."
" Well, what will you do 1 You ought to
celebrate Washington's Birthday in some way,
you off-sided alien ! "
" She has an engagement on for G. W.'s
Birthday," said Clunie, looking almost too
indifferent.
" Well, you and I, then. What do you say
to Ingleside ? "
"I a I shall be busy part of the day."
" You sinner ! "
Clunie met the laughter in his friend's eyes,
and then he fell upon him and hurled him all
over the place. When he was through with
him, temporarily, Day rose and dusted himself
off. " You sinner ! " he repeated. Clunie
looked down at him through narrowed eyelids,
breathing short. He was flushed and white
61
about the mouth and nostrils with the clearness
of his ridiculous health, and those unexception-
able habits which he was acquiring through
association with the higher ethical training for
infants.
" I wish," he said simply, dropping his
guard, " I wish I had never been more of a
sinner than I hope to be next Thursday come
Washington's Birthday."
" Our institutions are having their effect,"
Day remarked, not to take advantage.
On the morning before the legal holiday,
Mr. Bradshaw had requested that Day get
word to Clunie that he was wanted at the
office. He reported himself the same afternoon
with Missus treading on his shadow as usual.
But Missus was not invited, like her master, to
step into the private office ; she sat on her heels
outside with her keen little head on a slue.
When chairs were moved within, and her mas-
ter appeared, she executed the double manoeuvre
of throwing herself at his feet and avoiding
their advancing stride. He came down the
long room, neither seeing nor hearing. All the
62
clerical rank and file knew that that tingling
half hour with the chief meant no less than the
sword touch on the shoulder for the late vaga-
bond. He was one of them, now.
It might be said that the firm had its tricks,
like others of the trade ; it had its code as well.
Its house flag was known in the ends of the
earth ; and the lowest and latest incumbent, the
office boy hired the day before, used the com-
mercial " we," and thought the more of himself
for being able to do so.
In front of Morton's desk Clunie halted.
" How long is it since the morning I stood here,
and you asked me, ' What can I do for you ? '
and I wanted to kick you for the way you said
it?"
" Two years ago last August," Day answered,
on reflection.
" Well, Mort, you have done several things
for me : one thing you have left me alone. I
am to have Weeks's place," he added. "Do
you know how he lost it 1 "
Day could have guessed, and so could Clunie.
" Well, shall we sell the Lass ? "
63
Day said that he was in no particular hurry.
Was it best to burn their bridges ?
" You think I won't stick," said Clunie. " I
say that we sell her. I want some clothes, and
I want them now ! "
So they sold the Salvation Lassie, and Clunie
bought what he called a " rattling good suit "
and accessories with his and Day's share of the
proceeds, intimating that it was the last time he
intended to honor their friendship in that way.
On Thursday, the holiday, Morton dined
early with friends at Oakland, and crossed the
ferry, coming home, at the hour when suburban
trains discharge their loads of excursionists,
not the cream of the cream, but just Nobodies
and their wives and sweethearts. Nobody is a
lucky dog, sometimes. Day caught sight of
Clunie, half a head above the procession, with a
light in his face as if Happiness had made him
her color-bearer. Day knew, as well as if he
had seen her, who it was that his comrade
was convoying through the press. He looked
suffused with pride and consciousness, as a man
looks who feels for the first time on his arm the
64.
thrill of a little hand, the hand that can lead
him, or send him, to the world's end ; that will
quietly bind him to his proper work in life and
make the yoke easy and the burden light, or
gall and chafe and fetter him to his grave.
As the crowd dispersed in search of seats,
there was the truant pair with every appearance
of the surfeited picnicker; and behind them
rolled the transport, mother Egypt, with the
captain's boy asleep in her arms.
Day was surprised to see that the paragon
who had worked such a change in Clunie was
but a small, plain-faced woman, older than he,
apparently ; with no adventitious charm of col-
oring or coquetry likely to catch the fancy of a
South Sea prodigal. It is the real thing this
time, thought Day ; and conscience rebuked
him for his many and flippant allusions to the
maiden aunt in his intercourse with Clunie.
The nurse had dropped into her seat with a
sigh, and began wagging her knees to hush the
stirring sleeper. They piled their lunch basket
and their faded wild flowers into the vacant
place beside her, while Clunie helped Miss
65
Dunstan with her jacket. Sleeves were tight,
as well as skirts, in those days ; she slid into
hers, and hurriedly busied herself with the but-
tons, and he gave her the ends of her boa to
cross beneath her chin. Then, with one swift
look into each other's eyes which she dis-
claimed by looking away again severely they
walked forward to the bow.
Clunie's hands were in his pockets, his knees
were braced against the rail ; but she leaned
in a plastic attitude, her fingers loosely clasped,
her eyes fixed on the boat's progress in the
dark. Morton hastily revised his first judg-
ment on her appearance, for a sweeter side face
no woman ever owned. She had her sister's
low feminine forehead and deep black lashes,
but a stronger, finer mouth and chin.
Now, why does n't the idiot speak, he won-
dered. Perhaps he had spoken ; but no, there
was as yet no definite understanding between
them, only a nebulous consciousness on her
part ; and Clunie was holding on to himself as
he never had done in his life before. He knew
his reasons best.
66
Ill
IT was windy, white-cloud weather, high tides
and a full moon. The Parthenia lay at Mission
Dock loading- with wheat for Liverpool. She
was one of Ward and McAlpine's steamers.
A week or so before she sailed, Day was down
at her agents' office, engaging a stateroom
aboard of her for the wife and sister of one of
the firm's correspondents in Honolulu. The
ladies had just arrived, on their way to England,
and were visiting friends in the city. It hap-
pened, as we say, not knowing whether any-
thing ever does happen, that Clunie Robert
was with him. They were kept waiting while
a round little pony-built Mexican woman was
taking passage on the same ship for herself and
child. Her back was toward them, but there
was no mistaking her accent, or her hair or
her hat, with its artless reds and greens. Her
voice was low, and she laughed continually over
67
Cije
her efforts to translate her business into English.
Fred Dowd, the shipping clerk, did his gallant
best to meet her halfway in Spanish, and by his
civility and the giddy way in which he wasted
his time, and theirs, the young men concluded
there would be one pretty woman, at least, on
the Parthenia that trip.
Strictly speaking, it was Day who made
these reflections, for Clunie had retired, accord-
ing to a habit of his, noticeable of late, when-
ever he caught the Mexican-Spanish inflection.
One of the rudimentary lessons of a lifetime had
been bitten into him in that tongue ; and some
lessons, like vaccination, do not " take " at once.
He had waited by the door and was watching
the woman's child, for he was always interested
in the young of any species. The little one had
slipped down from a chair where its mother
had left it, and was playing with the pattern of
the cane-seat, exploring the meshes as pitfalls
for a tiny forefinger no bigger than the stump
of a lead pencil. Presently the finger slipped
through too far and stuck by reason of its
fatness. Day made a step forward, expecting
68
a howl, but Clunie said : " Let him be. He 's
game."
It was a baby in frocks, but Clunie had
dubbed him a boy by the way in which he con-
ducted that affair of the finger. He tugged and
twisted and hung on by it, till it was rasped
crimson; he set his brows, casting indignant
glances at the strange spectators who smiled and
offered no help.
" Hey," said Clunie, much diverted, " his
cap is over his starboard peeper and his face is
as red as a beet. He '11 yell directly." And
he did. The mother turned, with a flash in her
big, dark eyes, and the young men drew off
rather guiltily.
The child threw itself with sobs upon her
bosom. Its cap slipped off, and showed a fine,
broad-topped head, pink with rage, and shining
all over with curls no longer than a lamb's fleece
and yellow as summer seed-grass.
Day turned, with some remark about the
handsome little hybrid ; but Clunie looked at
him as if he had been the wall, and walked out
of the place. They were on their way further
69
to keep an appointment which was Glume's
more than Day's. Morton followed his friend
as far as the sidewalk and saw him standing on
the corner below, staring straight before him
with a fixed, expressionless face, the external
consciousness knocked apparently clean out of
him. The matter looked too serious for jocular
meddling. Day did not hail him, but let him
go, and finished their joint business alone and
not in the best of spirits.
He met the mother and child face to face
again as he was returning to McAlpine's office.
She was a rather handsome young woman,
chiefly eyes, the grave, soft, animal-like eyes
of her race the Indian half of it. Her nat-
ural suppleness was spoiled by stays, and of
course she could not wear the hat of civilization
but she did, with the effect of its making her
look bold and hard. She was a pretty piece of
degeneracy, a child of Nature in the fatal trans-
ition stage.
On the shadow of a hint, Fred Dowd would
have satisfied his curiosity concerning her ; but
Day had a strong disinclination to know more
70
than he could avoid knowing, in this case. If
Madam Nemesis had looked at Clunie out of
that woman's dark eyes, what she had to say
to him was a matter for them to settle. A
year ago, Clunie would hardly have paid her
the tribute of a pale face and a hasty retreat.
Conscience had never made a coward of him
before.
Day rebuked himself duly for assuming that
it was conscience, but having yielded to sus-
picion, little confirmatory suggestions were not
wanting. He found himself a trifle constrained
with his friend when they met next day. But
Clunie was indifferent and preoccupied.
The Bradshaws' outside man was down about
the docks a good deal while the Parthenia was
loading. He noticed that her people seemed to
be taking big chances on getting her to sea. A
few days before she was to sail, he said to
Clunie : " Do you know what I have done ?
Persuaded those ladies to wait over for the Ros-
common. I took their names off the Parthenia's
list to-day."
"What for?"
71
" Well ; she is a new ship in the Pacific trade.
Grannis has never taken her out from the Heads
before. And he is one of these banner-freight
captains, almost too clever about getting
ahead of the inspectors. They have pumped out
her water ballast and are loading her, light as
she is, down to her PlimsolPs mark. She is a
very long, high-sided vessel top-heavy as she
lies ; and, to cap all, they are getting a deck-load
of extra coal aboard of her. Some of her coal
bunkers have been used for wheat, the stevedores
say. If she happens to strike it rough, going
over the Bar, she will turn turtle before they
can get the water ballast back into her compart-
ments."
" Are you the only one who says so ? "
" I am not the only one who thinks so. But
Grannis knows it all ! And, of course, the trick
has not been tried with that vessel. She may
go out all right."
" But the general opinion on the water-front
is that she won't "? "
" The water-front does n't know nor care."
" If you believe this, Great Scott, you ought
72
Cije
to care ! Why don't you set the law on her ]
Talk it up where it will do some good."
" These things are not done in a corner,"
Day retorted. " The law, or the public, is at
liberty to use its eyes. I have no inside evi-
dence ; and I may be mistaken. Go and see
for yourself."
" What is it to me ! " Clunie answered with
a goaded look. " If you can wash your hands
of it"
" I did n't wash my hands till I had used
what influence I have, in the only quarter where
I am likely to have any. Sometimes I believe
it, and then again I don't. I give you or
any friends of yours," Day added deliberately,
" the benefit of my doubts."
Clunie did not thank him. He flushed as if
stung. " If you have gone the length of warn-
ing those women," he said huskily, " you 've no
right to stop there."
" What would you have me do ? "
" Go to the Board of Underwriters. Wake
up the water-front, somehow."
" You are welcome to the job," said Day.
73
Cfje
" Go, and inform against the Parthenia, and
get her unloaded. Who can tell she would n't
have gone out all right 1 Every one will say
it was done out of meanness, at the instigation
of our bosses, and the Old Man will jump on us
for getting the house into trouble with a rival
line."
Clunie got up with a furious look. "This
whole business of going to sea in ships is rotten,"
he swore ; " and your trade etiquette is the rot-
tenest part of it."
" It is all that keeps us from flying at one
another's throats," said Day.
" Oh, well ! Whip the devil around the
stump ! You '11 get on, my son."
As he spoke, Clunie's face turned red and
rigid. A girl's voice could be heard asking, at
the wrong desk, for Mr. Day ; and Morton
went forward to speak to Annie Dunstan.
She had come for her monthly draft on the
balance Captain Speke had left with the firm in
her name. Usually they dispensed with the
forms, and Clunie had saved her the trouble of
coming. Day fancied that she glanced about
7*
ANNIE DUNSTAN
her rather wistfully ; she must have seen Clunie
where he stood, but he did not move. He re-
mained as if paralyzed until she was gone, when
he rushed out, and Day saw him go tearing off
in an opposite direction, with no excuse for
leaving the shop, and no apology on his return.
The Parthenia was advertised to sail on a
Thursday. On Tuesday evening Clunie came
to his friend's room and took his favorite seat
on the table with his foot on the nearest chair,
tilting it back and forth in a manner most objec-
tionable. But there was that in his face which
cried for mercy.
" I cannot find her in the city," he said.
" There are forty of the name in the Spanish
quarter."
Day made no pretense of asking to whom he
referred.
" You could get the address from Dowd," he
said, without looking up.
" I won't go near the brute ! " said Clunie.
" You know the style of his inferences. Will
you get it for me, old man 1 You are superior
to inferences, you know."
75
Cije
Neither of the two smiled at the familiar sar-
casm. " I am the author of this scare," said
Day. " Suppose you let me peddle it about I "
" You have taken care of your friends ; these
are my crowd. It 's on me, this time," an-
swered Clunie.
His wretched willingness to meet the issue
Day had raised made it impossible not to
relent.
" You should know best," he said. After a
pause he added :
" Did you notice how she was dressed,
Clunie I And they don't travel as a rule.
Somebody is taking* care of her. I don't want
to be a cynic, or discourage anybody's good in-
tentions, but I don't see where you propose to
come in on the present arrangement 1 As a
question of taking chances on that ship, it is
simple enough. JTcan see that she is warned."
" You are simplifying things rather late, it
strikes me. Why did n't you think of this be-
fore ] Are you getting alarmed about me 1 "
" I don't know why I should n't be," Day
replied. " Have you looked in the glass lately?
76
You are looking very sick, Glume as you
ought to look, for you are throwing away the
greatest thing on earth ! Heaven does n't stoop
to a man twice in his lifetime."
" If I had a heaven," said Clunie bitterly,
" I should n't want it to stoop. It is possible
that I know what I have missed, and why I
missed it."
" But if you had n't missed it ? If you had
won it, God knows how ! and could have it for
the asking, would n't you rate your responsibil-
ities a little differently! You can't take in
fresh cargo with the old stuff rotting in your
hold. Unload, man, unload! Tell her the
truth. You never knew you had a conscience
till she found it out for you. Go to her, and
she will teach you how to use it."
" Go to her with that story ! The girl a
man could tell that to, and not forfeit his right
to know her she would n't be the kind to help
him much."
" That is a matter of opinion," said Day.
" I have known some good women, but I never
knew a really good one who would want to
77
spare herself the truth about a friend, if she
could help him by knowing it."
" Assuming that she cared one way or the
other!"
"She does care; you know that perfectly
well."
" So much the worse for me, then."
They sat in silence after that, but for the in-
furiating bumping of the chair which Glume
kept up unconsciously. The owner pulled it
away from him, and his foot came down heav-
ily on the floor. Day was angry with his
friend, doubly angry because he had put the
test before him and could not save him from its
logic, or prevent his headlong acceptance of its
issues.
" Go to the devil your own way, then, but
you shall not jog that chair," he said roughly.
Clunie laughed, and sat swinging his foot in
the air. " If I don't go to the devil, it won't
be your fault, old man. I suppose you know
whose side you are on ! Those arguments
don't I know 'em all by heart? Been over
them a thousand times.
78
"Did you see me that day I struck their
trail ? Did n't I cut and run, by the fine in-
stinct you advise me to follow? And what
came of it ? What comes when you 're called
up for a caning, and you duck ? You get it
worse, that 's all."
After a moment he said more gently, " I
don't know what I shall do, Mort ; don't know
what there is to do. Seems some mistake
about ' never too late to mend.' But we don't
duck this time, and we don't pass 'em by on
the other side.
" Come, Missus ! " he rose, and Missus came
forth from beneath the sofa where she had
been investigating a hole in the wainscot. " We
have explained ourselves to our friends, and our
friends don't approve of us."
" It 's your fight, old man," said Morton,
" but I wish I wish I had n't stumped you to
it ! What name shall I ask for, beside ' Con-
cha' V 9
The change in Clunie's face was not pleasant
to see. Day opened the door for him, with an
impulse to bid him farewell. A high, pure
79
hope was dead. What remained was the letter
of the law, a lie to be lived for life. This
was another man's way of seeing it. Men of
the English race are not happy in living a lie,
or in seeing one fastened upon a fellow man,
though it were the clog of a righteous punish-
ment.
At Ward and Me Alpine's, Day searched the
Parthenia's passenger list. The name he looked
for was not found. There was no Mexican or
Spanish name on that list.
He sang hallelujahs to himself, and Dowd,
perceiving he was happy, asked if he had re-
cognized the name of a healthy creditor among
the outward bound. But his information
seemed to afford neither comfort nor relief to
Clunie.
" It gives us less time," he said. " We
shall have trouble stopping her now. She has
taken another name."
" What 's the matter with her taking her
husband's name ? She is married, or she is n't
going."
Clunie shook his head. " You saw her take
80
Cfje
her passage. And if she had married he 'd be
a Mexican. You don't know the place. No-
thing stops there but the Pacific Mail, and no
one goes ashore but the purser. I know every
purser on the line."
The palpable aspects of life are hard to
gainsay. On the dock next morning, amidst
the stir of the steamer's departure, Day lost
the clue to his previous fears. The Parthenia
herself was such a huge, convincing reality.
Where was there any suggestion of tragedy
about her, or her crew getting in the lines, or
her cool-eyed officers directing them ! Her
freight was all on board ; only the passengers'
trunks remained to be handled.
He saw Clunie walking fast toward him up
the pier. He was pale, fresh-shaven, and so-
berly aware of himself. There was that in his
look which made one think of a conscript who
had just got his number. For whatever he was
about to do, Day felt himself deeply responsible.
Clunie looked at him strangely. " They are
on board," he said.
" For God's sake let them stay there ! We
81
have been stirring up a mare's nest. Wake
up," said Day, " and look about you. Are all
these people mad 1 "
Clunie passed his hand back of his friend's
arm and let it rest a moment on his shoulder.
" You are nervous, Mort. It is all done now.
But ten to one if I can fetch them off ! "
" You never can in the world. You can't
make those people decide. ' Poco tiempo,' she
will say."
A light came into his face. " Then it is
' poco tiempo ' for me. If they go, I go with
them."
" You don't, if I can help it ! "
" But the ship 's going out all right ; you
have just said so."
" Not with you on board."
" Wake up yourself, Mort. You don't want
to make a scene here ! But if you want to help
me there is a thing " Clunie lowered his
voice and looked away. " If she should ever
Well, don't don't let her think it was
what I wanted. Tell her it came hard ; tell
her why. Hands off now ! You '11 see me
82
again. Good Lord, if this were the end of
it!"
He shook himself free, and Morton watched
his tweed shoulders and the fair boyish back of
his head disappear in the press around the gang-
plank.
The voice of black Jake hailed him as, steer-
ing a loaded wheelbarrow, the big stevedore
lurched past.
" Say, boss, ain't that Mist' Robert goin'
aboard 1 Old man send for him after all ? "
" He was sent for," said Morton grimly,,
" and he went."
" Let those trunks be. They belong ashore.
That 's what I said ! You leave those boxes
where they are ! "
It was the voice of Clunie, close beside him.
Morton turned, and there stood the late peni-
tent, offensively alive and safe, with the woman
and child he had chosen. He had come back
to boast of his choice, apparently, for his face
was ablaze with happiness. So amazing was
the transformation that Day could not at first
83
take in its full import ; then he wanted to strike
the shameless front of him so lately pretending
renunciation and self-sacrifice. He thought of
an unquotable text about the dog that returns
as is the nature of dogs to do, but should
not be the nature of men.
That poor girl in her childish finery, with
her big, black sensuous eyes what a judg-
ment day for Clunie ! And the fool was con-
tent ! nay, triumphant, with a countenance
of solemn, almost holy joy.
" Day," he said distinctly, with a studied de-
liberation as if forced to think of every word,
" please be presented to Mrs. the Senora
Reynolds. She is going to Liverpool to meet
her husband, who is steward on the new Aus-
tralian line, between Liverpool and Sydney. I
have persuaded her to wait for the Roscommon,
as you advised." (As he advised !) Then to
her in Spanish .he explained that his friend,
naming Day, would have the honor to escort
her to her train while he himself would see that
her luggage was detained ashore and sent after
84.
Cfje
her with the utmost expedition. And what
might be the senora's address 1
She gave it, and with all grace and gravity
assured him that her husband and her father
and all her male relations were his servants for
life. She was then transferred with her child
and numerous portables to the dazed Morton's
care. He made a scattering retreat with her
across the tracks to a safe corner, where she
entered into an animated exposition concerning
her child, in answer to some obvious question
of his, explaining that he was muy grande for
his age. And he could walk see ! She put
him down upon his cushiony feet to prove it,
where he rocked perilously and clung to her
skirts. Then she held up four fingers and
tapped her own white teeth, laughing, to show
how advanced he was in dentition also. And
was it not most horrible to think of those so
many persons devoted to the deep in that
perfidious ship ] Did the senor also believe it 1
She think some time she must be dreaming !
Don Clunio had spoken with the face of con-
viction absolute. Would she not leave the
85
ship ? Then would he take passage with her
to England, or to She rolled her great
eyes expressively. They would be drowned all
together. Because of that obligation since two
years which he owe to the house of her father.
She did not seek to be drowned. Ah God !
Neither did she wish to be followed to England.
She was between fire and water. Here she
laughed hysterically. Don Clunio he was
the whirlwind. When the whirlwind take you,
you go !
The car arrived, and Morton, helping her to
mount the step, had the satisfaction to see upon
her ungloved hand the authentic wedding ring.
So the fortuitous Reynolds was no myth.
Clunie was still in the thick of the battle of
the trunks. Bad language was flying about his
ears; every man belonging to the ship was
angry with him, but he was superior to abuse.
Also he was using a little money in subordinate
quarters. At last the senora's boxes were cut
out and delivered to a grinning expressman.
Clunie turned to his friend ; he was wet with
perspiration and pale about the mouth. The
86
hand he held out was shaking. Day grasped it
and he raised his hat. The damp sea wind blew
in his face and cooled his hot brow and drip-
ping hair.
" Commuted ! " He spoke low, with an awed
look.
" It was Concha, then*? "
" Concha, by all that 's merciful ! Don't you
remember Reynolds 1 He was steward on the
Colomba. I had forgot the stewards go ashore
at Cape St. Lucas. They go ashore to buy
green turtle."
Here was a blow to tragedy ! So did Ariadne,
after Theseus deserted her, turn to the good
things of this world, and marry Bacchus. But
Day wisely refrained from calling attention to
this parallel. His friend was no cynic, and at
times he lacked a sense of humor.
In those days there were no trolley lines run-
ning from the ferries to the Cliff House. The
young men were reduced to horse hire in order
to compass the distance in time, scant time, for
a last look at the Parthenia. AS they were
hastening to the nearest livery stable, a large
87
female with a market basket held them up, and
fixed her rolling eyeballs upon Clunie. It was
mother Egypt, awakened from her calm. Her
manner to him was a mixture of the truculent
and caressing.
" Go 'way, go 'way f 'om heah ! Dat ain* you !
Youse on the Partheny, goin' off 'thout sayin'
good-by ! "
" Where did you get that yarn ? " asked
Clunie without a change of feature.
" 'T ain't no ya'n. I knows when niggah
lyin'. Jake say he seen you, an' I b'liebe
him."
" Jake has got a head on him this morning,"
said Clunie ; " and you are blocking the road.
Make way."
" Aint you goin' on the Partheny, fo' sure 1
Way is you goin' then I "
" Is that any business of yours 1 " Clunie
stood with his hands in his pockets resignedly.
"Mist' Clunie! You scare me to deaf!
You ghos* was walkin' up dat gang-plang, fo' a
wa'nin'. Youse goin' on dat ship some day,
an' youse gwine be drown' ! "
88
" All right/' said Day. " It was his ghost !
I saw it myself."
" Anyhow, you make me tell a big lie
amongst you, an' somebody gwine feel bad.
Black Jake tell me, an' I tell Miss Annie, an'
she don' say nothin'. Her face tu'n gray like
a HT stone image, an' she git her hat an' go out
de house, an' I ain't seen her ; an' I got to go
back to dat chile right now. I lef him 'ith
that fool gal 'cross de street. Mist' Clunie
no foolin' now ! Don' you ever in you' bo'n
life set foot abo'd dat ship dat Partheny.
She ain't right, somehow. You been wa'ned ! "
" I was warned all right and I took the warn-
ing," said Clunie. " Now get out of the
road."
She wagged her head at him solemnly.
" What fo' you ain' been neah us fo' two whole
weeks'? What you been doin' roun' town'?
Look like you been raisin' Cain wid you'se'f
somehow."
" I '11 raise Cain with you, if you don't step
on."
She whacked him archly with her basket.
89
Some loose paper fell out, which he made into a
wad and tossed after her.
" That 's how a thing flies in this world," he
groaned. " God knows why I have to meet
that old fiend at every turn ! "
" There is a side to it that 's not all bad,"
said Day, slightly embarrassed. They were
urging their horse up Sutter Street, and talking
against the noise of the wheels.
" What is that I " asked Clunie.
" Well, supposing you should ever feel the
need of confessing yourself to in a certain
quarter"
" I 'm not likely to be taken that way very
soon," said Clunie dryly.
" I 'm supposing a case. I think our colored
friend has probably saved you the necessity.
Yet the lady is still your friend ! Putting it
in the case of another person say myself
how would you argue from that *? >:
" How often must I tell you, Mort, that I
don't consider myself in a position to argue, or
to think, or to speculate in that quarter. So
drop it, if you please ! "
90
C|)e
" All in good time," said the irrepressible
young wiseacre. " What will you bet the
Parthenia goes out all right, after all? "
" I 'm not betting on human lives this morn-
ing," replied Clunie. And the conversation
dropped.
It was the old Cliff House, then, and the old
cliff walk, before the pleasure dome of Sutro
was decreed. It is well we should all be happy
in our own way, the democratic way, but
the happiness of crowds is a fatal thing in
nature. There were no board fences then, cut-
ting one off from following the old sea paths
deep bitten into the wind-sheared turf.
They put their horse up at the hotel, and
tramped out toward the Golden Gate the
Gate of Eternity to many souls that day ! The
wind boomed in their ears, and laid the wild
lilies flat in their beds on the seaward slopes. In
an instant they saw that every sign was against
the ship : wind and tide opposing, and a strong
tide running out ; and the whitecaps, as it looked
from shore, were great combers on the Bar.
Already the Parthenia was far out beyond
91
help. Her passengers were thinking of their
luncheons. The two spectators watched her
come nosing around the cliff. They marked how
she wallowed and settled by her stern quarter.
They were letting the air out of her then ; she
was part in air and part in water ballast when
she met the Bar. A beast of a Bar it was that
morning. It clapped paw upon her, rolled her
to larboard, let her recover once, then rolled her
to starboard, as a cat tumbles a mouse, and the
play was over. Her stern went under sideways,
her staggering bow shot up, and she sank, like
a coffin, with all on board.
So sudden and silent and prepared it was, she
might have walked out there, a deliberate suicide,
and made away with herself. And so strong
was the ship's personality that it was quite a
moment before the two witnesses of her fate
could gather the sense that she was not perish-
ing alone, but was digging the grave of living
men and women.
Then they tore away for the life-saving
station.
At some distance ahead of them on the narrow
92
A STRONG TIDE RUNNING OUT
cliff path they saw a little figure running with
arms outspread, a girl, bareheaded, dressed
in black. As they closed upon her, they saw
her wild face turned to the empty sea. It was
Annie Dunstan, white as the surf, sobbing
against the wind, her skirts stroked back, the
dark hair whipped across her forehead. She
forced her way against the blast as if pulled
onward straight for the spot where the ship
went down. As Clunie called to her she looked
back, swerved, and almost fell. He could not
stop ; he could not leave her. Hand in hand,
seizing her, and half carrying her they ran on,
all three, without question, as if bound by in-
visible cords to the sinking ship. The girl's
strength gave out soon. "Go on ! " she gasped.
" Don't wait for me." Buuaoh Ubraiy
" There is no hope ! " Clunie knelled in her
ear.
" Go on ! There must be hope ! " Day was
now ahead of them.
" Will you wait, Annie *? Will you wait
here for me 1"
She motioned him onward ; she flung him
93
with her whole might, as it were, toward the
spot where succor was needed. It was her own
pure soul of helpfulness that she offered up in
him, and he felt it through and through him.
He knew he should save lives that day. Her
strength in him should not be wasted.
Weeks had passed. The Parthenia's dead
were buried all that the sea gave up the
friendless and the stranger at company charges.
For the Catholic seamen church rites and a
place in consecrated ground had been purchased
of the Fathers, at so many dollars per soul ;
the souls being many, the price was somewhat
abated. The Fathers had no wish to take ad-
vantage.
On a day about this time, Clunie was called
into the private office and informed with con-
siderable impressiveness, by his chief, that the
London uncles had sent for him. No barks or
brigs this time, but a first-class cabin passage on
a famous greyhound line and a handsome bal-
ance to his credit to cover all contingent
expenses.
94
Clunie stood considering. There was less than
the expected satisfaction in his face. " Would
this money be mine ? " he inquired, referring
to the deposit. " Does it come out of my
father's estate * "
" I think it would be safe to put it that way,"
the chief replied with his customary caution.
" Your uncles are evidently prepared to recog-
nize your claim."
" Which I never made on them," Clunie
reminded him.
" Quite true. But the intention is, I fancy,
to make it very pleasant for you over there.
My brother," Mr. Bradshaw added kindly, " has
been able to give a good account of you since
you have been with us."
" I am very glad to hear it, and I thank you,
sir. I could find use for that money, now,"
said Clunie, brightening, " but not to go to
London."
Mr. Bradshaw looked the youngster over in
amazement. " It is a fair wind ; better take it
while it holds."
" There is a fairer wind for me " Clunie
95
turned his ardent eyes away. " I am not ready
to go to London."
Not ready to go where an English family
welcome awaited him, not ready to step into a
fortune in trust ! " I hope this has nothing to do
with pride, or pique 1 " the old chief protested
solemnly. " Your uncles are not young men."
" No, sir ; and my father is not a young man.
If he had sent for me I should go at once. But
they say it is too late for that. The uncles have
been in no haste to see me. Why should I be
in such a hurry to go V 9
" Will you tell me if you have any special
reason for delay any claim upon you here ? "
" I have," answered Clunie. " When I do
go I wish to take my wife with me." He spoke
fast ; Mr. Bradshaw did not quite follow.
" Your wife ! " he repeated dazedly. " Are
you married, Robert ? When in the world did
you do that ? "
" I am not married yet," Clunie explained,
with his flashing smile ; " but I hope to be by
the time I start for London."
"Well! Well!" said Mr. Bradshaw, his
96
Cije
disgust plainly visible. " This puts a new face
on the matter. I wish I could congratulate
you. But why be in such a hurry ? You are
only a boy. You Ve a long life before you."
"I need along life," said Clunie, "and it
can't begin too soon. We are booked for the
voyage ; it 's a straight course, this time. There
is nothing between us now nothing but a
trifle of money between us and the stars of
home."
Mr. Bradshaw coughed his dismay. " But
where where do you call ' home ' 1 Not
Auckland * "
" Rather ! " laughed Clunie. His nostrils
widened ; his eye was far-fixed ; he dreamed
awake, and saw beyond the dingy maps on the
office walls, beyond the fog in the street outside.
The wash of sunlit seas was in his ear.
" Home first, London after if my father is
still there. But I Ve a notion that I shall find
him when we go home."
When " we " go home ! So it was all settled.
Mr. Bradshaw could not help his distrust of
Clunie's wisdom in the direction of that confi-
97
dent " we." His fading smile expressed discreet
but not unfriendly incredulity. " Well/' he
concluded sadly, " you ought to know which
way is 'home' by this time you have tried
all the roads. But I would write to the uncles
first, by all means. Write at once. And while
you are about it, why not send a few words to
your father through them. Just a line or two,
quite simply what you are doing that sort
of thing."
Clunie flushed, hesitating. Then he confessed,
looking his chief in the eye, " I have been
writing to my father on the chance, you
know regularly, for the past six months.
Can't say what they did with my letters 1 "
" Why, they read them to him, of course.
The very best thing you could have done.
No doubt it has had an excellent effect upon
your prospects "
" Do you think I did it for that 1 "
" Ckr-tainly not ! But it was a good thing
all around. It may have had something to do
with the improvement they speak of in your
father's condition of late. But whether it helped
98
him or not it has helped you." The old chief's
gaze dwelt mistily on the face he had learned to
love : the rich dark coloring", the blue eyes, the
mouth steady and stern. " Something has helped
you," he pronounced, " and God knows you
needed help when I saw you first ! "
Hand clasped in hand, the two men con-
fronted each other. " It 's a sad pity your
father cannot see you, Robert. On my soul, I
believe it would finish his cure. It would make
him young again. Don't wait too long, my boy.
Find him, wherever he is. It is never safe to
say in this world, ' It is too late ; the time has
gone by.' '
Mr. Bradshaw touched a bell. To the office
boy who answered it, he said: "Ask Mr.
Wayland to make out a check to Mr. Clunie
Robert. How much shall you want, Mr.
Robert?"
99
fctoetfi&e
Eltctrotyped and printed by H. O. Houghton & Co.
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