THE TENANTS 
 
 EPISODE OF THE EIGHTIES 
 
 MARY S WATTS 
 

THE TENANTS 
 
THE TENANTS 
 
 AN EPISODE OF THE '80S 
 
 BY 
 
 MARY S. WATTS 
 
 
 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 THE McCLURE COMPANY 
 
 MCMVIII 
 
Copyright, 1008, by The McClure Company 
 
 Published, March, 1908 
 
THE TENANTS 
 
CHAPTER ONE 
 
 THEY were tearing down the old Gwynne house the 
 other day as we drove past, and it was not with- 
 out a twinge of sentimental regret that we beheld 
 the spectacle. The old Gwynne house was what 
 our newspapers delight to honour by referring to as an " his- 
 toric landmark." In the huge, expensive, devastating, and 
 reconstructing haste of a growing American town — a town 
 of the middle West at that — any building twenty-five years 
 of age is likely to be so described; but this must have num- 
 bered all of four-score. Many valiant notable deeds and 
 people were associated with it ; it went through a whole epic 
 of adventures like — as one might whimsically fancy — a sta- 
 tionary Odysseus. At the latter end it fell to be that common 
 drudge and slattern among homes, a boarding-house ; reached 
 the last sordid depth as a tenement ; and now they are abolish- 
 ing it utterly, and a new subdivision to be called, I believe, 
 Gwynne Park Place, will presently flourish above the grave. 
 Once upon a time there was a park ; it lay upon the utmost 
 border of town, and brick walls bound with a ribbon of stone 
 along the top, kept the house and its outlying lawns in a 
 pompous seclusion. That was all swept away long ago; of 
 late the ground has been reclaimed from slums and shanties 
 and laid out in building-lots, curbed, sewered, gas-mained. 
 But you may see here and there a single elm or buckeye, keep- 
 ing yet amongst the spruce new flower-beds and within call of 
 factory-whistles, some air of its antique dignity, remote and 
 
4 THE TENANTS 
 
 cool. In my time Doctor Wid&mah's cottage, hard by where 
 you used to turn into the Gwynne driveway, was the only 
 other dwelling hereabouts; a great, spraddling, staring 
 apartment-house covers the site of it now. 
 
 Governor Gwynne built his mansion — as he probably called 
 it — in the year eighteen-thirty or thereabouts ; and being an 
 admirer of the classic and a wealthy man for those days, 
 treated himself to a fine Parthenon front, with half a dozen 
 stone pillars in the Doric taste springing from the black- 
 and-white pavement of the veranda to uphold the overreach 
 of the roof, " Governor Gwynne's Attic roof," as some wit of 
 the mid-century once styled it; that wretched pun survives 
 to-day in a kind of deathless feebleness; it will only pass 
 from men's memories with the house itself. Much the same 
 fashion of architecture is popular nowadays, but people pay 
 more attention to comfort. The governor's pillars were 
 ingeniously disposed so as to darken all the windows looking 
 that way, whether in the double parlours on the first floor, 
 the bed-chambers on the second, or the big ballroom over the 
 entire house on the third. It was a rather gloomy splendour 
 in which the old gentleman lived, I think. The rich, pon- 
 derous mahogany furniture, the dismal brocade draperies, the 
 hair-cloth and brass nails, the ghastly white marble mantel- 
 pieces carved with mortuary-looking urns and cornucopias 
 spilling out cold white marble fruits, with which he embellished 
 his abode, were yet to be seen when I was a child. The hall 
 was decorated with a wall-paper setting forth the wanderings 
 of Aeneas, wherein he and his companions marched, fought, 
 and sailed progressively all about the walls and up the stairs, 
 ending — entirely innocent of any irony — with the descent 
 into hell, and the awful waves of Phlegethon naming on either 
 
THE TENANTS 5 
 
 side of the double-doors into the ballroom, on the top landing. 
 The sternness of the subject somehow subdued or dominated 
 its brilliant colouring; and I have never been able to divest 
 my mind of that incongruous association. For me the pale 
 helmsman still steers toward that ballroom door; and it is 
 beside Governor Gwynne's ancient black walnut newel-post 
 that I shall always behold the splendid figure of the hero 
 lusty and living amongst the exiguous shadows. In the 
 library the Governor's law-books paraded along the shelves 
 in close order behind the securely locked, shining glass-and- 
 mahogany doors ; in the dining-room there stood a grim old 
 mahogany wine-cellaret like a short upright coffin ; it was 
 difficult to imagine any sort of good-cheer proceeding from 
 that forbidding receptacle, but out of it Governor Gwynne 
 had entertained Andrew Jackson, Captain Marryat, Henry 
 Clay, a whole long register of celebrities. And I believe — 
 under correction, for the date is cloudy in my recollection 
 — that he was preparing to entertain the Prince of Wales 
 with its help, when that young gentleman visited this coun- 
 try, had not humanity's oldest and best-known guest called 
 upon him earlier. They used to show you the exact spot in 
 the vast darkling front parlour on the south side where his 
 body had lain in state a September afternoon in 1851, and 
 Chase had pronounced the funeral oration over him. There 
 was a full-length portrait of him scowling at a scroll of legal 
 cap, with a big double-inkstand on the table beside him — 
 " handy so he could shy it at you in case you disagreed," 
 Gwynne Peters used profanely to suggest — hanging on the 
 parlour wall just opposite the long mirror between the win- 
 dows ; the chairs and sofas were always shrouded in white 
 linen covers ; white net bags swathed the ornate gilt-and- 
 
6 THE TENANTS 
 
 glass chandeliers. It was a ghostly place, that room, with a 
 clock mounted in a kind of Greek temple of alabaster under 
 a glass dome on the mantel sepulchrally ticking out the irre- 
 coverable hours, and Governor Gwynne eyeing you sternly 
 from his elevation. He looked not too well pleased with his 
 canvas immortality and considering what he must see, it was 
 no wonder. 
 
 He was born some time during the last quarter of the eigh- 
 teenth century, and therefore must have been upwards of 
 sixty before the day when Chase sonorously reminded his 
 hearers in the south parlour that — " The history of Samuel 
 Gwynne's life was, in very truth, the history of his native 
 State, so closely was he associated with her struggles, her 
 vicissitudes, and her achievements. ... If zeal, if in- 
 tegrity, if courage and ability in the discharge alike of public 
 and private duties can establish a claim upon the grateful 
 remembrance of posterity, then, fellow-citizens, we may well 
 point with pride. . . . This was the noblest Roman of 
 them all," etc. A neat pamphlet containing the address and 
 the Resolutions of the Bar Association was afterwards printed 
 and distributed ; it was only the other day that I came upon 
 a copy of it, very yellow and dusty, but bearing no marks of 
 ever having been tampered with by a reader — indeed, some 
 of the leaves were yet uncut — among other essays and ora- 
 tions of a like nature blushing unseen in the darkest corner 
 of a second-hand book-shop. From it I extracted the rhe- 
 torical gems just cited, and it is doubtful if they will ever 
 see the light again, yet I am confident that the old gentle- 
 man deserved much that was said of him, and would have 
 been the first to deprecate any " pointing with pride." He 
 was an upright judge, a temperate and God-fearing man; he 
 
THE TENANTS 7 
 
 amassed a handsome fortune, and served his particular sec- 
 tion of the country through two terms as Governor, rather 
 fancying himself, I believe, in the role of statesman, and all 
 unwittingly laying the foundations of that intolerable, ab- 
 surd, and tragic Gwynne family pride; it beset all his de- 
 scendants and all the countless kindred of Gwynnes like a 
 curse. No more arrogantly self-righteous set of people ever 
 existed; and no more hysterically clannish. The Governor's 
 memory held them all together for forty years after his 
 death ; only recently, with the introduction of new blood, has 
 that strange, intangible bond dissolved. Samuel died and was 
 gathered to his fathers; and Samuel, his son reigned in his 
 stead, and busily drank himself to death in as short a time as 
 that agreeable result could be compassed; he was not the 
 first nor the last of the family to make thus the easy Aver- 
 nian descent. I have heard some of the Gwynnes themselves 
 comment upon the familiar fate and character of great men's 
 sons, as exemplified by Governor Gwynne's with a kind of 
 melancholy complacence. 1 The Governor left a queer, unjust, 
 and wrong-headed will — realising, perhaps, how queer, un- 
 just, and wrong-headed were some of his prospective heirs — 
 tying up a part of his property to the third generation, 
 devising what seemed an unfair proportion to his brothers 
 and sisters, of whom it might be said that their name was 
 legion — Lucien Gwynne, David Gwynne, Charlotte, Eleanor, 
 Marian; I have never known anyone who could accurately 
 
 i Judge Lewis, whom I have quoted more than once in this history, 
 had a way of saying with prodigious gravity that the Gwynnes as a 
 family were not without some of the weaknesses of genius; a remark 
 which they innocently liked to repeat until Gwynne Peters, the only 
 one of them all who ever discovered the slightest sense of humour, 
 pointed out its ambiguity. — M. S. W. 
 
8 THE TENANTS 
 
 catalogue all the Gwynnes — and bequeathing the house and 
 furniture to all his children in succession, as if he had a 
 premonition that none of them would enjoy it long. There 
 was a son who had run away to sea and was never heard of 
 again; no provision was made for him in case he should 
 reappear, although he was the oldest. Then came Sam, that 
 died in a fit of delirium tremens; then Arthur. Him they 
 found hanging to a beam under the " Attic " roof one sum- 
 mer morning not long after he had succeeded to the kingdom 
 of the Gwynnes ; and I suppose there was a horrid silence in 
 the attic, and presently wild, pale-faced women and running 
 and hurry and horses' hoofs churning the gravel before the 
 door. The body was laid in the same south parlour and 
 Governor Gwynne stared over his scroll at the suicide. 
 Arthur left two daughters, young women grown; by the 
 time I put on long dresses they were two old maids and lived 
 narrowly, doing their own work, in a little cheap house at 
 the other end of town. They were always clad alike in the 
 last bombazine that was ever seen among us, I am sure, 
 and wore their hair in the ringlets of eighteen-sixty, with 
 knobs of black satin ribbon at the temples. They had the 
 name of being queer, but then all the Gwynnes were queer. 
 
 After Arthur, a daughter, Harriet Peters, went to live 
 in the house ; she was a widow, Donald Peters having gone 
 into the army— about >62 or '63, 1 think— and died of typhus 
 in Libby Prison. One would have thought the house held out 
 very slender attractions for the remaining Gwynnes, by this 
 time ; but all the heirs were pretty well straitened in means, 
 and Mrs. Peters probably welcomed any way of reducing 
 expenses. No one, least of all the heirs themselves, ever 
 seemed to know, or be able to explain what had become of the 
 
THE TENANTS 9 
 
 Gwynne fortune; but it is certain that ten years after the 
 Governor's death it was almost entirely dissipated, except 
 what was held in trust or otherwise secured. This included 
 the house, which could not be sold, as I have been told; at 
 any rate Mrs. Peters had it for her life rent-free. I dare say 
 she had pleasant enough memories of old days when she was 
 a child and played about the pillars with her brothers and 
 Caroline; she had two children, two little boys of her own, 
 and she liked the idea of bringing them up in what she called 
 without the least notion of being affected, her ancestral home. 
 All the Gwynnes loved their dreary inheritance ; they had as 
 great a fondness and reverence for their name as if everyone 
 that ever bore it had lived and died in the odour of sanctity ; 
 and doubtless regarded the house with something akin to the 
 sacred affection of the Israelites for the Temple. I remem- 
 ber Mrs. Peters when she lived there, a tall woman with the 
 thin, aquiline features and red hair of the family, going 
 about with her black skirts and solemn face. Being constantly 
 treated by her friends as a broken-hearted heroine, the daugh- 
 ter of one departed patriot and widow of another, I believe 
 the pose became not distasteful to her as years went on; I 
 have heard her refer to herself in sounding and mournful 
 phrase as " the last of the Gwynnes," — whereas, Heavens 
 knows there were enough Gwynnes to stock a colony! She 
 must have meant that she was the last of the Governor's 
 immediate descendants — and so she was, excepting Caroline. 1 
 It was at this time that I began to know the house; as I 
 think of those days, I suffer a sharp return of that feeling 
 
 1 Caroline, poor woman, only died the other day, at nearly ninety, I 
 think; she must have outlived the "last of the Gwynnes" upwards of 
 thirty years. — M. S. W. 
 
10 THE TENANTS 
 
 which Mr. Andrew Lang has somewhere most touchingly 
 and truly called " the heimweh of childhood." When I was 
 a young lady of eight years or so, they used to pack me into 
 our elderly phaeton and send me out to the country to spend 
 the day playing with Gwynne Peters. I wore my white em- 
 broidered pique, with a pink sash; and the brilliant red-and- 
 green plaid stockings in which at that period it was the 
 fashion to encase the legs of little girls. All glorious without 
 was I; the feminine mind recalls these details with a photo- 
 grahic minuteness. Gwynne was a gentle little boy about 
 my own age and not very strong, which was one reason why 
 they asked me, a girl, to play with him. Another, which, with 
 an elegant modesty, I refrained from mentioning first, was 
 that Gwynne was very devoted to me — I was Juliet in my 
 plaid stockings ! Romeo wore baggy little trousers that but- 
 toned on a yoke about his manly waist, if I recollect aright. 
 I had in my possession until a short while ago — I gave it to 
 Gwynne's eldest daughter the last time she visited me, find- 
 ing her screaming with laughter over it and the other con- 
 tents of an old desk — a solid and rumpled document reciting 
 that : " This is to say that i Gwynne Peters do love you 
 Mary Stanley, and we will be marrid when we grow up in 
 witnes whareofF i have sined this with my bludd yours re- 
 spektifly Gwynne Peters." It is painfully printed on a leaf 
 of thick cream-coloured paper with a high gloss ; we tore it 
 out of an old photograph-album we found in the attic. That 
 was a charming playground, crowded with the most fascinat- 
 ing assortment of rubbish, that a nimble imagination could 
 convert into almost any kind of stage " property." There 
 were broken-down chairs and tables, mildewed old pictures, 
 carpetbags, bandboxes covered with flowered wall-paper, 
 
THE TENANTS 11 
 
 saddle-bags and holsters, a round-topped hair-trunk studded 
 with nails, with mangy bare patches upon its flanks that con- 
 ferred an air of reality on it when it figured romantically as 
 a horse, camel, or other beast in our dramas. We spurred 
 into Araby on that hair-trunk, we fought with Moslems, we 
 carted off bales of treasure. When fancy flagged we could 
 turn to two chests of mothy, mouse-eaten old books that stood 
 under the eaves; no one ever opened the cases in the great 
 gloomy library downstairs, notwithstanding our pleadings. 
 Gwynne, who has always been of an affectionately reminiscent 
 disposition, said to me not so long ago : " I should like to go 
 back and be eleven years old again, just to read ' Ivanhoe ' 
 the first time. Don't you remember? " Indeed I remembered 
 very well two children huddling by the low attic window with 
 the book between them ; sometimes it is in the chilly twilight 
 of a winter's afternoon, with eerie shadows hovering in the 
 corners, and a landscape all in sharp blacks and whites like 
 an India-ink drawing, outside; sometimes the warm, hasty 
 summer rain switches on the roof; sometimes there is a fresh 
 chorus of birds beneath our window, and mating sparrows flit 
 about the chimneys. " Hound of the Temple — Stain to thine 
 or der — Set free the damsel ! " " Bois-Guilbert, notwithstand- 
 ing the confusion of the bloody fray, showed every attention 
 to her safety. Repeatedly he was by her side, and neglecting 
 his own defence, held before her the fence of his triangular 
 steel-plated shield." " That's the way I'd take care of you," 
 says Gwynne, not grasping the point of Bois-Guilbert's as- 
 siduities about Rebecca. " Let's play it, and we'll play the 
 trunk's Zamor, the good steed that never yet failed his mas- 
 ter." We could be as noisy as we chose in the attic, for the 
 whole lofty barn-like ballroom beneath us intervened to 
 
12 THE TENANTS 
 
 deaden all sounds. There was no other place about the house 
 where we were allowed to run and shout, and even outside we 
 must go decorously. We longed to play Robin Hood under 
 the beautiful old beeches and in the alleys of the garden, 
 but someone was forever hushing us. Mrs. Peters would come 
 out on the veranda, where, standing between the columns 
 at the top of the steps in her flowing black she looked exactly 
 like Medea in the big steel-engraving of " The Marriage of 
 Jason and Creusa " over the sideboard in the dining room : 
 " Gwynne, my son, I am astonished. Don't you know you 
 may disturb your Aunt Caroline? " 
 
 No one every saw Gwynne's Aunt Caroline. She lived in 
 one of the large bedrooms towards the front of the house — 
 a bedroom with iron bars at the windows. " Why are those 
 rods there? " I once asked. " It used to be a nursery — that's 
 a place where they put babies, you know," said Gwynne, 
 flushing oddly ; he had the singularly delicate, fair skin com- 
 mon to all red-haired people, and a change of colour showed 
 brilliantly on his ordinarily pale face. " The bars were put 
 there to keep them from falling out." I was satisfied ; it would 
 never have occurred to me to doubt Gwynne, who was even 
 touchily truthful. But Miss Clara Vardaman, the doctor's old- 
 maid sister, who kept house for him, overhearing us, frowned 
 impartially on us both and shook her head. " Gwynne, 
 
 child " she began severely; then checked herself, and 
 
 turning upon me with a severity even greater, in that it was, 
 as I felt, unjust: "You shouldn't ask so many questions," 
 she said. " Little girls should be seen and not heard." This 
 was perplexing behaviour in Miss Clara, who, in general, 
 was the gentlest and tenderest of souls. She cried when the 
 doctor chloroformed their old cat; I think she would have 
 
THE TENANTS 13 
 
 cut off her hand rather than spank either one of us, although 
 we must sometimes have tried her sorely. She used to invite 
 us in and fill us with doughnuts or other deleterious sweets 
 when she caught us trespassing in their garden. I remember 
 a transient and rather resentful wonder at the pained look 
 on her face when she thus reproved us; and she was after- 
 wards, illogically enough, very gentle with Gwynne, and gave 
 him a notably larger share of cake than mine. 
 
 It would not have been possible to -keep me in ignorance 
 forever about Aunt Caroline, of course, but the enlighten- 
 ment came with a sort of ferocious suddenness. It is one of 
 a good many unpleasant recollections of mine connected with 
 Gwynne's brother, Sam Peters. Sam was the elder by two or 
 three years, a cold, surly, hulking lad of whom I was very 
 much afraid — with reason, for he used his superior strength 
 to browbeat and bully us. That the two brothers should be 
 eternally at odds is not surprising; every nursery has its 
 tyrant, and, remembering our own childish days, we must all 
 be uneasily aware that our youngsters fight like small savages 
 amongst themselves, and, as in most primitive communities, 
 might makes right, and the battle is generally to the strong. 
 Gwynne had a high spirit in his poor little weak body, and 
 he invariably got the worst of it, yet never gave in. Every 
 way but physically he had the advantage of his brother, who 
 was a dull boy — and, I believe, liked Gwynne no better for 
 being cleverer than himself. " Smarty " was one of his 
 favourite name for him; I have known him to pummel his 
 junior unmercifully upon some boyish difference; yet he 
 would sometimes come cringing to both of us for help with 
 his grimy slate and pencil. It would be hard to say in which 
 posture I most disliked and feared him ; but I have a fancy 
 
14 THE TENANTS 
 
 now that there was always something uncanny about Sam 
 Peters in his fits of stubborn silence, of unprovoked anger, 
 of repellent and fawning submission. He was most often to be 
 found about the stables, and when his mother's commands — 
 she had scarcely any control over him, and he treated her al- 
 ternately with insolent indifference, and with a kind of wild 
 affection — or the servants' persuasions brought him indoors, 
 came scowling in upon our mild little games, kicking Gwynne's 
 toys right and left. He took away our " Ivanhoe " and kept 
 it for days, in mere spite, for he was not reading it himself — 
 that I could have understood and almost pardoned; but I 
 never saw him with a book. He invented various fantastic- 
 ally brutal ways of torturing the pet animals; and enjoyed 
 beyond measure our frantic tears and expostulations. Sam 
 never abated his tramping and whistling out of deference 
 to Aunt Caroline; he stormed through the house when and 
 how he chose, and on Gwynne's offering a remonstrance one 
 day : " You shut up ! " said Sam coarsely. " Aunt Caroline's 
 crazy, and when I grow up I'm going to send her to the place 
 where they put mad people so she won't be a bother any 
 
 more." 
 
 Gwynne's thin face went white; he doubled his feeble fists 
 and struck out at his brother in a blind and futile indigna- 
 tion. " Don't you believe him, Mary," he gasped. " It's a 
 lie ! How dare you say that, Sam? How dare you tell? " 
 
 The cook and gardener rushed in, hearing the uproar of 
 this battle and separated the combatants, or rather the per- 
 secutor and his victim, for Gwynne was helpless under 
 his elder's hailing blows. They were old servants, for the 
 Gwynnes possessed among other ill-assorted traits, a faculty 
 
THE TENANTS 15 
 
 for enlisting the lifelong fidelity and affection of their 
 underlings. 
 
 " My Lord, Mr. Gwynne, whatever is the matter? " said the 
 cook; she took him on her knee and staunched his bleeding 
 nose with her apron. " Mr. Sam, for shame ! You'd oughtn't 
 to hit your little brother." 
 
 Gwynne would not explain the cause of the quarrel, nor, 
 for that matter, would Sam ; he went off whistling harshly. 
 " He said Miss Gwynne was crazy," I volunteered. 
 
 "It's a lie," blubbered Gwynne. "It's a lie, ain't it, 
 Hannah?" 
 
 " S-h-h, you mustn't say that naughty word — there now — 
 now," said the cook soothingly, and she and the gardener 
 exchanged a meaning glance. 
 
CHAPTER TWO 
 
 MRS. PETERS died rather suddenly the spring 
 of the Centennial, year. That, or the fact 
 that hers was the first funeral I ever went to, 
 has served to fix the date in my memory. 
 Gwynne, who would be seventeen his next birthday, came 
 home from college; Sam came home too, of course, but not 
 from college. He never showed much aptitude for learning, 
 nor stayed longer than six months in any of the numerous 
 schools to which he was sent one after another. At the time 
 of his mother's death he was away on a fishing-trip in Canada, 
 they said. The boys came home, there was a gathering of 
 the Gwynne clan; that sombre south parlour, dedicated to 
 such ceremonies, was once more opened, the white covers 
 came off the chairs, revealing them stark and stiff bluish 
 rosewood and black horsehair. Otherwise the house seemed 
 nowise different ; it was never a cheerful place. We drove 
 out to the funeral with Mrs. Oldham, who could not afford 
 either to own or hire a carriage herself, and was always be- 
 nevolently remembered by her friends on these occasions. In 
 spite of, or it may be, because of a gift she had of rich and 
 spicy talk, Mrs. Oldham was one of the people whom no one 
 ever forgets or overlooks. 
 
 " Harriet Peters would be alive this minute," she remarked 
 " if it hadn't been for Caroline. Taking care of Caroline just 
 about killed Harriet. Think of having to live with that in 
 the house all the time ! I do think the Gwynnes are too funny ; 
 
 16 
 
THE TENANTS 17 
 
 anybody else, any other set of people under the sun would 
 have sent Caroline to an institution long ago. All these 
 years they've talked about ' poor Carrie,' and made believe 
 she was just an ordinary invalid, when everybody knew, and 
 they knew they knew that she's as crazy as a loon." " Oh, 
 no, she isn't that, you know, Kate," said my grandmother 
 mildly. " She's just melancholy." " Fiddle-de-dee, what's the 
 difference? She's as crazy as Arthur; they're all queer, you 
 know it. The Peters boy, Sam, you know, is queer; Clara 
 Vardaman told me so, she's known those children ever since 
 they were born. What do you suppose they'll do with Caro- 
 line now? There's nobody left, particularly, to look after 
 her ; for all their sniffing around about ' poor Carrie,' they'll 
 none of 'em take her, you'll see. I suppose Governor Gwynne'a 
 will must have made some provision for her — but then, no- 
 body expected her to outlive all the others. People like that 
 always live forever somehow." Here, as we passed another 
 carriage, Mrs. Oldham's face, which had been wearing a very 
 bright and lively expression, suddenly darkened to one of 
 decent sadness, touched with satisfaction — that expression 
 sacred to the sympathetic friends who gather about at 
 funerals. We have all seen it, and, I dare say, worn it our- 
 selves, more than once. Mrs. Oldham bowed gravely to the 
 other vehicle, and immediately upon its passage, turned to 
 my grandmother with a lightning vivacity. " That was Lulu 
 Gwynne — Lulu Stevens, you know," she said. " How old 
 she's beginning to look, isn't she?" 
 
 I remember listening to Mrs. Oldham with a shocked 
 wonder; she would not greatly surprise nor offend me 
 nowadays, I am afraid. I have gone a long way and wit- 
 nessed funerals a-many since that day, and I have learned 
 
18 THE TENANTS 
 
 to know that she was no indifferent scoffer, but in her 
 way, a good-hearted enough woman. She even cried a little 
 at the funeral, perhaps recalling old times when she and 
 Harriet were girls together; I thought her, so unsparing 
 is youth, a hideous hypocrite — yet I cried heartily my- 
 self, although I did not care in the least for poor Mrs. 
 Peters! But who, indeed, young or old, is not somewhat 
 moved by the brave and sad and beautiful words of the 
 Service? From my place I could look across at Gwynne sit- 
 ting quietly with a weeping female Gwynne on either hand, 
 and marvelled that he shed no tears. He stared sternly 
 ahead ; and I caught myself with shame noting that he seemed 
 stronger, and was plainly outgrowing his clothes ; his wrists 
 stuck out distressingly, his feet were too large. And Sam — 
 was Sam " queer " ? He did nothing " queer " at the funeral 
 at any rate. Doctor Vardaman was one of the pall-bearers. 
 We all came away as cheerfully as if it had been a wedding, 
 it seemed to my severe young mind; I did not know that 
 everyone is always cheerful coming away from a funeral. 
 The carriages trot; the hearse-driver pulls up at a wayside 
 watering-trough; he is a merciful man and merciful to his 
 beasts; by a remarkable coincidence there is a road-house 
 somewhere in the background, whence he presently issues, 
 and resumes the reins, wiping his mouth. He hails a friend: 
 " Hi, Joe, want to ride? " " Don't care if I do." The pall- 
 bearers exchange cigars and smoke in their carriage. There 
 is a gentle rain beginning to fall; the shadows lengthen; 
 people comment on the fact that the cemetery is a long, tire- 
 some ride from town. And as we roll along, Mrs. Oldham 
 enlivens the journey by sprightly guesses at what on earth 
 will be done with all the things in the old Gwynne house. 
 
THE TENANTS 19 
 
 She would probably have keenly appreciated my oppor- 
 tunities ; for, being asked out to stay with Miss Vardaman — 
 who, innocent old schemer that she was, undoubtedly had cer- 
 tain sentimental ends in view, regarding Gwynne and me — 
 at about this time, I was a rather shy and reluctant witness 
 to what Doctor Vardaman grimly denominated the division 
 of the spoils. There was so much coming and going of 
 Gwynnes visible from Miss Clara's sitting-room windows that 
 that simple spinster, who passed her life in a monotony of 
 neat and even pretty little duties, became feverishly excited. 
 She forgot the canary, neglected the doctor's socks, let the 
 rubber-plant in the dining-room languish for want of water 
 while she gazed and speculated. It is true that on one occa- 
 sion Miss Clara retreated from her conning-tower with a 
 scared, serious face, and asked me, fluttering a little, please 
 to lower the shade. " We oughtn't to seem to be staring, or 
 to notice at all — it's awful — awful ! " she said incoherently, 
 and kept to the other side of the house the rest of the after- 
 noon. A closed carriage drove into the park, and after a 
 space, drove out again — that was all. But I knew they were 
 taking poor Caroline Gwynne to " the place where they put 
 mad people," that Sam had promised her so long ago. We 
 wondered under our breaths whether it was Sam who had 
 ordered it ; whether the two boys had agreed or quarrelled ; 
 and what the other Gwynnes had said or done. The unspeak- 
 able isolation of insanity that converts a human being into 
 a kind of dreadful chattel hung about Caroline ; we did not 
 dare to ask a question. Doctor Vardaman knew all about it, 
 but — " I'm afraid to say anything to John," whispered Miss 
 Clara. " He wouldn't tell anyhow, you know. Doctors never 
 do. Poor Carrie! I knew her when we were both young, be- 
 
20 THE TENANTS 
 
 fore — you know. But she never was quite like other girls. 
 Poor Carrie ! It's thirty years " 
 
 By the next day, however, Miss Clara had recovered spirits 
 and interest; and when a furniture-van slouched up Rich- 
 mond Avenue, and turned in between the old brick pillars at 
 the entrance to the park, she could contain herself no longer. 
 " Mary, come here, do look — you don't seem to notice any- 
 thing. That's Zimmermann's wagon, I know it, and I do 
 believe that's young Charlie Gwynne, Horace's Charlie, you 
 know, the little one, not Gilbert's Charlie, he's at Harvard, 
 on the seat telling the driver where to go. Nobody ever 
 knows the way out here. Now isn't that like Jennie Gwynne? 
 She does just love to boss and manage everybody. I knew 
 something was up when I saw her coming out every day — ■ 
 she's not so devoted to the boys as all that, you may be sure. 
 She just wants to tell 'em what to do and how to do it, and 
 which, and where, and when, and why — some people beat 
 everything. Not but what Jennie is a good manager, I'll say 
 that for her. I suppose they're going to divide the things — 
 well, of course, they've got to be divided, but I do wonder if 
 poor Gwynne will get anything worth having. The boy's so 
 gentle and quiet, he won't ever think of speaking up, and 
 saying, * I ought to have that, Cousin Jennie.' It would be 
 just like her to — there goes another wagon. Well, will you 
 look? It's one of those nasty, dirty people, those Bulgarians 
 that keep the second-hand shops down on Scioto Street — 
 well, if that doesn't pass everything! The idea of selling 
 anything out of Governor Gwynne's house to those 
 people — Bulgarians ! It's enough to make him turn in his 
 grave." 
 
 The doctor, who was a very tall, lean man, laid down his 
 
THE TENANTS 21 
 
 book, arose, and gravely looked over his sister's head, out of 
 the window at the procession. 
 
 " I don't think that's a Bulgarian, Clara," he observed 
 solemnly. 
 
 "What, it isn't? Well, John Vardaman, your eyes are 
 failing, that's all! There, I can see the name on his ram- 
 shackle old cart. Am — Am — Amirkhanian — there, now, what 
 do you think of that? " 
 
 " I think he's an Armenian," said the doctor, with no 
 abatement of his gravity. " I think they're all Armenians — 
 Armenian Jews " 
 
 " Oh, well, tease if you want to ! Armenians or Bulgarians 
 it's all one ; those countries where the men wear petticoats, 
 and everybody drinks sour milk — horrid ! The idea of Jennie 
 Gwynne clearing out the house for them! I don't see how 
 the others can let her run things that way; I don't believe 
 she knows anything about it. Do you suppose she has ever 
 heard that those blue India-ware plant-tubs, those great big 
 elegant things were intended to be given to Lucien's wife? 
 Harriet herself told me she had found a memorandum of it 
 it in her father's desk." 
 
 " Well, she can't very well sell 'em to the Armenians," said 
 Doctor Vardaman, with an air of profound consideration. 
 " No Armenian that ever lived would want to drink his sour 
 milk out of a plant-tub. And besides they have holes in the 
 bottom, and he couldn't ! " 
 
 " Oh, you may talk, John, but it's important for somebody 
 to remember all these things. Jennie Hunter — Jennie 
 Gwynne, I mean, ought to be told that somebody besides 
 those two forlorn helpless boys knows about it, and she can't 
 have everything her own way " 
 
m THE TENANTS 
 
 " Better not interfere, Clara," said the doctor, really 
 serious this time. And Miss Clara who knew very well herself 
 that she ought not to interfere, was silenced for a while. All 
 the morning she seethed, watching one van after another 
 trudge away from the house, laden, apparently, with old 
 mattresses, stove-pipes, and table-legs ; for, such is the irony 
 of circumstance, that, let a house be ever so richly supplied 
 otherwise, these useful and universal but singularly uncomely 
 articles always occupy the positions of most prominence on 
 a furniture-wagon. Their view fed without appeasing the 
 fire of Miss Clara's curiosity ; she exhausted herself in con- 
 jecture. And Doctor Vardaman had not been gone half an 
 hour on his afternoon's round of visits when she called me 
 excitedly. 
 
 " Get your hat and coat ; I'm going up there right away. 
 You can't tell what Jennie Gwynne may be doing. I saw 
 something sticking out of the back of the last wagon, and I 
 won't be positive, of course, but it looked very much like the 
 top of one of the mahogany posts to that big four-post bed 
 in Harriet's room; they are solid mahogany, you know, 
 Mary, carved all the way up with a kind of pineapple-shaped 
 thing on the top. If Jennie Gwynne's gone and given away 
 that bed that was poor Gwynne's own mother's, I just won't 
 stand it, that's all! She won't stop till she's stripped the 
 boys perfectly bare. What's that? Maybe it's being sent to 
 storage? Oh, pshaw, she'd never do that, it's too handsome! 
 For a minute I thought it was the bed in the spare-room, but 
 I remember now that has helmets carved on top of the posts, 
 not pineapples. Is my bonnet straight? You know, of course, 
 Mary, I don't think Jennie would do anything dishonest," she 
 added hastily, her kind old face suddenly perturbed. " I 
 
THE TENANTS 23 
 
 wouldn't for the world have you think I meant that. But 
 she's always run everything and everybody. I don't believe 
 Horace Gwynne dares to say his soul's his own — why, you 
 know that, you've been there. Jennie just can't help it — she 
 always perfectly sure she's right, and she never will listen to 
 anybody, or consider anybody else's opinion worth any- 
 thing." 
 
 It occurred to me that, in that case, there was not much 
 use of Miss Clara's rushing in with remonstrances, where 
 much more angelically-minded persons than she might well 
 have feared to tread ; the Gwynnes were not a family to brook 
 outside interference. But, being brought up in the seen-and- 
 not-heard tradition, I passively followed in the old lady's 
 wake. Miss Vardaman's bark was, I knew, a great deal worse 
 than her bite ; and I could hardly fancy her facing down that 
 ready, cock-sure, and energetic little Mrs. Horace Gwynne. 
 In fact, as we neared the house, it was obvious that Miss 
 Clara's courage was going the road of Bob Acres'. She 
 walked slower, commented casually on the beauty of the 
 spring foliage, and paused in an uneasy hesitation when we 
 caught sight of another lady — not Mrs. Horace Gwynne — 
 descending the steps with a bundle in her arms. 
 
 " It's Lulu Stevens," she said in an undertone. " I didn't 
 know she was out here. Cormorants! Harriet couldn't bear 
 her." 
 
 "Do you suppose I'll ever get home with this thing? ' : 
 Mrs. Stevens greeted us cheerily. The last time I had seen 
 her had been at the funeral, where she listened as attentively 
 as any of us to the great and awful words in which we are 
 warned that man walketh in a vain shadow and disquieteth 
 himself in vain; he heapeth up riches and cannot tell who 
 
24 THE TENANTS 
 
 shall gather them. " I came out on the cars — next time I'll 
 take the carriage. It's the old French china punch-bowl — ■ 
 you know — the one that used to stand on top of the wine- 
 cabinet in the dining-room. Cousin Jennie said she thought I 
 might as well take it, she didn't believe anybody else wanted 
 it. Cousin Jennie's the oldest, you know, and she has so much 
 judgment. Those are those two old cut-glass decanters I just 
 wrapped up and put inside. Goodness, it's as heavy as lead! 
 You ought to see the house, Clara, you just ought to see 
 it! It's cram-full of everything under the sun, I wouldn't 
 have believed there was all the truck in it." 
 
 " It won't be there long, I think," said Miss Vardaman, 
 with unnatural dryness, glaring at the punch-bowl. 
 
 " Well, I don't know," said Mrs. Stevens, quite uncon- 
 scious of any sarcasm, which was the last thing in the world 
 one would have looked for from Miss Clara Vardaman. " It'll 
 take another week to clean it all out, I believe, though Cousin 
 Jennie is awfully quick and thorough. The old garret is 
 packed to the eaves, the things there haven't been touched 
 for twenty-five years. You know poor Harriet never was 
 much of a housekeeper. Just think, we found eighteen pairs 
 of old shoes stuck away in a closet — eighteen! Some of 'em 
 had rubbers to match. And there was that pair of crutches 
 one of the boys had when he broke his leg, and a whole great 
 pile of daguerreotypes taken in the year One — pretty near 
 everybody in this town — oh, I know it's perfectly awful to 
 laugh, but you can't help it to save you — old Mrs. Duval, 
 you know, Clara, in a lace mantle, and corkscrew curls, and a 
 thing like a tart on a band around her forehead! And some 
 little girl that I think must be Sallie Gwynne in pantalettes 
 with a poke-bonnet — oh, there're ever so many we can't place 
 
THE TENxVNTS 25 
 
 — there's nobody alive now that remembers 'em. There're 
 two or three trunks of old clothes, and Donald Peters' old 
 uniform and sword, and about a million medicine-bottles, and 
 a set of false teeth — false teeth! Think of it! I'd as soon 
 have expected to find a coffin-plate." 
 
 " What are they going to do with things like that? " asked 
 Miss Clara, shamefacedly interested. 
 
 " Why, Cousin Jennie sent down to some of those second- 
 hand people on Scioto Street. She says it's a great deal 
 better to sell the things and get a little money for them 
 that can be divided up among the heirs, than to try and give 
 them away and have everybody dissatisfied. Cousin Jennie's 
 so sensible." 
 
 " It's a shame," Miss Clara commented in a fierce whisper, 
 as the other went off, radiantly. " That's that beautiful old 
 punch-bowl with the deep gilt rim and wreath of roses. 
 Daniel Webster's had punch out of that bowl. And I did 
 so want Gwynne and you to have it in your house — that is, 
 I — I — I had set my heart on Gwynne's having it, you know, 
 my dear. Well," she added reflectively, making the best of 
 the situation, " after all, a good many of the Gwynnes have 
 taken to drink, so perhaps it's just as well. Only I don't be- 
 lieve Gwynne ever will. She didn't say a word about the 
 Governor's law-library. Well, now, Gwynne's going to have 
 that, or I'll know the reason why ! I do think it would be an 
 outrage to give those books to anybody but him — Governor 
 Gwynne's only grandson — that is, of course, there's Sam. 
 But if Jennie sets out in that high-handed way to give them 
 to somebody else, I'll just let her know I'm here, that's all! 
 Mercy, what a noise ! " 
 
 There was an unusual colour in her cheeks as we climbed 
 
26 THE TENANTS 
 
 the steps ; her lips moved, rehearsing the biting speeches with 
 which she meant to confound Jennie Gwynne. That lady was 
 upstairs superintending the removal of one of the enormous 
 carved wardrobes with full-length mirrors in the doors ; we 
 could hear her shrill voice pitched high in command, and the 
 men grunting and shoving. All the doors and windows were 
 wide open, the daylight flaunted shamelessly about the grave, 
 gloomy, reticent old house. A constant bickering of ham- 
 mers filled the air; they were taking down and boxing the 
 pictures. Half a dozen of the huge line-engravings that used 
 to hang in an orderly row about the walls, " Signing of the 
 Declaration " over one bookcase, " Sistine Madonna," over 
 another, " Jason and Creusa," " C'est Moi ; Scene in the 
 Prison of the Conciergerie during the Reign of Terror " — 
 all these artistic treasures, I say, were down and standing 
 about the rooms awaiting their turn. The Governor's por- 
 trait leaned against the white marble mantel, and you might 
 see the dust-webs festooning the space where it had hung. 
 " Poor Harriet, she didn't know a thing about keeping 
 house ! " sighed Miss Clara, observing them. In the library 
 all the books were piled on the floor, and there stood Gwynne, 
 knee-deep amongst them, in his shirt-sleeves, looking a little 
 helpless and worried. A youngster whom I recognised for 
 one of the Lawrence children was playing on the floor in a 
 corner with a quantity of those small square flat morocco 
 cases decorated with a sort of bas-relief all over the outside, 
 in which daguerreotypes were once enshrined. Mrs. Lawrence 
 was haranguing Gwynne excitedly, yet in a subdued voice, 
 with one wary eye on the stairs. 
 
 " Of course, I don't say that Cousin Jennie doesn't mean 
 it all for the best, Gwynne, but if she would only consider a 
 
THE TENANTS 27 
 
 little! She's positively insisted on my taking the mahogany 
 hat-rack with the deer's antlers mounted on it, you know — 
 and even after I said to her, ' Why, Cousin Jennie, I'm sure 
 its awfully nice of you to want me to have it, but I'd be 
 afraid to put that thing in my house, the hall's so little, and 
 the stairs come right down by the front door, so there's 
 hardly any room, and I'd be afraid all the time the children 
 would fall down the steps and put their eyes out on those 
 prongs — it's a perfect death-trap ! ' Now, Gwynne, that's 
 every word I said, and I didn't say it in a disagreeable way 
 at all, I just said, ' Why, Cousin Jennie, I'd be afraid to 
 take that thing in my house ; and I told her on account of the 
 children and all, just as nicely as I could, and she got just 
 as mad as could be, and said she supposed I'd like to have the 
 handsomest thing in the house, the dining-room set, or some- 
 thing like that, and you know, Gwynne, I never thought of 
 such a thing, and I just wish you'd speak to her " 
 
 " I'm sorry, Cousin Charlotte," said Gwynne, harassed 
 and weary. " I — it's really none of my business, you know, 
 the things belong to the estate, and I suppose Cousin Jennie's 
 the best one to divide them — oh, Miss Clara ! " 
 
 He broke off to come and shake hands eagerly; he was 
 glad to see us, I think. He had grown tall, and older-look- 
 ing ; his voice plunged from unnatural heights to unexpected 
 depths with a startling and, I dare say, rather ludicrous 
 effect. Wouldn't we sit down? " It's — it's all mussed up," he 
 said, casting an anxious glace around. He called to the car- 
 penters to stop their racket; it was warm, wasn't it? He'd 
 have Hannah get us something, some lemonade, wouldn't 
 we like it? No, he wasn't busy, just packing books, he'd be 
 glad to rest. Sam? Why — why — Sam had gone — had gone 
 
28 THE TENANTS 
 
 back to Canada, didn't we know it? There wasn't really any- 
 thing for Sam to do, you know. Cousin Jennie was seeing 
 to everything. 
 
 " Jennie has so much judgment, you know," Mrs. Law- 
 rence put in. " We couldn't have anybody, any legal person 
 coming in here to appraise and divide, that would be simply 
 horrid — dear old Uncle Samuel's things. And Jennie is a per- 
 fectly ideal person — so sensible and just. But then we aren't 
 the kind of family to have any fussing anyhow." 
 
 ("Now wasn't that Gwynne all over?" said Miss Clara 
 afterwards. " She'd just been giving Jennie Hail Columbia! 
 But they might fight like cats and dogs among themselves, 
 they'd never let an outsider know it. There's Gwynne Peters, 
 the best boy that ever lived. He'd die rather than tell a lie, 
 or take what didn't belong to him — and .there he sat, just 
 pleasantly smiling and pretending that everything was all 
 right, when he was nearly worn out with the fuss and 
 worry ! ") 
 
 Mrs. Horace Gwynne came downstairs in the rear of the 
 leviathan wardrobe, ordering and exhorting. As the men 
 staggered down the front steps with it, she turned into the 
 library. " I suppose your Cousin Charlotte has been telling 
 you about the hat-rack, Gwynne," she began in an acid 
 voice. " All I have to say is — oh, how do you do, Miss 
 Clara. Mercy, Charlotte, tell Marian to come away from 
 those books ! Come here to Cousin Jennie, dearie ; what have 
 you got there? Don't hurt that nice book." 
 
 " It ain't a nice book," said the child resentfully. " It's 
 Revised Statutes of the State of Ohio— it says: 'Forcible 
 entry does not c-o-n-con-s-t-i-constitute trespass.' What's 
 ' forcible entry,' Cousin Gwynne ? 
 
 ?j 
 
THE TENANTS 29 
 
 " Put it down, dear, never mind," said Mrs. Horace kindly. 
 * I want Gwynne to have all his grandfather's library," she 
 explained, turning to Miss Vardaman. " It's only right, you 
 know. He's Governor Gwynne's only grandson — except Sam, 
 of course. But I said to all the family in the beginning that 
 Gwynne Peters should have those books, it would be out- 
 rageous to give them to anyone else." 
 
 Poor Miss Clara! I could have laughed at the blank ex- 
 pression with which she beheld this stealing of her thunder. 
 
 " I'm sure you're quite right, Jennie," she said tamely. 
 " You've always had a great deal of judgment. Gwynne, 
 dear, how did you get that great black bruise on your fore- 
 head?" 
 
 " I ran into something," Gwynne said, flushing. 
 
 " Oh, Cousin Gwynne, oh, what an awful story ! " Marian 
 piped in her sharp treble. " It's where Cousin Sam threw 
 the boot at you when he got mad at you the other day. 
 Cousin Sam had a queer spell, I heard Hannah say so." 
 
 " Marian ! " cried her mother savagely. 
 
 " Hannah's getting into her dotage, and imagines things," 
 said Mrs. Horace Gwynne, reddening to her forehead. " I 
 don't know what we're going to do with the poor old 
 
 thing " They all talked on desperately. It was a ghastly 
 
 moment for everybody. The skeleton rattled its grisly bones 
 in the Gwynne family closet, and there was something fool- 
 ishly and pitiably heroic in the gallant effort they made to 
 silence that hideous activity. Mrs. Lawrence and Mrs. 
 Horace, the one Gwynne by blood, the other by adoption, 
 forgot their private feud in the common defence. To your 
 tents, O Israel! 
 
 " You might look over those old daguerreotypes, Miss 
 
30 THE TENANTS 
 
 Clara," Mrs. Gwynne said. " Marian, run and get them for 
 Miss Vardaman. I don't know who some of the people are, 
 maybe you'll recognise them." 
 
 Gwynne opened a case. " This one is all going to pieces," 
 he said, as the little pad of faded green brocade in the lid 
 fell out ; behind it was a slip of yellowed paper. " Oh, look 
 here, it has ' John to Louise, June, 1839,' on it, ' John to 
 Louise' — who was that, do you suppose? " 
 
 u Let me see it," said Miss Clara. 
 
 " Louise ? Maybe that's Louise Andrews — she was a 
 Gwynne, you know," said Mrs. Lawrence frowning in an 
 effort of recollection. " I can't think of any other Louise. 
 Is there a picture of her ? She was a great beauty." 
 
 " Did you ever see her, Cousin Charlotte? " 
 
 " Goodness, no, she's been dead I don't know how long." 
 
 " I remember her," said Miss Vardaman. " I'm so much 
 older than any of you. She married Leonard Andrews, she 
 didn't live very long. Yes, she was very pretty. That's 
 John's picture. Yes, I suppose it does look funny, but that's 
 the way they all dressed, you know, in those days. They 
 were engaged and then they quarrelled about something — oh, 
 dear me, it's years and years ago." 
 
 " You'd better take that picture, Miss Clara," said Mrs. 
 Horace Gwynne briskly. " Maybe Doctor Vardaman would 
 like to have it, and — oh, I was going to speak to you about 
 something. You know I'm managing everything and it's an 
 awful responsibility; I've counted all the towels and sheets 
 and measured all the pieces of goods I've found — nothing 
 ought to be wasted or thrown away, you know. There're a 
 whole lot of medicine-bottles upstairs, over three hundred — ■ 
 do you think the doctor could use them? They're very good 
 
THE TENANTS 31 
 
 bottles, you know, no corks of course — I thought maybe the 
 doctor " 
 
 " John wouldn't have any use for them, I thank you, 
 Jennie," said Miss Clara, stiffening. 
 
 Gwynne's eyes met mine. " The wistaria on the dining- 
 room porch- is going to bloom, don't you want to see it? ' 
 said he, biting his lips. 
 
 We retreated to the wistaria, and both of us, propped 
 against the dining-room wall, gave away to hysterical 
 laughter, all the more violent because we must smother it. 
 Gwynne's nerves, I think, were a little unstrung by all he 
 had been through the last melancholy week. " I — I can't 
 
 help it " he gasped. " I know it's all wrong, but I can't 
 
 help it. They're so funny ! " 
 
 We were presently visited with retribution for our ungodly 
 merriment ; for, as we stood there, an Armenian — or Bul- 
 garian — gentleman came around the corner of the house with 
 a wheelbarrow heaped with the spoil of the garret, and after 
 him another bearing on 4 his shoulders our old hair-trunk. 
 Hardly any hair was left upon it, now ; but there it was long 
 and low and round-topped with rows of brass nails black with 
 verdigris. It was going away on the Armenian shoulders — 
 going out of our lives forever like those childish days. 
 Gwynne looked at me with a rather tremulous smile. 
 
 " ' Ha, Saint Edward ! Ha, Saint George ! ' exclaimed the 
 Black Knight, cutting down a man at each invocation," he 
 quoted. " Don't, Mary ! " For I am ashamed to say that I 
 sat down on the top step and cried openly, while the boy tried 
 to comfort me. 
 
CHAPTER THREE 
 
 HEREWITH began another volume in the saga 
 of the old Gwynne house. After nearly fifty 
 years of Gwynnes, it must now pass to other 
 ownership. The thing happens every day, and 
 should be no great tragedy ; few Americans are born and live 
 and die in the same house, and a building of any sort rarely 
 remains the property of one family for more than a genera- 
 tion. But the Gwynnes, one and all, mourned aloud and re- 
 fused to be comforted. Governor Gwynne's house, Uncle 
 Samuel's house, the house that great man planned and built, 
 whose hospitalities had been enjoyed by the very best and 
 highest in the land! Why, the State ought to buy that 
 house! The State was of a different opinion, although the 
 house was offered at a ridiculously low price, not more than 
 twice what it was worth. None of the Gwynnes, it appeared, 
 could afford to buy it in, or even rent it, the expense of 
 living there was so terrifying. At that distance from town, 
 one must keep a horse and carriage, the street-cars being so 
 far away; the care of the park and garden required one 
 man's whole time; and there was the huge old house itself. 
 It had at least sixteen rooms, and with its high ceilings, and 
 long rambling hallways, took as much coal to heat it in our 
 winters as three ordinary houses. Besides, it had — ahem — 
 undeniably run down somewhat during poor Harriet's ad- 
 ministration, and was in need of costly repairs. No, alack 
 and alas! the house must be sold or leased — dreadful prof- 
 
 32 
 
THE TENANTS 33 
 
 anation ! The furniture was at last cleared out ; the Govern- 
 or's portrait went down to the State-house, and you may see 
 him there at this moment, in line with all the rest of the gov- 
 ernors, but in a rather obscure corner — such is the notorious 
 ingratitude of republics. All the Gwynne establishments in 
 town blossomed out with relics, brass andirons, branch candle- 
 sticks, horse-hair sofas — people confided to one another that, 
 on the whole, Mrs. Horace Gwynne had made a pretty fair 
 division ; she herself sternly declined to take anything but the 
 alabaster clock in the south parlour. That mausoleum-look- 
 ing engine now ticks out the time from the middle of a charm- 
 ing white wood mantel in her eldest son's " colonial " resi- 
 dence. It long since ticked out eternity for Mrs. Gwynne, 
 as for some of the other friends we met in the last chapter. 
 The Armenians finally accomplished the dismantling of the 
 attic and cellar; the contents, Gwynne Peters once told me, 
 brought just seventy-two dollars. " That was a little less 
 than four dollars all around," he said with a grin. " I spent 
 my four on my first box of cigars, and got awfully sick on 
 the very first one I tried to smoke, I remember — as if it were 
 for a judgment on me!" He went back to college. Old 
 Hannah went, whimpering, to live in the country with a 
 married niece. The windows were boarded up, the old iron 
 gates chained across ; and, for a while, an advertisement ap- 
 peared in our papers, and, I believe, in some of the big New 
 York and Chicago ones : " FOR SALE OR LEASE— Com- 
 modious mansion built by the late Governor Gwynne, delight- 
 fully situated in the suburbs, within easy walking-distance of 
 two lines of cars. 1 Large grounds, fruit and shade trees, 
 
 iEasy walking distance! It was between five and six squares on a very 
 indifferent plank sidewalk, as I have cause to know ! — M. S. W. 
 
34 THE TENANTS 
 
 stable, dairy, etc. House of twenty rooms in perfect order 
 with all modern improvements. Suitable for a young ladies' 
 seminary or summer-hotel. For further particulars address 
 Virgil H. Templeton, Agt. for the Gwynne Estate." 
 
 There is a peculiar fascination in these artless notices ; one 
 may read whole columns of such Paradises awaiting tenants, 
 every morning in the journals. They are so rich in promise, 
 so fertile in pleasant suggestion, it seems as if a person might 
 spend a happy lifetime in the simple pursuit of renting and 
 moving into them one after another. But, strange to say, 
 for many months Mr. Virgil H. Templeton piped and nobody 
 would dance! The causes of both health and education suf- 
 fered serious neglect; nobody showed the least anxiety to 
 teach young ladies in the commodious mansion built by the 
 late Governor Gwynne ; nobody wanted to establish a summer- 
 resort within easy walking-distance of two lines of cars. Once 
 in a while someone would come in, get the keys, and go out to 
 inspect the place; but invariably "they laughed as they 
 rode away," like the false knight in the ballad. It is possible 
 that the disadvantages connected with living in it which the 
 family had noticed, were, by some strange chance, apparent 
 to would-be tenants also. Templeton did his best; he 
 placarded the brick walls of the park; he changed and re- 
 worded his advertisements; he even lowered the terms and 
 promised repairs ! All these measures were looked upon with 
 strong disfavour by the family ; and it is safe to say that no 
 real-estate dealer before or since has ever come in for the 
 share of bullying and badgering that that well-meaning man 
 received. The two old Misses Gwynne, Arthur's daughters, 
 put on their two old bonnets, and went down to Judge Lewis' 
 office, where the unfortunate agent had a desk, declaiming 
 
THE TENANTS 35 
 
 loudly against the vulgarity of advertising their noble an- 
 cestral residence in the common papers where every raga- 
 muffin might read their names shamelessly printed. " Want 
 me to go 'round and whisper it to everybody, I s'pose," said 
 Templeton in a rage, when they had left. He was an excit- 
 able little man. Mrs. Horace Gwynne visited him with the 
 information that she, for one, would never consent to the 
 house being rented for less than two hundred. " Cents or 
 dollars, ma'am?" asked Templeton politely sarcastic. 
 " You're quite as likely to get one as the other." Steven 
 Gwynne, as " queer " a body as one commonly sees at large 
 without a keeper — he was a Southern sympathiser, and never 
 cut his hair or beard after the fall of Vicksburg — ambushed 
 Templeton in Judge Lewis' own room, to tell him roundly 
 that what was good enough for Governor Gwynne was good 
 enough for any damned upstart that wanted to rent his 
 house, and that not one square inch of new wall-paper should 
 go on those walls, so help him, if he, Steven Gwynne, had to 
 camp on the doorstep with a shot-gun! The judge witnessed 
 these passages-at-arms with mingled annoyance and amuse- 
 ment ; it was a nuisance of course, he said ; he was minded to 
 evict Templeton a dozen times — but how it did enliven the 
 dull legal round! The Gwynnes and their agent furnished 
 that jolly and kind-hearted jurist with material for some of 
 the best after-dinner stories he ever told. " By George," he 
 used to say, " it got so that whenever one of my clerks came 
 in and found a Gwynne lying in wait for Templeton and 
 breathing fire and slaughter, he'd post somebody in the hall, 
 and when Templeton came along: ' Hey, go slow, Temp., the 
 enemy's poisoned the well ! ' and Templeton would shin for 
 the street so fast you could play checkers on his coat-tail ! " 
 
36 THE TENANTS 
 
 The fact is the poor old house was going to rack and ruin 
 as rapidly as so solid and substantial a structure could go; 
 the wonder was that Mrs. Peters had managed to get along 
 at all in that comfortless monument to the Gwynne family- 
 pride, but living there was probably a point of honour 
 with her, that fantastic standard of honour, to which 
 all the race of Gwynnes clung with a fanatic tenacity. 
 No single member of the family could afford to spend 
 any money on the house, and concerted action among fif- 
 teen or twenty Gwynne heirs was, as their agent speedily 
 found out, next to an impossibility. The only thing about 
 which they were in entire concord was the glory past, 
 present, and to come of their name ; they saw desecration in 
 laying hands upon the torn and mildewed wall-paper, the 
 blistered varnish, the leaking roofs of Uncle Samuel's shrine* 
 It would have taken twelve or fifteen hundred dollars to put 
 the place in order, at the least ; and indeed as time went on, it 
 promised to take more. The viewless forces of destruction in- 
 vade an empty house, and lay it waste like a devastating 
 army. " If they would just let me shingle the roof anyhow," 
 said Templeton in despair. " But the only one of 'em all 
 that has any sense is that young Peters fellow — not the 
 queer one, you know, the one that's on the ranch in New 
 Mexico, but that other, that nice tall red-haired boy. Trouble 
 is, he's a minor. You just wait a couple of years or so till 
 he's twenty-one and through college, and I'll bet he makes 
 'em all stand 'round ! " 
 
 The stout, excitable little man displayed more penetration 
 than one would have supposed he possessed. Gwynne did make 
 them stand 'round. When he came home on his vacations, you 
 might see him prowling about the place with a delegation 
 
THE TENANTS 37 
 
 of unwilling relatives, arguing, explaining, persuading. Be- 
 ing a Gwynne himself, the boy knew how to get at his kin, 
 upon what side to take them without offence. There was very 
 little boyishness about his weary, anxious, gently humorous 
 face, and the family all knew, that, young as he was, he al- 
 ready had one grave and bitter care. Perhaps that made 
 them respect him ; there are some people that never grow up, 
 and, conversely, there are some who never seem to have any 
 youth. When Gwynne came home, the estate's property all 
 at once took on a smiling look of change. Sidewalks were 
 mended and shutters painted; the grass was cut in the park 
 and the rubbish cleared away; he even got them to consent 
 to putting a furnace in the house ! Templeton went about in 
 jubilant relief at having someone to share his responsibilities. 
 " Told you so ! That boy has a head! All Peters and mighty 
 little Gwynne, that's what he is ! " 
 
 In spite of their efforts, however, the house, as Templeton 
 pointed out with a solemn wagging of the head, " was not 
 a paying proposition." Going away to boarding-school at 
 this time with Kitty Oldham and others of about our age, we 
 heard and saw less and less of it. Nobody of our acquaint- 
 ance would risk the experiment of living in it; it was only 
 strangers who fitfully came and went as tenants of the old 
 Gwynne house. Sometimes there would be curtains at the 
 windows, and smoke hanging from the chimneys ; on our next 
 return it would be again shut and deserted. Those people? 
 Oh, yes, they were in some railroad position, and they've 
 been moved to Indianapolis. No, no one called on them, it's 
 so hard to get out there, you know, and they were only here 
 a few months. Once the tenants scuttled out in a dreadful 
 state of scare, declaring that Arthur Gwynne's ghost came 
 
38 THE TENANTS 
 
 down and paraded the ballroom o' nights, with his head on 
 one side, and the rag of sheet dangling from his twisted neck ! 
 " I do hope poor Cousin Eleanor and Cousin Mollie won't 
 hear that story," said Gwynne, in concern, and painstakingly 
 invented and retailed to them another excuse for the sudden 
 cessation of rent. Once, in the summer vacation, the Board 
 of Lady Managers of the Home for Incurables gave a lawn- 
 party on the grounds for the benefit of their charity. There 
 were booths set up and Japanese lanterns swinging under 
 the beeches, and a deal of noise beneath Caroline Gwynne's 
 windows where we children had been obliged to go so sedately 
 in the old days. People who had no carriages came in long 
 weary procession from the Lexington and Amherst Street 
 cars — within easy walking-distance — bearing their contribu- 
 tions of bowls of salad and chocolate-cakes shrouded in their 
 oldest napkins. The house was opened, and the ladies of the 
 committee heated coffee on the crippled old built-in range in 
 Hannah's kitchen. They every one agreed in buzzing whispers 
 that the place was a perfect rattle-trap, and they could not 
 imagine how any people could move out leaving a house so 
 dirty as the last inmates had done. The young men gaily 
 took turns drawing water from the ancient clanking pump 
 outside the kitchen-door, and bringing in armfuls of fire- 
 wood. Children raced and romped with a thunderous uproar 
 in the big echoing rooms. In the evening there was a curtain 
 rigged between the Parthenon pillars, and a play was given 
 in which Teddy Johns appeared and sang the kind of topical 
 song popular in those days, of which I remember one verse: 
 
 " The gloaming one day was beginning to gloam, 
 That's all, that's all ! 
 When I heard someone say 'The Incurables' Home? 
 That's all, that's all ! 
 
THE TENANTS 39 
 
 He told me of servants they had more than eight, 
 And he thought that the one poor old battered inmate 
 Must certainly live in magnificent state, 
 That's all, that's all ! ' 
 
 A humorous effort which was received with great applause, 
 the paucity of Incurables, and the disproportionate energy 
 of their Lady Managers being a standing joke in our com- 
 munity. Mrs. Oldham was rumoured to have remarked 
 acutely upon being applied to for a donation to the Home, 
 that the only thing incurable about it was the idiots who 
 ran it. Teddy sang and swaggered through his part in a 
 very amusing fashion ; he was good at that sort of entertain- 
 ment. The fete — anything carried on out-doors was a fete 
 in those days — was a success, netting the Incurable the hand- 
 some sum of fifty-one dollars twenty-seven cents, according 
 to Mrs. Lewis' report. And the next day everyone in town 
 was circulating the story of how some blundering or mali- 
 cious person actually went up to poor Gwynne Peters and 
 asked him where Sam was and what he was doing ! 
 
 After this the house went again into one of its periods of 
 eclipse, so to call them. No one even cared to look it over 
 any more; and few people visited the neighbourhood at all 
 since dear old Miss Clara Vardaman died and the doctor gave 
 up practice. If it had not been for Gwynne I believe the 
 house would have fallen down, and he must have had a hard 
 pull getting the rest of them to contribute their share of the 
 taxes and insurance. It was offered for sale at gradually 
 diminishing terms ; they had one chance to dispose of it to a 
 German gentleman who proposed to convert it into a place 
 of entertainment for the masses to be called Silberberg's 
 Garden. Templeton was enthusiastically in favour of this 
 plan, but figure the indignation of the two old Misses Gwynne ! 
 
40 THE TENANTS 
 
 Even Gwynne, while he laughed, was a little ruffled. " Think 
 of a band-stand and merry-go-round in the park," he said. 
 " German waiters in their shirt-sleeves dashing from the 
 house with beer-glasses and plates of wienerwurst, plumbers' 
 apprentices and their girls waltzing and perspiring in our 
 old ballroom, with a free fight thrown in now and then by 
 way of variety ! And how Doctor Vardaman would relish it ! 
 Picnic parties, sardine-cans, paper napkins, beer-bottles, 
 sentimental couples spooning, band scraping and tooting 
 ' Die Wacht am Rhein,' and ' How can I leave thee? * under 
 his windows all day long — his property would be absolutely 
 unsalable. We can't do it, I guess; no, not even for Sil- 
 berberg's twenty-five thousand dollars ! " I told him he was 
 like the Arab who wouldn't part from his steed, in the poem 
 at the back of the Third or Fourth Reader. " My beautiful, 
 
 my beautiful " he says ; " Avaunt, tempter, I scorn thy 
 
 gold ! " And, springing on the horse's back, vanishes into the 
 desert. Thus did all the Gwynnes turn up their noses — in 
 the vernacular — at Silberberg. Templeton was very doleful. 
 " You're missing the only chance you'll ever have to get rid 
 of that damned old white elephant, Mr. Peters," he said. 
 " Why not let the Dutchman have it? Lord, what difference 
 does it make to you whether he turns it into a beer-garden or 
 a cemetery? It's had its day." But, for once in his life, the 
 little real-estate agent was at fault ; for, on a sudden, without 
 notice, fully five years after the house came on the market, 
 when it had weathered through nearly every vicissitude known 
 to houses, and its fortunes were at the dregs, the wheel took 
 another turn — spun clean around — came full circle, in fact. 
 Time and the hour run through the roughest day. 
 
CHAPTER FOUR 
 
 MANY warm-hearted people felt a great sym- 
 pathy for Doctor Vardaman in his isolation 
 and solitude after Miss Clara's death; I sus- 
 pect that had the doctor been an old maid in- 
 stead of an old bachelor, he would not have received so much 
 attention. There is something in the spectacle of an elderly 
 unattached male being, no matter how independent he may 
 be, or how capable of taking care of himself, that at once 
 engages the solicitude of all his friends, men and women alike. 
 Everybody felt sorry for him ; everybody wondered how he 
 got along. Doctor Vardaman was a hale old gentleman verg- 
 ing on seventy, it is true, but still vigorous of mind and body, 
 and with pronounced notions of his own on the subject of 
 diet, hygiene, and the conduct of life generally. No one could 
 have needed benevolent supervision less; but he might well 
 have prayed with the antique worthy to be delivered from 
 his friends. At Christmas he used to describe himself as blush- 
 ing to his very heels and retreating in shamed confusion be- 
 fore the stern gaze of the expressman who unloaded case after 
 case of expensive wines and spirits before his door; that he 
 already had a whole cellar-full partly of his own collecting, 
 partly inherited from his father, a man of means and dis- 
 cernment in such matters, made no manner of difference to 
 these eager and generous givers. If he had smoked as dili- 
 gently as a factory-chimney, he could not have vanquished 
 the army of cigars he received yearly. A centipede would not 
 
 41 
 
42 THE TENANTS 
 
 have accommodated all the doctor's pairs of knit and 
 crocheted slippers ; he solemnly avowed that there were bales 
 of smoking-j ackets and pen-wipers stored in his garret. He 
 could have paved his walk with paper-weights, yet I never 
 saw him use but one — a glass globe with a remarkable cameo- 
 looking head encircled by a wreath of flowers mysteriously 
 embedded beneath the surface, which Gwynne and I, clubbing 
 our pennies, had presented to him the first Christmas after 
 we were enlightened on the Santa Claus subject. He used to 
 laugh and make little jokes about his being an " universal 
 favourite " like certain patent medicines ; yet he had a senti- 
 ment for all this trash, and would not allow it to be thrown 
 or given away, except when kindness took the form of send- 
 ing some perishable delicacy for his table, a frequent occur- 
 rence after Miss Clara's death, as it was known he had some 
 trouble in getting competent " help." It would have been 
 physically impossible for the doctor to get through all the 
 aspic jelly, mango-pickle, and fruit-cake bestowed on him, 
 and he said that it went against his medical conscience to 
 give these rich dainties away, yet that must be done some- 
 times. 
 
 I myself have laboriously carried out little trays of 
 orange-marmalade tumblers which I am sure never did any 
 good to anybody but Mrs. Maginnis' children, who used to 
 come bare-legged, with their tousled heads, freckles, and blue 
 eyes to fetch the doctor's wash. It took no slight gymnastic 
 ability to carry a basket or waiter of such unmanageable 
 articles as marmalade-glasses, change cars twice, and pick 
 one's way across the ankle-deep mud of Richmond Avenue, and 
 along the wooden sidewalk full of loose uncertain boards, as 
 far as Doctor Vardaman's house. On a gusty April day with 
 
THE TENANTS 43 
 
 a promise of rain in the air, one must go cumbered with an 
 umbrella and overshoes ; only fancy what that was to a young 
 woman clad in the fashionable costume of eighty-one, to wit : 
 a skin-tight navy-blue silk " jersey " waist, a navy-blue bunt- 
 ing skirt kilt-pleated with a voluminous round overskirt, and 
 a pocket with purse and handkerchief securely concealed 
 somewhere amongst the folds in the rear ; French-heeled shoes, 
 tan-coloured suede " Bernhardt " gloves, and a tremendous 
 erection of velvet and feathers that we called a " Gains- 
 borough hat " over all ! These modes have mercifully gone 
 out ; but not more, I think, than the simple and kindly custom 
 of sending glasses of jelly about to one's friends; I should 
 not presume to ask one of my young acquaintances to per- 
 form so unseemly an office; no one either makes jelly or sends 
 it as a present any more. Fortunately I fell in with Gwynne 
 Peters on the last lap of the journey, that is, the Lexington 
 and Amherst cars. 
 
 " Here, let me take that thing," said he, and as I thank- 
 fully gave up to him my burden of sweets — my wrists, not 
 too loosely cased in the tan-coloured " Bernhardts " fairly 
 aching with the weight — he went on: " What do you think? 
 I believe we've got the old place rented at last ! Templeton's 
 going to have some people out there this afternoon and I'm 
 to meet them. But they've been out two or three times al- 
 ready, and he says they've taken a fancy to it. The man — 
 he's a Colonel Pallinder from Mobile or New Orleans or 
 somewhere — says it reminds him of his old home in Virginia, 
 ' befo' the wah,' you know, that's the way he talks." 
 
 " Are they nice? I mean — anybody we'd know? ,! 
 
 " Why, I don't know — yes, I guess so. They're Episco- 
 palians, they were asking Templeton about Trinity Church. 
 
44 THE TENANTS 
 
 I haven't met them yet, and you can't go much by what 
 Templeton says — a fellow like that doesn't know anything 
 except whether people are respectable or not. They're all 
 grown-ups, no children. I think there's a young lady ; Tem- 
 pleton's lost in admiration of Mrs. Pallinder — told me two 
 or three times, ' She's an elegant lady, Mr. Peters, very lah- 
 de-dah manners, you know, stylish as she can be ! ' Doctor 
 Vardaman's met them; but there's no use asking the doctor 
 anything, he just grinned when I mentioned the Pallinders, 
 and said he didn't doubt they'd be a great addition to the 
 neighbourhood." 
 
 Templeton's " livery-rig " was standing at the foot of the 
 wide shallow steps leading up to the Parthenon portico as 
 we came in sight of it from the road. The shutters were open ; 
 feet and voices went to and fro inside. A tall slim girl in a 
 red waist (it was a "jersey," I thought) and hat came out 
 to the carriage and gave the driver some order. The agent 
 appeared from the back of the house between two more tall 
 people, a lady and gentleman. Templeton gesticulated, he 
 flourished toward the grounds, he flourished toward the 
 facade of Doric columns. The gentleman pulled his beard, 
 which he wore in a long sharply pointing tuft on his chin, 
 and listened with his head at an angle. " Jiminy ! I'm glad I 
 got that chimney fixed ! " ej aculated Gwynne thoughtfully. 
 " You know I'd like to take away those old iron stags and 
 things from the front lawn, but Cousin Steven would fall 
 down dead if I touched 'em." 
 
 " Oh, I don't know, Gwynne, somehow they seem to suit 
 the old place, they've been there so long. Wouldn't it be nice 
 if these people turned out really — really nice, so that the 
 house would be the way it was in your grandfather's time? " 
 
THE TENANTS 45 
 
 " It would so! " Gwynne agreed heartily. He looked about. 
 Some way it seemed as if the thing were not wholly improb- 
 able ; the fresh hopefulness of spring was in the air ; pockets 
 of new grass showed an excellent green, the trees were faintly 
 rimmed with colour. All the thickets piped with birds. There 
 were Arcadian vistas of many smooth mottled trunks and 
 loftily stooping branches ; the old house with its absurd classic 
 front and assemblage of iron flocks and herds still became 
 the landscape well. " It is pretty, isn't it? " said the young 
 man, earnestly. " I should think anybody'd like it, wouldn't 
 you?" 
 
 As he spoke, Templeton, an odd enough herald of good 
 tidings, came scrunching hastily down the gravel drive from 
 the house. He was too excited to notice my presence. " By 
 gummy, Mr. Peters," he exclaimed breathlessly, as soon as he 
 got within hearing distance, " I've landed 'em ! You come 
 on up to the house. Three years' lease — you come on up — 
 privilege of purchase — you want to come right up and meet 
 'em — by gummy ! " 
 
 Gwynne came grinning to us afterwards, as Doctor Varda- 
 man and I stood in the old gentleman's porch, to describe 
 the interview. 
 
 " I went up to the house," he said, " and here were Colonel 
 Pallinder, looking like the Count of Monte Cristo, or the 
 Chevalier de Maison Rouge, in a low-cut vest and a turn- 
 down collar and black string-tie, and Mrs. Pallinder — by 
 Jove, Templeton was right, she's an awfully handsome 
 woman, and the youngest looking, she might be her own 
 daughter! She was one of their Southern belles, I suppose, 
 only she's quite fair, light hair and a beautiful complexion — 
 have you noticed her complexion, doctor? " 
 
46 THE TENANTS 
 
 " Mrs. Palllnder's complexion is remarkably well cared- 
 for, I should say," said the doctor judicially. 
 
 " Yes, I've always understood these Southern women don't 
 do much but eat candy and fix themselves up. Anyway, she's 
 very striking-looking, much more so than the daughter. She's 
 a very tall girl, I noticed her eyes were almost on a level 
 with mine — big black eyes and she kind of rolls 'em around, 
 
 you know " 
 
 • " What did they have on, Gwynne? " 
 
 He paused ; he meditated. " They were all dressed up," he 
 said at last, with the air of one conveying a piece of valuable 
 information, the result of close and prolonged study. Again 
 he meditated. " Well, they were both all dressed up, you 
 know. What's that thing you've got on, that tight jacket 
 thing — or is it a — a waist? Hers was red, with little curly- 
 cues all over it." 
 
 " You mean it was braided? " 
 
 " Yes, that's it, braided — they were both all dressed up, 
 you know. Well, then Templeton introduced us, told the 
 colonel who I was, that is, and he welcomed me as if I had 
 been his long-lost brother with the strawberry-mark. Called 
 me ' my dear boy ' right off — I don't much care about that 
 sort of thing," said Gwynne, shrugging. " But I suppose it's 
 his way. Everybody was very cordial, and there was so much 
 hands-all-round and hurrah-boys, you never would have 
 thought we'd just met for the first time. It's not the way 
 we're used to up here, but on the whole, doctor, it's rather 
 nice — they're very interesting people, and they've got such 
 pleasant Southern voices, and they're gay, somehow, gay and 
 kind," said Gwynne, who, poor young fellow, had had little 
 enough either of gaiety or kindness in his experience of life. 
 
THE TENANTS 47 
 
 " The colonel presented me to the ladies with the grandest 
 flourish you ever saw, and said he understood this was my 
 ancestral home, and he knew just how I felt at seeing 
 strangers in it, but I mustn't cease to look upon it as my 
 home just the same, and that he hoped I would come there 
 whenever I felt like it; and he didn't know how / thought 
 about it, but for his part, it seemed to him there was noth- 
 ing like having a gentleman for a tenant and a gentleman 
 for a landlord. Right there," said Gwynne, with a grin, " I 
 might have sprung it on him that he was going to have quite 
 a few gentlemen and some ladies for a landlord, but I only 
 said, ' The house belongs to an estate, you know,' and some- 
 thing about our being so fortunate to have them in it — I had 
 to say something after all their cordiality. And he went right 
 on, without paying much attention, ' Ah, indeed? ' he thought 
 it quite possible he might buy it, he wanted to settle down 
 somewhere, he was tired of travelling about, and he had got 
 his business in such shape that he could settle down at last." 
 
 "What is his business, Gwynne?" interrupted the doctor 
 suddenly. 
 
 " Why, he's a broker, and Templeton says he's agent for 
 a big syndicate of Eastern capitalists that have some kind 
 of railroad or mining interests all over the West. He's rented 
 an office in the Turner Building. I was going to bring up the 
 subject of repairs, but it seems Templeton and he had got 
 that all settled already. Pallinder's going to do a lot him- 
 self, about the bathroom and kitchen, and Mrs. Pallinder 
 doesn't like the wood-work painted white that old-fashioned 
 way, so they're going to change it, grain it to look like 
 quartered oak or mahogany. I suppose Cousin Eleanor and 
 the rest of them will go into fits, and I kind of hate to see the 
 
48 THE TENANTS 
 
 old white wood-work changed myself," added Gwynne re- 
 gretfully. " But if the colonel buys the place, and I'm pretty 
 sure he's going to after putting out all this money on it, 
 why, it doesn't make any difference what they do to it. The 
 whole thing's almost too good to be true." 
 
 " It is" said Doctor Vardaman, rubbing his chin. " Being 
 agent for an Eastern syndicate must be a very profitable walk 
 of life — most people aren't so willing to spend their money 
 on a rented house. Somehow or other I fear, I very much fear 
 the Danai bringing gifts. Did you meet the old lady — Mrs. 
 Botlisch? Was she with them?" 
 
 Gwynne began to laugh. " I was going to tell you about 
 her. After we had gone through the whole house, and the 
 colonel had pointed out what he meant to change, for in- 
 stance : ' Those old mirrors over the parlour-mantels will 
 do very well,' says he, pointing with his cane. ' The frames 
 
 want a little ' 'Put a lick o' gilt paint over the bare 
 
 spots,' says Templeton in a mortal stew for fear they 
 were going to ask for something expensive. ' That'll make 
 'em look all right.' ' Exactly — a lick of paint over the bare 
 spots,' said Pallinder, listening politely and without a smile. 
 6 Mr. Templeton is quite right.' And with that Mrs. Pall- 
 inder began : ' I've been thinking I'll have the front parlour 
 on the south side done in peacock-blue and old-gold, Mr. 
 Peters. I saw a lovely paper with the blue ground and large 
 gilt fleur-de-lys on it downtown that would just suit.' Tem- 
 pleton turned green. ' Well— er — um — I don't know ' 
 
 says he. ' Oh, I'll have that done, Mr. Templeton,' said the 
 colonel — and this time he did laugh, and winked at me over 
 the little man's head. 'You're a very conscientious agent, 
 sir,' says he. 'But don't worry. I wouldn't expect you to 
 
THE TENANTS 49 
 
 gratify a whim like that. I'll let you into a secret, gentle- 
 men, I'm a terribly hen-pecked man, and being the only one 
 in the family, the odds are so heavily against me, three to 
 one, that I always jump and do whatever's wanted without 
 any discussion.' • I guess it's pretty hard to refuse Mrs. Pall- 
 inder anything,' said Templeton, coming out strong in a way 
 that nearly floored me ; the lady gave him a sweet smile, and 
 Miss Pallinder laughed outright. ' I'm going to have a paper 
 with pink roses all over it, and pink curtains to match in my 
 room, if Papa will let me, Mr. Templeton,' says she, and 
 worked her eyes around at him like this. ' Now can't you say 
 something nice to me? ' * I would, but I'm afraid Mrs. Tem- 
 pleton would hear of it,' said Templeton, and be hanged if 
 he didn't roll his eyes around at her," said Gwynne, writhing 
 with laughter. " And then you ought to have seen Miss Pall- 
 inder laugh ! We finally got around to the kitchen, and while 
 the two ladies and Templeton were inspecting the closets, 
 Colonel Pallinder mysteriously beckoned me outside. The 
 man had driven Templeton's hack back there so as to stand 
 in the shade, and I thought I saw somebody sitting on the 
 rear seat, but I just glanced at it, for the colonel said: 
 ' Ahem — Mr. Peters, you recall perhaps what the governor 
 of South Carolina said to the governor of North Carolina? 
 In my section of the country, sir — he pronounced it, 6 suh ' 
 — we don't consider a bargain closed until we've — ahem — 
 poured out a libation to — ah — um — Morpheus.' And upon 
 that he fished out a very handsome silver-mounted flask from 
 his hip pocket, with a little silver top that unscrewed and 
 
 telescoped into a cup. ' If you'll partake, sir ? ' says the 
 
 colonel, pouring it full, so we partook, I out of the cup, 
 and he out of the bottle, and I must say if the colonel's a 
 
50 THE TENANTS 
 
 poor student of the classics, he's a mighty good judge 
 of whiskey," said Gwynne, with all the air of a connoisseur. 
 " Only it was a pretty stiff drink. I believe my moustache 
 smells of it this minute," he added with concern, fingering 
 that exiguous growth tenderly. " While we were 6 partak- 
 ing,' somebody snorted out so suddenly that we both jumped 
 and nearly dropped the sacrificial vessels, ' Say, Billie, I 
 don't mind if I do myself. It's pretty dry work settin' out 
 here.' And I looked and saw the old woman leaning out of the 
 carriage " Gwynne paused, and eyed the doctor inquir- 
 ingly. 
 
 "Mrs. Botlisch?" 
 
 " Mrs. Botlisch. Doctor Vardaman, how — in — thunder, 
 now — how — in — thunder do you suppose they came to have 
 that— that ?" 
 
 " She's Mrs. Pallinder's mother, I believe," said the old 
 gentleman. 
 
 " Yes, I know, the colonel introduced us right off, and 
 handed over the flask and cup just as if it were the most 
 natural thing in the world. * Here's how, bub ! ' the old 
 woman said, winked at me, turned the whiskey off like an 
 expert, handed the things back, and wiped her mouth on the 
 back of her hand. Mrs. Pallinder's mother! It's incon- 
 ceivable! Doctor, I swear you could have knocked me down 
 with a straw. The Pallinders don't seem to make anything 
 of it — but that pretty, delicate-featured woman, and that 
 slender spirited-looking girl, both of them so beautifully 
 dressed, and their manners really charming, Doctor — a little 
 different from what one sees ordinarily, maybe, but charming 
 for all that! Why, the old woman might be their cook — I 
 can't understand it ! They take it just as a matter of course." 
 
THE TENANTS 51 
 
 " Well, I don't know how else you'd have them take it," 
 said the doctor. " She's Mrs. Pallinder's mother, and that's 
 all there is to it. But Mrs. Pallinder did say something to 
 me about the old lady being ' queer ' — eccentric, as she put 
 it. That's like charity — it covers a multitude of strange 
 doings." 
 
 " Yes, ' queer * accounts for a good deal," said Gwynne, 
 his face sobering. Doctor Vardaman looked at him with re- 
 gretful tenderness. He walked with us as far as the street, 
 and patted Gwynne's shoulder gently as we parted — an 
 unusual display of feeling from the doctor, who was anything 
 but a demonstrative man. 
 
CHAPTER FIVE 
 
 DOCTOR VARDAMAN'S house was called, in the 
 day when it was built, a Swiss cottage. It was 
 a story and a half high, with a steep-pitched 
 roof, garnished with a kind of scalloped wooden 
 lambrequin pendant from the eaves all around. There were 
 casement-windows with arched tops, and the whole edifice was 
 painted a dark chocolate-brown in accordance, no doubt, 
 with the best Swiss models — at least we never questioned the 
 taste of it. It is possible that the charming and faithful 
 Swiss cottage of to-day may be as much of an offence to 
 the landscape in twenty-five years — so does the old order 
 change, giving place to new. Yet it will always be true that 
 a house derives some curious character from its tenant; the 
 doctor redeemed his cottage; he was the soul of that misbe- 
 gotten body. It was shabby and down-at-heel, if you like, 
 but it was not bourgeois. There was a charm in his unkempt 
 garden, in the slouching ease of his worn old furniture and 
 carpets, his multitudinous loose-backed books, his dim family 
 portraits in chipped gilt frames. He met all hints at altera- 
 tion or renewal with an indulgent ridicule. " Fresh paint ? " 
 he said. " It would make the house look like a servant-girl 
 dressed for Sunday ! " Or : " Better is a horse-hair sofa with 
 brass nails than a plush platform-rocker and veneering there- 
 with!" When the Pallinders moved in, trailing a procession 
 rich as Sheba's past his little iron gate, the doctor viewed it 
 with an indecipherable smile. It was in April, a day of light 
 
 52 
 
THE TENANTS 53 
 
 gusty winds, flashes of sunshine and flashes of rain; and 
 Doctor Vardaman, in his shirt-sleeves, was trowelling amongst 
 his young plants with what he frequently denounced as a 
 frantic and futile energy. " I don't know why I do it," he 
 would say soberly. " Nothing ever grows the better for it ; 
 very often nothing grows at all. The Irishman, the negro, 
 the very Chinaman whom for my sins I am constrained to em- 
 ploy about the house, have achieved triumphs in the way of 
 lilies of the valley and young onions that leave me gasping 
 in defeat. They are ignorant, unwashed, dissolute pagans. 
 Ling Chee was a spectre soaked in opium ; Erastus absconded 
 with all my clothes, my most cherished razors, and whatever 
 money he could get at — yet they had but to scratch the 
 ground and lo, the desert blossomed like the rose! You may 
 see therein the constant allegory of Vice ascendant and un- 
 rewarded Virtue." 
 
 He leaned on his spade in an ironically rustic attitude to 
 watch the Pallinder household goods go by — goods, not gods, 
 for everything, as he observed, was of a transcendant and 
 sparkling newness. Most of us live in unacknowledged bond- 
 age to certain kind, familiar, sooty, and begrimed, utterly 
 useless hearthstone deities. We cling shamefaced to our 
 rickety old relics. The pair of vases that used to stand on 
 mother's mantelpiece — hideous things they are, too, — the 
 little high chair that was Johnny's — he died in '87, you re- 
 member — who has not seen this pathetic lumber voyaging 
 helplessly about from house to apartment, from town to 
 country and back again, hobnobbing peaceably on the rear 
 of the wagon with flower-stands and the gas-range, retiring 
 at last to the garret, but somehow never getting as far as 
 the junk-shop? Sunt lacrimce rerum — as Doctor Vardaman 
 
54 THE TENANTS 
 
 would have said, being somewhat given to Latin tags after 
 the taste of an older generation. His own house was crowded 
 with these touching reminders ; the Pallinders went to the 
 other extreme; either they sternly repressed the mushy senti- 
 mentalism that would cherish outworn sticks and stoneware 
 for the sake of auld lang syne, or they never had had any to 
 cherish. " They brought nothing into the town with them, 
 and it is certain they took nothing away," said the doctor 
 afterwards in an awful and irreverent parody. An aroma of 
 fresh packing-stuff and varnish hung about the caravan ; 
 bright new mirrors swayed and glanced ; and, since the 
 fashions of eighty-one were more or less flamboyant, you 
 might see from afar the roses, poppies, and what-not that 
 bloomed upon the Pallinder rolls of new carpet, the gilt and 
 veneered scrolls, knobs, and channellings of the Pallinder 
 furniture, the Pallinder Tennessee-marble table-tops, care- 
 fully boxed, yet — as one may say in a figure — hallooing 
 aloud for admiration of their size and costliness. There 
 was one van filled with hogsheads packed with china ; it was 
 whispered that many of the things had been ordered from 
 New York, but most of them were got in town at prices that 
 kept the shop-keepers smiling until their bills were sent in 
 — I am anticipating. The doctor espied the ladies in a 
 carriage at the end, and bowed with the rather exuberant 
 courtesy taught in his youth. 
 
 Miss Pallinder returned the salutation; Mrs. Botlisch 
 shouted a jovial " Howdy, Doc. ! " Mrs. Pallinder drew back 
 impulsively in a momentary embarrassment ; she emerged 
 almost instantly and recognised him, triumphantly gracious. 
 But the doctor resumed his digging, inscrutably grinning at 
 the next shovelful. The fact is, this casual passage vividly 
 
THE TENANTS 55 
 
 recalled his first encounter with these ladies a few weeks 
 earlier, upon one of the occasions when they had driven out 
 to inspect the Gwynne house, before the bargain was closed. 
 Doctor Vardaman, in a sleeve-waistcoat, for the day was 
 cold, was busily spading up his beds, when a carriage drew 
 in beside the iron palings. 
 
 " I looked up," the old gentleman used thus to recount the 
 incident, " and saw an exceedingly homely old woman with her 
 bonnet awry; a moderately good-looking young one with 
 hers as straight as Nature intended it, and the rest of her 
 clothes, so far as a man may judge, directly calculated to 
 inspire all other women with despairing envy; and a very 
 uncommonly handsome middle-aged one, whose clothes made 
 positively no difference at all, so much did her looks eclipse 
 them. I saw all these people craning out of their carriage, I 
 say, and in the distance a cavalier on horseback dashing 
 
 along after them in a military style. ' Say, you ' began 
 
 the homely old one. ' My good man,' says the middle-aged 
 one, with an ineffable sweet patronage in her tone. 'Will 
 
 you take this card in to your master and tell him ' And at 
 
 that moment up comes the outrider. He took me in at a 
 glance, jumped off his horse, splashed through the mud, un- 
 covered with a very gallant and engaging deference to my 
 years, and: 'Doctor Vardaman?' says he. ' I'm sure this is 
 Doctor Vardaman, I'm happy to make your acquaintance. 
 We're going to be your neighbours, I hope, and by gad, sir, 
 you set us a good example! We find you like — ah — urn — 
 Quintilius among his cabbages. Sir, my name is Pallinder; 
 
 let me present ' the fellow's manner was perfect ; for the 
 
 soul of me I couldn't help warming to him. And if you think 
 it's a poor sort of gratification to be known for a gentleman, 
 
56 THE TENANTS 
 
 consider how very uncomplimentary it is to be taken for a 
 servant ! * Lord — ee, Bill ! ' screeched out the old woman. 
 ' Mirandy thought he was th' hired man ! That's one on 
 you, Mirandy ! Called him c my good man,' she did ! " and 
 went into a choking and gurgling fit of laughter. Mrs. 
 Pallinder's face turned purple. ' Madame,' says I, anxious 
 to relieve an unpleasant situation. 6 I answer to the noun, 
 but I'm a little doubtful about the adjective!' We parted 
 in the end with great protestations on both sides ; but Mrs. 
 Pallinder was still red as they drove off. Sir, she had made a 
 mistake, and she never would forgive me for it ! " 
 
 This was the first appearance of the Pallinder family upon 
 our stage. They had figured brilliantly on a good many 
 others already, as was discovered some two years later, when 
 occurred their exit; San Francisco, Denver, Chicago, Louis- 
 ville, to say nothing of a score of minor cities knew them, 
 birds of passage. I believe they came from Memphis in the 
 beginning, that is, if they can be said to have come from 
 anywhere, or been native to any place. They were emphati- 
 cally citizens of the world and called all skies home. I find, 
 upon comparing recollections with friends of those days 
 that the measures by which the Pallinders established them- 
 selves in our society are, in that phrase dear to the sedate his- 
 torian of far weightier matters, shrouded in the mists of — of 
 antiquity, the historian would say. Yet it is only twenty-five 
 years, and no one now remembers, or perhaps took note at the 
 time, exactly how these people who came from everywhere 
 and nowhere, whom nobody knew, got themselves in the space 
 of six months, known, liked, and invited far and wide. I fear 
 that solid unornamental worth such as — let us be frank — 
 yours or mine, would not have accomplished so much in as 
 
THE TENANTS 57 
 
 many years. Mrs. Pallindcr must have done a deal of social 
 campaigning in those other centres of enlightenment and 
 culture which I have mentioned, to have become so apt and 
 able; that little slip with Doctor Vardaman was the only 
 one I ever heard recorded against her. She never referred to 
 her life and acquaintance elsewhere, nor traded upon her ex- 
 periences to advance herself with us; yet she never seemed 
 to be pushing. She built, as it were, from the ground; and 
 I have heard very kind and intelligent persons who were 
 not in the least snobs, comment with astonishment on the 
 headway she contrived to make coming wholly unknown as 
 she did, and handicapped by such a mother. The spectacle 
 of wealth allied to feminine beauty, talent, and virtue, 
 struggling for notice is one with which we are all tolerably 
 familiar. 
 
 It is likely that prehistoric woman in the jungle — 
 not prehistoric man, for man seems always to have been a 
 creature slothful in social duties, dull, and democratic in his 
 tastes — demurred at mingling with the same set as the 
 jungle-lady next door; would not allow the children to play 
 with the little cave-dwellers across the way ; wanted to move 
 to the choice and exclusive neighbourhood of the Probably- 
 Arboreals, where she would have better opportunities for 
 meeting those elect gentry. Nowadays, her grand-daughter 
 goes to church with a praiseworthy devotion, she subscribes 
 to all the charities, she sends her children to the most fashion- 
 able schools — they are always the best — she takes courses 
 in French literature, in Current Events, in bridge-playing, in 
 cooking, yes, she would take them, decent woman as she 
 is, in bare-back riding and ballet dancing, in everything and 
 anything under the sun, that will bring her into contact with 
 
58 THE TENANTS 
 
 the charmed circle. She endures unnumbered snubs, or what 
 is worse, the soul-blighting frigid politenesses of present-day 
 Probably-Arboreals ; she sheds tears in secret, she nearly 
 drives her husband to drink, or the poorhouse. And she 
 " gets there," she always gets there, and gleefully proceeds 
 to visit upon the next aspirant some of the treatment she her- 
 self received. The strange thing is that you, who have been 
 " there " all your life, who cannot understand her frantic 
 desires, who are disposed to laugh or sneer at her, you will 
 find her no hustling and elbowing vulgarian as you imagined, 
 but a very charming woman, as clever and well bred as you or 
 any of your native-born residents of the purple. She only 
 wanted to get " there " ; already she has forgot that mean 
 struggle. As high-minded as you are, you too must at least 
 a little admire Success; and she has displayed as much 
 courage and perseverance on her shabby battlefield as it takes 
 to conquer a citadel. 
 
 All this is by way of calling attention to the really re- 
 markable fact that Mrs. Pallinder employed none of the 
 tactics just recited; classes in bridge and Current Events 
 were unknown in her day, and she went to church neither 
 more nor less than other people. She succeeded, I make bold 
 to say, as no one ever has before or since. And this, in spite 
 of the rather unfavourable impression which she and her 
 daughter had made at the start. I, for one, did not much 
 fancy Gwynne's description of Miss Pallinder — her name 
 was Mazie — ogling and making fun with a man like Temple- 
 ton ; I thought her behaviour distinctly common. And that 
 business of taking Gwynne behind the house for a drink of 
 whiskey — out of the bottle, at that! — which does not shock 
 me at all now, was anathema in my eyes then. These opinions 
 
THE TENANTS 59 
 
 were shared by everybody who heard the circumstances ; what 
 made us change our minds? That is the mystery. I think 
 now that the Pallinders won upon us by that very frank 
 gaiety and kindliness that had so touched and attracted 
 Gwynne; nothing else can account for their popularity. Of 
 course at the end of their stay everyone simultaneously dis- 
 covered a number of disagreeable things; the usual wise- 
 acres went about uttering the usual wisdom of " I-told-you- 
 so." Colonel Pallinder had always been a man to distrust; 
 Mrs. Pallinder and her daughter undeniably painted and 
 were too lively in their manners; there was more poker and 
 mint-julep going freely behind the Parthenon portals than 
 one ever saw in the best houses ; and Mrs. Botlisch was per- 
 fectly intolerable. To be just, however, no one had ever pre- 
 tended to think Mrs. Botlisch other than intolerable; some 
 people even went so far as to say that it was greatly to the 
 Pallinders' credit that they did not shake off that terrific 
 social drawback altogether. 
 
 The colonel was a big man, with thick flowing grey hair 
 under a wide-brimmed soft hat ; he wore his clothing with a 
 slashing military picturesqueness — d'Artagnan in a long- 
 skirted black broadcloth coat; and limped a little from a 
 bullet in the thigh at Missionary Ridge. He had a handsome 
 office downtown, and was always enthusiastically busy over 
 the syndicate's affairs; maps of railroads, of iron, salt, coal 
 and " phosphate " territory in Arkansas and elsewhere 
 adorned his walls; circulars and prospectuses gushed forth 
 from his place of business as from a living fountain. Who 
 went up and drank at that sempiternally flowing spring — 
 who, in plain language, invested with Colonel Pallinder? 
 Nobody knew ; but it was easy to see that investment with him 
 
60 THE TENANTS 
 
 paid ; the Pallinders lived in the spacious ease of an unlimited 
 income. 
 
 I suppose his profession was that of promoting — a 
 pursuit which has since been compactly described to me as 
 selling you a cullender for a wash-basin. Socially he took no 
 hand beyond inviting young men to the house, and within 
 an incredibly short time he did not even have occasion for 
 that. They went, of their own motion, in droves, like all the 
 rest of the world. And I will say here, speaking for our 
 youth, that in spite of the cards and cigarettes and cham- 
 pagne, the over-eating and over-drinking, the general lax 
 gaiety of that meteoric two years, I do not believe any of 
 us were materially harmed. We sincerely liked the Pallinders ; 
 we did not merely hanker for their flesh-pots. And even 
 now, after twenty-five years, and knowing all the mean and 
 dingy side of their career, I still cherish a fondness for 
 those hearty, happy, self-indulgent, irresponsible adven- 
 turers. 
 
 The old Gwynne house now underwent a transformation 
 the nature and extent of which can best be realised when it 
 is learned that poor old Caroline Gwynne's room became Miss 
 Mazie Pallinder's ; the roses of Mazie's wall-paper climbed all 
 over that tragic apartment ; lace-edged muslins and flowered 
 cretonne festooned the windows. What with a pillar obscur- 
 ing the east window, and a heavy growth of wistaria matted 
 on a frame in front of the south, you had to feel your way 
 about at broad noon; and were liable to be suddenly as- 
 saulted on the tenderest part of the shins or ankles by some 
 dastardly rocking-chair, lurking in the gloom like a Thug, 
 and inadvertently set in motion. Surprises were pretty fre- 
 quent in that room ; it was not unusual to put your foot down 
 
THE TENANTS 61 
 
 in a box of chocolate-cream drops or through the parchment 
 vitals of Mazie's banjo abandoned on the floor. And when you 
 came face to face with a pale glimmering phantom in a corner 
 it might be either your own figure reflected in one of the full- 
 length mirrors liberally distributed around the walls, or Miss 
 Pallinder herself in an embroidered French night-dress, her 
 favourite afternoon wear. The other decorations were mostly 
 photographs of Mazie in an astounding variety of costumes, 
 and her numberless real or supposed conquests. Young men 
 in regimentals, army or navy ; young men in fancy dress, 
 striking attitudes with a sword, or making a leg in silk 
 tights ; young men with the painfully close-fitting trousers 
 and upright brush of hair fashionable in the eighties — it was 
 a noble array, that gallery of Mazie's, particularly when she 
 began to enrich it with certain more familiar likenesses. 
 There you might see " J. B." Taylor — everybody called him 
 " J. B." — with the cap and gown he had worn at his last 
 Commencement ; Teddy Johns laughing and showing all his 
 teeth — Teddy had fine teeth and knew it; Bob Carson, with 
 something written on the back of the photograph that Mazie 
 made an affectation of not allowing us to read — we had all 
 seen it nevertheless, and used to wonder if Bob were really in 
 earnest; Gwynne Peters, whose fair hair did not come out 
 very well in the photograph, looking startlingly like his 
 grandfather's portrait, with the same long thick flourish of 
 the pen under his name as used to adorn the Governor's. 
 " Yours truly, Gwynne Peters," and the 5 streeling off in a 
 comet's-tail like the final e of old Samuel Gwynne's signature. 
 All these young fellows frequented the house; on summer 
 nights they could be heard as they strode away down Rich- 
 mond Avenue, proclaiming at the tops of their several sets 
 
62 THE TENANTS 
 
 of lungs to a smiling world that the moon shone bright on 
 their old Kentucky-y-y ho-ome, or lamenting in concert that 
 Alas, they were no swimmers, so they lost their Clementine! 
 Doctor Vardaman heard them as he sat smoking the pipe of 
 peace in his porch. " God bless the boys ! " the old man used 
 to say to himself with a sigh. Sometimes they stayed over 
 night, and came yawning downtown to their desks in the 
 morning, sheepishly evading the paternal scowl, victims of 
 Colonel Pallinder's strenuous hospitality. If Mazie had no 
 scalps strung at her belt, she at least displayed the spoils of 
 the vanquished; gloves, bangles, and bon-bons were hers in 
 profuse supply ; when she went away on a visit she corre- 
 sponded with all of them, and was reported to be engaged 
 three deep, to our horrified delight. It is a mistake to sup- 
 pose that girls envy one another these light successes ; we 
 all admired, and I am afraid some of us tried to imitate Miss 
 Pallinder. It was to be noticed that she herself showed an 
 entire impartiality ; when no one else was convenient, she did 
 not hesitate to keep her hand in on Doctor Vardaman, half 
 in fun of course. The old gentleman made an open joke of 
 it. " This is the first time I have given away my picture in 
 forty years," he said; and wrote at the bottom of the card 
 in his neat, clear, physician's hand : " Non sum qualis 
 eram •" 
 
 "What does that mean, Doctor?" Mazie asked him 
 suspiciously. 
 
 " It is a plaint — the plaint of an elderly sentimentalist 
 like me," he answered gravely. " s I am not what once I was 
 in thy day, oh dear Cynara,' " he remarks — in effect. Shall 
 I write the English ? " 
 
THE TENANTS 63 
 
 " No, don't. I think it's ever so much cuter this way. Who 
 was Cynara ? " 
 
 " Well— ahem " 
 
 "Huh! Bet she wasn't any better than she'd ought to 
 be!" grunted old Mrs. Botlisch sceptically; whereat the 
 doctor, after a momentary struggle, laughed so immoder- 
 ately that we all more than half suspected she was right. 
 
CHAPTER SIX 
 
 IF Gwynne Peters had supposed at the outset that the 
 new tenants would remain long unacquainted with their 
 set of erratic landlords, the " quite a few gentlemen 
 and some ladies " whom he had tactfully refrained from 
 mentioning, he would have been profoundly mistaken ; but 
 in fact he supposed nothing of the sort. He knew his kin 
 too well; and perhaps shared tacitly Templeton's openly- 
 expressed and most devout hope that none of them would 
 say or do anything to put the Pallinders out of the notion 
 of buying the property when the lease should expire. 
 " They'll want thirty-five or forty thousand, if not more, 
 I'll bet a doughnut," the agent would say in moments of 
 gloomy confidence ; " and you know, Mr. Peters, the place 
 ain't worth — at least it can't be sold for — a dollar over 
 twenty-eight, the way times are. I might screw the colonel 
 up to twenty-nine-fifty — he seems to be a free spender, and 
 the ladies like the house so much, he'd do anything they 
 want. But, like as not, just as I've done that and got every- 
 thing good and going, Mr. Steven Gwynne will come in with 
 some objection and knock the whole deal higher than Gilde- 
 roy's kite. And when I think of what it will be to get 'em all 
 combed down and willing to sign — and those children of 
 Lucien Gwynne's out in Iowa, you know, they've got to quiet 
 the title — and Mrs. Montgomery over in Chillicothe, she's 
 another — well, I suppose there's no use crossing that bridge 
 till we've come to it, but I tell you sometimes it keeps me 
 
 64 
 
THE TENANTS 6-5 
 
 awake nights worrying." The family had fallen into the habit 
 of leaving all the business connected with THE GWYNNE 
 ESTATE — it must be written thus to furnish some idea of 
 the proportions it assumed in their minds — to Gwynne's 
 management. He had just been elevated to the bar; from 
 thence to the bench, and to whatever corresponds to the wool- 
 sack in our judicial system was, according to them, a short 
 step for a Gwynne. The mantle of his grandfather had 
 fallen upon his shoulders ; they were proud of him in their 
 extraordinary fashion, which combined hysterical and wholly 
 unmerited praise with equally hysterical and undeserved 
 blame. For a while even Gwynne, who had a tolerable sense 
 of humour, took himself with amazing seriousness. He sat in 
 his office surrounded by that copious library of the old 
 gentleman's, now grown somewhat out of date, to be sure, 
 but still impressive by sheer weight and numbers ; there was a 
 photographed copy of the Governor's portrait, inkstand and 
 all, over his desk, and a massive safe in one corner. It con- 
 tained at this time, as Gwynne long years afterward ac- 
 knowledged to me, with laughter, nothing but some of the 
 old family silver, forks, trays, ladles, and what-not black- 
 ened with age and neglect sacked up in flannel wherein the 
 moth made great havoc. " Sam's share, you know," said 
 Gwynne, his face clouding a little, when his laugh was out. 
 " I had to take care of it, of course." 
 
 Into this august retreat came daily one or another of the 
 young fellow's connection with inquiries about that property 
 which everyone of them called in all honesty and simplicity 
 " my house " ; and, after much futile advice, took their leave, 
 commenting on the fact that he strongly resembled his grand- 
 father, and adjuring him to " remember that he was a 
 
66 THE TENANTS 
 
 Gwynne." There were so many of them they gave the place a 
 false air of bustle and business, to which Gwynne used, half 
 in fun, to attribute his later success — " looked as if I was 
 all balled up with work, you know, ' rising young lawyer,' 
 and all the rest of it." But, indeed, I am afraid there were 
 not many affairs of importance going forward among the 
 calf-bound volumes, and Gwynne defaced more than one sheet 
 of legal cap., with gross caricatures and idle verses. If the 
 family took an interest in the fortunes of the house be- 
 fore, it was redoubled now. To have the place rented at all 
 was a novelty; but to have it rented to personages of such 
 opulence and distinction as the Pallinders satisfied the most 
 exact standards ; and the colonel's somewhat vague allusions 
 to his design of ultimately buying it filled these sanguine 
 souls with delight. Let me do them justice: they would one 
 and all have indignantly refused thousands from people whom 
 they deemed unworthy. Have we not seen them rejecting 
 poor Silberberg's offer with contumely? But Colonel Pallin- 
 der with his Virginia accent and his large manner recalled a 
 generation contemporary with Governor Gwynne himself, 
 and the traditions of an antique and formal gentility. The 
 Pallinders were the only people so far who had succeeded in 
 residing in, and dispensing the hospitalities of the old Gwynne 
 house without offence to its owners ; I think the Gwynnes took 
 a kind of vicarious pride in the spectacle. One after another, 
 the entire family called upon them, appraised them, patronised 
 them. They drank the colonel's fine sherry: they covertly 
 eyed Mrs. Pallinder's suave beauty, and Mazie's bewildering 
 toilettes; they were at first repelled and then overpowered 
 by the rich tasteful changes in the ancient rooms ; the pea- 
 cock-blue plush and old-gold satin in the south parlour; the 
 
THE TENANTS 67 
 
 crimson wall-paper embossed with gilt figures the size of a 
 cabbage in the dining-room; the grand piano in the north 
 parlour and piano-lamp glorious with onyx slabs and pendant 
 glass icicles of prisms — the Gwynnes saw all these things with 
 an Indian stolidity in the presence of their tenants, but they 
 came away pleased to the core. They went down to Gwynne's 
 office — yes, even Mrs. Horace Gwynne went ! — and both 
 figuratively and literally patted him on the back. They were 
 actually civil to Templeton ! Old Steven Gwynne, who had 
 been violently alarmed at first, supposing that these improve- 
 ments and furnishings must be paid for by himself and the 
 rest of the heirs, magically recovered his tranquillity so soon 
 as he heard that Colonel Pallinder was doing it all out of his 
 own pocket ; he pronounced the wall-paper and new graining 
 to be in the best of taste, although hardly the equal in appear- 
 ance or cost of what Governor Gwynne would have pro- 
 vided. Such was the Gwynne enthusiasm that I am convinced 
 it must have contributed largely to the success of the Pallin- 
 ders with our society; for, after all, as unstable as they 
 themselves were, the Gwynne position with us was of the most 
 stable; our city had known them for fifty years. A family 
 whose men were rigorously confined to the professions — all 
 except Horace Gwynne, who was in the wholesale grocery 
 business, — a family which numbered among its members a 
 governor of a State — even if it also numbered one or more 
 " queer " people — such a family held, unquestioned, the high- 
 est social rank. And Mrs. Horace Gwynne — she was a daugh- 
 ter of old Bishop Hunter, which may be supposed in a 
 measure to set off the grocery business — frankly considered 
 herself arbiter not only of her husband's family, but of 
 society in general as well; and never doubted that in the 
 
68 THE TENANTS 
 
 matter of assigning people to their caste and station one 
 
 blast upon her bugle-horn was worth a thousand men. 
 
 She performed her first visit in state and ceremony in her 
 well-ordered barouche — the Horace Gwynnes were fairly 
 well-to-do, owing, people said, to Mrs. Horace's implacable 
 thrift — and eying the approaches to the old house, as she 
 drove up in a highly critical and examining mood. Her sharp 
 glance noted every change; the carefully-weeded sweep and 
 circle of the drive, the close-cut lawn and pruned shrubbery 
 pleased her like an incense to the Governor's memory. The 
 place had not looked so since his day. There was a length of 
 red carpet down over the flagged veranda and stone steps 
 such as used to adorn the sacred threshold thirty years before 
 when she was a young bride just entered into the family ; this 
 trivial thing moved her inexplicably as such things do, and 
 she descended at the door in a temper of less severity. It 
 augured well for the pair of ladies within, profanely peering 
 through their exceedingly high-priced lace curtains and 
 wondering who on earth the funny little old lady in the 
 chignon and her best black silk was. 
 
 Mazie, as soon as her acquaintance became more extended 
 and intimate, entertained us with a picturesque and I have 
 no doubt entirely accurate account of this and other Gwynne 
 visits. If they amused her she was by far too sharp to let it 
 be seen; not thus do people attain popularity. Mazie knew 
 when, and in what company, and of what sort of things to 
 make fun ; no gift can be more valuable to the social aspirant. 
 No, Miss Pallinder, curled up on her flowered-cretonne sofa, 
 nibbling caramels, and telling us about the Gwynnes, might 
 have posed for the model of the ingenue, girlish, inexperi- 
 enced, and youthfully gay. " We didn't know there was such 
 
THE TENANTS 69 
 
 a large family of Gwynnes," she explained. " Are any of you 
 related to them? No? They're perfectly lovely people, aren't 
 they? They've all called on us, and you know I think that's 
 so kind when we came here such strangers ; we were awfully 
 lonesome for a while. If it hadn't been for Doctor Vardaman, 
 I don't know what we'd have done. Isn't he the dearest old 
 gentleman ? Mamma fairly fell in love with him at first sight ; 
 we have him up to dinner all the time, now. You know it's 
 such a terrible job for him to get a good servant — I'm sure 
 I can't see why. I told him he could hire me any day. I sup- 
 pose it's because it's a little lonely, and his house must be so 
 quiet. We don't have any trouble, but then we have such a 
 gang of them they keep each other company. But you know 
 we were so surprised after people began to call on us to find 
 out there were so many Gwynnes ! Mr. Peters had said some- 
 thing about them — I think he's lovely, don't you? but we 
 hadn't any idea there was such a big connection; the house 
 belongs to all of them — did you know that? At least they all 
 call it their house. Such a dear old lady came — well, maybe 
 not so very old, but dressed in rather an old-fashioned way 
 — Mrs. Horace Gwynne, of course you all know her. She was 
 just sweet, and took such an interest. She told mamma the 
 piano ought to be on the other side of the room, because 
 there was so much better light by that window, and that was 
 where it always was when Governor Gwynne lived here. And 
 she wanted to know if we had noticed that those big cut-glass 
 chandeliers in the centre of the ceilings downstairs were an 
 exact copy, only smaller, of the one in the State-House — 
 that was being built at the same time as this house, and the 
 Governor had the copies made, he admired the design so 
 much. Isn't that interesting? And then mamma had one of 
 
70 THE TENANTS 
 
 the servants bring some hot coffee and little cakes, the way 
 we always do, you know, and Mrs. Gwynne told us about some 
 kind of cookies she has made that are the best she ever ate, 
 so mamma asked her for the recipe right off — mamma can't 
 cook a bit, and don't go in the kitchen once a month, but she's 
 ever so much interested just the same. And when Mrs. 
 Gwynne went away she said she'd had a lovely time — wasn't 
 it nice of her? and was going to have all her family call on 
 us — wasn't that kind? And she sent us a card to her recep- 
 tion; and right the very next afternoon Mrs. Lawrence 
 called — she's another Gwynne, isn't she? — and asked us to 
 Marian's coming-out party, so sweet. And, oh, girls, two 
 such dear funny little old mai — I mean elderly, and they 
 aren't married, you know — Miss Gwynne and Miss Mollie 
 Gwynne came — what are you all laughing at, what's the 
 joke? Well, I think you're real mean not to tell me! / 
 thought they were nice — well, of course, maybe they did seem 
 kind of queer, but — well, it was a little funny," said Mazie, 
 yielding to the laughter with apparent reluctance ; " we took 
 them all over the house, because we thought, you know, they'd 
 be pleased to see the way we'd fixed it up. And they did seem 
 rather tickled ; Miss Gwynne said she thought they had never 
 had any tenants in their house before that appreciated it 
 as we did. And when we got to the south parlour Miss 
 Mollie wouldn't go in, and Miss Gwynne took us in and said 
 in an awful whisper that everybody in the family had been 
 laid out in that room, but she'd try to get Miss Mollie in to 
 look at the chandelier which was an exact copy of the one in 
 the State-House — and Mollie hadn't been in the house for 
 so long, maybe it would refresh her, and take her mind off 
 the funerals, you know. So Mollie came in," went on Mazie, 
 
THE TENANTS 71 
 
 who by this time was openly laughing like everyone else, 
 " and she took one look and covered her eyes like this, and 
 said ' Oh, Sister Eleanor, I can't— I can't,' and Sister Eleanor 
 said, ' Look up, Mollie, look up ' — just as if it was Heaven, 
 you know — ' don't you remember the chandelier ? ' And then 
 Miss Mollie said, ' Oh, yes, I remember — shall I ever forget 
 — boo-hoo ! — it cost three hundred and twenty-five dollars — 
 boo-hoo! — every one of 'em cost three hundred and twenty- 
 five dollars ! ' But, honestly, girls, it's all very well to laugh, 
 but it gives me the creeps to think of that room since I've 
 known; I can't go into it without seeing a coffin spread out 
 right where our centre-table is; and you know there's that 
 lovely bisque monkey climbing up a cord that mamma has 
 hanging from the chandelier — think of that dangling down 
 over a — B-r-r ! I didn't know about so many Gwynnes dying 
 here. There's enough left to keep the family going anyway, 
 I should think. Was Mr. Peters' brother one of 'em that 
 died in the house? Eh? What! Mercy! isn't that awful? 
 Why, I thought somebody said Sam Peters was in Honduras 
 or Alaska or somewhere — is it the same one? Isn't that aw- 
 ful! Isn't it safe to have him Horrors! Oh, girls, I 
 
 think that's awful! And Mr. Peters is such a dear, isn't he? 
 So nice! But don't you tell him I said that — now please don't, 
 girls, Fd be ready to fall down dead I'd be so ashamed if he 
 knew I said he was a dear. I'd never look him in the face 
 again," said the ingenuous Mazie, knowing perfectly well — 
 who better? — that Gwynne would be miraculously informed 
 of this damaging admission before the next twenty-four hours 
 were over. 
 
 The Pallinders were not quit of their landlords, for a 
 few episodes such as those Mazie described; but, as it hap- 
 
72 THE TENANTS 
 
 pens, I never heard her tell of Steven Gwynne's visit; and 
 only learned the details afterwards in a roundabout way 
 from Doctor Vardaman and Gwynne, both of whom were 
 witnesses of that momentous event. Steven was about the age 
 of Doctor Vardaman and looked twenty years older ; they 
 had been boys together. When Steven came in town — he 
 lived in a weird little tumble-down cottage with a ragged 
 little farm to match it, several miles out in the country — he 
 always went to see the doctor, whom he called Jack, and of 
 whom he grew touchingly and somewhat embarrassingly fond 
 towards the last of his life. I remember him a tremulous old 
 man with wild grey hair and beard # in clothing worse than 
 shabby, and coarse boots, walking with the aid of a ferocious- 
 looking cane, a forlorn and fantastic and rather alarming 
 figure ; yet he was really nothing to be afraid of, although I 
 suppose he was just not quite crazy. When you came to 
 know about him, poor old Steven filled one with pity and that 
 strange baseless remorse with which the view of weakness or 
 suffering sometimes afflicts us. The gifts are so unjustly 
 portioned out; simple flesh-and-blood rebels at the shame 
 of it. These are whole, prosperous and victorious; these 
 maimed, mad, dull, helpless, or hopeless — and who is to 
 blame ? It is none of our fault ; none the less, the sight galls 
 us to the quick; and there are moments when the spectacle 
 of a string of navvies moiling soddenly in a ditch seems an 
 outrage on humanity. Something of this used to go through 
 Doctor Vardaman's mind as he sat in his library listening 
 patiently and most humanely to his old-time playfellow's end- 
 less rambling talk. Steven was a profuse talker; he picked 
 up crumbs of misinformation with a kind of squirrel-like 
 diligence ; all his life he had been beginning something — law, 
 medicine, divinity, what had he not tried? He never learned 
 
THE TENANTS 73 
 
 anything ; he could hardly spell ; he used to declaim heatedly 
 against the tyranny of schools, and had a great taste for 
 phrases such as " Nature's gentlemen." Even our tolerant 
 society could not stand Steven Gwynne; it was said that he 
 was not stupid, and not much queerer, after all, than some 
 of the other Gwynnes, but — nobody could stand Steven 
 Gwynne. When he had nearly run through his patrimony, 
 the Governor, who was his cousin, took him in hand, regulated 
 his affairs, and exiled him to that little farm I have men- 
 tioned. Steven was upwards of thirty at this time, but he 
 obeyed the family great man peaceably enough ; and there he 
 had lived ever since; indulging — theoretically only, by good 
 luck — in extraordinary beliefs about State Rights — during 
 the Civil War — about Science and Religion, about Property, 
 about Marriage, about everything and anything under the 
 sun, harmless, distressing, and annoying. Young Gwynne 
 had inherited him along with the other responsibilities of the 
 GWYNNE ESTATE ; and when, rumours of the new tenants 
 having reached him, the old gentleman appeared in the office, 
 Gwynne must take him to call upon them. " I would not wish 
 to be lacking in etiquette," said Steven elaborately. u And 
 I'm told that Colonel Pallinder's family belong to our circle. 
 It is the duty of every one of the owners, and I trust that it 
 won't be forgotten that / am one of the heirs to the Gwynne 
 estate," he added, eying the reluctant young man with some 
 harshness, for Steven was tenacious of his rights : " to — to 
 hold out the right hand of fellowship to — to the stranger 
 within our gates." 
 
 " You never did before," Gwynne objected. " We've had 
 two or three tenants that you've never even seen. I don't 
 really think it makes the least difference " 
 
 " I've never had this kind of tenants before," said Steven 
 
74 THE TENANTS 
 
 — which, indeed, was an unanswerable argument. " Why, 
 they've been there six months ! You don't understand about 
 these social matters, Gwynne. It's diplomacy. They're in 
 Governor Gwynne's house, and it's natural they should expect 
 the Gwynne family to recognise them. Why, they might take 
 offence and leave! Besides, it's the part of kindness for us 
 to introduce them around, it — it gives 'em a place at once. 
 People say : ' There's So-and-so, he's a friend of the Gwynnes.' 
 That — that settles it, don't you see? Why, now, to give you 
 an example: Jake Bennett was at my house the other day, 
 and I told him I'd pay him as soon as the rent from my prop- 
 erty came in. He says : ' That's all right, Mr. Gwynne, I 
 know I can trust you. A Gwynne's word's as good as his 
 bond,' he says. That just shows. 6 A Gwynne's word's as 
 good as his bond,' he says. * I know you, Mr. Gwynne ; you're 
 Governor Gwynne's cousin, and that's good enough for me, 
 or anybody ' " 
 
 a 
 
 Who's Jake Bennett ? " asked Gwynne abruptly. 
 
 " Why, he's a man I buy a load of manure from once in a 
 while. He's a little queer in the upper story, you know," said 
 old Steven, tapping his own forehead with a wise nod. " But 
 the poor fellow's heart's in the right place. ' A Gwynne's 
 word's as good as his bond,' he says " 
 
 " You oughtn't to be owing that man, Cousin Steven," in- 
 terrupted Gwynne. He turned to his desk. " Here, this is 
 the nineteenth, but I'll give you yours now, and then you 
 can pay him when you get home. Now, you sign a receipt 
 for this seven-fifty, and I'll tell Templeton I advanced it, so 
 he can hold it out of yours next month. Now you're getting 
 your December money in November, see? There won't be 
 anything coming to you from the house the first of December, 
 
THE TENANTS 75 
 
 understand? Seven dollars and a half — sign here. And you 
 pay that manure-fellow as soon as you get home, will you? ' 
 
 Steven would, he said. He folded the money together and 
 crammed it into his tattered old pocket-book ; he handled it 
 a little eagerly, never having had much to handle. " We'd 
 better start out to see them, the Pallinders, you know — right 
 away, hadn't we?" he said, glancing at the clock. 
 
 Gwynne looked at him with a sinking heart. Of course he 
 was not ashamed of his kin. What! Ashamed of Cousin 
 Steven! Gwynne would have knocked down the man who 
 hinted it. Nevertheless, it must be allowed that Cousin Steven 
 was more lax in matters relating to his personal appearance 
 even than became one of Nature's gentlemen. He did not 
 shave; he chewed tobacco; his boots manifested some ac- 
 quaintance with Jake Bennett's unpaid-for wares. We all 
 know that these things really do not count; a man's a man 
 for a' that. It would be a shoddy soul that would condemn 
 him for not blacking his boots, or cavil at the fashion of his 
 coat. Still, we are conscious of a curious confusion within us 
 on the point; we muddle the clear stainless water of our 
 theories with the cloudy dye of our conventions ; and to most 
 of us, the quality of gentleman seems somehow inextricably 
 associated with clean linen. Gwynne was no snob, but 
 
 " Suppose we stop in to see Doctor Vardaman first and ask 
 him to lend you a collar and tie — you know that kind of high 
 black stock he wears?" he suggested weakly. "And then 
 y 0U — y 0U might wash your hands, you know, and, and — 
 clean your nails. I should think your hands would be cold 
 this weather, Cousin Steven ; don't you want to buy a pair of 
 gloves ? " 
 
 "Gloves?" said Steven contemptuously. " You're too 
 
76 THE TENANTS 
 
 delicate, Gwynne. You've got all effeminated, living the way 
 you do. Gloves! D'ye suppose Adam, the great father of 
 mankind, wore gloves? You want to get out and live next 
 to grand old Nature, and old Mother Earth. Those Pallin- 
 ders are kind of dressy people, hey? Well, I don't care how 
 dressy they are; they can wear all the gloves they damn 
 please. I'll let you know, sir, that a Gwynne in his undershirt 
 would be enough too good for any Pallinder that ever lived 
 — yes, or anybody else either ! " A mottled flush appeared 
 on his old face ; he raised his voice ; he made wild hasty ges- 
 tures, thumping with his cane. " You want me to spend 
 money on gloves — drivelling ostentation! Gold's the curse 
 
 of this country, and you want me to " Gwynne was a 
 
 little alarmed at these signs of excitement. 
 
 " All right, Cousin Steven, never mind," he said sooth- 
 ingly. " I — I just wanted you to be comfortable, you know. 
 You'd just as lief go and see Doctor Var daman, wouldn't 
 you?" 
 
 Steven was readily mollified — or perhaps, diverted would 
 be the better word. Jack? Yes, he wanted to see old Jack — 
 he wanted to talk to him about something. Jack Vardaman 
 was a man of sound sense, if he could be brought to the right 
 views. " He's been cramped by — by his career, and his pro- 
 fession," said the old man, gesticulating with one hand as 
 they walked. " I tried it, studying medicine, you know — but 
 it's not broad enough, Gwynne, not broad enough. Jack finds 
 it hard to grasp any new ideas. I said to him the last time I 
 was in : ' John, this money trouble we're labouring under all 
 proceeds from — from — from the circulating medium. Why 
 have any? Why have any circulating medium? Poverty is a 
 lacking in the essentials of life because of waste on the super- 
 
THE TENANTS 77 
 
 flulties through the use of money — circulating medium ; you 
 want to rid yourself of the — the — the economic compulsion 
 to wrong-doing — I've been studying a pamphlet by William 
 P. Drinkwater that goes to the heart of the financial situa- 
 tion in this country.' I say, get rid of the circulating medium. 
 Gwynne, do away with it utterly, fall back on exchange of 
 the — the products of labour, and an era of prosperity will 
 set in such as this country has never seen ! " 
 
 Gwynne reflected with a wry smile that it would be interest- 
 ing to hear an expression of opinion from Jake Bennett on 
 the subject; times were hard in eighty-one, as some of us 
 remember, and in these disjointed arguments, Gwynne rec- 
 ognised some echo of the political agitations of the day. To 
 be fair, Steven Gwynne was no more astray in speech or 
 manner than many of the William P. Drinkwaters ; the 
 exasperating thing about him was that constant appearance 
 of being able to control himself, if he only would, which seems 
 to be one of the specific symptoms of unsoundness. 
 
 " You will find that the lack — I mean the absence of a 
 medium of coinage," said Steven, as they climbed on the 
 car — " By George ! It is cold, isn't it ? " he interrupted him- 
 self, " I guess I'll put my mitts on." And, to Gwynne's sur- 
 prise, he produced those symbols of ostentation and effem- 
 inacy from the pocket of his overcoat, and began to adjust 
 them with every display of comfort. They were a bright 
 " Maria-Louise " purple. " Knit worsted, you know," said 
 Steven. " I got 'em at Billy Sharpe's at the corners, for 
 seventy-five cents " 
 
 " You're getting effeminated, Cousin Steven," said 
 Gwynne, soberly. " Mittens ! The idea ! Do you suppose 
 Adam wore mittens?" 
 
78 THE TENANTS 
 
 " Well, I understand Adam didn't wear breeches either," 
 said Steven, with an unexpected flash of humour. " I'm not 
 luxurious, anyhow, like you with your kids. But you're young 
 — you'll learn." He laid his hand on Gwynne's arm affection- 
 ately. " You're a good boy, Gwynne, if you do get kind of 
 stuck-up notions, you're a good boy," he said with earnest- 
 ness — and the young man's heart smote him. 
 
 He found his cousin so tractable on the journey out that 
 he began to have hopes of persuading Steven to the collar 
 and wash-basin, with Doctor Vardaman's help. " I'd rather 
 Mrs. Pallinder saw him looking clean, anyhow — she's so 
 dainty herself," thought Gwynne, with a burning change of 
 colour. Alas ! No such good luck ! As they neared the Swiss 
 cottage, they beheld the lady tripping out from the door, 
 exquisitely trim and gracious, smiling and showing all her 
 pretty white teeth, with Doctor Vardaman escorting her to 
 his gate, in his pleasantly formal old way. Mrs. Pallinder 
 dimpled, and flashed her clear grey eyes under their amaz- 
 ingly black lashes and brows at Gwynne ; she was en-haloed in 
 rich furs and soft scrolls of ostrich-plumes; she rustled and 
 fluttered with an enticing suggestion of dainty womanliness, 
 and there was something even in the frail absurdity of her 
 little, thin, high-heeled and pointed-toed boots that appealed 
 to the masculine sense almost touchingly. Old Steven Gwynne 
 himself felt this jewelry-box charm; he looked at her with 
 open, child-like, rather frightened admiration. Wealth and 
 luxury for which in the abstract he had — or believed himself 
 in all sincerity to have — so vigorous a disdain, exhibited thus 
 concretely, stunned the old man ; Mrs. Pallinder, to the ordi- 
 nary view merely an unusually handsome and well-dressed 
 woman, somehow represented to Steven that material power, 
 
THE TENANTS 79 
 
 confident, lucky, successful, to which he had long ago bowed 
 down in the person of Governor Gwynne; and,, if it had not 
 been for the uplifting consciousness of being that great 
 man's cousin, Steven would have shuffled and stammered be- 
 fore her like any school-boy. 
 
 " Mr. Peters," said Mrs. Pallinder, delightedly. She with- 
 drew a hand from her coquettishly fashionable little muff — 
 we wore them very small in those days, a mere cuff of fur — 
 and gave it to Gwynne, who was oddly nervous, with soothing 
 self-possession. The readiness with which she set herself to 
 the business of putting Steven at his ease was a grateful 
 thing to see; she accepted his purple mitt, and shed on him 
 a smile as winning as if he had been the most desirable ac- 
 quaintance in the world. These courtesies, we have been 
 assured, are, in reality, nothing but small evidences of a 
 kind heart; yet I never thought Mrs. Pallinder a kind- 
 hearted woman. Her elegant cordialities were not sponta- 
 neous ; she spread the conversation with a thin glittering 
 varnish of smiles, agreeable speeches, pretty conventionali- 
 ties ; one sometimes felt uneasily that her tact was almost ag- 
 gressively brilliant, her good manners too flawless. But 
 Gwynne, having in mind, maybe, this very incident, was quite 
 enthusiastic about her to his intimates; Mrs. Pallinder was 
 so kind, so considerate, a — a — a really sweet woman — sweet- 
 tempered, he meant, of course, wasn't she? As for Steven, 
 he proclaimed her without exception the most polished lady 
 he had ever met. Doctor Vardaman — but one could not al- 
 ways be sure of what Doctor Vardaman thought. " Mrs. 
 Pallinder was an uncommon sort of woman," he used to say 
 with an unreadable expression. " I admired her very much 
 — almost as much as I wondered at her. When we met at 
 
80 THE TENANTS 
 
 my gate she contrived to look at us three men, as if every 
 one severally were the man in the world in whom she was most 
 interested. Are ladies taught these things from their cradles ? 
 I am told so; but I never saw one of them do it so well as 
 Mrs. Pallinder. It's a tolerably stiff job to listen to poor 
 Steven discourse on the circulating medium. Experto 
 credite! I've done it myself for hours at a stretch that I 
 piously hope will count for me when I get to the Place of 
 Punishment. But I'm sure I never could have done it with so 
 perfect a grace as Mrs. Pallinder. We went up to the house, 
 she walking the whole way with Steven, Gwynne and I follow- 
 ing in the rear, humbly grateful and admiring. ' You're not 
 a married man, Mr. Gwynne?' says Mrs. Pallinder, snatch- 
 ing at a change of topic in one of the pauses of Steven's elo- 
 quence. ' I've met so many charming Mrs. Gwynnes ' 
 
 4 Madame, I am not,' said Steven. ' Do you know why the 
 eagle is called the bird of freedom, Mrs. Pallinder ? ' Here," 
 said the doctor, with a malicious grin, " I thought I detected 
 a sort of crooked sequence in Steven's thoughts, but Mrs. 
 Pallinder was as nearly gravelled as I ever saw her ; and you 
 must admit the subject was somewhat abruptly introduced. 
 ' A — er — why, I must give it up, I am afraid,' she said. ' It's 
 a riddle, isn't it? I'm not very good at riddles.' ' Because it 
 never mates in captivity, ma'am,' says Steven profoundly. 
 ' That's the way I am ; the chains of gold, the circulat- 
 ing ' and I suppose he was going to intimate by a delicate 
 
 allegory that he couldn't afford a wife and family, but we 
 reached the house at that moment, and the changes in its ap- 
 pearance switched him off, as it were." 
 
 The old man was, in fact, rather pathetically overawed 
 by all the Pallinder sumptuousness ; he looked down at his 
 
THE TENANTS 81 
 
 boots doubtfully, and trod with caution on the velvet moss- 
 roses and lilies of the south parlour. It required the telling 
 of the cut-glass chandelier story to revive his spirit; and 
 Mrs. Pallinder further smoothed matters by asking his 
 opinion of the new wall-paper with a caressing deference. 
 Afterwards, it is true, Steven went away in a mood of gracious 
 approval, and bragged freely with no little satisfaction about 
 his tenants in his house; but at the first moment, he was 
 both startled and unhappy. There were gilt mirrors all about 
 that gave back a pitiless reflection of the party, and of them 
 all, I believe that Doctor Vardaman was the only one who 
 was not faintly ill at ease. The situation was actually relieved 
 by the entrance of old Mrs. Botlisch, as incongruous a figure 
 in the scene as Steven himself. " And somehow or other," 
 said the doctor, " I am sure the look of her for once was a 
 kind of comfort to Gwynne; it seemed as if she and poor 
 Steven were a — well, a stand-off, with the balance in favour 
 of Steven. You know Mrs. Pallinder was always saying in 
 a gentle regretful way that her mother was 6 eccentric' She 
 was, in fact — ahem ! — I am informed by the ladies of my ac- 
 quaintance," Doctor Vardaman would say, with another grin, 
 " that she was a dreadfully ' common ' old person who drank 
 and swore like a trooper, but was as sane as anybody. Where- 
 as, we all know that whatever Steven's faults, he was not — 
 was not entirely responsible." 
 
 " That old Gwynne feller's crazy, ain't he? " the old woman 
 said to him as the doctor sat at the Pallinder dinner-table 
 that evening. There were a number of other guests, for the 
 colonel's hospitalities were already well known ; it was a pleas- 
 ing picture of evening-coats, white shoulders, brilliant glass- 
 ware, and cutlery; and Mrs. Pallinder at the head, lent the 
 
82 THE TENANTS 
 
 table a distinction like that of some expensive ornament or 
 flower. Across the way sat her mother, shovelling in French 
 peas on the blade of her knife, that being one of the phases 
 of her eccentricity, and disposing of everything from soup 
 to sweets with an audible gusto. " It's astonishing ! " said 
 the doctor to himself, his glance travelling from one woman 
 to the other. " Pardon me, Mrs. Botlisch, you were 
 saying ? " 
 
 " I say that old Gwynne feller's crazy," said Mrs. Botlisch. 
 w He ain't dangerous, is he? " 
 
 " What ? Steven ? " said the doctor, and although she was 
 very nearly right, he recoiled inwardly. " Why, no, he's not 
 crazy, he's a little — a little eccentric," he finished, conscious 
 of a wretched irony in the phrase. 
 
 " Pooh, pshaw, don't you tell me, Doc, he's as crazy as a 
 bedbug," said Mrs. Botlisch coolly. " It's a pity about that 
 young Peters' folks being that way, so many of 'em, ain't it ? " 
 
CHAPTER SEVEN 
 
 IT will be seen that, by the close of their period, Doctor 
 Vardaman had grown to be pretty familiar in the Pall- 
 inder household. Mazie professed a prodigious admira- 
 tion for him. " He does say the cutest things ! " she 
 remarked enthusiastically. But Mazie's attitude toward the 
 other sex was never anything but that of complete apprecia- 
 tion. I have seen her turn her eyes on the coloured butler 
 when commanding a fresh relay of waffles with an expression 
 to draw from him rubies, let alone waffles ! Her liking for 
 the doctor was perhaps as sincere a sentiment as she could 
 harbour ; who could forbear a fondness for that genial, toler- 
 ant, grey-headed satirist? In him were to be found all the 
 strangely dissonant yet most manly qualities of his genera- 
 tion. In the early eighties there was still extant a tribe of 
 hearty old gentlemen who wore black silk stocks, swore freely, 
 and knew Henry Clay. You may see their strong humorous 
 faces, shirt-frills, and waving forelocks upon scores of cracked 
 canvases in how many Middle-Western homes ! Grandfather 
 rode circuit with Swayne and Tom Ewing ; he sat in Congress 
 with that Southern statesman of whom it was said that when 
 he took snuff all South Carolina sneezed. Perhaps he remem- 
 bered Chapultepec and the heights of Monterey ; it is likely 
 that he surveyed the first turnpike, designed the first Court- 
 house, performed the first mastoid operation in the State, in 
 the country. In all things I think he played a man's part, 
 and maybe something more, without any heroics ; I knew 
 many of him, and it cannot be denied that he would some- 
 
 83 
 
84 THE TENANTS 
 
 times get a sheet in the wind's eye, and tell robustly indecorous 
 stories after the second glass of whisky-punch sitting around 
 the hearth of a winter's evening. There was that one about 
 the English visitor at Niagara, who, being conducted around 
 the place by the guide, out to the little tower on Table Rock, 
 and down on the Maid of the Mist like everyone else, wrote 
 his name in the guests' book, and a conundrum : Why am I 
 
 like Desdemona? Because " But, at this point, by an 
 
 ingenious manoeuvre, someone invariably called me from the 
 room! And, strange to say, I was not suffered to return; 
 Desdemona was in the nature of a prelude, I suspect. We 
 have changed all that; who so plain-spoken as the lady- 
 novelist of to-day, whom everybody reads, and, what is more, 
 discusses ? Who so wise as our young people ? Nobody would 
 be at the pains to banish them from the room. They would 
 not laugh at or with grandpa; they would only wonder a 
 little and pity him. They are all gone, all these humane old 
 lads with their whisky-punches, their dreadful old fly-blown 
 anecdotes, their extraordinary, innocent coarseness of mind. 
 The type has vanished from among us, extinct like the 
 dinosaur, dead as Desdemona ! It is hard to figure them pac- 
 ing beneath the cloudy porticos of that rather shoddy gilt 
 Heaven in which they stoutly believed; but do they then 
 wander the empty house of Dis, the idle, idle land? That 
 were a doom at once unkind and unjust ; rather let me fancy 
 them beside the cheerful hearth in some comfortable limbo 
 of good companionship and honest material pleasures; and 
 if that too be a heresy and interdict, may the sod rest light 
 where they sleep ! 
 
 Doctor Vardaman differed signally from his contempo- 
 raries in being not at all disposed to punch and pruriency. 
 
THE TENANTS 85 
 
 He would have reddened like a winter apple at Desdemona ; 
 and I am bound to say that here Colonel Pallinder met him 
 on equal ground. It would be worth a moralist's while to 
 inspect that stout piece of goods which is men's modesty be- 
 side the curiously flimsy fabric we call the modesty of women. 
 " It's funny about men," Kitty Oldham confided to me once. 
 " They can be as bad as they want to, and so, when they're 
 good they seem an awful lot better than we are ! " That may 
 be the root of the matter ; Kitty was undeniably astute and 
 observant in various small and eminently feminine ways. 
 " Nobody's all good anyhow," was another of her sayings, 
 " nor all bad either. I know by myself ! " Colonel Pallinder 
 was an example, too, had we been aware of it. I have heard 
 since from many indignant sufferers that he was a swindling 
 adventurer ; yet Bayard himself could not have walked more 
 circumspectly in certain paths. He believed with all his heart 
 that his wife and daughter were beautiful and gifted above 
 the ordinary lot of mortals ; I think they never had a wish 
 ungratified. That hand of his which they tell me was so ruth- 
 lessly busy about other peoples' pockets, was forever empty- 
 ing his own for the satisfaction of his womenkind; the trait 
 does not make any the better man of him, but I am sure there 
 have been worse. His behaviour toward Mrs. Botlisch was a 
 lesson in forbearance and good manners. He did more than 
 endure her ; he showed her precisely the same chivalric defer- 
 ence as the rest of us. Perhaps he was a little florid in the 
 Southern style, and as became a military man, but I think he 
 was never ridiculous. It happend one day that an ill-advised 
 or maybe merely ill-bred young man having blurted out some 
 joke, high-flavoured, derogatory to Mrs. Botlisch, over one 
 of those famous juleps in the Pallinder dining-room, the 
 
86 THE TENANTS 
 
 colonel rose up and with a severe countenance, laid his hand 
 upon the joker's arm and jerked him upright without much 
 ceremony. " Don't mind him, Colonel," interposed an on- 
 looker. " He — he's not used to ladies' society, you know." 
 " Sir," said the colonel sedately, " I should have said he was 
 not used to the society of gentlemen ! " and with that bundled 
 the offender out of the room and the house. Nor did the 
 action make him enemies; the rest of the male company ex- 
 pressed an unqualified approval. 
 
 " I was a little afraid that he might want to resort to the 
 6 code ' as practised in Virginia or Mississippi, or wherever 
 he hails from," said Doctor Vardaman, commenting on this 
 occurrence, " and call upon my services as surgeon ; but he 
 was too shrewd, or in his way, too large-minded for that. On 
 the whole Pallinder was the most attractive as well as the 
 most diverting humbug I ever knew or can imagine. I liked 
 him against my will. He was generous to the last penny — 
 with money that was shadily come by, to be sure, but what 
 would you have? He might have been as tight as the bark 
 on a tree. He was a brave man and had borne himself gal- 
 lantly on the field, and I am sure uncomplainingly in defeat. 
 There was no sham about that limp of his at any rate. But 
 he never spoke of these things, nor ever flourished the Lost 
 Cause in your face, that I know of. Maybe it was all part of 
 his policy, but I like better to think that he had the qualities 
 of his defects." 
 
 It is to be supposed that Colonel Pallinder returned the 
 doctor's regard. The old gentleman was their nearest, in fact 
 almost their only neighbour, and the colonel used to dilate in 
 comic vein upon the advantages of having a physician next 
 door, and keeping on good terms with him. " 6 Hang it all, 
 
THE TENANTS 87 
 
 Miranda,' I said to my wife the other day, ' what do you want 
 to call in young Sawbones — Pellets — whatever his name is, 
 the doctor-lad you had here last week for, when you can have 
 twice his experience and ten times the gumption he ever had 
 or will have, by merely going as far as your own front gate? 
 Pellets is a homceop., anyhow. I don't like homceops. Give me 
 the old school ; they knock you on the head with their whack- 
 ing doses and kill you or cure you, put you out of your misery 
 any way, while the others are still measuring out their in- 
 fernal four dips of this and two swallows of that. When 
 Mazie there was three years old she ate a whole bottle of 
 sugared pills while the nurse wasn't looking. If it had been 
 Doctor Yardaman's medicine, we'd have had to send for him 
 and the undertaker and let 'em fight it out, and I'd back the 
 doctor every time. As it was — never feazed her ! Day before 
 yesterday, my coachman came to me : ' Don' know what's the 
 matter with me, boss. Feel mighty bad.' I asked him if he'd 
 been to the doctor. ' Yes, sah, he give me this. I'se got to 
 take fo' dips every hour.' ' Look here, James,' says I. fi I 
 want you to notice just one thing. You're a big man, and 
 that's an almighty small bottle. Do you think four dips of 
 that is going to cure six-foot-two of nigger? It don't stand 
 to reason. When I'm sick,' says I, ' I go to Doctor Varda- 
 man. I want a doctor to take care of me. Quit practice? 
 Oh, pshaw, pooh! Any doctor will always pull an ass out of 
 a ditch on the Sabbath day — what's that they say about the 
 letter of the law killing the spirit? Now you better go to 
 him, too,' says I, 6 if you know what's good for you. You 
 hear me? ' ' Lordy, Mistah Pallindah, you wouldn't tu'n me 
 off for not gwine to yo' doctah? ' ' No, James,' says I. * I'd 
 turn you off for not having any sense ! ' I believe he did go 
 
88 THE TENANTS 
 
 to you, doctor, and I'm much obliged. Of course you'll send 
 the bill to me. I'm not like seme people that think anything's 
 good enough for a nigger — I want the poor devils that work 
 for me to have the best that's going. When a man's brought 
 up on a Virginia plantation with three or four hundred of 
 'em around, and knows he owns 'em all, and is responsible 
 in a way to his Maker for every one of those black souls — 
 why, sir, you can't get over the feeling all at once. Here, 
 you, George, Sam, one of you bring another bottle of that 
 twelve-year-old Bourbon and a syphon of soda. I won't have 
 any whisky in the house, sir, under seven years old, and pref- 
 erably ten — preferably ten or twelve. It comes a few dollars 
 higher a bottle, but when you're getting a thing, you might 
 as well get it good, and if whisky's not properly aged it's 
 raw stuff, firewater, worst thing in the world for the stomach. 
 My wife sometimes accuses me of extravagance in the table, 
 but I always say : ' Well, Miranda, we've got to live, 
 haven't we? ' As long as Phosphate preferred keeps soaring 
 skywards, and dividends keep rolling in without my having 
 to do a lick of work to get 'em, I don't see that we're living 
 too high. We keep within bounds, I guess. Within bounds. 
 I don't intend to spend all my income just because my prin- 
 cipal is invested in something as solid as a rock. By George, 
 sir, I always save up a little wad every year — I can do it 
 without straining myself, and manage to scratch along in 
 tolerable comfort besides — so as to buy whatever Phosphate 
 I can lay hands on, but it's getting scarce, mighty scarce. 
 It's been pretty well gobbled up by the big fellows with 
 money that always get hold of all the good things ; only I'm 
 what you might call on the inside, you know, and that gives' 
 me a chance to help myself or let in a friend once in a while. 
 
THE TENANTS 89 
 
 But it's no use showing the figures to Madame there, she 
 can't make head or tail of 'em, women never can ; she says 
 they give her the headache. Now last week, I let out inad- 
 vertently — for I try never to bring my little business anxieties 
 home — that I stood to lose fifteen thousand if Ozark Field 
 went off another point. Gad, sir, she laid awake all night — 
 thought we were going to the poorhouse right off ! Couldn't 
 help laughing, though I did feel sorry for her, too. Nothing 
 I could say would reassure her — women are funny. Well, I 
 wasn't just longing to lose my fifteen thousand either, a man 
 don't like to be inconvenienced that way, even temporarily. 
 Fifteen thousand means something to me, though it wouldn't 
 be much to the people I'm thrown with all the time. I tell 
 you, sir, those big capitalists, their money kind of scares you, 
 and yet it gives you a mighty secure feeling to know that 
 they're behind these enterprises. All their millions are made 
 up of thousands after all, and they're not going to put a 
 single thousand where they can't keep an eye on it, and see 
 it breed. Fortunately Ozark Field went up to a hundred and 
 seventeen instead of declining — I had confidence in it from 
 the first. I bought at eighty, you know, so Fm pretty easy 
 in my mind just now. If anybody were to ask me, though, I'd 
 advise 'em to buy right now, for it won't ever take another 
 drop, and I expect it'll be out of sight by the first of the 
 year. Sam, chopped ice to Doctor Vardaman, and give Mr. 
 Lewis a fresh glass." 
 
 Archie Lewis sat looking into his tumbler with a rather 
 queer expression as the waiter put it down before him after 
 sundry dexterous operations with lemon-peel and bitters. 
 Perhaps he was thinking that, for a man who made a point 
 of never bringing his business-affairs home, it was truly re- 
 
90 THE TENANTS 
 
 markable how inevitably Colonel Pallinder worked around to 
 them in the course of a conversation, no matter what the 
 subject with which it started. Phosphate preferred, Lone 
 Star common, Ozark Field — I could not begin to enumerate 
 the " enterprises " in which the colonel and his capitalist 
 friends were interested. The jargon of the market-place will 
 always be j argon to me ; I dare say I have not even quoted it 
 aright. To this day I have never been able to find out what 
 Phosphate was ; it may have been mined, assayed, and smelted ; 
 or strained out of a river, or compounded with retorts and 
 crucibles for all of me. But, although nobody knew anything 
 about it, it was, as I have said, easy to see that Phosphate, 
 in Templeton's formula, was a paying proposition. Look 
 at the Pallinders ; people couldn't live that way for nothing ; 
 this we said to one another, thinking it clinched the argu- 
 ment, and not knowing that people live " in magnificent 
 state," for nothing. Who is so care-free, so luxurious in his 
 habits, so open-handed and open-hearted as the man who 
 never pays his debts? I know of no one more to be envied. 
 One of the things the Pallinders did was to wall in with glass 
 the large porch off the dining-room, install a heating-ap- 
 paratus, and make a conservatory of it; this, too, although 
 they had leased the Gwynne house for three years only, and 
 Mrs. Pallinder was constantly complaining of their cramped 
 and inconvenient quarters. " Of course," she said languidly, 
 " one can't expect much of a house at such a low rent, but 
 the colonel and I have always had separate dressing-rooms. 
 I thought I could make one do, for a while; but we're too 
 crowded for any peace or comfort. The colonel wants to buy 
 this house and add to it — but the end of it will be we'll have 
 to build. The colonel keeps telling me to go to an architect 
 
THE TENANTS 91 
 
 or send for one — I shouldn't trust to anyone in this little 
 town, you know. We'd have to select the building-lot, and 
 get some man from Boston or New York to come out and 
 look at it, and make the designs accordingly. But I'm so aw- 
 fully lazy I can't make up my mind to all that bother and 
 worry." 
 
 Such a low rent ! Kitty and I exchanged a glance in spite 
 of our manners. Archie Lewis had told us that Templeton, 
 whom he saw every day in his father's office, had told him he 
 had made the lease at a hundred and seventy-five a month; 
 we did not think that a very low rent, we who lived content- 
 edly enough in houses at one-fifth that amount, like by far 
 the greater number of our friends. But the Pallinders plainly 
 did not measure by our standards. Mazie had a fresh dress 
 for every party; she wore almost as much jewelry as her 
 mother, and when Mrs. Pallinder came out in all her diamonds, 
 she was the most resplendent spectacle our society ever wit- 
 nessed. Will anyone ever forget her appearance as Astarte 
 at the Charity Ball? She twinkled all over with jewelled stars, 
 serpents, rings, ear-drops, gew-gaws any Astarte might have 
 been proud to own — " goddess excellently bright! " as Doc- 
 tor Vardaman said. The ball took place during the Christ- 
 mas holidays — the Pallinders' second Christmas with us — 
 just before Mazie went to Washington, and, to quote the 
 State Journal, " it was an event long to be remembered in the 
 social annals of our city." Odd-Fellows' Hall was " a fairy- 
 like dream of beauty," the same masterpiece of descriptive 
 rhetoric reported. Mazie deferred her visit so as not to miss 
 it, and went as Folly in a white dress with spangles — glitter- 
 ing fringes of white beads half a yard deep. Kitty Oldham 
 appeared as Diana Vernon — " I can wear the big hat with 
 
92 THE TENANTS 
 
 feathers afterwards, you know," she thriftily remarked; she 
 looked exceedingly trig in a scarlet waistcoat with her little 
 chin cocked up on a white lawn stock. There was the usual 
 supply of Watteau shepherdesses — I was one of them — 
 toreadors, Continental soldiers in buff-and-blue, Queens-of- 
 Hearts, Pierrots, and so on. Mrs. Pallinder's diaphanous and 
 low-cut magnificence, heavily hung with jewelry, outshone 
 everybody, and was a target for considerable unkind com- 
 ment. A woman of her age ! It was startling, to say the least. 
 She could have gone as Queen Elizabeth or Lady Macbeth, 
 but this was almost too theatrical ; of course, she was a 
 beautiful woman, and looked scarcely older than her own 
 
 daughter, still ! " The reporters will describe every 
 
 square inch of Mrs. Pallinder's costume," some young fellow 
 said to Kitty Oldham. " They won't have to say much," re- 
 torted Kitty, with an oblique glance — a remark which, backed 
 by her mother's well-known acidity of tongue, made Kitty's 
 reputation as a wit in our circle. The one person whom it did 
 not seem to amuse was Gwynne Peters ; and he listened with 
 a singularly grum and discomposed face, and afterwards 
 stalked off without a word, although he was in general, 
 genial enough. Something must have gone at cross-purposes 
 with Gwynne that night ; he wore a Charles Stuart dress, and 
 stood about in gloomy attitudes, with his sword, black velvet, 
 and lace collar, looking the part to perfection ; and he went 
 away quite early after showing no attention to anyone ex- 
 cept Mrs. Pallinder herself. But, indeed, the young men 
 were about her constantly, and Astarte's popularity was not 
 greatly increased thereby. 
 
 I remember driving home with Mazie to luncheon a day 
 or so later, and coming unexpectedly upon a decent-looking 
 
THE TENANTS 93 
 
 young man sitting timidly amongst the gilt legs and peacock- 
 blue upholstery of Mrs. Pallinder's parlour, waiting to " in- 
 terview " that lady. He represented the State Journal, he 
 said ; and wanted to know if it was true that Mrs. Pallinder 
 had worn her five-thousand-dollar diamond necklace at the 
 ball, and if she would allow the Journal to publish a photo- 
 graph of her in the costume. 
 
 " La me, I don't know ; you'll have to ask her yourself," 
 said Mazie in her gay drawl. And presently Mrs. Pallinder 
 came in, very tall, sweeping and elegant in a long red broad- 
 cloth coat with black fur and braid, and " dolman " sleeves ; 
 and a black and red capote, as we called them. Laugh if you 
 will ; that was the way we dressed the winter of eighty-three 
 — when we could afford it ! The photograph appeared duly ; 
 and a picture of the necklace, too, with several more strands 
 and pendants than belonged to it, so that we concluded the 
 artist had drawn on his imagination or some representation 
 of the crown-jewels of England, in order to be more effective. 
 
 " Pooh, that necklace never cost five thousand dollars, I 
 don't believe it," Kitty said afterwards. She was a sharp 
 little creature, as I have hinted ; and her critical view of our 
 Southern friends may have been shared by others, to judge 
 by a remark young Lewis made to Doctor Vardaman, as they 
 approached the latter's gate on their way from the Pallin- 
 ders'. " You've got to take a long breath and get a good 
 hold of something when the colonel's around," said Archie, 
 knocking the ash from his cigar on the wrought-iron scroll 
 along the top of the fence. He eyed the doctor enigmati- 
 cally. 
 
 " I don't understand? " 
 
 " If you don't you might be blown away." 
 
CHAPTER EIGHT 
 
 IT seemed written, foreordained, Gwynne Peters used to 
 say, half in amusement, half in distaste, that his grand- 
 father's house should forever be either completely re- 
 tired from notice, or else figure gaudily in the lime- 
 light of a publicity that would have caused its dignified 
 founder untold wrath and mortification. " All that news- 
 paper gabble about the Pallinders and the diamond necklace 
 is to blame for this ! " said Gwynne, when he read in the State 
 Journal a week after the Charity Ball, a circumstantial ac- 
 count under flaming headlines of how " the mansion of the 
 late Governor Gwynne, the historic landmark in the suburbs 
 of our city, on Richmond Avenue, not far from the junc- 
 tion of the Lexington and Amherst car-lines, now occupied 
 by the well-known society leaders, Colonel and Mrs. William 
 Pallinder, was the objective-point of a burglarious attack 
 last night about 12 p. m." It appeared that the burglarious 
 attack had failed ! the diamonds were still safe — as, indeed, the 
 thief whom " our vigilant and efficient Chief of Police, Cap- 
 tain O'Brien, in spite of every effort, had not yet been able to 
 locate." Friends of the family would be relieved to hear that 
 Mrs. Pallinder's venerable mother, Mrs. Jacob Botlisch, had 
 experienced no ill effects from this exciting midnight episode ; 
 Mrs. Pallinder herself, on the contrary, was quite prostrated, 
 and could not see one of the innumerable reporters who be- 
 sieged the house. " It's a perfect persecution," Gwynne an- 
 nounced with unwonted heat, having called the next day to 
 
 94 
 
THE TENANTS 95 
 
 inquire, and been ushered into a parlourful of these gentry. 
 " Here were all those fellows roosting about like vultures — 
 and the greatest racket and confusion ! Just as if poor Mrs. 
 Pallinder hadn't been lying upstairs sick with the fright and 
 worry. She — she's a very delicate, sensitive woman, you 
 know," said the young man, with the easy flush that showed 
 so over his thin, fair-skinned face. He left his card, and not 
 long after the florist's boy came to the back door, having re- 
 ceived express instructions not to ring the bell and annoy 
 Mrs. Pallinder, with one of those large pasteboard boxes, 
 wherein for all their prosaic look, so much romance is carted 
 about the world. Truly a red-faced lad with a cold in the 
 nose, and patches of alien materials applied to prominent 
 parts of his trousers, is an odd figure to be employed upon 
 these sentimental errands — yet such are all florists' boys. A 
 reporter pounced on this one as he strolled jauntily around 
 the house, whistling in a high and cheery fashion under his 
 burden. "What you got there, Johnny?" said this inquir- 
 ing gentleman. " Vi'lets." "Who for?" " S'Pallinder." 
 "Well, who from then?" " Dunno. They're five dollars a 
 hundred." The maid took them in, and doubtless Mrs. Pall- 
 inder's delicate and sensitive nature was greatly soothed by 
 the tribute. 
 
 The colonel showed himself most genial and accessible. In- 
 terviews a column in length and photographs of everything 
 and everybody concerned graced the front pages of the Jour-> 
 nal, the Record, the Evening Despatch, A complete history 
 of the old Gwynne house up to date was " featured." The 
 reporters even approached Gwynne for a " few words." Tem- 
 pleton saw himself in print to his huge gratification : " Mr. 
 Virgil H. Templeton, who has controlled the destinies of the 
 
96 THE TENANTS 
 
 Gwynne property for many years, was seen at his office No. 
 
 16a Wayne Street, and says " Templeton bought an 
 
 armful of copies of the paper and sent them about with blue 
 pencillings around the paragraph. " His office ! Well, I like 
 that ! " said Judge Lewis, in mock indignation. 
 
 " Thank you, I thank you for your kind inquiries, gentle- 
 men," said Colonel Pallinder, as he received the newspaper 
 cohorts. " Mrs. Pallinder is resting easily, and will be re- 
 covered in a few days, I think, from the nervous shock. It 
 was what I may call a nerve-racking adventure for a woman. 
 My daughter, I am thankful to say, is in Washington, visit- 
 ing some relations of ours, the Lees and Randolphs. I have 
 telegraphed her not to worry when she sees the papers. She 
 left last night on the nine o'clock train ; as it happened, two 
 of our young friends, Mr. J. B. Taylor and Mr. Johns, had 
 driven down to the depot with her to see her off, after dining 
 here, and came back in the carriage at my request to spend 
 the night. We had all retired, when about midnight my wife, 
 who is a sufferer from severe neuralgic headaches, got up, 
 feeling one coming on, and went into our daughter's room, in 
 search of some bromide which generally gives her relief. She 
 did not light the gas, and was groping for the bottle in the 
 dark when she felt a strong draught of cold air from an open 
 window. She says her only thought was : * How careless of 
 Mazie to leave that window open ! Now my head will be worse 
 than ever ! ' and was going toward the window to close it, 
 when, with a scuffle, up jumps this scoundrel directly in front 
 of her! She says it was as if the floor had opened and 
 belched him up at her feet. She screamed — I trust, gentle- 
 men, I shall never hear such another cry of terror as my wife 
 gave ! " said the colonel fervently. " I sprang out of bed. 
 
THE TENANTS 97 
 
 and rushed to the spot just in time to see the fellow scram- 
 bling through the window. Most unfortunately, I had no 
 weapon, or I think I may safely say that would have been 
 the last time he ever went hunting for diamond necklaces. 
 The window is on the south side of the house ; as you observe 
 there is a vine growing on a frame directly in front of it all 
 the way up to the roof, by which he climbed up and down. 
 We found his tracks all around in the damp ground at the 
 bottom, but lost them in the turf at a short distance from the 
 house. Nothing but the very strong sentiment I have for the 
 owners of the place, which, I need hardly remind you, be- 
 longs to one of the finest old families in the State, and 
 especially for my dear young friend Mr. Peters, whose boy- 
 hood days were passed here — nothing but that feeling pre- 
 vents me from having the vine uprooted and the trellis torn 
 away. The family, as is natural, are very much attached to 
 everything about their old home. Well, as I was saying, in 
 as short time as we could manage, the young men and I got 
 our clothes on, called the cook and housemaid to look after 
 my wife and her mother, and young Taylor and I set out to 
 explore the grounds, leaving Mr. Johns here to protect the 
 house. We searched high and low without success, and down 
 by the gate fell in with Doctor Vardaman and his man Hud- 
 desley just starting out on a tour of exploration on their own 
 hook. It seems that the doctor's man had waked some little 
 while before, thinking he heard a noise in their hen-house; 
 and as you know we are a little uncomfortably near Buck- 
 town ' here — my own servants are coloured, for that matter 
 
 i This was a negro settlement, a survival of old " Underground Rail- 
 road " days, full of bad characters, about half a mile off, towards the 
 river. It has been improved away of late years.— M. S. W. 
 
98 THE TENANTS 
 
 — Huddesley thought he'd better investigate. He told us he 
 got up and looked out of the window, and distinctly saw a 
 man walking rapidly away from the rear part of the doctor's 
 lot where it joins the Gwynne property, in the direction of 
 this house — or, at any rate, making for the park entrance, 
 with something under his arm which Huddesley is positive 
 was a chicken, but which was much more likely, I think, to 
 have been a kit or bundle of burglars' tools. Well, then, gen- 
 tlemen," Colonel Pallinder continued, pulling at his goatee 
 with a sly smile, " Huddesley got himself partly dressed, and 
 started out very courageously with the kitchen poker; but, 
 getting as far as the gate, the park looking pretty gloomy 
 and forbidding, and the night rather dark, he concluded dis- 
 cretion was the better part of valour, and turned back and 
 aroused the doctor. We joined forces and fairly raked the 
 premises, but to no purpose — the rascal had made too good 
 use of his time, and we, of course, had had some unavoidable 
 delays. I wrote a note to the Chief of Police, and sent my 
 coachman down with it, and we all went to bed again. As you 
 see, it's a very simple story, and hardly deserves your trouble. 
 My own theory is that the thief, probably some well-known 
 criminal whom they will have no trouble in catching, passing 
 through town, or perhaps, making a casual stay here — that 
 sort of gentry never have any home — read about Mrs. Pall- 
 inder's jewels in the papers, and thought he might make a 
 good haul. 
 
 " Now I consider that you gentlemen are partly to 
 blame for that, and I bear no malice, only I wish you'd be 
 a little more particular. Now if you'll just correct one report : 
 Mrs. Pallinder's necklace did not cost five thousand dollars. 
 It cost — ah — well, gentlemen, it was a present to my wife 
 
THE TENANTS 99 
 
 on our last wedding anniversary, and to let the cat out of the 
 bag, it was bought with the surplus of a little flyer in Phos- 
 phate I took — now I beg you won't say anything about that 
 in the papers — you might say, with entire truth, that it did 
 nor cost five thousand dollars. The necklace and earrings to- 
 gether came to more than that, and I believe I bought her 
 some other trinket at the time, a brooch or something — but 
 the whole business was not more than eight or nine thousand, 
 and no one item was quite as much as five. Now if you'll just 
 revise that statement, I'd be obliged. Sam, bring the 
 whisky." 
 
 J. B., reading the colonel's version slightly condensed, with 
 the truth about the diamonds carefully set forth, chuckled 
 freely. " Well," he said. " That was about the way it hap- 
 pened. But you ought to have heard old Mrs. Botlisch ! She 
 indulged in very meaty language, I never heard meatier, not 
 even from a darky roustabout on the levee at New Orleans — 
 you know somebody said she'd been cook on a canal-boat, and 
 I declare I shouldn't wonder if that were true. She was mad 
 at being waked up, mad at ' Mirandy,' mad at ' Bill,' mad at 
 Teddy and me, and the thief and the diamonds and every- 
 thing else. But let me tell you about Pallinder. We started 
 out to ransack the park ; you know how it was last Tuesday, 
 a cold, sleety January night, without any snow falling, or 
 we could have followed the fellow's tracks. As it was we just 
 had to go prowling around the walls, and into the shrubbery. 
 I had an old bird-gun of the colonel's, that hadn't been fired 
 for years. It was a muzzle-loader, with a kind of sawed-off 
 barrel, and I'll bet it would scatter like a charge of bribery 
 in the State Legislature. Pallinder hadn't anything but one 
 of these little light rattan canes. When we got down to the 
 
100 THE TENANTS 
 
 gate, somebody bounced out of hiding and * 'Alt ! ' says he, in 
 a shrill voice. ' 'Alt ! ' That fellow Huddesley is English, you 
 know, and drops his h's ; he's an awfully funny little chap. 
 Well, I ' 'alted.' I was taken by surprise, and I didn't want to 
 let fly with my blunderbuss without knowing what it was all 
 about. But what do you think Pallinder did? Walked right up 
 to him, took him by the collar and pulled him out — yes, sir, 
 that's what the colonel did, without hesitating one instant. 
 Pretty cool, I call it, for a man of his age, practically un- 
 armed, with a lame leg. Of course, I wasn't frightened ; there 
 was nothing to frighten anybody, and besides I had a gun ; 
 but I wasn't sharp and ready like the colonel ; I hesitated. But 
 Pallinder walked right up, collared him and pulled him for- 
 ward. ' Come out o' that ! ' says he. 6 Who are you ? ' ' Oh, 
 Lord, Colonel Pallinder, sir, is it you ? ' says Huddesley, 
 trembling all over. He was the worst scared man you ever 
 saw. s Hi didn't know you. The doctor will be 'ere in two 
 twos, sir. 'E told me to 'alt hanybody Hi saw.' And then 
 along came Doctor Vardaman with a lantern. 6 What on 
 earth is all this ? ' he said. c Is this your chicken-thief, Hud- 
 desley ? ' 
 
 " As we went back to the house, I said to the colonel : ' That 
 was rather startling, wasn't it, being shouted at to halt that 
 way?' He laughed and said yes, it reminded him of a time 
 he rode head foremost into the Yankee pickets one night — 
 ' when both armies were manoeuvring around the Potomac 
 basin — not very long before Chancellorsville, you know. I 
 was carrying despatches,' he said. I asked him what he did. 
 ' Well, I guess I did about two-forty, and it wasn't over a 
 very good track either ! ' he said and laughed again. ' I lit 
 right out. They shot my horse. I wasn't lame then, though.' 
 
THE TENANTS 101 
 
 And I couldn't get another word out of him. I wish he'd talk 
 simply like that all the time," the young man added, thought- 
 fully. " Instead of gassing around so much." 
 
 J. B. himself declined to be interviewed — amiably enough, 
 but still he declined. And Doctor Vardaman was another to 
 whom the reporters appealed in vain. " The circumstances 
 are exactly as Colonel Pallinder related them," he said to the 
 only one whom he would consent to see. " And there is really 
 nothing for me to say. I had gone to bed when my man Hud- 
 desley pounded on the door and called me. I got up and found 
 him breathless, and very much excited; he was half-dressed, 
 had been out of doors, and as I could see, was badly fright- 
 ened. One cannot expect heroic behaviour in a man of his 
 calibre, and on the whole I think he showed a very good 
 spirit. As soon as I understood what he had seen, I ordered 
 him to go outside and wait until I got my clothes on, and to 
 challenge anyone he might see about the park gate, for I 
 immediately suspected that my chicken-house would not offer 
 much inducement to a thief alongside of Mrs. Pallinder's 
 diamonds. The man has been quite sick since from exposure 
 and excitement. I wish you a very good-day, sir." 
 
 And with this the Journal man and others had to be con- 
 tent. Huddesley himself would doubtless have been more ex- 
 pansive, but the honest fellow went to bed with a serious 
 sore throat and cold the day after the attempted robbery, 
 and could not leave his room for a week. Mrs. Maginnis held 
 sway in the doctor's kitchen, dispensing unlimited tea and 
 gossip to the grocers' men, milkmen, postmen, even the baffled 
 reporters and " plain-clothes," or uniformed detectives that 
 called in shoals for days. " The docthor won't see yez," she 
 told the latter, " so it's no use askin'. An' as for Misther 
 
102 VHB TENANTS 
 
 Huddesley, he's on th' flat of his back, an' can't raise his 
 voice above a whisper. Annyway, he says he couldn't swear 
 to th' man, if it was to save his immorrtal sowl. It was too 
 dark, an' he only saw 'twas a man gallivantin' around where 
 he'd no business. It's a foine-spurted bye he was to go afther 
 that thievin', murderin' divil with th' poker, an' I'm glad th' 
 docthor's got him instid of that drunken spalpeen he had be- 
 fure; him that got on a tear, I mane, an' wint up to th' big 
 house with a knife yellin' an' swearin' he'd cut th' hearrt out 
 of iverybody — bad scran to him ! It's turrible lot of men th' 
 docthor's had intoirely." 
 
 She was right ; it was a terrible lot of men the doctor had 
 had. The picturesque ruffian of whom she spoke had been 
 dismissed by the old gentleman a fortnight before at the 
 close of a spree in which he had taken it into his drunken 
 head to invade the Pallinder kitchen, menacing the panic- 
 struck maids with a cleaver and demanding more liquor. To 
 him succeeded Huddesley; I never saw the latter except on 
 one occasion, but he became a familiar figure to most of us, 
 and Doctor Vardaman was rather fond of telling how he 
 acquired the only good servant he ever had. The doctor (ac- 
 cording to his own narrative) after having at great expense 
 of time and trouble and some personal risk, got rid of the 
 highly emotional person with the cleaver who was haled off 
 screeching and shackled in a patrol-wagon ; and after having 
 gone downtown and seen the wretch cared for in Saint 
 Francis' Hospital, inserted his usual advertisement in the 
 State Journal, "Wanted — by a physician (retired) living 
 in the suburbs, an unmarried man to take entire charge of 
 his house and garden. Must be experienced in cooking and 
 indoor-work. References required. Dr. John Vardaman, 201 
 
THE TENANTS 103 
 
 Richmond Avenue. Take Lexington and Amherst Street 
 
 cars." 
 
 The clerk in the Journal office who took it in grinned at 
 sight of him. " Guess we'll have to give you a rebate on your 
 subscription, Doctor," he said cheerfully. " This is the third 
 time this has gone in since last July. So long! Happy New 
 Year!" 
 
 A day or so later the doctor was sitting in the homely dis- 
 order of his library, reading a new book, when the washer- 
 woman who came in by the day during these periods of storm 
 and stress, stuck her towelled head around the door. " Doc- 
 thor, yer honour! " 
 
 Doctor Vardaman did not answer, did not even hear; he 
 was in an enchantment, his lips moving unconsciously as he 
 read. The beauty of the lines stirred him with an almost 
 painful sense of enjoyment. 
 
 " Ah, thin, Docthor, asthore ! " 
 
 " ' When you and I behind the Veil are passed, 
 
 Oh, but the long, long while the World shall last ! ' " 
 
 read the doctor aloud. He looked up vaguely, still under the 
 spell. "What is it, Mrs. Maginnis?" 
 
 " Here's a man to see yez about th' pla-ace." 
 Doctor Vardaman clapped Omar shut briskly. In the 
 phrase of a poet as yet unknown to the world, he turned a 
 keen, untroubled face, Home to the instant need of things. 
 " Send him in." The man came in, closed the door quietly, 
 and stood at attention while the doctor examined him. It 
 was evident that he was a little nervous, yet respectfully 
 anxious to conceal it. 
 " What is your name? " 
 
104 THE TENANTS 
 
 " James Huddesley, sir." 
 
 " You have a reference ? " 
 
 Huddesley produced a worn letter and handed it over. The 
 doctor read it through carefully. It certified that the bearer 
 of this, James Huddesley, was honest, sober and capable; 
 he had lived with the writer four years as butler, and fifteen 
 months as valet and general man. 
 
 " This is dated two years back," said the doctor, as he 
 returned it. " Was that your last place ? " 
 
 " For steady work — yes, sir." 
 
 " Why did you leave it? And what have you been doing 
 in the meantime? " 
 
 " If you please, sir," said Huddesley, looking down. " Hi've 
 'ad misfortunes. Hi left 'is lordship, thinkin' to better my- 
 self by sett in' hup in a small way — in a pub., sir. It was no 
 go, sir, Hi 'adn't 'ad the experience, and Hi didn't like the 
 
 life. Hi lost my money, hall Hi'd saved hup, and — and " 
 
 He hesitated, fingering his hat. " And a little that was my 
 wife's, if you'll hexcuse me mentioning my haffairs, sir. Then 
 she went back to 'er people, and — Hi just come away, Hi 
 couldn't stand it." 
 
 " I didn't want a married man," said the doctor reluc- 
 tantly. 
 
 " It's just the same as bein' single, sir, beggin' yer pard- 
 ing," said Huddesley, staring out of the window. " She won't 
 never come back to me no more — she said so. And there 
 wasn't any children — 'e died, the baby did." 
 
 The doctor was touched oddly by this sordid little romance 
 of the kitchen and backstairs. Perhaps certain long, long 
 dead and buried hopes, dreams, disappointments of his own 
 stirred, faintly responsive beneath their graves ; oh, that 
 
THE TENANTS 105 
 
 grim, arid little cemetery walled off in some corner of every 
 heart! Ghosts walk about it, and we call them Regrets. 
 
 "What have you been doing since?" the old man asked 
 gently. 
 
 " Nothing much, sir — hodd jobs, waitin' in heating-'ouses, 
 and such-like," Huddesley answered openly. " 'Tain't what 
 Hi've been used to, but Hi can turn my 'and to most anything. 
 Hi saw the paper, and Hi thought Hi'd like to get with a 
 gentleman again ; there was hanother hadvertisement in from 
 the big 'ous hup there with the pillars, that Hi hinquired 
 habout — but Hi found they don't 'ave nobody but coloured." 
 
 Mrs. Pallinder recalled this circumstance afterwards, with 
 some regret. " He was here quite a while," she said. " The 
 cook told me making inquiries in the kitchen — but I didn't 
 see him. Such a pit}- — the coloured servants wouldn't have 
 minded, but you can't expect a white man to sit down with 
 them, you know. Well," she would conclude with her charm- 
 ing smile, " if I couldn't have him, I don't know of anybody 
 I'd rather see him with than Doctor Vardaman." The doctor 
 put a few more questions for form's sake, and ended by en- 
 gaging Huddesley on the spot. " As to his references," he 
 said, " I never troubled to look them up. A man like that is 
 his own reference. Lord What's-his-Name of Berkeley Square, 
 London, and What's-his-Name's Hall, Yorks, was a trifle too 
 far off for me to bombard him with letters about a servant 
 whom he had probably entirely forgotten. I'll risk Hud- 
 desley." 
 
 The event justified him; never had the doctor lived in such 
 comfort — never, that is, since the death of his spinster sister, 
 some years before. His boots and broadcloth showed the 
 ex-valet's ministrations ; the old gentleman gave choice little 
 
106 THE TENANTS 
 
 dinners; it was his turn to send dainties about amongst his 
 friends. The only fault he ever found in Huddesley was a 
 certain sour aversion to society for which, as Doctor Varda- 
 man remarked, the man could hardly be blamed. " He never 
 takes a day out, and won't look at a woman," said the doctor. 
 " Most men of his class, after such an experience, take for a 
 while at least to drink, or other reprehensible courses. And 
 indeed I suspect that Huddesley didn't put in all of that 
 dismal two years in the chaste occupations of waiting in 
 heating-'ouses, and hother hodd jobs. But I don't want to 
 push the inquiry. After all, he's had a pretty hard time for 
 a young man — he's not over thirty, I think — what would you 
 have? We're none of us saints." 
 
CHAPTER NINE 
 
 MAZIE PALLINDER'S visit to her relatives, the 
 Lees and Randolphs, was prolonged until the 
 Easter holidays, which came the last week in 
 March that spring. It is a fact, verified by 
 solid paragraphs of " newspaper gabble," that she was visit- 
 ing people of those high-sounding and brilliantly suggestive 
 names, and moving amongst the elect. The family must have 
 been well connected on the Pallinder side at any rate — who or 
 what the Botlisch clan were, no one would like to think. We 
 missed Mazie. Mrs. Pallinder went about alone to teas and 
 receptions, smiling steadily in her beautiful clothes that she 
 wore with so dignified a grace, and reporting that she and the 
 colonel were having a kind of ridiculous honeymoon time of 
 it by themselves, no one calling, no banjos humming in the 
 parlour, no impromptu little dances, no hordes of girls doing 
 one another's hair, and munching nougat all day long in 
 Mazie's room, no prowling about the ice-chest at midnight 
 for chicken salad and champagne. " The house is as quiet 
 as a funeral," she humorously complained. " All our young 
 men have deserted us, except Mr. Peters, who comes, I think, 
 out of sheer humanity. My mother goes to bed very early, 
 and there the colonel and I sit by the fire like two old fogies 
 until we fall asleep in our chairs. The other night we actually 
 went to bed at nine o'clock. Sometimes Doctor Vardaman 
 comes up and we have a game of cribbage. Positively I don't 
 know why we don't take root where we sit, and grow fast to 
 
 107 
 
108 THE TENANTS 
 
 the spot like plants. On the whole this restful time may be 
 good for the colonel. He's been so immersed in business and 
 those Eastern men, those rich, grasping creatures, do drive 
 him so. I often say to him, c Oh, William, never mind the 
 money. Haven't you made enough by this last deal in Phos- 
 phate to satisfy you yet? ' I never ask any more how much 
 he did make — I don't know anything about business, and it 
 frightens me to think of him handling such big sums, and 
 taking such risks and responsibilities. He gave me this ring 
 the other day, though, so I know that whatever it was, the 
 venture turned out all right. Isn't it a beauty? Of course 
 I'm not sorry he's making money, but, oh, Mrs. Lawrence, 
 our husbands work too hard — all our men work too hard — 
 it's not worth it. A few thousands less would content us, and 
 what we want more than anything else in the world is to have 
 them in good health. Shall I put you down here? Oh, I'm 
 pleased you like this little brougham ; I had it lined with the 
 dark green cloth because, to tell the truth, I thought I would 
 look better with my fair hair against a dark green back- 
 ground than if it were maroon or deep blue. Don't laugh, 
 my dear, there're tricks in all trades, and it's a woman's 
 trade to look her best. Home, James ! " 
 
 Colonel Pallinder, however, never went to his office until 
 ten o'clock in the morning, and might be seen posting home 
 any day at about half-past three in the afternoon — " after 
 banking-hours," he used to explain, when one met him ; 
 " there's really nothing to be done — nothing, in my office, 
 at any rate." And his gesture somehow indicated wider 
 horizons than ours and a vista of great affairs. For all that, 
 he had no appearance of a man harried by cares ; and it may 
 be, too, that his home was not quite so quiet and restful as 
 
THE TENANTS 109 
 
 it was represented. " I understand that Mrs. Pallinder is 
 trying again to get a maid for her mother," said Doctor 
 Vardaman, half thinking aloud, half speaking to Huddesley 
 as the latter brought him the morning paper, in company 
 with his breafast on the old silver-plated tray with which a 
 previous generation of Vardamans had been served ; the cop- 
 per of its foundation showed through here and there under 
 Huddesley's vigorous care; the delicate etched arabesque 
 around the heraldic device and motto in the centre were al- 
 most worn away. Doctor Vardaman liked to fancy he could 
 see his mother's thin, fine hands fluttering about above the 
 cups and saucers on this tray ; she, too, had had a habit of 
 harmless and somehow perfectly dignified familiarity with her 
 staid old servants over this one meal. The doctor opened his 
 paper, turning at once — as everybody invariably does — to 
 a certain concise, ominous column in the lower left-hand cor- 
 ner of the inside page where might be read, framed in un- 
 dertakers' advertisements, and notices that So-and-So's mor- 
 tuary sculptures were the best in the market, the names of 
 yesterday's dead. Close by, another column offered you a 
 list of marriage-licenses with a fine indifference to the fitness 
 of things ; and not far away appeared the " Help wanted— 
 Male — Female." " I see Mrs. Pallinder's advertising for a 
 maid," said the doctor. " And here, in another place, she 
 wants a cook, too. She's had a great deal of trouble with 
 servants this winter. There's a pair of us — arcades ambo! " 
 He grinned into his coffee-cup. " Only I'm very well-off now 
 at least. This coffee's very fine, Huddesley. It's a pity Mrs. 
 Pallinder's having such a time." 
 
 "Yes, sir," said Huddesley respectfully. "That kind 
 generally does have trouble, sir," 
 
110 THE TENANTS 
 
 He caught the doctor's eye and coughed discreetly. 
 
 " The house is large and there must be a great deal of 
 work," said the doctor, considering with vast satisfaction 
 how comfortable he was in his little den. 
 
 " Nobody minds doin' work that 'e's paid for, Hi've 
 noticed," said Huddesley. " It's when you 'ave trouble col- 
 leckin' wages that you're liable to break hoff relations halto- 
 gether — speakin', hof course, sir, as a man in my position, 
 not as a gentleman in yours." 
 
 " The deuce ! " ejaculated Doctor Vardaman inwardly. " Is 
 that it? Well, I don't know why I'm surprised — I might 
 have suspected as much — in fact, I have suspected as much 
 off and on." 
 
 " Hof course coloured people are very precarious, sir, very 
 precarious ; you don't know 'ow they live, nor you don't want 
 to," said Huddesley, arranging the dishes. " Their servants 
 is hall coloured, sir, you know. Hi halways think ' Like mas- 
 ter, like man ' — that's the hold sayin', sir." 
 
 " I must stop him," thought Doctor Vardaman guiltily. 
 " It's disgraceful listening to a servant's gossip this way — 
 Ahem! Who was that I heard you having such a squabble 
 with at the kitchen door yesterday afternoon, Huddesley ? " 
 he asked abruptly. 
 
 " A fellow peddlin' shoe-strings and collar-buttons, sir — 
 Hi didn't like 'is looks and Hi hordered 'im hoff pretty 
 sharp. Hi'm sorry you heard the — the haltercation, sir, but 
 they're very 'ard to get rid of." 
 
 " And you aren't any too plucky," said the doctor to 
 himself with some amusement, remembering Huddesley's not 
 over-heroic behaviour on the occasion of the burglary. 
 
 Why, I saw him going up the avenue towards Colonel Pall- 
 
 et 
 
THE TENANTS HI 
 
 inder's afterwards, and I thought he looked like a respect- 
 able man," he said aloud. 
 
 Huddesley paused a moment before answering ; he was fold- 
 ing the tablecloth with an elaborate neatness ; the operation 
 required his undivided attention. Then : " Beg parding, sir, 
 that wasn't 'im you saw," he said calmly. " That was the 
 gent that collecks for Barlow & Foster, goin' hup to see if 
 'e couldn't get something on their coal-bill; I persoom you 
 know it ain't been paid yet. There was hanother there yes- 
 terday from Scheurmann — the fourth or fifth time for 'im, 
 Hi've lost count, there's been so many of 'em lately." 
 
 Doctor Vardaman retreated to his library, somewhat out 
 of countenance. " Good Lord ! " he thought, " it's worse than 
 I supposed — a deal worse! These servants see or smell out 
 everything. It's not safe to let them talk to you; I don't 
 want to know anything about the Pallinders' affairs." Never- 
 theless he smiled a little as he sat smoking by the fire. " ' The 
 haltercation,' " he quoted. " Huddesley certainly is a char- 
 acter. He reminds me of that valet of Major Pendennis' in 
 the novel, that fellow Morgan — only Morgan turned out to 
 be a rascal, the head villain of the story, if I remember." He 
 took down the book — it was a first edition with Thackeray's 
 own clumsy yet spirited illustrations — and sat reading the 
 rest of the morning. 
 
 As reluctant as he was, however, the doctor, like the rest 
 of the world, could not always keep his eyes and ears closed 
 against those embarrassing things which we should all so 
 much rather not know. There are bits of gossip which seem 
 to be common and not altogether undesirable property ; and 
 there are ugly rumours which we feel it to be the part of 
 decency to hush up. We hear, underhand, that Jones is wont 
 
112 THE TENANTS 
 
 to skulk at home for a fortnight dead drunk, that Smith's 
 latest financial venture was curiously involved and cloudy; 
 even if true, and even if we disapprove of Jones' and Smith's 
 conduct in the abstract, it yet in no way concerns us. We 
 are none of us saints, as the doctor himself said ; we dislike 
 especially the pose of holier-than-thou. Jones and Smith may 
 not be model citizens, but let us give them the benefit of the 
 doubt and continue to accept their dinner-invitations. Doc- 
 tor Vardaman, an upright man who would as soon have taken 
 a horse-whip to a servant as cheat him out of a penny, found 
 himself averse to believe what was under his eyes every day, 
 and obscurely whispered here and there by people in other 
 ranks of life than Huddesley's. What if the Pallinders were 
 besieged by duns, and their servants unpaid? That was none 
 of his business ; at the suggestion the old gentleman felt an 
 irritation for which perhaps some mocking inner self was 
 partly to blame. He found excuses for them; they were 
 notoriously and amusingly careless, extravagant, free-handed 
 — er — er — Southern, in a word; the colonel might be a 
 rogue, as he undoubtedly was a wind-bag, yet of his own 
 knowledge, the doctor could say nothing. Nobody had ever 
 tried to trick him; he saw no reason why he should suddenly 
 cold-shoulder the Pallinders ; their house was the pleasantest 
 he knew. 
 
 Thus the doctor reflected uneasily, trying to hush that 
 ironic sprite within; and presently he was left with fewer 
 defences still against its sly unwelcome jeers, for the business 
 which he took such comfort in assuring himself was not his, 
 became his in spite of him ! He was a little surprised, when, 
 in the late afternoon of the same day, Huddesley deferen- 
 tially opened the library-door to announce "Mr. Gwynne 
 
THE TENANTS 113 
 
 Peters." This formality of entrance was imposed on every- 
 body by the new man, and there was an old-world flavour 
 about it that agreed well with the doctor's house and char- 
 acter. Huddesley, who would have been an ordinary flunkey 
 in such an establishment as the Pallinders', was already that 
 endearing person — a trusted and trustworthy servant — at 
 Doctor Vardaman's. Gwynne came in, ruddy from the thin 
 brisk March air, eager and confident of his welcome, bringing 
 to the doctor's mind what kind memories of old days; of 
 times when he used to come with a top, a kite, a lame kitten, 
 and filled the childless house with childish confusion. Now 
 he was as tall as Doctor Vardaman, and the latter noted with 
 an odd pang that his young face was settling into the harder 
 lines which recalled to so many his grandfather's portrait; 
 perhaps the anxiety that never entirely forsook him had 
 made its mark on Gwynne. At any rate it was very apparent 
 as he said, glancing about, after Huddesley had taken his 
 hat and overcoat, and gone silently and most respectfully out 
 of the room: "Cousin Steven hasn't been here, has he? I 
 asked Huddesley, but he didn't seem to know." 
 
 " Come to think of it, I don't believe Steven has been in to 
 see me since I've had Huddesley — that's about two months, 
 you know," said the doctor. " He knows nearly everyone now, 
 and never seems to get the names and faces mixed up. If 
 
 he'd ever seen Steven, he wouldn't have forgotten him " 
 
 ("I wish I hadn't said that!" he added inwardly). But 
 Gwynne only frowned absent-mindedly, and began to feel 
 along the mantelpiece for matches. " Were you looking for 
 him?" 
 
 " He's in town ; he was in the office, but I had gone out. 
 Then afterwards I met Templeton on the street, and he 
 
114 THE TENANTS 
 
 told me he understood Cousin Steven to say he was coming 
 out here. You — you haven't seen him going up to the Pall- 
 inder's, have you?" 
 
 " Why, no. But he'll be along in a little while, I dare say," 
 said the doctor easily — and wondered within him what Steven 
 was about now? He said nothing more, having in perfection 
 the gift of companionable silence ; and for almost five minutes 
 Gwynne himself did not speak, blowing a soothing cloud of 
 smoke by the doctor's fire. Then he said abruptly, not look- 
 ing at his old friend, as if trusting him to follow up his 
 thought. 
 
 " I went out to see Sam the other day." 
 
 "Ah? Was he " 
 
 " Just the same. He didn't know me — never does. Perhaps 
 it's just as well. The attendant spoke as if he thought Sam 
 was in very good shape — physically, you know. c He'll prob- 
 ably live for years, Mr. Peters,' he said to me. ' He's stronger 
 than you are this minute.' They treat him all right, I think. 
 It's always on my mind a little, you know, that maybe they 
 wouldn't if it wasn't for my having an eye on them all the 
 time. I go out about once a month, but they never know 
 when I'm coming. But you can't tell what happens in those 
 places — even the best of them." 
 
 " Sheckard is a reliable man ; I've known him for thirty 
 years. He's always very careful about the attendants, as 
 far as I've noticed; even the patients that haven't any 
 money, the ones he takes for a merely nominal sum, or what* 
 ever their people can scrape up, are just as well cared-for, 
 I think. And of course that isn't the case with Sam " 
 
 " It takes all Sam has," interrupted Gwynne gloomily. 
 " Every cent." 
 
THE TENANTS 115 
 
 " You can't blame them. But I wouldn't worry about him, 
 if I were in your " 
 
 " I'm not worrying. I'm simply trying to do the best I 
 can," said Gwynne sharply. 
 
 The doctor caught the note of uneasy irritation in his 
 voice with surprise. Nothing could have been farther from his 
 mind, or indeed, more unjust, than to accuse Gwynne of shirk- 
 ing his duties, yet the young man was plainly nettled — on the 
 defensive. " I must have been too sympathetic," thought 
 the doctor, remembering the miserably touchy Gwynne 
 pride. Doctor Vardaman was the one person on earth, hardly 
 excepting his own family, to whom Gwynne would have 
 mentioned his brother. For everybody else, Sam Peters was 
 away in California, in Algiers, in Timbuctoo — the devices 
 by which Sam was kept in the background would have af- 
 forded material for a pitiful farce, if they had not been con- 
 cerned with so pitiful a tragedy; there was about these lies 
 a kind of wretched courage that went near to rendering their 
 folly dignified. Gwynne knew that his brother's misfortune 
 was in no sense a disgrace ; but he could not bring himself to 
 regard it as a thing to be thought or spoken of like any other 
 illness. Too much of his life had been passed in the grimly 
 fantastic environment of Gwynne family traditions for him to 
 be completely emancipated at twenty-four. 
 
 " I want to do the right thing as much as anybody," said 
 Gwynne; he scowled into the fire, chewing the end of his 
 cigar. " Only it's not always easy to say what is the right 
 thing. In real life right and wrong aren't laid down in black 
 and white the way they are in those Tommy-and-Harry books 
 we used to have when we were children ; they sort of shade 
 off into each other. You've got to — to make compromises. 
 
116 THE TENANTS 
 
 You can't take any satisfaction in being right — abstractly 
 right — when you're being hard and — and cruel." 
 
 " What on earth is the boy arguing with himself about ? " 
 thought Doctor Vardaman ; these not very original remarks 
 had, for all their emphasis, the air of being offered in advo- 
 cacy of some doubtful cause; there was a trace of temper 
 and self-consciousness in them, and even the speaker himself 
 appeared unconvinced. " He's been having trouble with 
 Steven, I suspect," the doctor concluded, remembering how 
 capable Steven was of making trouble, and how difficult it 
 was to manage him without recourse to a tyranny from which 
 Gwynne would recoil. 
 
 " That may be a good frame of mind for a lawyer, 
 Gwynne," he said pleasantly. " That disposition, I mean, to 
 allow a certain amount of right on every side. The question 
 of expediency " 
 
 " That's what I think," Gwynne interrupted eagerly. 
 " It's as much a point of what's best to do as of what's 
 rigorously right to do. But you can't make people see that ; 
 now people like " 
 
 " Mr. Steven Gwynne ! " said Huddesley, opening the door. 
 And even in the uproar of Steven's entrance — he could do 
 nothing quietly, and had a voice of thunderous volume — 
 Doctor Vardaman had time to observe Gwynne's start and 
 changing colour. Huddesley withdrew, taking Steven's 
 " artics " with a manner conveying his fixed belief that they 
 should be handled with tongs ; but the doctor, who generally 
 viewed this comic by-play with profound amusement, for once 
 let it pass unnoticed. As his guests fronted each other, the 
 old gentleman felt a sudden menace in the air ; something had 
 gone wrong, had gone very wrong, indeed; that much was 
 
THE TENANTS 117 
 
 easy to read in the two lowering faces. He looked from one 
 to the other in apprehension; he tried to relieve the situa- 
 tion by a gust of what he inwardly characterised as " futile 
 patter," offering chairs and comments on the weather. That 
 his unoffending parlour should be made the scene of a Gwynne 
 family squabble did not strike him as outrageous ; he felt too 
 genuine and humane an interest in both parties. At the back 
 of his mind the thought was busy that Steven must have 
 been stirring up some kind of mischief with his confounded 
 vapouring communistic and anarchistic theories, his " cir- 
 culating medium," or Heaven knew what other foolishness; 
 and how was Gwynne, or for that matter anybody else, to 
 deal with him? The poor old fellow was not — not responsi- 
 ble ; yet he could not be bullied like a slave, or put aside like 
 a child ; that would only make him worse ! " It would be bet- 
 ter, it would absolutely be better, if Steven would go stark 
 mad and be done with it (Lord forgive me for saying so!) " 
 he thought. " Then, at least, he could be cared for properly. 
 As it is, you can't excite him, you can't reason with him, you 
 can't control him ! " An acute sympathy for both of them 
 possessed him — for Steven as for a baby from whom one 
 should tear away some dangerous beloved plaything — for 
 Gwynne because he must do this really humane thing, per- 
 force, inhumanely. The job was obviously distasteful; 
 Gwynne wore, the doctor thought, a reluctant, even a sort of 
 hang-dog air; and it was Steven who began, ruffling and red- 
 dening in blotches over his wildly bearded face and down to 
 his grooved and corded old neck : " You — you got my letters, 
 Gwynne ? " 
 
 " I got them, Cousin Steven," said Gwynne sullenly. 
 
 " You didn't answer 'em, sir." 
 
118 THE TENANTS 
 
 " I don't think we need to discuss this before Doctor Varda- 
 man, Cousin Steven," said the young man. It was a dignified 
 and temperate speech; yet, strangely enough, it conveyed 
 to the doctor less consideration for himself than desire to 
 avoid the interview altogether. Something, either in Gwynne's 
 tone or manner, struck a false note, and Doctor Vardaman 
 looked at him perplexed. 
 
 " I don't see why we shouldn't talk before old Jack," said 
 Steven trustingly ; he at least was sincere ; there was no com- 
 plexity about Steven ; his mind worked with the directness of 
 a child's. " I'd have asked his opinion anyhow — I meant to 
 — that's what I'm here for " 
 
 " You haven't been to the Pallinders' then ? " interrupted 
 Gwynne, in evident relief. " You haven 9 t been there yet ? " 
 
 " No, but I'm going," Steven's eyes were uncomfortably 
 bright as he faced the other, with all the desperate obstinacy 
 of a weak character. " You can't stop me doing that, Gwynne 
 — you can't. I'm one of the heirs — I've got a right " 
 
 " Cousin Steven, if you'll just listen a minute," Gwynne be- 
 gan with an effort. 
 
 " You can't stop me — I've got a right — I'm not a minor," 
 cried the old man ; the words might have been ludicrous but 
 for his pitiful earnestness. " I'm going to know where my 
 money's gone to — I'm going to have an accounting. That 
 Pallinder fellow " 
 
 " I say you shall not go there," said Gwynne doggedly. 
 " Your money's all right. If you'll only have a little patience, 
 I'll attend to it, and you'll get your share " 
 
 " You said that before — you've said it two or three times," 
 said Steven, his face working. He was evidently striving with 
 all his might for self-control; there was a painful dignity 
 
THE TENANTS 119 
 
 in the effort. Doctor Vardaman was strangely touched to 
 observe him; it seemed as if the battle were too one-sided, 
 whatever its cause ; as if the strong and sane young man had 
 too much the advantage. " I'm tired of hearing that, 
 Gwynne. You don't know how to get the money, or you 
 don't try. * If you want your business done, go and do it 
 yourself ; if not, send ! ' That's a pretty good motto, seems 
 to me. I'm going to attend to this now, myself " 
 
 " Cousin Steven, you can't possibly do anything — you'll 
 only make matters worse. Ask Templeton, ask anybody " 
 
 " It's no use asking you, that's plain," said Steven bitterly. 
 " I want my money." In spite of him, his voice raised and 
 cracked on the last words. He turned to the doctor plead- 
 ingly. " John," he said, " it ain't right — it ain't right. 
 You'll say it ain't right, when you hear. Tell him it ain't 
 right, John, tell him it ain't." He pointed to Gwynne with 
 his shaking hand. The younger man scowled back with a 
 resentment touched by some feeling not far removed from 
 shame ; Doctor Vardaman looked at him in open inquiry, and 
 was confounded to see that Gwynne avoided his eye. 
 
 " You'd better sit down here quietly, Steve, old man," he 
 said kindly. " Now what is it you want me to tell Gwynne ? 
 Let's thrash it all out. We'll put it straight in five minutes, 
 I've no doubt." He shook his head warningly at Gwynne be- 
 hind the other's back ; and Gwynne set his lips ominously and 
 looked away. 
 
 Old Steven began to fumble in his pockets ; in his excite- 
 ment he could not command his stiff trembling fingers, and 
 cursed with impatience as he sought. " I've got it here — 
 I've got a statement, Jack," he explained twice or thrice. " I 
 put it all down. I may not be a pin-headed, pettifogging 
 
120 THE TENANTS 
 
 little know-it-all attorney," he said with a withering side- 
 glance at Gwynne standing against the mantelpiece in a 
 morose silence. " But I guess I can add up a column of 
 figures and make it come out right just the same." Doctor 
 Vardaman might have laughed at another time; but now he 
 was too concerned for the outcome, feeling instinctively that, 
 at its core, this was no laughing matter. The presentiment 
 chilled him into gravity as he watched Steven turn out a 
 collection of rubbish such as any schoolboy might have owned 
 — broken bits of slate-pencil, a disabled toothbrush, hanks 
 of cotton string, a handful of Indian corn and one of loose 
 tobacco, numerous buttons, a large red apple — " I brought 
 that for Gwynne, but now I'll give it to you, John," said the 
 old man severely. Finally from the midst of this dunnage he 
 produced a creased and soiled paper and spread it out tri- 
 umphantly. " There, Jack, there, I wrote it all out. ' Wil- 
 liam Pallinder, Esquire' — no, I'll be damned if I call him 
 6 esquire,' it's too good for him — lend me your pen-knife, 
 Jack, I'll scratch it out when I get through reading — 
 ' William Pallinder in account with Steven Gwynne et al. — 
 I remember that out of the books when I was studying law 
 — et al., for house-rent due from November, 1881, to March, 
 1883, sixteen months, at one hundred and fifty dollars a 
 month, twenty-four hundred dollars — ain't that correct? And 
 there's twenty of us, you know, John, counting Eleanor and 
 Mollie's share as one, twenty goes into twenty-four once 
 and four over — I put that down on another piece of paper — 
 I can't find it, but I remember anyhow — twenty into twenty- 
 four once and four over, twenty into forty goes twice, and 
 ought's ought, and ought's ought. That's a hundred and 
 twenty apiece that's coming to us, John, ain't that correct? " 
 
THE TENANTS 121 
 
 He looked into the doctor's face eagerly ; momentarily it 
 seemed as if the gravity of the scene were about to evaporate 
 in a cheap burlesque. In the variegated patchwork of Steven's 
 mental processes, theories about the superfluousness of money, 
 and laboured calculations as to how much was coming to him 
 found an equal place, and were matched side by side with no 
 sense of incongruity. 
 
 " Yes, that's perfectly correct, Steven," said the doctor, 
 somewhat illuminated. 
 
 Steven eyed Gwynne vindictively. " I guess I can figger 
 all right if I ain't a pin-head " 
 
 " Nobody's saying your figures aren't right," said Gwynne, 
 with a weary patience. " The colonel owes the estate that 
 much, and if you'll let things alone, it'll be paid." 
 
 " Oh, yes, it'll be paid. I'll make it my business to see that 
 it's paid," said Steven, nodding. He turned to the doctor, 
 confident of his support. "Ain't I right, John? Gwynne 
 there won't do anything — won't lift his hand — just lets the 
 rent keep on piling up and piling up. Calls himself a lawyer, 
 and won't do anything — I've written him time and time again 
 authorising him to — to sue — to sue for our rent — haven't I, 
 Gwynne? Did I, or did I not write you, answer me that? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, you wrote me," said Gwynne drily. 
 
 " There, you see, you see, John," said Steven despairingly. 
 " That's the way he acts — just that indifferent and shilly- 
 shally. It's seven dollars and a half a month we ought each 
 one to have been getting all this time — seven dollars and a 
 half," his voice cracked again — " we haven't had a cent — not 
 a cent, for over a year, and he won't do anything! He ought 
 to sue, oughtn't he, John? " 
 
 " Why, Lord bless me, Steven, / don't know," said the 
 
122 THE TENANTS 
 
 doctor, at once relieved yet remotely disquieted to learn the 
 cause of the trouble, worried over Steven, and slightly amused 
 at this seven-dollar-a-month melodrama. " I'm not a lawyer, 
 you know. I suppose there's some way of getting at tenants 
 that won't pay their rent — some way other than evicting 'em 
 bodily, I mean — you'd hardly like to do that, you know, to 
 people like the Pallinders " 
 
 " Don't see why not," said Steven, seizing upon this new 
 idea with a very disconcerting readiness. " I'd bring 'em to 
 time, if / had the doing of it." He directed a vindictive glance 
 at Gwynne. " ' Pay or quit,' that's what I'd say " 
 
 " Oh, come now, Steven, you wouldn't want to see the 
 Pallinders' bureaus and bedsteads out on the sidewalk. It 
 would be a kind of discredit to the property — your property 
 — Governor Gwynne's house," said the doctor, struggling 
 with an inconvenient tendency to laugh, yet diplomatically 
 approaching Steven on his most vulnerable side. " You 
 wouldn't treat Mrs. Pallinder that way — she's a very polished 
 lady — I've heard you say so a dozen times myself." 
 
 " There's no occasion to bring in Mrs. Pallinder's name at 
 all, I think," said Gwynne, in so savage a voice that Doctor 
 Vardaman started with astonishment. Their eyes met. " She 
 has nothing to do with this," said the young man constrain- 
 edly, averting his gaze almost at the instant. " We're all 
 gentlemen, I hope, and we don't have to talk about a 
 
 woman." 
 
 Doctor Vardaman rubbed his chin. " Steven," he said 
 thoughtfully, " I think maybe you'd better let Gwynne man- 
 age it his own way " 
 
 " But I have — I have for a year, and look how he's man- 
 aged it ! " cried Steven ; he looked from the doctor to Gwynne 
 
THE TENANTS 123 
 
 in an exasperated bewilderment. " We aren't as well off now 
 as we were a year ago ! There's that much more owing us — 
 and he said just the same thing then, to let things alone. 
 Damn it, we've let 'em alone, and see where we are ! " 
 
 There was a devious justice in this argument that, taken 
 with Gwynne's more or less disingenuous behaviour, was not 
 without its effect on the doctor; of course, he told himself, 
 the young fellow's inactivity was capable of some perfectly 
 reasonable explanation ; everyone knew that the direction of 
 the Gwynne affairs was a fearfully complicated task, and 
 Doctor Vardaman was not desirous of going further into its 
 details, even if Gwynne had wanted to enlighten him — still 
 he would have been better satisfied if the boy had shown him- 
 self more frank and not quite so sulky. It occurred to him, 
 with a fine irony, that here was probably one of Gwynne's 
 cases where there was some right on both sides. The main 
 thing at the moment, he realised, was to get Steven quieted. 
 
 " I'm sorry, but I — really I can't advise you, Steven," he 
 said in his most moderate voice. " Have you talked to Mr. 
 Templeton? He's your real agent, you know; he does the 
 collecting, doesn't he? I'm sure if he and Gwynne both 
 think " 
 
 " Templeton! He's a — a creature of Gwynne's ! " cried 
 Steven angrily. " He's no better than a — a mercenary — a 
 — a hired bravo ! " 
 
 Gwynne had to smile. The idea of fat little spectacled 
 Templeton in the role of chief -villain's handy-man, be-cloaked 
 and be-daggered as we are accustomed to figure those 
 romantic gentlemen, was irresistibly comic. But Steven saw 
 the smile and turned purple; he got up, choking and trem- 
 bling. 
 
124 THE TENANTS 
 
 " Very well, young man, very well ! " he said, not with- 
 out dignity. " I suppose you can afford to laugh — you have 
 the upper hand. It's very funny, no doubt — but / wouldn't 
 laugh at anybody in trouble — not at my own kin anyhow — 
 blood's thicker than water. Oh, yes, I'm very funny, of 
 course; I'm nothing but an old man that don't know any- 
 thing — and — and a — a kind of a nuisance, I suppose, and 
 and — I don't dress stylish, and it's real funny for me to 
 want my money — oh, yes ! You needn't worry, Gwynne, I'm 
 not going to trouble you any more about it — I'll attend to 
 my own affairs after this. Jack, where're my gum-shoes, 
 please? You can let things alone, if you choose, Mr. Peters, 
 but Vm " 
 
 " What are you going to do ? " said Gwynne harshly — 
 the more harshly, perhaps, because he was touched and a little 
 shamed, against his will. 
 
 Almost involuntarily, he moved between his cousin and the 
 door. 
 
 " I'm going to my house, to my house, to see Pallinder 
 myself," said Steven, frightened yet obstinate. 
 
 Gwynne made a gesture of angry impatience. " He won't 
 be at home at this time of day. Cousin Steven, if you'll only 
 wait a little " 
 
 " I've done all the waiting I intend to, Mr. Gwynne Peters. 
 If he ain't at home, I mean to see her " 
 
 " Oh, good Lord, Steven, you can't do that — you can't 
 talk to a woman about things like that ! " interposed Doctor 
 Vardaman, shocked. " Now I'll tell you what, you stay here 
 quietly with me, and take dinner and let Gwynne see to it. 
 Gwynne'll fix it all right if you " if you will give him 
 
THE TENANTS 125 
 
 time, the doctor was about to add, when the weakness of that 
 already well-worn plea struck him. 
 
 " I don't trust him, I tell you — he ain't to be trusted. I 
 can attend to my own affairs and I will! " said Steven fiercely. 
 The question had by this time become to him not so much 
 that of recovering his money as of having his own way; 
 they would conspire against him, would they? They would 
 keep him from having a voice in his own proper affairs? 
 Somebody had been meddling with him that way all his life ; 
 he would show them, he, Steven Gwynne ! " I won't have him 
 interfering with me any longer — he don't suit me — I'll run 
 my affairs to suit myself, without any leave from you, Mr. 
 Gwynne Peters — call yourself a lawyer — I wouldn't trust 
 you 'round the corner with a cent of my money — I wouldn't 
 have you try a case for my dog, I wouldn't " 
 
 " Then get some other lawyer that you do trust ! " shouted 
 Gwynne above the other's shouting. " But right now you're 
 not going near Mrs. Pallinder, d'ye hear me? It's shameful; 
 she shan't be persecuted this way ! " 
 
 " I'll go where I damn please, sir. Get another lawyer ! 
 Precious good care you've taken that I can't get another 
 lawyer ! Where's the money ? where's my hundred and twenty 
 dollars, Gwynne Peters? " 
 
 " If you'll come down to the office, I'll give you your 
 infernal hundred and twenty now," said Gwynne, steadying 
 himself as best he could. " I'll give it to you myself out of 
 hand, and then you can go and employ ten lawyers if you 
 like. But if you think I'm going to turn Mrs. Pall — the 
 Pallinders out of doors, or hound them about the rent, you're 
 mistaken. Why, it's my money just as much as yours, and 
 
126 THE TENANTS 
 
 am I worrying? The colonel's good for it, and even if he 
 isn't, the house and furniture are there; they aren't going to 
 fly away — if you'll be patient and act sensibly, I'll get your 
 money. If you won't I'll wash my hands of the whole busi- 
 ness. You can " 
 
 "For God's sake, Gwynne," ejaculated the doctor in an 
 undertone, " don't make things worse than they are ! 
 Steven can't control himself, but you can ! " 
 
 " Why, I'm not a brute, Doctor Vardaman, I'm not a — a 
 Jew! I won't allow Mrs. Pallinder to be made wretched be- 
 cause of this — this — it's bad enough for me to have to stand 
 
 it; but she — she " The young man caught himself; he 
 
 was on the edge of saying " she's an angel," but even in that 
 moment of excitement some saving sense of humour mercifully 
 restrained him. " She don't know anything about business. 
 You can't go to her for your rent! It's — it's inhuman to 
 harry a woman like Mrs. Pallinder about rent. Leave her 
 out of it at any rate, it's the least you can do." 
 
 " You, sir, get me my gum-shoes," said Steven determin- 
 edly, as the door once more swung to admit Huddesley. It is 
 possible that this discreet and admirably trained individual 
 had been improving his knowledge of Doctor Vardaman's 
 acquaintances, just outside the key-hole; he overlooked 
 Steven's orders, and went up to the doctor with a perturbed 
 
 countenance. " Doctor Vardaman, if you please, sir " 
 
 there followed a whisper charged with meaning. 
 
 " Oh, the devil! " said the old gentleman desperately. He 
 looked around. " Steven, Gwynne, do sit down, both of you 
 — why, yes, of course, Huddesley, certainly you can bring 
 her in — and — and here's the key of the wine-cellar, Huddes- 
 
THE TENANTS 127 
 
 ley ; " he was quite flustered. The others forgot their excite- 
 ment a moment to wonder at him. " Bring her in, Huddesley, 
 don't keep a lady standing," said the doctor, speaking testily 
 in his confusion. Huddesley was keenly alive to the dramatic 
 aspect of the meeting; he went ceremoniously out and cere- 
 moniously returned, spreading the door with a flourish. 
 "Mrs. Pallinder!" he announced. 
 
CHAPTER TEN 
 
 IT was a coup-de-theatre, falling as pat as if pre- 
 arranged, an unthinkable accident ; the melodrama was 
 becoming entirely too melodramatic, according to 
 Doctor Vardaman's notion. " Good Heavens ! " he said 
 to himself, irritated ; " this sort of thing doesn't happen — it 
 has no business to happen ! " He had what is perhaps the 
 best tact in the world, the tact of a kind heart ; but a plain 
 man's experience does not prepare him for moments of such 
 awkwardness, and the doctor's self-possession for once left 
 him in the lurch. He advanced to meet Mrs. Pallinder, 
 blunderingly putting on his eye-glasses, and blunderingly 
 dropping them again to the length of their black silk ribbon, 
 stuttering out a welcome, apprehensive of Steven's next move, 
 out of patience with the whole grotesque and intolerable sit- 
 uation, and fearful that he showed it. Mrs. Pallinder could 
 hardly have failed to overhear something of what was going 
 forward; Steven's loud voice had been raised almost to its 
 furthest pitch, and Gwynne's, if he was more self-contained, 
 was still forcible and distinct enough. Neither one could at 
 once adjust his threatening brows to a placid, scarcely even 
 a natural expression, and, for that matter, the silence be- 
 trayed as much as their speech. She would have needed to be 
 blind or deaf not to know that her presence came amiss — 
 and blind and deaf Mrs. Pallinder promptly became! It was 
 a feat; her assumption of unconsciousness was too perfect, 
 but, if Gwynne and the doctor were undeceived, they were 
 
THE TENANTS 129 
 
 still profoundly grateful, and Steven was reduced to a kind 
 of pathetic diffidence. The old man felt, in his dim way, that 
 he had no arms against this dazzling feminine creature ; her 
 manners, her dress, even her delicate and finished beauty 
 frightened him ; he might as well plan to sue a fairy for rent 
 as this detached and brilliant personage. " Gwynne could 
 have let the poor old boy go in peace," thought Doctor 
 Vardaman, observing Steven's altered bearing ; " he never 
 would have faced Mrs. Pallinder — I doubt if he could have 
 stood up to the colonel ! " 
 
 " Don't get up, gentlemen, don't stand for just me! " said 
 Mrs. Pallinder, looking around on everybody and beginning 
 to loosen her furs. " Oh, Mr. Gwynne, what a nice surprise 
 to find you here ! Doctor Vardaman, you didn't tell me you 
 were expecting Mr. Gwynne. You see I'm an old story to the 
 doctor, Mr. Gwynne, I drop in almost every day — I wonder 
 he doesn't run at the sight of me — it must be a relief as well 
 as a pleasure to him to have you come in once in a while. Why 
 don't you come to see me, ever? We're so lonely out here — 
 the colonel and I depend on the doctor. Nobody ever comes 
 to see two rusty old creatures like us. Nobody but you, that 
 is, Mr. Peters, you treat us with the respect due our age." 
 She gave him a laughing glance; Gwynne knelt down ? red- 
 dening and incoherent, to take off her overshoes. The doctor 
 had space to reflect that a pretty woman, be she never so 
 well or so long married, seldom wholly ceases to be a coquette. 
 And all this while Steven stood, spellbound into silence, wait- 
 ing for someone else to sit down. He would have liked to be 
 gallant, cynical, daring, epigrammatic; Steven's notions of 
 society were founded on Bulwer-Lytton's novels, with a dash 
 of Reade, Disraeli, and Charles Lever. He had revolved 
 
130 THE TENANTS 
 
 more than one graceful yet stinging speech for the humbling 
 of the Pallinders, figuring them brought down to a species 
 of admiring submission. Lo, the hour was arrived, but where 
 was the man? All his eloquence had stolen away; he was 
 taken at unawares, tongue-tied in an awkwardness that at 
 once incensed and humiliated him. He almost envied Gwynne 
 his uncalculated ease. 
 
 " I had a letter from Mazie this morning, doctor," said 
 Mrs. Pallinder, resolutely keeping the conversation going, 
 and including Steven, as it were, by main force. "My 
 daughter, you know, Mr. Gwynne. You've been at your coun- 
 try-place all winter, haven't you?" It was thus that Mrs. 
 Pallinder picturesquely referred to Steven's ramshackle resi- 
 dence ; and on her lips the phrase had a richness that pleased 
 him ineffably. " Then you don't know that my daughter has 
 been away nearly two months — she went a little after the 
 holidays — and, oh, Mr. Gwynne, did you hear about the 
 robbery ? " 
 
 " She don't have to make talk about the weather — trust a 
 woman ! " said the doctor inwardly, both satirical and admir- 
 ing. He had an instant of suspense, wondering what use 
 Steven would make of his opportunity — and Steven was as 
 mild as a lamb ! He cleared his throat, and said yes, he 
 had heard about the robbery — they didn't get anything after 
 all, did they? He understood — that is, the paper said — he 
 hadn't been in town to talk to anybody — that they were after 
 Mrs. Pallinder's diamonds. There had been a picture in the 
 paper of the necklace — he was glad they hadn't got anything. 
 
 " Why, I didn't know you approved of diamonds, Mr. 
 Gwynne, I wouldn't have dared to wear mine before you," 
 said Mrs. Pallinder, tempting Providence. " Everybody says 
 
THE TENANTS 131 
 
 you're so severe and critical — and — and like all the rest of 
 you men — you laugh at us poor women shamefully, yes, and 
 tyrannise over us, too, you know you do ! " she went on, dis- 
 playing a discernment for which nobody would have given her 
 credit. 
 
 " Madame," said Steven, highly flattered ; " you mistake 
 me — beauty unadorned " 
 
 " Oh, but Mr. Gwynne, I'm not in that class ! Now come 
 up to dinner to-night, and I'll put on every diamond I have, 
 and you'll see I'll look the better for it." She raised her hand. 
 " But don't involve me in an argument — I can't hold my 
 ground with you, you know — you're too clever for me — I 
 remember the last time, when you demolished me utterly — 
 you told me we didn't need money to get along — think of 
 that, Doctor Vardaman, he actually told me we didn't need 
 to use money at all, 6 the circulating medium,' wasn't that 
 what you called it, Mr. Gwynne? See how well I remember! 
 And, Doctor, before he got through, he persuaded me, sure 
 enough, that we didn't need money — I believed him — at least 
 I had nothing to say ! " 
 
 Now how, how, I ask the unprejudiced and fair-minded 
 observer, how could any gentleman — of the name of Gwynne 
 — come at so winningly simple a woman as Mrs. Pallinder 
 with a low question of rent? "Pay or quit" indeed! The 
 thing was inconceivable, the moment inappropriate. 
 
 "You will come to dinner, won't you, Mr. Gwynne? Mr. 
 Peters, I've a crow to pick with you, for never bringing him. 
 Oh, I know you hate society, Mr. Gwynne, but just for 
 once " 
 
 Steven faltered; he would have accepted the invitation in 
 another moment — and if he had, who knows how this story 
 
132 THE TENANTS 
 
 might have ended? — but Doctor Vardaman intervened 
 
 briskly. 
 
 " Steven's got to stay here, madame, I asked him first," 
 he said, and clapped the other on the shoulder. Perhaps the 
 doctor was a shade more cordial even than his nature 
 prompted; he felt a great pity for Steven, and a certain 
 shame at the cheap and flimsy devices by which his poor old 
 friend could be overpowered. Mrs. Pallinder made a little 
 mouth at him. 
 
 " You always have your way, Doctor, you've gotten the 
 better of me ever so many times. You've got Huddesley, for 
 instance," she said, not disdaining to bestow an oeillade on the 
 servant as he stood before her, offering sherry in the doctor's 
 little old trumpet-shaped glasses ; he acknowledged the com- 
 pliment by a respectful grin. " And I'm simply having the 
 most awful time — you don't know of a good cook, do you, 
 Huddesley? " 
 
 " No, ma'am. Hi don't know hanybody 'ere, ma'am," said 
 Huddesley, with a faintly superior air; and passed on to 
 Gwynne with his silver tray. It was true; he held himself 
 apart from, and rather above, other servants. The doctor 
 had often remarked it with an amused sympathy. 
 
 " Don't you ? Isn't that a pity — I want so much to get 
 settled in the kitchen before Mazie comes home — well, if you 
 hear of anyone, you'll remember me, Huddesley, won't you ? " 
 Mrs. Pallinder held her glass in one hand, and shook a letter 
 out of her muff with the other. " Mazie's letter, Doctor 
 Vardaman — she'll be back in a week — she's going to bring 
 a friend — the most English name — one of those hyphenated 
 names, you know. Her father's one of the secretaries at the 
 Legation. Where — oh, here it is. ' Muriel ' isn't that Eng- 
 
THE TENANTS 133 
 
 lishf But just listen to the rest of it! — ' Ponsonby-Baxter.' 
 Her father is Sir Julian — no, it's Lucien — no, Mr. Peters, I 
 believe my eyes are failing — can you make out what that 
 word is? " 
 
 Gwynne, after a solemn inspection, pronounced it to be 
 Llewellyn. 
 
 " I notice all these young men read my daughter's hand- 
 writing a great deal better than I can, for some mysterious 
 reason, Mr. Gwynne," said Mrs. Pallinder pointedly, to 
 Steven, with her pretty laugh. And Steven actually laughed, 
 too! Where was his animosity? Where his anathemas? He 
 was at ease, mild, pleased, interested. In fact, Mrs. Pallin- 
 der, looking hardly a day over thirty-five, with her fresh 
 voice, her softly bright eyes, her trim and supple figure, was 
 an impossible sort of person for the role of mother. There 
 was a charming absurdity in her continual half-humorous, 
 half-sentimental allusions to her years and infirmities. 
 " When they get here, I'm thinking of having a little com- 
 pany in the house, Mr. Peters," she went on, with a con- 
 fidential glance that magically comprehended everybody in 
 the room. " Some of the girls, like Kitty Oldham, for in- 
 stance, and your cousin Marian, of course, if her mother 
 will let her come — I always say, Mr. Gwynne, that it's no 
 wonder all the girls in your family are so well-bred and have 
 such lovely manners — Gwynne manners, Colonel Pallinder 
 calls them — it's no wonder they're all that way, they've had 
 such careful mothers, and such training! It's my despair — 
 I'll never make Mazie that way ! I should like to go to school 
 to Mrs. Horace Gwynne myself for a while, only she wouldn't 
 have an old thing like me around, trying to copy those beau- 
 tiful, finished ways she has — the most elegant woman I know ! 
 
134 THE TENANTS 
 
 I think a little party in the house like that will make it 
 pleasant for Miss — Miss Baxter, I suppose we'll call her — 
 the whole name's a little too much — Ponsonby-Baxter ! And 
 now the colonel says he'll have to have some men in the house 
 in self-defence. Such a houseful of women! It bores a man, 
 I really think — oh, now, you needn't look that way, Mr. 
 Gwynne, you know it bores men sometimes to have too many 
 women around. So we want to have some of the young men, 
 t 00 — of course you, Mr. Peters, and do you think Mr. Lewis 
 would come? And then there's Mr. Taylor — the one you all 
 call J. B., I mean. There're those three large rooms in the 
 wing at the back, and the small one over the hall — plenty of 
 room, don't you think so, Mr. Gwynne? You ought to know 
 how many the house will hold." 
 
 Steven looked important and considered. He remembered 
 when Governor Gwynne had entertained the Whig Cam- 
 paign Committee in — in — he forgot the year, but it was when 
 Van Buren was elected; every room in the house had been 
 occupied, and cots in the library — you could put ten cots in 
 
 the library — oh, easily ten, end to end, you know — 
 
 " Cots ! Oh, I don't think we'll need cots, you know, with 
 
 young ladies in the party " 
 
 Steven did not hear her. He was launched on an accurate 
 description of the festivities, to which Mrs. Pallinder listened 
 with a caressing attention. How much had she overheard? 
 Or how much guessed? Possibly she would have been as pains- 
 takingly gracious to Steven in any event; to look her best, 
 to act her best, was Mrs. Pallinder's trade, and you may 
 trust me it was not always an easy one. " So interesting, 
 isn't it? Oh, it's all very well for you to smile, Doctor Varda- 
 man, you remember all this, and it seems very ordinary to 
 
THE TENANTS 135 
 
 you, no doubt. But it's rarely one hears such reminiscences 
 — you've met so many celebrated people, Mr. Gwynne — the 
 Governor knew everybody, of course, in his position, and then 
 he was a famous man himself. Oh, now I'm here, and have a 
 chance at last, I want you to tell me again about that time 
 the Governor gave away the crimson velvet waistcoat with 
 gold bees embroidered on it — don't you remember, you told 
 it to me the first time we met, and I tried to tell it to the 
 colonel afterwards, but I got it all mixed up. He gave it to 
 Tom Corwin, didn't he? And then the darky waiter got hold 
 of it somehow, and wore it to the party? I laughed so when 
 I came to that part, I couldn't go on with the story " 
 
 Doctor Vardaman listened between relief and a singularly 
 unreasonable resentment ; the business of pacifying Steven 
 seemed ludicrously easy, now. His weaknesses and the adroit- 
 ness with which they were approached, were alike contempti- 
 ble. Anything, of course, he admitted unwillingly, anything 
 was better than having a scene ; they should be thankful they 
 were so well past that danger. Yet he wondered privately 
 what Gwynne thought of this dexterous jockeying; a woman's 
 performances in what she chooses to consider the art of diplo- 
 macy unveiled, seldom fail of moving the masculine onlooker 
 to mingled wonder, scorn, and pity. The creature has the 
 cunning of her feebleness; how she does juggle with honour 
 and decency! How lightly she trips it along the unstable 
 wire ! What capital she makes of her toy emotions, her sham 
 beliefs and unbeliefs ! There is even something admirable in 
 her serene assurance that the end always justifies the means. 
 
 Steven may not have talked himself, or been talked, into a 
 complete forgetfulness of his errand; but at least the evil 
 hour was a while postponed. He saw Mrs. Pallinder leave 
 
136 THE TENANTS 
 
 the house escorted by Gwynne through the falling dusk, with 
 genial unconcern ; and reiterated to the doctor as they sat at 
 table that evening his convicition that Mrs. Pallinder was a 
 very polished lady ! Thus did the afternoon finish ; never was 
 there a tamer sequel to a more alarming prelude. If the 
 doctor had received some disquieting revelations, he could 
 still put them from his mind as no affair of his ; and if a vexed 
 anxiety about Gwynne lurked within him, it needed no great 
 effort to stifle or banish that, too, momentarily, at any rate. 
 The boy knew what he was about — laissez faire! he thought, 
 and surrended himself to a long evening of Steven and the 
 circulating medium with thankfulness and even some amuse- 
 ment. 
 
 " You — you're ever so kind to poor old Cousin Steven, 
 Mrs. Pallinder," Gwynne said to her, with a good deal of 
 feeling, as they parted in the shadow of the Parthenon front. 
 His voice trembled a little; and perhaps the lady let him 
 hold her hand a trifle longer than etiquette prescribes. 
 
 " My dear boy," she said with gentle emphasis, " my dear 
 
 boy, don't / know If there is any way I can think of to 
 
 make a person like that happier, wouldn't I gladly do it? 
 That seems to me a very small thing — a woman's duty — what 
 else are we for? I would do it for you anyhow, even if I 
 didn't feel so sorry for him." She melted into the house 
 without waiting to gauge the effect of this touching speech, 
 and the young man went off down the avenue with his head in 
 the stars. 
 
 All very wrong and very improper, no doubt ! But, on the 
 whole, Gwynne's conduct, it seems to me, was most edifying — 
 a pattern for any youth in his position. If Mrs. Pallinder had 
 been the angel he thought her, he could not have borne him- 
 
THE TENANTS 137 
 
 self toward her with more respect. A young man's first love, 
 or let us call it, his first amorous fancy, is free from gross- 
 ness. There was something spiritual and exalted in Gwynne's 
 devotion ; I believe he figured himself, foolishly and egotisti- 
 cally enough, her knight, faithful without hope of reward, 
 and gloried in his anguish. If he stood between her and the 
 all-too-righteous exactions of his relatives and co-heirs, if he 
 shielded her from the vials of their wrath, at the cost of 
 some squirmings of conscience, still I am loath to blame 
 him. 
 
 There was, of course, no excuse for him, yet Mrs. 
 
 Pallinder was old enough to be his mother, and married to 
 boot; but she was a very beautiful woman, and he was soft- 
 hearted and sentimental, and had had a harsh and loveless 
 life. How can I sit in judgment on him? Was I so wise at 
 twenty-four? For Mrs. Pallinder herself, I say and stick to 
 it, she was a perfectly good woman ; having discovered that 
 she could twist Gwynne around her finger, she cannot be 
 blamed, in the circumstances, for twisting him. The men 
 may well sneer at our tools, but we must even use the 
 tools you let us have, gentlemen, and sometimes you thrust 
 the haft into our hands. No woman can make a fool of a 
 man, I think, unless the man lends himself whole-heartedly to 
 the job. And there are times when she goes at it with little 
 relish. 
 
 Was it pleasant for Mrs. Pallinder to blarney Gwynne 
 into f orgetf ulness ? Did she enjoy listening to old Steven's 
 dreary, everlasting talk? I think that mean necessity galled 
 her at times as much as it would have the highest-minded 
 reader of this page. We must suppose she loved her swindling 
 rascal of a husband, for I detect a dingy loyalty in her 
 
138 THE TENANTS 
 
 method of supporting him. So he cleaves to her and cherishes 
 her, a woman cares not a jot whether her husband be honest 
 or not ; she will uphold him by such sorry arts as he himself 
 will look upon with disfavour. So terrific is her moral obliq- 
 uity that she will lie, wheedle, cozen, cheat, with an unruffled 
 mind to protect or further him ; displaying a distorted integ- 
 rity of purpose that compels our grudging admiration. Let 
 anyone who doubts these statements ask the wives and mothers 
 who unsparingly condemn Mrs. Pallinder's line of conduct, 
 what they would have had her do? Give up the game, and 
 so betray her husband's interests, or engage in a little harm- 
 less flirtation to put off the hour of his reckoning? You will 
 find that these virtuous ladies will dodge the question utterly. 
 They will indignantly and scornfully reject either course 
 — yet they will not be able to think of any other, and therein 
 you have your answer. I remember once hearing Doctor 
 Vardaman solemnly declare and vow that he believed nine- 
 tenths of the shiftless, incompetent, scoundrelly men in the 
 world were kept going in their profitless or criminal careers 
 solely by the co-operation of some fool of a woman — " an 
 honest woman, at that ! " he added, with a laugh. 
 
 Gwynne walked away in a state of exaltation that obliter- 
 ated from his mind all such sordid and petty considerations 
 as twenty-four hundred dollars of rent in arrears. At the 
 end of the avenue he turned to look back, and saw a light 
 spring up in the bedroom window he knew to be Mrs. 
 Pallinder's ; he walked on slowly, watching it with what high- 
 coloured and high-flown fancies ! Miranda, I am afraid, is 
 a name that defeats the muse ; but Gwynne continued in this 
 Romeo attitude and meditation until he crashed into a weary, 
 homing labourer, a resident of Bucktown, most probably. 
 
THE TENANTS 139 
 
 faring along through the twilight with a whitewash bucket 
 and brushes. 
 
 " Hy-yah! Keerful, cahn't yo'? Yo' 'd oughta look whar 
 yo's gVine, boss ! " 
 
 Gwynne started at the words; he ought to look where he 
 was going! He went on, slowly, frowning a little, with his 
 head bent. 
 
CHAPTER ELEVEN 
 
 1ENT dragged or slipped or scurried along according 
 to the varying tempers of those that watched it 
 j go ; of late years the speed of its passage has in- 
 ^" creased noticeably, it seems to me; successive 
 Lents shove one another off the stage with an alarming 
 celerity. But most of us voted it dismally slow in those days. 
 A church entertainment was given, in which Mrs. Pallinder 
 figured in tableaux as Ruth, with white draperies, her hair 
 bound up with fillets, and a sheaf of wheat (it was really 
 pampas grass) in her beautiful bare white arms. She looked, 
 undoubtedly, as much like Ruth as she had like Astarte; that 
 is to say, not at all. But people were unfeignedly delighted 
 this time, and not without reason; the curtain had to be 
 rung up repeatedly on " Ruth and Boaz." I thought, to be 
 truthful, that her features seemed hard and sharp in the 
 strong calcium-light; perhaps she was a little too old to 
 impersonate a character like Ruth. But Teddy Johns as- 
 sured me vehemently that she was ideal. " Beau'ful creature, 
 Mis' Pallinder — hie — s'prisin' — Ruth — 'Starte — Greek Slave 
 — no, no, didn't mean that, of course — hie — Greek statue — 
 always doin' somethin' — Pallinders, somethin' new, all time ! " 
 he said, meeting me in the passageway of Trinity Parish 
 House, where the entertainment was given. I do not know 
 where he had been; it is generally difficult to draw young 
 men to church-tableaux, and there were not many there. 
 Teddy had an air of surprise at finding himself in the audi- 
 
 140 
 
THE TENANTS 141 
 
 ence; his face was very much flushed, he laughed loud and 
 inappropriately; and Judge Lewis came with a grave face, 
 and took him by the arm and pulled him away, muttering 
 some apology to me. Judge Lewis was a vestryman; I saw 
 him talking to some of the others afterwards, and their grey 
 heads wagged solemnly; the judge could not have been tell- 
 ing one of those humorous anecdotes for which he was so 
 celebrated. 
 
 It was not long after this that Mazie at last came home; 
 and she lived up to the reputation that Teddy had given the 
 Pallinders of always doing something new. Doctor Varda- 
 man assured her gallantly that she was like the angel that 
 came down and stirred up the Pool of Bethesda — " we were 
 all stagnating," said the old gentleman, in his kind mock- 
 serious manner ; and Mazie smiled and lifted her eyes at him, 
 without, I dare say, understanding in the least where or what 
 the Pool of Bethesda was. She brought with her Miss Muriel 
 Ponsonby-Baxter ; and, following upon their arrival, Mrs. 
 Pallinder collected her house party. Most of the young people 
 she asked caught eagerly at the invitation; you may laugh, 
 or perhaps jeer, but house parties were not then the affair 
 of everyday occurrence they have since become — not in our 
 corner of the world, certainly. We all felt, delightedly, as if 
 we were living in an English novel — one of " The Duchess' ' 
 for choice. 
 
 " You know we're going to have private theatricals in the 
 ballroom," Mazie told everybody. " The girls and men in the 
 house will all be in it, so we can have rehearsals any time. 
 And papa is going to have a stage built with footlights and 
 a curtain. We'll ask everyone, of course, and dance after- 
 wards. I bought the favours for the german in New York 
 
142 THE TENANTS 
 
 coming home, you know. They're simply too sweet for 
 any use." 
 
 ("I baought the favuhs foh the juhman in New Yawhk, 
 yuh knaow. Theah simply too sweet foh any use," was the 
 way she said it, but I shall not attempt to reproduce Mazie's 
 speech. It had a kind of drawling vivacity; and the final 
 sentence was in the slang of the day — very fresh and spirited 
 it sounded then, too !) 
 
 Mazie Pallinder was not a pretty girl ; she was too tall and 
 lank; and, except when she got her cheeks touched up, too 
 pallid with her ink-black hair. But she had a certain air 
 of lazy distinction, helped out by a real talent for dressing 
 herself, and an unlimited purse — maybe an unlimited indiffer- 
 ence to bills and tradesmen would be a better way of put- 
 ting it. 
 
 " The first thing on the programme is to be ' William 
 Tell,' " she said. " That's to have just men in it, you know. 
 I think it's always best to have a lot more men than girls, 
 and make them stand around. That's the way it is in the 
 South, New Orleans, or Charleston, or anywhere I've ever 
 been. You see them lined up all around the room waiting a 
 chance, at dances, you know. All the girls have to split every 
 waltz." 
 
 Bewildering dream of bliss! Somebody, recovering from 
 the contemplation, wanted to know what " William Tell " 
 would be like with only men in it? 
 
 " Oh, I've talked that all over with J. B." said Mazie. " It 
 was his suggestion, you know. They gave it at college, his 
 senior year, and, of course, all the parts were done by men. 
 He said it was simply great. It's a take-off of the real 
 'William Tell.' What do you think? Doctor Vardaman 
 
THE TENANTS 143 
 
 asked if it was the real * Tell,' and he said there was a 
 beautiful adagio for the horn in the overture! I simply 
 screamed — I laughed till I nearly fell over. You see the 
 funny thing is there is a horn — but it's a dinner horn ! Archie 
 Lewis comes on with it when he sings his topical song. 
 Archie's to be ' Tell,' you know. He's got a hit on everyone 
 in town — they'll all be here in the audience, of course. It 
 
 begins : 
 
 " • I'm a horny — horny — horny-handed 
 SON OF TOIL ! 
 From Maine to California 
 You couldn't find a hornier, 
 And — and — I'm 
 
 I can't remember the rest of it. He and J. B. wrote the 
 verses — it's awfully funny, don't you think, Muriel? We've 
 seen them go over parts of it." 
 
 "Yes," said Muriel tepidly. We all looked at her with 
 some curiosity ; lying back in one of Mazie's profuse rocking- 
 chairs, she seemed very large by contrast with the rest of 
 us. She had long round arms, long sloping thighs, long hands 
 and feet, a great deal bigger than any of ours, but well- 
 shaped, in so just a proportion one hardly noticed their size. 
 I think I never saw so beautiful a woman. Beside her large 
 classic calm, we were as a tribe of little gesticulating marion- 
 ettes. She listened to our facile laughter, our high, excited 
 voices, with a grave and rather wondering tolerance ; no one 
 ever saw her laugh. We decided it was a pose with her, think- 
 ing she was conscious, very likely, that outright mirth or any 
 other visible emotion would somehow become her ill. You 
 cannot imagine the Bartholdi Liberty laughing. Such reg- 
 ularity of features, such steadfast, intrepid eyes had Muriel ; 
 
144 THE TENANTS 
 
 and so did she oppose to passing people and events, silence 
 and an unmoved brow. I give the idea that she was dull; it 
 was not so. She thought as much and as much to the point as 
 any of us ; she only lacked our fevered sprightliness. 
 
 Mazie went on expounding: "Teddy Johns is to be Mrs. 
 Gessler, and Gwynne Peters is Mrs. Tell, or Matilda, I for- 
 get which, and J. B.'s young * Tell.' In the play his name's 
 Jemmy, of all things I do think that's the funniest — Jemmy ! 
 J. B. said when they found that in the libretto, they said it 
 would be a shame to change it. I believe in the original opera, 
 a girl always sings the part. J. B.'s all the time wanting 
 someone to hear him speak his piece, or give him a drink of 
 water — things like that, you know, as if he were about four 
 years old. And he gets lost and says to the policeman that 
 he's Jemmy Tell — I don't know why you want to laugh, but 
 it's so silly you can't help it. He must be six-feet-two if 
 he's an inch, and he's going to wear a little white pique kilt 
 to his knees with a sash and short socks and ankle-ties, and 
 a red apple fastened on his head kind of skew-wow over one 
 ear, with an elastic under his chin. Simply too funny for 
 any use ! " 
 
 " I don't see how he can do it," said Muriel. " Fancy ! A 
 kilt ! I think it's horrid ! " She spoke with unexpected 
 energy ; the lovely English rose in her cheeks suddenly deep- 
 ened. Every other girl in the room wondered what it was 
 that had waked her up ; and Mazie, who was manicuring her 
 nails (she introduced that art among us), paused with the 
 polisher suspended, and gave her friend an acute fleeting 
 glance. 
 
 " I don't believe J. B. minds, or he wouldn't get himself 
 up that way," she remarked airily. " We can stand it if he 
 
THE TENANTS 145 
 
 can. He's got an awfully good figure. After all, the kilt 
 isn't much different from a Roman costume — like what John 
 McCullough wears in ' Virginius,' you know. J. B.'s on to his 
 own good points ; he's not going to make a guy of himself — 
 catch a man doing that. ' Tell's ' sort of comic opera, and 
 do you know, girls, honestly, I can't see but that it's every 
 bit as good as ' Olivette ' — you haven't seen that yet. They'll 
 have it out here by next winter, I suppose ; it's always a year 
 before things get West from New York. We thought we'd 
 have the other play afterwards — they aren't either of them 
 long. That will give all the men a chance to get into their 
 dress-clothes before the dancing begins. Teddy and J. B. 
 are both in the second one, too. It's called ' Mrs. Tanker- 
 ville's Tiara.' " 
 
 " Where did you get it? Public Library? " 
 
 " Oh, gracious, no. I shouldn't have known what to ask 
 for, you know; why, there've been millions and millions of 
 plays written — did you know that? Just millions! No, Doc- 
 tor Vardaman lent me the book; I went down to the house 
 and looked over ever so many with him. You ought to see 
 the doctor's library; I'd never been in it before; I believe 
 where we've got one book, he has twenty at the very least. 
 They go all around the room in shelves with the busts of 
 people on top, Shakespeare, I suppose, and — and — well, 
 Shakespeare, you know, and men like that. And he has funny 
 old stuffed birds sitting up between the busts. You wouldn't 
 think that would be pretty, would you, just books, and 
 mothy old birds, and no curtains at the windows; it isn't a 
 bit stylish, but somehow it looks like Doctor Vardaman, 
 Well, we looked at the greatest pile of books of plays, and I 
 told the doctor I thought we oughtn't to attempt anything 
 
146 THE TENANTS 
 
 but farce, so that we'd be sure of entertaining people. But 
 he said if we really meant to be funny, we'd better be serious ; 
 he'd guarantee everybody would be much more entertained. 
 Doctor Vardaman does say such queer things — you never 
 know whether he's laughing at you, or with you. But he's 
 lovely about hearing us rehearse (he's seen it on the stage, 
 you know), and suggesting business — that's when you have 
 to stand in a corner and make believe to be doing something 
 when it isn't your turn to talk. Isn't it funny you never see 
 actors standing still, and looking stumped for something to 
 do? They're always walking around, or they've got some- 
 thing in their hands to fuss with, or " 
 
 " Well, that's business, isn't it? " 
 
 " Yes, but I don't see why they can't sit still just the way 
 we are now — but if they did, it probably wouldn't look 
 right on the stage. Only how do they think up all the things 
 they do? Business is a lot harder than talking, anyhow. 
 Muriel's the leading lady, she's got an awfully long part. 
 J. B. has to make love to her, you know, and when the butler 
 steals the diamonds, and they think Muriel did it, he goes 
 right away and proposes to her, to show that he trusts her 
 anyway- 
 
 " I don't like all that spoony part," said Muriel, colouring 
 painfully. 
 
 " He don't either, I guess," said Kitty. " Men don't like 
 being made to look ridiculous." 
 
 Kitty was undoubtedly a cat, but "You're in the 
 
 play, too, aren't you, Miss Oldham? " Muriel asked her. 
 
 " Yes. I'm Mrs. Tankerville's maid. I've only got about 
 two words to say." 
 
 " Oh ! " said Muriel in her pleasant low voice. " Oh ! " 
 
THE TENANTS 147 
 
 That was all. But she had got even, to our surprise. I believe 
 we all liked her the better for it. 
 
 " We'll all have to copy out our parts," continued Mazie 
 rather hastily. " It's comedy, except where Mrs. Tanker- 
 ville's diamonds are stolen ; Teddy Johns is * Jenks,' the 
 butler; in the last act he's shot, while he's hiding behind a 
 screen, and then they find the diamonds on him, and it all 
 'comes out right, of course. And oh, girls, it opens with a 
 ballroom scene, and we'll all have to be dressed up to the 
 n i nes — wouldn't mamma be raging if she heard me say that 
 — she thinks slang's simply awful! " 
 
 "Was that slang?" asked honest Muriel, opening her 
 eyes. " It doesn't seem to have any sense. But then one 
 doesn't notice it, because so much of your talk is like that, 
 in the States ! " 
 
 " Never mind, you'll learn as you go along," said Kitty 
 encouragingly. " It may take a good while, but you're bound 
 to learn some time. Everyone gets used to our slang in the 
 end, even the very slowest ones ! " 
 
 Mazie again intervened to shunt the conversation on a 
 safer track; she kept on with the question of dress for the 
 forthcoming dramatic performance; and as there were a 
 good many changes for everybody, the scene being laid in 
 the present day, before long she had us all in smooth water 
 once more. Mazie was her mother's own daughter, deft as a 
 juggler among the uncertain knives and balls of social 
 favour; she was fully awake to the difficulties of managing 
 that most unmanageable of bodies, a set of amateur actors. 
 But during the fortnight or so that " William Tell " and 
 "Mrs. Tankerville's Tiara" were in preparation, she and 
 Mrs. Pallinder must have been taxed to the utmost, adroit 
 
148 THE TENANTS 
 
 as they were, to keep things going smoothly, or indeed, going 
 at all. Teddy Johns, who was somewhat given to hyperbole, 
 or, as he himself would have said, to " tall talk," once con- 
 fided to me that he had a feeling we were " all dancing on 
 top of a volcano — like the What-d'ye-call-'ems over the 
 Thingumbob, you know," he said, gloomily. " I've read about 
 'em somewhere. Lucky if it don't go off under us ! " It did 
 go off, after a fashion, but not quite as Teddy had expected. 
 Teddy Johns displayed more real talent — to call his small 
 gift by a very large name — for the stage than any of us. 
 He was not a clever young man — he had one lamentable 
 failing ; but he could control his sallow, solemn face, and un- 
 gainly body into expressions and attitudes that would have 
 won laughter from stocks and stones. When Archie Lewis 
 in his character of " Tell " came tearing across the stage, 
 clamouring wildly in the highest style of high tragedy, " Me 
 che-ild, me che-ild ! Must I spank me own che-ild ? " Teddy 
 could say, " Do Tell ! " in an accent of vacuous astonishment 
 that reduced one to helpless and I suppose perfectly senseless 
 merriment. Teddy was our sheet-anchor. Unquestionably 
 without him the whole thing would be a " fizzle." 
 
CHAPTER TWELVE 
 
 <A BOUT this time all the papers were giving consider- 
 /% able attention in the columns which they headed 
 / \ variously: " Social Doings." " Among the Four 
 JL jL- Hundred," — a phrase just then coming into 
 notoriety, — " The Society Calendar," etc., to Mrs. Pallinder's 
 house-party. That lady herself, her establishment, her 
 clothes, her diamonds had provided us with gossip, as I have 
 endeavoured to show, for the past two years. But if we were 
 inured to Mrs. Pallinder, Miss Muriel Ponsonby-Baxter was 
 something new. Everyone entertained for her ; it was a mat- 
 ter of pride with us to give our English girl-visitor an un- 
 approachably " good time," to prove to her how much the 
 best country in this best of all possible worlds America was 
 for the young, well-born, well-mannered, good-looking, and 
 happy — ourselves, in short. Not one of us had the slightest 
 acquaintance with English society ; but we were confident our 
 own was immeasurably better. Twenty-five years ago, it must 
 be remembered, there was a chillier feeling between the two 
 countries ; and, of course, our provincialism accented it. The 
 eagle ramped upon his perch; the lion suffered a deal of 
 tail-twisting ; hands across the sea were not quite so fervent 
 in their clasp then as now. Our demagogues flung about dark 
 hints concerning the machinations of the " Cobden Club." 
 American protectionists, American free-traders bellowed 
 themselves purple in the face from the stump in defence of 
 their several creeds, and strangely enough, found in England 
 
 149 
 
150 THE TENANTS 
 
 equally an awful example, and a beacon-light of progress ! 
 The last, for obvious reasons, was a very unpopular view; 
 in those Arcadian days the main diversion of a certain class 
 of our politicians was the ferocious baiting of perfidious Al- 
 bion. The Oriental-war scares, the race-problems, the anti- 
 trust, and anti-railroad agitations of to-day must cause these 
 amiable jingoes — a name, by the way, which they never heard 
 — to turn in their graves. Bless thee, Bottom, how art thou 
 translated ! In that year, the Pendleton Civil-Service Reform 
 Bill was the most important measure before the two Houses ; 
 and " to the victors belong the spoils," was the cry most fre- 
 quently raised against it. That admirable argument, at once 
 so condensed and so forcible, what respectable person would 
 dare to utter it to-day? Blaine was alive; Tilden was alive; 
 Ben Butler was governor of Massachusetts, he of fragrant 
 memory, house-cleaner of New Orleans, promulgator of Reg- 
 ulation 19 — or was it 29? Iram indeed is gone with all his 
 rose, and Ben and all the rest along with him ; and we have 
 ceased, at a woeful expense, to be provincial. We were not 
 bothering our heads then, about tropical canals and the 
 Philippines — oh, all-but-forgotten Golden Age! 
 
 We were not always certain what sort of impression we 
 were making on Muriel; and, however eager we might have 
 been to find out, there are some questions any girl would go 
 to the scaffold rather than ask. But I know that on one 
 point we were intolerably vain ; perhaps that vanity was the 
 most honest, creditable, endearing quality we possessed; and 
 something of the same feeling stirs me even now. Where, 
 where on this globe, we asked ourselves triumphantly, would 
 Muriel find anything to match the ready deference, the kind, 
 half-humorous, wholly charming devotion of the American 
 
THE TENANTS 151 
 
 man to his womankind? Indeed, it was plain to see she was 
 unused to this Sir Walter Raleigh attitude ; she was as much 
 puzzled as pleased by it. I think we were somewhat disposed 
 to patronise her ; and Kitty Oldham declared openly she didn't 
 believe Miss Baxter had ever had an offer in her life. She 
 was an exceptionally handsome girl; she must have had a 
 far wider social experience than ours ; but, for all that, and 
 in spite of her size and the splendid unconscious ease of her 
 bearing, we detected in her a curious timidity. It suited her. 
 Had she attempted to imitate the brisk, fearless, autocratic 
 American girl, she would have been merely a big hoyden. 
 There was, after all, something sweet in her naive tactless- 
 ness, her awkward conscientious efforts at adapting herself 
 to ways she could not understand, and perhaps at heart, did 
 not really like. To one of us, at least, the association was not 
 without profit. I used to feel that someone ought in con- 
 science to explain Mrs. Botlisch to Muriel, to apologise for 
 that really terrible old woman ; the irritating thing was that 
 Muriel accepted her without comment, exactly as she accepted 
 the rest of us — as if, I thought with annoyance, we were 
 all freaks together ! " Mazie's grandmother is not — well — er 
 — she's not at all — you know ? " I said, feeling, notwithstand- 
 ing this public-spirited effort, a little embarrassed under 
 Muriel's direct, serious gaze. " Mrs. Botlisch is — well, she's 
 really not — er — very good style, nobody else here is like her 
 — you must have noticed it. She's awfully common — of 
 course, we didn't know much about the Pallinders before 
 they came here — nobody knows how they — they got in, you 
 
 see " 
 
 « 
 
 I shouldn't think you'd come to the house so much if 
 you feel that way," said Muriel. " I wouldn't." 
 
152 THE TENANTS 
 
 She did not mean it as a rebuke ; she was only saying, as 
 usual, precisely what she thought. But all at once, with the 
 uncompromising harshness of youth, I saw and denounced 
 myself inwardly for a petty groundling, eating people's 
 bread with a covert sneer, and parading their shortcomings 
 before a stranger. No, Muriel would not have done it. 
 Noblesse oblige! 
 
 The Pallinders, to their honour be it said, never seemed to 
 be ashamed of Mrs. Botlisch. They had their notions of 
 noblesse oblige, too, strange as that may sound. Reflecting 
 upon it now, I see certain a heroism in the respect they paid 
 that dreadful, screeching, vile-tongued old termagant. I 
 have known prosperous, reputable families, who paid the 
 butcher and thought it a sin to play cards, wherein the un- 
 ornamental older members were not treated with one-half the 
 consideration these kind-hearted, conscienceless outlaws be- 
 stowed on Mrs. Botlisch. She was a fat harridan of seventy 
 with a blotched red face, a great, coarse, husky voice like 
 a man's and thick hands, the nails bitten down to the quick. 
 She liked to go about without corsets or shoes in a shapeless 
 gaberdine she called a double-gown — not too clean at that. 
 She kept a bottle of whisky on her mantelpiece ; she had a dis- 
 concerting habit of whisking out her teeth and laying them 
 down wherever she chanced to be ; you might come upon them 
 grinning amongst Mazie's music on the piano, or under the 
 sofa-cushions. She frankly enjoyed a loose story, and made 
 a point of telling them in mixed companies of young people. 
 She alternately bullied the servants and gossiped with them 
 in the kitchen; once I most inopportunely happened upon 
 Mrs. Botlisch engaged in a battle-royal with one of the 
 chambermaids over some trifle — a broken dish, perhaps — in 
 
THE TENANTS 153 
 
 the pantry. Fortunately, I could not understand one word 
 they uttered ; and after a little, Mrs. Pallinder came, looking 
 quite grey over her handsome resolute face, and took her 
 mother away still shrieking hideous abuse. " Ma is so 
 eccentric," she said to me afterwards, with a ghastly smile; 
 and some feeling, of mingled horror and compassion, withheld 
 me from reporting the wretched scene. In most households, 
 these undesirable parents can be thrust, gently or not, into 
 the background; in fact, very many parents retire thither 
 of their own accord. But Mrs. Botlisch was not of that 
 type. 
 
 " I like to set in the parlour an' see the young folks," she 
 said. " Mirandy she don't want me to, but I says to her, 
 ' Mirandy,' says I, ' don't you worry. I'm goin' ter keep 
 my uppers an' lowers in, 'less I git a fish-bone er a hunk o' 
 meat under the plate at dinner, an' I ain't a-goin' to no bed 
 till I git sleepy,' says I. She says, ' Ma, I'm afraid you won't 
 be comf'ble with your — you know — on all evenin'.' " (Here 
 she gave J. B. a poke in the side and dropped her left eyelid). 
 " 6 Lord love you, don't set there lookin' so innercent like 
 you'd never saw a woman undress in yer life — don't come that 
 over me, young feller. She says, ' Ma, I'm afraid you'll feel 
 kinder tight an' uncomf'ble with 'em on all evenin' 'long as 
 you ain't used to wearin' 'em much in the daytime,' she 
 says. 'Land!' says I. 'Mirandy, I ain't squoze inter 
 my cloze by main stren'th the way Mazie is. 'F I feel un- 
 comf'ble, I'll just undo the bottom buttons of my basque an' 
 I'll be all right, you see.' " 
 
 And there she sat, true to her word, creaking in her black 
 silk and bugles (with the bottom buttons undone!), perspir- 
 ing greasily over her fat red face; and shouting rough, 
 
154 THE TENANTS 
 
 humorous, and frequently shrewd criticism at our amateurs 
 during rehearsal until midnight, when we went out to the 
 dining-room for oysters, egg-nogg, and the too lavish enter- 
 tainment of Colonel Pallinder's sideboard. The first time 
 this occurred Teddy Johns retreated precipitately from the 
 table, and, being sought, was discovered at last, pallidly re- 
 clining on the library lounge. 
 
 " I'm all right, old man," he said feebly. " Just a minute, 
 please. I couldn't stand seeing old Mrs. Botlisch wallop down 
 those oysters, that's all." 
 
 There lies before me now a square of rough paper (de- 
 signedly rough), with jagged edges (designedly jagged), 
 tinted in water colours an elegant cloudy blue, with a butter- 
 fly, or some such insect, painted in one corner, and a slit 
 diagonally opposite through which we stuck a single rose- 
 bud, as I remember. Slanting across the sheet in loose gilt 
 lettering I read " Programme," and a date beneath. This 
 confection represented days of effort and ingenuity on the 
 part of those young ladies among my contemporaries who 
 painted china, or were otherwise " artistic." Some of them 
 took the "Art Amateur," at a ruinous expenditure; that 
 publication has long since gone the way of all flesh and most 
 print, in company, it would appear, with the amateurs for 
 whom it was destined. Nobody is either " artistic " or ama- 
 teurish any more. We did the jagging with a meat-saw, I 
 believe — what a spectacle for our accomplished posterity! 
 
 If I reverse the sheet, I find upon the other side, in a correct 
 angular hand (it may well be my own, for angularity was 
 much the fashion in those days; and the inartistic ones let 
 what aid they could to the task of programme-making), I 
 find, I say, the 
 
THE TENANTS 155 
 
 CAST OF CHARACTERS 
 
 WILLIAM TELL, 
 
 An Opera in Two Acts. 
 
 William Tell Mr. Archer Baldwin Lewis 
 
 Arnold von Winkelreid Mr. James Hathaway 
 
 Walter Furst Mr. Julian Todd 
 
 Melcthal Mr. Appleton Wingate 
 
 Gessler Mr. James Smith 
 
 Rudolph Mr. John Porter 
 
 Ruodi Mr. Joseph Randall McHenry 
 
 Leuthold Mr. Henry Barnes Smith 
 
 Matilda Mr. Gwynne Peters 
 
 Mrs. Tell Mr. Oliver Hunt 
 
 Mrs. Gessler Mr. Theodore E. Johns 
 
 Jemmy, Tell's son . Mr. Junius Brutus Breckinridge Taylor 
 Chorus of Peasants, Knights, Pages, 
 Ladies, Hunters, Soldiers, etc. . . . Mr. Robert Carson 
 Scene: The Schactenthal Waterfall. 
 
 The uninformed might very well inquire, as did Doctor 
 Vardaman, what under Heaven Arnold von Winkelreid was 
 doing in this galere? He appeared among the other historical 
 personages with a baseball-catcher's padded guard tied about 
 his chest, and stuck full of enormous arrows ; at one time or 
 another every young man in the cast, including Jimmie 
 Hathaway himself, was overheard laboriously explaining to 
 Muriel that it was " all just nonsense, you know; of course 
 Winkelreid didn't have anything to do with Tell — but there 
 was an Arnold in the cast of the real opera — and then there 
 was that funny old piece about Arnold von Winkelreid in Mc- 
 GufFey's Reader, you know : ' Make way for liberty, he 
 cried, make way for liberty, and died ! ' and he somehow 
 seemed to fit in pretty well with the rest of the foolishness. 
 They had thought of having Casabianca, too, but gave it 
 up," and so on and so on. 
 
 " Don't pay any attention to their excuses, Miss Baxter," 
 
156 THE TENANTS 
 
 said the doctor fiercely, yet shaking with laughter. " It's all 
 miserable horse-play — vandalism — desecration. c Guillaume 
 Tell ' is a beautiful opera, the creation of a great musical 
 genius. I've seen Sonntag and Lablache in it ; it ought to be 
 sacred from these barbarians — you hear me, boys, barbar- 
 ians ! " He menaced them with a closed fist ; and they went 
 on shamelessly: 
 
 Oessler (in a loud voice) — Who are these fellows? 
 Rudolph — My lord, these are Swiss. 
 
 Oessler {louder, pointing to Tell) — Who's that fellow with the 
 freckles ? 
 Rudolph — My lord, that is a dotted Swiss. 
 Oessler (louder still) — Take away that dashed Swiss! 
 Rudolph — My lord, I said dotted. 
 Oessler (very loud) — Well, I said dashed 
 
 It took little enough to make us laugh, for we thought 
 all that very funny indeed. And an interesting point might 
 be made of the fact that " William Tell," whether the men 
 had greater abilities, or easier parts, or from whatever rea- 
 son, was, as a whole, far and away superior to the play in 
 which the girls appeared. Doctor Vardaman, for all his old- 
 time gallantry, betrayed his preference more than once ; but 
 it sometimes seemed to me as if the old gentleman took a 
 malign satisfaction in viewing our performances, theatrical 
 and otherwise, as one who should stand by and observe the 
 antics of so many apes with an amused detachment. 
 
 "Of course, of course, I enjoy the comedy. Don't you 
 want me to enjoy the comedy? " he said when I taxed him, 
 and eyed me sidelong with his discomfiting grin. The doctor 
 was a queer old man ; not the least evidence of his queerness 
 was the interest he displayed in our affairs. He watched us 
 
THE TENANTS 157 
 
 drill for " William Tell " and " Mrs. Tankerville's Tiara," 
 day by day, appearing to find therein unfailing entertain- 
 ment. To be sure he had little else to do ; he had long 
 retired from practice, and, as he said of himself, was the weak- 
 minded victim of his own whims. With all his oddities, we 
 were fond of him ; and his advice and suggestions were a real 
 help to such of us as took ourselves and our parts seriously. 
 The stage was one of his many hobbies ; he had collected a 
 huge library of books relating to it ; had seen all of the 
 celebrated actors of his day and known not a few of them; 
 and could recall Laura Keane in the very role which Muriel 
 was now essaying. 
 
 " Do you remember what she wore, Doctor? " Mazie asked 
 him, characteristically enough, by the way. 
 
 " White gauze, I think," said the old gentleman, consid- 
 ering. " Yes, it was white gauze, and a touch of green about 
 it somewhere." 
 
 " Huh ! Touch o' green was a fig-leaf, I s'pose — hope 
 so, anyhow ! " said Mrs. Botlisch, and " wallopped " down 
 another oyster. She was a terrible old woman. 
 
 " I don't know what we'd do without you, doctor," said 
 Mazie precipitately. " You know so much about it — what 
 we ought to do, I mean, and how the whole thing ought to 
 go. It's ever so kind of you " 
 
 " Not at all — the kindness is on your side," said the doctor. 
 He glanced about with a smile in which there lurked a whim- 
 sical melancholy. " I don't aspire to the post of guide, 
 philosopher, and fr " 
 
 " Talkin' o' guides," old Mrs. Botlisch interrupted him. 
 " Ever hear that story 'bout the English feller that went 
 aroun' Niagry Falls with a guide, out to Table Rock an' Goat 
 
158 THE TENANTS 
 
 Island, and down under th' Falls an' everywheres, an' when 
 they got through, he took an' wrote in th' visitors' book, 
 ' Why am I like Desdemona? ' That's th' white girl that mar- 
 ried a nigger in one o' these here plays, you know. He took an' 
 wrote, ' Why am I like Desdemona ? Becuz ' " 
 
 " Ahem ! " interrupted Doctor Vardaman, with extraordi- 
 nary vehemence. " You were asking me for the address of the 
 man that sells make-up boxes, one of you the other day. I 
 meant to bring it with me to-night, but forgot. Any time 
 you want, you can stop at my house, and in case I'm out, ask 
 Huddesley, I left it with him. It's Kryzowski — bowski — 
 wowski — some such unpronounceable Russian name, and his 
 shop is somewhere on Sixth Avenue, I think, but I can't 
 exactly remember." 
 
 All of which speech the doctor delivered in a rapid and 
 vigorous outburst of words, not pausing until he was quite 
 out of breath ; and even then he had the air of one skirting 
 by a hair's-breadth some desperate verge. 
 
 " I'll stop in to-morrow," said J. B. " Huddesley isn't 
 likely to get mixed up about it, is he? " 
 
 " Huddesley ? Oh, no, trust him. Besides I'll leave it writ- 
 ten down. But Huddesley is perfectly reliable — a remarkable 
 man, that — never had a such a servant is my house — he's 
 really unusual." 
 
 " Snake in th' grass — don't tell me! " Mrs. Botlisch 
 grunted. She had taken a bitter prejudice against the doc- 
 tor's man-servant; partly, no doubt, because although he 
 was a good deal about the house, coming and going on the 
 doctor's errands, he had managed to avoid both her bullying 
 and her patronage. There is nothing more offensive than 
 the servant whose manners are better than our own. And 
 
THE TENANTS 159 
 
 Huddesley's manners were perfect in his degree ; he was 
 English, we supposed from the short fragment of his history 
 we had heard, and had not been long enough abroad to lose 
 the insular standard of domestic service, and the insular 
 traditions of class. 
 
 " Huddesley'll get spoiled if you don't look out, Doctor," 
 Colonel Pallinder warned him. " None of my affair, of course, 
 but, pardon me, too much notice and perhaps too much 
 pay " 
 
 " I know some of 'em that ain't sufferin' from that any- 
 how ! " growled the old woman pointedly. 
 
 " I believe ma thinks we ought to give all these lazy darkies 
 as much as we spend on ourselves," said Mrs. Pallinder with 
 an indulgent laugh. " As if they weren't eating us out of 
 house and home already ! But William's right, doctor, Hud- 
 desley will be spoiled if we're not all more careful. A white 
 servant can't stand petting and familiarity the way black 
 ones do ; sooner or later he'll presume on it. Did you know 
 that all these boys have been going down to your house to 
 get Huddesley to hear them their parts ? " 
 
 " It's my fault, I began it," J. B. explained, reddening. 
 " I said to Ted that if he wanted to know how an English 
 butler behaved he'd better get a few pointers from Huddes- 
 ley. Huddesley'd make an ideal J Jenks,' you know, as far as 
 looks go, I mean. He's the real thing in butlers. And it's 
 funny, he's got ever so many good ideas about business, you 
 know, and all that. But we won't do it any more of you'd 
 rather not, Doctor." 
 
 M Pooh, you can't spoil a man like that," the doctor said. 
 " Reverence for class is born in 'em ; it runs in the blood. 
 That's what I admire about these English servants — their 
 
160 THE TENANTS 
 
 perfect self-respect, and idea of the dignity of their own 
 position, without presuming on yours." 
 
 " It's awfully convenient having him to prompt anyhow," 
 said Mazie, who needed a great deal of prompting. " Nobody 
 wants to sit and hold an old prompt-book and watch for mis- 
 takes. What bothers me is all those funny little pairs of let- 
 ters ' r.u. 9 and ' cross over ' and ' sits right * scattered all 
 through your speech like hiccups. I don't know what r.u. 
 means, anyhow." 
 
 " Huddesley says it means retire up — walk toward the back 
 of the stage, you know." 
 
 " Well, but I thought you oughtn't ever to turn your back 
 on the audience." 
 
 " Depends on yer figger, I guess," said Mrs. Botliscru 
 " Some girl's backs and fronts ain't no different — they're 
 flat both sides like a paper doll ! " 
 
 " Huddesley has aspirations," said Doctor Vardaman 
 briskly. " I discovered that some time ago. At first I thought 
 he wanted to study medicine; he used to be forever poking 
 about my little room, pretending to dust and arrange the 
 bottles, and asking all manner of questions. But since this 
 business of your plays has come up, he's been tremendously 
 interested in them. The fellow has some education, you know. 
 I've found him two or three times reading in my library, with 
 the feather duster under his arm — perfectly absorbed. He 
 was very mortified the first time I caught him at it, and 
 humbly begged my pardon. ' Hi can't resist a book, sir, 
 sometimes,' he said. 'Hi wouldn't wish to be thought to 
 presoom, but Hi've tastes hother than my lot can gratify; 
 and Hi've 'ad 'opes— but,' says he, with a sigh, ' that's hall 
 hover and gone, now.' " 
 
THE TENANTS 161 
 
 " Kind of stagey, wasn't he? " 
 
 " Yes, of course, he must have got that out of some book. 
 Once in a while, he uses very fine language, indeed, and then I 
 know he's been reading. I said, * Well, Huddesley, it's a pity, 
 if feeling that way, you can't raise yourself as high as you 
 choose here in America.' I only said it to draw him out, you 
 know. He shook his head mournfully. ' No, sir,' says he, ' Hi 
 won't never be anything but a butler — a servant pourin' out 
 wine an' blackin' boots for the rich and light-'earted like 
 yourself, sir.' I asked him what he would like to be if he could 
 begin over again. " A hactor, sir,' said he respectfully. ' Hi 
 feel the stirrin' of Hart within my buzzom.' 4 That's where 
 we commonly feel 'em, Huddesley,' says I. 8 Hi don't mean 
 'eart, sir, beggin' your parding, Hi mean Hart — with a 
 Hay, sir — that's what Hi feel, but they'll never 'ave no hout- 
 
 let, sir, Hi'm a butler — the die is cast ' and then I escaped 
 
 into the garden to laugh." 
 
 " That isn't all funny — it's pathetic too," said J. B. 
 thoughtfully. " Poor devil ! " 
 
 At least two people in the room looked at the young man 
 with a quicker interest — Doctor Vardaman and Muriel, the 
 doctor with an odd and pleased surprise in his keen quizzical 
 face. As for Muriel, she and J. B. looked at one another 
 pretty often, as I remember. Mrs. Botlisch raised her hard 
 old features from a close inspection of her empty, swept and 
 scraped platter, and fixed the doctor with a little twinkling 
 porcine eye. 
 
 " How long you had him anyway, Doc. ? " 
 
 " Three months, or so, I believe." 
 
 Oh, no, it's not that long, Doctor," exclaimed Mazie. 
 I remember Huddesley came after the holidays, just as I 
 
 
162 THE TENANTS 
 
 was starting to Washington. That was a little after the 
 Charity Ball. I put off going so as not to miss it. I remem- 
 ber about Huddesley because you had just got rid of that 
 awful man that had d.t's and came up here with an axe want- 
 ing to kill somebody." 
 
 " Huddesley's arrival raised the tone of our neighbourhood 
 appreciably," said the doctor, with a laugh. Doctor Varda- 
 man's men were a byword in the community. Men of every 
 colour and nationality had drifted through his hands ; it was 
 a long procession of lazy, drunken, thieving rascality, or 
 honesty so abysmally stupid and incompetent as to be equally 
 worthless. " I'll never let him go, now I've got him," said the 
 old gentleman. " I have a fellow-feeling for all you ladies 
 that keep house. Rather than lose him, I'd give him every- 
 thing I own even unto the half of my substance." 
 
 " He'll git more 'n that 'fore he's through with ye," said 
 Mrs. Botlisch. "You young Taylor feller," — she always 
 called J. B. and in fact all the young men that frequented the 
 house, by the last name — "you'd better git that bottle o' 
 rye away from Johns. He's had about enough, 'f Vm any 
 jedge — an' I reckon I'd oughter be, all th' drunks I've 
 handled " 
 
 "Pioneer times, pioneer times," said the colonel, hastily. 
 " Er — um — the ice to Mr. Johns, Sam." 
 
 "When Mirandy's pa useter came home loaded," pursued 
 the old woman, unmoved, " many's the time I've shet him in 
 th' woodshed, him hollerin' bloody murder — i Let him holler ! ' 
 says I. Time mornin' come I'd git him under th' pump — oh 
 my, yes, I've had lots of experience." 
 
 " Pioneer times," said Colonel Pallinder again desperately. 
 (But J. B. did take the bottle away from Teddy's neighbour- 
 
THE TENANTS 163 
 
 hood.) "Pioneer days! Good God, gentlemen, when I think 
 of what men and women had to contend with then, I'm 
 ashamed, yes, ashamed of the luxuries we live in. You were 
 saying, Doctor " 
 
 " About — ahem — oh — ah — yes, about Huddesley," said the 
 doctor, who had not been saying anything. " I can't always 
 make the fellow out — I'm rather puzzled " 
 
 " Speakin' o' puzzles," said old Mrs. Botlisch, " I was 
 goin' to tell ye that one 'bout th' English feller that the 
 guide was takin' 'roun' Niagry Falls. After they had gone 
 down under th' Falls, an' out to Goat Island, and every- 
 wheres else, ye know, he took an' wrote in th' visitors' book, 
 ' Why am I like Desdemona?' (That's the white girl that 
 goes off with a nigger in th' play, ye know). He wrote just 
 that : ' Why am I like Desdemona ? ' Th' answer is : 6 Be- 
 cuz ' " 
 
 This time, in spite of an outburst of coughing that 
 threatened serious results to Doctor Vardaman, in spite of 
 a fusillade of loud irrelevant talk from the colonel, in spite 
 even of Teddy Johns' quite unintentionally falling over a 
 chair, this time, I say, we all heard the answer ! 
 
CHAPTER THIRTEEN 
 
 N r OT long since I had a visit from Gwynne Peters' 
 oldest boy. The little fellow is twelve, and, as I 
 abstained from any embarrassing and inconven- 
 ient demonstrations of affection or even friend- 
 ship, we became quite intimate, and I believe he enjoyed 
 himself after a fashion. He is not like his father, neither so 
 delicate in body, nor so gentle and winning as I remember the 
 elder Gwynne — but, in truth, I do not know if I ever found 
 the way to his heart, with all my diplomacy ; the unconquer- 
 able barrier of age divided us ; childhood looks with so solidly- 
 rooted a suspicion on our efforts to approach it ; it guards its 
 quaint jungles, its enchanted gardens with so jealous a care 
 that we may well despair of ever touching hands. And for 
 that matter I sometimes think we are all strangers more or 
 less to the end, and our nearest intimacy only a painful inter- 
 change of signals in a fog. Little Gwynne tolerated me, and 
 I soon ceased to ask anything else. He approved of cookies 
 and the works of Mr. Alger ; as these latter immortal produc- 
 tions do not form a part of my library, we were obliged to 
 call upon the Carnegie one a few squares distant, whence he 
 requisitioned them at the rate of a new Alger volume about 
 every twenty-four hours until the supply was exhausted, when 
 we began on Mr. Henty. This fell out very luckily, as I had 
 discovered him asleep in a corner over " Ivanhoe," and I 
 should not have wished him to carry away so unfavourable an 
 impression of my resources in the way of entertainment. 
 
 164 
 
THE TENANTS 165 
 
 But what I most observed in him was an indifference to, or 
 ignorance of, his family history and traditions that seemed 
 abnormal in a Gwynne, however remotely descended. I asked 
 him if he had ever been to see his great-grandfather's portrait 
 in the State-House? The moment was ill-chosen, as he was 
 profoundly occupied with a new variety of top, but he 
 absently answered : " Yep." 
 
 " What did you think of it? " 
 
 " Nothin'," said this renegade, with astounding callous- 
 ness, bending himself to the top ; it was warranted to spin 
 five minutes at a stretch, and when he had got it started, and 
 was timing it by my watch, he felt his mind released from 
 cares enough to volunteer indulgently : " Father's got a big 
 photograph of it in his office. It's all yellow and fly-specky, 
 because it's so old, you know. I guess it's 'most as old as 
 father — or maybe you" 
 
 " Doesn't your father ever tell you about him — what a 
 great man he was, and all? " 
 
 " Nope." 
 
 " What ! " said I, then, unable to believe my ears. " Doesn't 
 he ever talk to you about Governor Gwynne? Doesn't any- 
 body ever tell you to remember that you're a Gwynne? " The 
 top was reeling to its fall, and he was very busy, and, as I 
 could see, justifiably annoyed at my persistence, but this 
 question caused him to look up sharply with the quick sus- 
 picion of his twelve years. 
 
 " Aw, you're in fun ! " he said, eying me shrewdly. " Father 
 wouldn't talk guff like that! And anyway my name's Peters 
 — G Wynne's just my given name — so it wouldn't be true, 
 see?" Guff like that! These were his sacrilegious words. 
 Nothing could have more stingingly brought home to me the 
 
166 THE TENANTS 
 
 lapse of years, or better illustrated the changes in men's 
 minds. And I might here insert some valuable reflections on 
 the vanity of human achievement, and the hollow and transi- 
 tory character of fame, if I were not uneasily conscious that 
 Governor Gwynne's renown, even in his heyday, was not of 
 a kind to fill the four corners of the universe ; it was only in 
 the opinion of his family that it reached those magnificent 
 proportions. Now he and his deeds are forgotten, even by 
 them ; the fires are all dead on that fantastic altar which the 
 Gwynnes tended for so many years with so much misplaced 
 zeal. It is not likely, I think, that little Gwynne will ever 
 be troubled by the problems confronting his father in March 
 of the year of Grace, 1883. 
 
 In fact, during this time, Gwynne might have been seen 
 any day pondering gloomily before his empty desk, under his 
 grandfather's grimly searching scrutiny, by the hour. The 
 Pallinder business had reached a stage when he could no 
 longer ignore it ; yet he could not bring himself to any active 
 measures. Gwynne knew as much as anybody about the col- 
 onel's affairs; he had heard certain subdued but very dis- 
 agreeable rumours. Templeton himself had brought them to 
 him months earlier with a countenance of fright and per- 
 plexity. It had not cleared much when he left the office ; the 
 little agent could not understand what ailed his patron. He 
 had never known Gwynne to be so indifferent, so careless of 
 the rights and feelings of the other heirs ; it was clean out of 
 his character, and Templeton felt with dismay that his surest 
 prop had been removed. If Mr. Peters was becoming as queer 
 as the rest of them, Templeton was almost ready to resign 
 from the management of the Gwynne estate; single-handed, 
 he could not " hold up his end," as he phrased it. In the years 
 
THE TENANTS 167 
 
 of their association he had conceived something like a real 
 affection for the young man, and this change obscurely 
 alarmed and distressed him. Gwynne, about everything else 
 so open, so resourceful, so patient in the control of his diffi- 
 cult kindred, so genially shrewd, would not allow any discus- 
 sion of the Pallinder delinquency; he shifted the subject, or 
 turned upon Templeton with a manner of such forbidding 
 reticence that the agent shrank discomfited. " Oh, well, Mr. 
 Peters, I — I guess I'd better leave you alone to run your 
 tenants and the family," he would say humbly, reaching for 
 his hat in an apologetic confusion. " I — I ain't ever made 
 such a success of it that I've any call to argue, or advise 
 you how to do," and so would shuffle meekly from the room, 
 leaving the young man,- had he known it, in a miserable 
 humiliation. Time and again, Gwynne had made the resolve 
 to have it out with the colonel ; and time and again had turned 
 aside from the act, like a hunter refusing the leap. He bar- 
 gained with himself, loathing his own weakness ; he would go 
 and see Colonel Pallinder on such a day at such an hour; he 
 would say to him thus and so. The day came and the hour 
 — why was it that something invariably prevented him? Once 
 he even got so far as the door of Colonel Pallinder's office — - 
 and it was locked. The office was closed for the day: it was 
 late Saturday afternoon, and in his heart Gwynne knew the 
 office would be closed — knew it before he left his own. He 
 turned away in a flash of angry contempt of himself — of Pall- 
 inder — of the whole shabby business. Yet the colonel was 
 safe for that day ; you cannot scour the town for a man, like 
 a bailiff; and Gwynne certainly was not going to follow him 
 to the house, and dun him under the very roof where he 
 himself had received so many hospitalities, such unfailing 
 
168 THE TENANTS 
 
 courtesy and kindness, within hearing of the fellow's innocent 
 wife and daughter ! What had Mrs. — ahem ! — what had those 
 two poor women done? Very likely they knew nothing what- 
 ever about Pallinder's indebtedness ; they were both of them 
 touchingly ignorant of money matters. This was strictly an 
 affair for men — he would see Pallinder Monday. And so 
 Gwynne strode away home, to dinner and a change of dress, 
 and thence, by the most natural sequence in the world, to the 
 Lexington and Amherst cars, and out to the Pallinders' ! In 
 one of his spasms of conscience he had refused their urgent 
 invitation to the house party — the irony of his position was 
 apparent, even to him; but he balanced the scales by going 
 out night after night to the rehearsals of " William Tell," 
 wherein he bore his part with a feverish enthusiasm that sur- 
 prised his friends. 
 
 It might have been noticed, but, as a matter of fact, I am 
 sure hardly anybody did notice, that Gwynne was the only 
 one of the family who figured in the theatricals, or, in the 
 pungent everyday phrase, had anything to do with the Pall- 
 inders. Marian Lawrence had been asked to the house party, 
 and had eagerly promised to come, but in a day or so Mrs. 
 Pallinder received a charming, apologetic, and graceful little 
 note from Mrs. Lawrence, declining on Marian's behalf, for 
 some vague reason. The truth is, Mrs. Horace Gwynne, on 
 hearing of the plan, had once again ordered out her barouche 
 and driven over to the Lawrences', upright and stern, with 
 the stark face of Doom. And after a heated conference with 
 the mother, the note had been despatched ; Mrs. Lawrence sat 
 down and cried heartily with the disappointed girl when that 
 dire act had been performed — but neither of them thought of 
 disobeying Cousin Jennie. When they met Mrs. Pallinder 
 
THE TENANTS 169 
 
 face to face coming out of church next Sunday morning they 
 were both a good deal flustered; they flinched before Mrs. 
 Pallinder's steadily radiant smile, and were devoutly glad, 
 I think, to escape from her neighbourhood into the crowd. 
 Archie Lewis walked home with Marian, and raised his hat 
 as a carriage spun by — " That was the Pallinders with Miss 
 Baxter," said Archie, observing with a passing surprise that 
 his companion made no sign of recognition. "Was it? I 
 didn't see them," said Marian stoutly, looking straight in 
 front of her with very red cheeks. Not so long before, Mazie 
 had been one of her most intimate friends. Look on that pic- 
 ture, and now on this ! What was the matter with all the 
 Gwynnes? Little old Eleanor and little old Mollie, on seeing 
 the colonel less than half a square off, advancing upon them, 
 already uncovered, courtly, bland, with outstretched hand — 
 the two old sisters, I say, fairly took to their heels up a side 
 street, with scared and shrinking faces. They gathered up 
 their virgin skirts and fled shudderingly as from contamina- 
 tion. Mrs. Horace Gwynne, alone of them all, possessed the 
 courage of her convictions. Erect in her barouche, she en- 
 countered and returned Mrs. Pallinder's smile with a salute 
 so casual, so perfunctory that it suggested the recognition she 
 would have bestowed upon her cook in event of a public meet- 
 ing with that functionary. Mrs. Pallinder bit her lips ; she red- 
 dened through her rouge — and the next moment was gaily 
 bowing to another acquaintance as if life meant nothing to 
 her but this pleasant exchange of civilities. " Of course I 
 never would deliberately cut anybody," Mrs. Horace ex- 
 plained later ; " that sort of behaviour is childish and ill- 
 tempered. But I flatter myself I know as well as anyone how 
 to put people in their proper place, and intimate my opinion 
 
170 THE TENANTS 
 
 of them, without talking or acting like a washerwoman. I 
 wanted Mrs. Pallinder to understand that while I was abso- 
 lutely indifferent to such a matter as the back-rent she owed 
 me and every one of us, I did not approve of the principle 
 of the thing. She knew perfectly well what I meant. And 
 at receptions or wherever she happened to be in the same com- 
 pany with me afterwards, I simply didn't see her at all! I 
 was always talking to someone else, or had my back turned. 
 She understood — a person like that ! " I dare say Mrs. Pall- 
 inder did understand ; she was not without some previous ex- 
 perience, and it is likely deserved every snub and stab which 
 Mrs. Horace, with the just severity of a good and upright 
 woman, inflicted on her. So must we all lie upon the beds we 
 
 make. 
 
 This was the secret of the Gwynnes' altered demeanour ; it 
 was, of course, not the failure to pay them their rent to 
 which they objected, but the appalling principle, or lack of 
 principle, it indicated. At least, that is what they all and 
 severally declared afterwards. At the time, with character- 
 istic Gwynne reticence, they kept their troubles to themselves j 
 no set of conspiring revolutionists could have been more 
 close-mouthed. Their behaviour in this instance was of a piece 
 with the futile pride that prompted their efforts to distract 
 the public mind from Caroline — from Steven — from Sam 
 Peters. What ! Drag their noble name through the mud and 
 riot of a Common Pleas suit? Associate their house and the 
 memory of Governor Gwynne with a debasing scandal about 
 Money ! I should not care to reveal the arts by which Gwynne 
 put off the hour of retribution for the Pallinders, playing 
 upon these familiar strings with a skill he himself despised. 
 Even he, in the end, sounded the note once too often, as we 
 
THE TENANTS 171 
 
 have seen in the case of old Steven, to whom the sum, small as 
 it was, meant more than to the other members of the family. 
 For Steven, once away from the blandishments of Mrs. Pall- 
 inder, naturally reverted in the shortest possible space of 
 time to his previous mood of brooding indignation. He had 
 parted from Doctor Vardaman with a confused notion that 
 everything was going smoothly — that Gwynne would settle 
 with the Pallinders in a few days — a week, perhaps, at fur- 
 thest. It had not been stated in so many words ; none the less 
 Steven carried away these ideas planted within him either 
 by Mrs. Pallinder's soothing flatteries, or by the doctor's 
 well-meant efforts at comforting and diverting him. He 
 waited a day or two, eagerly inspecting every mail ; he spoke 
 grandly of his expected remittances to his tolerant country 
 neighbours, and alluded to Gwynne with a large air as his 
 man of business. But as the days passed and his man of busi- 
 ness made no sign, Steven's slender allowance of patience 
 gave out once more. He wrote to Gwynne, and waited a 
 fevered while for an anwer. Wrote again, and with the letter, 
 addressed and stamped, in his pocket, abandoned his design, 
 and took the first train for town. It was with a fierce and 
 resolute face that he stalked into the office that afternoon — 
 and Gwynne had gone out! This delay, to speak in high 
 metaphorical terms which would have delighted Steven's own 
 taste, did not arrest the falling of the levin-brand; it only 
 increased its momentum. In proportion as the moments 
 lapsed, his wrath gathered head. As it happened, he found 
 himself in appropriate company, with his grievance; when 
 he entered the room there sat his cousins, the two Misses 
 Gwynne, with their pale, furtive, startled faces framed in 
 curls and satin rosettes, in their rigid bombazine skirts, Miss 
 
172 THE TENANTS 
 
 Gwynne tremblingly clasping an umbrella, Miss Mollie finger- 
 ing a foolscap document whereon, if Steven had cared to look, 
 he might have seen some arithmetical calculations similar 
 to his own. They started up, fluttering and ejaculating at 
 his appearance ; then sank down disappointed, yet, probably, 
 a little relieved. The two not only dressed, but thought and 
 acted in couples; either one was helpless without the other; 
 and both now wore an air of terrified resolution such as a 
 pair of mice, a pair of pullets might have presented in some 
 desperate crisis of the trap or butcher's knife. Even in their 
 day, a day which recognised but one career for respectable 
 women, which knew not women's colleges or bachelor-maids, 
 or what we call the professional equality of the sexes, Eleanor 
 and Mollie were caricatures of spinsterhood ; we looked upon 
 them with as much pity as amusement, I believe. This was 
 a tremendous step for them to take ; and horror laid a throt- 
 tling hold on both at the idea (occurring to them simul- 
 taneously) that Cousin Steven might think them indiscreet 
 or unladylike. But Steven was much too preoccupied to spare 
 a thought to their confusion. " Huh, girls ! " said he, sat 
 down in Gwynne's revolving-chair, and glowered absently out 
 of the window, beating a tattoo on the desk, and framing 
 the sentences in which he would open his arraignment. 
 "Waiting to see Gwynne?" he inquired, rousing himself 
 with a momentary curiosity after a while. 
 
 The twins murmured inarticulately, looking at each other. 
 
 " So'm I," said Steven, scowling, and they might all three 
 have proceeded to some explanations, but at that moment, 
 upon this amiable family-group, strolled in Archie Lewis, on 
 some errand from his father's office, debonair, whistling his 
 song from " William Tell," and very much taken aback at 
 
THE TENANTS 173 
 
 sight of the company into which he had stumbled. " It was 
 a perfect nest of Gwynnes," he said, graphically describing 
 the episode. " I felt like Daniel in the lions' den." 
 
 " Oh — ah — Mr. Gwynne — er — Miss Gwynne " said he, 
 
 stopping short in embarrassment. " Ah — urn — Gwynne's 
 gone out, I see." 
 
 " He'll be back in a few minutes," stammered Miss Eleanor, 
 after a moment of fearful indecision. 
 
 " The office-boy said so," added Miss Mollie faintly. " It's 
 almost half-an-hour now." 
 
 " Well, I guess I won't wait — if you'll be so kind as to tell 
 him I was here? And I'll just put this on his desk under the 
 paperweight — he'll understand when he sees it," said Archie, 
 depositing his bundle of papers on the desk as he spoke, and 
 very ready to beat a retreat. But Steven, eying him, sud- 
 denly growled out, "You're Judge Lewis' son, ain't you?" 
 
 " Why, yes — you know my father, of course — I've often 
 heard him speak of you," said Archie, conventionally, edg- 
 ing off. 
 
 " Sit down," said Steven, imperiously motioning, 
 " Gwynne'll be along in a little. You ought to be a lawyer, 
 young man — your father's a lawyer. I haven't seen him for 
 years — I guess he's a good deal changed. Law kind of 
 changes people; it's seldom a man takes it up and stays 
 honest. Sit down ; Gwynne'll be here presently." 
 
 (" And so," said Archie, " I sat down. The fact is, the old 
 fellow looked sort of queer, and though I never heard of his 
 doing anything, I didn't much like to leave him alone with 
 those two old ladies — you never can tell, you know.") 
 
 " I'd like to see the judge," said Steven. 
 
 " Why, I'm sure father'd be very pleased " 
 
174 THE TENANTS 
 
 Steven waved an impatient gesture. " I'm not particular 
 about seeing him," said he — and Archie used to repeat this 
 part of the story in his father's presence with infinite relish 
 — " But I'd like to have his opinion, in a matter of — a matter 
 
 of debt! " 
 
 The two sisters exchanged a horrified glance; they knew 
 what Steven's errand was, now, and thought he was about 
 to reveal the awful secret, and tarnish the name of Gwynne 
 forever. But that was by no means Steven's intention ; he was 
 as tender of the family honour as they, but much more con- 
 fident of his own knowledge of the world and diplomatic 
 abilities. Archie, upon whose youthfully sharp wits none of 
 this by-play was lost, sat wondering what was to come next. 
 
 " This debt — or — er — this indebtedness," said Steven elab- 
 orately, " is — er — it should be, in short, collected — that is 
 — er — measures should be taken by which it — could be, in 
 short, collected." He fixed a profound look on the young man, 
 pausing while he considered in what other roundabout terms 
 he could present the situation. 
 
 " Is the fellow that owes you responsible — solid, I mean, 
 you know?" asked Archie, beginning to be interested. "If 
 he's on a salary, or got a good business you might at- 
 tach " 
 
 " I — I — I'm not prepared to state," said Steven, appalled 
 at the briskness of Archie's deductions. " I'm just supposing 
 a case, you understand." 
 
 " Oh ! " said Archie, suppressing a grin. " Well — ah — are 
 you supposing it to be a large sum, Mr. Gwynne?" 
 
 " A debt's a debt," said Steven, with magnificent brevity ; 
 he could not resist a sidelong glance at Eleanor and Mollie, 
 commanding their admiration. 
 
THE TENANTS 175 
 
 " Yes, of course, Mr. Gwynne, but there's a difference be- 
 tween a debt of five dollars and one of five hundred," said 
 Archie peaceably. " If you can come to some kind of com- 
 promise, it's generally a great deal better than going to law ; 
 you may get a little less than you're entitled to, but you save 
 time and trouble and worry. I suppose I've heard my father 
 say that to a hundred clients." 
 
 This view appeared to strike Eleanor and Mollie favour- 
 ably ; something in the half-a-loaf policy appeals with a sub- 
 tle power to the feminine mind. But Steven's old face red- 
 dened; he darted a vengeful glance at this Laodicean coun- 
 cillor. 
 
 " Compromise — nothing! " he snarled. " I'll see him da — 
 I'll see him farther before I'll compromise ! " 
 
 " All right — all right, I was just saying that's one way of 
 settling these things," said Archie hastily. " Of course you 
 know what you want, Mr. Gwynne. Trouble is, you go into 
 court with a case, and you never know how long it will take 
 to wind it up — maybe two or three years — that's perfectly 
 irrespective of the rights of the case. Whereas, if you accept 
 some kind of settlement, you — well, in general, you come 
 out ahead of the game," said Archie, falling back on the 
 vernacular. 
 
 Oh, wise young judge ! The two Misses Gwynne listened to 
 Archie's exposition with respectful awe. I have heard him 
 say with a laugh that at no time in his subsequent career — 
 which has been one of considerable distinction — has he ever 
 felt himself to be exerting so much influence, no, not in his 
 most sustained and vigorous flights of oratory. " I might 
 have been the Almighty, instead of a smart- Alecky boy, by 
 the way those two poor old women were impressed — it was 
 
176 THE TENANTS 
 
 funny — funny and pitiful," he says, and shakes his grizzling 
 head. 
 
 " It's — it's very awful to have someone in debt to you, Mr. 
 Lewis," Miss Mollie took courage to say falteringly. 
 
 " Not so bad as being in debt to somebody yourself, 
 though," said Archie genially. This well-intended levity was 
 a serious mistake; they shrank — they withered before the 
 dreadful suggestion. 
 
 " We — we aren't that, Mr. Lewis," cried both old maids in 
 scared chorus. " It's not we that are in debt — it's somebody 
 that owes us " 
 
 " That owes the GWYNNE ESTATE," said Steven pon- 
 derously. He had forgot all about his supposititious case, and 
 Archie, who, as he himself might have said, was not born 
 yesterday, had already made a shrewd guess as to the iden- 
 tity of the debtor. 
 
 " A debt's a bad business, anyway you fix it," he said 
 easily. " Reminds me of that story father tells of himself 
 when he was a boy borrowing money of their old coloured 
 man to go to the circus with. ' Chile,' says old Mose, 8 you's 
 got to 'member this ; er debt that ain't paid stahts er roor- 
 back! You owe me, an' I owe Pete, an' Pete he owes that wall- 
 eyed niggah oveh at the liv'ry-stable, an' lakly Mistah Wall- 
 eye, he owes somebody else, an' 'twell one of us stahts the pay- 
 in', nobuddy cyahn't pay — an' thar's your roorback! ' 
 Archie laughed. He laughed alone, for this sprightly tale, 
 although he had recited it in a careful imitation of Judge 
 Lewis' best manner, apparently failed to amuse anybody but 
 himself. Perhaps it went too near the truth to be wholly agree- 
 able. " I never realised until that moment," he used to say 
 with a certain naivete, " what an awful job poor Gwynne 
 
THE TENANTS 177 
 
 Peters had for years with those people. I'll bet nobody knows 
 or ever will know what he put up with ! " 
 
 His new sympathy put a greater warmth into his greeting 
 when Gwynne at last came in, a few minutes later. Archie, 
 as he explained his errand, noted inwardly that his friend's 
 face w T as drawn and tired; nor did he wonder much at the 
 grim look Gwynne cast around the waiting family-circle. 
 
 " You're late, Gwynne," said old Steven, fierce-eyed under 
 his shaggy brows. 
 
 " I know it," said Gwynne, in a harsh voice. " I had to go 
 out to the country this morning, and that put me back with 
 everything." 
 
 " You mean to the house? You've been out to the house? " 
 
 Steven asked eagerly. "You've talked to Pall ?" 
 
 Gwynne looked at him steadily. " No, I haven't. I've been 
 out to see Sam. Will you please let me have my chair, Cousin 
 Steven? I want to make a note of this for Judge Lewis." 
 " It's no matter," said Archie hurriedly, anxious to escape 
 as much on the Gwynnes' account as on his own. (" I was 
 afraid they were in for a regular family-row and I wanted to 
 get out," he said. " Why, you might have known something 
 was wrong with Gwynne, by his coming out about Sam that 
 way. That was the first time I ever knew him to do anything 
 like that!") "Never mind, Gwynne — father said you could 
 keep them as long as you wanted. I'll stop in some other 
 time. You're — you're busy now." 
 
 " I wish you'd stay, Arch," said Gwynne desperately. The 
 others sat in a ghastly silence, even the old man. He got up 
 and surrendered the chair to Gwynne without a word. The 
 sisters hardly dared look at each other, in the trepidation 
 produced by the mere mention of Sam's name. Thus care- 
 
178 THE TENANTS 
 
 lessly or rashly to flaunt Sam in the public view, and invite 
 attention to him seemed to them nothing less than a profane 
 assault on the temple of the Gwynne reputation — that edifice 
 propped and shored through so many years by what profit- 
 less sacrifices, what wrong-headed devotion, what pitiful and 
 heroic subterfuge ! At this rate Gwynne might say something 
 about his Aunt Caroline, they thought in quaking panic. The 
 veil of the sanctum was rent in twain — what would he do or 
 say next? 
 
 He did nothing; and after Archie had taken his leave, it 
 was Eleanor who quavered, frightened, yet with a real sym- 
 pathy for him stirring at her elderly maiden heart : " Is any- 
 thing the matter, Gwynne? With — with Sam, I mean?" 
 
 " Yes, Dr. Sheckard sent for me. They think he'll have to 
 be taken away — sent to some other place. He's — well, rest- 
 less, you know." 
 
 " That'll take money, Gwynne," said Steven abruptly. 
 Now that Archie's restraining presence had been removed, 
 he was eager to get to the business in hand, and designed 
 by one or two tactful remarks of this nature to lead up to 
 it. Eleanor and Mollie shrank a little; they were genuinely 
 and self-forgetfully interested in their unfortunate kinsman. 
 
 " I'll manage it, somehow," said Gwynne briefly. He put 
 aside his domestic tragedy without much effort ; to the ob- 
 servant mind the facility with which we get used to our lives 
 is the one great everyday miracle. Let them visit us with 
 what trials they will, we defeat the gods by our submission. 
 Gwynne addressed himself to the task of the moment with no 
 further thought of Sam. " You wanted to see me about some- 
 thing, Cousin Eleanor?" he asked, foreseeing drearily what 
 the answer would be. But in spite of all their preparation, 
 
THE TENANTS 179 
 
 the direct question startled them ; the neat and perfectly lady- 
 like speeches in which Eleanor and Mollie had coached each 
 other for days vanished from their minds — from their one 
 mind, I might almost say. They looked at him with stricken 
 faces. " There is something you wanted to see me about, 
 Cousin Mollie?" repeated Gwynne — and could have cried 
 " For shame ! " at the forbidding coldness of his own voice, 
 " Oh, Gwynne," said Miss Mollie, trembling a good deal, 
 and thrusting her paper at him. " I — we — Eleanor and I 
 don't want you to think that we are unappreciative, or — or 
 that we've any fault to find with the way you've managed our 
 property — you've done everything you could, we know that, 
 Gwynne, and you're always so good to us." Her voice broke, 
 but she went on resolutely. " But I — we don't know whether 
 you've noticed anything lately, or whether any of the others 
 have told you — you're so busy — and we know a woman 
 oughtn't to interfere, or ask questions about her money, 
 Gwynne — and — and we oughtn't to come to your office, we 
 know that — it's no place for a lady — but we're — we're so 
 worried, we couldn't help it. You don't mind our being here, 
 do you? We thought at first we'd write, only it takes so much 
 
 longer " here poor Miss Mollie broke down completely 
 
 and began to cry in a noiseless and unimpeachably ladylike 
 manner into her black-bordered handkerchief. Miss Eleanor 
 took up the thread, having conquered her own tears: 
 
 " We thought perhaps you didn't know, Gwynne, if Mr. 
 Templeton hadn't told you, but the Pallinders — that is, Col- 
 onel Pallinder, you know, they haven't paid us any rent for 
 our house for over a year — it's on the paper, we added it up 
 — I know it's right, because we did it by long division, and 
 then multiplied to make sure — and it's a hundred and twenty 
 
180 THE TENANTS 
 
 dollars they're owing us, Gwynne, and — and we thought you'd 
 do something, if you knew " 
 
 " Well, you needn't worry — he won't! " said Steven, sav- 
 agely satirical. Both handkerchiefs were going now ; but the 
 two old maids scarcely heard Steven ; they regarded Gwynne 
 with a heart-breaking confidence. 
 
 " Why — yes — I knew about this, Cousin Eleanor," the 
 young man began, with a wretched feeling of humbug. " The 
 only thing about commencing proceedings to recover — bring- 
 ing suit, you know — is the — the publicity — you might have 
 to appear in court and testify — and it would all be in the 
 papers, like a — a scandal " 
 
 " Oh, scandal — bosh ! " cried Steven wrathf ull} T . Elea- 
 nor and Mollie were looking at Gwynne with affrighted eyes 
 over their handkerchiefs ; but Steven's masculine mind, even 
 if none of the strongest, could not in nature be always 
 wrought upon so easily. These arguments were old to him 
 and their effect was dulled. " Scandal ! There's no scandal 
 about going to law to get your money ! " he said impatiently, 
 and with justice. " And as for publicity, you could fix all 
 that, if you wanted to, Gwynne, you know it. They could — 
 they could make oath before a notary, couldn't they? v 
 
 " We — we wouldn't have to do anything, if he could just 
 get us a little of it — the — the way Mr. Lewis said, you know, 
 Mollie," Eleanor faltered. 
 
 "Arch? Did you tell him about this?" Gwynne asked, 
 disturbed. 
 
 " No harm if we had," said Steven, contentiously. But 
 Mollie looked at Gwynne in dread. " No, no — we didn't say 
 a thing — we didn't say a word, Gwynne — but he just hap- 
 pened to say that debts were sometimes compromised — you 
 
THE TENANTS 181 
 
 took some, not all, you know, but you didn't have any law-? 
 
 suit- 
 
 " If we could get a little " said Eleanor anxiously. 
 
 " A little! That's like a woman ! " said Steven in strong 
 disgust. " A little! Don't you pay any attention to 'em, 
 Gwynne ! " 
 
 "Do you need money, Cousin Eleanor?" asked Gwynne 
 gently. 
 
 Mollie began to cry hysterically again. 
 
 " We don't want you to advance any, Gwynne," said old 
 Eleanor, trembling and turning very pale. " You've done 
 that before, and — and now you will need all your money for 
 poor Sam. And — and besides, Gwynne, I — I — we're not fit 
 to be trusted with money — I — I was going to tell you, only 
 it's so hard — but we're — we're — we've been very wicked 
 women ! " She burst out sobbing. Gwynne might have 
 smiled at this lurid statement from two such timid, plaintive 
 and abjectly respectable old maiden ladies if the circum- 
 stances had left him any heart for smiling. 
 
 "Why, what's the matter, Cousin Eleanor? — don't cry 
 that way!" he said, distressed. "It's not your fault, you 
 know. Now I promise you I'll see about it — I'll get your 
 money for you — these things are bound to take a little time, 
 you know " 
 
 " Huh ! You said that before — you've said it a dozen 
 times!" said Steven. He looked at Gwynne with open sus- 
 picion. " Will you come with me over to Pallinder's office 
 now? " 
 
 " No, no, don't do that ; wait till I've told him everything, 
 Steven — wait a minute, Gwynne ! " cried Eleanor, laying her 
 damp hands and handkerchief on the young man's arm. 
 
182 THE TENANTS 
 
 " Gwynne ! " she said tragically, " it's quite true — we're 
 wicked, wicked women ! We took — Mollie and I took all our 
 money — it was that thousand dollars that we got when 
 Cousin Lucien died, you know, that we'd always put away 
 to use if we were sick — or, or got married — or anything, and 
 some besides that we'd saved up — it was last year — and we 
 thought the rent would be coming in all the time, and we 
 counted on that — you know we were quite sure, Gwynne, or 
 we wouldn't have done it — and — and — we'd heard about so 
 many people making money in stocks — Caleb Spicer — that's 
 the vegetable-man we've taken from for ever so long, and I 
 know Caleb's honest — he told us about his brother-in-law — 
 only Caleb didn't tell us about this stock, Gwynne, it wasn't 
 Caleb's fault at all, I wouldn't have you think that — his 
 brother-in-law's stock was some ether kind, don't remember 
 what now. And we — we bought some tock, Gwynne — it was 
 6 Phosphate ' — a mine, or was it a well, Sister Mollie? We — 
 we've never had any money, Gwynne, I mean much, you know 
 — and we — we've had to save so, and go without a girl and 
 all — and make our own clothes — and we did so want to have a 
 little more — and we thought it would get to be worth double 
 or treble in the least little while, the way those things do — 
 the way Caleb's brother-in-law's did — and besides Colonel 
 
 Pallinder said it would " 
 
 " What! " said Gwynne. He got up. His face blanched; 
 the likeness to old Samuel Gwynne leaped out upon his feat- 
 ures so strong, so lowering, that Eleanor and Mollie invol- 
 untarily drew back, appalled. They supposed the confession 
 had angered him. " We didn't know anything about it, 
 Gwynne," they both began. "We didn't know — we didn't 
 mean to do anything wrong ! " 
 
u 
 
 THE TENANTS 183 
 
 " You didn't do anything wrong," said Gwynne, with an ef- 
 fort. " Go on. What has happened? " 
 
 " It was all my fault, Gwynne," said Eleanor, generously. 
 
 I put it into Mollie's head — it was my fault, all of it." 
 
 " It doesn't make any difference about that, Nellie," said 
 Mollie. " I was just as much to blame — you couldn't have 
 done it without me. We — we've found out a terrible thing 
 about 6 Phosphate,' Gwynne — it's — it's not going to double 
 at all. We thought we'd get some money right away, and we 
 didn't — and then we waited — and we didn't get any — and we 
 were afraid to ask Colonel Pallinder, for fear it would look 
 as if — as if — we didn't believe in him — don't, Gwynne, don't 
 look that way ! And then at last we went down to the Third 
 National where our money used to be ; we got Mary to go with 
 us, because we were afraid to go by ourselves, and besides it's 
 not ladylike ; she knows your friend, Mr. Taylor, that great 
 big tall young man that's in there back in the brass-wired-off 
 place, you know, Gwynne. And Mary wasn't a bit afraid; 
 she just asked for him, and he came out and took the paper — 
 it's a certificate, isn't it? — and looked at it, and then went 
 back into the president's room, and we heard some men 
 laughing, Gwynne. And then Mr. McAlpine himself came 
 out after a while, and he came up and said he knew we'd be- 
 lieve him, because of his being president, and he was sorry 
 to have to tell us, but that stock wasn't worth the paper it 
 was printed on, and he wanted to know whose advice we had 
 acted on in buying it. So he and Mary and Mr. Taylor and 
 you are the only people that know anything about it, 
 Gwynne, and — and — if it don't go any farther than that, it 
 won't — it won't be a disgrace to you or the family," said 
 poor old Mollie with tears. 
 
184 THE TENANTS 
 
 Gwynne looked at them helplessly. That these two shy, 
 fearsome, frugal, penny-wise old gentlewomen could have 
 ventured their all upon one reckless stake like the worst and 
 wildest gambler that ever tossed his last dollar on the cloth, 
 was well-nigh inconceivable — but the thing had happened! 
 It was not merely unexpected, it was impossible — and it had 
 happened ! If he had been asked to name the members of his 
 family who might most safely be trusted to hoard and watch 
 over their lean inheritance, he would have pitched upon El- 
 eanor and Mollie ; he would have supposed them impregnable 
 behind their barrier of timorous ignorance, entrenched for- 
 ever in the habit of grinding economy — and lo, that very 
 childish inexperience, that thriftless parsimony, had been 
 their undoing! 
 
 " Well, but whose advice did you take? " he asked. " You 
 surely asked somebody besides Caleb What's-his-name? Why 
 didn't you come to me — or Cousin Jennie ? " 
 
 " But Jennie wouldn't have let us do it, you know," said 
 Eleanor, with entire simplicity. " There wouldn't have been 
 any use asking her. And we were so sure — we thought 
 Colonel Pallinder's advice was enough — we knew you wouldn't 
 go to the house so much if you didn't think he was to be 
 trusted — you wouldn't go where anybody was dishonourable. 
 But I don't believe he is honourable, Gwynne ; of course, he's 
 had misfortunes with ' Phosphate ' like ourselves, but if he 
 were really honourable, he'd pay our rent." 
 
 The young man was silenced; anger and shame surged 
 together within him. The most expert of fencers could not 
 have pricked him closer home than Eleanor with her simple 
 earnestness of belief. Their faith blackened him in his own 
 
THE TENANTS 185 
 
 eyes; their affection stung; their tremulous apologies 
 scourged. 
 
 " Never mind, Cousin Mollic — don't cry — I'll take care of 
 you," he said, huskily, at last. " Now let me get a carriage 
 and send you home — and don't worry about your money, nor 
 the rent — I'll get it back for you some way or another " 
 
 Mollie and Eleanor cried harder than ever; mingled with 
 their ghastly visions of ultimate destitution, and much more 
 concretely awful, had been the fear of what Gwynne would 
 say, of what he would think when he heard the shameful news. 
 Their tears comforted them ; and I dare say that many a real 
 sinner has touched thus the utter depth, and found there a 
 like unexpected peace. 
 
 " Oh, Gwynne, you're so good to us — and with poor Sam 
 on your mind all the time, too — but you never think about 
 yourself at all ! " 
 
 Gwynne almost smiled. Sam? What care had he given 
 to Sam or Sam's interests of late? And of whom had he been 
 thinking, if not solely of himself? 
 
 " Now promise me you won't worry," he said, urgently 
 kind. " I'll fix it all right " 
 
 " You've been saying that a good while to me, and 
 nothing's come of it so far," said Steven distrustfully. 
 " Hope you ain't forgetting that it's Sam's money, too, 
 you've been letting go all this year and a half?" 
 
 " I'm not forgetting it, Cousin Steven," said Gwynne, turn- 
 ing his haggard eyes on the other. " I won't forget Sam." 
 
 After they had gone, Gwynne went back to the office and 
 sat a long while with his set face staring at that other face 
 on the wall, under whose shadow he had lived his whole life, 
 
186 THE TENANTS 
 
 without, as it would seem, profiting much by the association. 
 There he sat — and I think we may very well refrain from 
 spying on him. Doubtless he did full justice upon Gwynne 
 Peters that spring afternoon, alone with his condemning 
 thoughts ; doubtless every selfish lie, every mean evasion rose 
 up and confronted him; doubtless he took himself to task 
 more sternly than he deserved, and fancied he sat, a broken 
 man, amongst the ruins of a dishonoured life. Hardly, I 
 am sure, at his present age, can Gwynne look back upon that 
 hour with an equal mind ; when it recurs to him, the taste of 
 his folly must yet be bitter on his tongue. He is to-day a 
 successful man, greatly liked, greatly respected. Mrs. 
 Gwynne Peters, I believe, is a very happy wife and mother, 
 not at all jealous, and having no cause to be. But has 
 Gwynne ever mentioned Mrs. Pallinder to her? He might 
 do so without a blush, but he probably feels that it would be 
 an unprofitable business ; let the old ashes lie, and let the lost 
 corners grow up with weeds and be forgot. Wives and hus- 
 bands, if they be wise, will not go prospecting in the re- 
 mote places of each other's hearts, lest they chance upon 
 some of these disquieting ruins — ugly little cairns, decrepit 
 old tombstones. The days were lengthening, yet it was twi- 
 light as Gwynne walked home; street-lamps burned dimly 
 through the foggy spring air, and the newsboys were cry- 
 ing the last edition. 
 
CHAPTER FOURTEEN 
 
 DOCTOR VARDAMAN was not a wealthy man ; 
 he occupied what he considered the golden 
 mean, the " neither poverty nor riches " of the 
 Preacher ; enough to live in a simple, uncalcu- 
 lating ease. His chief pastime, as he used to describe it with 
 some amusement, was the practising of certain small economies 
 whereby he accumulated enough to indulge himself once in 
 a while with an expensive new edition, or rare and equally 
 high-priced old one. Like most professional men, he had no 
 turn for affairs, and no temptation ever assailed him to 
 " take a flyer in Phosphate," or anything else. It was, there- 
 fore, without any idea of investment that he scaled the stairs 
 leading to Colonel Pallinder's office a few days after the 
 Misses Gwynne had visited Gwynne's to explain their opera- 
 tions in finance. He was, in fact, bent on an errand that 
 took him past the colonel's door, and into the rear of the 
 Turner Building, where the City Superintendent of Parks 
 and Gardens had a retiring, little, unfrequented room. The 
 doctor wanted to file objections against the setting up of sev- 
 eral monumental bill-boards and advertising signs on the 
 vacant lots along the west side of Richmond Avenue, facing 
 number 201. " As a physician in good standing, sir," he 
 expounded vigorously, yet not without a smile, to the City 
 Superintendent, who was an old acquaintance and ex-patient. 
 " I dislike to be confronted every time I open my front door 
 with ' Geary's Purple Pills ' for various disorders not com- 
 
 18T 
 
188 THE TENANTS 
 
 monly referred to in polite society. And as a patriotic cit- 
 izen, I don't want to see our town disfigured by any such mon- 
 strosities ! " 
 
 Coming away with his point half gained, he once more 
 passed Colonel Pallinder's office door. At that time the Tur- 
 ner Building was at the very core of our business district. 
 There was a bank on the ground floor, the old Third National 
 — J. B. had some position in it, assistant bookkeeper, per- 
 haps. One used to catch fleeting glimpses of the young fel- 
 low's big shoulders in shirt-sleeves, and sleek, dark head on 
 an altitudinous stool behind gilt wire screens, through 
 the plate-glass windows on the Market Street side. On his 
 last visit he told me that he had gone down Market Street and 
 walked past those old windows in a sentimental mood, recall- 
 ing the brave days when he was twenty-one. " I got sixty a 
 month," he said, " and thought I was doing first-rate ! It's 
 hard to believe that that old rookery was the best office build- 
 ing in town. We hadn't the beginnings of an idea about 
 fire-proof construction; but there was an elevator, and the 
 bank had a floor of black and red tiles, remember? The pas- 
 sages were so dim the gas had to be kept burning at noon- 
 day. The steam-heating apparatus must have been one of 
 the first put in ; anyway it never did very well, and was for- 
 ever breaking down. I've worked in my overcoat many a 
 time, with a blue nose, figuring away with my stiff fingers. 
 Harvey Smith — you know, Jim's brother — had a law-office 
 with some other young chap, I've forgot who, now, on the 
 third floor, and they set up a sheet-iron cannon-stove to keep 
 from freezing to death. There wasn't much business coming 
 Harvey's way in those days — we used to wonder hqw he made 
 out." 
 
THE TENANTS 189 
 
 That part of town is now given over to warehouses and 
 junk-shops. The dirty, draughty hallways of the Turner 
 Building are very empty and melancholy. They used to be 
 handsomely carpeted with cocoa-matting, and in the odd 
 corners one came upon little pyramids of tin spittoons piled 
 up handily by the janitor, either just washed or in need of 
 washing. The place was as busy as an anthill that morning 
 when Doctor Vardaman paced along the cocoa-paths on his 
 way out. Near the top of the stairs — which were generally 
 preferred to the elevator — he encountered Colonel Pallinder 
 ushering from his office somebody with a shawl and bonnet 
 and fat black umbrella, whose outlines in the semi-obscurity 
 appeared vaguely familiar to the old gentleman's casual 
 glance. 
 
 "Is that you, Doctor? Come in, come in, sir," said the 
 colonel, promptly relinquishing his client (" In point of fact, 
 he dropped her like a hot potato," the doctor said after- 
 wards), when he saw who was approaching. And, overriding 
 the doctor's demurrer, " Oh, nonsense, I say come m, sir ! 
 Why, we've got a little business together, forgot that, hey? " 
 He smote Doctor Vardaman a light, humorous, affectionate 
 blow on the shoulder and pushed him into the office. " I don't 
 
 want to interrupt you " the doctor began, accepting at 
 
 last the handsome leather chair his host pulled forward. He 
 glanced about curiously, rolling the colonel's excellent Ha- 
 vana between his fingers. The Pallinders possessed the 
 secret of a delightful spontaneous and whole-souled hospital- 
 ity ; the stranger within their gates was unaffectedly welcome 
 to the best they had — and the best they had was very good 
 indeed; self-denial was a virtue they never needed to prac- 
 tise, apparently. The atmosphere of their house was always 
 
190 THE TENANTS 
 
 kind, gay, care-free, and they themselves highly ornamental. 
 Colonel Pallinder bustled about the doctor with a dozen pleas- 
 ant little attentions, yet contrived somehow never to be offi- 
 cious. It is a strange thing, and a depressing instance of 
 the inborn tendency to evil of the human race, that it has been 
 within the experience of everyone of us, I think, to lodge with 
 and suffer the kindnesses of many virtuous families to whom 
 the name and the habits of the Pallinders would be anathema 
 — and we shrink from remembering how incredibly we were 
 bored thereby! 
 
 The office was a rich, comfortable place. Everything 
 was new; the colonel's mahogany roll-top desk, the leather 
 lounge, which, Doctor Vardaman noted inwardly, had the air 
 of being pretty constantly in use, the brilliantly glazed maps 
 of " Phosphate " territory gleaming on the walls. A great 
 accumulation of mail loaded the desk; the colonel's corre- 
 spondence was evidently something colossal. There were num- 
 berless pamphlets, circulars, prospectuses, and newspaper 
 clippings with rows of figures accompanied by at least half- 
 a-dozen ciphers printed conspicuously at the top. " The 
 ARKANSAS CONSOLIDATED PHOSPHATE, COAL, 
 AND IRON COMPANY, CAPITAL AND SURPLUS 
 $4,455,000.00." " EL PASO # RIO GRANDE EXTEN- 
 SION is the BEST ZINC STOCK on the market at the 
 price. EL PASO MINES have paid over $172,000,000.00 
 in dividends. We strongly recommend this STOCK for IN- 
 VESTMENT. Ballard & Co., Wall St., N. Y. William 
 Pallinder, Agt." Doctor Vardaman surveyed these and like 
 documents with a kind of satirical interest. " Of course," 
 he used to explain, " I had had more than a suspicion for a 
 good while that ' Phosphate ' and ' Zinc ' and the colonel's 
 
THE TENANTS 191 
 
 capitalist friends were all more or less mythical. You can't 
 be as intimate as I was with a man like that for two years 
 and not ' get a line on him,' as the boys say. And then there 
 was Steven and that terrific flare-up he had with Gwynne 
 about the rent in my own library. Latterly I had begun to 
 have a pretty well-defined notion that Pallinder was in a tight 
 place — getting near the end of his rope in our town, at least. 
 Along in the fall sometime he had borrowed fifty dollars of 
 me on some pretext ; and I not unnaturally supposed that he 
 wanted to corner me into lending him another fifty, or maybe 
 thought that with my hazy ideas about business he might 
 make a sale of * Phosphate.' I was a good deal interested 
 to see how he would go about it ; I'd quite made up my mind 
 not to do either, you know — lend him the fifty, or buy any 
 stock, I mean." 
 
 What then was the doctor's astonishment when Colonel 
 Pallinder impressively brought out an elegant dark green 
 Russia-leather purse and card-case combined, with 
 " W. B. P." intertwined in a gold monogram on one side, 
 and from a thick layer of greenbacked bills therein selected 
 a fifty-dollar one and laid it on the old gentleman's knee ! 
 Doctor Vardaman stared at it as if it had been a specimen 
 from the flora of another planet. 
 
 " Now, now, now, no objections! I insist," said the colo- 
 nel, rather unnecessarily in view of the doctor's dumb sur- 
 prise. " It's a matter of principle with me, even about such 
 paltry sums as this, that short settlements make long 
 friends," he continued, conveniently oblivious of the fact that 
 he had been in the other's debt for this particular paltry sum 
 more than six months. " Never could understand, sir, how 
 a man can go on owing and owing people simply because he 
 
192 THE TENANTS 
 
 knows they're his friends and won't dun him. That's a 
 queer idea of honesty, seems to me," said the colonel, looking 
 Doctor Vardaman in the eye with a frank and open smile. 
 " You don't come down this way very often, Doctor. I sup- 
 pose you think all this — " he waved his hand around — " mar- 
 ket-place — beasts at Ephesus, hey ? " 
 
 " I'm a — I'm a little out of place, I fear," the doctor 
 stammered, still in a confusion. " I hope I didn't drive your 
 client away." 
 
 Colonel Pallinder threw back his head in hearty amuse- 
 ment. " Oh, Lord, that wasn't a client, Doctor, that old 
 creature — what was her name now, MacGonigal, MacGilli- 
 gan, MacSomething? No, I was trying to get rid of her as 
 gently as might be without hurting her feelings. For after 
 all people like that have feelings, you know ; they are worthy 
 of some consideration; hang it, a gentleman has only one 
 kind of manners. I'm glad she came in while my clerks were 
 all out, and saw me instead of any of them — you know what 
 Jack-in-office is. Why, sir, you have no conception of how 
 we are bothered by that kind of person. They watch the 
 stock market for a while, or get to talking with their friends, 
 and then the first thing you know they come in here all 
 agog with their savings — a hundred, two hundred, per- 
 haps three hundred dollars, wanting to invest! It's the 
 hardest thing in the world to make them understand 
 that we can't handle little dabs like that; they're twice as 
 much trouble as other people's tens of thousands. Your 
 small investor is eternally writing and making inquiries 
 about this stock and that stock, wanting to change, want- 
 ing to transfer, wanting to sell, wanting to buy, wanting 
 to be reassured perpetually at the slightest fluctuation 
 
THE TENANTS 193 
 
 of the market. 'Do you think my stock is all right? 
 Will it go any higher? Will it go any lower?' Like as 
 not he sees some perfectly worthless stuff advertised broad- 
 cast and promptly sit down and writes me, all on fire: 
 1 William Pallinder, Esq., Dear Sir: Would like your opinion 
 about the enclosed clipping relating to Timbuctoo and South 
 Pole Railway shares. Hadn't I better take my dime's worth 
 of Phosphate Preferred and put it into T. &. S. P.? Yours 
 truly, Jack Ass.' Oh, you may laugh, Doctor, but it's no 
 joke. And then, Doctor Vardaman, there's another side to 
 it that I never lose sight of," said the colonel, leaning for- 
 ward and tapping the old gentleman on the hand with a 
 grave look. " That, sir, is the question of moral obligation. 
 Take the case of that old woman. ' Why, Mrs. Mac-What's- 
 your-name,' says I, * if I understand you, this is all the money 
 you have ' — it was four hundred and odd, I believe — ' and you 
 want to put it into Lone Star common. Now,' says I, ' of 
 course that's a perfectly safe investment, solid as United 
 States bonds, non-taxable, pays nine per cent., and will 
 double in value in the natural course of events before another 
 six months; and what you say is quite true, that you will 
 never have another opportunity of getting it as low as forty- 
 five ' — she was really a shrewd and intelligent woman for her 
 class, and for a minute I was almost tempted to let her have 
 her way, for, of course, there wasn't the slightest risk. 
 ' Now,' said I, ' if you had two or three thousand or even one 
 thousand to spare, mind you, I say to spare, I should say to 
 you, go ahead, by all means. But,' says I, ' I can't take the 
 responsibility of letting you invest your last cent this way. 
 just on my say-so. I've got my own money in it, but my 
 money and your money are two very different propositions. 
 
194 THE TENANTS 
 
 Go and consult your lawyer, get the advice of your friends, 
 go to another broker for that matter, if you choose. All I 
 would urge is, do it soon, or you may lose a great chance, 
 such as don't come along every day.' She was very reluc- 
 tant, but I finally persuaded her; she was just going as you 
 came along. Oh, of course, I know very well, nobody bet- 
 ter after all my experience, that she may have gone straight 
 off to some other broker as I suggested, and he'll get the 
 commission, not being so — well, so squeamish as I am, but 
 William Pallinder isn't that — kind, Doctor ; we can't help the 
 way we're made, and I' m — not — that — kind ! " 
 
 He spaced the last words out, emphasising them by a gentle 
 blow with a ruler on the palm of his hand, and leaned back, 
 surveying his companion through a haze of cigar smoke, with 
 the expression of one who might have added, were it neces- 
 sary : " Behold in me a monument of integrity ! " 
 
 Doctor Vardaman gazed at the El Paso and Rio Grande 
 circulars with a new respect. Was it possible, he asked him- 
 self, that he ought to revise his opinion of Pallinder? To be 
 sure, Huddesley had hinted — but what does a servant's chat- 
 ter amount to ? And then there was that business of the un- 
 paid rent — but Gwynne had not seemed to take that very 
 seriously, and surely he should know. As to that flourishing 
 manner of the colonel's, we are prone to associate it with — 
 well, with buncombe, in plain words ; yet it was, in fact, en- 
 tirely natural, the direct result of certain traditions, early 
 environment, and upbringing. He had reached this point 
 in his reflections, smoking silently, when the colonel was most 
 unfortunately inspired to remark: 
 
 " I see you're looking at that map of Phosphate territory 
 in Arkansas. It's a wonderful thing the way the Southwest 
 
THE TENANTS 195 
 
 is opening up, wonderful ! All due to Northern enterprise 
 and vigour, sir, every bit of it. We'd be nowhere with- 
 out you. You'll find few men from my section of the country 
 that will acknowledge it, but it's so. I never did believe in 
 keeping up that spirit of mutual distrust and jealousy— 
 waving the bloody shirt and all that ; let bygones be bygones, 
 I say ; let's all work together for the common good, and give 
 honour where honour is due. Why, sir, it was a Northern 
 man — Lewis Sheister, from some little town up in New York 
 State, that discovered and worked the first phosphate vein in 
 Arkansas. The people down there in the Ozarks were ready 
 to run him and his men out of there with shotguns when he 
 started in — and now I guess they bless the day Sheister 
 turned up. He's worth five hundred thousand dollars to-day, 
 and he's been a factor in enriching that whole State. Yes, 
 sir, there's millions right here." He rose, and, drawing a 
 pencil from his waistcoat pocket, defined a small circle on the 
 shining brittle surface of the map. " Right in that little 
 zone, sir, millions for anyone, even with a very limited capi- 
 tal — ten for one, sir, ten for one is what dozens of my clients 
 are drawing at this moment," said the colonel, pointing with 
 his pencil, like a teacher of mathematics demonstrating at 
 the blackboard, and eying the doctor profoundly. " Ever 
 think of investing, Doctor? " he added, indifferently, resum- 
 ing his seat, and picking a thread from his coatsleeve as he 
 spoke. 
 
 Alas, the gentleman had protested too much ! " You'd 
 find me one of your troublesome small investors, I am afraid," 
 said the doctor, wishing uncomfortably that he could believe 
 in Pallinder. " It's rarely a professional man lays up any 
 money, you know." 
 
196 THE TENANTS 
 
 " Oh, you'd be a different pair of shoes," said Colonel Pal- 
 linder genially. " I'd rather handle a couple of hundred for 
 a man like you than a couple of thousand for some others I 
 could mention. Now I always contend that stocks such as 
 I deal in are a Heaven-sent boon to the man of moderate 
 means. Say you only have a hundred or so. You put it 
 into Ozark Field or — well — yes, you could get half-a-dozen 
 shares of Lone Star. I know a man, a banker in New York, 
 a personal friend, you understand, that I think I could per- 
 suade into parting with a little block like that, although they 
 hate to like the devil — but I believe he'd do it for me. Now 
 these things advance so rapidly that in a month or six weeks 
 you could sell out to great advantage — if you didn't want to 
 wait for your dividends, or found the speculation kept you ly- 
 ing awake o' nights," he interpolated, with jovial sarcasm. 
 " Of course, Doctor, I hardly need to tell a man of your intelli- 
 gence and breadth of view that — um — ah — ' there's a tide 
 in the affairs of men,' you know — the time is coming when 
 nobody but the kings of finance will be able to buy and con- 
 trol these shares, they're going up so fast; but if you were 
 already in the ring, as I may say " 
 
 " I doubt if the kings of finance and I would hit it off very 
 well," said the doctor soberly. Colonel Pallinder laughed 
 uproariously. He slapped his knees and laughed, and wiped 
 his eyes and laughed again. Never had the doctor's dry 
 humour received such appreciation ; and not being acutely 
 conscious of having been humorous, he observed the colonel's 
 manifestations of delight with a good deal of interest. 
 
 " You talk in a rather disparaging vein about the business 
 ability of professional men, Doctor," he said, when his mirth 
 had somewhat subsided. " But the fact is, I've met with just 
 
THE TENANTS 197 
 
 as much shrewdness among them as anywhere else. A suc- 
 cessful lawyer, a widely-known and successful physician like 
 yourself — why, he's got to be very much above the average 
 in intellect and education both. A man like you can take 
 hold of anything, no matter whether he's had any previous 
 experience or not — he can take up anything and do well at 
 it. Now, look at you! I suppose you've hardly ever been 
 in a broker's office before in your life, and you come in here, 
 and with scarcely a word of explanation from me, grasp the 
 whole subject at once! I tell you what, I'd like you to meet 
 Sheister, and just hear him talk Phosphate once. He's a 
 self-made man, Doctor, no gentleman-of-the-old-school such 
 as you, but for that very reason I think you'd find it an in- 
 teresting experience. He'll talk by the hour about his early 
 trials and struggles — it sounds like a romance. He has the 
 whole history of Phosphate at his finger-ends. Of course / 
 can't talk about the stuff except in a business way — I only 
 know that it's been a gold mine for Sheister and the men 
 he got to go in with him. Sir, I knew that fellow when he 
 hadn't but one shirt in the world, and he didn't know where 
 his next meal was to come from — and now he's travelling 
 round in his private car with a valet and a cook ! I've done 
 pretty well in Phosphate myself," said the colonel, with be- 
 coming restraint ; " but I'm not a patch on Sheister. 
 Really, I'd like you to see Mrs. Sheister's diamonds, just for 
 a curiosity. My wife can't bear her — thinks she's common, 
 and all that — you know how women are — but I tell her she's 
 down on Mrs. Sheister just because she's jealous of her dia- 
 monds." 
 
 "Mrs. Pallinder has no cause to be jealous of anybody's 
 diamonds, I think," said the doctor smoothly. " Our young 
 
198 THE TENANTS 
 
 people will be giving their entertainment in a few days now," 
 he added, thinking it high time to change the subject. And 
 the colonel glided away on the new tack as gracefully as 
 if the manoeuvre had been of his own suggestion. 
 
 " Yes, and what do you think that daughter of mine said 
 to me the other day? It seems they have to make a great 
 show of jewelry in the second play — what's the name of it — 
 ' Mrs. Tinkleton'? Mazie's ' Mrs. Tinkieton, 9 and she's 
 going to pile on all her own and her mother's too. So she 
 comes to me : ' Oh, papa, wouldn't it be nice if we could have 
 a real tiara? We've got to fix ma's necklace to look like 
 one, but I think those little coronets they have at Tiffany's 
 are just too utterly sweet.' That's the way the girls and 
 boys talk nowadays, Doctor, ' too utterly too,' ' too intensely 
 all but,' — can't understand half the gibberish they're saying ; 
 but I grasped the meaning of that! ' Why, good heavens, 
 my child,' I said, 6 do you think I'm made of money ? There's 
 your mother's necklace cost me thirty-five hundred — the 
 papers made it five thousand, but you know, Doctor, they al- 
 ways blow around and talk big — not so very long ago, not 
 more than two years, I believe, and now you want a tiara.' 
 ' Well, papa, you know you said ma's necklace was just 
 bought out of that rise in Phosphate, and it was like getting 
 it for nothing, and you'd never miss the money because the 
 dividends were so much more than you had expected. Won't 
 something else take a rise? ' And in fact, Doctor," con- 
 tinued Colonel Pallinder, pulling at his goatee with a ruefully 
 comic grin, " she rather had me there. It was just as she 
 said, the stock having gone up beyond my wildest expecta- 
 tions. I realised treble what I'd been looking for, and I al- 
 ways like to make my wife some little gift when anything of 
 
THE TENANTS 199 
 
 that sort happens. But a tiara at Tiffany's ! I couldn't 
 quite go that. Must you be going? Well, good-bye. When 
 you feel like looking into Phosphate a little farther, drop in. 
 I've some figures I think would interest you." 
 
 Doctor Vardaman took his way from the Turner Build- 
 ing, walking fast in a brown study ; such was his preoccupa- 
 tion that twenty steps from the entrance he collided with 
 a young man carrying a green cloth bag, weighted with 
 books or papers, heading for the stairs. 
 
 " Hello, Doctor ! " he began to apologise. " I didn't know 
 it was you. Why, it's great to see you down here. Come up 
 and take a look at my office." 
 
 " I've just been up in the building, Harvey," said the old 
 gentleman, recognising him. " I ought to be home sitting 
 down to my luncheon this minute. Huddesley would dis- 
 charge me if I were not on time. I went up to see Ogden 
 about those signboards on Richmond Avenue." He paused 
 and then some indefinable feeling prompted him to add : 
 "Fine office Colonel Pallinder has, hasn't he? The building 
 is certainly very complete and well-equipped ; you ought to 
 have seen the two-story frame shanty where I first hung 
 out my shingle. It was over a grocery with an outside stairs 
 leading up to it." 
 
 Young Smith eyed him with a certain apprehension in his 
 keen boyish face. " Oh, yes, the Turner Building is said 
 to be one of the finest in the West ; but I understand they are 
 going to put up some in Chicago that'll beat us all hollow. 
 Pallinder's a great friend of yours, isn't he, Doctor?" 
 
 " We are neighbours, you know," said Doctor Vardaman, 
 diplomatically, and smiled, meeting the other's eye. " Don't 
 be uneasy. I haven't been investing." 
 
200 THE TENANTS 
 
 " Why — I — I " Harvey stammered, crimsoning In his 
 
 confusion, yet plainly a little relieved. "I just couldn't 
 help wondering if you had, you know. The Colonel's a 
 great old blatherskite, isn't he? Of course, I don't mean — 
 that is, I mean " 
 
 " Harvey, Harvey," said Doctor Vardaman, wagging his 
 head solemnly, "I'm afraid that's not the way counsel for 
 the defence should open his remarks." 
 
 " Well, it's so, you know, anyhow," said the young fellow 
 ingenuously. "Jim sees a lot of them; he goes out there 
 all the time. He's in that shindy they're going to give on 
 the twelfth. Say, have you heard that about Gwynne 
 Peters?" 
 
 " No, what was it — Oh, here's my car — never mind, Har- 
 vey. I don't need any help." 
 
CHAPTER FIFTEEN 
 
 FATE, who, as Doctor Vardaman's favourite clas- 
 sic assures us, calls, equal-footed, upon carpen- 
 ters and kings, must surely have laid a directing 
 hand on the old gentleman's shoulder that morn- 
 ing; not yet were his adventures over, even when he reached 
 his own door. The Lexington and Amherst Street car 
 crawled with him laboriously as far as the corner of Am- 
 herst and Richmond, where he must disembark and trudge 
 the remaining five blocks of board sidewalk to number 201. 
 The trolley whisks you out there in five minutes now. Not 
 long ago I saw in somebody's back yard, a back yard of the 
 proletariat, next door to a tenement, one of these dilapidated 
 old horse-cars, pygmy ancestor of a race of giants, thrown 
 aside, weather-worn, ancient as the palaeolithic period, serving 
 as a play-house for the proletarian youngsters. The win- 
 dows were all out of it, even the purple glass lights overhead ; 
 but you might dimly discern the legend : " No. 5. Lexington 
 and Amherst. No. 5." along its battered sides. The thing 
 was as romantic as a derelict galleon ; sentimental melancholy 
 possessed me as I looked at it ; all my youth rode in that de- 
 crepit chariot, if not with comfort, at least with tolerable 
 satisfaction. Will the rising generation treasure so pic- 
 turesque a memory? I think not. In cold weather there 
 was a layer of straw, doubtful-tinted, breathing strange 
 odours, in the bottom of it, thoughtfully provided by the 
 street-car company to protect its patrons' feet. It was lit 
 by two oil lamps, in two niches, fortified by wire-work, one 
 
 201 
 
202 THE TENANTS 
 
 at cither end of the car. These vehicles were banded about 
 the body with a wide stripe in various colours to distinguish 
 the various lines, an amazingly ingenious idea if people had 
 only been able to see after dark, like cats ; and, as the spec- 
 trum had been exhausted by the time the builders got around 
 to the Lexington and Amherst line, they designated these 
 cars, in a creditable burst of originality, by a sash of black- 
 and-red squares, like the Rob Roy plaid. Immediately arose 
 some genius with an equally fertile invention and baptised 
 them " the checker-board cars," a title which they wore to 
 the end. There was one very steep hill at the foot whereof 
 it was the custom to hitch on an extra team of mules ; I know 
 of no more gallant spectacle than that furnished by a quad- 
 riga of mules nobly breasting Wade Street hill, with a 
 checker-board car plunging in the rear. When it got off 
 the track, as not infrequently happened, all the male passen- 
 gers got out and helped push it back. We were firmly per- 
 suaded that this was rapid transit! Yet spare your merri- 
 ment, youth of to-day; impartial Fate is waiting for your 
 admired institutions, too, your Twentieth Century Flyers, 
 your automobiles, your seven-league-boots. In twenty-five 
 years, how will your sons and daughters deride you ; with 
 what longing, with what amused tenderness, will you not look 
 back to these kind, simple days ! 
 
 Doctor Vardaman, then, with Destiny stalking viewless 
 at his side, swung off the checker-board car, and began the 
 homeward walk. Some way ahead of him he saw a figure 
 diminished by distance, plodding through his yard toward 
 the kitchen door; and as he drew nearer, two more figures 
 emerged from his front porch. The doctor recognised Bob 
 Carson, and in the over-tall, lankily-graceful young woman. 
 
THE TENANTS 203 
 
 Mazie Pallinder, in an extremely modish tan-coloured cloth 
 coat with dark brown plush collar and pocket flaps. Mazie's 
 sleeves were about as tight as Bob's trousers — that is to say, 
 they were as tight as human skill could make them, or human 
 arms and legs endure. Thus were we clad in the eighties. 
 
 " Oh, hello, Doctor," said Bob, dropping Mazie's hand — I 
 suppose he had been fastening her glove — and addressing the 
 old gentleman with unusual vivacity and a notable increase 
 of colour. " Ah — we — we've just been getting Huddesley 
 to hear us our parts — in ' Mrs. Tankerville,' you know." 
 
 " I hope you have .mastered yours," said Doctor Varda- 
 man, without a smile. Bob's part, as he and everyone else 
 knew, might have been omitted altogether without materially 
 damaging the performance ; he was a footman in " Mrs. 
 Tankerville," and his lines were hardly more than " Yes, sir," 
 and " No, sir," stated at the proper intervals. He got red- 
 der than ever under the doctor's grave survey, and affected to 
 be busy knocking invisible mud from his boot heel with his 
 cane as they stood by the gate. Mazie did not blush — for 
 the best of reasons. Her face was too carefully arranged to 
 permit of it. And, besides, what was there to blush about? 
 Bob changed colour almost whenever she looked at him; but 
 then Bob was a quiet and rather shy youth. 
 
 " Huddesley's simply fine! " she said with enthusiasm. " I 
 asked him how he came to know so much about the stage, 
 and he says he was dresser for an actor once when he was 
 right young, and used to be behind the scenes a lot. Come 
 home and take lunch with us, won't you, Doctor? " 
 
 "I can't very well to-day. I was just about to ask you 
 to stay here. Huddesley, you can get us up something, can't 
 you?" 
 
204 THE TENANTS 
 
 " Bit of 'am and a glass of porter, sir," said Huddesley 
 deferentially, holding the door open. " Beg parding, Doc- 
 tor Vardaman, sir, but Mrs. Maginnis is 'ere with your 
 wash." 
 
 " I guess we'd better not stop so long's I've got so much 
 company in the house," said Mazie. " Good-bye, Doctor ; 
 you'll come up this evening, anyway? " And as they walked 
 away, the doctor heard Bob say, " Isn't Huddesley immense, 
 though? 'Bit of 'am and a glass of porter.' Sounds just 
 like Dickens, don't it?" 
 
 The doctor, still squired by unseen Fortune, went upstairs 
 to his bedroom — and there, it may be presumed, the goddess 
 left him, having executed her appointed task. Mrs. Ma- 
 ginnis awaited him, and Huddesley was already laying the 
 doctor's shirts out of the basket. The laundress generally 
 performed this rite herself, but to-day she stood watching 
 the man with an oddly flustered manner, twisting the fringes 
 of her old shawl between her fingers. Her bonnet, that 
 feathered and beribboned structure indigenous to washer- 
 women, had worked askew a little; her face, with its prema- 
 ture wrinkles, its sunken mouth, was flushed with exercise or 
 excitement. The doctor, observant as all physicians from 
 lifelong habit, looked at her in some surprise. It crossed his 
 mind that at some prehistorically distant time, when Mrs. 
 Maginnis was a fresh barefoot girl, running the green swards 
 of Connemara, she might have been pretty; her Irish blue 
 eyes, faded with years, with toil, with sickness, with care, were 
 quite bright to-day. A kind of tremulous happiness, an anx- 
 ious joy, irradiated her; she was like a child to whom one 
 should have given a new toy, scarcely daring to be glad yet 
 in its possession. 
 
THE TENANTS 205 
 
 " Got change for a fifty-dollar bill, Mrs. Maginnis? " said 
 the old gentleman jocosely. 
 
 " Yez will have yer joke, now, won't ye, Docthor? " she re- 
 torted with gaiety, and tossed her head with the upstanding 
 plumes in a roguish manner. " Niver moind. Some day I'll 
 change ut for yez aisy enough. 'Taint much longer I'll be 
 comin' 'round for me dollar and a half, at all, at all." 
 
 " Has Tim got well? Is he going back to work? " asked 
 the doctor, beginning to fish for the required sum amongst 
 the loose silver in his pockets. He spoke of her hus- 
 band. 
 
 Tim was what Doctor Vardaman called a " non-com- 
 batant." To say that he was a washerwoman's husband 
 describes him. Who ever heard of a washerwoman with a 
 husband that was worth anything? 
 
 " Naw, it ain't that, Docthor," said Mrs. Maginnis, looking 
 momentarily a little dashed. " Naw, Tim's awful bad with 
 rheumatics this spring. But it's meself that's afther ma- 
 akin me fortune in — in stocks. Yez didn't see me in the Turr- 
 ner Buildin' th' marrnin' ? " 
 
 Doctor Vardaman's hand paused, rigidly suspended over 
 the money spread on his palm. "What — what's that you 
 say ? " he asked abruptly. 
 
 " I was goin' to ask yez to spake a wurrd to me characther 
 wid Misther — I mane Meejor Pallinder," went on Mrs. Ma- 
 ginnis, happily unconscious. " But he seemed to be in a 
 hurry, an' says I to meself, s Betther not worry him, Nora 
 Maginnis. Th' Meejor's thrustin' yez anyhow, an' ye're 
 thrustin' him an' iverythin's fair an' square an' aboveboord. 
 'Taint as if yez were a gurrl goin' to ta-ake a new pla-ace, 
 ye goose,' says I. So I just held me tongue, an' walked off. 
 
206 THE TENANTS 
 
 It's a grand glntleman th' Meejor is intoirely," she finished 
 enthusiastically. 
 
 The doctor looked at her through a mist. " What have 
 you been doing? " he said at last, striving to speak in his 
 natural voice. He might have spared the trouble ; Mrs. Ma- 
 ginnis was only too proud and pleased at his interest, at her 
 own importance. 
 
 " Ah, thin, I've been investin' — investin' in stocks — or is it 
 shares, I dinnaw? " she said eagerly, lifted her skirt, and 
 drew out a paper, carefully hoarded, from a pocket in her 
 petticoat. She held it toward him. " I got a letther about 
 thim in th' mail, a printed letther, an' ut says : s Dear Ma- 
 dame, we want to call your attintion ' like that ut begun, 
 
 Docthor. I can't raymimber th' rest of ut, but yez ought to 
 hear me little Danny, he's got ut by hearrt. Anyway, I was 
 to call on or com-communicate with William Pallinder, Turr- 
 ner Buildin', like what ut says there. They was iver so many 
 on our sthreet got th' sa-ame, th' Hogans 'crost th' way, an' 
 th' Schwartzes nixt dure but wan, but they ain't anybody 
 wint but me, an' th' Meejor says it's a grreat pity, an' they'll 
 all git left, for they won't be anny more shares or stocks, 
 whichever ut is, sold so low. An' it's just loike pickin' money 
 off of trees, he says, yez git tin for wan. That's four thou- 
 san' I'll git, Docthor, for it's four hundred I'm ta-akin out o' 
 th' Buildin' an' Loan, where we been puttin ut for th' last tin 
 years — an' weary wurrk ut is, too, savin' so slow, nothin' 
 loike this, where yez just put in yer money, an' set back an' 
 twiddle yer thumbs ! It kapes goin' higher ivery breath yez 
 draw purty near, th' Meejor says. An' whin I give him th' 
 money, he wrote off a grand pa-aper, a receipt, he called ut, 
 an' says he : * I congrat'late yez, Mrs. Maginnis,' says he. 
 
THE TENANTS 207 
 
 It's th' smarrt woman yez arre, an' plucky, too,' says he. 
 1 Nothin' venture, nothin' have, yez may have hearrd th' 
 sayin',' he says. ' That's the way I begun meself ,' says he. 
 ' I had just a little, 'twasn't be half so much as yours, an' I 
 put ut in, an' ut kep' a-goin' up an' a-goin' up, an' there I 
 was, like a big fool ' — that's what lie said, Docthor — 4 shiv- 
 erin' an' shakin' an' layin' awake noights, for fear somethin' 
 would happen to ut, an' whin ut doubled, I fair et up th' road 
 gittin to th' office to sell out — an' th' very nixt day it was 
 thribbled already ! But I'm all over thim days now,' he says, 
 laughin' that way he has, ' an' yez can see wid wan eye shut 
 how I live, Mrs. Maginnis. Well, all that come from that 
 little lump o' money not be half so big as yours, as I was just 
 afther tellin' yez, an' that's where yez'll be, too, inside of a 
 year, if yez'll be guided by me,' he says. Indade, it's th' 
 foine gintleman he is, an' th' koind man, to be doin' all that 
 for th' loikes of me, an' so I tould him." 
 
 For the second time that day Doctor Vardaman gazed si- 
 lently at "El Paso & Rio Grande," "$172,000,000.00 in 
 dividends," until the characters swam before his eyes. 
 
 " At least you'll want your dollar and a half in the mean- 
 time, Mrs. Maginnis," he said finally with an effort, and 
 counted the money into her hand. She had on a pair of black 
 worsted gloves, the fingers too long for her own, crooked, 
 hardened and disfigured with work. She took the coins clum- 
 sily, and some of them dropped and rolled about the floor. 
 
 " Troth, what'll I do whin I'm a la-ady, settin' in me ker- 
 ridge, wid kid gloves on, I wondher," she said with a laugh. 
 " I'm that awkward wid these, I'd betther be learnin', I think. 
 I'm goin' to have Maggie ta-ake pianny lessons, Docthor, an' 
 I'm goin' to git a pair of va-ases for th' parlour mantel- 
 
208 THE TENANTS 
 
 piece, an' a wheel chair for Tim. That's what I'm goin' to 
 do whin th' firrst o' th' money comes in. I made up me 
 moind to that as I was walkin' along wid yer wash th' 
 marrnin', an' thin all to oncet, I says to meself. 6 An' what'll 
 th' docthor be doin' for somewan to clear-starch his shirrts 
 th' way he loikes? An' to do up thim white lawn cravats 
 that's all cut on th' bias, an' sthretches somethin' awful — 
 thim stocks yez call 'em, Docthor. Faith, there's stocks an' 
 stocks, think o' that, now?" She laughed a little, hysteri- 
 cally, gulping at her own j oke. " Yez wouldn't belave ut, 
 Docthor, for all I was so happy, I cud ha' set right down an' 
 cried to think that somewan might git hould o' thim, some 
 naygur, mebbe, that 'ud ruin 'em ! " The tears came into her 
 faded blue eyes. " It's th' good man yez arre, Docthor Varr- 
 daman, an' it's koind yez have been to me all these harrd 
 years, an' I'll niver forgit ut. Whin I'm settin' in me par- 
 lour, wid th' pitchers an' th' Rogers Group like I mane to 
 have ut, rockin' in me chair, an' listenin' to Maggie play, I'll 
 be thinkin' of yez often an' often, Docthor, an' of th' ould 
 days, whin 1 was sthrugglin' along at th' tub an' yez helped 
 
 me." 
 
 Doctor Vardaman mechanically twisted his features into 
 a smile. " I wish you luck with all my heart, Mrs. Magin- 
 nis," was all he could say ; but the Irishwoman was too emo- 
 tionally wrought up to heed the strangeness of his manner. 
 Her sky was radiant with dreams. 
 
 " Sure, I kin have thim masses said for me mother — rest 
 her sowl ! " she said, crossing herself fervently ; and the next 
 moment, in gleeful anticipation : " An' buy me a black silk, 
 Docthor, a black silk dhress, me that hasn't had a new rag 
 to me back for eight years ! " 
 
THE TENANTS 209 
 
 She went ; and Doctor Vardaman sat down before his table. 
 He took out the colonel's fifty-dollar bill— the colonel's ! It 
 was Mrs. Maginnis', like all the rest of the bills in that 
 handsome Russia-leather case! The doctor was as sure of 
 it as if it had been sworn to in his presence. He stared at 
 it miserably. Of course, he told himself, he had known all 
 along: that Pallinder was a humbug, had known in a sort of 
 way that he was a scamp. But the truth is, you and I, 
 even the most experienced, even the wisest and worldliest and 
 most wary of us, knows very little about scamps. The doctor 
 had lived his seventy years with such vicissitudes as fall to 
 the lot of the ruck of mankind, and had encountered no 
 greater rascality than that of some patient who ignored a bill 
 or refused to pay it — an offence which he himself was the 
 first to excuse or condone. By nature a humane and sym- 
 pathetic man, he had learned in his profession a large charity, 
 a habit of making allowances which he now denounced sav- 
 agely for a contemptible shirking of responsibilities. Lais- 
 sez faire, indeed ! And one-half the world, not knowing how 
 the other half lives, need not care! Yes, Pallinder was a 
 scamp; but Doctor Vardaman found, with a wretched sur- 
 prise, that he had had no real comprehension of what the word 
 mean t — the thing it denoted. This was its meaning, this 
 shabby trickery, this cheap deceit ; the discovery came upon 
 him like a blow. There is an extraordinary bitterness to any 
 generous mind in beholding the uncovered shame of a friend ; 
 we hate to see the feet of clay; the pain is two-edged and 
 strikes us either way with the sense of his unworthiness, of 
 our own folly. The doctor had liked Pallinder; liked him 
 still — liked him and despised him. He sat wondering at his 
 own weakness. " If it had been me," thought the old gentle- 
 
210 THE TENANTS 
 
 man, " if it had been me that he had cheated, fleeced, bam- 
 boozled in this way, or anyone of my class, I could almost 
 say the game was fair and have my laugh at the dupe ; it's 
 our business to know better. But that poor old woman, that 
 poor, ignorant, faithful, trusting creature, that honest, sim- 
 ple drudge ! " He thought of her tired, work-worn hands in 
 those pitiful gloves with a throb of pain and unreasoning 
 self-reproach. Colonel Pallinder's hands were large, white, 
 and very well-kept ; a seal ring in pretty taste, simplex mun- 
 dit'iis, adorned his little finger, the only piece of jewelry he 
 wore. It was paid for, if at all, the doctor reflected grimly, 
 out of the pocket of some other Mrs. Maginnis. The flavour 
 of the colonel's cigar was yet on his lips ; what washerwoman, 
 what widow, what patient, laborious wage-earner's little sav- 
 ings had paid for that? He got up and walked the floor 
 restlessly. There was a kind of irony in the thought that he, 
 John Vardaman, must suffer this travail of spirit, while the 
 guilty one himself pursued his way unmoved, tranquil, eating 
 and sleeping in triumphant ease. " After all," said the doc- 
 tor inwardly, "am I my brother's keeper? No. But I have 
 sat at Pallinder's table, smoked with him, drunk with him, 
 laughed with him, sanctioned and encouraged him. All the 
 while I knew he was a rogue ; I did it open-eyed ; I shared the 
 spoil — it's late, late in the day, Jack Vardaman, for you to 
 cry Fie on the thief! Dozens of others are daily doing the 
 same thing; why not? The Pallinders amuse them. Of what 
 stuff are we all made ? " His glance fell on the bill again ; 
 he picked it up and smoothed it out mechanically, wondering 
 what had prompted Pallinder to pay him out of all the people 
 he owed. It was certainly not from any warm friendship, for 
 Colonel Pallinder liked everybody equally well ; his cordiality, 
 
THE TENANTS 211 
 
 his generosity emulated the very sunshine in their wide dif- 
 fusion. If he stole meanly, he gave away magnificently — 
 after his own desires were indulged. He was quite capable of 
 picking Mrs. Maginnis' pocket one day, and relieving her 
 distress with coal and warm blankets the next ; and it is more 
 than likely that he would have paid the first comer, whether 
 Doctor Vardaman or somebody else, if the matter had oc- 
 curred to him, and if the sum were not inconveniently large. 
 
 Huddesley, coming in with the tray of luncheon, was aston- 
 ished at the doctor's haggard look; he moved about noise- 
 lessly, disposing the dishes to the old gentleman's liking, and 
 once or twice sending a sharp glance into his face unobserved. 
 
 " Shall you be going up to Mrs. Pallinder's to dinner this 
 evening, sir?" he asked at length respectfully. "Miss Pal- 
 linder said something about you " 
 
 " No," said Doctor Vardaman sternly. " No. I shan't be 
 going there again." 
 
 Huddesley looked at him with singular blankness. " Beg 
 parding, sir, did you say ? " 
 
 " I said I was not going there again," repeated the doctor 
 with deliberation. He thought a moment. " I'll write a note 
 and ask the younger gentleman here to dinner next Friday 
 night, Huddesley, and you can take it up to Mrs. Pallinder. 
 It's the night of their party ; we shan't see much more of 
 them," said Doctor Vardaman, checking a sigh. He would not 
 acknowledge to himself how much he should miss the careless 
 jollity, the youthful fun and freedom of the last two years. 
 Huddesley was leaving the room when the doctor abruptly 
 called him back : " Huddesley ! " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " I — I seldom interfere in the affairs of my servants, Hud- 
 
212 THE TENANTS 
 
 desley," said Doctor Vardaman, hesitating. " I realise that I 
 nave no more right to meddle with your business than you 
 with mine. But I — I should like to ask you if you have ever 
 had any business dealings with Colonel Pallinder? If you — 
 you have ever bought any of his mining or c Phosphate * 
 stocks, in short? " 
 
 Huddesley, after a moment's puzzled silence, so far forgot 
 his usually impeccable manners as to utter a queer unpleasant 
 sound between a sneer and a laugh. " Me? " said he. " Not 
 much. Think I'd be roped in by any such con game as that? 
 I guess not — bet your bottom dollar ! " He caught the doc- 
 tor's startled look, and faltered. " Hi — Hi 'ope you'll hex- 
 cuse me, sir," he said in genuine and very alarmed confusion ; 
 " Hi 'ear so much rough talk sometimes, Hi can't 'elp picking 
 it hup " 
 
 " Never mind," said Doctor Vardaman kindly. " I thought 
 you were too shrewd a man and had seen too much of the 
 world to — to be taken in, as you say. I should be sorry to 
 think of your losing money — especially through over-con- 
 fidence in — in any friend of mine. I wouldn't like to feel that 
 you were influenced in that way," the old gentleman concluded 
 rather sadly. 
 
 The servant eyed his downcast face with an unfathomable 
 expression. He fumbled with the door-knob ; then he cleared 
 his throat and spoke with something of an effort. " You're 
 mighty kind to me, Doctor Vardaman," he said huskily. 
 " You treat me mighty white — and I won't forget it." 
 
 It was the second time within the hour that Doctor Varda- 
 man had received this agreeable assurance. " ' Mighty 
 white,' " he quoted to himself, almost smiling, as the door 
 closed. " I'm afraid Huddesley is becoming Americanised." 
 
CHAPTER SIXTEEN 
 
 jA MONG the forgotten fashions of the years from 
 / m eighteen-eighty to eighty-five was that of giving 
 / ' ^k our parties, evening or afternoon, for young 
 ^ -^- people or old, of whatever kind, in short, in our 
 own homes ; the easy hospitality of clubs or fashionable hotels 
 was not yet known. Houses with double-parlours and a din- 
 ing-room back were considered ideal for any sort of entertain- 
 ment; and, of course, such an architectural triumph as the 
 old Gwynne house with that splendid ballroom on the third 
 floor, was hors concours. There was not another home in 
 town to compare with it. Mrs. Pallinder could entertain 
 without disturbing a single piece of the peacock-blue and old- 
 gold furniture; she meant, however, to have the whole place 
 floor-clothed the night of the twelfth. " I can't risk my 
 Moquette carpets with a mob of young people tearing around 
 all over the house, you know, my dear," she said with a smil- 
 ing pretence of severity; and her guests, eying the rich 
 scrolls and garlands underfoot, gravely acquiesced. Every- 
 where else, all the movables, except the bookcases and piano, 
 were marshalled upstairs or out on the back porch. The little 
 sofas in our parlours generally went into retirement under 
 the stairs at the rear end of the hall. In the afternoons we 
 were just beginning to have progressive euchres, and what 
 we actually called " high teas." It is doubtless impossible for 
 the mind of to-day to conceive of a society so devoid of 
 education and good taste as to call any species of entertain- 
 ment a " high tea," but such is the appalling fact. You may 
 
 213 
 
214 THE TENANTS 
 
 pick up a Journal or Evening Despatch of that date, and 
 read not one but many notices such as this : 
 
 " At Mrs. Henderson P. Gates' high tea on Monday in the fashionable 
 crush were observed: 
 
 Mrs. Colonel Pallinder in a toilet of ottoman silk and silk plush in 
 two shades of electric blue, with garniture of chenille and pearl fringes, 
 and a capote of feathers en suite. 
 
 Miss Pallinder in wine-coloured surah with sleeves and draperies of 
 spotted silk grenadine. 
 
 Miss Ponsonby-Baxter wore a redingote of crushed-strawberry pekin 
 opening over a brocaded front in shades of the same, with panels 
 of " 
 
 No, I have not the heart to go on with the gaudy details 
 of Muriel's panels and passementerie. But I remember that 
 dress well, and, believe it or not, she looked as nobly and 
 placidly beautiful in the crushed-strawberry redingote as 
 had she been draped like the Winged Victory. Mrs. Gates 
 continued her party with a dance that same evening. " The 
 house was all torn up anyhow," Lily Gates told us ; " and 
 mamma thought she might just as well go ahead." 
 
 Muriel and J. B., or Mr. Taylor, as she decorously called 
 him, — he was only J. B. to college mates or others who knew 
 him well, — were sitting out a waltz on the top step of the 
 Henderson P. Gates' stairs. It was a long flight, turning 
 sharply at a little landing to reach the upper hall; and the 
 musicians penned in the alcove behind the steps on the first 
 floor were discoursing " A Medley of Popular Airs," with 
 admirable command of rhythm and expression. " Wh-i-te 
 Wings," " Swee-ee-t Y\-o-lets" the sounds travelled up to 
 them as through a chimney. There was a smothering scent 
 of lilacs — the house had been decorated with them — and in 
 pauses of the noise one could hear the window-panes shud- 
 
THE TENANTS 215 
 
 dering to the assaults of successive blasts of wind and rain 
 commingled. The spring was early that year. A discreet 
 twilight on the top step held out opportunities for flirtation 
 which Mazie Pallinder never would have neglected in the 
 world ; but neither J. B. nor Muriel had any notion of taking 
 advantage of them. The girl was absorbed in a certain 
 dilemma; her even delicate brows were slightly drawn as she 
 studied the pattern of her fan, and wondered how she could 
 lead, draw, drag the conversation around to the desired point. 
 And J. B. was thinking that " Pretty Pond-lilies " was a 
 good waltz, and if it hadn't been so hot, and Miss Baxter 
 something of an armful to pull around — and she couldn't 
 reverse — he would have suggested a turn. He looked at her. 
 It would be desirable, I suppose, to record minutely what 
 Muriel wore that night ; I refer you to the columns of the 
 Journal; but does anyone remember that full dress in the 
 eighties — in common with dress for all occasions — compre- 
 hended those two aids to beauty, "bangs," and "bustles"? 
 Muriel's pretty copper-brown hair was arranged in the fringe 
 down to the eyebrows, the knot low on the nape of her neck, 
 to which a famous stage-beauty had lately given her name ; 
 and I am afraid her black lace skirts were crinolined in the 
 height of the fashion. But the young man thought she looked 
 like Juno — Juno with a bustle ! They had been talking about 
 Doctor Vardaman. 
 
 " The doctor's really awfully fond of his queer old things," 
 J. B. remarked. " If you show the least interest — and it's not 
 put on with me, I am interested — he'll take you around, and 
 explain to you who all the big-bugs, his ancestors in the por- 
 traits were, and what they did, and tell you about his first 
 editions, and the old wine he's got laid away, and the auto- 
 
216 THE TENANTS 
 
 graph-letters to his grandfather from Benjamin Franklin 
 and all the rest of it." 
 
 " How odd ! " said Muriel. 
 
 " Yes, I suppose it's funny to you, but you see over here 
 we don't have all that the way you do. People aren't used to 
 seeing it about them all the time. I expect that's the reason 
 Huddesley fits in with the doctor so well ; he cares for every- 
 thing and understands — the way old family-servants do in 
 novels you know. He's so English " 
 
 " No ? he isn't," said Muriel decidedly. " You think so, but 
 none of you know. Nobody talks like that at home." 
 
 " Well, not nice people of course, but servants " 
 
 " No, not servants either. He's no more like a real servant 
 at home than our stage- Yankees are like you." 
 
 " You've never come into contact with his class much, I 
 guess," said J. B., remembering that the treatment accorded 
 servants varies widely. " Everything is different with us ; now 
 the doctor likes to make him talk. We're all going down there 
 to dinner Friday night, did you know it? " 
 
 " What, all of us? Why, that's the night we " 
 
 " No, only the men, I mean. The doctor told Mrs. Pallin- 
 der he'd like to have us, and he thought maybe she'd just as 
 lief we were out of the house, while all of you were getting 
 ready for the performance. There are so many of us, you 
 know, for ' William Tell.' Some of the fellows have sent their 
 clothes out to his house, and are going to dress there." 
 
 Muriel looked at him timidly. He was unconsciously open- 
 ing a door for the entrance of that all-important topic ; she 
 was not quick, however, and besides she was in doubt whether 
 — whether it would be quite proper for her to speak to him 
 about it at all! Next moment the opportunity was gone. 
 
THE TENANTS 217 
 
 " If we get everybody in a good humour with the first per- 
 formance, they won't care if ' Mrs. Tankerville ' is & little 
 rocky," J. B. observed sagely. " Teddy isn't so good as 
 Jenks the butler. He's not — not convincing. Ted doesn't 
 look as if he could steal a potato, let alone a hatful of dia- 
 monds. And then he hasn't the chances to be funny there are 
 in ' Tell.' Nobody knows their part yet, and here the thing's 
 set for Friday ! " 
 
 " I'm rather sure of myself all except one place," Muriel 
 said. " We've been going so we haven't had much time to 
 study." 
 
 " I know. It's an awful rush this season. The girls can 
 stand it, of course; they rest in the daytime. But a fellow's 
 got to go to business. Somebody said to Arch. Lewis the 
 other day, ' Oh, never mind. They don't need you at the of- 
 fice.' He said, ' Yes, but hang it all, I don't want 'em to find 
 that out ! ' " 
 
 Muriel listened and assented vaguely; she was not accus- 
 tomed to young men who had businesses and offices. Time was 
 passing, and they were no nearer the point than they were ten 
 minutes ago. She hesitated; and J. B. admired, yet a little 
 wondered at, the swift changes of colour in her cheeks. 
 " These English girls beat everything at blushing," he said 
 to himself; and then removed his eyes with a sudden guilty 
 flush over his own face as he realised that he had been staring 
 too hard. But, Jove, what a beauty she was ! 
 
 " You all think Mr. Johns is very good in his part, don't 
 you ? " said Muriel, nervously conscious that they had been 
 silent too long. American men, she had noticed, expected the 
 girls to do the most of the talking; and, somehow, the girls 
 did. 
 
218 THE TENANTS 
 
 " Why, yes, especially in ' Tell,' don't you? " 
 
 " Well, I — I don't always understand, you know. And the 
 last night we rehearsed, after we went to that dinner at the 
 Ellises', I couldn't even make out some of the words he said, 
 he spoke so " 
 
 " He — he wasn't very well — we had to call the rehearsal 
 off, you remember?" interrupted the young man hastily. 
 Muriel was surprised to see him redden and avoid her eyes. 
 There was an awkward pause — the kind of pause that, had 
 Muriel been an American girl, with their uncanny sharpness of 
 intuition, she would not have allowed to occur. But, had 
 Muriel been an American girl, this history would have re- 
 mained forever unwritten. But for her visit to the Pallin- 
 ders' there would have been no ' Tell,' no ' Mrs. Tankerville,' 
 no dinner at Doctor Vardaman's — who can say what might 
 have happened instead? 
 
 " Ted can imitate Billy Rice first-rate," said J. B., anxious 
 to steer gracefully away from an uncomfortable situation. 
 " We had a minstrel-show one time, and he made up to look 
 like Rice and sang that song of his : 
 
 " Arthur, they say, will em-i-grate," 
 " Then all the rest of us had to shout, you know, 
 
 "WHEN?", 
 
 " Bye-and-bye ! 
 Into the ma-tri-mo-ni-al state." 
 "WHEN?" 
 " Bye-and-bye ! " 
 
 " They're all the time getting off something about the Presi- 
 dent marrying again, you know. Teddy was as good as Rice 
 any day." 
 
THE TENANTS - 219 
 
 " Billy Rice? " repeated Muriel. She had not thought the 
 fragment of comic song very comic (and therein I dare say 
 she was right), and she knew no more who Billy Rice was 
 th an — than the average reader of these lines. Time has dis- 
 missed that fat, jolly troubadour. Upon what bank of misty 
 Acheron does he now perform his melodies? And where are 
 the snows of yester-year? 
 
 " He's a big fat fellow — a white man, you know. They're 
 all white, but blacked up, in the minstrel-shows," J. B. ex- 
 plained patiently. 
 
 " Fancy ! What do they do? " 
 
 " Why, sing and dance ; buck-and-wing, and all that. It's 
 rather knock-down-and-drag-out fun, some of it ; and some's 
 pretty good." 
 
 "I don't believe I'd understand the jokes," said Muriel 
 forlornly. " It's so different at home — it's quite simple. Every- 
 one always knows when to laugh. But you know that song 
 you sing in ' Tell,' ' The Maiden on the Icy Plank,' that first 
 verse — would you mind explaining? You know where is says: 
 
 " The maiden on the icy plank 
 Showed conduct quite surprising, 
 She went and got a cake of yeast — 
 Then fell instead of rising ! " 
 
 I — I don't quite see it — the — the point, you know." 
 
 " Oh, that's just nonsense, you know — it's just silly. The 
 
 fact is — yeast, you know, yeast, well, it makes things rise, 
 
 and she fell ' 
 
 " Oh, she ate the yeast ? " said Muriel with a charming 
 
 smile. " Oh, that's very droll ! " She almost laughed. " It 
 
 didn't say that, you see. That's why I didn't understand. 
 
 But she ate the yeast ! " 
 
220 THE TENANTS 
 
 " Yes, she ate the yeast," said J. B. resignedly. " One 
 can't quite explain a thing like that somehow. It's only meant 
 to be silly." 
 
 "Most of your American jokes are like that, aren't they? 
 I mean they have to be explained. At first I thought it was 
 because I was slow — but you say such queer things — and one 
 can't ever be certain whether you're in fun or earnest." 
 
 " I suppose it is hard for a stranger. Is there anything 
 else — any other joke, I mean, that you'd like to get at the 
 true inwardness of? " 
 
 Muriel recognised the opportunity she had sought. 
 
 " I — I wish you'd tell me, if you don't mind, you know that 
 costume you wear in the play, that kilt — why do you wear 
 that, Mr. Taylor?" 
 
 J. B. surveyed her perplexed. 
 
 " Why do I wear the kilt and all the rest of it? Why — why 
 to make a little fun, you know." 
 
 " I thought that was it," said Muriel earnestly. " But, you 
 see, it's really not funny." 
 
 "Oh, isn't it?" 
 
 " Not a bit," Muriel assured him ; and then her heart 
 dropped dismally at the expression on his face. 
 
 He did not looked pleased somehow. 
 
 " I — I didn't mean that you aren't funny, you know, I 
 mean it isn't funny." 
 
 " I'm afraid I don't catch the distinction," said the young 
 man a little drily. Bitter is the cup of the unappreciated 
 joker. 
 
 " I mean — I — I " quavered Muriel miserably. " Maybe 
 
 it's because I'm not used to your fun — I don't see things — it's 
 always really funny at home — so different from here — so 
 
THE TENANTS 221 
 
 much easier. But — I — I think you're too — too nice to wear 
 a kilt ! " 
 
 The tears came into her eyes ; tears of embarrassment and 
 perhaps some deeper unanalysed feeling. Amazement encom- 
 passed J. B. What on earth was the matter with her? It was 
 not possible she thought the kilt indecent ! 
 
 " And — and that little red apple on the corner of your 
 head ! " faltered Muriel. " It all makes you look so foolish — 
 not at all funny. And you're not foolish — really and truly 
 not the least bit foolish — and I think it's a shame for you to 
 make yourself look so ! " 
 
 At the moment J. B. looked exceedingly foolish. Her in- 
 terest was gratifying, of course ; there was something almost 
 maternally sweet in it. But it put him, as he phrased it to 
 himself, in an awful box. 
 
 "You — you're not vexed, are you?" said Muriel, holding 
 her chin steady by an effort. The young man glanced at her, 
 and surprised an expression that caused him to look away, 
 crimsoning. The next instant he inwardly cursed himself 
 savagely for a despicable cad. Couldn't a nice girl look at 
 
 him without his imagining ! 
 
 " Oh, I wouldn't get mad about a little thing like that, Miss 
 Baxter," he said heartily. "I'm feeling pretty stuck-up 
 about your — your speaking of it at all, you know. Of course, 
 it is a Tom-fool costume, but I've let myself in for it now, 
 and I can't very well back out, and leave them without any- 
 body at the last minute. And I won't look any sillier than the 
 others — not so silly as Ted for instance, in women's clothes." 
 " Oh, he doesn't make any difference ! " said Muriel, almost 
 with impatience. 
 
 "Well, he thinks he's pretty important, anyway," J. B. 
 
222 THE TENANTS 
 
 said, wondering privately what they would have done without 
 the comparatively safe and conservative ground of Teddy 
 Johns' character and abilities for a retreat, when the conver- 
 sational horizon grew overcast. " In the second play espe- 
 cially — making away with peoples' diamond coronets and 
 things ! Mrs. Pallinder's going to let us have all hers. She's 
 got some sparklers, you know, regular headlights ; you've 
 seen her wear them? Tell you, if I were in Ted's place, I 
 wouldn't want to have 'em in my charge, even for a few 
 minutes — and it's all through the last two acts — until the 
 place where they drag him out from behind the screen, after 
 I'm supposed to shoot him, remember? " 
 
 " Yes, where you say : ' Don't put the handcuffs on a dead 
 man, men ! ' " 
 
 " And Billy Potter says : 6 He ain't dead ; you can't kill 
 that kind with a blast o' dynamite. I guess these here's your 
 tiary, lady.' Ted's going to have it all done up in a package 
 in his inside pocket. He says he's going to keep the things 
 in his clothes the whole time. There are so many servants 
 around, and the carpenters to fix the scenery, and the ca- 
 terer's men — you can't be too careful. 'Twouldn't do to leave 
 a five-thousand-dollar diamond necklace lying around loose ; 
 everybody in town knows about that necklace, I guess." 
 
 " Do you suppose Mr. Potter really looks at all like a 
 detective? " 
 
 J. B. laughed. " No. He cocks his hat over one eye, and 
 acts that tough way, just to give the part a kind of snap — 
 a little go, you know. But the only detective I ever knew was 
 a very quiet, gentlemanly sort of fellow. We had a little 
 trouble at the bank once, and had this chap — his name was 
 Judd — there for a couple of weeks, in plain clothes, you know. 
 
THE TENANTS 223 
 
 He didn't look like Vidocq either — not a bit. He looked like 
 — like — well, a nice young fellow clerking in a shoe-store, 
 say." 
 
 " Fancy ! " 
 
 The music achieved its final chord ; and the stairs promptly 
 filled with resting couples. Mrs. Gates came out of the par- 
 lour with an armful of gilt shepherds' crooks and wreaths of 
 tissue-paper roses. She looked up at the long slant of young 
 people, nodding and signalling; and went back to speak to 
 the musicians. The "juhman " was about to begin. 
 
 " I do think it's too funny for any use," said Kitty Old- 
 ham across her late partner to the nearest girl, " the way 
 Britannia throws herself at somebody's head. Simply mo- 
 nopolises him the whole time." 
 
 " Oh, they were just sitting out one dance," said the man 
 with her, displaying an unexpected acuteness. " Never mind 
 looking at me that way, Miss Kitty. I know whom you were 
 talking about. J. B. just didn't want to dance it, I guess." 
 
 " No wonder. Self-preservation's the first law of nature," 
 said Kitty with undaunted pertness. 
 
 " Funny they don't teach 'em to dance, on the other side, 
 isn't it?" 
 
 " Oh, she thinks she's dancing," said Kitty, lazily scorn- 
 ful. " It's a delusion they all have, I suppose. J. B.'s the only 
 man around big enough for her — except Gwynne, and he's 
 tall, but he's too slim. He's dropped out of the play — did 
 you know ? " 
 
 " Why, no— what for? " 
 
 " I don't know. If he'd been here to-night, I'd have asked 
 him. He just walked off, and nobody said anything, for fear 
 of putting their foot in it. I guess there never was a thing 
 
224 THE TENANTS 
 
 of the kind yet, that there wasn't a lot of fighting about. It's 
 bound to be that way, you know. Nobody will be on speaking- 
 terms before it's over." 
 
 " Have they got someone to take his place? " 
 
 " I believe Joe McHenry is going to do Matilda, and 
 they're going to leave out Joe's old part — it wasn't much 
 anyway, and somebody or other can take his speeches. Pretty 
 nearly every man in town that can sing or act at all is in it 
 already, you know. Archie says he doesn't know what they'd 
 do, if anyone were to be taken sick." 
 
 " But why do you suppose Gwynne ? " 
 
 " Goodness knows ! It's a bother, we'd fixed up all the pro- 
 grammes with his name on, and there isn't time to make a 
 whole new lot now. You can't tell anything about it — there's 
 a queer streak in all the Gwynnes, you know." 
 
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN 
 
 DOCTOR VARDAMAN'S house wore something of 
 a festive look on Friday night when the " all-star 
 cast," as some ribald jeerer had christened them, 
 of " William Tell," began to arrive. It was 
 partly due to the appearance of Huddesley in his worn even- 
 ing-clothes, carefully brushed and pressed. How he contrived 
 to get the dinner — and it was a good dinner — cooked and 
 ready for serving, and yet present himself in the doctor's lit- 
 tle oil-clothed entry to open the door whenever the bell tinkled, 
 clean, cool, and unhurried, ready to take charge of overcoats 
 and hats — how Huddesley did all that, I say, would have been 
 a mystery to any woman. Even some of the young men spoke 
 of it afterwards with enthusiasm. As I have already stated, it 
 happened that I never saw Huddesley except once, later in 
 this same fateful Friday evening, as we shall presently hear, 
 so that I am unable to describe him ; but he achieved a cer- 
 tain measure of immortality in much better-known and more 
 widely-read columns than mine will ever be. And in fact there 
 could not have been much about him to describe ; I think he 
 was undersized and lean, a decent-looking, temperate, capable 
 creature. But nothing in his appearance, they tell me, would 
 have moved one to a second glance at him ; and perhaps it was 
 that very neutrality of face and figure that adapted him so 
 well to his position. That, and his manners, prudently bal- 
 anced between respectful reticence and respectful interest. 
 He had contributed in no small share to the coaching of 
 everybody in the all-star cast ; he knew these young men as 
 
 225 
 
226 THE TENANTS 
 
 well as any subordinate can know his superiors — yet he took 
 their coats in sedate silence, recognising them only by his 
 grave " yes, sir," and " no sir," and retiring to his kitchen 
 as soon as his services were no longer needed. Just once did 
 J. B. imagine that he detected a faint flavour of — call it 
 irony or covert impudence in the man's bearing ; and he pres- 
 ently dismissed the idea from his mind as too fantastic. It 
 was when Huddesley was hanging up Teddy Johns' coat 
 alongside the others on the old-fashioned iron hat-rack, 
 wrought in the semblance of a grapevine- with tendrils and 
 bunches of fruit that decorated the hall between two life-size 
 oil-paintings of the doctor's " big-bugs." 
 
 "Who's that, Huddesley?" asked Teddy affably, indicat- 
 ing by a nod the one to the right. " The respectable-look- 
 ing party in the knee-breeches, I mean." 
 
 " That's Doctor Vardaman's grandhuncle, I believe, sir ; 
 'e's dead." 
 
 "No, you don't say? Tst, tst! Too bad! That's the first 
 I've heard of it. When?" 
 
 " Habout heighteen-twelve, Hi hunderstand, Mr. Theo- 
 dore," said Huddesley, paying the tribute of a deferential 
 smile to the other's j ocularity. 
 
 " Well, well, in the midst of life — the doctor's bearing up 
 tolerably, however, I see. Do you suppose it was a good like- 
 ness? What a terrific big red nose the old boy had, didn't 
 he?" 
 
 " Hi'm hafraid 'e was haddicted to the bottle, sir," said 
 Huddesley respectfully. " That's what comes of the 'abit 
 hoften." 
 
 "Hey? The bottle?" 
 Yes, sir — 'e took a drop too much, I dessay," said Hud- 
 
 a 
 
THE TENANTS 227 
 
 desley without the slightest change of expression. " But a 
 great many gents did in those days compared to what does 
 now, Hi'm told. Heverybody's very temperate now, sir, as 
 you must 'ave noticed. 'E probably began nearly, the hold 
 gent yonder ; you might say 'e was brought hup on the 
 bottle." 
 
 J. B. eyed the man as Teddy, colouring a little, turned 
 hastily into the parlour ; but Huddesley's face was guileless. 
 It was impossible to guess how much the fellow knew or meant 
 to hint, though, indeed, it would have required no great pene- 
 tration to discover poor Teddy's weakness. The wonder was 
 that Huddesley, the silent, the discreet, should have allowed 
 himself to touch upon the subject at all. It struck J. B. that 
 he was almost too innocently humorous ; he wondered if they 
 had spoiled Huddesley, as Colonel Pallinder had predicted, 
 by their unthinking familiarity. Muriel's words recurred un- 
 comfortably to the young man's mind : " You think he's 
 English, but you don't know." " He's no more like a servant 
 at home than our stage- Yankees are like you." But the idea 
 of his being anything else, of his perpetrating an elaborate 
 hoax extending over two months and involving disagreeable 
 manual labour, for no conceivable end, was too preposterous. 
 The thought, hardly more than half-formed, floated across 
 J. B.'s mental horizon, and vanished like a shred of cloud 
 before the wind. Yet his confidence in Huddesley was oddly 
 shaken ; he halted, wavering at the fulfilment of a plan he had 
 had in mind but a moment earlier. To say : " Look here, Hud- 
 desley, I wish you'd not fill Mr. Johns' glass as often as the 
 rest of us, and never quite full anyhow " — surely that would 
 have been a small matter, and no disloyalty to his friend, 
 rather a kindness. And Huddesley was discreet — yes, that 
 
228 THE TENANTS 
 
 was just it, confound his wooden-faced discretion! All at 
 once it savoured to J. B. of slyness. This uncertain mood 
 was new to him, and while he hesitated in a kind of irritated 
 wonder at his own lack of resolution 
 
 " Beg parding, Mr. Breckinridge, sir, did you want to 
 speak to me? " said Huddesley. 
 
 That settled it. J. B. felt as if those respectful eyes had 
 bored through into his thoughts. 
 
 " No," he said shortly ; and followed Teddy into his host's 
 presence. 
 
 Doctor Vardaman's guests sat down some ten or twelve 
 strong, the doctor at the head of his table, in a dress-coat the 
 fashion of which antedated even Huddesley's, with his iron- 
 grey hair brushed forward in a tuft over each ear; with a 
 black stock such as he had worn since the year '40 ; his eye- 
 glass on a black ribbon aslant across his shirt-front like an 
 order; and a pair of Labrador-stone buttons in his cuffs, 
 dark watery-green with a crumb of fire eerily visible in the 
 depths of them. These cuff-buttons signalised the dinner as a 
 gala-occasion ; the doctor marked the day with a Labrador- 
 stone. He only wore them when the event was of enough im- 
 portance to justify such a display — a queer sentimental trib- 
 ute to certain queer sentimental recollections. They had 
 been given him who knows how long ago, and by whom? So 
 do we all in secret offer some absurd and pathetic oblation 
 before the shrines of the past. I dare say when the doctor 
 opened the top drawer of his high-shouldered mahogany 
 bureau and took his Labrador-stone buttons out of their 
 dingy little green morocco case, for one moment the breath 
 of a vanished spring saluted him, and the roses still bloomed 
 by the calm Bendemeer. Thus did the old gentleman pre- 
 
THE TENANTS 229 
 
 side, invested with the kind dignity of his age and character, 
 and of his noble and beautiful profession; and I have no 
 doubt his ancient bachelor heart warmed a good deal at this 
 exercise of hospitality, at the brave sight of the double row of 
 young men's faces before him, and the deep and pleasant 
 sound of their laughter. The other end of the table was held 
 by Mr. J. Breckinridge Taylor, as the journals persisted in 
 reporting him ; and Huddesley brought in the soup. The doc- 
 tor served it himself from a tub of a tureen, with a silver 
 ladle not less than a yard long, both of which had graced the 
 tables of his mother and grandmother — there were giants in 
 those days ! — as had all the other furnishings of this memora- 
 ble dinner. 
 
 " There was one of those three-story-high cut-glass things, 
 with tiers of cups on circular platforms — I don't know what 
 you call 'em — filled with shaky jelly stuff and cream all foamy 
 on top of it," one more than commonly observant young man 
 told me afterwards. " That was in the middle of the table. 
 And two silver castors with red Bohemian glass bottles full 
 of vinegar and oil and things like that, you know, on each 
 side of it ; you could whirl 'em around, and pick out the bot- 
 tle you wanted. And there were shallow glass dishes with jelly 
 and two tall ones like big champagne-glasses, with kind of 
 thick sticky preserves — they had lids, the tall ones. After the 
 soup, everything came on at once, game, prairie-chicken, at 
 the doctor's end, and just plain John Smith chicken 
 roasted, about the middle, and boiled leg of mutton with this 
 white sauce that has hard-boiled egg and little green things 
 like pickled shoe-buttons" — he meant capers — " all through 
 it, for J. B. to carve, and oysters and a ham, and four or five 
 vegetables all over the table. There were the funniest old 
 
230 THE TENANTS 
 
 steel knives with ivory handles, and thin old silver forks and 
 spoons with the doctor's crest, and a motto, ' Foy tiendrai,' 
 whatever that may mean, on the backs. Everybody had half- 
 a-dozen wine-glasses; and to begin with there were four de- 
 canters of sherry, one at each corner of the table, and when 
 we'd finished those — well, you had to have a lot of liquor to 
 get through a dinner like that, you know — Huddesley brought 
 out three other kinds." 
 
 J. B. conscientiously carving the joint at his end of the 
 table, viewed the shrinkage in the decanters with considerable 
 uneasiness. There was nothing prim or kill-joy about J. B. 
 He had no idea of affecting the virtue that denies to another 
 man his cakes and ale. But he was a hard-headed young fel- 
 low, not given to self-indulgence of any kind ; and although 
 in the State of his birth and earlier years over-drinking 
 was anything but uncommon, he confessed to a sort of con- 
 temptuous impatience with the man who did not know when 
 he had enough. It seemed as if one or two of the present 
 company had nearly reached that desirable condition ; and still 
 Huddesley travelled about the table, impartial as Fate her- 
 self, leaving no glass unfilled; or even half -full. J. B. could 
 see Doctor Vardaman's face but imperfectly around the erec- 
 tion of custard-cups in the centre, but he thought an anxiety 
 equal to his own appeared and vanished there by turns. Once 
 or twice the old gentleman seemed on the edge of signalling 
 Huddesley to hold his hand, but some feeling rooted, most 
 probably in his old-fashioned notions of hospitality, must 
 have restrained him. 
 
 " Tell you what," said J. B.'s next neighbour confiden- 
 tially, " Johns is about as full as I like to see him ; it don't 
 take much, you know. He's just good and jolly now, but if 
 
THE TENANTS 231 
 
 he gets much more " He shook his head dubiously. 
 
 " Say, have you heard anything more about the colonel? I 
 saw Gwynne Peters on the street to-day " 
 
 "Hock or madeira, sir?" said Huddesley in J. B.'s ear. 
 "Hock, sir? Yes, sir." 
 
 " It seems the Pallinders — I don't care, hock, I guess. 
 What's the difference anyhow? I don't know one of these 
 wines from the other." 
 
 "•What about the Pallinders now? " asked J. B. 
 
 At that very moment, the length of the table away, Archie 
 Lewis was saying, " Suppose you've heard that about Gwynne 
 Peters, Doctor?" 
 
 Doctor Vardaman set clown his glass with unusual emphasis. 
 " That's the third or fourth time this week that I've heard 
 6 that about Gwynne Peters,' " said he. " And in spite of it, 
 I've never found out yet what ' that about Gwynne Pet- 
 ers' is !" 
 
 " What! Didn't you know? Why, I thought somehow you 
 knew all about the Gwynnes. Haven't you heard about the 
 fuss with Pallinder and all? " 
 
 The doctor shook his head, and motioned to Huddesley for 
 fresh glasses. " Never saw anything like the way the boys are 
 getting through the wine," was his inward comment. " And 
 how warm they all look! " Then aloud: " So that's the rea- 
 son Gwynne dropped out of the play ; I thought it a little odd 
 when he declined my dinner," he said, fixing a thoughtful 
 gaze on Archie. " There's been a fuss with the Colonel, has 
 there? What was it about?" He fully expected to hear 
 
 Archie say, " Why, you know old Steven Gwynne " had 
 
 done this or that. But the young man only looked at him 
 inquiringly. 
 
232 THE TENANTS 
 
 " I thought you always knew all there was to know about 
 the Gwynnes," he repeated. " Templeton, their agent, has a 
 desk with us — do you know him? " 
 
 " No — yes, I've seen him. He's short and stout and wears 
 spectacles, doesn't he?" 
 
 " Yes, that's Templeton. You must have heard father's 
 stories about him and the Gwynnes ; he has this little real- 
 estate business, and scratches along somehow, I believe the 
 Gwynne estate's the biggest part of it. Father says it's no 
 trouble at all now compared to what it was before Gwynne 
 Peters took hold; father says there were two or three years 
 when Gwynne was away, before he got through Harvard, you 
 know, when Templeton's life wasn't worth living." 
 
 " Well, I never understood that Gwynne managed the estate 
 personally," said the doctor, recalling, however, a recent 
 scene in his library with considerable interest. 
 
 " No, he don't. He — well, he manages the family — I guess 
 that's about the size of it. Gwynne's getting a pretty good 
 law-practice, you know; he couldn't take his time to run 
 around looking at roofs and down-spouts. That's Temple- 
 ton's job. When he leased the house to Colonel Pallinder, you 
 ought to have seen Templeton ! I'll bet he was the happiest 
 man in Washington County. He's a nervous, excitable little 
 fellow anyhow. He said Pallinder leased it for three years 
 at a hundred and fifty a month, and it was a perfect miracle ; 
 the house is awfully old, and it was all out of repair and 
 hadn't any modern improvements, except a furnace. Why, 
 you remember what it was like, Doctor. Well, then, the ques- 
 tion of repapering and putting it in order came up, and he 
 told the Colonel flat he couldn't allow but just so much (one 
 month's rent, I think) for repairs. It was too funny, Doctor, 
 
THE TENANTS 233 
 
 to hear him telling father about it. ' You know there's about 
 twenty of the Gwynne heirs, Judge Lewis,' says he, ' and no- 
 body's got any money, and everybody's got a say ; and I 
 simply couldn't promise to do all the Colonel wanted. Every 
 time I paint a porch or fix somebody's sink, those two old Miss 
 Gwynnes take to their beds!' You just ought to have seen 
 Templeton telling all this, doctor, with those big glasses shin- 
 ing, and his Adam's apple kind of working up and down the 
 way it does with nervous men. I guess it's not all pie attending 
 to the Gwynnes' affairs, even now. They'll all so queer — 
 except Gwynne Peters, he's all right. Finally the Colonel said 
 he rather expected to buy the house anyhow, and if they had 
 no objection he'd go ahead and fix it to suit himself, at his 
 own expense. This is Templeton's side I'm giving you, you 
 know; I guess it's as near the truth as we'll ever get. Seems 
 to me Templeton was pretty careless, not to have it all in 
 writing. Anyhow, you know what they did, Doctor ; built that 
 little conservatory, and put in all new plumbing, and had. the 
 house painted and papered and grained from top to bottom — 
 the Lord knows what all the bills will come to — the Lord 
 knows and He won't tell ! But somebody else will," said Archie 
 with a grin. 
 
 " Well, what's happened? " 
 
 " Everything," said Archie concisely. " The wonder is, it 
 didn't happen before. In the first place, the plumber turns 
 up in our office the other day with his unpaid bill for six 
 hundred and sixty-four dollars and eight cents. He can't get 
 anything out of Pallinder — Pallinder cannily refers him to 
 the owners of the property. He comes in with fire in his eye, 
 wanting to sue Templeton or the estate — father says he's got 
 a case, too. The plumber's a German, and pretty excitable, 
 
234 THE TENANTS 
 
 and I told you Templeton was excitable, so you can imagine 
 what it was like. We tried to smooth 'em down, but we all got 
 so full of laugh, we made it worse, I think. One of the boys 
 in the office says : ' Oh, come now, Mr. Scheurmann, let him 
 down easy, knock off the eight cents, won't you ? ' ' I vill nodt 
 gompromise ! I vill haf my money ! I vill nodt knock off von 
 pfennig ! ' I tell you the office was a lively place for about two 
 minutes, with Scheurmann jumping up and down and shak- 
 ing his fists on one side, and Templeton jumping up and 
 down shaking his on the other ! " 
 
 " Well, but what's all this got to do with Gwynne ? " 
 " Why, he came in after a while with some papers that I'd 
 taken over to his office a day or so before, when I found that 
 old Gwynne fellow that lives out on the farm, you know, and 
 the two little old Gwynne twins sitting around like crows 
 waiting for Gwynne to come in — I told you about that, didn't 
 I? I was pretty sure right then that there was going to be 
 some kind of trouble. Anyway Gwynne came into our office, 
 and Templeton and the plumber left off jumping on each 
 other to light into him. As if Gwynne had had anything to 
 do with it ! I never felt so sorry for a man in my life ; he's 
 the kind that always shoulders all the responsibility and gets 
 blamed for everything, somehow. He takes the whole business 
 terribly to heart; he'd been to see Pallinder, and I guess 
 they'd had it hot and heavy. He was all broken up over it. 
 He told father there was a poor devil of a gardener that had 
 done some work about the greenhouse, and came to him with a 
 bill for twelve dollars ; his wife was sick, and he wanted 
 Gwynne to see if he couldn't get the money out of the colonel. 
 Gwynne didn't say so, but I know he paid that fellow out of 
 his own pocket — he's that sort. He told father if he could 
 
THE TENANTS 235 
 
 he'd rake and scrape and pay the whole thing himself rather 
 than have such a miserable scandal connected with the family. 
 He seems to feel as if it all kind of came back on him — over 
 sensitive, I call it. You'd think it was all his fault." 
 
 " I think I can understand the feeling," said the doctor. 
 " I'm afraid we've all bowed ourselves in the house of 
 Rimmon." 
 
 " Hey? The house? Oh, yes, I was going to tell you about 
 that, it all comes out now, the rent hasn't been paid, not one 
 cent, since the first six months! Gwynne's going to bring 
 suit. He said he wouldn't do it on his own account, but he's 
 Sam's guardian — you knew about Sam being out at the 
 asylum, or whatever Sheckard calls his place? — and he was 
 responsible for Sam's money. I guess he had a devil of a row 
 with Pallinder — he wouldn't talk about it. You'd think any- 
 one could have seen all along that the colonel was nothing but 
 an old bunco-steerer, but I suppose Gwynne actually thought 
 he was all right until this came up ! " 
 
 " The idea of accepting the Pallinders' hospitality doesn't 
 sit heavy on your conscience at any rate," said the doctor. 
 Archie looked up, surprised ; then he flushed a little and 
 laughed. 
 
 "Why, no, why should it? Pallinder's debts aren't worry- 
 ing me any. And as for talking about him, why, Doctor, it's 
 been all over town the last three days." 
 
 The doctor's wine and the Pallinder's affairs circulated in 
 about equal proportion ; and there was a good deal of specu- 
 lation as to how long the present state of things would last 
 — how long the colonel could hold out. " I hope nothing's 
 going to happen — not while that Miss Baxter, that nice Eng- 
 lish girl is here, that's all — the papers always go for any- 
 
236 THE TENANTS 
 
 thing of that kind tooth-and-nail," said a. B.'s neighbour. 
 " And you know, after all, in his way, he's been kind of pleas- 
 ant to know — I've had some awfully good times up there." 
 
 " So have I. It seems low-down talking this way, but 
 everybody does," said J. B. 
 
 The other let his eyes rest on J. B. a moment, half-amused, 
 half-inquisitive. " I wonder — I do wonder what she thinks of 
 us anyway." 
 
 "She? Who?" 
 
 " Why, Miss Baxter." 
 
 " Pretty small potatoes, I guess," said J. B. absently, one 
 eye on Teddy. 
 
 " She thinks you're all right, old man." 
 
 " Bosh ! " said J. B., resenting the tone more than the 
 words. 
 
 " She told me the other day she thought Breckinridge was 
 a beautiful name, ' Why, Miss Baxter,' I said, ' you ought to 
 go to Kentucky; that's J. B.'s old home. It's so full of 
 Breckinridges, you can't throw a stone without hitting one 
 of 'em!' ' Really? 9 she says, just like that. ' Really? ' She 
 thought I was in earnest ! " 
 
 " Every Breckinridge you hit would have a gun in one 
 hip-pocket and a flask in the other," said J. B., turning the 
 talk from Muriel as best he could. " Bad men to throw stones 
 at, on the whole " 
 
 " Champagne, sir? " 
 
 " No ! Good Heavens, do you suppose the doctor expects 
 us to eat all that pudding and jelly stuff, and fruit and nuts 
 and cheese into the bargain? It's — what d'ye call it? — 
 Homeric, that's what it is — a Homeric feast ! " 
 
 " Whash savin' up for, J. B.? " Teddy shouted from his 
 
THE TENANTS 237 
 
 seat ; and J. B.'s face darkened. He directed a meaning look 
 at Teddy's nearest neighbours ; but by this time all the young 
 men were beginning to be somewhat flushed, whether from too 
 much eating or too much drinking, and there was an amaz- 
 ing amount of loud talk and hilarity. Teddy repeated his 
 question : " WhyVt you drinkin', J. B. ? Huddesley, you've 
 lef out Mr. Taylor. Mr. Taylor's my frien', Huddesley. 
 
 All my frenge here " He made a sweeping gesture, and 
 
 knocked over a preserve-dish with a stunning clatter, gazed 
 at the ruin a minute, then burst into a yell of laughter, in 
 which, sad to relate, he was joined by more than one at the 
 table. Teddy suddenly straightened up and looked around 
 with profound gravity. " Somebody's makin' great deal 
 noise ! " said he, with elaborate distinctness of utterance. And 
 then returned to the charge : " Why'n't you take some cham- 
 pagne, J. B.? Free's air, doctor's champagne. You do' wan' 
 hurt doctor's f eelingsh, J. B. ? " he inquired pathetically. 
 
 " I want to be so I can sing my part," said J. B. good- 
 humouredly. " It's hard to sing on top of a big dinner like 
 this, you know, Ted. Better look out, hadn't you? — For 
 Heaven's sake, somebody tell Huddesley not to give him any 
 more ! " he added in a whisper to his neighbours, and tried to 
 catch the servant's eye. But Huddesley was bending all his 
 energies to scooping up with exemplary method and expedi- 
 tion the mess of syrup and broken glass; it seemed impossi- 
 ble to attract his attention. And in another tour of the table 
 he filled Teddy's glass again, no one remembering, or perhaps 
 noticing at all, J. B.'s telegrams of consternation. " Well, 
 damn it, I'm not his keeper ! " said the latter to himself, in a 
 rage. " Everybody's forgotten that Ted's pretty near the 
 whole show, and they're letting him drink himself blind 
 
238 THE TENANTS 
 
 drunk. He won't be able to stand up after this — I've done my 
 best anyhow," and in a spirit of savage recklessness, he swal- 
 lowed his own champagne at one gulp, and turned to find 
 Huddesley at his elbow with another bottle. Caution returned 
 upon him. 
 
 " Say, Huddesley, didn't you see me shake my head when 
 you gave Mr. Johns that last glass ? He's had all that's good 
 for him already. Now you quit it, you hear me? " said J. B., 
 conscious of some confusion in his own head where his last 
 glass was apparently hurrying to and fro uneasily. He spoke 
 with huge severity ; the more as Huddesley met his eye with 
 disconcerting intelligence. 
 
 " Oh, Lord love you, Mr. Breckinridge, 'e ain't 'ad enough 
 to 'urt," said he soothingly. " Hi won't let 'im get hout o' 
 hand, sir." 
 
 J. B. all at once found himself standing up. Why was he 
 standing up? The occasion somehow seemed to require it. 
 
 "You mind what I tell you. He's got a very impartont 
 port — I mean a perry veportant imp — I say a very important- 
 part-in-the-play - and - I - don't-want-him-to-be-too-drunk-to- 
 speakstinctly," said J. B. painstakingly. 
 
 " That's all right, Mr. Taylor, you just sit right down in 
 your chair — it's a nice chair; you just sit right down, now 
 won't you? " said Huddesley still soothingly — too soothingly 
 by far to suit J. B. 
 
 " Don't you give me any impudence," he said darkly. He 
 sat down surveying the assembly with scorn shading into pity. 
 He wasn't drunk, anyhow. But now Doctor Vardaman had 
 risen in his place at the head of the table, and was asking 
 silence at the top of his lungs — not the best way in the 
 world of getting it, to the mind of a disinterested onlooker, 
 
THE TENANTS 239 
 
 but, as nobody was so far gone yet as not to heed the host of 
 the evening, he was finally obeyed, after Teddy, under the 
 mistaken impression that he was being called on to give his 
 justly famous rendition of the farmer about to kill a turkey, 
 had been quelled. 
 
 " Gentlemen," said the doctor, casting a look of some 
 anxiety over his table-full, " let us not forget, that, however 
 much we may be enjoying the present hour — I speak for my- 
 self " — here a number of voices assured him heartily, " So 
 are we ! You bet ! " and so on — " I say, gentlemen, we must 
 not forget that time is passing, and we are due for the enter- 
 tainment of our friends at nine o'clock. It would never do, I 
 think, to keep the ladies waiting. And, having their conven- 
 ience in view, I propose that we drink a final glass — " said 
 the doctor, unable to avoid a slight stress on the adjective 
 — " a final glass to the success of the performance and ad- 
 journ. Reversing what seems to have been the practice of 
 Scriptural times, I will offer you a very rare and choice old 
 vintage — you will pardon the conceit that calls attention to 
 its excellence — a wine that was laid down by my father, gen- 
 tlemen, in eighteen-fifteen, the year of the battle of New 
 Orleans, the Waterloo year, and, as it happens, the year of 
 my birth. He obtained it — for it has its history — of a 
 Dutch merchant in Cadiz, and we have since called it, not 
 knowing in truth what its real name should be, Mynheer Van 
 . der Cuyp's wine. Huddesley " 
 
 Here Huddesley stepped forward, and set before the doctor 
 with something of a flourish two thick black bottles, dusty as 
 to the shoulders, with the corks drawn, and a tray of the 
 smallest variety of glasses — rather miserly provision, it might 
 appear, for such a company, but Doctor Vardaman, not with- 
 
240 THE TENANTS 
 
 out considerable show of embarrassment, proceeded to ex- 
 plain : " I — I find myself obliged to warn you, gentlemen, 
 inhospitable as it seems, that Mynheer Van der Cuyp's wine, 
 what with age and the richness of its ingredients, is of an 
 unexampled potency. It is at once smooth and heady, and — 
 and I would not have you taken at unawares. In short, boys," 
 he added earnestly, abandoning his formal manner, " it's the 
 very deuce to go to one's head, and you all have to be careful. 
 
 Huddesley " Again that invaluable person began to 
 
 circulate. 
 
 Doctor Vardaman did not get through his little speech 
 (which he delivered in a style quaintly reminiscent of the 
 after-dinner orators of his youth, in an attitude with one 
 hand beneath his coat-tails) without some uproarious inter- 
 ruptions ; the momentary pause that followed had the sur- 
 prising effect of clearing the brain of at least one in his 
 audience. Whatever the others felt, J. B. suddenly realised, 
 as he afterwards put it, that " he had reached his limit." 
 He knew when he'd had enough, and the trepidation visible in 
 the doctor's face as Mynheer Van der Cuyp's wine went on 
 its devastating way, was repeated in his own. If the truth 
 were known, the old gentleman had been congratulating him- 
 self on bringing off what he considered a tolerably clever 
 coup to end a sitting which promised disaster to some of the 
 company; and doing it without offence. But alas! for the 
 best-laid plans of mice and men! The catastrophe had 
 occurred; some, perhaps most of the men were a little the 
 worse for liquor ; a few minutes of cool night air would cure 
 them ; but Teddy Johns, their prime performer, the peg upon 
 which hung all their hopes of success, Teddy was hopelessly 
 drunk. No night air, no applications of crushed ice and wet 
 
THE TENANTS 241 
 
 towels would cure him. Teddy was very good-natured ; he 
 sang, he winked, he joked, he told stories, he lavished endear- 
 ments on his " frenge." Even in his worry, the doctor found 
 time for the reflection that wine in, truth out is the most solid 
 of maxims ; liquor puts nothing into a man's nature that was 
 not there already, it can but reveal him naked ; and if he will 
 be a brute in his cups, it is odds but you shall find him a 
 brute at heart out of them. There was nothing brutal about 
 poor Teddy ; you could no more be angry with him than with 
 a child. Too late the doctor regretted his hospitality, too late 
 he lamented the love of good cheer and youthful company 
 that had prompted him to this inordinate abundance. He was 
 in the frame of mind to write a temperance tract ; and a sar- 
 castic grin fled across his features as he pictured what that 
 celebrity of his earlier years, Mr. T. S. Arthur, would have 
 made of the scene — the moral he would have drawn therefrom. 
 
 Once I myself had the privilege of tasting the wine of 
 Mynheer Van der Cuyp. It was a dark and heavy liquor, 
 pouring like oil, rich of aroma, searching the veins with sub- 
 dued fire. Perhaps few of Doctor Vardaman's guests could 
 appreciate that marvellous flavour; at any rate Teddy was 
 the only one to express a clamorous approval : 
 
 " Pretty goo' for ol' Chickencoop ! Give us s'more, Hud- 
 desley!" 
 
 And Huddesley stolidly gave him some more, oblivious to 
 signs. It is with great reluctance that this historian enters 
 a record of the disgraceful scene — but the thing must be 
 done. The horrid tale of Mynheer Van der Cuyp's wine can- 
 not be omitted. Of course, no man who reads about Doctor 
 Vardaman's banquet has ever so far forgot himself as to get 
 drunk, not even when he was a boy; he always had the 
 
24£ THE TENANTS 
 
 strength of character to resist that beastly temptation. And 
 any woman knows very well that instead of an assemblage of 
 fairly decent and manly young fellows, the doctor's guests 
 were all low, swilling louts and boors. So be it ; it is true 
 that they turned out, as years went on, to be tolerable citi- 
 zens most of them, good husbands, fathers of families for 
 whom they toiled honestly and provided handsomely — but 
 all that has nothing to do with the matter in hand. 
 
 J. B. bounced up with great, even unnecessary vigour, cry- 
 ing out : " Oh, this has got to be stopped — one of you fellows 
 take it away from him ! " 
 
 " No use now, Breck," said Archie dolefully. " That jag 
 will last till morning." 
 
 " Jag yourself ! " said Teddy epigrammatically, if some- 
 what indistinctly. 
 
 " Take away his glass, I say ! " 
 
 " Shan't either," said Teddy, grasping it unsteadily. " J. 
 B., for shame ! You're drunk " He got to his feet waver- 
 ing ; everybody was up by this time. " Doc' Vardaman, 
 
 'pol'gise — J. B.'s condition — sorry " He tried to carry 
 
 the glass to his lips, failed, and it crashed on the floor. Teddy 
 stood swaying, he smiled benevolently upon the doctor, 
 " Sorry," he murmured. 
 
 " Look out ! Hold him up ! " 
 
 " Huddesley " 
 
 " Here — hold on ! " A chair went over. Huddesley 
 
 sprang to the rescue. 
 
 " Sorry," repeated Teddy sleepily, " lead horsh to water 
 — can't make him stop drinkin' — sorry." He drooped on Hud- 
 desley's shoulder. 
 
 " 'Old hup, Mr. Theodore," said the latter amiably. " Lord ! 
 
THE TENANTS 243 
 
 'E 'as 'ad a leetle too much, ain't 'e? Never mind, gents, Hi'll 
 get 'im hupstairs, Hi've 'andled 'em before." 
 
 " Here's a nice how-de-do, now what's to be done? " said 
 J. B. despairingly as Teddy was dragged off. He looked 
 around on the suddenly sobered and very shame-faced group. 
 Mr. T. S. Arthur could not have pointed a moral half so well 
 as did the spectacle of that drunken lad; for somehow every 
 man there felt himself at fault. 
 
 Dr. Vardaman was not a little downcast; he saw himself 
 in the unenviable posture of an old Silenus, leading boys 
 astray. " I am to blame for this, boys," he said, glancing 
 about in genuine distress. " I — I " 
 
 " No, you aren't, Doctor, we were all taking too much," 
 somebody said. " And we're old enough to know better. We 
 ought to have looked out for Ted." 
 
 " What I want to know is, w^hat are we going to do now? " 
 repeated J. B. And in the silence of blank looks that fol- 
 lowed, Huddesley came back. 
 
 " 'E'll do nicely now, gents," he announced cheerfully. 
 " Hi'll go hup and get the rest of 'is clothes hoff hafter a 
 while. 'E was a leetle fractious habout being' hundressed, 
 but Hi persuaded 'im 'e was goin' to put on 'is costoom for 
 4 William Tell,' and 'e let me take 'is coat like a lamb." 
 
 " ' William Tell,' hey? " said Archie grimly. " It's all up 
 with ' William Tell ' now." 
 
 " Sir? " said Huddesley aghast. 
 
 " Worse than that — it's all up with ' Mrs. Tankerville,' 
 too." 
 
 "Five minutes to nine! We ought to be there now." 
 
 "Well, we'll just have to tell them that he's been taken 
 sick " 
 
244 THE TENANTS 
 
 " Everybody knows what that means," said J. B. impa- 
 tiently. " Might as well tell the truth." 
 
 " Good Lord! What will the girls think? And Miss Bax- 
 ter, too — what will she think? What will everybody say? 
 We'll never hear the last of it ! Can't anybody — can't one of 
 you fellows take his part? Here, Ollie Hunt — or you, Joe? " 
 
 Vain hope ! " I'm doing Gwynne Peters' part as it is," said 
 Joe, helplessly. A hurried canvass revealed the dire fact that 
 the one or two men who were of a size to wear the dress either 
 were already provided with parts of too much importance to 
 be left out, or could not sing the music allotted to Mrs. 
 Gessler. Nobody remembered the dialogue in either play ; 
 but that was a small matter, if only someone could be found, 
 a dummy, a straw man, anybody to appear on the stage and 
 read the lines. Things looked black — and already the car- 
 riages of prompt arrivals were beginning to roll into the 
 Pallinder gate. 
 
 " Couldn't you give him some stuff — something strong 
 that would bring him around, Doctor? " it was asked as the 
 old gentleman returned from a look at his guest. " They 
 won't be surprised at an amateur performance being late — 
 and an hour might straighten him out." 
 
 The doctor shook his head. " Nothing I know of in the 
 whole range of medicine," said he briefly. " He's sound 
 asleep, stupefied, dead drunk, or whatever you choose to call 
 it — as if he'd been drugged. Mynheer Van der Cuyp's wine 
 was the last straw — terribly strong stuff." 
 
 " I guess there's no way out of it — we'll have to give the 
 thing up or postpone it," said Archie gloomily. " Nice 
 job for the Pallinders, isn't it? Think of the staging and 
 lights " 
 
THE TENANTS 245 
 
 " And the house all floor-elothed and decorated " 
 
 " And the orchestra " 
 
 " Vm waiting to hear what old Botlisch will say, that's 
 
 all!" 
 
 " We'll have to stand from under when she begins, I guess." 
 " Can't be helped now, fellows, we'll have to take our medi- 
 cine. But who's going to tell 'em? " 
 
 " Beg parding, Mr. Breckinridge, sir, but you ain't goin' 
 to give hup the plays on haccount of Mr. Theodore, are 
 you? " Huddesley inquired with a face of consternation. 
 
 " Have to, Huddesley," said the doctor. " There's no one 
 to take his place, you know." 
 
 " But, beg parding, sir, 'ow'll you hexplain? " 
 
 " Why, somehow — anyhow — get up some kind of story." 
 
 " Doctor Vardaman, sir," said Huddesley, wagging his 
 
 head solemnly. " Murder will hout. Wotever story you get 
 
 hup, you'll 'ave — if you'll hexcuse my saying it — you'll 'ave 
 
 the devil's own time." 
 
 " Well, we've thought of that, but " 
 
 "You 'aven't thought hof heverything, sir," said Hud- 
 desley in a melodramatic undertone. " THE PAPERS, 
 sir! " (and nothing but the largest capitals will express the 
 curdling whisper with which he brought out the words). 
 "'HAWFUL HORGIES HAMONG THE FOUR 'UN- 
 DRED ! PRIVATE LIFE OF HEMINENT PHYSICIAN 
 REVEALED! DAYS HOF HANCIENT ROME RE- 
 CALLED! HEXTRY! HALL HABOUT THE SCAN- 
 DAL IN TGH LIFE ! ' That's what it will be sir, as sure 
 as fate ! " His face and gestures were vividly pictorial ; 
 headlines such as he suggested in letters half-a-foot high 
 on the first page of the morning journals loomed upon every- 
 
246 THE TENANTS 
 
 one's mental vision. J. B. looked at the man and again 
 suspicion awoke within him. 
 
 " Any editor that publishes lies like that will get a horse- 
 whipping," said he deliberately (J. B. was not born a Ken- 
 tuckian for nothing) . " And if any story of the kind gets 
 out, the man that starts it will get another. If you want to 
 be bought off, Huddesley, you've come to the wrong people." 
 
 " I wasn't thinking of that, Mr. Breckinridge," said Hud- 
 desley, cringing. " I only wanted to save trouble." 
 
 " Save trouble how? " 
 
 " Why, if it isn't presuming too much, sir, I — I could do 
 Mr. Johns' parts, I've heard him often. I don't want to be 
 putting myself forward, sir, but I gave him some suggestions 
 about the business, and you yourself were so kind as to say 
 that they were good ones." 
 
 J. B. and the doctor stared at first incredulously, then with 
 a glimmer of relief. The servant was plainly in desperate 
 earnest. His forehead was wet, there was colour in his sal- 
 low cheeks, he twisted the napkin in his hands. But J. B., as 
 he afterwards confessed, paid little enough attention to the 
 changes in Huddesley's manner, singular as they were ; he 
 was too much occupied with this possible way out of their 
 difficulty. If Huddesley could do it, the day might yet be 
 saved. No one but the performers need know it ; in the Mrs. 
 Gessler make-up Teddy was unrecognisable from the front, 
 as also when he appeared as Jenks the butler in mutton- 
 chop sidewhiskers. They were all men in " William Tell " ; 
 in the second play, his role would not bring Huddesley into 
 offensive contact with the girls ; they would have to be told, 
 but trust Mazie Pallinder to carry off a situation like that ! 
 If Huddesley could manage to get through, some excuse 
 
THE TENANTS 247 
 
 could be found for his non-appearance afterwards ; nobody 
 would suspect anything, and when the truth did come out, 
 gossip would have been staved off for a little while at least, 
 and people rarely halloo long on a cold scent. J. B. ques- 
 tioned the doctor with a glance ; then called to the others : 
 
 " I say, you fellows, come here a minute, I want to talk 
 about something ! " 
 
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN 
 
 WHEN I meet some fellow-performer in the Pall- 
 inder theatricals nowadays we seldom fail to 
 hark back to that noteworthy occasion before 
 we have had out our talk. There were many of 
 us and we have since scattered wide to widely differing lives, 
 yet, I think for most this episode of the eighties probably 
 bulks largest in the dun landscape of our respectable careers. 
 This is no tragedy ; we all married — or by far the greater 
 number of us — and lived happily at times, at times unhappily, 
 as people do, ever after. But we never came nearer to ad- 
 venture. Reviewing that night with a friend, I am always 
 amazed at the stirring events that took place within the 
 notice of only one or two persons ; we each cherish a different 
 recollection. So much seems to have happened to us in- 
 dividually, it is after all not surprising that something tre- 
 mendous should have happened to us collectively. Not long 
 since, as we were discussing it in a company, someone said: 
 " Wasn't it awful when I fell over the jardiniere right out 
 by the footlights ? " Nobody else remembered the shocking 
 occurrence ! This heroine is now a comfortable matron of 
 forty-odd with two daughters at Bryn Mawr ; she has a hand- 
 some establishment, and an excellent dressmaker ; her only 
 anxiety, I believe, is her youngest son, who is a delicate child. 
 It is strange to think of this sensible middle-aged woman, who, 
 like all the rest of us, has lived out her romance, seen the 
 world, suffered who knows how many griefs and disappoint- 
 
 248 
 
THE TENANTS 249 
 
 ments, and yet had her share of happiness, it is strange to 
 think of her harbouring all these years the stinging memory 
 of how she fell over the jardiniere. The mind has a vexa- 
 tious pet-animal trick of picking up and storing away triv- 
 ialities ; what would we not all give to remember what is 
 worth remembering — and to forget ! 
 
 I said we were many ; for, besides the cast of " Tell," 
 " Mrs. Tankerville's Tiara " demanded a practically un- 
 limited number of young people in full dress for the ball- 
 room scene. I have since suspected that Mazie, the diplo- 
 matic, selected the play for that very reason. She asked all 
 the debutantes, and every one else who was " anybody " ; and, 
 no matter what we said, we were all sufficiently tickled to 
 figure so publicly in a new dress, even if only for a few 
 minutes, and in what I have seen aptly ticketed a " thinking 
 part." Such was my own, and I was divided between a feel- 
 ing of relief that I had no speeches to remember and deliver 
 in the hollow expectant silence of the audience-room, and an 
 inward conviction that had I been cast for a leading role, I 
 should have done much better than anyone else. The perform- 
 ance was, of course, late in beginning; but everybody ex- 
 pected that, and although people had been invited for nine, 
 many did not arrive until long after. To this day I can re- 
 member the look of the ballroom, 1 very high, wide, and 
 chilly, rows of empty chairs drawn up across the floor, spirals 
 of smilax twisted around the pillars — it was a hard place to 
 decorate, so big and bare — and Mrs. Pallinder erect by the 
 door, with a grove of potted plants behind her. She had to 
 receive by herself, as Mazie took part in the second play, and 
 
 i It was the last time I saw it; in fact, I doubt, on thinking it over, if 
 any of us were ever inside the old Gwynne house again.— M. S, W. 
 
250 THE TENANTS 
 
 did not care to dull the effect of her first costume by letting 
 it be seen prematurely. Mazie had a fine idea of dramatic 
 proprieties, and a certain sense of climax. The colonel did 
 not show for some reason ; I believe he was downstairs, wel- 
 coming the men as they came in, to the punchbowl on the side- 
 board. Mrs. Botlisch had providentially gone to bed with 
 a bilious attack; she had entertained us with a particular 
 account of her symptoms, remedies, and their results at lunch- 
 eon. So Mrs. Pallinder received, looking rather haggard, I 
 thought, in spite of her rouge; perhaps it was because she 
 was not wearing those famous diamonds, and one missed their 
 generous brilliance. Jewels were eminently suited to Mrs. 
 Pallinder ; her fair hair and clear stone-grey eyes seemed to 
 gain a needed lustre from her necklaces and pendants, and she 
 was the only woman I ever saw who could wear an earring 
 gracefully. That barbaric ornament set her ear like a drop 
 of dew on the petal of a flower — there was no hint of mutila- 
 tion about it ; and I believe she could have sported a stud in 
 her nostril without offence. She was placed to the utmost 
 advantage; her delicately classic head and white shoulders 
 were detached upon the background of dark foliage with a 
 charming cameo-like effect. But she was all one faint ex- 
 quisitely-faded colour in an ashes-of-roses silk, and that or 
 something else more subtle made her look strangely older. 
 She had surrendered her diamonds with many playful-serious 
 cautions to Mrs. TanJcerville, that is, Mazie; and that 
 young woman was decorating her languid Oriental person 
 with them in the depths of her den of rocking-chairs and 
 mirrors. 
 
 The Chorus of " William Tell " arrived a long while ahead 
 of the stars, who, as we have seen, were dining with Doctor 
 
THE TENANTS 251 
 
 Vardaman. Even by the time the Chorus had finished dress- 
 ing — there was only one of him, as I believe I have intimated 
 elsewhere, a tall fair young man, who wore eye-glasses in 
 private life and was a great admirer of Mazie's, — the rest 
 of the cast had not yet put in an appearance. I suppose if 
 we could have known what was going forward in the Swiss 
 cottage we would have been much exercised ; but we had no 
 apprehensions, and no quick means of communication, if any 
 doubts had assailed us. Few private houses had a telephone 
 in those days, not even the Pallinders — which was, no doubt, 
 owing in large part to the inconvenient habit prevailing 
 among telephone-companies from the earliest times of de- 
 manding quarterly payments in advance, and removing the 
 instrument if they were not forthcoming. So far from worry- 
 ing, however, we found some pleasurable excitement in the 
 long wait behind the scenes, and stealthy peeps through the 
 eye-hole. The setting for " Tell " was the same throughout 
 its two acts as I recall, a Swiss picture with Alps in the back- 
 ground, canvas trees and foliage to the front, and a " prac- 
 ticable " well with a gigantic sweep, whence they brought up 
 pails of water and diluted the contents of TelVs milk-cans 
 — he was a dairyman in the burlesque; this was the Schacten- 
 thal Waterfall, and was the subject of many noble apos- 
 trophes from all the actors ; even Gessler and Jemmy had 
 something to say about it. There was a trap-door in the floor 
 of the stage and a servant stood to hand up buckets as they 
 were needed. 
 
 " Most people," the Chorus remarked to me, " would have 
 had to put up a lot of money for all this. The colonel got 
 a carpenter from the Grand Opera House, not the head man, 
 I suppose, but some second-best fellow they could spare, to 
 
252 THE TENANTS 
 
 plan and oversee it all, so that everything would be safe. 
 That's the man over there now ; he told me the bill for the 
 lumber alone would be thirty-five or forty dollars — and it's 
 good for nothing but kindling-wood after to-night, you 
 know." 
 
 We were sitting together on a green baise-covered mound, 
 very much in the way, doubtless, as we watched the men get- 
 ting things in position. I had no business to be there at all, 
 but I was dressed and ready for my part, and so alive with 
 curiosity and excitement, I could no more stay in one place 
 ' sedately than a young kitten or puppy. The stolid profes- 
 sionals at work on the scenery endured our presence on the 
 principle, perhaps, that bids us to suffer fools kindly. 
 
 "The Pallinders must be awfully well off," I said. My 
 companion eyed me soberly. The Chorus was a serious and 
 practical young fellow ; at the present time he is conducting 
 a great milling business somewhere up in Michigan. They 
 make two or three kinds of breakfast-foods, I think, and have 
 been extraordinarily successful. But we were not dreaming 
 of that the night we perched together on the make-believe 
 mound behind the swaying drop-curtain; rather must his 
 thoughts have been occupied with Mazie Pallinder, her long 
 serpentine figure, and sprightly drawl. For I noticed how his 
 eyes wandered constantly in the direction whence she might 
 appear. 
 
 " I wish the boys would get here," he said, wrinkling his 
 brows. "It's half-after already. They're beginning to 
 crowd in pretty thick — last time I looked all the first fifteen 
 rows were taken. Is — ah — is Miss Pallinder going to come 
 and help her mother receive? I didn't see her. But if she is, 
 I — ah — I really ought to go and speak to them.*' 
 
THE TENANTS 253 
 
 He coloured furiously at the mere mention of her name; 
 and it struck me as exquisitely humorous that his goddess 
 was probably at that instant producing just such a blush on 
 her own well-tried cheeks by what mysterious agency! Pink 
 nail-paste and talcum-powder had a good deal to do with it, 
 I believe. 
 
 " She isn't there, and you shouldn't go in costume anyhow. 
 Nobody ought to be seen beforehand — Mazie says so. She's 
 all dressed and sitting in her room until ' Mrs. Tankerville,' 
 begins. How did it happen you didn't go to dinner at Doctor 
 Vardaman's with the others ? " 
 
 " Why, I had to go down to the train to meet Susie ; she's 
 coming on from New Haven with the two children to make us 
 a visit. Her train was due at eight, but it's five hours late — 
 stalled at a washout just this side of Pittsburgh, the fellow 
 at the ticket-office told me. He said all the Pan-Handle and 
 B. & O. trains were coming in anywhere from one to nine 
 hours behind the schedule- time. Freshets, you know; the 
 Ohio's on a boom. They're having an awful time in Cin- 
 cinnati, they say, biggest flood in years. There, isn't that 
 J. B.'s voice? " 
 
 I beat a hasty retreat for Mazie's room, where the entire 
 feminine cast of " Mrs. Tankerville " was by this time col- 
 lected. We had to be bestowed in some place where we could 
 talk in safety ; and no talking could be allowed " behind " 
 while the plays were in progress, even such a scatter-brained 
 crew as we were, knew that. But from, time to time one of us 
 would steal out to the wings, watch the familiar antics, listen 
 to the familiar jokes a while, and bring back a report. I 
 believe we enjoyed this excited hour or two more than any- 
 thing that went before or after. In Mazie's room the gas 
 
254 THE TENANTS 
 
 flared high ; the chairs, the lounge, the bed were heaped with 
 finery. We pulled a big pink silk screen in front of the door 
 so that the arriving audience, taking off its wraps in the 
 other bedrooms, might not see us. There was a green-room 
 atmosphere (we thought) of flowers, candy, perfume, acid 
 gossip; and now and again we could hear one of the men 
 rushing through the hall outside to their quarters in the 
 wing, for a change of clothes; or a thunderous burst of 
 laughter, " like a dam giving away," Kitty said, when the 
 dining-room door in the hall below swung open. 
 
 " It's going all right," she reported, returning from one 
 of these expeditions with very bright eyes and flushed cheeks. 
 She looked distractingly neat and coquettish in her black 
 frock, cap, and short ruffled apron as the maid; and I was 
 afterwards told that one of the men had caught and kissed 
 her in a dark corner behind the prompter's chair. They all 
 seemed to be in wonderfully high spirits. " Only it's so funny 
 the audience sometimes laugh in places where we didn't ex- 
 pect 'em to at all ! You ought to see J. B. Taylor. He looks 
 perfectly immense in that kilt ; I didn't know he was such a 
 big man ; great big round pink arms like this ! And the kilt 
 kind of peaks down right in the middle of the back ; Harry 
 Smith called him Doctor Mary Walker ; and Gessler said he 
 ought to have a bustle — right out loud so that the people 
 could hear! They call that gagging the part." She sent a 
 glance of sparkling malice, suggestive, somehow, of a file 
 of small new pins, toward Muriel. " J. B.'s the silliest — you 
 can't help laughing to save your life." 
 
 "Did they laugh at Teddy?" 
 
 "Like everything! He's a little husky, or else it's too 
 much dinner, his voice sounds kind of queer, but I guess that 
 
THE TENANTS 255 
 
 will wear off in a minute." She added in a rapid whisper, as 
 Mazie's back was turned, " Girls, it's rich! He's got himself 
 up to look about as fat as Mrs. Botlisch in an old gingham 
 wrapper without corsets, you know, and he's sort of taking 
 her off, he's simply splendid, people just roll over and laugh 
 every time he opens his mouth." 
 "Is Doctor Vardaman there?" 
 
 "What, behind? No. He's not here at all, one of the 
 men told me. He had to go and sit up with some sick person, 
 or something. Don't you want to see J. B., Muriel? ' 
 
 " No," said Muriel flatly. She was looking acutely dis- 
 tressed, like a large sorrowing Madonna. " I think Mr. Johns 
 must look a great deal sillier," she said with a kind of defiance. 
 "Or that other — what is his name? — the one that pretends 
 to be the Chorus, just one of him — he's very silly! " 
 " How is Bob doing ? " Mazie asked. 
 
 Bob was the Chorus. He was no actor ; but the part only 
 required someone with a voice, and he had a really beautiful 
 high sweet tenor. All he must do was to appear in season and 
 out of season and jodel, which he did to admiration, with a 
 perfectly grave face, for as I have said, he was of a sober dis- 
 position, and to tell the truth saw nothing comic in it. But 
 about the seventh or eighth jodel the audience fell into 
 paroxysms of laughter and so continued whenever the Chorus 
 came on. Bob made one of the hits of the evening, to his own 
 great confusion and the frank surprise of everyone else in 
 the cast. 
 
 " Bob? Oh, all right. But that's one of the things they're 
 laughing at ; isn't that funny ? " 
 
 " Why not, if he's funny? " said Muriel, puzzled. 
 
 " Oh, I don't mean funny that way, you know, I mean 
 
256 THE TENANTS 
 
 funny. Why don't you come and look on a while, Maze? 
 Bob'll do better if you're there." • 
 
 " Oh, I guess I don't care to," said Mazie with indolent 
 emphasis. " I'd tear my dress or something. It's all full 
 of ropes and nails and pegs behind there." She leaned back 
 in her rocker, contemplating the sweeping breadths of her 
 dull red silk train, spangled with jets; the front of her low 
 corsage darted light from innumerable facets of jet and 
 diamonds. In the absence of an actual tiara, her mother's 
 diamond necklace had been fastened on a symmetrical frame 
 of silver wire, and gleamed abroad from Mazie's dead-black 
 hair, arranged in a forest of bangs. Without a single pretty 
 feature, she wrought a curious illusion of dark and brilliant 
 beauty; and Kitty gave her the tribute of an unwilling ad- 
 miration. A girl, and not a handsome girl at that, who was 
 too lazy or too stiff-necked to walk half-a-dozen steps to 
 show herself when she was looking her best to a man, who as 
 we all knew was in love with her, and who would be no poor 
 match either — such a girl, I say, commanded all the respect 
 of which Kitty's small soul was capable. 
 
 Then I adventured again, alone ; and harvested a sensation. 
 For, while I was standing in the left wings, between two 
 blocks of scenery, with my skirts furled as close as the fashion 
 of the day would allow, to avoid casual tacks, Teddy Johns 
 came off, followed by a gratifying, yet somehow a little awe- 
 some, burst of applause. He stood close beside me breathing 
 hard, for his humour was largely acrobatic, and dabbing the 
 perspiration from his forehead and cheeks with a corner of 
 handkerchief, daintily so as not to mar his paint. And the 
 audience clamoured a recall. I suppose there were not more 
 than a couple of hundred people in the ballroom, yet the noise 
 
THE TENANTS 257 
 
 they made was deafening in so contracted a space ; there was 
 something formidable and pitiless in that great insistent 
 voice. Sudden comprehension of what stage-fright might be 
 came to me, and I looked at Teddy with admiring wonder. 
 What must it be to face that hydra of a creature, that thing 
 of many souls fused into one unthinkable whole out there be- 
 yond the footlights ! 
 
 "Weren't you frightened?" I whispered. 
 He turned towards me — and it was not Teddy Johns at all ! 
 It was a man I had never seen before. 
 
 I was so startled I could only gasp and stutter ; the light 
 was good enough, yet I thought it must have misled me, and 
 peered into his face anxiously, expecting his familiar chuckle. 
 His features were a mask of paint, apparently laid on at 
 random, but as I know now, with real skill and knowledge of 
 effect; he wore false eyebrows and a wig with a grotesque 
 " slat " sunbonnet pushed halfway off, and held by the strings 
 knotted under his chin. His body was padded shapelessly. 
 And while I strove to find Teddy under this disguise, he sud- 
 denly bestowed on me a grin so vicious and repellent, that I 
 almost screamed aloud. Whether that expression of amuse- 
 ment was involuntary on Huddesley's part, or whether he 
 feigned it out of deliberate deviltry, I have often wondered. 
 I must have uttered some sort of queer noise, for he said in a 
 biting whisper : " Hold your tongue, you — fool ! " and in the 
 same breath was back on the stage, bowing to the tumult. 
 He made the leader of the orchestra a sign, the instruments 
 crashed out the opening bars of his song, and he began over 
 again. 
 
 I did not faint or go into hysterics, for I was a healthy 
 and after all a tolerably sensible young woman ; but it is im- 
 
258 THE TENANTS 
 
 possible to convey any idea of my bewilderment. Fortunately 
 it lasted only a moment or so. Huddesley made his second exit 
 to the right, for the sake of variety, maybe ; and the Chorus, 
 crossing the stage, stationed himself in the wings almost at 
 my side, that he might be heard jodeling "off," in stage- 
 phrase. 
 
 " No, that isn't Teddy," he whispered, in answer to my ex- 
 cited murmur. " Yo-de-la-7i^-7*o/ — Teddy's sick, that's the 
 doctor's man — La-he, la-he, la-he, ho! — Huddesley, you 
 know; they got him to take Ted's place, mighty lucky he 
 can, too — Yo-de-la-7i^-ho, yo-de-la-a-a ! " 
 
CHAPTER NINETEEN 
 
 DOCTOR VARDAMAN viewed the departure of 
 his guests with mingled relief and chagrin ; the 
 evening had not ended quite according to his ex- 
 pectations, and he could not decide whether the 
 disaster was his fault or theirs ; perhaps on the whole, they 
 were lucky the outcome was no worse. The young men of this 
 generation lacked the self-control or the physical fibre of 
 their sires, he told himself irritably; and then a queer smile 
 twitched his lips as he remembered his own father saying 
 the same thing. To every age its own faults, and also its own 
 standards of judging them. In his day people used to speak 
 tolerantly enough of a man who drank; it was held a con- 
 temptible, but hardly a disgraceful weakness. Are we grown 
 better, or only more prudent? We go to church less, but we 
 certainly bathe a deal oftener. The creed of keeping one's 
 health is no such poor creed, when all is said; a man will 
 diet to save his mortal body with twice the vigour and con- 
 viction that he will pray to save his immortal soul — and who 
 shall say that it is not right, or at least expedient for him to 
 do so? For after all the health of his soul is his own affair, 
 but the health of his body vitally concerns the welfare of 
 others. Thus the doctor, moralising a little far afield from 
 the events of the evening ; and he shrewdly suspected that to 
 the rest of the young fellows, Ted's drunkenness was not so 
 unforgivable an offence in itself, except for the monstrous 
 inconvenience of it. " And I am afraid I am responsible for 
 
 259 
 
260 THE TENANTS 
 
 that," he said with half a sigh. " If I had married and 
 brought up a family, I should have known better how to 
 manage the lads. Eh, Louise? " He uttered the last words 
 aloud with a pensive glance at his Labrador-stones, and 
 started at the eerie sound of his own voice raised in senti- 
 mental monologue beside his empty hearth. " I'm getting 
 maudlin myself, now ! " he thought, and went to close the hall 
 door swaying and creaking dismally in a rush of damp, chilly 
 air. It was raining pitilessly; it had rained for nearly two 
 weeks. The doctor, standing in his doorway, beheld the 
 arrowy slant of water shining against the dark where the hall 
 light irradiated it; amongst the irregularities of his brick- 
 paved walk small puddles showed an unsteady glistening sur- 
 face. The bushes in half-leaf on either side drooped and 
 shone. Farther away there was an incessant rumour of 
 wheels, and he was aware of the measured approach and 
 passage of carriage-lamps in pairs, directed toward the 
 Pallinder gate. Doctor Vardaman watched them absently for 
 some time, while the swift wind refreshed his house; then he 
 remembered Teddy, whom he had refused to leave alone, 
 slammed the door and went upstairs. 
 
 The young man was sleeping heavily, spread out upon the 
 doctor's staid old four-post bed; not in years, if ever, had 
 that respectable piece of furniture witnessed such a spectacle, 
 and the doctor had a quaint fancy that it withdrew itself 
 shudderingly from the contamination. It had been his 
 mother's, and a kind of feminine severity appeared in its 
 starched and ruffled valance, as of indignant petticoats. He 
 leaned over and scanned Teddy's face, holding his own chin 
 in his hand, with knotted brows ; then he felt the sleeper's 
 pulse, listened to his thick breathing, shook his head with a 
 
THE TENANTS 261 
 
 perplexed look, and began mechanically to gather up the 
 clothes thrown here and there about the room. He went back 
 and surveyed the bed again. " Very strange," said Doctor 
 Vardaman. And again : " Very strange ! " 
 
 He went downstairs, and, not without a sardonic grin, 
 brought up a pitcher of ice-water, and placed it in readiness 
 on the little old mahogany candle-stand at the sufferer's 
 right hand. The dining-room was a woeful picture as he re- 
 entered it. In the middle of the table, the pyramid of jellies 
 and cream had partly dissolved and trickled down to mix 
 with a waste of crumbled cake, cigar-stumps and ashes, nut- 
 shells, soiled napkins, shattered china — the doctor sat down 
 amid the desolation, likening himself to Marius among the 
 ruins of Carthage. There was a dreary odour — an odour? 
 A stench, Doctor Vardaman vigorously characterised it — of 
 stale wine, stale coffee, stale tobacco. Fragments of cheese 
 swam in pudding-sauce; spent bottles cumbered the side- 
 board; the door was open into the kitchen, affording a vista 
 of plates piled in tottering heaps, pots and pans crowded 
 on the cold range, a bowl of dishwater crowned with scum in 
 the sink, half-eaten meats and vegetables stiffening grimly in 
 lakes of discoloured gravy. " Faugh ! " said the doctor in 
 strong distaste, and closed the door on the depressing scene. 
 He sat down in his place at the head of the table. Huddesley 
 would have a job of cleaning up this squalid hole on the mor- 
 row, he thought, and wondered how the man was getting on 
 in his new sphere; smiled, too, as he reflected that the dream 
 of Huddesley's life was being fulfilled. He had wanted to be 
 a " hactor," and indeed he had some turn that way, poor 
 creature! It was strange to think how unequally the gifts 
 of Fate are distributed : now there was Huddesley, an honest 
 
262 THE TENANTS 
 
 man, not at all a dull man, who, if he had been born in any 
 class but the servant class, even in a less respectable one, 
 might have made more of himself! That inherited attitude 
 of servility was a greater bar to his advancement than dul- 
 ness or vice ; in America it might have been different ; we have 
 no definite classes, and no traditions of behaviour. But in 
 England a man who habitually says " sir," and drops his 
 h's — here the old gentleman came bolt upright in his chair, 
 upon a sudden moving recollection. Huddesley had not 
 dropped a single h nor added one on, since assuming 
 Teddy's character ! During all the talk that had followed his 
 proposal, and when he had hurriedly recited for them a num- 
 ber of Teddy's speeches, his accent had nowise differed from 
 their own. The fact, noted in some obscure corner of the 
 doctor's brain, now in the silence of the vacant room, ob- 
 truded itself with an unwelcome insistence. It was a slight 
 thing, yet of a curious significance ; a person could not thus 
 at will abandon the habit of a lifetime. Say it were not such 
 a habit, what then? Why, then the dialect was put on, like 
 a garment; and for what reason? If that was the case, Hud- 
 desley was by far too much of a " hactor " to be officiating 
 in the doctor's kitchen. We do not look for, nor somehow 
 relish so much versatility in one of Huddesley's degree. Doc- 
 tor Vardaman's thoughts hardly proceeded in so orderly a 
 sequence as they have been here set down, but by vague specu- 
 lative turns and windings they reached the last conclusion. 
 He began uncomfortably to review the manner of his engag- 
 ing Huddesley, and was startled to realise how little he ac- 
 tually knew of the man, how haphazard had been his methods 
 of hiring servants. " I'll write to that Lord Whatever-his- 
 name-was to-morrow," he told himself — and then had to smile 
 
THE TENANTS 263 
 
 a little at this access of belated caution. The whole thing, of 
 course, was capable of some very simple explanation, he 
 thought impatiently, unwilling to own himself baffled; there 
 was not necessarily a dark, bloody mystery about a person's 
 speaking in dialect one moment and in the queen's English 
 the next. It might be that Huddesley was the exiled black 
 sheep of some decent, even gentle family — well, perhaps, not 
 a black sheep, but at least a brindled one, not good enough 
 for the station to which he had been born, too good for that 
 to which he had sunk; stranger things than that have hap- 
 pened. He had told a perfectly straight story ; even if it were 
 an invention, that, so long as the man behaved himself, was 
 no concern of Doctor Vardaman's. " And when he misbe- 
 haves," said the doctor inwardly, " why, then, like Dogberry, 
 I'll let him go, and thank God I am rid of a knave ! I don't 
 believe he is a knave, but certainly I've always had an idea 
 he was no ordinary man. Maybe I'd better have a talk with 
 him to-morrow." 
 
 Now that suspicion, or perhaps it would be more accurate 
 to say, a kind of doubting curiosity, had been aroused in the 
 doctor's mind, it would not down ; a dozen instances of slips 
 or inconsistencies in Huddesley's conduct thronged upon him. 
 He sat a long while, frowning in uncomfortable recollection ; 
 then got up at last, and halfway to the mantelpiece to get 
 a cigar, paused again in puzzled meditation with his gaze on 
 the floor. At his feet there lay the broken bits of Teddy's 
 final glass in a sticky morass of Mynheer Van der Cuyp's 
 wine, that calamitous beverage, seeped into the nap of the 
 carpet. Doctor Vardaman gathered up the largest pieces gin- 
 gerly, and tried to fit them together ; that set of glasses had 
 been his mother's when she went to housekeeping. It was 
 
264 THE TENANTS 
 
 beyond mending, however, and he was on the point of tossing 
 the shards into a waste-basket, when a fresh discovery 
 restrained him. He sniffed at them, sniffed his fingers, got 
 down on all-fours and laboriously sniffed the stained carpet. 
 He rose ; " Teddy didn't drink that glass," he said aloud. 
 " He only drank the first one Huddesley gave him. But he 
 had been drinking all evening." He smelled at some other 
 glasses standing near the young man's place, but apparently 
 could make nothing of them. He went hesitatingly toward 
 the door of a little room opening upon the hall, and at the 
 very threshold wavered in indecision. " Oh, this is all fool- 
 ishness," he said. " How could Huddesley — what possible 
 mo ti V e ? " He opened the door. It was a dark, window- 
 less place, little more than a closet, which the doctor had put 
 to all sorts of uses, experimenting with chemicals, photo- 
 graphic plates, raising mushrooms, the hundred-and-one de- 
 vices of industrious idleness. Everything there was in a kind 
 of handy masculine disorder, and he often boasted that he 
 could go there in the dark and pick up whatever he wanted 
 without a moment's hesitation. But now he struck a match, 
 and ran an anxious eye along the shelves ; he breathed a little 
 freer when he discerned the bottle he sought in its accus- 
 tomed place with contents undisturbed; it was colourless 
 stuff. " All fancy ! I'm getting as notional as an old woman," 
 he said to himself, and was turning away, when some second 
 thought prompted him to reach the bottle down from the 
 shelf. His match had gone out; the doctor went into the 
 parlour, where all the gas-jets were burning wastefully high, 
 and some red tulips he had bought that afternoon to decorate 
 his banquet flagged miserably in the old French china vases. 
 He deliberately removed the cork, smelled it, hesitated, 
 
THE TENANTS 265 
 
 touched the bottle to his tongue. "Well, I'll be ," he 
 
 ejaculated, facing his own pale and perturbed image in the 
 old-fashioned gilt mantel-glass. 
 
 Doctor Vardaman did not finish saying what he would be, 
 but with a mechanical precision, poured the rest of the liquid 
 into a vase of tulips. " There wasn't enough there to hurt 
 him," he said thoughtfully. " I thought he didn't seem like a 
 plain drunk somehow. He'll be pretty sick when he comes to, 
 but he'd be that anyway." He sought a cigar, and sat down 
 by the tireless grate with his hands on his knees. " The ques- 
 tion is, what next?" said he. "What is the bottom of all 
 this? And what on earth ought I to do? " 
 
 The old gentleman smoked his cigar out with his queries 
 unanswered, and sat staring intently at the mantel-board, his 
 mind travelling up and down in a fog of doubt and futile 
 conjecture. The mantel-board exactly fitted the opening of 
 the fireplace, and was covered with pale green wall-paper, 
 having an arabesque border in white and gold all around the 
 edges, and in the middle a design of a Watteau gentleman 
 and lady kissing beside a fountain at the foot of a flight of 
 marble steps with a temple in the background. Clouds, roses, 
 swans, butterflies and turtle-doves contributed to the scene, 
 and on a ribbon scroll beneath one read : "Dolce far niente." 
 It was an interesting mantel-board and at least fifty years 
 old. The doctor stared so long and so hard that presently he 
 experienced no surprise at finding himself on his way to morn- 
 ing-service at the temple with a bunch of tulips in one hand 
 and a bottle of Mynheer Van der Cuyp's wine labelled some- 
 what erratically "CAUTION. POISON. Antidote, very 
 strong blade coffee" in the other. He was obliged to take 
 passage in a boat with old Mrs. Botlisch, and when Huddes- 
 
266 THE TENANTS 
 
 ley came around to collect the fare, discovered to his mild an- 
 noyance that he had omitted to put on his trousers — a lapse 
 from conventionality which nobody else noticed, however, 
 There arose a terrific storm of thunder mainly, and someone 
 
 began to be very seasick — and — and 
 
 And then the doctor waked up, with a jerk and the well- 
 known but perfectly indefinable feeling of lateness in the air. 
 He looked around blinking. Certain dismal sounds from the 
 bedroom overhead accounted for one feature of his dream, 
 and a fusillade of knocks on the front door supplied the 
 thunder. "Why, I believe I've been asleep!" said Doctor 
 Vardaman, slowly collecting his faculties. A pause, and then 
 more knocking; voices muttered together, feet went to and 
 fro on his porch, somebody fumbled for the bell-handle, struck 
 a match and found it, and directly the bell sent forth a shat- 
 tering broadside of sound in the waste and deserted kitchen. 
 " I'm coming ! " shouted the doctor, adding a brief anathema 
 under his breath, and went to the door. Outside the rain had 
 ceased, but a wet wind shook and tip-toed among the trees. 
 There was a ghostly twilight abroad; it was possible dimly 
 to descry the outlines of the landscape. Stationary before 
 his gate the lamps of a carriage burned dimly. It was dawn ! 
 The doctor repressed an exclamation of surprise and turned 
 to his visitors. There were three of them ; one was a police- 
 man in a shining waterproof cape-coat; he was a head and 
 shoulders above the others, and stood back from them defer- 
 entially as one in the presence of his superiors. Before a word 
 was spoken Doctor Vardaman observed confusedly that all 
 three drew together, and closed up in front of the opening 
 door, and the policeman shortened his grasp on the baton he 
 carried. 
 
THE TENANTS 267 
 
 " Somebody hurt? " inquired the doctor, following up the 
 first idea suggested by this apparition. He was met by a 
 counter question. 
 
 "Doctor Vardaman?" said the foremost. The doctor 
 ; looked at him. He was a commonplace man in commonplace 
 clothes, stoutly-built and active, with rather hard features 
 and quick black eyes. The other might have been his twin, 
 save for a certain youthfulness in his alert gaze ; he leaned 
 against the door-post chewing the fag end of a dead cigar. 
 There was a vague hostility in the appearance of these people ; 
 in the unbecoming light of early morning, everyone wore a 
 haggard and unkempt air, except the burly fresh-faced 
 policeman in his trim wet-weather gear. 
 
 " I am Doctor Vardaman," said the old gentleman. " Is 
 anyone hurt or sick? " 
 
 " No, it's all right, Doc, take it easy, nobody's needin' 
 you," said the first speaker. " Sorry to knock you up this 
 time o' night, but it couldn't be helped. If my train had 'a' 
 got in on time, I'd V been here not much after supper ; but 
 we're just in, I come right up from the deepo. I gotta hump 
 myself, or I wouldn't 'a' thought o' disturbin' you. Here's 
 my card. Say, you got a man named Huddesley, ain't you? " 
 
 " Huddesley? " echoed the doctor, in helpless bewilderment. 
 During the above speech, which had been delivered in a brisk, 
 authoritative, but carefully lowered voice, the speaker had 
 walked in without the ceremony of waiting to be asked, and 
 now stood in the middle of the hall, apparently inventorying 
 everything in it with a swift and practised eye. His subor- 
 dinates followed, the policeman halting at the door-mat and 
 respectfully wiping his shoes. 
 
 " Yes, Huddesley, had him about eight or ten weeks, ain't 
 
268 THE TENANTS 
 
 you ? Little dark, stocky fellow ; talks like he was English ; 
 says he was butler to the nobility over there — ain't that him? 
 Is he in the house now? " 
 
 " I don't think so," said the doctor, at once disturbed and 
 resentful. " He had to go out this evening. If you will oblige 
 me with your name, sir, and the object of this visit ? " 
 
 " You got it there on the card," said the other. " Take 
 your time, Doc, don't go off at half-cock. I know it's kinder 
 sudden, and I'm sorry, but I guess I'll have to pinch your 
 man. Where is he ? Where'd he go ? Don't you know whether 
 he's in or not? Who's that upstairs? " 
 
 " That is a guest of mine who is ill," said the doctor with 
 rising irritation. " If you will please to explain, sir " 
 
 " I gotta hump myself, or I wouldn't 'a' bothered you, 
 Doc," said the man, civilly enough. " Soon's you've got the 
 sleep outa your eyes, you can just look at that card I give 
 you. We ain't goin' to make you any trouble, you know, any 
 more'n we can help, that is. Where's his room? Upstairs? To 
 the back? Go up there and look, Judd. Here, you, one-o'- 
 the-finest, what's your name? " 
 
 " Clancy, sor," said the policeman, and put a finger to his 
 helmet. 
 
 " Go 'round to the back, and keep your eye out. I'll stay 
 here. Is there any other outside-doors, Doc. ? " 
 
 " No," said the doctor shortly. " Is — ah — is this your 
 card, sir? " 
 
 " Keep your shirt on," said the other soothingly. " You're 
 comin' along by the slow freight, but you'll get there directly. 
 Go easy, and when you're through readin' let me know." 
 
 The doctor, diverting his astounded mind from the spec- 
 tacle of a strange man of uncouth appearance and no manners 
 
THE TENANTS 269 
 
 giving orders in his house, and another strange man going 
 upstairs seemingly to search it, adjusted his glasses and 
 bringing them to bear on the card which the leader had thrust 
 into his passive hand, read: 
 
 John P. Hopple, Collector. 
 Mercantile and Commercial Protective Association. 
 
 D. B. stands for Dead Beats. B. D. stands for Bad Debts. 
 We collect Bad Debts from Dead Beats everywhere for 
 everybody. We can collect yours. We collect regardless 
 of Lodge, Politics, or Religion. Do business with us and 
 we will both make money. 
 
 Some people don't like us. 
 
 " Ain't nobody up there," said the ancient, returning from 
 the exploration of Doctor Vardaman's upper rooms. " Ex- 
 cept the sick dude in the front room. Say, maybe he ain't 
 been on a bat, ain't he? Oh, no, I guess not!" 
 
 " Do I understand that Huddesley has got himself in 
 trouble owing someone?" asked Doctor Vardaman, finding 
 the situation somewhat illuminated. " It appears to me, Mr. 
 — er " — he glanced again at the card — " Mr. Hopple, it ap- 
 pears to me that your methods of collecting are unduly — 
 shall I say vigorous? To rout people out at this hour — I've 
 no doubt the man would have paid you without all this to-do. 
 What is the amount, if I may " 
 
 " Say, ain't you bark'ing up the wrong tree? " interrupted 
 the other, eying him in perplexity. " Or — here — say, that's 
 funny, I give you the wrong card. Excuse me, Doc, my 
 mistake. That's a man's business-card I met in the smoker 
 coming from N'Yawk. This is me. Just read that, will you? 
 It's all square, Doc, I've got a reference — and Judd here's 
 from your own p'lice headquarters anyhow." 
 
270 THE TENANTS 
 
 Again the doctor applied himself to a card and found 
 
 thereon the following legend: 
 
 William O. Grimm. 
 
 Paterson Detective Bureau. 
 
 " We never sleep." 
 
 It was hardly reassuring, in spite of the last statement ; but 
 before Doctor Vardaman had sufficiently collected himself to 
 ask for further enlightenment, the policeman appeared in the 
 doorway. 
 
 " Why — er — say," he remarked, " there's a party in a hack 
 outside here wants to know the way to Colonel Pallinder's. I 
 told him that there big house standin' back with them big 
 pillows up the front, ain't that right ? " 
 
 " That's the place," said the doctor, half-listening. 
 
 " An' why — er — say, he said he see by the papers they 
 was a party at Colonel Pallinder's to-night and do you guess 
 they've gone to bed yet, becos he's met a lot o' kerridges corn- 
 in' away from this di-rection like it was over, an' he'd like 
 to get there, becos he's gotta hump, he says." 
 
 " Blamed if that ain't Hopple ! " exclaimed the detective, in 
 admiring wonder. " Well, don't that beat the Dutch ! " 
 
 "They ain't but that one Pallinder in town, is there?" 
 asked the policeman. " He says if they's anybody up yet, he's 
 going to hump right along and ketch 'em." 
 
 " Somebody may not have gone to bed yet," said the doc- 
 tor, sparing a moment from his own muddled affairs to wonder 
 what this late arrival, and energy of pursuit might mean. 
 " In fact it seems my man Huddesley has not got back from 
 there yet. Tell him to drive straight on and turn to the right 
 at the gate. Did you say your were looking for Huddesley, 
 Mr. Grimm? What for?" 
 
THE TENANTS 271 
 
 " Why, for a number o' things, Doc, bustin' up a safe at 
 the Farmers' an' Traders' Bank o' Sharontown, Missouri, an' 
 makin' a get-away with the specie, thirty-two hundred dollars 
 in coin an' greenbacks, for one thing. That was in July, 
 1881. If he's the man I'm looking for, his name's Tuttle, or 
 Cohen, or Jimmy the Toff — lie goes by all of 'em — and he's 
 wanted in Boston besides for a jewelry-shop job last year." 
 
 Doctor Vardaman gazed speechless. Mr. Grimm's words, 
 delivered in a dry, curt, and entirely unsensational manner, 
 fairly rattled about the old gentleman's ears like hail. He 
 was conscious of anger, of resentment, and in the same 
 breath of a ghastly and growing conviction. 
 
 " Impossible ! " he gasped ; and then felt involuntarily for 
 his cuff -buttons. " Jewelry-shop job! You mean Huddesley's 
 a thief!" 
 
 " Put it there," said the detective, nodding encouragingly. 
 
 " Good Lord ! Why — I — I can't believe it. He's been in 
 my house for over two months, and I've never missed a 
 thing ! " 
 
 " I guess you didn't have nothing worth while," said 
 Grimm, casting the glance of a connoisseur about him. " He 
 thought it was a good place to hide, or else he was fixing to 
 bring off some other job." 
 
 " That's what ! " said Judd briefly. 
 
 " I — I — it don't seem as if it could be ! Don't you think 
 there's some mistake? " 
 
 " Not likely," said Judd, without emotion. " I spotted him 
 that time I come up here peddlin' collar-buttons — t'ain't 
 more'n two weeks ago — an' I'll bet anything he spotted me, 
 too. He's pretty fly, that fellow." 
 
 Mr. Grimm produced a bundle of papers from the inside 
 
272 THE TENANTS 
 
 pocket of his coat, fished out a bit of pasteboard and held it 
 before the doctor's eyes. " That him? " he queried. 
 
 Doctor Vardaman surveyed it a while in silence. " I'm 
 afraid so," he said at last, with a sigh. " This is clean-shaven, 
 and Huddesley wears mutton chop side-whiskers, but it's the 
 same face, undoubtedly." 
 
 The detective nodded with a satisfied air, and returned the 
 photograph to its place. He repeated his former question. 
 " Did you say he'd gone out? Was it to this party to-night? 
 How'd that happen ? " 
 
 " The — the circumstances are a little peculiar," said the 
 doctor. "Won't you sit down, Mr. Grimm? The fact is the 
 young gentlemen of the party — it's an entertainment, private 
 theatricals — were dining with me, and one of them was taken 
 sick " 
 
 " The feller upstairs, hey? " interposed Mr. Judd, smiling 
 slightly. 
 
 " Ahem — yes. Well, then, Huddesley, who knew his part, 
 volunteered to take his place in the play, you understand. It 
 was a great accommodation " 
 
 " Hold on a minute. Didn't it strike you as kinder queer 
 he should 'a' been so well up in the stage-business? Fact is, 
 he has been an actor, he's been pretty nearly everything, but 
 you didn't know that of course. But didn't you ever have any 
 suspicions ? " 
 
 " Well, I had always thought the man was rather — rather 
 unusual — a little above his station, perhaps. But this! It 
 never occurred to me. You may have heard that there was an 
 attempt at robbing the Pallinder residence this winter, and 
 Huddesley was one of the first to discover it, and rouse 
 the " 
 
THE TENANTS 273 
 
 He paused, seeing the two detectives exchange a meaning 
 glance. " Told you so," said Judd. He got up, walked to the 
 door, spat into the porch, and returned to his seat. " I was 
 on — not right off, but pretty soon," said he. " Go ahead, 
 Doc, you say Huddesley took your friend's part in the 
 play " 
 
 " I suppose he had seen these young men go through their 
 parts a dozen times. It didn't seem at all odd to us ; it would 
 be a long story to go into all the details, but we — we found 
 it most fortunate that he could supply the sick man's place. I 
 wish to say, Mr. Grimm, that I have no cause, personally, to 
 complain of Huddesley. His conduct since he has been with 
 me has been most exemplary, I have never observed anything 
 suspicious " 
 
 The doctor came to a dead stand-still, for at that moment 
 his discovery of the evening flashed into his mind with in- 
 convenient abruptness. 
 
 " You're a kind-hearted man, sir," said Grimm, with 
 warmth, " to say what you can for the fellow, but I've got 
 his record. It's queer he ain't back yet." He looked at his 
 watch. " They keep it up pretty late, don't they? It's after 
 three." He got up briskly. " I guess we'd better leave Clancy 
 here, Judd, an' go on up to the house. Looks to me like that'd 
 ought to be our next move. All ready? " He stood a moment 
 frowning over some new thought. " This here party, Doc, I 
 guess it was goin' to be pretty swell, wasn't it? I mean ladies 
 all diked out with diamond earrings an' breast-pins, hey? " 
 
 Doctor Vardaman, gripping the arms of his chair hard, 
 stared at the detective transfixed. If the various revelations 
 which had visited the old gentleman during the last moment 
 had assumed the concrete, tangible form of so many successive 
 
274 THE TENANTS 
 
 clubbings, he could not have been more stunned. And in the 
 ensuing short silence, Teddy's voice could be heard upstairs 
 mournfully requesting more ice-water for God's sake. 
 
 " Got himself good and tanked, didn't he? " said the detec- 
 tive, grinning. 
 
 " Mr. Grimm," said the doctor, with difficulty, " I have 
 reason to believe that my young friend has been drugged. I 
 think Huddesley found something among some few medicines 
 I keep — it was a preparation of chloroform — and put it in 
 his wine. I happened to examine the bottle, and it had been 
 filled up with water. And the young man's glass smelled per- 
 ceptibly of the stuff — I was at a loss to account for it — 
 why Huddesley should want to drug him, I mean, but I — I 
 am beginning to understand. And — wait a minute ! " he inter- 
 posed as both of the others opened their mouths on a ques- 
 tion. " In one of the plays which they were to perform, there 
 is a question of some diamonds being stolen — the plot turns 
 on that episode, in fact. Jewels were loaned for the young 
 people to use— very costly ones. I am told Mrs. Pallinder's 
 necklace alone is valued at " 
 
 " Told you so ! " shouted Judd, starting to his feet. 
 Grimm quieted him with a gesture. " Well? " he said. 
 
 " Teddy's part — the part Huddesley contrived to get him- 
 self substituted in, was that of a butler who steals the 
 diamonds " 
 
 "Well, WELL?" 
 
 " Well, sir, he would have them on his person, in his pos- 
 session, at his mercy, for the last two acts, the better part of 
 an hour " 
 
 "And he ain't back yet! " screeched Mr. William O. Grimm. 
 
THE TENANTS 275 
 
 He made a frantic gesture. "Have they got a telephone? 
 Where's your telephone? " 
 
 " I have none," said the doctor, feeling as if he were con- 
 fessing to arson. " The nearest is the drug-store corner 
 of " 
 
 Mr. Grimm uttered an oath direct and brilliant as a light- 
 ning-stroke. Then he commanded himself with an effort. 
 " Judd ! " he bawled, making for the door, and even in head- 
 long flight, discharged a shaft of melancholy satire: "No 
 telephone! Say, Doc, it's a good ways to Broadway, ain't 
 it? " said he, and waved a farewell. " So long ! Many thanks ! 
 See you later ! " He flashed forth from the house, his retainer 
 at his heels. The doctor saw their tumultuous passage down 
 the walk, saw them scramble, clamber, struggle into the wait- 
 ing hack, saw it hurl upon its way with vociferations — and 
 silence fell like a blow. There stood Doctor Vardaman and 
 the policeman staring at each other in the empty porch. 
 
 "That fellow can hump, can't he?" said Clancy admir- 
 ingly. "You just gotta where he comes from. Tell you, New 
 York's th' place ! " 
 
CHAPTER TWENTY 
 
 BEFORE " William Tell " was half over it became 
 evident that Teddy's place was more than filled. 
 There were those among the audience who assured 
 me later that they had penetrated the disguise 
 early in the performance; but, if so, they exhibited rare 
 powers of self-control, for they did not remark upon it at 
 the time, nor indeed until the whole calamitous story had 
 come out and been town-talk for days. Some queer esprit de 
 corps kept the girls from spreading the miserable truth about 
 Teddy. Sick !. We knew only too well what was the matter 
 with him; but that was no reason why we should proclaim 
 it to the world. We entered into the conspiracy of silence, 
 partly from a real generosity of spirit and desire to shield 
 the poor fellow, and partly because, as Mazie sagaciously 
 pointed out, talking about it would certainly discredit a girl 
 (in a manner of speaking) with the other men. Mazie un- 
 doubtedly possessed some of the qualities of a born leader, 
 among them that of getting herself listened to, without being 
 either disagreeable or ridiculous ; no one of us, not even Kitty, 
 would have questioned her knowledge of men and their ways. 
 We knew a dozen who were prettier, better bred, cleverer, 
 and kinder than Mazie Pallinder, but, when it came to in- 
 fluence, they were nowhere beside her. Even now, I believe if 
 she came into my life again, with her sallow, paint-touched 
 face, her slip-shod pronunciation, her odd flat black eyes, her 
 ineffably appropriate and beautiful clothes — I say, even now, 
 I should probably follow and imitate her as I did then ! 
 
 276 
 
THE TENANTS 277 
 
 But when the curtain went up on "Mrs. Tankerville's 
 Tiara," and the moment arrived when Huddesley must appear 
 as Teddy with no disguise save that of a livery and false 
 whiskers, we trembled for the success of the deception. We 
 might have spared our worry ; Huddesley came on in the ball- 
 room scene with which the play opened, handing a tray of 
 i ces — an( i he was so like Teddy in face and movements that 
 even upon the stage where the devices of his make-up could 
 be studied close at hand, the effect was startling. Plus roi 
 que le roi, he was ; he passed his tray not like a butler imitat- 
 ing a gentleman, but like a gentleman imitating a butler; 
 he dropped his h's and stumblingly forgot to drop them 
 with all Teddy's humorous self-consciousness. He managed 
 his double part so well, no light task even for a finished actor, 
 that he achieved a kind of equality with us ; we forgot that 
 he was Doctor Vardaman's servant. The thing was so much 
 a matter for gratulations that I think we scarcely remembered 
 it was also a matter for wonder. If J. B. or the other men 
 felt any uneasiness they did not reveal it ; but, so ingenuously 
 self-centred is youth, it is probable we were much too deeply 
 interested, everyone in his own appearance and the impression 
 he was making, to be genuinely concerned about anybody 
 else. 
 
 The audience about whom I had had such fearsome fancies 
 must have been singularly lenient, even more so than such 
 audiences usually are to such performers. My recollection is 
 that, excepting Huddesley, we were too bad even to be funny. 
 " Mrs. Tankerville " is a good stirring comedy-drama, of the 
 type Boucicault and Tom Taylor made so popular during the 
 quarter-century succeeding 1850; there is an abundance of 
 vivid dialogue, with plenty of " points," and plenty of " sit- 
 
278 THE TENANTS 
 
 uations." But what it all became in our hands is a dire 
 memory. Mazie, it is true, made a splendid figure on the 
 stage, and was quite dashing and theatrical, but she forgot 
 two-thirds of her lines, and in the great scene where she 
 accused Muriel of the robbery, had to be prompted at every 
 other word. And Muriel — well, there was no blinking the 
 fact, Muriel was a " stick." She was so big and gentle and 
 honest-looking that no sane person in stage-land or out of it, 
 could have suspected her for a moment of anything more 
 criminal, say, than hopping into bed to say her prayers be- 
 cause her feet were cold ! The excitement flushed her so that 
 it was visible through her paint, and she did not look so 
 statuesquely calm and finished as usual ; nervousness, which 
 is unbecoming to everybody, set particularly ill on a person 
 of her weight and inches. She knew every word of her part, 
 and recited it with the conscientiousness which she would 
 have shown to the Catechism — and with much the same ex-* 
 pression! She replied to Mazie's halting tirades in the tone 
 and with the air of someone declining a cup of afternoon tea. 
 " Will you drive me into the street ? " she remarked amiably, 
 and her manner suggested: "Well, all right, just wait till I 
 get my hat on ! " Kitty mimicked her in the bedroom, until the 
 rest of us were feeble with laughter. Owing to Colonel Pallin- 
 der's forethought, the machinery of the curtain and foot- 
 lights worked perfectly, and the stage-settings were orderly 
 and accurate ; but aside from these, every accident known to 
 the production of amateur theatricals befell us. At one junc- 
 ture, when there should have been a " loud crash " behind the 
 scenes, none occurred, no one in particular having been en- 
 trusted with that feature of the performance; and, in the 
 midst of a dead silence, Jimmie Hathaway found himself 
 
THE TENANTS 279 
 
 obliged to exclaim, " Good Heavens! What is all that infer- 
 nal din about? " To make matters worse, some over-zealous 
 person immediately thereon made a " loud crash," and Jimmie, 
 lacking the presence of mind to repeat his former remark, 
 went on with the next speech : " Everything is quiet as the 
 grave, now. What could it have been? " The general verdict 
 was that J. B. did very well, even in the love-scenes where 
 we had thought he would make a failure of it ; but J. B. was 
 deservedly popular anyway. He triumphed by sheer force of 
 personality. The young fellow was so kind and hearty and 
 good-looking he could not but be pleasing. Whatever ap- 
 plause "Mrs. Tankerville" brought forth (and that of a 
 sadly feeble and perfunctory nature, I fear) went to him, 
 and none of us grudged it. 
 
 The play has three acts, and our much-enduring audience 
 had sat through two of them, when Huddesley waylaid Mazie 
 behind the scenes as she was rushing back for one of her 
 numerous changes of costume. These afforded a species of 
 entertainment that was " not in the bill," as some humourist 
 observed ; " Mrs. Tankerville's " clothes were one of the few 
 points of real interest about the performance. 
 
 "Miss Pallinder? " said Huddesley, timidly halting in her 
 way. 
 
 "Yes, what is it?" 
 
 "Here's the di'monds," said Huddesley, presenting the 
 box, done up for the sake of stage-effect in a rather large 
 and lumbering parcel. " I've been carrying 'em around like 
 you told me to, so they'd be safe. I didn't want to give 'em 
 to hanybody but you, and I've got to go now. You know I 
 don't have to show again, except where Mr. Taylor comes in 
 and sees me in the mirror, and plugs me over with the pistol- 
 
280 THE TENANTS 
 
 shot, and then they drag me out from behind the screen. And 
 I thought anybody could put on the clothes for that, as long 
 as the audience don't see anything but just a body " 
 
 "Yes, but what's the matter? Why can't you finish?" 
 asked Mazie, a little startled. She took the box mechanically, 
 and edged toward her room. 
 
 " If you please, ma'am, I ain't feelin' very well. I think 
 maybe it's the wet cold night. It's just come over me — I've 
 got a kind of bad turn on the stomach and " 
 
 " Oh, I'm so sorry," interrupted Mazie, fearful from his 
 manner that Huddesley was about to enter on some em- 
 barrassing details. " Better go down and ask my father for 
 some whisky — he's in the dining-room — tell him I sent you. 
 But whaf shall we do — oh, Mr. Carson?" 
 
 The enslaved Chorus, who figured in a small part in " Mrs. 
 Tankerville," approached ; he was always hanging around 
 whenever Mazie went on or left the stage, in hopes of a 
 word. But the girl now saw him, to her surprise, in overcoat 
 and hat. 
 
 "You're not going?" she asked, with a pang of regret; 
 she wished, momentarily, that she had been " nicer " to him. 
 Whether a woman cares for a man or not, she never sees him 
 leave her without dismay. " You're not going? " said Mazie, 
 directing a troubled and wistful smile upon him. 
 
 " Can't help it, Miss Pallinder," said Bob, warming to the 
 very marrow at her glance. " I — I hate to awfully. But it's 
 getting late, you know, and I've got to meet my sister; her 
 train will be in about midnight." 
 
 " Oh, it's not that yet." 
 
 " Pretty near." 
 
 " But, Mr. Carson, I don't know what we — I don't know 
 
THE TENANTS 281 
 
 what I shall do without you. I haven't anybody to go to but 
 you. Such a pity about T.Ir. Johns, isn't it — his being taken 
 sick, I mean — it's upset everything dreadfully. Here's Hud- 
 desley " 
 
 Huddesley explained volubly — " And if you, or somebody 
 of the young gentlemen could just put on the clothes, Mr. 
 Robert, the audience will never know the difference ; they don't 
 see anything but the body v/hen they drag me out after Mr. 
 Taylor's shot me. I've £ot a bad turn on my stomach 
 and " 
 
 " All right," said Bob hastily. " Is that package the 
 diamonds? They have to find 'em on you, don't they? Here, 
 I'll do it — I guess I can make the train anyhow. Come along 
 and get the costume off, Huddesley, you want to hurry." 
 
 Mazie stopped him, with a hand on his arm. " Oh, Mr. 
 Carson, we — I ought to give Huddesley something, oughtn't 
 I? For coining this evening? It was very accommodating, 
 you know, he isn't like a darky servant. What ought I to 
 give him ? Five dollars ? Ten dollars ? " she whispered, with 
 a manner of special confidence that was like a caress to the 
 young man. 
 
 " Never mind, Ma — Miss Pallinder," he said, absurdly 
 tremulous and excited. " I'll see about it — don't worry — it's 
 like you to think of it — you're so — that is " words for- 
 sook him. " I'll fix Huddesley, you know." he faltered, chafing 
 privately at the limitations of etiquette and the English 
 language. Mazie rewarded him with a long look, and walked 
 off. 
 
 By this time, in the crowded area behind the scenes, what 
 with gas-jets burning full head on, the smell of cookery 
 coming up the back stairs, sawdust, recent paint, cut flowers, 
 
282 THE TENANTS 
 
 innumerable other odours perfectly impossible to classify, 
 the air had grown well-nigh unbearable. Everybody was 
 overheated and out of temper ; the play dragged on stupidly. 
 I went down to the second landing for a breath of fresh air, 
 and was standing there by the open window, in, I suppose, 
 the only quiet and cool spot in the whole house, when some- 
 one came with a rush down the stairs. It was Huddesley. I 
 remember being struck, as I turned and saw him, with the 
 sharp rigidity of his features ; devoid of paint and false beard, 
 they resembled a parchment mask. There was an animal swift- 
 ness in his movements, yet he stopped short as we faced, tak- 
 ing the last three steps with an air of leisure, and a certain 
 reckless and impudent triumph in his glance. He had some- 
 thing in his hand, and I recall the jaunty motion with which 
 he tossed and caught it — it was a gold coin — and thrust it 
 deep in his pocket ; Bob's money, no doubt, but I knew noth- 
 ing of that, and seeing the man pause, looked at him inquir- 
 ingly. " Why, if there ain't little tootsie that I made a face 
 at ! " he said. " Sorry I scared you, toots ! Bye-bye ! " And 
 while I yet stood in a helpless stupor of surprise, passed an 
 arm around my bare shoulders, twitched my chin into his 
 hand, and — he was gone with a laugh, out of the house, and 
 out of our lives ! I may fairly say that of all that company I 
 was the last to have any dealings with Huddesley ; and I took 
 care, as may be imagined, that no one else should know the 
 picturesque circumstances of his departure. Fortunately my 
 testimony was not necessary, was not even asked. He went, 
 and the night received him into its dark world of wet and 
 wind and tossing branches. No exit could have been more 
 appropriate, more typical. 
 
 A moment later the thunderous rumble of chairs and out- 
 
THE TENANTS 283 
 
 burst of voices overhead announced that " Mrs. Tankerville's 
 Tiara " had at last run its disastrous course. It was very 
 late ; " William Tell " had not begun until nearly ten o'clock, 
 and the encores had taken up a good deal of time. The second 
 play had not been prolonged by undue enthusiasm from the 
 audience, at any rate; yet I doubt if they were as weary of it 
 as we. It hung on in spite of us ; the speeches that we had 
 heard till flesh and spirit fairly recoiled from the sound 
 of them (and yet no one knew his own!) simply would not 
 get themselves said. We had reached the mood when we hated 
 the smooth and conscientious politeness of our hearers. 
 
 " Up at the * Peoples ' they'd guy this thing off the stage,' 1 
 one young man said to another. " And serves us right, 
 too!" 
 
 " I wish to goodness we'd stopped with ' Tell,' the audience 
 wouldn't have been so tired " 
 
 " Audience ! It's a congregation ! " said Kitty Oldham 
 savagely. " And I'm glad the obsequies are over. ' Mrs. 
 Tankerville ' is dead and buried — for mercy's sake, don't any- 
 one mention her name to me again ! " 
 
 "You did awfully well, Miss Kitty — you reminded me of 
 Lotta." 
 
 " Of course," said Kitty with neat sarcasm. " Now go and 
 tell Muriel she reminded you of Bernhardt ! " 
 
 "She looked more like Mrs. Langtry, didn't she?" said 
 her companion diplomatically. " But Miss Pallinder now did 
 have a kind of likeness to Bernhardt, she's so tall and thin. 
 I thought she was stunning in that red dress and the diamonds 
 — why didn't she put them on again ? Right at the end there, 
 where they find them, I mean ? " 
 
 " I don't know, unless she wanted to shorten up the last 
 
284 THE TENANTS 
 
 scene, and get through. She said she was going to give them 
 back to her mother as soon as it was over." 
 
 " Mrs. Pallinder's not wearing them, though. What be- 
 came of Huddesley toward the last there? " 
 
 " Mazie said he had to go, the doctor had sent for him or 
 something, I didn't catch what it was. That was Bob in his 
 clothes, you know." 
 
 " Say, Teddy's had a lot of substitutes this evening, hasn't 
 he? Do you suppose anyone suspects? " 
 
 " Nobody's said anything to me anyhow." 
 
 "Hello, here's Capoul!" 1 
 
 " Oh, Capoul — Rats ! " said Bob, reddening with vexation. 
 He had a secret conviction that a tenor voice lacked manli- 
 ness, and mistook the felicitations of his friends for artfully 
 disguised raillery. " People will be poking that ' La-foe-ho ' 
 business at me from now till doomsday, I suppose." 
 
 " We were just wondering if anyone knew about Ted." 
 
 " Guess not ; I haven't heard anybody say a word about it." 
 
 " Look here, how do you happen to be here yet, my son ? 
 I thought you said you had to go and meet Susie." 
 
 " Well, I do, but not right away. I got one of the cab- 
 drivers outside — there's about fifty of 'em, you never saw 
 such a jam in your life — to go down to the drug-store and 
 telephone, and they say the train from New York won't be 
 in till two o'clock or after. Tell you, the telephone's an in- 
 stitution, isn't it? It's like Jules Verne coming true; they 
 say they'll have 'em all over in private houses and every- 
 
 i Happening to mention Capoul the other day, I discovered that 
 none of my hearers remembered that dashing Faust, Count Almaviva, 
 Romeo of twenty-five years ago. "And who was Capoul? " their blank 
 looks seemed to ask. Sic transit gloria! — M. S. W. 
 
THE TENANTS 285 
 
 where before long. Have you seen Miss Pallinder? I've got 
 this next waltz — oh, there she is with her mother." 
 
 He drifted off, and Kitty gave her partner a meaning look. 
 " Bob means business, I guess," said the latter^ returning it. 
 
 His hostess welcomed the young man with a wan vivacity. 
 "How do you do, Mr. Carson? This is the first chance I've 
 had to congratulate you. Everybody did so well. You were 
 especially good at the last." 
 
 Undoubtedly Mrs. Pallinder was not her usual suave and 
 confident self that night; her attention wandered. She had 
 forgot what part Bob took, and there was no graciousness in 
 her fixed smile; it might have been painted on her face like 
 some of her other adornments. 
 
 " The last was the best part of the whole performance, I 
 guess, for the audience," said Bob, grinning. " That was me 
 they dragged in from behind the screen, you know. It's not 
 everybody that can make believe to be dead as artistically as 
 I can. I'm the second-assistant-deputy-Ted Johns. Miss Pall- 
 inder told you about Huddesley, didn't she? She said you 
 knew." 
 
 " Yes — very unfortunate, wasn't it? " said Mrs. Pallinder, 
 smiling mechanically. " I mean fortunate, of course — that he 
 could take Mr. Johns' part, that is. Did you — have you got 
 my necklace, Mr. Carson ? " 
 
 " Me? Why, no," said Bob, in surprise. " They were sup- 
 posed to find the jewels on Jenks' body, you know, in a 
 bundle, and Miss Pallinder took them. Don't you remember 
 where she says : " ' Oh, my tiara ! That poor child ! What has 
 become of her? ' " 
 
 Mrs. Pallinder ought to have remembered it, for Mazie had 
 begun with : " ' Oh, my child ! That poor tiara, what has be- 
 
286 THE TENANTS 
 
 come of it? ' " so that a number of the audience and nearly 
 all the actors had been extinguished in giggles. But she only 
 said vaguely, " Oh, ah, yes, I believe there was something of 
 the kind said. Mazie, honey, I've just been asking Mr. Car- 
 son what he had done with the tiara, the necklace, I mean — 
 I reckon he thinks I think he's stolen it ! " 
 
 " Oh, I didn't even undo the parcel," said Mazie languidly. 
 " I just pretended to on the stage. I couldn't worry around 
 with the thing. That play's too long anyhow ; I cut it short 
 right at the end there on purpose. We had the necklace all 
 twisted up on wires, you know. I just pitched it into the 
 bureau-drawer and locked it up. It's safe." 
 
 "I'm afraid you're tired," said Bob, as Mrs. Pallinder, 
 with a return of her accustomed tact, moved unobstrusively 
 away. " I'm afraid you're worn out," repeated the young 
 fellow tenderly. " You had the hardest part of anybody." 
 
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE 
 
 IT was over at last — the party was over ; like everything 
 else in life, things had turned out neither quite so good 
 nor quite so bad as we had expected. " Mrs. Tanker- 
 ville" was a failure— but then "William Tell" had 
 been a success, so the score was even. The curtain had gone 
 down on both of them, and was about to descend upon another 
 little drama, if we had known it. Everyone said the evening 
 was a great success, one more feather in the Pallinder crown ; 
 downstairs, under the colonel's benevolent supervision, limit- 
 less champagne flowed; the supper was a triumph; the ger- 
 man one of the prettiest ever danced. Muriel led with J. B., 
 and some of the older people stayed to see it, and talked for 
 days afterwards about the favours Mazie had brought from 
 New York ; the figure where the men got little silver pencil- 
 cases and the girls painted gauze fans ; and that other figure 
 where they all looked so pretty with Japanese parasols and 
 paper lanterns ; and the figure where they had the Easter 
 eggs — that was charming ! But it was all over at last ; blank 
 dreariness and silence settled upon the ballroom, the last 
 carriage rumbled away, the musicians sacked and boxed up 
 their instruments and disappeared, featureless and unre- 
 marked, along with the caterers' men rattling their dishes, 
 and banging amongst their folding chairs — " into the dark 
 went one and all." They left behind a tired and not too good- 
 tempered mob of young people ; on the stage and behind it 
 everything was in a frenzied disorder; and when in the 
 
 287 
 
288 THE TENANTS 
 
 pinched and colourless small hours, we went yawning to our 
 beds, those useful articles of furniture were hardly to be 
 found cumbered as they were with wreckage. There were 
 hats, dresses, damp towels, artificial flowers and withering 
 natural ones, slippers and odd stockings, soiled and tumbled 
 veils, handkerchiefs, gloves, fans, the gilt and tinsel scraps 
 of favours — it was a wilderness where the most amazing 
 things turned up in the most amazing places. Somebody 
 found a comb in a box of candy ; a pair of corsets wrapped 
 carefully together with some fine damask table-napkins, and 
 sticking upright in a water-pitcher (an empty one by good 
 luck) ; and old Mrs. Botlisch's teeth (the lower set) jammed 
 firmly between the strings of a guitar that had been used in 
 " Tell " — these were some of the discoveries. We were too 
 tired to be amiable, and there were some sharp wrangles over 
 lost nightdresses, and the ownership of tooth-brushes in the 
 girls' quarters before we settled down for what was left of the 
 night — the morning, rather. We were two in a bed, one on 
 the lounge, and always three or four in a room according to 
 the Pallinders' happy-go-lucky style of hospitality. The men, 
 very likely, retired with even less formality; they had some 
 big rooms in an ell running out from the main building at the 
 back given over to their use. 
 
 It seemed as if I had no more than closed my eyes (and, as 
 I afterwards found, it had actually only been about ten 
 minutes since the last door locked and the last gas-jet was 
 turned off) when the consciousness of disturbance somewhere 
 about the house roused me. Someone was shouting out of a 
 window, and being answered from below. The sash slammed ; 
 and presently there was the sound of stockinged feet padding 
 downstairs. Kitty waked up, and crossly suggested that one 
 
THE TENANTS 289 
 
 of the guests had forgot something, and come back for it. 
 " Of all things at this time of night ! " she snapped. " Might 
 have waited till daylight, seems to me. Some people have no 
 sense ! " 
 
 The bolts of the front door rattled, the hall-gas flashed up, 
 sending a dim shaft of light through our transom ; and a 
 rumble of voices arose. Then the feet padded back, and there 
 was some stir in Mrs. Pallinder's room. 
 
 " Oh, bother ! Whatever it is, they'll never find it to-night 
 in this mess," said Kitty vigorously. She sat up in bed. 
 " Why don't they tell 'em to go home, and let us have a little 
 peace and quiet? " 
 
 That simple expedient, however, did not seem to occur to 
 anyone else. One of the girls awake in the next room called 
 in that somebody must have lost some money or jewelry — 
 " they couldn't be coming back for anything else." Again 
 the feet padded down. The rumbling talk increased in volume. 
 We distinctly heard Colonel Pallinder's voice, raised in ex- 
 planation or argument, it was impossible to guess which; 
 Mrs. Pallinder or someone in skirts went rustling along the 
 hall. Apparently she paused to lean over the banister and 
 listen a while. Lights began to start up elsewhere in the 
 house ; there was some movement among the men in their 
 reservation ; and old Mrs. Botlisch challenged raucously from 
 her room at the end of the passage to know what was the 
 matter. No one answered her, and after a moment there came 
 a tap at our door. I got out of bed and opened it, full of un- 
 easy wonder. There stood Mrs. Pallinder in a flowered blue 
 silk tea-gown flung on anyway over her nightdress, and flow- 
 ing about her in a huddle of lace and ribbons ; she clutched it 
 together at the throat ; thin wisps of straw-coloured hair 
 
290 THE TENANTS 
 
 hung around her face. There was something indefinably alarm- 
 ing in the very haste and carelessness of her appearance, she 
 who was always powdered and corseted to a fashion-plate cor- 
 rectness. She looked the scared ghost of her everyday self, 
 immeasurably older, and a surprising likeness to Mrs. Bot- 
 lisch came out on her harassed features. 
 
 " So sorry to disturb you, my dear," she said, with a tor- 
 tured smile. " But can you wake Mazie — I want to speak to 
 her." 
 
 " Nobody's sick, is there? " I asked, startled. 
 
 " Is it a telegram? It's not bad news for anyone, is it? " 
 Kitty cried out apprehensively from the bed. 
 
 " No, no, it's nothing — really nothing at all," repeated 
 Mrs. Pallinder — and this was so palpably false that even I 
 could see through it. " Tell Mazie to come here, please, I 
 want to speak to her." 
 
 " I'm coming," said Mazie drowsily, beginning to fumble 
 in the dark for her slippers. And somebody, Muriel, I think, 
 scrambled out of bed and lit the gas. 
 
 " You mustn't get up, don't any of you get up," said 
 Mrs. Pallinder excitedly. " I tell you it's only Mazie I want 
 to speak to. All of you go back to bed and go to sleep. Shut 
 your doors and go to bed!" Her usually soft voice broke 
 shrilly; she laid a hot trembling hand on my shoulder and 
 pushed me back within the room. By this time, however, 
 everybody was broad awake, staring, listening, and wonder- 
 ing. And Mrs. Botlisch began again: 
 
 "What's the matter? Is it fire? Mirandy, where are you? 
 Is the house took fire? " 
 
 " No, it ain't, ma. Shut up, will you? " said Mrs. Pallin- 
 der roughly. Astonishment struck us all dumb ; never before 
 
THE TENANTS 291 
 
 had we heard her speak so to the old woman. Mazie, looking 
 very long and limp in her white gown with strands of black 
 hair sailing down her back, came to the door, and her mother 
 dragged her outside, slamming it on us sharply. More low- 
 voiced confusion ensued. Mazie gave a high exclamation, and 
 Mrs. Pallinder hushed her violently. All the girls congregated 
 in the room, in wild array of curl-papers and " Mother Hub- 
 bards." In the hall one of the men could be heard asking 
 what was the matter, and excuse him, but could he be of 
 any use ? 
 
 "What on earth do you suppose has happened?'" said 
 Kitty, no longer out of temper, but on edge with curiosity ; 
 before anyone could offer a guess, Mazie came back. She did 
 not look at any of us ; she did not speak ; she walked straight 
 to the bureau in her room, took a package from its top 
 drawer, and walked straight out again. For so simple an act 
 it was the strangest bit of pantomime that can be imagined ; 
 so quick and purposeful were her movements in contrast to 
 her ordinary languor, that no one had a chance to ask ques- 
 tions, even if we had dared ; but I believe we were all a little 
 frightened by the unexplained change in her bearing and 
 her mother's. There was a controlled menace about the girl ; 
 she dominated us to the last ; and when she went out, closing 
 the door not fiercely as her mother had done, but with a 
 resolute gentleness, we should not have been surprised to hear 
 the key turn in the lock. The scene was not without its 
 ludicrous aspects; there we were eight or ten night-gowned 
 girls, shivering in the draughts, perched here and there amid 
 the rich, fantastic disorder of that room, while mystery 
 whispered in the hall outside. We did not talk; we were all 
 openly listening, and such was the tension that when Muriel 
 
292 THE TENANTS 
 
 said suddenly :'" There's a carriage coming!" everyone in 
 the room started violently. A girl by the window put the 
 blind aside and peeped out cautiously. " Why, there's one 
 here already ! " she said, and then : " There're two men in 
 the other; they're just getting out " 
 
 Upon the words, a strange voice, a man's voice, cried out 
 in the hall below, with mingled anger and surprise, " Damna- 
 tion ! " it shouted, " What d'ye mean by this? " Mrs. Pallin- 
 der screamed harshly like a strangling animal, and with a 
 truly melodramatic fitness, the door bell began furiously to 
 ring! 
 
 That was too much for us. I don't know who was first in 
 the hall; it seemed as if we were all there at once. The im- 
 mediate person I saw was Mazie standing against the oppo- 
 site wall. She had snatched up some kind of shawl or blanket 
 and wrapped it around her over her nightgown ; her face was 
 white, but she was laughing in a hysterical way. At the head 
 of the stair Mrs. Pallinder clung to the newel. From the hall 
 there arose a clamour of excited voices, punctuated by peal 
 after peal on the bell like the knocking at the castle-gate in 
 the awful scene of the murder from " Macbeth." The door 
 of Mrs. Botlisch's room was open, and there was the old 
 woman sitting up in bed, a tremendous figure in her red flan- 
 nel nightdress, roaring out questions to which no one paid 
 any attention. 
 
 " Oh, do go back, girls, do go back, here 're the men ! " 
 said Mazie, still giggling feebly. 
 
 " Men ! " cried her grandmother, catching the word. 
 " Time enough ! I'd like to see someone with some sense. 
 Where's that Taylor feller?" 
 
 " Taylor — what Taylor ? " said I, bewildered. I thought, 
 
THE TENANTS 293 
 
 for an instant, the old woman had suddenly gone crazy, and 
 wanted to be measured for a pair of breeches. Anything 
 seemed possible in the hurly-burly. 
 
 " Here I am," said J. B., presenting himself in trousers 
 and a night-shirt, one red sock and one polka-dotted blue 
 one, and his suspenders trailing in the rear. " He went the 
 kilt one better, didn't he?" said Kitty, recalling his ap- 
 pearance later, and she wondered what Muriel thought. But 
 if the men were a weird crew, what were we? 
 
 "Here I am," said J. B. "What's the matter? Can I do 
 anything? " He afterwards said that everything under the 
 sun that could have happened went through his mind, from 
 fire and murder to the reappearance of Arthur Gwynne's 
 ghost — everything that could have happened, except the in- 
 conceivable thing that had happened! 
 
 Mazie ran to the banisters. " Do somebody open the door ! 
 Can't you hear the bell? " she screamed. 
 
 " Find out who it is first ! Find out who it is — don't let 
 them in without finding out ! " Mrs. Pallinder called out 
 desperately. 
 
 " You Taylor, for the Lord's sake, see what it's all about ! " 
 cried Mrs. Botlisch. " Mirandy, gimme my teeth " 
 
 A fresh outbreak of voices downstairs announced that the 
 door had finally been opened. Mazie came running back as 
 Colonel Pallinder limped up the stairs. " There ! Huddes- 
 ley! " she exclaimed and burst into shrill laughter. " They're 
 asking for him. The minute that man opened the package I 
 thought about Huddesley. Never mind, ma, they can't come 
 on us for anything. Huddesley's got the laugh on every- 
 body ! " 
 
 Mrs. Pallinder all at once broke into sharp crying. " I 
 
294 THE TENANTS 
 
 can't stand it, I can't stand it any longer ! " she screamed 
 out, and beat her hands together. " I can't stand this life, 
 I tell you, I can't stand it ! " 
 
 " All right, honey, you shan't have to," said the colonel, 
 trying to soothe her. " I'll take care you shan't." 
 
 She pulled away from him furiously. " Oh, you! " she said 
 with fierce scorn. " Oh, you! " And then in some strange and 
 violent revulsion : " No, no, I didn't mean that, Willie, I 
 didn't mean that, my dear ! " and began to cry wildly in his 
 arms. It was horrible. 
 
 I relate these circumstances as faithfully as I remember 
 them ; but it is difficult to give any idea of the mirthless farce, 
 the grotesque tragedy of that night. It was at this moment, 
 I believe, as we were all standing in a miserable embarrass- 
 ment, and irresolution and (speaking for the girls, at least) 
 something not unlike fright, that one of the strange men 
 whom we had heard, came up the steps. He paused as his 
 head rose above the landing, and he caught sight of us. 
 Well he might ! We must have been a fearsome picture. 
 
 " Sorry to intrude, ladies and gents," said he, hastily 
 dropping back a little, and removing his hat. " But I gotta 
 hump " 
 
 J. B. came to the head of the flight, and, as it were, took 
 command of the situation. He was no great figure of a hero 
 with his suspenders slapping at his heels; but for all that he 
 looked a manly and masterful young fellow, and I think 
 we were all both grateful and relieved at his assumption of 
 responsibility. No one else seemed equal to the needs of the 
 hour. 
 
 " Look here," said J. B. quite pleasantly and firmly. " You 
 can't come up here. These ladies must not be disturbed any 
 
THE TENANTS 295 
 
 more, do you understand? Now who are you and what do 
 you want? " 
 
 " That's business," said the other frankly. " I'm a de- 
 tective. My name's Grimm. I've got another plain-clothes 
 man from your police headquarters downstairs, if you don't 
 believe me, ask him " 
 
 "Mr. Taylor — isn't that Mr. Taylor?" said someone 
 from below. " Don't you remember me — Judd — don't you 
 remember me at the bank? " 
 
 " That's all right," said J. B. " I remember you. Go 
 ahead, Mr. Grimm, what do you want? " 
 
 " Well, say," said another voice a little farther down, 
 " young fellow, if you're bossing this, my name's Hopple, 
 and I " 
 
 " One at a time," said J. B. forcibly. " Go on, Mr. 
 Grimm." 
 
 " Right you are, sir," said Grimm fervently. " I thought 
 I'd struck an asylum full of lunys at first, but I guess it 
 ain't so after all. I'm looking for a man named Huddesley — 
 that is, he called himself Huddesley here — that's wanted for 
 several crooked jobs all over the country. I've been after him 
 for six months. It's a dead cinch Huddesley's the man — 
 Judd here's had an eye on him for six weeks " 
 
 " That's what ! " said Judd, with emphasis. 
 
 " he was in the house to-night. Is he here now, do you 
 
 know ? " 
 
 " Huddesley has been here," said J. B., commanding his 
 surprise. He turned his face towards us, and hushed us with 
 a gesture. " Huddesley has been here, but he left the house 
 some time ago, I don't quite know when. Miss Pallinder, do 
 you remember when he went? " _ - 
 
296 THE TENANTS 
 
 He had to repeat the question twice before Mazie could 
 get herself together enough to answer it. " When he went ? " 
 she said vaguely. "When he went?" Someone else said it 
 was before midnight; at last Mazie exclaimed that it was 
 three hours, oh, yes, she was sure it must be quite three hours 
 since he had gone. 
 
 " He said he was sick and was going home — that is to Doc- 
 tor Vardaman's, where he is employed," said J. B. " If you 
 will go there, you may find him, the house is " 
 
 " Find him the hell ! " interrupted Mr. Grimm with dismay 
 in his face. " When he's had three hours' start ! " He made 
 a gesture of finality. "It's all off!" said he. "Why, I've 
 been to Doctor Vardaman's, mister, how'd you s'pose I hap- 
 pened to come here? " 
 
 " Somebody's tipped it off," said Judd, below stairs. 
 
 " That's what you get for peddlin' collar-buttons, sonny," 
 said Grimm. " He was onto you from the word Go ! " 
 
 "If he's not at the doctor's, I suppose he got wind of 
 you somehow, and skipped out," said J. B., overriding these 
 cryptic remarks, and anxious to end the business. " Anyhow 
 that's none of our affair. Is that all you wanted to know, 
 Mr. Grimm? For we're all tired and we'd like to go to 
 bed." 
 
 " Here, wait a minute — " said Hopple, vigorously, and 
 the detective, sweeping us with a comprehensive glance, spoke 
 at the same moment : " Hold on, young man, no affair of 
 yours, hey? Well, I ain't so sure about that. The old gent 
 said he would likely have the handling of some valuables, a 
 necklace or something. Will you kindly ask all those ladies 
 if they'll take account o' stock and see if they're missing 
 anything? " 
 
THE TENANTS 297 
 
 The unseen Mr. Hopple uttered a strong exclamation. 
 Every girl made a movement toward her bedroom, or nerv- 
 ously grabbed at some part of her person as her own par- 
 ticular treasures occurred to her. Every girl but Mazie, 
 that is; and her next words, pronounced with entire calm, 
 by the way, were comparable in effect to the explosion of a 
 bomb amongst this singular company. 
 
 " Oh, mercy-me ! " she said. " How slow you all are ! Can't 
 you see? Why, I saw it right off ! I believe he's got the neck- 
 lace!" 
 
 There was an instant of appalled silence. Then : 
 
 " Told you so ! Always said he was a rascal ! " cried Mrs. 
 Botlisch triumphantly. 
 
 " Huddesley got the necklace? " said J. B. aghast. " Why, 
 how could he? He gave it back to you. Bob Carson had it, 
 didn't he ? " Everybody spoke at once. The detective whis- 
 tled, swore softly, then he stooped to mutter with Judd. 
 " That's what ! " said the latter vehemently. Two or three of 
 the coloured servants had collected on the third-floor land- 
 ing above us, and hung over the banisters, giggling and 
 nudging. In the darkness their faces were nothing but shin- 
 ing teeth and eyeballs, reminding me, oddly enough, of a 
 picture in " Alice in Wonderland," of the Cheshire Cat's grin 
 materialising ; Gwynne and I had had the book when we were 
 little. I cannot think why I should have thought of it then, 
 of all times ; or, indeed, why the incongruous memory abides 
 with me now. Mazie was speaking in a high, strained voice. 
 " I never opened the package," she was saying. " Why, you 
 know I didn't. I just took it from him and I never opened 
 it. After 'Mrs. Tankerville ' I locked the thing up and 
 never thought of it again. I wouldn't have dreamed of sus- 
 
298 THE TENANTS 
 
 pecting Huddesley; why, he's been in and out of the house 
 all day long for weeks, hasn't he, ma? Hasn't he, girls?" 
 There was a kind of defiance in her voluble explanation. 
 " Tell that Hopple man, will you? " she urged the detective, 
 forgetting that " that Hopple man " was almost within arms' 
 reach of her. " He'd better go after Huddesley if he wants 
 his necklace — we haven't got it. Huddesley must have banked 
 on my not opening the package ; but anyhow, he was out of 
 the house and gone long before I had a chance to " 
 
 " Who's Bob Carson, and who's Mrs. Tankerville, and 
 what package are you talking about? " Grimm inquired suc- 
 cinctly. 
 
 " Well, this is the package, I guess," said Hopple's voice, 
 and two hands reaching up delivered to Mr. Grimm a crum- 
 pled piece of wrapping-paper, and about a ladleful of car- 
 pet tacks. 
 
 " There's your diamond necklace," continued the voice 
 in hoarse satire. " Leastways there's what was given me for 
 a diamond necklace. I don't know Huddesley from Adam's 
 off ox, but it's a pretty slick sort o' story, seems to me." 
 
 What Mr. Hopple looked like, I cannot say, for none of 
 us saw the gentleman. He made a movement to ascend the 
 stairs, but J. B. looming very large and square on the top 
 step intercepted him. 
 
 " Are you another detective, sir ? " asked J. B. in his mild 
 and steady voice. 
 
 " No, I ain't," returned Mr. Hopple, sulkily, yet not un- 
 civilly this time. 
 
 " Then," said J. B. with increasing mildness, " perhaps 
 you will be good enough to explain what you are doing 
 here? " 
 
THE TENANTS 299 
 
 " I'm collecting a bill for Goldstein Brothers — that's my 
 business, collecting. I know it's a little bit late at night, but 
 I can't help that. I've got to hump myself; I thought I 
 might find somebody up on account of the blow-out " 
 
 " It's an outrage, sir, an outrage which no Southern gen- 
 tleman " said Colonel Pallinder, turning from his wife. 
 
 " I repeat, sir, no Southern gentleman " 
 
 " If we had the money, don't you suppose we'd pay your 
 old bill?" cried Mrs. Pallinder, in a kind of hysterical 
 screech. Her face was red and swollen with crying; her fair 
 hair hung in strings. She ran to the banisters and shook her 
 slim fist at the man, a tousled virago, unrecognisable in her 
 rage. "Why don't you believe us? As if anybody wanted 
 to owe you — as if anybody liked to owe you ! It's too silly — 
 you act perfectly crazy! We'd have given you the necklace 
 if we'd had it, but we haven't got it — Huddesley's stolen it. 
 What are you staying around here for? We haven't got 
 the money and we haven't got the necklace, I tell you ! Why 
 don't you go away? You haven't any right here — you're a 
 cheat, trying to collect for that necklace when we haven't 
 got it. Make him go away, Willie ! " 
 
 " That's right, Mirandy, you talk to him like a Dutch 
 uncle!" said old Mrs. Botlisch with keen enjoyment. 
 
 " I don't care — I'm glad Huddesley has got it ! " said 
 Mazie fiercely. 
 
 " Owing to circumstances — a temporary shortage of 
 funds, sir," said Colonel Pallinder, addressing J. B., blandly, 
 " I have been unable to satisfy this fellow's monstrous, his 
 preposterous demand. But if — Mr. — ah — Mr. Hopple will 
 come around to my office to-morrow at half -past eleven sharp, 
 I " 
 
300 THE TENANTS 
 
 Mr. Hopple's voice invited him to teach his grandmother 
 to suck eggs. " This here bill's been owing three years, and 
 I'm going to collect it, don't you worry — I'll be at the office. 
 I'm going to collect if I've got to hang around this town 
 till the cows come home ! " 
 
 " You can't get blood out of a turnip," said Mr. Grimm 
 philosophically. J. B. interrupted this lively exchange of 
 metaphor. 
 
 " Mr. Grimm," said he, " it's pretty plain, I think, that 
 the criminal you want, this Huddesley, has got away with 
 the diamond necklace. Why we never suspected him seems 
 strange enough now; I can think of a dozen things that 
 should have put us on our guard, but the fact remains we 
 never did. If you'll just step downstairs, and wait until I can 
 get some clothes on, I'll tell you all that we know about him. 
 Mr. Hopple, you can see for yourself that there's nothing 
 to be done here now. Your business can very well hold over 
 until to-morrow — until daylight, that is — it's none of my 
 business, of course " — he interrupted himself, glancing in- 
 quiringly at Colonel Pallinder, and as that gentleman re- 
 mained silent, went on — " but I think it's about time you 
 went to your hotel, and let these people go to bed " 
 
 " Huh ! I don't take my orders from you, young fellow ! " 
 
 " Oh, don't be a fool, Hopple," said the detective impa- 
 tiently. " He's right. Go along ; you can't do anything 
 here." 
 
 J. B. descended a step. "You don't have to take my 
 orders, Mr. Hopple," said he gently. "But I should think 
 you'd rather take an order than a kick." 
 
 " Noble boy ! " ej aculated Colonel Pallinder, much af- 
 fected. " There spoke a son of old Kentucky ! " The col- 
 
THE TENANTS 301 
 
 lector retreated with sundry mutterings. J. B. came back, 
 dusting his hands lightly together. 
 
 " Sir," said Colonel Pallinder, holding his wife with one 
 arm, and stretching out the other in a fine gesture. " Your 
 hand ! A Southern gentleman, sir " 
 
 " Oh — er — that's all right," said J, B., embarrassed. He 
 turned a kind troubled glance upon us. " I wish all you girls 
 and everybody would go to bed. It's — it's all right, you 
 know. I'm going to see those fellows, and they'll go away 
 presently." 
 
 " You're A Number One, that's what you are, Taylor," 
 said old Mrs. Botlisch, in high approval. " You got more 
 gumption in your little finger than all the rest of 'em in their 
 whole bodies, d d if you ain't ! " 
 
 Mrs. Pallinder dried her eyes, and began to arrange her 
 dishevelled dress with fluttering hands. " You mustn't mind 
 ma, girls," she said, resuming her smile. " She's really aw- 
 fully eccentric." 
 
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO 
 
 NEXT day the crash came. The papers revelled 
 in it; the Pallinders' affairs occupied the place 
 of honour (or at least of supreme notoriety) in 
 the first column of the first page; the Pallin- 
 ders' creditors assembled and filled the air with thunder; 
 Muriel was incontinently recalled to Washington; excited 
 Gwynnes rushed upon the scene. And when at last the smoke 
 of conflict lifted, where were the Pallinders? Nobody knew; 
 nobody cared — except Scheurmann and Goldstein Brothers, 
 and perhaps a few others. Within a fortnight there was a 
 red flag, flaunting garishly on the lawn among the budding 
 lilacs and faintly greening beeches. Templeton had out sand- 
 wich-men and yard-long posters announcing an auction in 
 the house — " everything without reserve to the highest 
 bidder." 
 
 The Armenians reappeared, and various other greasy- 
 looking, dark-skinned birds of prey flocked through the 
 rooms, rapping on the mirrors, testing the peacock-blue and 
 old-gold draperies between their dirty talons. I met Mrs. 
 Maginnis coming out of Doctor Vardaman's yard, boo-hoo- 
 ing and calling on all the saints to bless him, with a tribe of 
 little Maginnises at her heels. What had the doctor done? 
 I do not know. The old gentleman went quite shabby that 
 summer in an old linen duster we had not seen on him for 
 years; and it is certain he bought no more first editions for 
 a long while. 
 
 302 
 
THE TENANTS 303 
 
 And here closes the episode — for episode it truly was, and 
 no story, as must have been discovered by this time. A story, 
 properly conceived and executed, must have a beginning and 
 an end, and this lacks both ; it even lacks a hero and heroine. 
 Fiction would have demanded, and a conscientious story- 
 teller would have supplied, a much more picturesque and ap- 
 propriate final act. The diamonds should have been restored, 
 and (let us hope) the bill paid ; Muriel should have married 
 J. B. ; Bob should have married Mazie ; the curtain should 
 have gone down on the lovers embracing and everyone else 
 shaking hands. I have not been a novel-reader all these years 
 for nothing, and nobody need remind me how a romance 
 should end ; if this narrative finishes in open defiance of all 
 the proprieties, I can only offer the mean apology that it is 
 all, or nearly all, true. Pars minima fui! Some of it I saw, 
 some heard, some merely guessed, and alas, none of the beau- 
 tiful things mentioned above came to pass ! Looking back 
 on it now, with the compliant wisdom of forty-odd, I am 
 satisfied it is as well those marriages did not take place. 
 Muriel would hardly have been a success transplanted ; and 
 the Pallinder connection would inevitably have proved disas- 
 trous to poor Bob. 
 
 As for Huddesley, I cannot sincerely say I was ever sorry 
 that that entertaining and original scoundrel escaped ; in 
 other and more gallant days, he and the Pallinders alike 
 might have figured as a sort of pirates, differing in de- 
 gree and methods perhaps, hardly at all in kind. There 
 is humour in the spectacle of one of them preying on the 
 other. And, for the soul of me, I cannot be angry with 
 either. Bon voyage, oh ye adventurers ! What shores have 
 you not coasted, and what men essayed in all these twenty- 
 
304 THE TENANTS 
 
 five years ! At least I did not suffer by you, and therefore, 
 
 with a noble generosity, I wish you well ! 
 
 I fell in with J. B. the other day, after a long interval; 
 and he had a good deal to tell me in the pleasant hour we 
 
 spent of, " Don't you remember " and " Whatever has 
 
 become of ? " J. B. goes up and down the world, and 
 
 knows many men and their cities these days ; he is getting a 
 little bald and massive, yet is still a notable figure, not greatly 
 changed; and, "What do you think?" he said, "I've seen 
 Huddesley, and he knew me at once! It was the year of the 
 St. Louis Fair; that's the last time I was West, you know. 
 I went from there to the town of Joliet, Illinois, where you 
 know the Government runs an elegant home for ladies and 
 gentlemen whose society and services the community doesn't 
 need all the time. 
 
 " I went out there — voluntarily," he added, with a 
 chuckle. " It was the Fourth of July and blazing hot, and 
 I had three hours to put in before my train left. The 
 man I went to see told me I'd find the Pen c very instructive.' 
 But when I got there, they were giving all these wretches 
 a holiday, in honour of Uncle Sam's birthday, and I tell you 
 they were a pretty hard-looking set. The guard was show- 
 ing me through a yard, when suddenly one of these jolly, 
 cursing, sky-larking parties in stripes dropped out of a 
 bunch of them, and, says he, getting in the way, and staring 
 hard at me : ' Mr. Breckinridge, don't you know me?' I 
 didn't at all, for a minute, although really, considering his 
 age, and the kind of life he must have led, he hasn't changed 
 much. Then: 'Will you 'ave 'ock with your hoysters, sir?' 
 said the scoundrel with a wink — and it flashed on me who he 
 was ! ' Huddesley ! ' I shouted out. The attendant was per- 
 
THE TENANTS 305 
 
 fectly petrified; he thought I must be some old pal of Hud- 
 desley's — I had to explain before he would let us talk. Eh? 
 Why, sure! As the children say, sure! I talked to him, and 
 he asked after everybody with the greatest interest. He even 
 got quite autobiographical and confidential after a while; 
 told me he was up for five years this time (for a little trouble 
 he got into in New Orleans, he said delicately), but he had 
 served two-thirds of the sentence, and would be out in six 
 months, his time having been shortened for good behaviour. 
 ' There's nothin' to it, anyway, Mr. Breckinridge,' says he, in 
 a serious manner. ' I guess I ought to know, I've tried both 
 ways. It's me for the simple life after this ; my eyes are kind 
 of troubling me, and I'm getting along in years. I'm goin' to 
 
 square it after I get out this time ' He meant he was 
 
 going to live honestly, you know. ' In all I've spent eighteen 
 years in the stir ' — that's slang for the prison, it seems — 
 1 with a sentence here and a sentence there, since the first 
 time of all in Pentonville, 'long back in '72. That's a good 
 while out of a man's life that ain't but fifty-five years old. 
 I'm going to cut it out after this. I begun pretty young 
 and I'm through now.' He told me he was London-born, 
 Seven Dials, some slum, I suppose — { That's where Hi got 
 the haccent,' he said, grinning again. He had a chequered 
 career before we knew him, footman, errand-boy, sneak-thief, 
 actor, preacher, insurance-agent, confidence-man — it would 
 be hard to say what he hadn't been. There was an interval 
 when he was apprentice to a pastry-cook — I think he was 
 honest then, for about a year, until the till was left open 
 one evening. He said that was where he learned the trade of 
 cook — ' But I was always was one to pick up things quick, 
 you know that, Mr. Breckinridge,' he said with a funny 
 
306 THE TENANTS 
 
 swagger. I asked him if he had had an eye on Mrs. Pallin- 
 der's diamonds from the first, or whether he just took the 
 chance when it came. He gave me an odd look. ' Say, you 
 don't mind asking questions, do you?' he said. And then, 
 quickly with a half-laugh: 'Oh, well, Mr. Taylor, you're 
 straight, I know you wouldn't throw me down, and it's twenty 
 years, anyhow.' He went on to say that he had landed in 
 town just about the time of the Charity Ball, when the 
 papers were full of the diamonds — you remember, don't you? 
 The Pallinders were It then. ' I thought I might get the job 
 of butler at the house, and applied,' he said. ' Nothin' doin' — 
 their help was all coloured. The very next day Doctor Var- 
 daman's advertisement came out ; say, I was right there with 
 the goods. He was easy, the old gent was. I hadn't spieled 
 my little spiel five minutes before I saw it was 6 M' lud, the 
 carriage waits,' for mine. And let me tell you, Mr. Taylor, 
 I was wise to the Pallinder game from the start; I knew 
 Pallinder was due to blow up any day, and your Uncle James 
 would have to hustle to get those diamonds, or somebody 
 else would. That's why I went after 'em by the Romeo-and- 
 Juliet route, 'stead of taking it slow and easy, and getting 
 to be like a son of the house like I'd planned. Well, you know 
 that deal fell through owing to Mrs. Pallinder's neuralgia; 
 if you and the colonel and everybody else had stepped a little 
 livelier, you'd 'a' nipped me. As it was, I just barely had 
 time to get back home; and then what does the faithful, 
 devoted, all-to-the-square-dealing Huddesley do but wake up 
 Doctor Vardaman, and lodge an information against him- 
 self ' 'What?' I cried. 'You were the burglar?' To 
 
 tell the truth, I hadn't quite been able to follow Huddesley's 
 flights of metaphor for the last few sentences, until all at 
 
THE TENANTS 307 
 
 once it come over me what he meant. ' You mean you were 
 the burglar all the time? ' I asked him. He grinned with a 
 queer kind of pride. ' Sure I was. But, say, didn't I play it 
 smooth? Couldn't I give Hen. Irving cards and spades, 
 though? Next day I did have a sore throat — I'm subject to 
 > em — but I wasn't sick like Doctor Vardaman thought. I 
 kept up the game — stayed in bed and passed up the cops and 
 the high-brows with the stylographic pens — I couldn't risk 
 seem' 'em, you know. I don't know how that fellow Judd got 
 on the trail — I guess he had a little more grey matter than 
 the rest of 'em. Of course they had photos and descriptions 
 of me all over the country. Anyway, when he turned up, 
 peddlin' collar-buttons about six weeks later, I was next right 
 off. I knew I'd better beat it for the tall and waving — but I 
 did hate like poison to go without those rhinestones — after 
 all the trouble I'd took, too.' The fellow's persistence and 
 patience were something astonishing," said J. B., with wonder. 
 " Enough to have insured his success at any honest under- 
 taking, you'd think. He told me it was very hard to keep up 
 the role. ' Sometimes I'd forget— about the talk, and all, you 
 know,' he said. * And then I'd lay awake at nights in a cold 
 sweat for fear somebody had noticed it. Yes, sir, I'd been 
 studying and studying, making myself solid with everybody, 
 and playing the faithful-and-devoted racket until I was sick 
 of it— and no diamonds in sight yet ! Then " Mrs. Tanker- 
 ville " came up, and all at once I began to see a ray o' light. 
 But just as things was going like greased rollers on a 
 toboggan-slide, hanged if the doctor didn't sour on the Pall- 
 inders! Said he was never going there again. 'Stead of 
 shooting the chutes, looked like I was due to bump the 
 bumps.' 
 
308 THE TENANTS 
 
 " ' In the end, that was the best thing that could have 
 happened — because, you know, the old gent invited you all 
 to dinner, and the minute he did that, I saw the chance. I 
 knew Johns was a good deal of a lusher, and if I could get 
 him stewed good and plenty, why, I could turn the trick. If 
 some of the rest of you got a little how-come-you-so, not 
 batty, you know, just a little googleish, it wouldn't hurt. But 
 I wasn't taking any chances on Johns ; I fixed him with some 
 kind of rock-a-bye-baby dope out of the doctor's closet. You 
 remember what happened after that. Say, I enjoyed it — 
 honest-to-goodness I did ; I liked all you boys first-rate. Say, 
 if I'd been different, if I'd been born and brought up like you, 
 for instance, I'd have cut a pretty wide swath, now, wouldn't 
 I? It's all in the start a man gets, ain't it? ' " 
 
 J. B. paused. 
 
 " I dare say Huddesley could imitate me better than I can 
 him," he said. " But wasn't that last a funny thing for a 
 man like that to say? He was in earnest, proud of his peculiar 
 talents, and a little regretful. I didn't know what to say, 
 but I knew better than to sermonise." 
 
 " Do you suppose he really did ' square it ' after he got 
 out?" 
 
 " Not likely, I think. Good resolutions aren't very lasting 
 with that class. I've no doubt he meant it at the time. He 
 asked about Doctor Vardaman. I told him, and do you know 
 the fellow's face clouded over for a second. I believe he really 
 was pained. 
 
 " ' Well,' he said. ' The doctor was an old man, and of 
 course it wasn't to be expected he could live very much 
 longer. I might have known. But it makes me feel bad, Mr. 
 Taylor. I kind of expected to go and see him when I got 
 
THE TENANTS 309 
 
 out this time, and tell him I was going to finish out on the 
 square. He was the whitest man I ever knew. I never took 
 the value of a cent from him, though I had plenty of chances ; 
 yes, sir, he was the real thing, that old gent was.' And, just 
 as I was leaving he said : ' I'd like mighty well to know who 
 that nice little trick was that I kissed on the back stairs 
 when I was dusting out with the necklace. I didn't know her 
 name, I guess she didn't ever come to rehearsals when I was 
 around. Kind of a fat little girl, with brown eyes — she was 
 too surprised to squeal ; it was a fool thing to do, but I felt 
 pretty good, and she was just my size in girls.' I couldn't 
 place her for him, but I shouldn't wonder if it was Kitty. It 
 would be like Kitty to keep quiet about it." I agreed with 
 him that it would be much like Kitty; her eyes are blue, by 
 the way, but J. B. had forgot that. 
 
 His face was a little sober as he answered some of my 
 questions. 
 
 " I met the colonel in New York not long ago," he 
 said. " He looks pretty old and seedy and shifty-eyed 
 these days. He talked just the same; had a few shares to 
 sell — just a few, you know, they were soaring up in price 
 and in a week would be unobtainable for love or money, but 
 he wanted to let me in on the ground floor — in a gold mine 
 down in Eastern Tennessee. 
 
 " Don't laugh ; it wasn't funny. He was too anxious to be 
 so fluent and convincing as he used to be in the old days; 
 he reminded me of a poor, hungry, eager old dog. I bought 
 some of the shares, for the sake of auld lang syne — I couldn't 
 help it. And there was something sordidly pathetic in the air 
 of affluence he put on after he'd gathered the money up in 
 his trembling old hands. I suppose he hadn't handled so much 
 
310 THE TENANTS 
 
 in months; yet the sum was not large. He insisted on my 
 going home to dinner with him ; they were in a dingy board- 
 ing-house over in Brooklyn. It gave me a start to see Mrs. 
 Pallinder; I actually thought for a minute it was the old 
 Botlisch woman, although she died years ago, the colonel 
 told me. Mrs. Pallinder's got to looking exactly like her, but 
 she has more manner, you know ; she put on a lot of 4 side ' for 
 my benefit. The boarding-house people were very much im- 
 pressed. I shouldn't wonder if my visit bolstered up the Pall- 
 inder credit a good deal — Pm so solidly respectable. But do 
 you know, I'm sure, that aside from any motives of self-in- 
 terest, the Pallinders were honestly glad to see me; they 
 talked about old times the same as you and I are doing now 
 — just as if they hadn't left owing everybody and under a 
 cloud generally ! I wouldn't have opened my mouth about 
 the diamond necklace, and that last night, but Mrs. Pallinder 
 brought it up right away ; she rather flourished it before the 
 other boarders. Huddesley and her jewels, and what she said, 
 and what So-and-So said — it was rather diverting to hear 
 her version." 
 
 " Mazie wasn't with them, was she ? " 
 
 " Oh, no, Mazie's married. Married an army-officer, and 
 they're living in the Philippines. Mrs. Pallinder told me the 
 name, but I've forgotten it." 
 
 " We used to think that Bob Carson " 
 
 " Yes. Bob's never married — he was awfully in earnest. 
 Remember what a sweet voice he had? They used to get him 
 to sing ' Comfort ye, my people,' in Trinity the last Sunday 
 in Advent, don't you remember ? Poor old Bob ! " 
 
 " Rich old Bob, you'd better say ! He's made a lot of 
 
THE TENANTS 311 
 
 money. Susie's children will get it all, most likely. He's 
 very fond of them ; he sent the youngest girl to Europe last 
 year to study music, somebody told me. Maybe, if Mazie 
 knew, she'd be sorry she wouldn't have him. But it's better 
 so ; they wouldn't have been happy. Do you suppose he ever 
 asked her, though?" 
 
 " Well, a man don't — one isn't likely to know about things 
 like that," said J. B. somewhat embarrassed. " But I believe 
 he did — right after the party, in the midst of the rumpus 
 when the Pallinders were getting it right and left from 
 everybody." 
 
 "And she refused him? I think it was fine of Bob to ask 
 her. Like you and Muriel, wasn't it ? " 
 
 "Hey?" said J. B., very much startled. A sudden flush 
 appeared on his amiable, middle-aged countenance ; he goes 
 clean-shaven now, he who was so gallantly moustached in 
 eighty-three — such are the mutations of fashion. 
 
 " I mean in the play — in * Mrs. Tankerville,' " I added 
 hastily. 
 
 " Oh, the play — oh, yes, I remember." He looked down 
 meditatively, fingering the stem of his wine-glass as we sat 
 at luncheon. Muriel would not have refused him, had she 
 been asked in good earnest ; I wondered if he knew it — but I 
 think he was at once too gallant and too simple — honest, 
 kindly J. B. ! 
 
 " I saw her when I was over this last time," he said. " She's 
 the Countess of Yedborough now, you know. She's got eight 
 children ! The oldest girl looks something like her, but not 
 so handsome as her mother was at her age — oh, not to com- 
 pare. She was the handsomest woman I ever saw." 
 
312 THE TENANTS 
 
 "Has she changed much?" 
 
 " Well, these big women — she's got awfully fat — fine-look- 
 ing still, of course, but she's too fat." Then, catching my eye 
 inadvertently directed on his own not inconsiderable expanse 
 of light waistcoat, he grinned good-naturedly. " Guess I'd 
 better be careful how I throw stones around here," said he. 
 " I'm living in a glass house myself." 
 
 " Did Muriel ask after any of us ? " 
 
 "Oh, yes, wanted to know about everyone — even Ted 
 Johns. I told her they'd found out that Huddesley put some 
 drug in Ted's wine that night, so that it wasn't liquor that 
 was the matter with him. I thought I'd save his reputation 
 that much, if I could. Poor Ted, how he did waste his life ! 
 No man ever had better chances at the beginning, but he was 
 his own worst enemy." 
 
 " You might say that of all of us." 
 
 " Yes, I suppose so. But we don't all drink like fish. Kind 
 of sad about Teddy ; he got some appointment in the com- 
 missariat when our troops went to Cuba, and died of the 
 fever at Siboney in '98— you knew that? He ought never 
 to have risked going to that climate; he couldn't have had 
 any constitution left by that time." 
 
 I assented, and we paid Teddy's memory the tribute of a 
 moment's silence ; yet I dare say we were not thinking so much 
 of him and his career, as of our own youth and the inevitable 
 years. 
 
 " Well, this has been very pleasant, but I must go," he 
 said presently and rose. " Next time I come West I'm going 
 to bring my wife ; I want her to meet everyone here — the old 
 set, I mean. She's heard me talk about you so much. I wish 
 
THE TENANTS 313 
 
 we could meet a little oftener, but living so far apart — you 
 know " 
 
 Well, fuit Ilium! Fuimus Troes! J. B. will find both the old 
 set and the old town changed greatly (for the better, no 
 doubt) when he returns. The coming generation — nay, the 
 generation that has already arrived, will not remember 
 the look of things as they were in my time. As I was 
 saying, they were tearing down the old Gwynne house the 
 other day. 
 
 THE END 
 
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