The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, July 10, 1904, Page 2

2 THE SAN FRANCISCO SUNDAY CALL. St o A e s A e ——— and here in the middle of all these car- riages was a bully good time and place for me to get away. I turned to the Bishop. He was blushing like a boy, I 1ed, too. Yes, I did, Tom Dorgan, t was because I was bursting with dear!” I exclalmed in sudden “You're not my father.” no, my dear, I—I'm mnot,” he red, his face purple now with rrassment. “I was just trying to u poor little girl, of your planning a way to help and wher—" ie made a gesture of despair toward the side where the coupe had-d€en. ce with my hands, ver into the corner, I t! You're not out!™ . But I'm old and I wish—I wish nderness and cour- of sobered me. bered the face nds, and I un- * I said, smiling where the bad move! r pped for it t takes more'n & red 1 to make a black- ne into the girl he 1 did then m’'t unde No, more for ito e scrape, were you seen Mrs. when she Bishop's the gor- good as ve college b He sat and bring it w mine, can me. But it? It can't be y name she’s got. It can't be, mum- my, say it can't, say 1t c Tom, I ought on the L e. T'll go yet sent up & day. Yes, I will. You'll be where you can't stop me I couldn’t see the Bishop, but the Dowager—oh, I'd got her. Not so bad an old body, , if you only take t, she was sus- pic And then, Tness melted ourt of her, up about me, and there I was 1 all comfy with the diamonds on her settes fn my cheek; ling over me and ps ck boring ro- and she a-sniff- ting me and tell- cited, that it was right, and now I was home mummy would take care of me, she would, that she would. She did. soft as—a fled or She got me on to a lounge, marshmallows, and she Ik pillow after another be- let me help you off with he she your coz cooed, bending over me “Oh, mu it's so cold! Can't I please keep it on?” To let that coat off me was to give the whole thing away. My rig under- neath, though good enough for your girl, Tom, on a holiday, wasn't just what they wear in the square. And &'ye know, you'll say it's silly, but I had a convicticg: that with that coat I should say good by to the nerve I'd had since I got into the Bishop's car- d from there into soclety. I let her take the hat, though, and I could see by the way she handled it that it was all right—the thing; her kind, you know. Oh, the girl I got it from had good taste, all right, I closed my eyes for a moment as I lay there and she stood stroking my hair. She must have thought I'd fallen asleep, for he turned to the Bishop and holding out her hand she sald softly: “My dear, dear Bishop, you are the best-hearted, the saintliest man on earth. Because you are so beautifully lean-souled yourself, you must par- don me. I am ashamed to say it, but I shall have no rest till I do. When I s you In the carriage downtown, with that poor demented child, I thought, for just a moment—oh, can you forgive me? It shows what an evil mind I have, But you, who know so well what Edward is, what my life has been with him, will see how much reason I have to be suspicious of all men!” I shook, I laughed so hard. rker her Edward must be! What See, or old Mrs. Dowager up in E having the same devil's with her man as Molly BElliott n alley has with hers. I wonder if you're all alike. No, for there's the Bishop. He had taken her hand sympathizingly, forgivingly, but his silence made me curfous. I knew he wouldn’t let the old lady belleve for a moment I was luny, if once he could be sure himself that I wasn't. You lle, Tom Dorgan, he wouldn’t! Well—But the poor baby, how could he expect to see through a game that had caught the Dowager herself? Still, I could hear him walking softly toward me. and I felt him looking keenly down at me long before I opened my eyes. When I did, you should have seen him jump. Guilty he felt. I could see SHE P p 3 il the blood rush up under his clear, thin’ oid skin, soft as a baby’s, to find him- caught trying to spy out my se- cret. I just You kno ced big-eyed up at him. the way Molly's kid does 1 looked a long, long gh 1 was puzzled. I said slowly, sitting up. e my daddy, ain’t you?” of course.” It was the o got between him and me, heavily at him with nods and But the dear old fellow only in the effort to look a lie it. Still, he looked re- idently he thought I was luny right, but that I had lucid in- tervals. I heard him whisper some- thing like this to the Dowager just be- fore the maid came in with tea for me. Yes, Tom Dorgan, tea for Nancy t a silver salver, out of a cup ell. My, but that afraid I'd yself dead away with all those and jugs. So I said I wasn't , though, Lord knows, I hadn't had anything to eat since early morn- ing. But the Dowager sent the maid away and took the tray herself, opera- ting all the jugs and pots for me, and then tried to feed me the tea. She was about as handy as Molly’s little sister is witH the baby—but I allowed myself to be coaxed and drank it down. Tea, Tom Dorgan. Ever taste tea? If you knew how to behave yourself in hinting t pinker d not s polite soclety, I'd give you a card to my friend the Dowager up in the square. How to get away! That was the thing that worried me. I'd just made up my mind to have a lucid interval, when cr-creak, the front door opened, and in walked— Tom, you're mighty cute—so cute you'll land us both behind bars some day—but you can't guess who came in on our little family party. Yes—oh, ves, you've met him. ‘Well, the old duffer whose watch was ticking inside my waist that very min- ute! Yes, sir, the same red-faced, big- necked fellow we'd spied getting full at the little station in the country. Only he was a little mellower than when you grabbed his chain. Well, he was Edward. I almost dropped the cup when I saw him. The Dowager took it from me, saying: “There, dear, don’t be nervous. It's only—only—" e got lost. It couldn’t be my dad- dy—the Bishop was that. But it was her husband, so who could it be? “Evening, Bishop. Hello, Henrietta, back so soon from the opera?” roared Edward, in a big, husky voice. ‘He'd had more since we saw him, but he 7T LTORIWAAY,” T/E P77 N /2.S CONG 77O walked straight as the Bishop himself. and he’s a dear little ramrod. “Ah!” —his eyes lit up at sight of me—‘“ah, Miss—of course, I've met the young lady, Henrietta, but hang me if I haven't forgotten her name.” 2 “Miss—Miss Murieson,” lled the old lady, glibly. “A—a relative.” “Why, mummy!” I sald reproach- fully. “There—there. It's only & joke, Isn’t it a joke, Edward?” she demanded, laughing uneasily. “Joke?” he repeated with a hearty bellow of laughter. *“Best kind of a joke, I call it, to find so pretty a girl right in your own house, eh, Bishop?” “Why does he call my father ‘Bishop,” mummy ?” I couldn’t help it. The fun of hearing the Dowager lile and knowing the Bishop beside himself with the pain of deception was too much for me I could see she didn’t dare trust her Ed- ward with my sad story. “Ho! ho! The Bishop—that's good. No, my dear Miss Murieson, 1f this lady’s your mother, why, I must be—at least, ® ought to be, your father. As such, I'm going to have all the priv- fleges of a parent—bless me, if I'm not.” i I don’t suppose he'd have done it if he'd been sober, but there’s no telling when you remember the reputation the Dowager had given him. But he'd got no further than to put his arm around me when both the Bishop and the Dowager flew to the rescue. My, but they were shocked! I couldn’t help wondering what they'd have domne if Edward had happened to see the Bishop in the same sort of tableau earlier in the afternoon. But I got a lucid interval just then, and distracted their-attentlon. I stood for 2 moment, my head bent as thbugh I was thinking deeply. “I think T'll go now,” T said at length. “I—I don’t understand exactly how I got here,” I went on, looking from the Bishop to the Dowager and back again, “or how I happened to miss my father. I'm ever s6 much obliged to you and if you will give me my hat I'll take the next train back to col- lege.” “You'll do nothing of the sort,” said the Dowager, promptly. “My dear, you're a sweet girl that's been studying too hard. You must go to my room and rest—" “And stay for dinner. Don’t you care. Sometimes I don’t know how I get here myself.” Edward winked Jovially. ‘Well, I did. While the Dowager's back was turned, I gave him the lit- tlest one in return for his. It made him drunker than ever. “I think,” sald the Bishop, grimly, with a significant glance at the Dow- ager, as he turned just then and saw the old cock ogling me, “the young lady is wiser than we. I'll take her to the station—" The station! Ugh! Not Nance Olden with the red coat still on. “Impossible, my dear Bishop,” in- terrupted the Dowager. “She can’t be permitted to go back on alone.” 3 “Why, Miss—Miss Murieson, I'll see you back all the way to the college door. Not at all, not at all. Charmed. First, we'll have dinner—or, first I'll the train telephone owt there and tell 'em you're with us, so that if there's any rule or anything of that sort—" The telephone! This wretched Ed- ward with half his wits gave me more trouble than the Bishop and the Dow- ager put together. She jumped at the idea, and left the room only to come back again to whisper to me: “What name, my dear?” “What name? what name?” I re- peated blankly. What name, indeed. I wonder how “Nance Olden” would have done. “Don’t hurry, dear, don’t perplex Yyourself,” she whispered anxiously, noting my bewilderment. “There's plenty of time, and it makes no differ- ence—not a particle, really.” I put my hand to my head. “I can't think—I can't think. There's one girl has nervous prostration, and her name’s got mixed with mine, and I can’'t—" ““Hush, hush! Never mind. You shall come and lie down in my room. You'll stay with us to-night, anyway, and we'll have a doctor in, Bishop.” “That's right,” assented the Bishop. “I'll go get him myself.’ “You—you're not going!” I cried in dismay. It was real. I hated to see him go. “Nonsense—'phone.” It was Tdward who went himseff to telephone for the doctor, and I saw my time getting shorter. But the Bishop had to go anyway. He looked out at his horses shivering in front of the house, and the sight hurried him. “My child,” he said, taking my hand, “Just let Mrs. Ramsay take care of you to-night. Don’t bother about any- thing but just rest. I'll see you in the morning,” he went on, noticing that I kind of clung to him. Well, I did. “Can’t you remember what I sald to you in the carrlage—that I wished you were my daughten I wish you were, indeed I do, and that I could take you home with me and keep you, child.” “Then—to-night—if—when you pray —will you pray fér me as if I was— your own daughter?” Tom Dorgan, you think no prayers any good, but I tell you if some day I cut loose from you and start in over again, it'll be the Bishop's prayers that'll do it. The Dowager and I passed Edward in the hall. He gave me & look behind her back, and I gave him one to match it. Just practice, you know, Tom. A girl can never know when she’ll want to be expert in these things. She made me lle down, on a couch while she turned the lamp low, and then left me alone in a big palace of a bedroom fllled with things. And I wanted everything I saw. If I could, I'd have lifted everything in sight. But every minute brought that doc- tor nearer. Soon as I could be really sure she was gone, I got up, and, hur- rying to the long French windows that opened on the great stone piazza, I un- fastened them quietly, and inch by inch I pushed them open. There within ten feet of me stood Edward. No escape that way. He saw me and was tiptoeing heavily toward me, when I heard the door click be- hind me, and in walked the Dowager back again. I flew to her. “I thought I heard some one out there,” I said. “It frightened me so that I got up to look. Nobody could be out there, could they?” She walked to the window and put her head out. Her lips tightened grimly. “No, nobody ‘could be out therf,” she said, breathing hard, “but you might get nervous thinking there might be. We'll go to a room upstairs.” And so we did, in spite of all I could plead about feeling well enough now to go alone and all the rest of it. How was I to get out of a second or third story window? I began to think about the Correction again as I followed her upstairs, and after she’d left me I just sat walting for the doctor to come and send me there. I didn’t care much, till I re- membered the Bishop. I could almost see his face as it would look when he’d be called to testify agalnst me, and I'd be standing in that railed-in prisoner’s pen, In the middle of the " courtroom, where Dan Christensen stood when they tried him. No, I couldn’t bear that; not without a fight, anyway. It was for the Bishop I'd got into this part of the scrape. I'd get out of it so's he shouldn’t know how bad a girl can be. While I lay thinking it over, the same maild that had brought me the tea e in. She was an ugly, thin little thing. If she’s a sample of the malds in that house, the lot of them would take the kink out of your pretty halr, Thomas J. Dorgan, Es- quire, late of the House of Refuge and soon of Moyamensing. Don't throw things. People in my set, mine and the Dowager’s, don't. She had been sent to help me un- dress, she sald, and make me com- fortable. The doctor lived just around the corner and would be in in a min- ute. Phew! She wasn't very promising, but she was my only chance. I took her. “I really don’t need ‘any help, thank you, Nora,” I sald, chipper as a spar- row, and remembering the name the Dowager had called her by. *“Aunt Henrletta is too fussy, don’t you think? Oh, of course, you won't say a word against her. She told me the other day that she’d never had a maid so sensible and quick-witted, too, as Nora. Do you know, I've a mind to play a joke on the doctor when he comes. You'll help me, won't you? Oh, I know you will!” " Suddenly I re- membered the Bishop's bill. I took it out of my pocket. Yep, Tom, that's where it went. I had to choose between giving that skinny maid the biggest tip she ever got in her life—or Nance Olden to the Correction. You needn’t swear, Tom Dorgan. I fancy if I'd got there, you'd got worse. No, you bully, you know I wouldn't tell; but the police sort of know how to pair our kind. In her cap and apron I let the doctor in and myself out. And I don't regret a thing up there In the square except that lovely red coat with the high col- lar and the hat with the fur on it. T'd glve— Tom, get me a coat like that and T'll marry you for life. No, there’s one thing I could do bet- ter if it was to be done over again. T could make that dear little old Bishop wish harder I'd been his daught What am I mooning about? nothing. There's the watch—E: watch. Take It. 1L Yes, empty-handed, Tom Dorgan. And I can’t honestly say I didn't have the chance, but—if my hands are emp- ty my head is full. Listen. There’'s a girl I k brown hair, a turned eyes, rather far apart. You know her, too? Well, she can’t help that. But this girl—oh, e makes such a pretty boy! And the ladies at the hotel over in Brooklyn, they just dote on her when she’s not only a boy but a bellboy. Her name may when she's in petticoats, ers she's Nathaniel—in short, Now, Nat, in blue and button: his nails kept better than most boys, with his curly hair parted in the mid- dle, and with a gentle twang to 1} voice that makes him almost girlish— who would suspect Nat of having a stolen pass-key in his pocket and a pretty fair knowledge of the contents of almost every top bureau-drawer in the hotel? Not Mrs. Sarah Kingdom, a widow just arrived from Philadelphia, and desperately gone on young Mr. George Moriway, also fresh from Philadelphia, and desperately gone on Mrs. King- dom’s—money. The tips that lady gave the bad boy Nat! I knew I couldn’t make you be- lleve it any other way; that's why I passed 'em on to you, Tommy-boy. The hotel woman, you know, girls, is a hotel woman because she isn’t fit to be anything else. She's lazy and self- ish and little, and she's shifted all her legitimate cares to the proprietor's shoulders. She actually—you can un- derstand and share my indignation, can’t you, Tom, as you've shared other things?—she even gives over her black tin box full of valuables to the hotel clerk to put in the safe; the coward! But her vanity—ah, there's where we get her, such speculators as you and myself. She’s got to outshine the woman who sits at the next table, and g0 she borrows her dlamonds from the clerk, wears ‘em like the peacock she 1s, and trembles till they're back in the safe again. In the meantime she locks them up in the tin box which she puts in her top bureau-drawer, hides the key, for- gets where she hid it, and—0O Tom! after searching for it for hours and making herself sick with anxiety, she tles up her head in a wet handkerchief with vinegar on it and—rings the bell for the bellboy! He comes. As I satd, he’s a prompt, gentle little bellboy, slight, looks rather young for his job, but that very yoyth and inno- cence of his make him such a fellow to trust! “Nat,” says Mrs. Kingdom, tearfully pressing half a dollar into the nice lad’s hand, “I—I've lost something and 1 want you to—to help me find it.” “Yes'm,” says Nat. He’s the soul of politeness. “It must be here—it must be in this room,” says the lady, getting wild with the terror of losing. “I'm sure— positive—that I went straight to the shoe-bag and slipped it in there. And now I can’t find it, and I must have it before I go out this afternoon for—for a very special reason. My daughter Evelyn will be home to-morrow and— why don’t you look for it?” “What is it, ma’am?"” “I told you once. My key—a little flat key that locks—a box I've got,” she finished distrustfully. “Have you looked in the shoe-bag, ma’am?” ‘“Why, of course I have, you little stupid. I want you to hunt other places where I can’t easily get. There are other places I might have put it, but I'm positive it was in the shoe- bag.” ‘Well, I looked for that key. Where? Where not? I looked under the rub- bish in the waste-paper basket; Mrs. Kingdom often fooled thieves by drop- ping it there. I pulled up the corner of the carpet and looked there—it was loose; it had often been used for a ow with short nose and gray hiding-place. I looked in Miss Eve- lyn’s boot and in her ribbom box. I emptied Mrs. Kingdom's full powder box. I climbed ladders and felt along cornices. I looked through the pockets of Mrs. Kingdom’'s gowns—a clever Dellboy it takes to find a woman's pocket, but even the real masculine ones among ‘em are half feminine; they've had so much to do with Wwomen. I rummaged through her writing- desk, and, in searching a gold-cornered pad, found a note from Moriway hid- den under the cormer. I hid it again carefully—In my coat pocket. A love- letter from Moriway, to & Wwoman twenty years older than himself— *tain’t a bad lay, Tom Dorgan, but you needn’t try it. At first she watched every move I made, but later, as her headache grew worse, she got desperate. So then I put my hand down into the shoe-bag and found the key, where it had slipped under a fold of cloth. Do you suppose that woman Wwas grateful? She snatched it from me. “I knew it was there. I told you it was there. If you'd had any sense you'd looked theres first. The boys in this hotel are so stupid “That’s all, ma’am?” She nodded. She was fitting the key into the black box she’d taken from the top drawer. Nat had got to the outside door when he heard her come shrieking after him. “Nat—Nat—come back! My dia- monds—they're not here. I know I put them back last night—I'm pesitive. I could swear to it. I can see myself putting them In the chamois bag, and— O my God, where can they be! This time they’re gone!™ Nat could have told her—but what's the use? He felt she’d only lose ‘em again if she had ‘em. So he let them e snug in his trousers pocket—wherse he had put the chamols bag when his eyes lit on it under the corner of the carpet. He might have passed it over to her then, but you see, Tom, she hadn’t told him to look for a bag: it was a key she wanted. Bellboys are so stupid. This time she followed his every step. He could not put his hand on the smallest thing without rousing her suspicion. If he hesitated, she scolded. If he hurried, she fumed. Most unjust, I call it, beca he had no thought of steallng—just then. “Co she sald at last, “we’ll go down and report it at the desk.” “Hadn't I better wait here, ma'am, and 1 . arply at him. etter do as I tell you.” So dow And we met Mr. Moriway d telephoned him. The ch was called, the ek the electrical engineer bells that morning, b bellboy named Nat, he'd just come on duty iom’s bell rang, found mned it to her, and was when she unlocked the he knew e truth?” when Mr her key ar Mortway is; but where are > must have them— you know day, " she whis- pered. And then she turned and went upstairs, leaving Moriway to do the rest. “There’s only one thing to do, Major,” he said to the proprietor. “Search 'em all and then—" “Search me? the housekeeper. It's an outrage!™ cried earch me if ye lolke,” growled Me- Carthy, r T “O1 wasn't there but a minu the lady herself can tell ye that.” Katle, chambermald, flushed painf' there were indignant tears In confidence, uncomfortabl But the b boys have no eyes, which, I'll tell you in de a girl named Nancy Nat, knowing that bell- rights, said nothing. But he 2 He thought, Tom Dorgan, a lot of things and a long way ahead. The peppery old Major marched us all off to private office. Not much, girls, it hadn’t come. For suddenly the annunciator rang out. Out of the corner of his eye, Nat looked at the bellboys’ bench. It was empty. There was to be a ball that night, and the bells were going it over all the place. “Number Twenty-one!" clerk at the desk. But Number Twenty-one didn’t budge. His heart was beating like a hammer, and the ting-ng-ng of that bell calling him rang in his head like a song. “Number Twenty-one!™ clerk. Oh, he’s got a devil of a temper, has that clerk. Some day, Tom, when you love me very much, go up to the hotel rad break his face for me. “You!—boy—confound you, can't you hear?” he shouted. That time he caught the Major’s ear —the one that wasn’t deaf. He looked from Powers’ black face to the bench and then to me. And all the time the bell kept ringing like mad. shouted the yelled the “Git!” he said to the boy. “And come back in a hurry.” Number Twenty-one got—but leis- urely. It wouldn't do for a bellboy to hurry, particularly when he had such good cause. Oh, girls, those stone stairs, the servants’ stairs at the St. James! They're flerce, I tell you, Mag, scrub- bing the floors at the Cruelty ain't so bad. But this time I was jolly glad bellboys weren't allowed In the eleva- tor. For there were those dlamonds in my pants pocket, and I must get rid of 'em before I got down to the office again. So I climbed those stairs, and every step I took my eye was search- ing for a hiding-place. I could have pitched the little bag out of a win- dow, but Nancy Olden wasn't throw- ing diamonds to the birds, any more than Mag here is likely to cut off the braids of red hair we used to play horse with when we drove her about the €ruelty yard. One flight. No chance. Another. Everything bare as stone and soap could keep it. The third flight—my knees began to tremble, and not with climbing. The call came from this floor. But I ran up a fourth just on the chance, and there in a corner was a fire hatchet strapped to the wall Behind that hatchet Mrs. Kingdon's diamonds might lie snug till evening. I put the ends of my fingers first in the little crack to make sure the little bag wouldn't drop to the floor, and then dived into my pocket and— And there behind me, stealthily com- ing up the last turn of the stairs was Mr. George Moriway! Don't you hate a soft-walking man, Mag?2 That cute fellow was cuter