Part 12 (1/2)
But then he remembered overhearing Carstairs tell a brother-artist that he had paid two thousand francs for it, and, though he did not know how much a franc might be, two thousand of anything was too much to wear around at a masquerade ball. But the thing haunted him. He was sure if Miss Casey saw him in that suit she would never look at Charlie Macklin again.
”They wouldn't be in the same town with me,” said Hefty. ”And I'd get two of the prizes, sure.”
He was in great perplexity, when good luck or bad luck settled it for him.
”Burke,” said Mr. Carstairs, ”Mrs. Carstairs and I are going out of town for New Year's Day, and will be gone until Sunday. Take a turn through the rooms each night, will you? as well as the studio, and see that everything is all right.” That clinched the matter for Hefty. He determined to go as far as the Palace Garden as the Marquis de Neuville, and say nothing whatever to Mr. Carstairs about it.
Stuff McGovern, who drove a night-hawk and who was a particular admirer of Hefty's, even though as a cabman he was in a higher social scale than the driver of an ice-cart, agreed to carry Hefty and his half-ton of armor to the Garden, and call for him when the ball was over.
”Holee smoke!” gasped Mr. McGovern, as Hefty stumbled heavily across the pavement with an overcoat over his armor and his helmet under his arm. ”Do you expect to do much dancing in that sheet-iron?”
”It's the looks of the thing I'm gambling on,” said Hefty. ”I look like a locomoteeve when I get this stovepipe on me head.”
Hefty put on his helmet in the cab and pulled down the visor, and when he alighted the crowd around the door was too greatly awed to jeer, but stood silent with breathless admiration. He had great difficulty in mounting the somewhat steep flight of stairs which led to the dancing-room, and considered gloomily that in the event of a fire he would have a very small chance of getting out alive. He made so much noise coming up that the committeemen thought some one was rolling some one else down the stairs, and came out to see the fight. They observed Hefty's approach with whispered awe and amazement.
”Wot are you?” asked the man at the door. ”Youse needn't give your real name,” he explained, politely. ”But you've got to give something if youse are trying for a prize, see?”
”I'm the Black Knight,” said Hefty in a hoa.r.s.e voice, ”the Marquis de Newveal; and when it comes to sc.r.a.ppin' wid der perlice, I'm de best in der business.”
This last statement was entirely impromptu, and inspired by the presence of Policeman McCluire, who, with several others, had been detailed to keep order. McCluire took this challenge calmly, and looked down and smiled at Hefty's feet.
”He looks like a stove on two legs,” he said to the crowd. The crowd, as a matter of policy, laughed.
”You'll look like a fool standing on his head in a snow-bank if you talk impudent to me,” said Hefty, epigrammatically, from behind the barrier of his iron mask. What might have happened next did not happen, because at that moment the music sounded for the grand march, and Hefty and the policeman were swept apart by the crowd of Indians, Mexicans, courtiers, negro minstrels, and clowns. Hefty stamped across the waxed floor about as lightly as a safe could do it if a safe could walk. He found Miss Casey after the march and disclosed his ident.i.ty.
She promised not to tell, and was plainly delighted and flattered at being seen with the distinct sensation of the ball. ”Say, Hefty,” she said, ”they just ain't in it with you. You'll take the two prizes sure. How do I look?”
”Out o' sight,” said Hefty. ”Never saw you lookin' better.”
”That's good,” said Miss Casey, simply, and with a sigh of satisfaction.
Hefty was undoubtedly a great success. The men came around him and pawed him, and felt the dents in the armor, and tried the weight of it by holding up one of his arms, and handled him generally as though he were a freak in a museum. ”Let 'em alone,” said Hefty to Miss Casey, ”I'm not sayin' a word. Let the judges get on to the sensation I'm a-makin,' and I'll walk off with the prizes. The crowd is wid me sure.”
At midnight the judges pounded on a table for order, and announced that after much debate they gave the first prize to Miss Lizzie Cannon, of Hester Street, for ”having the most handsomest costume on the floor, that of Columbia.” The fact that Mr. ”Buck” Masters, who was one of the judges, and who was engaged to Miss Cannon, had said that he would pound things out of the other judges if they gave the prize elsewhere was not known, but the decision met with as general satisfaction as could well be expected.
”The second prize,” said the judges, ”goes to the gent calling himself the Black Knight--him in the iron leggings--and the other prize for the most original costume goes to him, too.” Half the crowd cheered at this, and only one man hissed. Hefty, filled with joy and with the antic.i.p.ation of the elegance the ice-pitcher would lend to his flat when he married Miss Casey, and how conveniently he could fill it, turned on this gentleman and told him that only geese hissed.
The gentleman, who had spent much time on his costume, and who had been a.s.sured by each judge on each occasion that evening when he had treated him to beer that he would get the prize, told Hefty to go lie down. It has never been explained just what horrible insult lies back of this advice, but it is a very dangerous thing to tell a gentleman to do. Hefty lifted one foot heavily and bore down on the disappointed masker like an ironclad in a heavy sea. But before he could reach him Policeman McCluire, mindful of the insult put upon him by this stranger, sprang between them and said: ”Here, now, no sc.r.a.pping here; get out of this,” and shoved Hefty back with his hand. Hefty uttered a mighty howl of wrath and long-cherished anger, and lurched forward, but before he could reach his old-time enemy three policemen had him around the arms and by the leg, and he was as effectually stopped as though he had been chained to the floor.
”Let go o' me,” said Hefty, wildly. ”You're smotherin' me. Give me a fair chance at him.”
But they would not give him any sort of a chance. They rushed him down the steep stairs, and while McCluire ran ahead two more pushed back the crowd that had surged uncertainly forward to the rescue. If Hefty had declared his ident.i.ty the police would have had a very sad time of it; but that he must not get Mr. Carstairs's two-thousand-franc suit into trouble was all that filled Hefty's mind, and all that he wanted was to escape. Three policemen walked with him down the street. They said they knew where he lived, and that they were only going to take him home. They said this because they were afraid the crowd would interfere if it imagined Hefty was being led to the precinct station-house.
But Hefty knew where he was going as soon as he turned the next corner and was started off in the direction of the station-house. There was still quite a small crowd at his heels, and Stuff McGovern was driving along at the side anxious to help, but fearful to do anything, as Hefty had told him not to let any one know who his fare had been and that his incognito must be preserved.
The blood rushed to Hefty's head like hot liquor. To be arrested for nothing, and by that thing McCluire, and to have the n.o.ble coat-of-mail of the Marquis de Neuville locked up in a dirty cell and probably ruined, and to lose his position with Carstairs, who had always treated him so well, it was terrible! It could not be! He looked through his visor; to the right and to the left a policeman walked on each side of him with his hand on his iron sleeve, and McCluire marched proudly before. The dim lamps of McGovern's night-hawk shone at the side of the procession and showed the crowd trailing on behind. Suddenly Hefty threw up his visor ”Stuff,” he cried, ”are youse with me?”
He did not wait for any answer, but swung back his two iron arms and then brought them forward with a sweep on to the back of the necks of the two policemen. They went down and forward as if a lamp-post had fallen on them, but were up again in a second. But before they could rise Hefty set his teeth, and with a gurgle of joy b.u.t.ted his iron helmet into McCluire's back and sent him flying forward into a snow-bank. Then he threw himself on him and buried him under three hundred pounds of iron and flesh and blood, and beat him with his mailed hand over the head and choked the snow and ice down into his throat and nostrils.
”You'll club me again, will you?” he cried. ”You'll send me to the Island?” The two policemen were pounding him with their night-sticks as effectually as though they were rapping on a door-step; and the crowd, seeing this, fell on them from behind, led by Stuff McGovern with his whip, and rolled them in the snow and tried to tear off their coat-tails, which means money out of the policeman's own pocket for repairs, and hurts more than broken ribs, as the Police Benefit Society pays for them.