Part 19 (1/2)

”Well,” said Cornish, stating the point of agreement after the Captain's trouble had been fully discussed, ”unfortunately 'the right to be a cussed fool is safe from all devices human,' and there doesn't seem to be any remedy.”

It all came, thought I, as Jim and I sat silent after Cornish and the Captain went out, from the fact that Bill's present condition in life gave those tendencies to which he had always been p.r.o.ne to yield, a chance for unrestricted growth. He ought to have staid with his steers.

Cattle and corn were the only things in which he could take an interest sufficiently keen to keep him from drink. These habits of his were enacting the old story of the lop-eared rabbits in Australia--overrunning the country. Bill had been as sober a citizen as one could desire, as long as his house-building occupied his time; and he and Josie had worked together as companionably as they used to do in the hay and wheat. But now he was drifting away from her. Her father should have staid on the farm.

”Do you know,” said I, ”that Giddings is making about as great a fool of himself as Bill?”

”Yes,” said Jim, ”but that's because he's in a terrible state of mind about his marriage. If we can keep him from delirium tremens until after the wedding, he'll be all right. Some Italian brain-sharp has written up cases like his, and he'll be all right. But with Bill it's different....

Do you remember our old Shep?”

”No,” I returned wonderingly, almost impatiently. ”What about him?”

”Well,” he mused, ”I've been picking up knowledge of men for a while along back; and I've come to prize more highly the personal history of dogs; and Shep was worth a biography for its own sake, to say nothing of the value of a typical case. He was a woolly collie, who would cheerfully have given up his life for the cows and sheep. Anything in his line, that a dog could grasp, Shep knew, and he was busier than a cranberry-merchant the year around, and the happiest thing on the farm.

Then our folks moved to Mayville, and took him along. He wasn't fitted for town life at all. He'd lie on the front piazza, and search the street for cows and sheep, and when one came along he'd stick his sharp nose through the fence, and whine as if some one was whipping him. In less than six weeks he bit a baby; in two months he was the most depraved dog in Mayville, and in three ... he died.”

I had no answer for the apologue--not even for the self-condemnatory tone in which he told it. Presently he rose to go, and said that he would not be back.

”Don't forget our date at the club this evening,” said he, as he pa.s.sed out. ”Your style of diplomacy always seems to win with these down-East bankers. Your experience as rob-ee gives you the right handshake and the subscribed-and-sworn-to look that does their business for 'em every time. Good-by until then.”

Our club was the terminal bud of our growth, and was housed in a building of which we were enormously proud. It was managed by a steward imported from New York, whose salary was made large to harmonize with his manners--that being the only way in which the majority of our members felt equal to living up to them. So far as money could make a club, ours was of high rank. There were meat-cooks and pastry-cooks in incredible numbers, under the command of a French chef, who ruled the house committee with a rod of iron. We were all members as a matter of public duty. I have often wondered what the servants, brought from Eastern cities, thought of it all. To see Bill Trescott and Aleck Macdonald going in through the great door, noiselessly swung open for them by an attendant in livery, was a sight to be remembered. The chief ornament of the club was Cornish, who lived there.

”I want to see Mr. Cornish,” said I to the servant who took my overcoat, that evening.

”Right this way, sir,” said he. ”Mr. Giddings is with him. He gave orders for you to be shown up.”

Cornish sat at a little round table on which there were some bottles and gla.s.ses. The tipple was evidently ale, and Mr. Giddings was standing opposite, lifting a gla.s.s in one hand and pointing at it with the other, in evident imitation of the att.i.tude in which the late Mr. Gough loved to have himself pictured; but the sentiments of the two speakers were quite different.

”'Turn out more ale; turn up the light!'”

Giddings glanced at the electric light-fixtures, and then looked about as if for a servant to turn them up.

”'I will not go to bed to-night!

For, of all foes that man should dread, The first and worst one is a bed!

Friends I have had, both old and young; Ale have we drunk, and songs we've sung.

Enough you know when this is said, That, one and all, they died in bed!'”

Here Giddings's voice broke with grief, and he stopped to drink the rest of the gla.s.sful, and went on:

”'In bed they died, and I'll not go Where all my friends have perished so!

Go, ye who fain would buried be; But not to-night a bed for me!'”

”Do you often have these Horatian fits?” I inquired.

”Base groveler!” said he, ”if you can't rise to the level of the occasion, don't b.u.t.t in.”

”'For me to-night no bed prepare, But set me out my oaken chair, And bid me other guests beside The ghosts that shall around me glide!'”

”You will, of course,” said Cornish, ”permit us to withdraw for the purpose of having our conference with our Eastern friends? If I take your meaning, you'll not be alone.”

”Not by a jugful, I'll not be alone!” said Giddings, tossing off another gla.s.s: