Volume Ii Part 22 (1/2)

”Well, there they air; they are going to give it to her,” the policeman announced.

He had an odious appearance of being in the right, for there indeed they seemed to be--they were giving it to her. A general hubbub rose from the floor and the galleries of the hall--the sound of several thousand people stamping with their feet and rapping with their umbrellas and sticks. Ransom felt faint, and for a little while he stood with his gaze interlocked with that of the policeman. Then suddenly a wave of coolness seemed to break over him, and he exclaimed: ”My dear fellow, that isn't applause--it's impatience. It isn't a reception, it's a call!”

The policeman neither a.s.sented to this proposition nor denied it; he only transferred the protuberance in his cheek to the other side, and observed:

”I guess she's sick.”

”Oh, I hope not!” said Ransom, very gently. The stamping and rapping swelled and swelled for a minute, and then it subsided; but before it had done so Ransom's definition of it had plainly become the true one.

The tone of the manifestation was good-humoured, but it was not gratulatory. He looked at his watch again, and saw that five minutes more had elapsed, and he remembered what the newspaperman in Charles Street had said about Olive's guaranteeing Verena's punctuality. Oddly enough, at the moment the image of this gentleman recurred to him, the gentleman himself burst through the other door, in a state of the liveliest agitation.

”Why in the name of goodness don't she go on? If she wants to make them call her, they've done it about enough!” Mr. Pardon turned, pressingly, from Ransom to the policeman and back again, and in his preoccupation gave no sign of having met the Mississippian before.

”I guess she's sick,” said the policeman.

”The public'll be sick!” cried the distressed reporter. ”If she's sick, why doesn't she send for a doctor? All Boston is packed into this house, and she has got to talk to it. I want to go in and see.”

”You can't go in,” said the policeman drily.

”Why can't I go in, I should like to know? I want to go in for the _Vesper_”!

”You can't go in for anything. I'm keeping this man out, too,” the policeman added genially, as if to make Mr. Pardon's exclusion appear less invidious.

”Why, they'd ought to let _you_ in,” said Matthias, staring a moment at Ransom.

”May be they'd ought, but they won't,” the policeman remarked.

”Gracious me!” panted Mr. Pardon; ”I knew from the first Miss Chancellor would make a mess of it! Where's Mr. Filer?” he went on eagerly, addressing himself apparently to either of the others, or to both.

”I guess he's at the door, counting the money,” said the policeman.

”Well, he'll have to give it back if he don't look out!”

”Maybe he will. I'll let _him_ in if he comes, but he's the only one.

She is on now,” the policeman added, without emotion.

His ear had caught the first faint murmur of another explosion of sound.

This time, unmistakably, it was applause--the clapping of mult.i.tudinous hands, mingled with the noise of many throats. The demonstration, however, though considerable, was not what might have been expected, and it died away quickly. Mr. Pardon stood listening, with an expression of some alarm. ”Merciful fathers! can't they give her more than that?” he cried. ”I'll just fly round and see!”

When he had hurried away again, Ransom said to the policeman--”Who is Mr. Filer?”

”Oh, he's an old friend of mine. He's the man that runs Miss Chancellor.”

”That runs her?”

”Just the same as she runs Miss Tarrant. He runs the pair, as you might say. He's in the lecture-business.”

”Then he had better talk to the public himself.”

”Oh, _he_ can't talk; he can only boss!”