Part 12 (1/2)

”Your singlet, sir,” said Leighton, picking up the unders.h.i.+rt from the bed. Article after article he handed to his son in allotted order. Lewis put each thing on as fast as his nervous hands would let him. He tried to keep his eyes from wandering to the head of the line, where lay collar and tie. The collar had been b.u.t.toned to the back of the s.h.i.+rt, but when it came to fastening it in front, Lewis's fingers fumbled hopelessly.

”Allow me, sir,” said Leighton. He fastened the collar deftly. ”I see you don't like that tie with the flannels, sir. My mistake.”

He threw open the trunk, and took out a brown cravat of soft silk. ”Your brown scarf, sir. It goes well with the flannels. Will you watch in the gla.s.s, sir?” He placed the cravat, measured it carefully, knotted it, and drew it up.

Lewis did not watch in the mirror. His eyes were fixed on his father's mask of a face. He knew that, inside, his father was bubbling with fun; but no ripple showed in his face, no disrespectful twinkle in his eye.

Leighton was playing the game. Suddenly, for no reason that he could name, Lewis began to adore his father.

”Will that do, sir?”

”Certainly,” stammered Lewis. ”Very nicely, thank you”

”Thank _you_, sir,” said Leighton. He handed Lewis the flannel trousers and then the coat.

As Lewis finished putting them on, Leighton whirled on his heel.

”Ready, my boy?” The mask was gone.

Lewis laughed back into his father's twinkling eyes.

”Yes, I'm ready,” he said rather breathlessly. He followed his father out of the room. The new clothes gripped him in awkward places, but as he glanced down at the well-pressed flannels, he felt glorified.

That night, while strolling in a back street of the lower town, they discovered a tunnel running into the cliff. At its mouth was a turnstile.

”Shades of Avernus! What's this?” asked Leighton.

Lewis inquired of the gateman.

”It's an elevator to the upper town,” he said.

They paid their fare and walked into the long tunnel. At its end they found a prehistoric elevator and a terrific stench. Leighton clapped his handkerchief to his nose and dived into the waiting car. Lewis followed him. An attendant started the car, and slowly they crept up and up, two hundred feet, to the crest of the cliff. As they emerged, Leighton let go a mighty breath.

”Holy mackerel!” he said, ”and what was that? Ugh! it's here yet!”

The attendant explained. At the bottom of the shaft was a pit into which sank the great chains of the car. The pit was full of crude castor-oil, cheapest and best of lubricants.

”My boy,” said Leighton, as he led the way at a rapid stride toward the hotel, ”never confuse the picturesque with the ugly. I can stand a bit of local color in the way of smells, but there's such a thing as going too far, and that went it. We'll prepare at once to leave this town.

Would you like to go north or south?”

”I don't know, sir,” said Lewis.

”Well, we'll just climb on board that big double-funnel that came in to-day and leave it to her. What do you say?”

They went south. Four days later, in the early morning, Lewis was wakened by a bath-robe hurled at his head.

”Put that on and come up on deck quick!” commanded his father.

Lewis gasped when he reached the deck. They were just entering the harbor. On the left, so close that it seemed to threaten them, loomed the Sugar-Loaf. On the right, the wash of the steamer creamed on the rocks of Santa Cruz. Before them opened the mighty bay, dotted with a hundred islands, some crowned with foliage, others with gleaming, white walls, and one with an aspiring minaret. Between water and sky stretched the city. There was no horizon, for the jagged wall of the Organ Mountains towered in a circle into the misty blue. Heaven and earth were one.