Part 30 (1/2)

It was evening. The Interpreter was sitting in his wheel chair on the balcony porch with silent Billy not far away. Beyond the hills on the west the sky was faintly glowing in the last of the sun's light. The Flats were deep in gloomy shadows out of which the grim stacks of the Mill rose toward the smoky darkness of their overhanging cloud. Here and there among the poor homes of the workers a lighted window or a lonely street lamp shone in the murky dusk. But the lights of the business section of the city gleamed and sparkled like cl.u.s.ters and strings of jewels, while the residence districts on the hillside were marked by hundreds of twinkling, starlike points.

The quiet was rudely broken by a voice at the outer doorway of the hut.

The tone was that of boisterous familiarity. ”h.e.l.lo! h.e.l.lo there!

Anybody home?”

”Here,” answered the Interpreter. ”Come in. Or, I should say, come out,” he added, as his visitor found his way through the darkness of the living room. ”A night like this is altogether too fine to spend under a roof.”

”Why in thunder don't you have a light?” said the visitor, with a loud freedom carefully calculated to give the effect of old and privileged comrades.h.i.+p. But the laugh of hearty good fellows.h.i.+p which followed his next remark was a trifle overdone ”Ain't afraid of bombs, are you?

Don't you know that the war is over yet?”

The Interpreter obligingly laughed at the merry witticism, as he answered, ”There is light enough out here under the stars to think by.

How are you, Adam Ward?”

From where he stood in the doorway, Adam could see the dim figure of the Interpreter's companion at the farther end of the porch. ”Who is that with you?” demanded the Mill owner suspiciously.

”Only Billy Rand,” replied the man in the wheel chair rea.s.suringly.

”Won't you sit down?”

Before accepting the invitation to be seated, Adam advanced upon the man in the wheel chair with outstretched hands, as if eagerly meeting a most intimate friend whose regard he prized above all other relations.h.i.+ps of life. Seizing the Interpreter's hand, he clung to it in an excess of cordiality, all the while pouring out between short laughs of pretended gladness, a hurried volume of excuses for having so long delayed calling upon his dear old friend. To any one at all acquainted with the man, it would have been very clear that he wanted something.

”It seems ages since I saw you,” he declared, as he seated himself at last. ”It's a shame for a man to neglect an old friend as I have neglected you.”

The Interpreter returned, calmly, ”The last time you called was just before your son enlisted. You wanted me to help you keep him at home.”

It was too dark to see Adam's face. ”So it was, I remember now.” There was a suggestion of nervousness in the laugh which followed his words.

”The time before that,” said the Interpreter evenly, ”was when Tom Blair was killed in the Mill. You wanted me to persuade Tom's widow that you were in no way liable for the accident.”

The barometer of Adam's friendliness dropped another degree. ”That affair was finally settled at five thousand,” he said, and this time he did not laugh.

”The time before that,” said the Interpreter, ”was when your old friend Peter Martin's wife died. You wanted me to explain to the workmen who attended the funeral how necessary it was for you to take that hour out of their pay checks.”

”You have a good memory,” said the visitor, coldly, as he stirred uneasily in the dusk.

”I have,” agreed the man in the wheel chair; ”I find it a great blessing at times. It is the only thing that preserves my sense of humor. It is not always easy to preserve one's sense of humor, is it, Adam Ward?”

When the Mill owner answered, his voice, more than his words, told how determined he was to hold his ground of pleasant, friendly comrades.h.i.+p, at least until he had gained the object of his visit.

”Don't you ever get lonesome up here? Sort of gloomy, ain't it--especially at nights?”

”Oh, no,” returned the Interpreter; ”I have many interesting callers; there are always my work and my books and always, night and day, I have our Mill over there.”

”Heh! What! _Our_ Mill! Where? Oh, I see--yes--_our_ Mill--that's good!

_Our_ Mill!”

”Surely you will admit that I have some small interest in the Mill where we once worked side by side, will you not, Adam?”

”Oh, yes,” laughed Adam, helping on the jest. ”But let me see--I don't exactly recall the amount of your investment--what was it you put in?”