Part 11 (2/2)

Now tell us all about the family, as the only one of them I have met is Miss Millicent. Why, this is a regular find, old man! You should have told me a week ago that you possessed all this information that I have been aching to get hold of.”

Thus adjured, Mr. Boggs entered upon his story. From which it appeared that he knew the Ferns, root and branch, and had dined with them dozens of times.

”What sort of a chap is the pater?” asked Weil.

”A very well-kept man of nearly seventy, with a great deal of what is called 'breeding' in his manner, and a face like the portrait of a French marquis cut out of a seventeenth century frame. He doesn't look like a business man at all, and between ourselves he's not much of a one. All the money he ever made--saving my apparent egotism--was when I was in the concern. I've heard he's got a big mortgage on his residence and is going down hill generally. Too bad; nice fellow; sorry for him; such is life.”

Archie asked if Boggs would do him a personal and particular favor, if it would not cause him much trouble; and on being answered in the affirmative, said he would esteem it a great honor if he could be introduced to Mr. Fern by that gentleman's former business a.s.sociate.

”I suppose I shall run across him at Midlands, some evening,” he said, ”and get one of those presentations that are the most aggravating things in the world. I don't want that to happen, and the best way, to use an elegant phrase, is to take the bull by the horns, or in this case, the sheep by the tail. Will you make an accidental call on him to-morrow afternoon and let me be of the party?”

Mr. Boggs responded that he would be delighted. And this matter being settled, all parties could give more direct attention to their lunch than they had been doing for the preceding ten minutes.

”You must have heard of my friend Boggs, in the days when he was a figure on the streets of this town,” said Weil, presently, returning to what he knew was the favorite subject of that personage. ”You've lived here for twenty years, and of course the name of Walker Boggs is familiar to you.”

Mr. Gouger looked a good counterfeit of complete mystification for some seconds, and then a gleam as of sudden recollection shot across his face.

”Certainly, certainly!” he said. ”Mr. Boggs was what is popularly known as a lady killer, if I am not mistaken. You got married, did you not, Mr. Boggs, some ten or eleven years ago?”

The party addressed acknowledged the practical correctness of the date.

”Why, it comes back as plain as day,” said the critic. ”The _Herald_ had a page about you, including your portrait and some verses by a well known poet. It said your marriage had cast a gloom over Manhattan Island and some of the up-river counties.”

Mr. Boggs gloomily nodded, to show that the statement was true. Then he touched his most rotund portion with a significant look.

”I'm a widower now,” he said, ”and nothing but this--_this_--stands in my way. As Shakespeare says, ''Tis not as deep as a well, nor as wide as a church door, but--' The ladies never look at me now, and all on account of this d--d flesh, which hangs like a millstone around my neck.”

Cutt & Slashem's critic, ignoring the peculiar character of the metaphor used, remarked politely that he thought no lady of sense would put great stress on such an insignificant matter.

”Insignificant!” echoed Boggs. ”I'll bet it's fifty inches around, come! And it's not the 'ladies of sense' I'm after. Quite the contrary.”

One of Archie Weil's explosive laughs followed this statement, which caused an expression of mild injury to settle over the countenance of Mr. Boggs.

”You're getting on toward forty, and you ought to quit,” said Weil.

”Confound the women! Let them go.”

”That's well enough to talk about,” replied Boggs, gruffly. ”How would you like to follow your own advice?”

Weil uttered an exclamation.

”I? I have precious little to do with them, I a.s.sure you. For a man of my correct habits I have the worst name of any one I know. Everybody insinuates things about me, and they can prove nothing.”

”We'll ask Isaac Leveson about that,” sneered Boggs. ”By-the-way, that wouldn't be a bad place to take young Roseleaf to, when you get to instructing him in earnest. I met the young fellow on the avenue last night and walked around with him for a couple of hours. He's a darling!”

”Roseleaf?” cried both the other gentlemen, in one breath.

<script>