Riddles (Bacheller)/Chapter 1
A TWO-PART STORY—PART ONE
Chapter One
John Riddles, the young and wealthy Mill Owner, whose health has been impaired by the Tyranny of Success and the Pivot Chair and the Soft Embrace of Luxury, revolts and goes on a vacation, and for the first time he enjoys the Companionship of Himself and of Good Digestion, and meets a Singular Character, and gets a real job.
“WHOA! Hold up!” said Riddles. “Pull out of the road a little and stop your engine.”
The chauffeur obeyed his master.
“Say, I'll give you a vacation if you'll give me one,” Riddles proposed.
“Anything the matter?” the chauffeur asked with a puzzled look.
“Yes. I'm smothered in luxury and half paralyzed in the affectionate embrace of comfort. I'm dying of idleness. My internal organs have knocked off—struck, as you might say. If a man's feet and hands are doing nothing, his internal organs insist upon the same privilege. Here's where I hop out of the lap of luxury.”
Riddles arose, drew his silver-mounted walking-stick out of the golf bag and stepped to the ground and added:
“Jones, I'm a discontented rebel. I'm sick of the odors of crude oil and gasoline and carbon dioxide. I'm tired of the look of blurred landscapes. You may return and put the car in Bell's garage and go on a month's vacation.”
“You don't mean to pike off in the hot sun, do you?” the chauffeur asked with a look of astonishment.
“Yes, I'm going to burn the carbon out of my cylinders and push on with my own power. Once I get the old engine tuned up it will take me anywhere. It has more gears than any piece of machinery you ever saw. I don't know where I am—couldn't even tell the name of the state—and I guess you don't know, if anybody should ask you.”
The chauffeur, with a puzzled look, turned the car and said before starting:
“Aint you goin' to take a grip with you?”
“Nary a grip!” said Riddles. “Going to travel light. No baggage but a tooth-brush. When I need clothes I'll buy 'em.”
The car started on its homeward journey and Riddles, the famous Riddles of Bell harbor, was alone on a strange country road in a beautiful valley of New England. He was taking a rest. His men had struck, and then he had struck suddenly and unexpectedly. His men had gathered about the gates of the mill prepared to throw brick and stones. Suddenly they discovered that there was no one to throw them at. Riddles had closed the plant and gone off for a holiday. In their talk with each other his help were wont to refer to him as “the old man” and to speak longingly of his “wad.”
“What does he expect to do with his wad?” one of them had asked in a public meeting. “He's nobody but himself. I suppose he thinks that he can't afford to git married.”
The truth is that Riddles was only twenty-nine; his “wad” was undoubtedly large—the largest in the city of Bellcharbor—and he was a bachelor, but a rather discontented one. He had built the big Hotel Teneriffe largely for his own accommodation. Still, its crowded corridors and dining-rooms had not relieved his loneliness.
“A man of your wealth ought to have a wife and a home,” a friend had said to him one day.
“It's my success which has stood in the way of it,” he had answered. “Wealth is a dangerous thing. It is hard on women. Look at those we know. If I could find a girl who had the right view of money and was not likely to be spoiled by it, I'd marry her quick if she'd have me. Doubtless there are many such, but they don't seem to come my way.”
Riddles stood looking down into the fertile, green valley. Mowing machines were flanging across the meadows and filling the air with their familiar battle-song. A gentle breeze came off the shorn lands laden with odors which he had known and loved in his boyhood—clover and daisies and wild strawberries and timothy. He had been raised in a fine old New England homestead surrounded by fertile acres, and there he had laid the foundation of his big structure of bone and muscle which had made him one of the most formidable heroes of the stadium in his college days.
He took a letter from his pocket which he had received at his last stopping place and reread it. The letter was from John Galt, his friend and superintendent. He gave particular attention to this item:
If convenient I wish you would stop at Coulterville and call on my friends. It is an ancient stronghold of the Galts' who are scattered through the hills and valleys. Be sure to see my uncle, David Galt, who has more influence than any man in that county. The sweetest girl in the world has a summer home near there. Her name is Harriet Martin. Her mother is a widow. They live on a farm. I have seen Miss Harriet twice and was to have met her in New York last winter, but the trip to Europe defeated my plan. I wish you could get acquainted with her and organize a dinner party at the Inn and invite me. I could run up for a day as well as not. Be careful, I beg of you, not to fall in love with her yourself. If you were not girl-proof I wouldn't trust you with such a mission—darned if I would.
He folded the letter and put it back in his pocket with a smile and started down the road.
“Girl-proof!” he laughed. “That shows that he doesn't know me. Poor devil! I'll give him a scare.”
IT WAS a relief to get rid of the car and its noises and its oleaginous flavors and its swirl of wind. Now he could hear the songs of the birds and smell the breath of the meadows. Moreover, he felt a joy and a stimulation in the use of his bones and muscles.
“I should think it couldn't be far from here,” he said to himself as he went on.
In fact it was not. At the corners, not half a mile farther on, he saw a sign-board which directed him into the road to Coulterville sixteen miles ahead.
In a few minutes he came upon a farmer working with a scythe near the road wall.
“Do you need any help?” Riddles asked.
The farmer looked at the traveler about whom there was a rich glow of blue silk and polished tan leather and clean gray flannel and spotless tweed and artful tailoring.
“Do I want any help? Of course I do. Everybody wants help these days,” the farmer answered.
“Would you give me a job?” Riddles asked.
The farmer smiled and felt his beard thoughtfully as he answered:
“Say, I've hired tramps an' boys an' ol' men, an' I've got one feller that escaped from the insane asylum; but I don't want no millionaires.”
Riddles laughed at the shrewdness of the man who stood resting on his scythe. “There's no getting away from it once you have the mark on you,” he thought.
“I'm a working man the same as you are,” he declared. “I haven't forgot how to swing a scythe or handle a pitchfork. Give me a trial.”
“Say, mister, if I was to' give you a job, do ye know what I'd want ye to do?” the farmer asked. “I'd tell ye to keep right on walkin' 'til ye got out o' sight. You could earn more for me travelin' than ye could makin' hay. You're a good feller too, an' I'll bet on it.”
“YOU don't seem to like the look of me,” Riddles laughed.
“I do like it, an' that's all that's the matter with ye,” the farmer went on. “I like it so well that I'd just love to set down an' do nothin' but look at ye all day—you're so gol' darn han'some. Senators and Presidents an' bankers ain't no good in a hay medder. We never hire 'em in the summer time. Did you ever see a millionaire livin' on a farm?”
“No, but I've seen a farm livin' on a millionaire,” said Riddles.
The farmer laughed. “Say, you've said it,” he answered. “Seems so the farm jumped up in the air an' landed on his back as if it wanted a ride.”
“A farm doesn't know how to behave in swell society,” said Riddles as he began to walk on.
“Say, mister, I'll give ye a dollar if you'll set down here an' tell me who ye be an' what's the matter with ye,” the farmer called. “Have ye escaped from that damn insane asylum? If there's any screw loose in ye, maybe I can tighten it.”
“Yes. I've escaped from a large insane asylum. Built it myself an' have lived in it for eight years. But I shall not need your screw-driver—got one o' my own.”
Riddles went on down the road. It was a beautiful countryside of smooth and fertile farms and neat, white houses and well-kept yards. The hills were crowned with light-green savin spires, tall and shapely. Here and there a great elm towered above the meadow flats and flung its feathery dome into the sky.
After a walk of an hour or so he was overtaken by a traveling store—a large, square, glowing, red box mounted on a Ford chassis, its sides lettered in gold with the legend:
“Farmers' Supply Company of Boston, A. Hinchman, Agent.”
A number of hand rakes and pitchforks rested on top of the box. As it was getting on toward luncheon time with no tavern in sight, Riddles accepted the invitation of the driver and climbed up beside him for a lift.
“I am A. Hinchman, Agent,” said the driver.
“I congratulate you. My name is Riddles.”
“I used to shave a man by the name o' Riddles—Lemuel Riddles—I took care o' his face for him for about six years,” said A. Hinchman. “It was in good condition, too, when I turned it over to another man. Not a pimple on it!”
“You talk as if you had fed and watered it and given it exercise,” said Riddles with a smile.
“You bet I kep' it smooth,” the pedler went on. “It was half an acre o' face, too. You see, before I began shovin' this store around the country I was in the barber business down in Portsmouth. That kind o' led up to this.”
“How so?”
“It was the gift o' gab I got there,” Hinchman went on. “It's wonderful how it draws a man out mowin' whiskers an' trimmin' hair. You hear all kinds o' talk. In head work ye just naturally learn how to use your head. Honest, a few years of it is as good as a college education. I got to be some talker. You put a parrot in a barber shop and in a little while he's quite a bird. It would surprise ye to see how much he'll pick up. One day I was cuttin' a man's hair, 'Say,' he says when I got through, 'you ought to be sellin' goods. You can talk a man helpless. He'd buy to get rid o' you. If you ever want a job come to my office.' I went and have been earnin' nigh onto sixty dollars a week since, which ain't bad wages.”
They came to a road inn, presently, where Riddles invited Mr. A. Hinchman, Agent, to have lunch with him. It was a flat and uninteresting bit of country thereabouts and so Riddles, although weary of the trader's talk, rode on with him after luncheon.
“DO YOU happen to know where the Martin farm is?” Riddles asked.
“The widow Martin's?—you bet,” said Hinchman. “Was there this morning. Sold 'em some forks an' rakes an' a lot o' plates an' napkins for a picnic. They're goin' off for a picnic somewhere this afternoon. It's only a few miles up the road.”
About two o'clock they came to a shady grove filled with the murmur of flowing water.
“Here's where I leave you,” said Riddles. “I'm going to lie down here in the shade and take a nap.”
“I turn into the road to Hope Center just above,” said A. Hinchman. “I'll stop and look for ye when I come back, by an' by. Maybe you'll want to go on with me toward the Notch. I like yer company, darned if I don't.”
The pedler drove on and Riddles entered the grove which had been the resort of picnic parties. There were dead ashes in a little stone arch near which there were crusts of bread and crumpled pieces of wrapping-paper. A river, near the road, sped over its rocky bed between high shores. Invited by its sound he went and looked down into the river alley, cedared on both sides, almost to the water's edge. He lay on a mossy bank in the cool shade of the grove and closed his eyes. He was weary. The song of the river and the smell of ferns and grasses were grateful to him. He fell into sleep and pleasant dreams of a time long past. The jar of approaching footsteps soon awoke him.
“Hello ol' pal!” said a cheerful voice.
Riddles rose and rubbed his eyes. A tall man in faded and seedy garments stood before him with a stout, crooked stick in his hand. The lower part of the bronzed face was covered with black stubble. A mass of dark, dusty, unkempt hair showed beneath the dirty, torn crown of his straw hat. His face had a grimy look.
“Hello!” Riddles answered.
“I'm kind o' scared o' you,” said the tramp. “I hope you're a man o' good morals.”
“Why?”
“You're such a disreputable looking cuss. Haven't you got any decent clothes? Anybody would think that you were nothing but a cheap, common millionaire.”
Riddles looked at himself and laughed.
“You look like a worn-out New England farm—run down, but not quite deserted,” he remarked.
“There's still a man in the house,” said the tramp. “Sir, is there anything I can do for you? I should judge that you have seen better days. I don't know as I can afford to get mixed up with ye. By George! I believe you'd work for a living—darned if I don't. You look like one of those unprincipled fellers who would tell the truth when a lie would answer better. Darned if I don't believe you would stand beside a keg of beer and drown your sorrows in cold water.”
Riddles surveyed the humorous tramp with a smile and said: “I should judge that you and water haven't met for years. I suppose you are afraid o' being drowned? What a flavor of history you carry with you!”
“You are wrong. I am a man without a history. A history is expensive. I couldn't afford it. Only kings and nations can indulge in such extravagance. I haven't even a past. It has been wiped off the slate. I have nothing in the world but a promising present and a golden, magnificent future all depending on your generosity.”
“It's a slender thread,” said Riddles with a smile. “I haven't enough generosity to satisfy my own needs. What's the matter with your generosity? Looks as if it had been kind o' stingy with ye.”
“How modern! You meet a man starving in the desert and you say, 'Be generous to yourself, old man.'”
“WHAT is the matter with you anyhow?” Riddles asked.
“Refinement, sir—native-born refinement. I hate hay and cattle and saws and scythes and rakes and forks and shovels. But chiefly of saws I sing. I get drunk, when I can, because it helps me to forget 'em. In the red cup I see and feel the greatness of my future—marble halls and noble company. I am filled with the undaunted resolve of that sagacious man who, having overcome the sacred town of Ilium, wandered far and visited the capitals of many nations and endured great sufferings on the deep. Oh, what I need is brain-work and plenty of it. If I had nothing to do but sit down to a lot of big problems you'd see how I'd eat 'em up.”
“Then why try to solve the problem of living nowhere on nothing?” was Riddles' inquiry.
“I've got so much nothing that I'm a slave to it—an abject slave,” said the tramp. “It holds me in its grasp like a tyrant.”
“And sticks out like a load of hay,” said Riddles.
“Sir, if I asked you for work, you'd give me a saw and send me out to the shed, wouldn't you?” the tramp asked. “You wouldn't take me to the mahogany desk and put a pen in my hand—that's sure. So I go on, from saw to saw, and arrive nowhere with nothing.”
“Why don't you save what you earn and then earn more until you can dump your rags?”
“Nobody will have me around long. They're scared of me and they treat me like a dog. I have a sensitive nature. I can not stand it. I stayed in one place a week-and slept in the hay-loft and ate in the shed—me a eating in a shed! Then I got into a quarrel with a coarse brute of a hired man and left. I hadn't enough to buy clothes, and so I bought whisky and forgot my troubles and enjoyed a day of unusual self-respect.”
“Whisky is a good friend until it's overworked,” said Riddles with a smile. “Then it goes to kickin' ye and every kick tears a hole in yer pants.”
“I AM accustomed to the cold brutality of such remarks,” the tramp answered. “Nobody understands me. When I emit a spark of cheerful hope, some hippopotamus comes along and quenches it with his cold, broad foot, as Lowell would have said. If only I could have a day worth remembering, I would no longer care to forget! My light is hidden under this bushel of dirty rags. What would you expect from me? I am a target for profanity and insult—a receptacle for stale bread and cold coffee and half-picked bones. I am a thing for dogs to bark at. Whichever way I turn the saw confronts me, I shudder at the thought of its serpent hiss. Good sir, if I had that suit you are wearing and only a little money the gate of Opportunity would open at once for me. I could begin, to-morrow, a life of usefulness and self respect.”
“I guess the clothes would fit you all right,” said Riddles. “You are about my size and build. Respectability is another matter. Still a man ought to be able to make that fit him if he wanted to. The suit is not important to me.”
“But consider what it would mean to me—the difference between misery and happiness, between success and failure.”
“Your talents are quite apparent,” said Riddles. “You have almost talked the clothes off my back. If I had a decent hired man's suit to put on, I'd give 'em to you—darned if I wouldn't. A week's work in a hay-field would do me good anyhow.”
“Let's have a smoke,” Riddles added after a little silence as he gave the tramp a cigar. “Meanwhile let us walk together.”
They rose and started for the road. They had not reached it when Riddles saw the pedler's store coming. A. Hinchman, Agent, stopped the engine, dismounted and approached the two men.
“Say, Hinchman, what do you sell?” Riddles asked.
“Anything that a farmer needs from a whetstone to a family Bible.”
“Any clothes?”
“Just one farm suit left.”
“Would it fit me?”
“Wouldn't wonder. It's A size.”
“Let me see it.”
The pedler opened his little store and took out the suit. “It's forty-four inch chest, light material, blue-and-white stripe, cool, durable an' well made.”
“How about shoes, socks and underwear?”
“Got plenty of 'em, any size, weight or color.”
“Give me a complete outfit and I'll step back o' the bushes and try 'em on,” said Riddles.
“Be you goin' into the farmin' business?” the pedler asked, as with an armful of goods he accompanied Mr. Riddles.
“I be—if you can succeed in putting the right look on me.”
“Say, if you're lookin' for a job—there's plenty of 'em at big wages. I don't know but I could get ye one with our company. They want a good talker in the store at Hopeville. It's good for fifty dollars a week.”
“Don't try to spoil me with high life,” said Riddles. “I'm lookin' for work and not for conversation.”
The pedler looked at him with a puzzled expression and began to talk about “the farmin' business”—of health, hay and happiness growing while you sleep, of large yields and high prices.
Meanwhile Riddles took off his fine raiment and put on the farm suit. Its striped trousers did not quite reach the tops of his coarse cowhide shoes. The coat sleeves were a little too short and the coat itself showed a general lack of capacity. The coarse, cotton shirt had no collar. As he looked down at himself he remarked in the dialect of his fathers:
“Say, by gosh, I feel as full of fun as a barrel o' hard cider. If it don't cost too much, I'll keep it. What's the tariff?”
“The feelin's don't cost a cent—the outfit complete is twenty-seven dollars,” said the pedler. “There's no jay in this country that's got anything on you.”
“Except perfumery,” said Riddles as he smelled his coat sleeve. “Where did you get it?”
“IT'S like bait on a fish-hook,” said A Hinchman. “I put a little on all my drygoods.”
“And now it's on me. Violets! Gosh almighty! I look like a tramp and smell like a society queen. Have you any stout shears?”
“Three dozen pairs—best in the world.”
“All right. I want you to cut and stack that man's hair an' run yer mowin' machine over his neck an' face an' tramp down what ye can't cut. Between the two of us there's some hayin' to be done, but I'll give ye thirty dollars for clothes an' labor.”
“It's a bargain,” said the pedler.
The tramp laughed when Riddles came out of the bushes.
“Say, ol' man—you're a bird!” he exclaim.
“I've been caged, but you're still in the bush,” said Riddles. “We'll have ye fixed soon.” Turning to the pedler he added: “Bring a cake of soap—laundry soap, if you please—and two towels and then we'll all go down to the river. If you have a good straight razor, bring it along.”
The pedler got the needed articles, locked his store and went with the two men. Riddles having the discarded garments on his arm.
At the river's edge the tramp held up a tooth-brush.
“Behold the only link which connects me with the dead and noble past!” he exclaimed. “My heart has fared badly, but I have always kept my teeth clean.”
He scrubbed his teeth, undressed and soaped himself and dove into a deep pool. Riddles observed that he had a fine, erect and almost Herculean fire and also that be had many scars on his back.
The millionaire in his farm suit sat on a rock while the tonsorial pedler cut his hair close. For a number of years he had worn a mustache and chin lock.
“Well take off the mustache and enlarge the chin lock,” said Riddles. “I'll soon have a bunch of whiskers to serve as a license for farm life. Perhaps it will keep the cattle from horning me.”
When the shaving was accomplished, both the tramp and the pedler laughed at the new look of the late Mr. Riddles.
“Next!” the pedler called.
THE tramp took his place on the rock and the pedler fell to at once while Riddles superintended the job. The tramp's face was smoothly shaved, his hair neatly, but not closely, trimmed, and his head thoroughly shampooed. He was quite another sort of human being when he arose from the rock.
“Now get one o' those rakes an' clean up the shore,” said Riddles as he paid the pedler. “It looks as if there'd been a dog fight here.”
“I done some grabbin' and chawin' with them shears,” the latter answered as he gathered up the hair and threw it into the stream. “Is there anything more I can do for ye?”
Riddles turned and asked the tramp: “Do I want anything more done for me?”
“No, unless you've got a tooth that needs pullin'.”
“Couldn't stand no more pullin' to-day,” said Riddles. “You can rub a little mud on these garments just to take the new look off 'em—not too much. Just a smear here and there.”
The pedler applied the mud, wiping it so as to leave sundry stains on the coat and trousers.
“Now,” said Riddles, “I don't want you to do anything more for me. I've had so much done for me now that I'm kind o' shy.”
“Well, gents. I'll bid ye good-by,” said A. Hinchman as he gathered his tools and hurried up the bank. He drove on down the road, while Riddles helped the tramp with his dressing. The delicate silk undergarments, the shirt of soft gray flannel, the collar, the blue silk string tie, the blue silk socks with their garters, the polished tan shoes—a trifle too large, but still a comfortable fit—had wrought a great change in the look and manners of the tramp. His voice had grown gentler, his face had a friendly look. Riddles enjoyed the magic he had wrought. In a moment the tramp stood dressed under the soft Clyde cap with a glow of high respectability upon him.
Mr. Riddles gave him an admiring survey. He had found a new kind of pleasure in this unusual proceeding. It would be easy for him to get other clothes when he wanted them and, meanwhile, he would not be too respectable to get a job. After a week or so in the fields he would try to find the young lady.
“You'll do,” Riddles said. “You look like the friend and guardian of a million dollars.”
“Make it ten,” said the tramp. “I don't like a crowd.”
“All right. Here's a ten,” said Riddles as he picked up his wallet. “This manzanito stick of mine with its silver trimmings will help you to keep the wolf away from it.”
“You have, indeed, bound up my wounds and poured in oil and wine,” said the remade tramp with a look of real gratitude. “What can I do for you?”
“Nothing more,” answered Riddles in a tone of gentle irony as he looked down at himself. “Now I should like to know your name and where your home is. You may call me—” Riddles hesitated.
“Why not Reuben Smith,” the late tramp suggested.
“All right. I guess that is as good as any name,” said Riddles. “What is yours?”
“Let me see—what is my name? Oh! Really! I had quite forgotten to tell you that my name is J. Reginald Travers, of Taviston House, Wrentham above Wrigglesworth, Surrey, England.”
These words were spoken with an accent and a manner so perfectly in keeping with the clothes he wore and the rich, old-country flavor of the fictitious name and address he had given that Riddles laughed in astonishment.
“You are some actor!” he exclaimed.
“You see, deah Smith, I have been miscahst,” said Travers. “I am now myself—quite myself, deah Smith! I will not lahf at you, but really you do present a most absurd appearance.”
“I am so glad,” Riddles answered. “I am a little weary of dukes and duchesses and squabs and terrapin and insomnia. I'm going to do as I like for a while. I'm going to hit the hay and breathe its sweetness.”
They could hear voices and the sound of motor-cars and the tramp of feet in the grove.
“Ba Jove! It's a picnic party,” said Travers. “Deah Smith, it is a Godsend! I find myself in need of refreshment.”
“I am as hungry as a bear,” said Riddles.
“Leave it to me, old friend. It is a very simple problem in diplomacy. Let us go up the bank together. You stay behind the bushes until I have, in a way, prepared their minds for your—unusual appearance.”
RIDDLES regarded the change in the man who stood beside him with growing admiration and astonishment. The cynical, half-defiant tone of the tramp had left him. The facile grace with which he played the part of a genial, well-bred Englishman was the chief cause of Mr. Riddles' astonishment. They went together up the bank. The tramp millionaire conceal himself in a bunch of cedars near the edge of the grove while Travers went on.
“Ah! Pardon me, ladies and gentlemen,” Riddles heard him saying in a moment. “I do not mean to intrude upon your privacy. I am an Englishman traveling in America. My car left me here so that I could enjoy a walk through this lovely countryside and take a train when I had grown weary of it. I met an unfortunate man—I believe you would call him a tramp—a quite harmless and engaging fellow, I may say, and was rather touched by his story. I bought him clean clothes from a traveling pedler, gave him a trifle of money and induced him to take a bahth in the river.”
Travers' statement was greeted with merry laughter.
“I hope it doesn't kill him,” said a man's voice. “He has imposed upon you. The American tramp is a worthless and often a dangerous fellow. We don't waste any sympathy on him in this country.”
“I dare say, but I cahn't help thinking, you know, that he is, after all, human,” Travers went on. “The worst I can say of the poor fellow is that he detained me far beyond my reckoning. Could you tell me is there a comfortable inn in this parish?”
“The only one you would care to stop at is five miles from here,” said a man's voice. “If you will do us the honor to share our picnic supper, we shall be glad to drop you at the inn later.”
The invitation was heartily seconded by the other picnickers.
“It is most kind of you,” said Travers. “Would you mind ahsking that poor chap who is still—I think—down by the river to take a bite with the chauffeurs? I am sure he would be glad to bring wood for the fire and give us any help he can.”
“Not at all,” said the feminine voices, and then a man added: “We can fill him up. Tell him to come on.”
TRAVERS went to the edge of the high bank and called: “I say—Smith!”
“Here I be!” said Riddles as he emerged from the bushes.
A well-dressed, stout man who stood by the fire of burning twigs roared with laughter at the appearance of “the unfortunate man.” Some of the ladies looked at each other and covered their faces as if to indicate that, while they would like to be decently human, it was almost too much to expect under the circumstances. There were four ladies sitting on blankets, very handsome and smartly dressed. Poor Riddles was particularly impressed by one face among them. It was that of a young lady—very gentle and fresh and comely under a wavy crown of thick, dark hair partly covered with a delicate purple veil which fell gracefully about her shoulders. The fact that she had not laughed at him challenged Riddles' eye and he stood looking at her for an instant only. He did not miss the look of sympathy in her face.
“Unmarried and about twenty-three!” he thought. “What a magnificent young woman! It's the time of all others when I should be a gentleman instead of a tramp. I wonder if this is the Martin picnic party.”
These thoughts ran through the mind of the dejected Riddles. He was rudely awakened by the voice of the well-dressed, stout, middle-aged man.
“Come, weary Willie!” the latter shouted. “Hustle around here and bring us some wood for the fire.”
“All right, mister!” Riddles answered as he set out to gather sticks of wood in the near grove.
“He could wade the river without wetting his pants!” said a young man in a white linen suit as the others laughed.
There were four gentlemen in the party, two young men and two of middle age.
“The poor fellow has had a glorious pahst.” Travers was saying in the hearing of Riddles. “Wealth—a good family, and all that! A too generous nature and evil associations brought him down. But—you know—I cahnt help thinking that there is still hope for him.”
“I don't agree with you.” said the stout, well-dressed, middle-aged gentleman in a half-whisper. “When wine, women and song have got through with a man, he's hopeless.”
“He looks clean, at least,” said one of the ladies.
“The pedler sheared off his hair and he's had a bahth with laundry soap,” said Travers. “He is quite clean, I am sure.”
“Outside!” said the stout, well-dressed gentleman. He turned to Riddles, who was arriving with wood, and asked: “Say, did you ever broil a steak?”
“Yes, sir,” the latter answered.
"Then please wash your hands in that basin and we'll see what you can do.”
Riddles had been the chief cook on many a picnic. He had said more than once that the only art with which he felt familiar was that of broiling beefsteak—a remark due to his modesty, for he had a fine bass voice and a gift for the piano unequaled by other amateurs in his city. There were two thick steaks and a package of bacon. He cut the latter into strips and basted the steaks with it and began the broiling. While this was going on the stout, middle-aged gentleman said to Travers:
“I am Erastus Waters of New York and would like to know whom we have the honor of entertaining.”
Mr. Travers stepped forward and shook his hand and said: “My name is John Reginald Travers of Taviston House, Wrentham above Wrigglesworth, Surrey, England—a bit of country quite like this—you know—hills and valleys and tall trees and, ah—excellent people.”
Mr. Waters presented him to the other members of the party. Riddles did not fail to note that the handsome young lady was Miss Harriet Martin—undoubtedly the girl he was looking for—and that it was her mother, a good-looking woman a little past forty, who sat beside her in a widow's veil. He regretted to learn that the girl's name was Harriet Martin because—well—he was not an ideal ambassador. The smartly dressed, dark-haired youth who had spoken with such disrespect of Riddles' trousers was Percival, the son of Erastus Waters. Then there was a Mr. Corning and his son James and a Mrs. Pulsifer—also in a widow's veil—an elderly lady about sixty years of age, with a very soft and gentle voice. As the supper proceeded, Mrs. Pulsifer elucidated, in tender tones, her view of “ethereal substances” and of the influence of thoughts and names upon human destiny. The others listened with respectful silence, but Riddles could plainly feel its undercurrent of amusement. He had heard Mr. Waters say to Travers that Mrs. Pulsifer was a sister of David Galt, the famous political leader.
THE ladies had been impressed by Mr. Travers. Mrs. Pulsifer rose and spread a blanket for him near where they sat. The steaks were drenched in butter, cut in thin strips and served between slices of bread. All spoke in praise of the skill with which they had been cooked.
“Are you making a long stay in America?” was the question directed at Travers by Mr. Waters.
“Well, you see, I am a bachelor with few responsibilities,” the latter answered. “I travel much and always without haste, you know. I shall soon be going to California.”
“Have another piece of steak,” said Mrs. Pulsifer with a smile.
“The twenty-fourth of June is approaching,” said Erastus Waters with a playful wink at Mrs. Pulsifer.
“Good gracious! So it is,” she answered. “I wonder if it's to be this one.”
“The fates are busy,” said Waters.
“What is the meaning of these cryptic words?” Mrs. Martin asked.
“Wait and you may learn,” Waters declared.
“It's a secret,” said Mrs. Pulsifer. “Mr. Travers, do have some more steak.”
“See how polite they are as soon as they learn that you are a bachelor,” said Waters.
“If I were to stay long in America, I am sure that I should be quite reformed,” said he. “In no part of the world have I found such beautiful and—I may say—engaging women. They are the most kindly and hospitable and altogether, I am sure, the best-hearted lot the sun shines upon—really.”
The ladies put down their plates and clapped their hands. Their eating over, Mr. Waters passed his cigar case. The picnic party chatted while Riddles ate with the chauffeurs and helped them with the cleaning up. Presently Travers came and said:
“Smith, Mrs. Martin wishes to speak to you.”
Riddles went to the lady in the widow's veil.
“Smith, I am interested in you,” she said in a kindly voice. “I need a handy man to help in the garden and the hay-field. Would you care to try it?”
“I enjoy that kind of work and will do my best,” Riddles answered.
“You will have a comfortable home,” said the woman. “We will arrange about the wages to-morrow.”
“I'll leave all that to you, ma'am,” Riddles answered in good Yankee dialect.
As the dusk fell the ladies began singing old songs—a diversion in which presently the men joined.
Soon the party gathered up its blankets and left the grove. Riddles was put beside the chauffeur in Mrs. Martin's car. Travers got in with the Comings and Mrs. Pulsifer and was taken to an inn near her country house.