Man on the Box by Harold MacGrath (free reads .TXT) 📕

to thank for my safety, father. He was very calm and clear-headed."

Calm and clear-headed! thought Warburton.

The girl then entered the house, humming. Most women would have got out the lavender salts and lain down the rest of the day, considering the routine of a fashionable dinner, which was the chief duty of the evening.

"I am grateful to you, James. My daughter is directly in your care when she rides, and I give you full authority. Never permit her to mount any horse but her own. She is all I have; and if anything should happen to her-"

"Yes, sir; I understand."

The colonel followed his daughter; and Warburton led Dick to the stables, gave his orders to William, and flung himself down on his cot. He was dead tired. And the hour he had dreaded was come! He was to drive her through the shopping district. Well, so be it. If any one exposed him, very good. This groom business was decidedly like work. And there was that confounded dinner-party, and he would have to limp around a table and carry soup plates! And as likely as not he would run into the very last person he expected to see.

Which he did.


XIV

AN ORDEAL OR TWO


Mr. Robert vows that he will never forgive me for the ten minutes' agony which I gratuitously added to his measure. It came about in this wise. I was on my way down Seventeenth Street that afternoon, and it was in front of a fashionable apartment house that I met him. He was seated on his box, the whip at the proper angle, and his eyes riveted on his pair's ears. It was the first time I had seen him since the day of the episode at the police-station. He was growing thin. He did not see me, and he did not even notice me till I stopped and the sound of my heels on the walk ceased. Arms akimbo, I surveyed him.

"Well?" I began. I admit that the smile I offered him was a deal like that which a cat offers a cornered mouse.

He turned his head. I shall not repeat the word he muttered. It was very improper, though they often refer to it in the Sabbath-schools, always in a hushed breath, however, as though to full-voice it would only fan the flames still higher.

"What have you to say for yourself?" I went on.

"Nothing for myself, but for you, move on and let me alone, or when I get the opportunity, Chuck, I'll punch your head, glasses or no glasses."

"Brother-in-law or no brother-in-law."

"Chuck, will you go on?"-hoarsely. "I mean it"

I saw that he did. "You don't look very happy for a man who has cracked so tremendous a joke."

"Will you go along?"

"Not till I get good and ready, James. I've told too many lies on your account already not to make myself a present of this joyful reunion. Has Miss Annesley any idea of the imposture?"

He did not answer.

"How did you like waiting in Scott Circle the other night?"

Still no answer. I have half an idea that he was making ready to leap from his box. He ran his fingers up and down the lines. I could see that he was mad through and through; but I enjoyed the scene nevertheless. He deserved a little roasting on the gridiron.

"I am given to understand," I continued, "that you act as butler, besides, and pass the soup around the table."

Silence. Then I heard a door close, and saw a look of despair grow on his face. I turned and saw Miss Annesley and Mrs. Chadwick coming down the steps.

"Why, how do you do, Mr. Henderson? Mrs. Chadwick."

"I have already had the pleasure of meeting this famous young orator," purred Mrs. Chadwick, giving me her hand. She was a fashionable, not to say brilliant, intrigante . I knew her to have been concerned indirectly with half a dozen big lobby schemes. She was rather wealthy. But she was seen everywhere, and everywhere was admired. She was as completely at home abroad as here in Washington. She was a widow, perhaps thirty-eight, handsome and fascinating, a delightful raconteur , and had the remarkable reputation of never indulging in scandal. She was the repository of more secrets than I should care to discover.

I recall one night at a state function when she sat between the French ambassador and that wily Chinaman, Li Hung Chang. She discoursed on wines in French with the ambassador and immediately turned to the Chinaman and recited Confucius in the original Chinese. Where she had ever found time to study Chinese is a mystery to every one. The incident made her quite famous that winter. Brains are always tolerated in Washington, and if properly directed, push a person a good deal further than wealth or pedigree. Washington forgives everything but stupidity.

Not until recently did I learn that at one time Karloff had been very attentive to her. His great knowledge of American politics doubtless came to him through her.

"Where are you bound?" asked Miss Annesley.

"I am on the way to the War Department."

"Plenty of room; jump in and we shall drop you there. James, drive to the War Department."

Ordinarily I should have declined, as I generally prefer to walk; but in this instance it would be superfluous to say that I was delighted to accept the invitation. I secretly hugged myself as I thought of the driver.

"How is Miss Warburton?" asked Miss Annesley, as she settled back among the cushions.

"Beautiful as ever," I replied, smiling happily,

"You must meet Miss Warburton, Grace,"-speaking to Mrs. Chadwick, who looked at me with polite inquiry. "One of the most charming girls in the land, and as good as she is beautiful. Mr. Henderson is the most fortunate of young men."

"So I admit. She was greatly disappointed that you did not meet her younger brother." First shot at the groom.

"I did expect to meet him, but I understand that he has gone on a hunting expedition. Whom does he resemble?"

"Neither Nancy nor Jack," I said. "He's a good-looking beggar, though, only you can't depend upon him for five minutes at a time. Hadn't seen the family in more than two years. Spends one night at home, and is off again, no one knows where. Some persons like him, but I like a man with more stability. Not but what he has his good points; but he is a born vagabond. His brother expects to get him a berth at Vienna and is working rather successfully toward that end." I wondered how this bit of news affected the groom.

"A diplomat?" said Mrs. Chadwick. "That is the life for a young man with brains. Is he a good linguist?"

"Capital! Speaks French, German, and Spanish, besides I don't know how many Indian sign-languages." Now I was patting the groom on the back. I sat facing the ladies, so it was impossible to see the expression on his face. I kept up this banter till we arrived at the Department. I bade the ladies good day. I do not recollect when I enjoyed ten minutes more thoroughly.

An hour in the shopping district, that is to say, up and down Pennsylvania Avenue, where everybody who was anybody was similarly occupied, shopping, nearly took the spine out of our jehu. Everywhere he imagined he saw Nancy. And half a dozen times he saw persons whom he knew, persons he had dined with in New York, persons he had met abroad. But true to human nature, they were looking toward higher things than a groom in livery. When there was no more room for bundles, the women started for Mrs. Chadwick's apartments.

Said Mrs. Chadwick in French: "Where, in the name of uncommon things, did you find such a handsome groom?"

"I was rather lucky," replied Miss Annesley in the same tongue. "Don't you see something familiar about him?"

Warburton shuddered.

"Familiar? What do you mean?"

"It is the groom who ran away with us."

"Heavens, no!" Mrs. Chadwick raised her lorgnette. "Whatever possessed you?"

"Mischief, as much as anything."

"But the risk!"

"I am not afraid. There was something about him that appeared very much like a mystery, and you know how I adore mysteries."

"And this is the fellow we saw in the police-court, sitting among those light o' loves?" Mrs. Chadwick could not fully express her surprise.

"I can't analyze the impulse which prompted me to pay his fine and engage him."

"And after that affair at the carriage-door! Where is your pride?"

"To tell the truth, I believe he did make a mistake. Maybe I hired him because I liked his looks." Betty glanced amusedly at the groom, whose neck and ears were red. She laughed.

"You always were an extraordinary child. I do not understand it in the least. I am even worried. He may be a great criminal."

"No, not a great criminal," said Betty, recollecting the ride of that morning; "but a first-class horseman, willing and obedient. I have been forced to make James serve as butler. He has been under the hands of our cook, and I have been watching them. How I have laughed! Of all droll scenes!"

So she had laughed, eh? Warburton's jaws snapped. She had been watching, too?

"I rode Pirate this morning-"

"You rode that horse?" interrupted Mrs. Chadwick.

"Yes, and he ran away with me in fine style. If it hadn't been for the new groom, I shouldn't be here, and the dinner would be a dismal failure, with me in bed with an arm or leg broken. Heavens! I never was so frightened in all my life. We went so fast against the wind that I could scarce breathe. And when it was all over, I fainted like a ninny."

"Fainted! I should have thought you would. I should have fallen off the animal and been killed. Betty, you certainly have neither forethought nor discretion. The very idea of your attempting to ride that animal!"

"Well, I am wiser, and none the worse for the scare.... James, stop, stop!" Betty cried suddenly.

When this command struck his sense of hearing, James was pretty far away in thought. He was wondering if all this were true. If it was, he must make the best of it; but if it was a dream, he wanted to wake up right away, because it was becoming nightmarish.

"James!" The end of a parasol tickled him in the ribs and he drew up somewhat frightened. What was going to happen now? He was soon to find out. For this was to be the real climax of the day; or at least, the incident was pregnant with the possibilities of a climax.

"Colonel, surely you are not going to pass us by in this fashion?" cried the girl. They were almost opposite the Army and Navy Club.

"Why, is that you, Miss Betty? Pass you by? Only when I grow blind!" roared a lion-like voice. "Very glad to see you, Mrs. Chadwick."

That voice, of all the voices he had ever heard! A chill of indescribable terror flew up and down my jehu's spine, and his pores closed up. He looked around cautiously. It was he, he of all men: his regimental colonel, who possessed the most remarkable memory of any Army man west