The Landloper: The Romance of a Man on Foot
It was a long way to the foot of the steps of the Mellicite Club! And
Union Hall was filled with men who were patiently waiting for him to
keep his pledged word!
“I hope you'll be all right now,” he said to the girl, haste in his
tones. “I'm sorry--I must go--I have an important engagement.”
Her eyes met his in level gaze, turned scornful glance at the others in
the room, and then came back to his.
“Are you going in the direction of the Boulevard?” she asked him.
“Straight there.”
“Will you bother with me as far as the Boulevard?”
“If you are a good walker,” he informed her. There was strict business
in her tone and cool civility in his.
“I'm going along with this gentleman, mother.”
Farr ushered her ahead of him through the shattered door.
“But I want to walk home with you, my child,” wailed the sobbing woman.
“You'd better ask Mr. Dodd to escort you. And I trust that the talk you
and he will have will bring both of you to your senses.”
She hurried away up the alley with Farr, after he had unlocked the front
door, finding the key on the inside.
“I am sorry I must hurry you,” he apologized, “and if you cannot keep up
I must desert you when we get to a well-lighted street.”
She drove a sharp side glance at him and did not reply. Probably for the
first time in her life she heard a young man declare with determination
that he was in a hurry to leave her. Even a sensible young woman who is
pretty must feel some sort of momentary pique because a young man can
have engagements so summary and so engrossing.
He offered her his arm that they might walk faster. Her touch thrilled
him. He was far from feeling the outward calm that he displayed to her.
They did not speak as they hurried.
Both were nearly breathless when they came out on the Boulevard. He saw
the big clock--its hands were nearly at the right angle.
“Good night!” she gasped, and she put out her hand to him. “I thank
you!”
“It was nothing,” he assured her.
When their palms met they looked into each other's eyes. It was a
momentary flash which they exchanged, but in that instant both of them
were thrilled with the strange, sweet knowledge that no human soul may
analyze: it is the mystic conviction which makes this man or that woman
different from all the rest of humankind to the one whose heart is
touched.
She gave him a smile. “Are you a knight-errant?”
She hurried away before he could reply--and, though all his yearning
nature strove against his man's resolution to do his duty, it could
not prevail: he did not follow her as he wanted to--running after her,
crying his love. But duty won out by a mere hazard of a margin because
her face, as she had shown it to him at the moment of parting, possessed
not merely the wonderful beauty which had so impressed him when he had
first seen her--it shone with a sudden flash of emotion that glorified
it.
He turned away and hurried to the foot of the steps of the Mellicite
Club.
He had no time to ponder on the nature of that mystery which he had
uncovered in the shabby cottage in Rose Alley nor to wonder what sort
of persecution it was that could enlist a mother's aid in that grotesque
fashion against her own daughter.
He had not time even to frame a plan of campaign against the man whom
the patient waiters in Union Hall were expecting him to capture.
The bell in the tower was booming its nine strokes and the Honorable
Archer Converse was coming down the steps from his club, erect, crisp,
immaculate, dignified--tapping his cane against the stones.
XVIII
CORRALING A CONVERT
Mr. Converse bestowed only a careless glance at the stranger who was
waiting at the foot of the club-house steps.
The young man accosted him, not obsequiously, but frankly.
“I know you always take a turn in the park at this hour, Mr. Converse. I
beg your pardon, but may I walk for a few steps with you?”
“Why do you want to walk with me?”
“It's a matter--”
“I never discuss business on the street, sir. Come to my office
to-morrow.”
He marched on and Farr went along behind him.
“You heard?” demanded the attorney.
“I heard.” Farr replied very respectfully, but he kept on.
He had rushed away from the girl and had come face to face with Mr.
Converse, his mind utterly barren of plan or resource. That interim on
which he had counted as a time in which he might devise ways and means
had been so crowded with happenings that all consideration of plans in
regard to Archer Converse had been swept from his mind.
At all events, he had rendered a service in that time; he had made good
use of that forty-five minutes--that reflection comforted him even while
he dizzily wondered what he was to do now.
That service had demanded sacrifice from him--why not demand something
from that service? An idea, sudden, brazen, undefendable, even
outrageous, popped into his head. He had no time for sensible planning.
Mr. Converse was glancing about with the air of a citizen who would like
to catch the eye of a policeman.
“I know all about you, Mr. Converse, even if you know nothing about me.
I'm making a curious appeal--it's to your chivalry!”
That was appeal sufficiently novel, so the demeanor of Mr. Converse
announced, to arrest even the attention of a gentleman who usually
refused to allow the routine of his life to be interrupted by anything
less than an earthquake. He halted and fronted this stranger.
“A man who wears that,” proceeded Farr, indicating the rosette of the
Military Order of the Loyal Legion in the lapel of Mr. Converse's coat,
“and wears it because it came to him by inheritance from General Aaron
Converse is bound to listen to that appeal.”
“Explain, sir.”
“Do you know a Richard Dodd who is the nephew of Colonel Dodd?”
“I do, sir. You aren't asking me to assist him, are you? I will have
nothing to do with him--no help from me!”
“Just a moment--wait one moment! Mr. Converse, do you know a man named
Dennis Burke who has been in prison for ballot frauds?”
“I helped send him there, sir. Are you reciting the rogues' roster to
me?”
“Richard Dodd has dressed Burke up as a parson and is trying to force a
young woman into a marriage. I haven't time to tell you how I happened
to know about this affair--but it is in Rose Alley and there's no time
to waste.”
“A preposterous yarn.”
“I have just come from that house.”
“You're a young man of muscle--why didn't you stop it?”
“The girl's mother is there, backing Dodd. Mr. Converse, the cause needs
a man like you--a man of law, of standing, of influence. I appeal to you
to follow me.”
“A moment--a moment! I scent a ruse. I don't know you. Are you a decoy
for blackmailers or robbers?” he inquired, bluntly.
Farr took off his hat and stood before the Honorable Archer Converse,
his strange, slow, winning smile dawning on his face.
“I beg your pardon for interrupting your stroll,” he said, gently. “I
hope you'll look at me! You may see, perhaps, that you're in error.
I'll go back and kill Dodd--and come to your office to-morrow--on
business--engaging you as counsel for the defense.”
“Lead the way to that house,” snapped Mr. Converse. The attitude of
Farr, his forbearance, his refraining from further solicitation, his
frank demeanor, won out for him. “I'm sometimes a little hasty in
my remarks,” acknowledged Mr. Converse in the tone of one who felt
chastened. “Are you a new-comer to our city?” he continued as they
hurried away. “You must be. I should certainly have remembered you if I
had ever seen you before.” It was an indirect compliment--a gentleman's
careful approach to an apology.
The young man did not reply. He had conceived for this stately man a
sudden hero-worship. What Citizen Drew had told him was added to his own
instinct in matters of the understanding of a personality. He did not
dare to stop and consider to what despicable extent he was lying to
his victim. He knew if he stopped to think he would quit. Now the whole
affair seemed a crazy thing. Did even his proposed ends justify this
procedure?
“There's a short cut through Sanson Street,” stammered Farr, the sense
of his own iniquity increasing in the same ratio in which his respect
and admiration grew. The honorable gentleman traveled along at a brisk
jog, evidently desiring to show his apologetic mood by exhibiting
confidence in his guide.
And Farr, stealing side glances at him, was more self-accusatory, more
abashed. He cherished the hope that they would be able to anticipate
the departure of Dodd and the confederates from the cottage. It was not
clear to him just how he would make the incident serve, anyway. He was
conscious that he had grasped at any opportunity which would open the
ears of the Honorable Archer Converse to a person who had accosted him
on the street. Finding somebody in the house would, at least, stamp his
story with verity even if it served no purpose in the main intent of
Farr's efforts.
But on a well-lighted street corner the young man halted suddenly.
“It's no use,” he informed the astonished Mr. Converse. “Conscience has
tripped me. I can't do it.”
“Do you mean to intimate that you have been tricking me, sir?”
“I mean to say, Mr. Converse, that I had proposed to take a half-hour or
so and think up some method of honestly and properly interesting you in
a matter which is very dear to me--a public matter, sir. But here is how
I spent that half-hour.”
Frankly, simply, convincingly he related to his amazed listener the full
story of what he had found in the cottage in Rose Alley.
“And therefore I had no time to ponder on my business with you--I simply
turned from the young lady, and there you were, sir, coming down the
club steps. I did the very best I could on short notice--but what I did
was very crude. I apologize. I suppose, under the circumstances, I may
as well say 'Good-night'!” He raised his hat.
But there was something in all this which piqued Converse's curiosity.
“Wait one moment. This is getting to be interesting.”
A rather hazy conviction began to assure Farr that possibly chance had
dealt a better stroke for him than well-considered planning. It was
surely something to know that the honorable gentleman was interested.
“If you had had time to think out a method of approaching me--Let me
see, your name is--”
“Farr.”
“Mr. Farr, supposing I had been amenable to your suggestions, what is it
you wanted of me?”
“I wanted you to attend a public meeting,” blurted the young man. “They
are men who need help--they need--”
“That's sufficient,” snapped Converse. “I am not in politics. I do
not address public meetings. Mr. Farr, you would have wasted your time
planning. Absolutely!”
“But is there not some appeal that--”
“Useless--useless, sir.” He tapped his cane, and his tones showed
irritation. He whirled on his heels. “It is decidedly evident that
you are a stranger in these parts, sir. On that account I forgive your
presumption.”
At that moment a jigger-wagon rumbled to a halt near them. The corner
light had revealed them to the driver.
“Mr. Farr,” called the man, “it hasn't taken long for the news of what
you did at the meeting to-night to travel around among the boys. And we
ain't going to let you get ahead of us, sir.”
“The more, the merrier, in a good cause,” said Farr; but he was staring
regretfully at the back of Mr. Converse, who had begun his retreat.
“I want to tell you I'm on the executive committee of the State
Teamsters Union, Mr. Farr. I've been talking the matter up and I can
promise you that the union as a body will vote to lend horses and men to
carry your spring-water free gratis. And I hope that gent who's starting
up-town where the dudes are will tell 'em that there are honest men