The Man Upstairs and Other Stories
Mealing alight when he dropped the tobacco-pouch?'
* * * * *
'The ten o'clock, the fellow told me. Said he would have given it back
to him then only he sprinted off in the deuce of a hurry.'
Six eyes focused themselves upon Archibald.
'Margaret,' he said, 'I will not try to deceive you--'
'You may try,' observed Mrs Milsom, 'but you will not succeed.'
'Well, Archibald?'
Archibald fingered his collar.
'There was no taximeter accident.'
'Ah!' said Mrs Milsom.
'The fact is, I have been playing in a golf tournament.'
Margaret uttered an exclamation of surprise.
'Playing golf!'
Archibald bowed his head with manly resignation.
'Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you arrange for us to meet on the
links? I should have loved it.'
Archibald was amazed.
'You take an interest in golf, Margaret? You! I thought you scorned it,
considered it an unintellectual game. I thought you considered all
games unintellectual.'
'Why, I play golf myself. Not very well.'
'Margaret! Why didn't you tell me?'
'I thought you might not like it. You were so spiritual, so poetic. I
feared you would despise me.'
Archibald took a step forward. His voice was tense and trembling.
'Margaret,' he said, 'this is no time for misunderstandings. We must be
open with one another. Our happiness is at stake. Tell me honestly, do
you like poetry really?'
Margaret hesitated, then answered bravely:
'No, Archibald,' she said, 'it is as you suspect. I am not worthy of
you. I do _not_ like poetry. Ah, you shudder! You turn away! Your
face grows hard and scornful!'
'I don't!' yelled Archibald. 'It doesn't! It doesn't do anything of
the sort! You've made me another man!'
She stared, wild-eyed, astonished.
'What! Do you mean that you, too--'
'I should just say I do. I tell you I hate the beastly stuff. I only
pretended to like it because I thought you did. The hours I've spent
learning it up! I wonder I've not got brain fever.'
'Archie! Used you to read it up, too? Oh, if I'd only known!'
'And you forgive me--this morning, I mean?'
'Of course. You couldn't leave a golf tournament. By the way, how did
you get on?'
Archibald coughed.
'Rather well,' he said modestly. 'Pretty decently. In fact, not badly.
As a matter of fact, I won the championship.'
'The championship!' whispered Margaret. 'Of America?'
'Well, not _absolutely_ of America,' said Archibald. 'But all the
same, a championship.'
'My hero.'
'You won't be wanting me for a while, I guess?' said Stuyvesant
nonchalantly. 'Think I'll smoke a cigarette on the porch.'
And sobs from the stairs told that Mrs Milsom was already on her way to
her room.
THE MAN, THE MAID, AND THE MIASMA
Although this story is concerned principally with the Man and the Maid,
the Miasma pervades it to such an extent that I feel justified in
putting his name on the bills. Webster's Dictionary gives the meaning
of the word 'miasma' as 'an infection floating in the air; a deadly
exhalation'; and, in the opinion of Mr Robert Ferguson, his late
employer, that description, though perhaps a little too flattering, on
the whole summed up Master Roland Bean pretty satisfactorily. Until the
previous day he had served Mr Ferguson in the capacity of office-boy;
but there was that about Master Bean which made it practically
impossible for anyone to employ him for long. A syndicate of Galahad,
Parsifal, and Marcus Aurelius might have done it, but to an ordinary
erring man, conscious of things done which should not have been done,
and other things equally numerous left undone, he was too oppressive.
One conscience is enough for any man. The employer of Master Bean had
to cringe before two. Nobody can last long against an office-boy whose
eyes shine with quiet, respectful reproof through gold-rimmed
spectacles, whose manner is that of a middle-aged saint, and who
obviously knows all the Plod and Punctuality books by heart and orders
his life by their precepts. Master Bean was a walking edition of
_Stepping-Stones to Success, Millionaires who Have Never Smoked_,
and _Young Man, Get up Early_. Galahad, Parsifal, and Marcus
Aurelius, as I say, might have remained tranquil in his presence, but
Robert Ferguson found the contract too large. After one month he had
braced himself up and sacked the Punctual Plodder.
Yet now he was sitting in his office, long after the last clerk had
left, long after the hour at which he himself was wont to leave, his
mind full of his late employee.
Was this remorse? Was he longing for the touch of the vanished hand,
the gleam of the departed spectacles? He was not. His mind was full of
Master Bean because Master Bean was waiting for him in the outer
office; and he lingered on at his desk, after the day's work was done,
for the same reason. Word had been brought to him earlier in the
evening, that Master Roland Bean would like to see him. The answer to
that was easy: 'Tell him I'm busy.' Master Bean's admirably dignified
reply was that he understood how great was the pressure of Mr
Ferguson's work, and that he would wait till he was at liberty.
Liberty! Talk of the liberty of the treed possum, but do not use the
word in connexion with a man bottled up in an office, with Roland Bean
guarding the only exit.
Mr Ferguson kicked the waste-paper basket savagely. The unfairness of
the thing hurt him. A sacked office-boy ought to stay sacked. He had no
business to come popping up again like Banquo's ghost. It was not
playing the game.
The reader may wonder what was the trouble--why Mr Ferguson could not
stalk out and brusquely dispose of his foe; but then the reader has not
employed Master Bean for a month. Mr Ferguson had, and his nerve had
broken.
A slight cough penetrated the door between the two offices. Mr Ferguson
rose and grabbed his hat. Perhaps a sudden rush--he shot out with the
tense concentration of one moving towards the refreshment-room at a
station where the train stops three minutes.
'Good evening, sir!' was the watcher's view-hallo.
'Ah, Bean,' said Mr Ferguson, flitting rapidly, 'you still here? I
thought you had gone. I'm afraid I cannot stop now. Some other time--'
He was almost through.
'I fear, sir, that you will be unable to get out,' said Master Bean,
sympathetically. 'The building is locked up.'
Men who have been hit by bullets say the first sensation is merely a
sort of dull shock. So it was with Mr Ferguson. He stopped in his
tracks and stared.
'The porter closes the door at seven o'clock punctually, sir. It is now
nearly twenty minutes after the hour.'
Mr Ferguson's brain was still in the numbed stage.
'Closes the door?' he said.
'Yes, sir.'
'Then how are we to get out?'
'I fear we cannot get out, sir.'
Mr Ferguson digested this.
'I am no longer in your employment, sir,' said Master Bean,
respectfully, 'but I hope that in the circumstances you will permit me
to remain here during the night.'
'During the night!'
'It would enable me to sleep more comfortably than on the stairs.'
'But we can't stop here all night,' said Mr Ferguson, feebly.
He had anticipated an unpleasant five minutes in Master Bean's company.
Imagination boggled at the thought of an unpleasant thirteen hours.
He collapsed into a chair.
'I called,' said Master Bean, shelving the trivial subject of the
prospective vigil, 'in the hope that I might persuade you, sir, to
reconsider your decision in regard to my dismissal. I can assure you,
sir, that I am extremely anxious to give satisfaction. If you would
take me back and inform me how I have fallen short, I would endeavour
to improve, I--'
'We can't stop here all night,' interrupted Mr Ferguson, bounding from
his chair and beginning to pace the floor.
'Without presumption, sir, I feel that if you were to give me another
chance I should work to your satisfaction. I should endeavour--'
Mr Ferguson stared at him in dumb horror. He had a momentary vision of
a sleepless night spent in listening to a nicely-polished speech for
the defence. He was seized with a mad desire for flight. He could not
leave the building, but he must get away somewhere and think.
He dashed from the room and raced up the dark stairs. And as he arrived
at the next floor his eye was caught by a thin pencil of light which
proceeded from a door on the left.
No shipwrecked mariner on a desert island could have welcomed the
appearance of a sail with greater enthusiasm. He bounded at the door.
He knew to whom the room belonged. It was the office of one Blaythwayt;
and Blaythwayt was not only an acquaintance, but a sportsman. Quite
possibly there might be a pack of cards on Blaythwayt's person to help
pass the long hours. And if not, at least he would be company and his
office a refuge. He flung open the door without going through the
formality of knocking. Etiquette is not for the marooned.
'I say, Blaythwayt--' he began, and stopped abruptly.
The only occupant of the room was a girl.
'I beg your pardon,' he said, 'I thought--'
He stopped again. His eyes, dazzled with the light, had not seen
clearly. They did so now.
'You!' he cried.
The girl looked at him, first with surprise, then with a cool
hostility. There was a long pause. Eighteen months had passed since
they had parted, and conversation does not flow easily after eighteen
months of silence, especially if the nature of the parting has been
bitter and stormy.
He was the first to speak.
'What are you doing here?' he said.
'I thought my doings had ceased to interest you,' she said. 'I am Mr
Blaythwayt's secretary, I have been here a fortnight. I have wondered
if we should meet. I used to see you sometimes in the street.'
'I never saw you.'
'No?' she said indifferently.
He ran his hand through his hair in a dazed way.
'Do you know we are locked in?' he said.
He had expected wild surprise and dismay. She merely clicked her tongue
in an annoyed manner.
'Again!' she said. 'What a nuisance! I was locked in only a week ago.'
He looked at her with unwilling respect, the respect of the novice for
the veteran. She was nothing to him now, of course. She had passed out
of his life. But he could not help remembering that long ago--eighteen
months ago--what he had admired most in her had been this same spirit,
this game refusal to be disturbed by Fate's blows. It braced him up.
He sat down and looked curiously at her.
'So you left the stage?' he said.
'I thought we agreed when we parted not to speak to one another,' said
she, coldly.
'Did we? I thought it was only to meet as strangers.'
'It's the same thing.'
'Is it? I often talk to strangers.'
'What a bore they must think you!' she said, hiding one-eighth of a
yawn with the tips of two fingers. 'I suppose,' she went on, with faint
interest, 'you talk to them in trains when they are trying to read
their paper?'
'I don't force my conversation on anyone.'
'Don't you?' she said, raising her eyebrows in sweet surprise. 'Only
your company--is that it?'
'Are you alluding to the present occasion?'
'Well, you have an office of your own in this building, I believe.'
'I have.'
'Then why--'
'I am at perfect liberty,' he said, with dignity, 'to sit in my friend
Blaythwayt's office if I choose. I wish to see Mr Blaythwayt.'
'On business?'
He proved that she had established no corner in raised eyebrows.
'I fear,' he said, 'that I cannot discuss my affairs with Mr
Blaythwayt's employees. I must see him personally.'
'Mr Blaythwayt is not here.'
'I will wait.'
'He will not be here for thirteen hours.'
I'll wait.'
'Very well,' she burst out; 'you have brought it on yourself. You've
only yourself to blame. If you had been good and had gone back to your