Piccadilly Jim Part 27

"You never do anything you don't want to, I guess?"

"No," said Ogden simply. "You've got a funny nose," he added dispa.s.sionately. "What did you do to it to make it like that?"

Mr. Mitch.e.l.l s.h.i.+fted restlessly on his chair. He was not a vain man, but he was a little sensitive about that particular item in his make-up.

"Lizzie says it's the funniest nose she ever saw. She says it's something out of a comic supplement."

A dull flush, such as five minutes with the bag had been unable to produce, appeared on Jerry Mitch.e.l.l's peculiar countenance. It was not that he looked on Lizzie Murphy, herself no Lillian Russell, as an accepted authority on the subject of facial beauty; but he was aware that in this instance she spoke not without reason, and he was vexed, moreover, as many another had been before him, by the note of indulgent patronage in Ogden's voice. His fingers twitched a little eagerly, and he looked sullenly at his tactless junior.

"Get out!"

"Huh?"

"Get outa here!"

"Don't want to get out of here," said Ogden with finality. He put his hand in his trouser-pocket and pulled out a sticky ma.s.s which looked as if it might once have been a cream-puff or a meringue.

He swallowed it contentedly. "I'd forgotten I had that," he explained. "Mary gave it to me on the stairs. Mary thinks you've a funny nose, too," he proceeded, as one relating agreeable gossip.

"Can it! Can it!" exclaimed the exasperated pugilist.

"I'm only telling you what I heard her say."

Mr. Mitch.e.l.l rose convulsively and took a step towards his persecutor, breathing noisily through the criticised organ. He was a chivalrous man, a warm admirer of the s.e.x, but he was conscious of a wish that it was in his power to give Mary what he would have described as "hers." She was one of the parlour-maids, a homely woman with a hard eye, and it was part of his grievance against her that his Maggie, alias Celestine, Mrs. Pett's maid, had formed an enthusiastic friends.h.i.+p with her. He had no evidence to go on, but he suspected Mary of using her influence with Celestine to urge the suit of his leading rival for the latter's hand, Biggs the chauffeur. He disliked Mary intensely, even on general grounds. Ogden's revelation added fuel to his aversion. For a moment he toyed with the fascinating thought of relieving his feelings by spanking the boy, but restrained himself reluctantly at the thought of the inevitable ruin which would ensue. He had been an inmate of the house long enough to know, with a completeness which would have embarra.s.sed that gentleman, what a cipher Mr. Pett was in the home and how little his champions.h.i.+p would avail in the event of a clash with Mrs.

Pett. And to give Ogden that physical treatment which should long since have formed the main plank in the platform of his education would be to invite her wrath as nothing else could. He checked himself, and reached out for the skipping-rope, hoping to ease his mind by further exercise.

Ogden, chewing the remains of the cream-puff, eyed him with languid curiosity.

"What are you doing that for?"

Mr. Mitch.e.l.l skipped grimly on.

"What are you doing that for? I thought only girls skipped."

Mr. Mitch.e.l.l paid no heed. Ogden, after a moment's silent contemplation, returned to his original train of thought.

"I saw an advertis.e.m.e.nt in a magazine the other day of a sort of machine for altering the shape of noses. You strap it on when you go to bed. You ought to get pop to blow you to one."

Jerry Mitch.e.l.l breathed in a laboured way.

"You want to look nice about the place, don't you? Well, then!

there's no sense in going around looking like that if you don't have to, is there? I heard Mary talking about your nose to Biggs and Celestine. She said she had to laugh every time she saw it."

The skipping-rope faltered in its sweep, caught in the skipper's legs, and sent him staggering across the room. Ogden threw back his head and laughed merrily. He liked free entertainments, and this struck him as a particularly enjoyable one.

There are moments in the life of every man when the impulse attacks him to sacrifice his future to the alluring gratification of the present. The strong man resists such impulses. Jerry Mitch.e.l.l was not a weak man, but he had been sorely tried. The annoyance of Ogden's presence and conversation had sapped his self-restraint, as dripping water will wear away a rock. A short while before, he had fought down the urgent temptation to ma.s.sacre this exasperating child, but now, despised love adding its sting to that of injured vanity, he forgot the consequences.

Bounding across the room, he seized Ogden in a powerful grip, and the next instant the latter's education, in the true sense of the word, so long postponed, had begun; and with it that avalanche of sound which, rolling down into the drawing-room, hurled Mrs. Pett so violently and with such abruptness from the society of her guests.

Disposing of the last flight of stairs with the agility of the chamois which leaps from crag to crag of the snow-topped Alps, Mrs. Pett finished with a fine burst of speed along the pa.s.sage on the top floor, and rushed into the gymnasium just as Jerry's avenging hand was descending for the eleventh time.

CHAPTER XI

JIMMY DECIDES TO BE HIMSELF

It was less than a quarter of an hour later--such was the speed with which Nemesis, usually slow, had overtaken him--that Jerry Mitch.e.l.l, carrying a grip and walking dejectedly, emerged from the back premises of the Pett home and started down Riverside Drive in the direction of his boarding-house, a cheap, clean, and respectable establishment situated on Ninety-seventh Street between the Drive and Broadway. His usually placid nervous system was ruffled and a-quiver from the events of the afternoon, and his cauliflower ears still burned reminiscently at the recollection of the uncomplimentary words shot at them by Mrs.

Pett before she expelled him from the house. Moreover, he was in a mild panic at the thought of having to see Ann later on and try to explain the disaster to her. He knew how the news would affect her. She had set her heart on removing Ogden to more disciplinary surroundings, and she could not possibly do it now that her ally was no longer an inmate of the house. He was an essential factor in the scheme, and now, to gratify the desire of the moment, he had eliminated himself. Long before he reached the brown-stone house, which looked exactly like all the other brown-stone houses in all the other side-streets of uptown New York, the first fine careless rapture of his mad outbreak had pa.s.sed from Jerry Mitch.e.l.l, leaving nervous apprehension in its place. Ann was a girl whom he wors.h.i.+pped respectfully, but he feared her in her wrath.

Having entered the boarding-house, Jerry, seeking company in his hour of sorrow, climbed the stairs till he reached a door on the second floor. Sniffing and detecting the odour of tobacco, he knocked and was hidden to enter.

"h.e.l.lo, Bayliss!" he said sadly, having obeyed the call.

He sat down on the end of the bed and heaved a deep sigh.

The room which he had entered was airy but small, so small, indeed, that the presence of any furniture in it at all was almost miraculous, for at first sight it seemed incredible that the bed did not fill it from side to side. There were however, a few vacant spots, and in these had been placed a wash-stand, a chest of drawers, and a midget rocking-chair. The window, which the thoughtful architect had designed at least three sizes too large for the room and which admitted the evening air in pleasing profusion, looked out onto a series of forlorn back-yards. In boarding-houses, it is only the windows of the rich and haughty that face the street.

On the bed, a corn-cob pipe between his teeth, lay Jimmy Crocker.

He was shoeless and in his s.h.i.+rt-sleeves. There was a crumpled evening paper on the floor beside the bed. He seemed to be taking his rest after the labours of a trying day.

At the sound of Jerry's sigh he raised his head, but, finding the att.i.tude too severe a strain on the muscles of the neck, restored it to the pillow.

"What's the matter, Jerry? You seem perturbed. You have the aspect of one whom Fate has smitten in the spiritual solar plexus, or of one who has been searching for the leak in Life's gaspipe with a lighted candle. What's wrong?"

"Curtains!"

Jimmy, through long absence from his native land, was not always able to follow Jerry's thoughts when concealed in the wrappings of the peculiar dialect which he affected.

"I get you not, friend. Supply a few footnotes."

"I've been fired."

Jimmy sat up. This was no imaginary trouble, no mere _malaise_ of the temperament. It was concrete, and called for sympathy.

"I'm awfully sorry," he said. "No wonder you aren't rollicking.

How did it happen?"

"That half-portion Bill Taft came jos.h.i.+ng me about my beezer till it got something fierce," explained Jerry. "William J. Bryan couldn't have stood for it."

Once again Jimmy lost the thread. The wealth of political allusion baffled him.

"What's Taft been doing to you?"

"It wasn't Taft. He only looks like him. It was that kid Ogden up where I work. He came b.u.t.ting into the gym, jos.h.i.+ng me about--makin' pers'nal remarks till I kind of lost my goat, and the next thing I knew I was giving him his!" A faint gleam of pleasure lightened the gloom of his face. "I cert'nly give him his!" The gleam faded. "And after that--well, here I am!"

Jimmy understood now. He had come to the boarding-house the night of his meeting with Jerry Mitch.e.l.l on Broadway, and had been there ever since, and frequent conversations with the pugilist had put him abreast of affairs at the Pett home. He was familiar with the _personnel_ of the establishment on Riverside Drive, and knew precisely how great was the crime of administering correction to Ogden Ford, no matter what the cause. Nor did he require explanation of the phenomenon of Mrs. Pett dismissing one who was in her husband's private employment. Jerry had his sympathy freely.

"You appear," he said, "to have acted in a thoroughly capable and praiseworthy manner. The only point in your conduct which I would permit myself to criticise is your omission to slay the kid.

That, however, was due, I take it, to the fact that you were interrupted. We will now proceed to examine the future. I cannot see that it is altogether murky. You have lost a good job, but there are others, equally good, for a man of your calibre. New York is crammed with dyspeptic millionaires who need an efficient physical instructor to look after them. Cheer up, Cuthbert, for the sun is still s.h.i.+ning!"