Free Air Part 39

"I met him in Montana with the most gorgeously atrocious person I've ever encountered--one Pinky Westlake, or some such a name--positively, a crook! He tried to get Boltwood and myself interested in the commonest kind of a mining swindle--hinted that we were to join him in cheating the public. And this Daggett was his partner--they actually traveled together. But I do want to be just. I'm not _sure_ that Daggett was aware of his partner's dishonesty. That isn't what worries me about the lad. It's his utter impossibility. He's as crude as iron-ore. When he's being careful, he may manage to be inconspicuous, but give him the chance----

"Really, I'm not exaggerating when I say that at thirty-five he'll be dining in his s.h.i.+rt-sleeves, and sitting down to read the paper with his shoes off and feet up on the table. But Claire--you know what a dear Quixotic soul she is--she fancies that because this fellow repaired a puncture or something of the sort for her on the road, she's indebted to him, and the worse he is, the more she feels that she must help him.

And affairs of that kind---- Oh, it's quite too horrible, but there have been cases, you know, where girls as splendid and fine and well-bred as Claire herself have been trapped into low marriages by their loyalty to cadging adventurers!"

"Oh!" groaned Mrs. Gilson; and "Good Lord!" lamented Mr. Gilson, delighted by the possibility of tragedy; and "Really, I'm not exaggerating," said Jeff enthusiastically.

"What are we going to do?" demanded Mrs. Gilson; while Mr. Gilson, being of a ready and inventive mind, exclaimed, "By Jove, you ought to kidnap her and marry her yourself, Jeff!"

"I'd like to. But I'm too old."

They beautifully a.s.sured him that he was a blithe young thing with milk teeth; and with a certain satisfaction Jeff suggested, "I tell you what we might do. Of course it's an ancient stunt, but it's good. I judge that Daggett hasn't been here at the house much. Why not have him here so often that Claire will awaken to his crudity, and get sick of him?"

"We'll do it," thrilled Mrs. Gilson. "We'll have him for everything from nine-course dinners with Grandmother Eaton's napkins on view, to milk and cold ham out of the ice-box. When Claire doesn't invite him, I will!"

CHAPTER x.x.xI

THE KITCHEN INTIMATE

Milt had become used to the Gilson drawing-room. He was no longer uncomfortable in the presence of its sleek fatness, though at first (not knowing that there were such resources as interior decorators), he had been convinced that, to have created the room, the Gilsons must have known everything in the world. Now he glanced familiarly at its white paneling, its sconces like silver candlesticks, the inevitable davenport inevitably backed by an amethyst-shaded piano lamp and a table crowded with silver boxes and picture-frames. He liked the winsomeness of light upon velvet and polished wood.

It was not the drawing-room but the kitchen that dismayed him.

In Schoenstrom he had known that there must somewhere be beautiful "parlors," but he had trusted in his experience of kitchens. Kitchens, according to his philosophy, were small smelly rooms of bare floors, and provided with one oilcloth-covered table, one stove (the front draft always broken and propped up with the lid-lifter), one cupboard with panes of tin pierced in rosettes, and one stack of dirty dishes.

But the Gilson kitchen had the efficiency of a laboratory and the superciliousness of a hair-dresser's booth. With awe Milt beheld walls of white tiles, a cork floor, a gas-range large as a hotel-stove, a ceiling-high refrigerator of enamel and nickel, zinc-topped tables, and a case of utensils like a surgeon's knives. It frightened him; it made more hopelessly unapproachable than ever the Alexandrian luxury of the great Gilsons.... The Vanderbilts' kitchen must be like this. And maybe King George's.

He was viewing the kitchen upon the occasion of an intimate Sunday evening supper to which he had been yearningly invited by Mrs. Gilson.

The maids were all out. The Gilsons and Claire, Milt and Jeff Saxton, shoutingly prepared their own supper. While Mrs. Gilson scrambled eggs and made coffee, the others set the table, and brought cold ham and a bowl of salad from the ice-box.

Milt had intended to be a silent but deft servitor. When he had heard that he was to come to supper with the returned Mr. Geoffrey Saxton, he had first been panic-shaken, then resolved. He'd "let old iron-face Saxton do the high and mighty. Let him stand around and show off his clothes and adjectives, way he did at Flathead Lake." But he, Milt, would be "on the job." He'd help get supper, and calmly ignore Jeff's rudeness.

Only--Jeff wasn't rude. He greeted Milt with, "Ah, Daggett! This is _so_ nice!" And Milt had no chance to help. It was Jeff who antic.i.p.ated him and with a pleasant, "Let me get that--I'm kitchen-broke," s.n.a.t.c.hed up the cold ham and salad. It was Jeff who found the supper plates, while Milt was blunderingly wondering how any one family could use a "whole furniture-store-full of different kinds of china." It was Jeff who sprang to help Claire wheel in the tea-wagon, and so captured the chance to speak to her for which Milt had been maneuvering these five minutes.

When they were settled, Jeff glowed at him, and respectfully offered, "I thought of you so often, Daggett, on a recent little jaunt of mine.

You'd have been helpful."

"Where was that?" asked Milt suspiciously (wondering, and waiting to see, whether you could take cold ham in your fingers).

"Oh, in Alaska."

"In--Alaska?" Milt was dismayed.

"Yes, just a business trip there. There's something I wish you'd advise me about."

He was humble. And Milt was uneasy. He grumbled, "What's that?"

"I've been wondering whether it would be possible to use wireless telephony in Alaska. But I'm such a dub at electricity. Do you know---- What would be the cost of installing a wireless telephone plant with a hundred-mile radius?"

"Gee, I don't know!"

"Oh, so sorry. Well, I wonder if you can tell me about wireless telegraphy, then?"

"No, I don't know anything about that either."

Milt had desperately tried to make his answer gracious but somehow---- He hated this devil's obsequiousness more than he had his chilliness at Flathead Lake. He had a feeling that the Gilsons had delightedly kicked each other under the table; that, for all her unchanging smile, Claire was unhappy.... And she was so far off, a white wraith floating beyond his frantic grasp.

"It doesn't matter, really. But I didn't know---- So you've started in the engineering school at the University of Was.h.i.+ngton," Saxton was purring. "Have you met Gid Childers there--son of old Senator Childers--charming people."

"I've seen him. He has a Stutz--no, his is the Mercer," sighed Milt.

He hated himself for it, but he couldn't quite keep the awe out of his voice. People with Mercers----

Claire seemed to be trying to speak. She made a delicate, feminine, clairesque approximation to clearing her throat. But Jeff ignored her and with almost osculatory affection continued to Milt:

"Do let me know if there's anything I can do to help you. We're acquainted with two or three of your engineering faculty at the Office.

They write in about various things. Do you happen to know Dr.

Philgren?"

"Oh yes. Say! He's a wonder!" Milt was betrayed into exclaiming.

"Yes. Good chap, I believe. He's been trying to get a job with us. We may give him one. Just tell him you're a friend of mine, and that he's to give you any help he can."

Milt choked on a "Thanks."

"And--now that we're just the family here together--how goes the financial side? Can I be of any a.s.sistance in introducing you to some engineering firm where you could do a little work on the side? You could make quite a little money----"

So confoundedly affectionate and paternal----

Milt said irritably, "Thanks, but I don't need to do any work. I've got plenty of money."

"How pleasant!" Saxton's voice was smooth as marshmallow. "You're fortunate. I had quite a struggle to get through Princeton."

Wasn't Mr. Gilson contrasting Saxton's silk s.h.i.+rt with Milt's darned cotton covering, and in light of that contrast chuckling at Milt's boast and Saxton's modesty? Milt became overheated. His scalp p.r.i.c.kled and his shoulder-blades were damp. As Saxton turned from him, and crooned to Claire, "More ham, honey?" Milt hated himself. He was in much of the dramatic but undesirable position of a man in pajamas, not very good pajamas, who has been locked out in the hotel corridor by the slamming of his door. He was in the frame of mind of a mongrel, of a real Boys'-Dog, at a Madison Square dog-show. He had a faint shrewd suspicion of Saxton's game. But what could he do about it?

He felt even more out of place when the family forgot him and talked about people of whom he had never heard.

He sat alone on an extremely distant desert isle and ate cold ham and wished he were in Schoenstrom.

Claire had recovered her power of speech. She seemed to be trying to bring him into the conversation, so that the family might appreciate him.

She hesitated, and thought with creased brows, and brought out, "Uh, uh, oh---- Oh Milt: How much is gas selling at now?"...

Milt left that charming and intimate supper-party at nine. He said, "Got to work on--on my a.n.a.lytical geometry," as though it was a lie; and he threw "Good night" at Saxton as though he hated his kind, good benefactor; and when he tried to be gracious to Mrs. Gilson the best he could get out was, "Thanks f' inviting me." They expansively saw him to the door. Just as he thought that he had escaped, Saxton begged, "Oh, Daggett, I was arguing with a chap---- What color are Holstein-Friesian cattle? Red?"