Round the Block Part 2

"I have noticed the old gentleman often, when I have been reading near the window; and own that I should like to know him. I think, too, from certain signs, that he would not object to knowing me. Unless I am much mistaken, he has bowed to me several times. But fearing that the supposed bow might have been nothing more than a sleepy nod, I have never ventured to answer it. Step back a moment, and see if he observes me."

Maltboy and Overtop retired a few paces. A moment afterward, the old gentleman looked over to Wilkeson, and made a bow at him about which there could be no mistake.

"Answer him." "Answer him," said his two friends. Acting upon this advice, Marcus Wilkeson, blus.h.i.+ng, returned a courtly salute, which was immediately reciprocated by a still lower bow, and a pleasant smile from the old gentleman. Wilkeson bowed again, and added a smile. The old gentleman did the same; and this odd exchange of civilities was beginning to get awkward for Wilkeson, when the old gentleman's attention was suddenly called off.

A slender young man, whose broad black mustache contrasted unpleasantly with the sallow whiteness of his face, dressed in the jauntiest costume of the period, and bearing in one hand a black cane with a large ivory handle, which looked, even in the distance, like a human leg, stood by the old gentleman's side. The old gentleman put down his pipe, seized the young man's disengaged hand, and gazed affectionately at him (so the three observers thought). Some conversation then took place between them, during which the old gentleman repeatedly pressed the young man's hand, and sometimes reached up and softly patted him on the shoulder.

The young man appeared to receive the words and caresses of the old gentleman with a sullen indifference. Several times he pettishly drew his hand away, and at last shook his head fiercely, folded his arms, and seemed (though the spectators could only conjecture that) to stamp the floor with his foot. At this, the old gentleman bowed his head in his hands. The young man held his defiant att.i.tude unmoved, until, glancing out of the window, he saw for the first time that he was watched. "With a jerk, he pulled down the curtain, and cut off a scene which the three observers had begun to find profoundly interesting.

"Well," said Marcus Wilkeson, "though I have given up making calls as a business, I shall certainly take the New-Year's privilege of dropping in on the venerable unknown over the way."

"Two things are plain," said Fayette Overtop. "One is, that the pale, rascally looking young man is the old man's son. Now, I don't suppose either of you will dispute that?" (Overtop paused a moment to receive and dispose of objections, but none were made.) "The other is, that the old fellow is immensely rich--worth a million or two, maybe. Perhaps you _would_ like to argue that point." Overtop smiled, as if nothing would give him greater pleasure than to annihilate a few dozen opinions to the contrary.

"To save argument, as usual, we admit everything," responded Wilkeson.

"But, pray condescend to tell us how you know this fine old boy to be superlatively rich."

Overtop smiled upon his ignorant friends, and answered:

"Because he wears a white cravat. The man isn't a clergyman, is he? Do clergymen smoke pipes? He isn't a Quaker, is he? Do Quakers, or those of them who indulge in white cravats, wear their coat collars turned down?

Consult your own experience, now, and tell me whether you ever saw anybody but a very rich man (with the exceptions already stated) wearing a white cravat. I leave it to your candor."

Wilkeson and Maltboy nodded their heads, as if stricken dumb with conviction.

Overtop, gratified with this ready acquiescence, modestly went on to say that he would not undertake to explain the phenomenon; that task he left to some more philosophical mind. He contented himself with making a humble record of facts.

"And now that each of you have made a discovery in the row of houses, let me try my luck." Overtop rubbed the window, looked out, and carefully surveyed the row from end to end, and back again. "Ah, I have it!" he said. "A real mystery, too. Look at that four-story house near the western end of the block, the one a trifle shabbier than its neighbors. Do you see, in the open window, a man with a pale, intellectual face, gray hair, and arms bare to the elbows, filing away at something held in a vise before him? Now he stops to examine a paper--a plan, probably--which he holds in his hand. Now he wipes the perspiration from his forehead. Can't you see him?"

"Distinctly," was the joint reply.

"What do you suppose he is doing?" asked Overtop.

"No idea," said Wilkeson. "Perhaps mending a teakettle."

"Or repairing an umbrella," suggested Maltboy.

Overtop smiled, and said:

"A person with the slightest powers of observation, would see that that man has genius in his face; that his thin arm is not used to hard mechanical labor; that his brain is so heated with great ideas, that he tries to cool it by opening the window. The tinkering of an umbrella or teakettle would not make a man sweat in midwinter. You won't deny the force of that suggestion."

As he spoke, a young girl advanced from the back part of the room, and stood by the pale workman's side. She wore a bonnet, and a shawl tightly wrapped around her. Though the features of her face could not be distinguished in the distance, it was not hard to detect a pleasant expression in her eyes, a smile on her lips, and a high color on her cheeks, as if she had just come in from the street. She held up a little basket for the workman's inspection.

He paused in his labor, took the girl's head between his hands, and kissed her fondly on the brow. Then he opened the little basket, and drew from it a loaf of bread and a piece of cheese, which he began eating hurriedly. He also seemed, by signs, to press the girl to eat; but she shook her head, smiled more than before, and looked up affectionately into his face. Having bolted a few mouthfuls, the workman placed the remains of the repast on the bench or table before him, kissed the young girl, and resumed his work. She watched every motion of his hand with eager eyes. Once she moved as if to close the window, but he shook his head, and again wiped the sweat from his brow.

He had consulted the paper, and attacked his task with fresh energy for the third or fourth time, when his eyes happened to rest upon the window full of scrutinizing faces. His lips moved in some sudden exclamation, and then he shut the window with vehemence, and drew the curtain which obscured the lower half of it.

"Not a very kind reception of your theory, so far," said Marcus.

"Prejudice--nothing more," said Overtop. "When they see that we have no wish to pry into their private affairs, but are animated with a neighborly regard for them, they will not repel our advances. It isn't human nature."

CHAPTER IV.

QIGG.

During the following two weeks, up to New Year's day, the three friends made little progress in their observations. The tall girl in the immense skirts appeared rarely to reward Matthew Maltboy's ardent gaze, and even then seemed to look down at the dingy snow beneath, or the clouds overhead, or to something or somebody across the way, but never to the fluttering Maltboy.

Nothing more was seen of the pale and grayhaired workman; for he kept the lower curtain of his window jealously drawn. But at night his shadow, strongly projected on the curtain, was in incessant motion; and far into the morning hours a gigantic head and arms s.h.i.+fted and blended upon it in grotesque forms. At the other window of the workman's apartment the young girl often sat, book in hand, and moved her lips as if she were reading aloud. Her eyes were never seen to wander to the outer world with those longings for freedom and fresh air which are natural to the youthful heart, but were always fixed upon the book, or upon some object within the room. She was entirely unconscious of the distant and imperfect scrutiny to which her form and movements were subjected by Marcus Wilkeson, who had begun to take a strange interest in her, and in the shadow on the curtain, since the healthy and amiable old gentleman directly opposite had ceased to smoke his pipe and indulge in his tranquil meditation daily.

Twice only had he shown himself, and then, after a grave bow to Marcus Wilkeson, who returned it with more than the usual inclination of head, the old gentleman had taken a few whiffs at his pipe, looked out of the window with a troubled air, and vanished from the sight of his sympathizing observer, as if the quiet old sitting place had lost its charm for him. The young man--the disturbing element of the old gentleman's life, as Marcus Wilkeson regarded him--was not again seen in the room where he had made his first appearance, but was discovered, several days after that event, sitting at a table near a window in the second story, and writing industriously. His labors were evidently not disagreeable; for, after an hour's engagement with his pen, he would sit back in his chair, laugh, take a long drink from a black bottle which stood at his elbow, and light a fresh cigar. Whatever his occupation, he was completely absorbed in it, and did not notice the pair of keen eyes peering at him from behind a book in the house opposite. Every afternoon, about three o'clock, the young man sat at the table with his bottle, cigars, and writing materials, and pursued his pleasant labors.

Marcus Wilkeson would never have pretended that it was not highly improper to watch one's neighbors. He would have denounced it as deserving of the severest reprobation. But he would have said, that if, while he was sitting, according to his invariable custom, at his own window, for the sole purpose of reading a book, people chose to bring themselves within the range of his vision, he was not therefore under obligations to vacate his seat. He would have insisted that any glances which he might have directed at his neighbors, were so levelled in fits of mental abstraction, or in the exercise of a friendly regard for them.

The Overtop theory he discarded as fallacious, and likely to get its talented founder into trouble.

That founder and his only follower, Maltboy, were determined, however, to put the new social system into practice on New Year's day, and had secured the ready services of Quigg, the grocer, as originally proposed by the sagacious Overtop. Marcus Wilkeson obstinately refused to partic.i.p.ate in this projected grand tour; which refusal was too bad, said Overtop, because the fourth seat in the double sleigh that had been hired for the occasion would be left vacant.

At last came New Year's day; and the sky was cloudless, and the sun was bright, and the weather was just cold enough to make the blood tingle pleasantly, and the snow was a foot deep, and well beaten down in the side streets. The elements themselves had conspired to give the Overtop theory every chance of success.

J.M. Quigg, grocer, was elaborately attiring himself in the snug sleeping room behind his store, at ten o'clock on the morning of the eventful day. He little knew the tremendous importance of the part which he was about to perform. He looked upon Overtop and Maltboy, not as the expounders of a new social philosophy, but as cash customers to a considerable extent, and as partners in defraying the heavy expenses of a large double team. Mr. Quigg exercised the virtue of prudence even in his dissipations, and derived pleasure from the reflection that he would make his annual round of complimentary calls in an elegant turnout at a moderate cost.

Therefore Mr. Quigg hummed pleasantly as he dressed himself, by the aid of a large mirror which he had taken for a bad debt, and which was the only ornament of the plainly furnished little room. Mr. Quigg was a man of business, and never fretted with cravats, nor made himself unhappy on the subject of hair. Three turns and a pull adjusted the former; and a half dozen well-directed dabs with a stiff brush regulated the latter.

Fifteen minutes after he began his toilet, he took a comprehensive view of himself in the large mirror, and mentally expressed the conviction that, for a man of thirty-seven, he was not bad looking.

Quigg was right; and his just opinion of himself was shared by the young widows and unmarried ladies of his acquaintance. He was about six feet high, with a graceful figure, and the head of a statesman. A more intellectual face, and a broader or more ma.s.sive brow, a.s.sisted, perhaps, in its general effect, by a slight baldness, were rarely if ever seen. A distinguished professor of phrenology had picked out Quigg's head from among half an acre of heads at a lecture upon that subject in the city, and had p.r.o.nounced it the "model head," greatly to the disgust of all the other large-skulled men in the hall. The professor had also a.s.sured Quigg, upon learning who and what he was, that it was a solemn duty he owed to society to abandon the grocery business, and devote himself to "philosophical culture, the development of the humanities, and the true expansion of his interior individuality." Notwithstanding this flattering opinion, Quigg still sanded his sugar, and reduced his whiskey, and found his delight as well as his-profit in those gross material pursuits.

The interior Quigg, of whom the professor had spoken so hopefully, was still undeveloped. The professor's views of Quigg's head had, however, made a deep impression upon the owner of it, and had given to Quigg's ordinary observations on the weather, the state of his health, and the other familiar topics to which his remarks were princ.i.p.ally addressed, an oracular importance in his own opinion. Such were the deceptive effects produced by his large, polished brow, and slow, imposing speech, that he always seemed to be on the point of uttering vital truths. But the listener's ear ached in vain for them.

Quigg put on his overcoat, took a small gla.s.s of bitters from a bottle kept behind the large mirror, locked up the store, proceeded to the nearest restaurant, hastily despatched a lean, unsatisfactory chop and a cup of weak tea, gave a half dime to the waiter who bade him, in a loud and significant voice, "Happy New Year, sir," and then returning found the double sleigh punctual to appointment.

It was a swan-shaped vehicle, brightly painted, thickly covered with buffalo robes, and drawn by two high-stepping horses, which tossed their heads and shook their bells merrily as if they shared in the prevailing jovialty of the day.

On the front seat, and nearly filling up the whole width of the sleigh, sat the driver. His shoulders were broad enough for two men; his legs and arms were of twice the common size, and he had two well-defined chins. He seemed to be double in all his dimensions, like the sleigh.

"Hallo, Quigg!" said the driver, in a voice of double strength, snapping his whip playfully at that gentleman as he approached.

"Hallo to _you_, Cap," returned Quigg, pleasantly. "It is a very fine day. I guess there will be a great many calls made." Quigg uttered these words slowly, as if they were precious, and he hated to part with them.

"Shouldn't wonder," answered Cap, which was a short name for Captain (n.o.body knew of what), and added, without any apparent sequence of ideas: "I s'pose you're goin' to take some brandy along, old fellow?

It's hardly fair for me to be sittin' into the cold outside, with nothin' to drink, while you chaps are drinkin' your champagne punch before a warm fire."

Mr. Quigg reflected a moment, as one who reckons up profit and loss. He then said:

"A good idea, Cap. Brandy is not a bad thing on a cold day." He spoke with impressive solemnity.

"Or any other day," added the driver. "Partickley 'lection day.

Leastways, such was the 'pinion of the voters into my ward, last December, when I run for School Inspector, you know. Unfortunately, I didn't know the ropes then; and thought, when I got the nomination, I was sure to be 'lected. My 'ponent issued tickets for free drinks at all the rum mills into the ward. I didn't find out his game till about two o'clock in the afternoon, and then I tried it myself. But I was too late. He had six hours' start of me, and beat me by five hundred drinks--I mean votes."

Mr. Quigg nodded, and said, "Of course," as if he had often heard of such instances, and there was nothing surprising in them. He then abruptly cut off the Captain's political reminiscences, by unlocking the store and entering it. After a few minutes' absence, he returned with a half-gallon jug and a tin dipper.

"A nice, fat little feller," rapturously exclaimed Captain Tonkins, taking the proffered jug. Placing it in the bottom of the sleigh, where such of the public as were stirring in that vicinity could not see the operation, he half filled the tin dipper, and, raising it suddenly to his mouth, drank the contents with a double gulp. "Prime stuff, that,"