The Whirligig of Time Part 20

It was five o'clock in the afternoon and five degrees above zero. It was also very windy, which made it seem colder to everybody except the thermometer; and as the thermometer alone exhibited signs of being able to stand a temperature of twenty or thirty or even forty degrees colder without suffering disagreeable consequences, that seemed rather unfair.

For the wind, which was blowing not in hysterical gusts but in the calm, relentless, all-day-and-all-night, forty-to sixty-mile gale that you only get west of the Great Lakes, _did_ make it colder; there was no doubt about that. Else why did every one keep out of it as much as possible; walk on the protected side of the street, seek shelter in doorways while waiting for trolley cars, and so forth? Of course the wind made you colder; so much colder that when you were sheltered from it, if only for a moment, you felt comparatively warm, though it was still five degrees above zero. Unless, that is, you happened to be standing over one of those grated openings in the sidewalk that belched forth their welcome though inexplicable gusts of warm air into the outer world; if you could get a place over one of those--gee, but you were the lucky guy!

That was the way you phrased it, at any rate, if you happened to be twelve years old and a newsboy with an income of--well, say thirty dollars a year, if that sounds sufficiently insufficient to provide anything approaching decent clothes, decent food and a decent place to live. If not, make it as little as you like. The point is that the annual income of a certain ten-year-old newsboy, by name of Stodger McClintock, was preeminently, magnificently insufficient to provide any of those commodities. As a consequence of which, Stodger was cold. As another consequence of which Stodger, the gay, the debonair, the unemotional, the anything but tearfully inclined, was very nearly in tears. People do actually suffer from the cold occasionally, even in this effete and over-protected age, and Stodger was suffering. The volcanic opening was all very well, but he could not stay there long.

And the prospects for the night were bad, and bad even for supper....

There were tears in James' eyes also as he hurried along from work, but they were entirely due to the wind. As soon as he perceived Stodger, however, who dashed out at him with the customary "Here's yer paper, mister!" at an unexpected place in the side street instead of at the corner as per custom, he realized that his (Stodger's) tears were not entirely due to the wind.

"Well, Stodger! What are you doing down here?" he cried cheerfully.

"Trine t' git woim." Stodger's diction at best was imperfect and it was now further impeded by a certain nasal fluency, the joint result of the cold and contemplation of domestic imperfections. But James understood, perfectly well.

"Well, Stodger, it is cold, I'll have to grant you that!" he rejoined, and inst.i.tuted fumbling operations into the pocket where he kept his loose silver. "Give me a _Star_ and a _Sun_ and a _Mercury_, too, will you? This is no time for economy; the announcement of the all-American football team is out to-night. Give me one of every paper you have!"

Pecuniary transaction ensued, parallel with conversation.

"And how do _you_ like this weather, Stodger?"

"Me? Oh, _I_ don't mind."

"Don't you? Well, I do, I'm afraid. This is just a little too cold for my pleasure. But then I'm not a husk, like you."

"Well--" there was concession in Stodger's voice--"it's loike this. Some guys minds it, 'n' then they don't like t' unb.u.t.ton their coats 'n' fork out a penny fer a paper. 'N' that makes b.u.m bizniss. See?" Print is miserably inadequate to give an idea of Stodger's consonants.

"I see. Stodger, did you ever hear of an act of G.o.d?"

"Huh?"

"Well, never mind. A cold snap like this is an act of G.o.d. Some natural cataclysm, something that can't be prevented or even foreseen. Well, sir, opposed as I am to indiscriminate giving, I'm going to break a rule this time. All bets are off when an act of G.o.d comes along. Here's half a dollar. Can you get something to eat and keep yourself warm over night with that?"

"Sure I kin." Stodger grinned broadly for a second or two; then his face clouded. "Aw, naw. Not off you. I couldn't take that off you." He meant that only fools gave away money, and he did not want to put James in that category.

"Why not?" James' smile, his unruffled good-humor, had their effect.

Surely a G.o.d that smiled and looked like that could not be quite a fool, even if he gave away money. "Now stop your guff; take the cash and cut along. So long!... That was my trolley, dash it; you and your confounded scruples have made me miss my car, Stodger!... Well, let's take a look at the all-American football team. Stoddard of Harvard, Brown of the Army, Steele of Michigan...." He ran his eye down the list till interrupted by a sharp exclamation from his friend.

"Gee, but he's a b.u.m choice!"

"Who?"

"Steele."

"Steele? Oh, I'm not so sure. He's death on running back punts...."

"Aw, he _is_ not! I tell yer, he couldn't hang onto a punt if 'twas handed to him on flypaper by a dago in a dress suit, let alone run with it! My ole gran'mudder c'n run better'n him, any day!" Domestic troubles being for the nonce in abeyance Stodger was in a mood to let his tongue run free on a favorite topic.

"Well, we'll have to put your grandmother in at all-America left half next year." Stodger knew as well as anybody when he was being laughed at, and held his peace. "I didn't know you were such a football fan, Stodger."

"Aw, yes. I'm some fan." This without enthusiasm, in the bored tone in which one agrees to the statement of a self-evident fact.

"Well, I wonder. Stodger, do you think you could recognize any all-America player if you saw him on the street, in ordinary togs?"

"Sure I could."

"How many years back?"

"T'ree years ... oh, more; four, five years, mebbe!"

"Well, I'm afraid you lose, Stodger!"

"Aw, gwawn! Try me an' see!"

"You've lost already, I tell you. You've been talking to an all-America player for the last ten minutes and never knew it!"

"Aw, wotcha trine t' hand me! Run along 'n' tell it to the cop on the corner! Tell it to me gran'mudder, if you like; _she_'ll believe yer!

You can't slip one like that on _me_, I tell yer!" Stodger's contempt was magnificent, but he rather marred the effect of it by adding suspiciously "Wotcheer?" which amounted to a confession that he might be wrong, after all.

"Two years ago. Take a good look now, Stodger; see if you can't recognize me." James turned so that the sunset glow fell more strongly on his face. Stodger looked with all his eyes, but remained unconvinced.

"Line, er back?" he inquired.

"Back."

"I gotcha now! Wimboine! Wimboine! Right half! Yale!" But experience had taught him that such dreams usually fade, and he went on, disappointed: "Aw, naw. Can't slip _that_ on me. You're not that Wimboine. You look a little bit like him, but you're not _that_ Wimboine. Brudder, p'raps.

_You're_ no football player."

"Why not?"

"Too thin. _You_ c'd never tear through the line th' way _that_ feller did."

"Oh, rot; we'll end this, here and now." James fumbled at length beneath his fur coat and produced the end of a watch-chain on which dangled a little gold football with his name, that of his college and the date of his achievement on it. Stodger, convinced, simply stared. It was as though Jupiter had stepped right down from Olympus. James, with a smile at his consternation, resumed his paper for the last minute or two before his car arrived.

"Say, mister! Mister Wimboine! You got my tail twisted that time, all right! I'm a goat, I'm a simp, I'm a b.o.o.b! You got my number! Call me wotch like!"

"All right, Stodger, I will." James spoke and smiled through his reading. He had almost ceased to think of Stodger, who was more entertaining when incredulous, and was reading merely to kill time till his car arrived. Stodger's tongue was still wagging:--

"Say, dey was a guy useter live down Chicago called Schmidt--Slugger Schmidt, that was a cracker jack--middle-weight--ever hear of him? I knew him, oncet ... he had a little practise bout wid Riley th' other night--you know, Hurrican Riley?--and laid him out in t'ree roun's....

Say, mister, there goes yer car! That's the Poik Street car went!"

"What? Oh, did it? Never mind; I'm going to walk." James was off; off almost before the words were out of his mouth, and Stodger, struck by the sudden curtness of his tone was afraid he had outraged the feelings of the G.o.d. Mister Wimboine had clearly been deeply displeased about something, and Stodger was sure it must have been something more than the all-America football team.

Of course Stodger was not really responsible for James' displeasure and his sudden determination to walk the three miles that lay between him and his club and dinner, any more than was the composition of the all-America football team. It was something much more serious; something that made bodily exercise imperative lest cerebration around and around one little particular point should make him dizzy. For it was a very small thing that cerebration was busy on, even if it did represent a great deal to James; only a tiny paragraph at the bottom of the first page of one of the evening papers. The single headline had first caught his eye:--"Rates Heartache at $40,000," and then with unbelieving eyes he read on: "New Haven, Conn., Dec. 8. Myrtle Mowbray, a manicure living in this city, has filed a suit of breach of promise of marriage for $40,000 in the Superior Court here against Harold Wimbourne, a student in Yale University. Mr. Wimbourne is a member of an old and prominent New Haven family. He is a senior in the academic department."

A sort of mental and emotional nausea overcame James as the meaning of those lines sank into his brain. The vulgar, degrading cynicism of the headline! Breach of promise, scandal, newspaper publicity--that was the sort of thing that happened to other people, not to one's self. Such things simply did not occur in families one knew, much less in families by the name of Wimbourne. James had always thought of that name as apart, aloof from such things, exempt from all undesirable publicity.

His family pride was none the less strong for being so unconscious, so dormant; now that it was outraged it flamed forth in a scorching blaze.

So loathing gave way to anger, and anger lasted a full mile and a half.

It would have lasted longer if it had been concentrated on one person or thing, instead of directed against several persons, several things, several sets of circ.u.mstances, the order of things in general. For James was not angry at Harry alone; even he realized that before the mile and a half were up. He was angry at him at first, but that soon pa.s.sed off somewhat; his anger seemed even to be seeking other objects, unconsciously--the Mowbray woman, Uncle James, himself, Yale University, the whole nature of man.

But cerebration had a chance to get in a good deal of its fell work during those three miles. As he swung open the front door of the club and pa.s.sed into the main lobby, with its teeming confusion of electric lights and bellboys, he was conscious of nothing but a quiet, deep, corroding disgust that seemed to be as old as all time. It seemed as if he had known of this disgrace for years; had almost had time to outlive it, in fact. His first impulse was to go into the bar and annex himself to one of the cheerful groups that would be congregating there at this hour, and turn his mind to something else. But almost immediately he remembered that practically every one there would also have read the evening paper, and he shuddered at the thought of their pitying glances.