From a Bench in Our Square Part 8

"I don't like dogs," said the Mordaunt Estate curtly.

"w.i.l.l.y Woolly"--Mr. Winslow Merivale addressed his companion--"this gentleman does not like dogs."

The Mordaunt Estate felt suddenly convicted of social error. The feeling deepened when w.i.l.l.y Woolly advanced, reckoned him up with an appraising eye, and, without the slightest loss of dignity, raised himself on his hind legs, offering the gesture of supplication. He did not, however, droop his paws in the accepted canine style; he joined them, finger tip to finger tip, elegantly and piously, after the manner of the Maiden's Prayer.

The Estate promptly capitulated.

"Some pup!" he exclaimed. "When did you want to move in?"

"At once, if you please."

Before the Estate had finished his artistic improvements on the front door, the new tenant had begun the transfer of his simple lares and penates in a big hand-propelled pushcart. The initial load consisted in the usual implements of eating, sitting, and sleeping. But the burden of the half-dozen succeeding trips was h.o.m.ogeneous. Clocks. Big clocks, little clocks, old clocks, new clocks, fat clocks, lean clocks, solemn clocks, fussy clocks, clocks of red, of green, of brown, of pink, of white, of orange, of blue, clocks that sang, and clocks that rang, clocks that whistled, and blared, and piped, and drummed. One by one, the owner established them in their new domicile, adjusted them, dusted them, and wound them, and, as they set themselves once more to their meticulous busy-ness, that place which had for so long been m.u.f.fled in quiet and deadened with dust, gave forth the tiny bustle of unresting mechanism and the pleasant chime of the hours. Number 37 became the House of Silvery Voices.

Thus came to Our Square, to be one of us, for better or for worse, Mr.

Winslow Merivale, promptly rechristened Stepfather Time. The Bonnie La.s.sie gave him the name. She said that only a stepfather could bring up his charges so badly. For his clocks were both independent and irresponsible, though through no fault of their own. When they were wound they went. When they were unwound they rested. Seldom were more than half of them simultaneously busy, and their differences of opinion as to the hour were radical and irreconcilable. The big, emphatic eight-day, opposite the front door, might proclaim that it was eleven, only to be at once contradicted by the little tinkler on the parlor mantel, which announced that it was six, thereby starting up the cathedral case on the stairway and the Grandfather in the dining-room, who held out respectively for eight and two, while all the time it was really half-past one. Thence arose in the early days painful misunderstandings on the part of Our Square, for we are a simple people and deem it the duty of a timepiece to keep time. In particular we were befooled by Grandfather, the solemn-voiced Ananias of a clock with a long-range stroke and a most convincing manner. So that Schepstein, the note-shaver, on his way to a profitable appointment at 11 A.M., heard the hour strike (thirty-five minutes in advance of the best professional opinion) from the House of Silvery Voices, and was impelled to the recklessness of hiring a pa.s.sing taxi, thereby reaching his destination with half an hour to spare and half a dollar to lack, for which latter he threatened to sue the Mordaunt Estate's tenant. To the credit side of the house's account it must be set down that MacLachan, the tailor, having started one of his disastrous drunks within the precincts of his Home of Fas.h.i.+on, was on his way to finish it in the gutter via the zigzag route from corner saloon to corner saloon, when the Twelve Apostles clock in the bas.e.m.e.nt window lifted up its voice and (presumably through the influence of Peter) thrice denied the hour, which was actually a quarter before midnight. "Los.h.!.+" said MacLachan, who invariably reacted in tongue to the stimulus of Scotch whiskey, "they'll a' be closed. Hame an' to bed wi' ye, waster of the priceless hours!" And back he staggered to sleep it off.

Then there was the disastrous case of the Little Red Doctor, who set out to attend a highly interesting consultation at 4 P.M. and, hearing Grandfather Ananias strike three, erroneously concluded that he had spare time to stop in for a peek at Madame Tallafferr's gout (which was really vanity in the guise of tight shoes), and reached the hospital, only to find it all over and the patient dead.

"It's an outrage," declared the Little Red Doctor fiercely, "that an old lunatic can move in here from G.o.d-knows-where in a pushcart and play merry h.e.l.l with a hard-working pract.i.tioner's professional duties. And you're the one to tell him so, Dominie. You're the diplomat of the Square."

He even inveigled the Bonnie La.s.sie into backing him up in this preposterous proposal. She had her own grievance against the House of Silvery Voices.

"It isn't the way it plays tricks on time alone," said she. "There's one clock in there that's worse than conscience."

And she brought her indictment against a raucous timepiece which was wont to lead up to its striking with a long, preliminary clack-and-whirr, alleging that twice, when she had quit her sculping early because the clay was obdurate and wouldn't come right, and had gone for a walk to clear her vision, the clock had accosted her in these unjustifiable terms:

"Clacketty-whirr-rr-rr! Back-to-yer-worr-rr-rrk! Yerr-rr-rr-rr _wrong!

wrong! wrong! wrong!"_

"Wherefore," said the Bonnie La.s.sie, "your appellant prays that you be a dear, good, stern, forbidding Dominie and go over to Number 37 and ask him what he means by it, anyway, and tell him he's got to stop it."

Now, the Bonnie La.s.sie holds the power of the high, the middle, and the low justice over all Our Square by the divine right of loveliness and kindliness. So that evening I went while the Little Red Doctor, as a self-const.i.tuted Committee in Waiting, sat on my bench. Stepfather Time himself opened the door to me.

"What might they call you, sir, if I may ask?" he inquired with timid courtesy.

"They might call me the Dominie hereabouts. And they do."

"I have heard of you." He motioned me to a seat in the bare little room, alive with tickings and clickings. "You have lived long here, sir?"

"Long."

From some interminable distance a voice of time mocked me with a subtle and solemn mockery: "_Long. Long. Long_."

My host waited for the clock to finish before he spoke again. As I afterward discovered, this was his invariable custom.

"I, too, am an old man," he murmured.

"A hardy sixty, I should guess."

"A long life. Might I ask you a question, sir,' as to the folk in this Square?" He hesitated a moment after I had nodded. "Are they, as one might say, friendly? Neighborly?"

I was a little taken aback. "We are not an intrusive people."

"No one," he said, "has been to see my clocks."

I began to perceive that this was a sad little man, and to mislike my errand. "You live here quite alone?" I asked.

"Oh, no!" said he quickly. "You see, I have w.i.l.l.y Woolly. Pardon me. I have not yet presented him."

At his call the fluffy poodle ambled over to me, sniffed at my extended hand, and, rearing, set his paws on my knee.

"He greets you as a friend," said my new acquaintance in a tone which indicated that I had been signally honored. "I trust that we shall see you here often, Mr. Dominie. Would you like to inspect my collection now?"

Here was my opening. "The fact is--" I began, and stopped from sheer cowardice. The job was too distasteful. To wound that gentle pride in his possessions which was obviously the life of the singular being before me--I couldn't do it. "The fact is," I repeated, "I--I have a friend outside waiting for me. The Little Red Doctor--er--Dr. Smith, you know."

"A physician?" he said eagerly. "Would he come in, do you think? w.i.l.l.y Woolly has been quite feverish to-day."

"I'll ask him," I replied, and escaped with that excuse.

When I broke it to the Little Red Doctor, the mildest thing he said to me was to ask me why I should take him for a dash-binged vet!

Appeals to his curiosity finally overpersuaded him, and now it was my turn to wait on the bench while he invaded the realm of the Voices.

Happily for me the weather was amiable; it was nearly two hours before my subst.i.tute reappeared. He then tried to sneak away without seeing me.

Balked in this cowardly endeavor, he put on a vague professional expression and observed that it was an obscure case.

"For a man of sixty," I began, "Mr. Merivale--"

"_Who_?" interrupted the Little Red Doctor; "I'm speaking of the dog."

"Have you, then," I inquired in insinuating accents, "become a dash-binged vet?"

"A man can't be a brute, can he!" he retorted angrily. "When that animated mop put up his paws and stuck his tongue out like a child--"

"I know," I said. "You took on a new patient. Probably gratis," I added, with malice, for this was one of the Little Red Doctor's notoriously weak points.

"Just the same, he's a fool dog."

"On the contrary, he is a person of commanding intellect and nice social discrimination," I a.s.serted, recalling w.i.l.l.y Woolly's flattering acceptance of myself.

"A faker," a.s.severated my friend. "He pretends to see things."

I sat up straight on my bench. "Things? What kind of things?"

"Things that aren't there," returned the Little Red Doctor, and fell to musing. "They couldn't be," he added presently and argumentatively.

Receiving no encouragement when I sought further details, I asked whether he had called the new resident to account for the delinquencies of his clocks. He shook his head.