The Ne'er-Do-Well Part 17

WEEKS, Consul, Colon.

Your guest an impostor. Have no son.

ANTHONY.

"Well, I'll be d.a.m.ned!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "This is a joke!"

Weeks was beginning to pant. "A joke, hey? I suppose it was a joke to impose on me?"

"Don't you believe I'm Kirk Anthony?"

"No, I do not. I just discovered to-day that your name is Jefferson Locke. Stein told me."

Anthony laughed lightly.

"Oh, laugh, if you want to. You're a smooth article with your talk about football and automobiles and millionaire fathers, but you happened to select the wrong millionaire for a father this time, and I'm going to give you a taste of our Spiggoty jails."

"You can't arrest me. You offered to take me in."

The fat man grew redder than ever; he seemed upon the point of exploding; his whole body shook and quivered as if a head of steam were steadily gathering inside him.

"You can't get out of it that way," he cried at the top of his little voice. "I've fed you for a week. I put you up at my club.

That very suit of clothes you have on is mine."

"Well, don't burst a seam over the matter. My Governor doesn't know the facts. I'll cable him myself this time."

"And live off me for another week, I suppose? Not if I know it! He says he has no son; isn't that enough?"

"He doesn't understand."

"And how about those gambling debts?" chattered the mountain of flesh. "You thought you'd fool me for a week, while you won enough money from my friends to get away. Now I'LL have to pay them. Oh, I'll fix you!"

"You go slow about having me pinched," Kirk said, darkly, "or I'll make you jump through a hoop. I'll pay my debts."

"You're a rich man, eh? Money doesn't mean much to you, hey?"

mocked the infuriated Consul. "I suppose this is an old game of yours. Well, you stuck me all right, because you knew I couldn't have you arrested--I'd be a laughing-stock forever. But I've had your card cancelled, and I've left word for the waiters to throw you out if you show up at the Wayfarers."

"Will you lend me enough money to cable again?" asked Anthony, with an effort.

"More money? NO!" fairly screamed the other. "You get out of my house, Mr. 'Kirk Anthony,' and don't you show yourself around here again. I'll keep the rest of your wardrobe."

His erstwhile guest underwent an abrupt reversal of emotion. To the indignant amazement of Mr. Weeks, he burst into a genuine laugh, saying:

"All right, landlord, keep my baggage. I believe that's the custom, but--Oh, gee! This IS funny." He was still laughing when he reached the public square, for at last he had begun to see the full humor of Adelbert Higgins' joke.

VII

THE REWARD OF MERIT

Facing for the first time in his life an instant and absolute need of money, Kirk found himself singularly lacking in resource; and a period of sober contemplation brought him no helpful thought.

Perhaps, after all, he decided, his best course would be to seek relief from the Cortlandts. Accordingly, he strolled into the offices of the steams.h.i.+p company near by and asked leave to telephone. But on calling up the Hotel Tivoli, he was told that his friends were out; nor could he learn the probable hour of their return. As he hung up the receiver he noticed that the office was closing, and, seeing the agent about to quit the place, addressed him:

"I'd like to ask a favor."

"What is it?"

"Will you introduce me to the best hotel in town? I have friends in Panama City, but they're out and it's getting late."

"There isn't a good hotel here, but you don't need an introduction; just walk in. They're not full."

"I'm broke, and I have no baggage."

"Don't you know anybody?"

"I know the American consul--been stopping at his house for a week--but he threw me out."

A great light seemed suddenly to dawn upon the agent. "Oh, you're Locke!" said he, with the air of one who detects a fraud too obvious to be taken seriously. "Now I understand. The purser on the Santa Cruz told me about you. Sorry I can't help you, but I'm a salaried man."

"I've got to sleep," stoutly maintained the other. "Somebody will have to take care of me; I can't sit up all night."

"See here, my friend, I don't know what your game is, but you can't sting me." The agent finished locking up, then walked away, leaving his visitor to reflect anew upon the average human being's ign.o.ble lack of faith in his fellows.

It was growing dark. From farther down the water-front the lights of the Wayfarers Club shone invitingly, and Kirk decided to appeal there for a.s.sistance. In spite of Weeks's warning, he felt sure he could prevail upon some of the members to tide him over for the night, but as he neared the place he underwent a sudden change of heart. Slowly mounting the stairs ahead of him like a trained hippopotamus was the colossal, panting figure of the American consul, at sight of which Kirk's pride rose up in arms and forbade him to follow. Doubtless Weeks had spread his story broadcast; it was manifestly impossible for him to appeal to his recent card partners--they would believe he had deliberately imposed upon them. It was humiliating, yet there seemed nothing to do except to await the Cortlandts' return, and, if he failed to reach them by telephone, to spend the night in the open. It occurred to him that he might try to locate Stein or some other of his late fellow- pa.s.sengers, but they were probably scattered across the Isthmus by this time.

A band was playing in the plaza when he came back--a very good band, too--and, finding a bench, he allowed his mind the relief of idly listening to the music. The square was filling with Spanish people, who soon caught and held his attention, recalling Mrs.

Cortlandt's words regarding the intermixture of bloods in this country; for every imaginable variety of mongrel breed looked out from the loitering crowd. But no matter what the racial blend, black was the fundamental tone. Undeniably the Castilian strain was running out; not one pa.s.ser-by in ten seemed really white.

Naturally, there was no color line. Well-dressed girls, evidently white, or nearly so, went arm and arm with wenches as black as night; men of every shade fraternized freely.

It was a picturesque and ever-changing scene. Kirk saw dark-faced girls wearing their unfailing badge of maidenhood--a white mantilla--followed invariably at a distance by respectful admirers who never presumed to walk beside them; wives whom marriage had forced to exchange the white shawl for the black, escorted by their husbands; huge, slouching Jamaican negroes of both s.e.xes; silent-footed, stately Barbadians who gave a touch of savagery to the procession. Some of the women wore giant firebugs, whose glowing eyes lent a ghostly radiance to hair or lace, at once weird and beautiful. Round and round the people walked to the strains of their national music, among them dozens upon dozens of the ever-present little black-and-tan policemen, who const.i.tute the republic's standing army.

As the evening drew on, Kirk became conscious of an unwonted sensation. Once before he had had the same feeling--while on a moose-trail in Maine. But now there was no guide, with a packful of food, to come to his relief, and he could not muster up the spirit that enables men to bear vacation hards.h.i.+ps with cheerfulness.

He began to wonder whether a fast of twenty-four hours would seriously weaken a man, and, rather than make the experiment, he again called up the Tivoli, rejoicing anew in the fact that there was no toll on Isthmian messages. But again he was disappointed.

This time he was told that the Cortlandts were doubtless spending the night out of town with friends.

Soon after his second return to the park, the concert ended, the crowd melted away, and he found himself occupying a bench with a negro of about the same age as himself. For perhaps an hour the two sat there hearkening to the dying noises of the city; then Kirk, unable to endure the monotony longer, turned sharply on his companion and said:

"Why don't you go home?"

The negro started, his eyes flew open, then he laughed: "Oh, boss, I got no home."

"Really?"

"No, sar."