Seven Keys to Baldpate Part 14

I may ask a rather big thing, and ask you to do it blindly, just trusting in me, as I refused to trust in you." She stopped and looked very seriously into Mr. Magee's face.

"I'm mighty glad," he answered in a low tone. "From the moment I saw you weeping in the station I've wanted to be of help to you. The station agent advised me not to interfere. He said to become involved with a weeping woman meant trouble. The fool. As though any trouble--"

"He was right," put in the girl, "it probably will mean trouble."

"As though any storm," finished Mr. Magee "would not be worth the rainbow of your smile at the end."

"A very fancy figure," laughed she. "But storms aren't nice."

"There are a few of us," replied Magee, "who can be merry through the worst of them because of the rainbow to come."

For answer, she flattened her finely-modeled nose into shapelessness against the cold pane. Back of them in the candle-lighted room, the motley crew of Baldpate's winter guests stood about in various att.i.tudes of waiting. In front of the fire the holder of the Chair of Comparative Literature quoted poetry to Mrs. Norton, and probably it never occurred to the old man that the woman to whom he talked was that nightmare of his life--a peroxide blonde. Ten feet away in the flickering half-light, the immense bulk of the mayor of Reuton reposed on the arm of a leather couch, and before him stood his lithe unpleasant companion, Lou Max, side by side with Mr. Bland, whose talk of haberdashery was forever stilled. The candles sputtered, the storm angrily rattled the windows; Mr. Peters flitted like a hairy wraith about the table. So the strange game that was being played at Baldpate Inn followed the example of good digestion and waited on appet.i.te.

What Mr. Magee flippantly termed his dinner party was seated at last, and there began a meal destined to linger long in the memories of those who partook if it. Puzzled beyond words, the host took stock of his guests. Opposite him, at the foot of the table, he could see the lined tired face of Mrs. Norton, dazed, uncomprehending, a little frightened.

At his right the great red acreage of Cargan's face held defiance and some amus.e.m.e.nt; beside it sneered the cruel face of Max; beyond that Mr.

Bland's countenance told a story of worry and impotent anger. And on Mr.

Magee's left sat the professor, bearded, spectacled, calm, seemingly undisturbed by this queer flurry of events, beside the fair girl of the station who trusted Magee at last. In the first few moments of silence Mr. Magee compared her delicate features with the coa.r.s.e knowing face of the woman at the table's foot, and inwardly answered "No."

Without the genial complement of talk the dinner began. Mr. Peters appeared with another variety of his canned soup, whereupon the silence was broken by the gastronomic endeavors of Mr. Max and the mayor. Mr.

Magee was reflecting that conversation must be encouraged, when Cargan suddenly spoke.

"I hope I ain't putting you folks out none," he remarked with obvious sarcasm. "It ain't my habit to drop in unexpected like this. But business--"

"We're delighted, I'm sure," said Mr. Magee politely.

"I suppose you want to know why I'm here," the mayor went on.

"Well--" he hesitated--"it's like this--"

"Dear Mr. Cargan," Magee broke in, "spare us, I pray. And spare yourself. We have had explanations until we are weary. We have decided to drop them altogether, and just to take it for granted that, in the words of the song, we're here because we're here."

"All right," replied Cargan, evidently relieved. "That suits me. I'm tired explaining, anyhow. There's a bunch of reformers rose up lately in Reuton--maybe you've heard about 'em. A lovely bunch. A white necktie and a half-portion of brains apiece. They say they're going to do for me at the next election."

Mr. Max laughed harshly from the vicinity of his soup.

"They wrote the first joke book, them people," he said.

"Well," went on Cargan, "there ain't n.o.body so insignificant and piffling that people won't listen to 'em when they attack a man in public life. So I've had to reply to this comic opera bunch, and as I say, I'm about wore out explaining. I've had to explain that I never stole the town I used to live in in Indiana, and that I didn't stick up my father with a knife. It gets monotonous. So I'm much obliged to you for pa.s.sing the explanations up. We won't bother you long, me and Lou. I got a little business here, and then we'll mosey along. We'll clear out about nine o'clock."

"No," protested Magee. "So soon? We must make it pleasant for you while you stay. I always hate hosts who talk about their servants--I have a friend who bores me to death because he has a j.a.p butler he believes was at Mukden. But I think I am justified in calling your attention to ours--Mr. Peters, the Hermit of Baldpate Mountain. Cooking is merely his avocation. He is writing a book."

"That guy," remarked Cargan, incredulous.

"What do you know about that?" asked Mr. Bland. "It certainly will get a lot of hot advertising if it ever appears. It's meant to prove that all the trouble in the world has been caused by woman."

The mayor considered.

"He's off--he's nutty, that fellow," he announced. "It ain't women that cause all of the trouble."

"Thank you, Mr. Cargan," said Miss Norton, smiling.

"Anybody'd know it to look at you, miss," replied the mayor in his most gallant manner. Then he added hastily: "And you, ma'am," with a nod in the other woman's direction.

"I don't know as I got the evidence in my face," responded Mrs. Norton easily, "but women don't make no trouble, I know that. I think the man's crazy, myself, and I'd tell him so if he wasn't the cook." She paused, for Peters had entered the room. There was silence while he changed the courses. "It's getting so now you can't say the things to a cook you can to a king," she finished, after the hermit had retired.

"Ahem--Mr. Cargan," put in Professor Bolton, "you give it as your opinion that woman is no trouble-maker, and I must admit that I agree with your premise in general, although occasionally she may cause a--a slight annoyance. Undeniably, there is a lot of trouble in the world. To whose efforts do you ascribe it?"

The mayor ran his thick fingers through his hair.

"I got you," he said, "and I got your answer, too. Who makes the trouble? Who's made it from the beginning of time? The reformers, Doc.

Yes, sir. Who was the first reformer? The snake in the garden of Eden.

This hermit guy probably has that affair laid down at woman's door. Not much. Everything was running all right around the garden, and then the snake came along. It's a twenty to one shot he'd just finished a series of articles on 'The Shame of Eden' for a magazine. 'What d'ye mean?' he says to the woman, 'by letting well enough alone? Things are all wrong here. The present administration is running everything into the ground.

I can tell you a few things that will open your eyes. What's that? What you don't know won't hurt you? The old cry', he says, 'the old cry against which progressives got to fight,' he says. 'Wake up. You need a change here. Try this nice red apple, and you'll see things the way I do.' And the woman fell for it. You know what happened."

"An original point of view," said the dazed professor.

"Yes, Doc," went on Mr. Cargan, evidently on a favorite topic, "it's the reformers that have caused all the trouble, from that snake down. Things are running smooth, folks all prosperous and satisfied--then they come along in their gum shoes and white neckties. And they knock away at the existing order until the public begins to believe 'em and gives 'em a chance to run things. What's the result? The world's in a worse tangle than ever before."

"You feel deeply on the subject, Mr. Cargan," remarked Magee.

"I ought to," the mayor replied. "I ain't no writer, but if I was, I'd turn out a book that would drive this whiskered hermit's argument to the wall. Woman--bah! The only way women make trouble is by falling for the reform gag."

Mr. Peters here interrupted with the dessert, and through that course Mr. Cargan elaborated on his theory. He pointed out how, in many states, reform had interrupted the smooth flow of life, set everything awhirl, and cruelly sent "the boys" who had always been faithful out into the cold world seeking the stranger, work. While he talked, the eyes of Lou Max looked out at him from behind the incongruous gold-rimmed gla.s.ses, with the devotion of the dog to its master clearly written in them. Mr.

Magee had read many articles about this picturesque Cargan who had fought his way with his fists to the position of practical dictator in the city of Reuton. The story was seldom told without a mention of his man Max--Lou Max who kept the south end of Reuton in line for the mayor, and in that low neighborhood of dives and squalor made Cargan's a name to conjure with. Watching him now, Mr. Magee marveled at this cheap creature's evident capacity for loyalty.

"It was the reformers got Napoleon," the mayor finished. "Yes, they sent Napoleon to an island at the end. And him without an equal since the world began."

"Is your--begging your pardon--is your history just straight?" demurred Professor Bolton timidly.

"Is it?" frowned Cargan. "You can bet it is. I know Napoleon from the cradle to the grave. I ain't an educated man, Doc--I can hire all the educated men I want for eighteen dollars a week--but I'm up on Bonaparte."

"It seems to me," Miss Norton put in, "I have heard--did I read it in a paper?--that a picture of Napoleon hangs above your desk. They say that you see in your own career, a similarity to his. May I ask--is it true?"

"No, miss," replied Cargan. "That's a joking story some newspaper guy wrote up. It ain't got no more truth in it than most newspaper yarn. No, I ain't no Napoleon. There's lots of differences between us--one in particular." He raised his voice, and glared at the company around the table. "One in particular. The reformers got Napoleon at the end."

"But the end is not yet," suggested Mr. Magee, smiling.

Mr. Cargan gave him a sudden and interested look.

"I ain't worrying," he replied. "And don't you, young fellow."

Mr. Magee responded that he was not one to indulge in needless worry, and a silence fell upon the group. Peters entered with coffee, and was engaged in pouring it when Mr. Bland started up wildly from the table with an expression of alarm on his face.

"What's that?" he cried.

The others looked at him in wonder.

"I heard steps up-stairs," he declared.

"Nonsense," said Mr. Cargan, "you're dreaming. This peace and quiet has got to you, Bland."