The Triumph of Virginia Dale Part 28

"You know," taunted an irate waiter; but Mr. Vivian's honest countenance gave him the lie in his teeth, noiselessly.

Curiosity held the little group. They examined Mr. Jones's work with professional interest, making surmises as to his ident.i.ty. "Looks like a jockey," said one. "More like a barber," urged another. "I'll bet ten cents he is an ex-bartender," wagered a sportive character.

Even as they watched, Mr. Jones approached Virginia, offering her food with profound bows and courtly manners.

"He is a waiter," declared the strikers with one accord, and again they rested suspicious eyes upon Mr. Vivian.

"That dub ain't working for me," affirmed the caterer.

Much elated at successfully allaying famine, Mr. Jones turned anew towards the kitchen. Had not Virginia smiled upon him? He swung his tray and whistled a merry tune. In the pleasure of serving others, the aches and pains of the athlete were forgotten. At the kitchen door he was surrounded by resolute men.

"Make no resistance," a determined voice warned.

The white coated mob moved away escorting Mr. Jones as towards summary execution.

Scenting happenings of interest, Ike followed.

From the kitchen Serena sought information. "Whar yo'all gwine?" she demanded.

"Dey done struck. Yah--yah--yah," laughed Ike.

"Shut you' big mouf. Ah ain' er astin' you nothin'." Serena reproved the chauffeur and then she charged into the midst of the mob.

"Wot yo'all mean a leavin' ma trays an' dirty dishes out in dat ya'd? Ain' you know how to wait?" Her eyes flashed her indignation.

"Go git ma dishes an' ma trays afo'e ah meks you move fas'er den you lak."

As snow before an April sun the strike melted. The waiters departed hastily for their field of duty, leaving Mr. Jones alone with Serena.

She glared at him fiercely. "How c.u.m you mek ma waiters mad?" she demanded.

Amazed at the strange results of his diligence, Mr. Jones stood silent under her accusation.

She inspected his slight figure contemptuously. "Clea' out," she commanded, "afo ah lays ma han' on you an' breks you, boy."

This last victim of woman's tongue moved rapidly towards the front lawn seeking safety amidst aged women. On the way he pa.s.sed a fellow sufferer.

Serena's cutting remarks had, for Ike, turned an afternoon of pleasure and recreation into a time of humiliation. Here was music, food, agreeable company, all turned into dust by public reprimands. Yet the inextinguishable fire of hope burned in his breast. In the fullness of time, Serena might forget, allow him to enter the kitchen as one in good standing and, in the alluring company of the colored maids, to partake of refreshments. Until then he must wait. Doing this, he watched the a.s.semblage with melancholy eyes. He considered the band futile. It played no jazz. In an unhappy hour, tobacco brings solace to man. Ike produced a cigarette. Lighting it, he puffed nervously, suspecting the use of the weed in this haunt of aged women to be taboo.

Happy laughter arose in the kitchen easily identified as the hearty tones of Serena, amused, a favorable augury to the courtier cooling his heels in the ante room. Casting down his cigarette, Ike turned to reconnoiter. The b.u.t.t dropped beneath the porch into some ancient leaves, damp but inflammable.

The leaves ignited and smouldered. Fanned by a gentle breeze the fire grew into a burning which produced much smoke and little flame.

Upon the porch sat Mrs. Comfort Bean. Life to her was an open book. She had survived three husbands. The first, a drunkard, had drowned, not in rum, but in the river into which he had the misfortune to fall while returning home from a convivial evening enjoyed with other gay lads at the village tavern. The second, a gambler, was shot in an altercation over the ill-timed presence of five aces in a card game. The third, a fragile thing, had faded like a flower. Mrs. Bean had neither regrets for, nor fear of, man. She knew him too well. She had come to anchor in the Lucinda Home like a storm ridden s.h.i.+p seeking safe harbor after a stormy pa.s.sage. Here lay a peace the like of which she had never known.

But one cloud rested upon her horizon. Mrs. Bean was afraid of fire. She considered that because the inmates could not dwell upon the ground floor of the Home, the place was a fire trap and the most horrible holocaust, not only possible but probable. To inure herself to the inevitable, she read the harrowing details of every fire involving fatalities.

Having enjoyed refreshments, Mrs. Bean had retired to the porch that she might listen to the music in the peace of her own thoughts. She sniffed.

It was but a tentative sniff. Not a full, deep whiff. Such sniffs she gave many times each day. "Somethin's burnin'," said Mrs. Comfort Bean. Hearers being absent, there was no sympathetic response. "I smell fire," she announced in louder tones. A phenomenon puzzled Mrs. Bean's highly developed olfactory nerves. Her nostrils were a.s.sailed by the odor of ignited hay instead of the fateful smell of burning wood.

The fire smouldered and spread. A gust of wind came. Mrs. Comfort Bean, sniffing expectantly, was enveloped in a thin cloud of smoke. It caught her when, dissatisfied by preliminary investigations, she had taken a full, deep whiff. Mrs. Bean was almost asphyxiated. Gasping and choking she strangled in the efficient smudge of Ike's preparing. A change in the wind relieved her. "Fire!" she screamed.

As this fateful cry, anguish-toned, rang over the festive throng, many an aged heart stood still. Shrieks arose as well as answering alarms.

For the moment terror held them, and then certain women rushed for the building that they might ascend to their apartments and rescue choice possessions. Other more hardened spirits removed their chairs to positions of advantage that in greater comfort, they might "Watch the blamed old thing burn down."

The coolness of military men was well exemplified by Colonel Ryan. He arose from his chair at the first alarm and shouted, "Sit down," in a voice which had arisen above the roar of cannon. Perceiving the stampede towards the building, he thundered, "Two of you waiters keep those women out of there." In utter disregard of the high cost of shoes, he roared, "Stamp that fire out!" In searching tones, he demanded, "Who set it?" No guilty man confessed, but Ike became ill at ease and sought retirement in the crowd.

The Colonel turned to the leader of the band which rested between numbers. "Play!" he commanded. These ancient musicians had little regard for modern music. They loved the tuneful airs of the past and were about to render some selections from "The Serenade." At the word of the leader, the chorus from "Don Jose of Seville," the words of which run, "Let her go, piff, paff," pealed forth.

To avert impending peril, Mrs. Comfort Bean had remained upon the porch emitting loud screams at intervals as if they were minute guns. She disappeared into the hall. She was back in a moment. Kelly was gazing beneath the porch at the smouldering leaves. She called to him, "You big red-headed feller," and when he looked up, she screamed, "Fire extinguisher."

He nodded understandingly and in a moment had procured the apparatus from the hall and carried it to the end of the porch where a group of waiters, a.s.sisted by their late enemy, Mr. Jones, were endeavoring to stamp the fire out.

For an instant Kelly perused the directions. Then he inverted the extinguisher. There was a hissing as of a monstrous snake. From the nozzle gushed a fizzing, sizzling jet like a soda fountain in action.

Kelly whirled about to bring the stream to bear upon the conflagration.

As he turned, the frothing liquid circled with him and cut the check suit of Mr. Jones, the white coats of the waiters, and the Norfolk jacket of Ike, at the waist line. Now arose the protests and violent language of angry men.

"You big chump, ain't you got no sense?" gasped Mr. Jones, ungrammatically.

"Get out of the way so that I can put this fire out. You are kicking it all over the place," the bookkeeper responded.

"I have as much right here as you--you big lump of grease," proclaimed Mr. Jones as he inspected with indignation the dark colored belt with which he had been invested.

Kelly cast a menacing look at the stenographer. "If you don't shut up, I am going to stick this nozzle down your throat," he threatened.

Mr. Jones watched the fizzling stream as if estimating its physiological effect under the conditions named, and remained silent.

Loud laughter sounded in the kitchen. Ike, cooled by his bath, had presented himself for comforting.

Serena thus welcomed him. "Dey souse you in saltpeter an' you done smoke youse'f so you mus' be cu'ed lak er ham. Sit by de stove. Ah gwine give you er cup o' coffee," she chuckled, "ef yo'all smells ham er feels youse'f er beginnin' to fry, git out o' yere afo you greases de flo."

So Ike rested in comfort, sandwiches and coffee at his side, and smiled pleasantly upon the maids. Truly, after affliction, he had entered into the blessings of the promised land.

The fire was out. Kelly moved to return the extinguisher to its place.

With a thud, a white bundle dropped from the third floor upon his head.

It appeared soft but upon its touch Kelly sank to the ground, blinking vacantly.

Forgetful of their recent altercation, Mr. Jones rushed to his fellow worker's a.s.sistance. "What's the matter?" he demanded.

Kelly rubbed his head. "Somebody hit me with a rock," he answered, observing Mr. Jones meanwhile with suspicion.

The stenographer kicked the bundle open. Then, howling with pain, he grabbed his toe. In the center of the bundle lay a mantel clock. "Might have killed you--easy," he spluttered at Kelly, and raised indignant eyes to where an old woman, her wrinkled face filled with anxiety, leaned over the railing. "Did you throw that clock?" demanded Mr. Jones.

She held her hand to her ear and smiled sweetly. "What?" she called.

"Clock," bawled Mr. Jones. "Did you drop that clock?"

"I can't hear you," she answered.

"Clock," yelled the private secretary.

"Yes, it's mine. Thank you for telling me that it is not hurt," she responded in great contentment to the vexed Mr. Jones.