Tutt and Mr. Tutt Part 12

Yet, curiously enough, though we are a long way from where this story opened, it all goes back to Phillips Brooks Vanderbilt and the Fat and Skinny Club and the right to call ourselves by what names we please.

Moreover, as must be apparent, all that happened occurred beyond Miss Wiggin's sphere of spiritual influence. Yet, had it not, even she could not have harnessed Leviathan or loosed the bands of Orion--to say nothing of counteracting the effect of spring.

When Tutt returned with "76 Fed." after the departure of Mr. Sorg he found his partner smoking the usual stogy and gazing pensively down upon the harbor. The immediate foreground was composed of rectangular roofs of divers colors, mostly reddish, ornamented with eccentrically shaped chimney pots, pent-houses, skylights and water tanks, in addition to various curious whistle-like protuberances from which white wraiths of steam whirled and danced in the gay breeze. Beyond, in the middle distance, a great highway of sparkling jewels led across the waves to the distant faintly green hills of Staten Island. Three tiny aeroplanes wove invisible threads against the blue woof of the sky above the New Jersey sh.o.r.e. It was not a day to practise law at all. It was a day to lie on one's back in the gra.s.s and watch the clouds or throw one's weight against the tugging helm of a racing sloop and bite the spindrift blown across her bows--not a day for lawyers but for lovers!

"Here's '76 Fed.'," said Tutt.

"What's become of Sorg?"

"Gone. Mad. Says the whole point of the Fat and Skinny Club is in the name."

"I fancy--from looking at Mr. Sorg--that that is quite true," remarked Mr. Tutt. He paused and reaching down into a lower compartment of his desk, lifted out a tumbler and his bottle of malt extract, which he placed carefully at his elbow and leaned back again contemplatively.

"Look here, Tutt," he said. "I want to ask you something. Is there anything the matter with you?"

Tutt regarded him with the air of a small boy caught peeking through a knot hole.

"Why,--no!" he protested lamely. "That is--nothing in particular. I do feel a bit restless--sort of vaguely dissatisfied."

Mr. Tutt nodded sympathetically.

"How old are you, Tutt?"

"Forty-eight."

"And you feel just at present as if life were 'flat, stale and unprofitable?'"

"Why--yes; you might put it that way. The fact is every day seems just like every other day. I don't even get any pleasure out of eating. The very sight of a boiled egg beside my plate at breakfast gives me the w.i.l.l.i.e.s. I can't eat boiled eggs any more. They sicken me!"

"Exactly!" Mr. Tutt poured out a gla.s.s of the malt extract.

"I feel the same way about a lot of things," Tutt hurried on. "Special demurrers, for instance. They bore me horribly. And supplementary proceedings get most frightfully upon my nerves."

"Exactly!" repeated Mr. Tutt.

"What do you mean by 'exactly?'" snapped Tutt.

"You're bored," explained his partner.

"Rather!" agreed Tutt. "Bored to death. Not with anything special, you understand; just everything. I feel as if I'd like to do something devilish."

"When a man feels like that he better go to a doctor," declared Mr.

Tutt.

"A doctor!" exclaimed Tutt derisively. "What good would a doctor do me?"

"He might keep you from getting into trouble."

"Oh, you needn't be alarmed. I won't get into any trouble."

"It's the dangerous age," said Mr. Tutt. "I've known a lot of respectable married men to do the most surprising things round fifty."

Tutt looked interested.

"Have you now?" he inquired. "Well, I've no doubt it did some of 'em a world of good. Tell you frankly sometimes I feel as if I'd rather like to take a bit of a fling myself!"

"Your professional experience ought to be enough to warn you of the dangers of that sort of experiment," answered Mr. Tutt gravely. "It's bad enough when it occurs inadvertently, so to speak, but when a man in your condition of life deliberately goes out to invite trouble it's a sad, sad spectacle."

"Do you mean to imply that I'm not able to take care of myself?"

demanded Tutt.

"I mean to imply that no man is too wise to be made a fool of by some woman."

"That every Samson has his Delilah?"

"If you want to put it that way--yes."

"And that in the end he'll get his hair cut?"

Mr. Tutt took a sip from the tumbler of malt and relit his stogy.

"What do you know about Samson and Delilah, Tutt?" he challenged.

"Oh, about as much as you do, I guess, Mr. Tutt," answered his partner modestly.

"Well, who cut Samson's hair?" demanded the senior member.

He emptied the dregs of the malt-extract bottle into his gla.s.s and holding it to the light examined it critically.

"Delilah, of course!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Tutt.

Mr. Tutt shook his head.

"There you go off at half-c.o.c.k again, Tutt!" he retorted whimsically.

"You wrong her. She did no such thing."

"Why, I'll bet you a hundred dollars on it!" cried Tutt excitedly.

"Make it a simple dinner at the Claridge Grill and I'll go you."

"Done!"

There were four books on the desk near Mr. Tutt's right hand--the New York Code of Civil Procedure, an almanac, a Shakesperean concordance and a Bible.

"Look it up for yourself," said Mr. Tutt, waving his arm with a gesture of the utmost impartiality. "That is, if you happen to know in what part of Holy Writ said Delilah is to be found."

Tutt followed the gesture and sat down at the opposite side of the desk.

"There!" he exclaimed, after fumbling over the leaves for several minutes. "What did I tell you? Listen, Mr. Tutt! It's in the sixteenth chapter of Judges: 'And it came to pa.s.s, when she pressed him daily with her words, and urged him, so that his soul was vexed unto death; That he told her all his heart, and said unto her, There hath not come a razor upon mine head.' Um--um."

"Read on, Tutt!" ordered Mr. Tutt.