The Voice in the Fog - Harold MacGrath (new reading txt) 📗

delayed repairs will not let us into it till August. Then we shall all take a vacation. You will join us as you are; that is, of course, if you are not too busy with your own affairs."

"Never too busy to be of service to you, Miss Killigrew. I'm only scribbling."

"A book?"-interestedly.

"Bally rot, possibly. Would you like to read it?"-one of the best inspirations he had ever had. He was not one of those silly individuals who hem and haw when some one discovers they have the itch for writing, whose sole aim is to have the secret dragged out of them, with hypocritical reluctance.

"May I?" Her friendly aloofness fell away from her as if touched by magic. "I am an inveterate reader. Besides, I know several famous editors, and perhaps I could help you."

"That would be jolly."

"And you are writing a story, and never told us about it!"

"It never occurred to me to tell you. I shall be very glad to go to the theater with you and Mrs. Killigrew."

Kitty tucked the romance under her arm and flew to her room with it. This Thomas was as full of surprises as a Christmas-box.

He eyed the empty doorway speculatively. He rather preferred the friendly aloofness; otherwise some fatal nonsense might enter his head. He resumed his chair and transferred his gaze to the blotter. He added a few pothooks by the way: numerals in addition and subtraction (for he was of Scotch descent), a name which he scratched out and scrawled again and again scratched out. He examined the contents of his wallet. How many pounds did a dress-suit cost in this hurly-burly country? This question could be answered only in one way. He hastened out into the hall, put on his hat, made for the subway, and got out directly opposite the offices of Killigrew and Company, sugar, coffee and spices. London-bred, it did not take him long to find his way about. The racket disturbed him; that was all.

The building in which Killigrew and Company had its offices belonged to Killigrew personally. It had cost him a round million to build, but the office-rentals were making it a fine investment. These ornate office-buildings caused Thomas to marvel unceasingly. In London cubby-holes were sufficient. If merchants like Killigrew, generally these were along the water-front; creaky, old, dim-windowed. In this bewildering country a man conducted his business as from a palace. The warehouses were distinct establishments.

Thomas entered the portals, stepped cautiously into one of the express-elevators (so they insisted upon calling them here), and was shot up to the fourteenth floor, all of which was occupied by Killigrew and Company. It was Thomas' first venture in this district. And he learned the amazing fact that it was ordinarily as easy to see Mr. Killigrew as it was to see King George. Office-boys, minor clerks, head clerks, managers; they quizzed and buffeted him hither and thither. He never thought to state at the outset that he was Mrs. Killigrew's private secretary; he merely said that it was very important that he should see Mr. Killigrew at once.

"Mr. Killigrew is busy," he was informed by the assistant manager, at whose desk Thomas finally arrived. "If you will give me your card I'll have it sent in to him."

Thomas confessed that he had no card. The assistant manager grew distinctly chilling.

"If you will be so kind as to inform Mr. Killigrew that Mr. Webb, Mrs. Killigrew's private secretary . . ."

"Why didn't you say that at once, Mr. Webb? Here, boy; tell Mr. Killigrew that Mr. Webb wishes to see him. You might just as well follow the boy."

Killigrew was smoking, and perusing the baseball edition of his favorite evening paper. All this red-tape to approach a man who wasn't doing anything more vital than that! Thomas smiled. It was a wonderful people.

"Why, hello, Webb! What's the matter? Anything wrong at the house?"-anxiously.

"No, Mr. Killigrew. I came to see you on a personal matter."

Killigrew dropped the newspaper on his desk, a little frown between his eyes. He made no inquiry.

"Miss Killigrew tells me that you will not be home this evening, and that I am to take her and Mrs. Killigrew to the theater."

"Anything in the way to prevent you?" Killigrew appeared vastly relieved for some reason.

"As a matter of fact, sir, I haven't the proper clothes; and I thought you might advise me where to go to obtain them."

Killigrew laughed until the tears started. The very heartiness of it robbed it of all rudeness. "Good lord! and I was worrying my head off. Webb, you're all right. Do you need any funds?"

"I believe I have enough." Thomas appeared to be disturbed not in the least by the older man's hilarity. It was not infectious, because he did not understand it.

"Glad you came to me. Always come to me when you're in doubt about anything. I'm no authority on clothes, but my secretary is. I'll have him take you to a tailor where you can rent a suit for to-night. He'll take your measure, and by the end of the week . . ." He did not finish the sentence, but pressed one of the many buttons on his desk. "Clark, this is Mr. Webb, Mrs. Killigrew's secretary. He wants some clothes. Take him along with you."

Alone again, Killigrew smiled broadly. The humor of the situation did not blind him to the salient fact that this Webb was a man of no small courage. He recognized in this courage a commendable shrewdness also: Webb wanted the right thing, honest clothes for honest dollars. A man like that would be well worth watching. And for a moment he had thought that Webb had fallen in love with Kitty and wanted to marry her! He chuckled. Clothes!

What a boy Kitty would have made! What an infallible eye she had for measuring a person! No servant-question ever dangled its hot interrogation point before his eyes. Kitty saw to that. She was the real manager of the household affairs, for all that he paid the bills. Some day she would marry a proper man; but heaven keep that day as far off as possible. What would he do without Kitty? Always ready to perch on his knee, to smooth the day-cares from his forehead, to fend off trouble, to make laughter in the house. He was not going to love the man who eventually carried her off. He was always dreading that day; young men about the house, the yacht and the summer home worried him. The whole lot of them were not worthy to tie the laces of her shoes, much as they might yearn to do so.

And all Webb wanted was a tailor! He would give a hundred for the right to tell this scare to the boys at the club, but Webb's ingenuous confidence did not merit betrayal. Still, nothing should prevent him from telling Kitty, who knew how to keep a secret. He picked up the newspaper and resumed his computation of averages (batting), chuckling audibly from time to time. Clothes!

At quarter to six Thomas returned to the house, laden with fat bundles which he hurried secretly to his room. He had never worn a dress-suit. He had often guilelessly dreamed of possessing one: between paragraphs, as another young man might have dreamed of vanquishing a rival. It was inborn that we should wish to appear well in public; to better one's condition, or, next best, to make the public believe one has. Thomas was deeply observant and quickly adaptive. Between the man who goes to school with books and the man who goes to school in books there is wide difference. What we are forced to learn seldom lifts us above the ordinary; what we learn by inclination plows our fields and reaps our harvests. It is as natural as breathing that we should like our tonics, mental as well as physical, sugar-coated.

Thomas had never worn a dress-suit; but in the matter of collars and cravats and shirts he knew the last word. But why should he wish to wear that mournfully conventional suit in which we are supposed to enjoy ourselves? She had told him not to bother about dress. Was it that very nonsense he dreaded, insidiously attacking the redoubts of his common sense?

That evening at dinner Kitty nor her mother appeared to notice the change. This gratified him; he knew that outwardly there was nothing left to desire or attain.

Kitty began to talk about the romance immediately. She had found the beginning very exciting; it was out of the usual run of stories; and if it was all as good as the first part, there would be some editors glad to get hold of it. So much for the confidence of youth. The Black Veil , as I have reason to know, lies at the bottom of Thomas' ancient trunk.

Long as he lived he would never forget the enjoyment of that night. The electric signs along Broadway interested him intensely; he babbled about them boyishly. Theater outside and theater within; a great drama of light and shadow, of comedy and tragedy; for he gazed upon the scene with all his poet's eyes. He enjoyed the opera, the color and music, the propinquity of Kitty. Sometimes their shoulders touched; the indefinable perfume of her hair thrilled him.

Kitty had seen all these things so many times that she no longer experienced enthusiasm; but his was so genuine, so un-English, that she found it impossible to escape the contagion. She did not bubble over, however; on the contrary, she sat through the performance strangely subdued, dimly alarmed over what she had done.

As they were leaving the lobby of the theater, a man bumped against Thomas, quite accidentally.

"I beg your pardon!" said the stranger, politely raising his hat and passing on.

[Illustration: "I beg your pardon!" said the stranger.]

Thomas' hand went clumsily to his own hat, which he fumbled and dropped and ran after frantically across the mosaic flooring.

A ghost; yes, sir, Thomas had seen a ghost.


CHAPTER XII

I left Thomas scrambling about the mosaic lobby of the theater for his opera-hat. When he recovered it, it resembled one of those accordions upon which vaudeville artists play Mendelssohn's Wedding March and the latest ragtime (by request). Some one had stepped on it. Among the unanswerable questions stands prominently: Why do we laugh when a man loses his hat? Thomas burned with a mixture of rage and shame; shame that Kitty should witness his discomfiture and rage that, by the time he had retrieved the hat, the ghost had disappeared.

However, Thomas acted as a polished man of the world, as if eight-dollar opera-hats were mere nothings. He held it out for Kitty to inspect, smiling. Then he crushed it under his arm (where the broken spring behaved like an unlatched jack-in-the-box) and led the way to the Killigrew limousine.

"I am sorry, Mr. Webb," said