R. Holmes & Co. - John Kendrick Bangs (classic books to read TXT) 📗

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"I didn't inquire, but, from what I know of Bob Hollister, I am rather inclined to believe that Cato left the Powhatan by way of the front window, or possibly out through the plumbing, in some way," laughed Holmes. "Either way would be the most comfortable under the circumstances."



X THE MAJOR-GENERAL'S PEPPERPOTS

I had often wondered during the winter whether or no it would be quite the proper thing for me to take my friend Raffles Holmes into the sacred precincts of my club. By some men--and I am one of them--the club, despite the bad name that clubs in general have as being antagonistic to the home, is looked upon as an institution that should be guarded almost as carefully against the intrusion of improper persons as is one's own habitat, and while I should never have admitted for a moment that Raffles was an undesirable chap to have around, I could not deny that in view of certain characteristics which I knew him to possess, the propriety of taking him into "The Heraclean" was seriously open to question. My doubts were set at rest, however, on that point one day in January last, when I observed seated at one of our luncheon-tables the Reverend Dr. Mulligatawnny, Rector of Saint Mammon-in-the-Fields, a highly esteemed member of the organization, who had with him no less a person than Mr. E. H. Merryman, the railway magnate, whose exploits in Wall Street have done much to give to that golden highway the particular kind of perfume which it now exudes to the nostrils of people of sensitive honor. Surely, if Dr. Mulligatawnny was within his rights in having Mr. Merryman present, I need have no misgivings as to mine in having Raffles Holmes at the same table. The predatory instinct in his nature was as a drop of water in the sea to that ocean of known acquisitiveness which has floated Mr. Merryman into his high place in the world of finance, and as far as the moral side of the two men was considered respectively, I felt tolerably confident that the Recording Angel's account- books would show a larger balance on the right side to the credit of Raffles than to that of his more famous contemporary. Hence it was that I decided the question in my friend's favor, and a week or two later had him in at "The Heraclean" for luncheon. The dining-room was filled with the usual assortment of interesting men--men who had really done something in life and who suffered from none of that selfish modesty which leads some of us to hide our light under the bushel of silence. There was the Honorable Poultry Tickletoe, the historian, whose articles on the shoddy quality of the modern Panama hat have created such a stir throughout the hat trade; Mr. William Darlington Ponkapog, the poet, whose epic on the "Reign of Gold" is one of the longest, and some writers say the thickest, in the English language; James Whistleton Potts, the eminent portraitist, whose limnings of his patients have won him a high place among the caricaturists of the age, Robert Dozyphrase, the expatriated American novelist, now of London, whose latest volume of sketches, entitled _Intricacies_, has been equally the delight of his followers and the despair of students of the occult; and, what is more to the purpose of our story, Major-General Carrington Cox, U.S.A., retired. These gentlemen, with others of equal distinction whom I have not the space to name, were discussing with some degree of simultaneity their own achievements in the various fields of endeavor to which their lives had been devoted. They occupied the large centre-table which has for many a year been the point of contact for the distinguished minds of which the membership of "The Heraclean" is made up; the tennis-net, as it were, over which the verbal balls of discussion have for so many years volleyed to the delight of countless listeners.

Raffles and I sat apart at one of the smaller tables by the window, where we could hear as much of the conversation at the larger board as we wished--so many members of "The Heraclean" are deaf that to talk loud has become quite de rigueur there--and at the same time hold converse with each other in tones best suited to the confidential quality of our communications. We had enjoyed the first two courses of our repast when we became aware that General Carrington Cox had succeeded in getting to the floor, and as he proceeded with what he had to say, I observed, in spite of his efforts to conceal the fact, that Raffles Holmes was rather more deeply interested in the story the General was telling than in such chance observations as I was making. Hence I finished the luncheon in silence and even as did Holmes, listened to the General's periods--and they were as usual worth listening to.

"It was in the early eighties," said General Cox. "I was informally attached to the Spanish legation at Madrid. The King of Spain, Alphonso XII, was about to be married to the highly esteemed lady who is now the Queen-Mother of that very interesting youth, Alphonso XIII. In anticipation of the event the city was in a fever of gayety and excitement that always attends upon a royal function of that nature. Madrid was crowded with visitors of all sorts, some of them not as desirable as they might be, and here and there, in the necessary laxity of the hour, one or two perhaps that were most inimical to the personal safety and general welfare of the King. Alphonso, like many another royal personage, was given to the old Haroun Al Raschid habit of travelling about at night in a more or less impenetrable incognito, much to the distaste of his ministers and to the apprehension of the police, who did not view with any too much satisfaction the possibility of disaster to the royal person and the consequent blame that would rest upon their shoulders should anything of a serious nature befall. To all of this, however, the King was oblivious, and it so happened one night that in the course of his wanderings he met with the long dreaded mix-up. He and his two companions fell in with a party of cut-throats who promptly proceeded to hold them up. The companions were speedily put out of business by the attacking party, and the King found himself in the midst of a very serious misadventure, the least issue from which bade fair to be a thorough beating, if not an attempt on his life. It was at the moment when his chances of escape were not one in a million, when, on my way home from the Legation, where I had been detained to a very late hour, I came upon him struggling in the hands of four as nasty ruffians as you will find this side of the gallows. One of them held him by the arms, another was giving him a fairly expert imitation of how it feels to be garroted, which the other two were rifling his pockets. This was too much for me. I was in pretty fit physical condition at that time and felt myself to be quite the equal in a good old Anglo-Saxon fist fight of any dozen ordinary Castilians, so I plunged into the fray, heart and soul, not for an instant dreaming, however, what was the quality of the person to whose assistance I had come. My first step was to bowl over the garroter. Expecting no interference in his nefarious pursuit and unwarned by his companions, who were to busily engaged in their adventure of loot to observe my approach, he was easy prey, and the good, hard whack that I gave him just under his right ear sent him flying, an unconscious mass of villanous clay, into the gutter. The surprise of the onslaught was such that the other three jumped backward, thereby releasing the King's arms so that we were now two to three, which in a moment became two to two, for I lost no time in knocking out my second man with as pretty a solar plexus as you ever saw. There is nothing in the world more demoralizing than a good, solid blow straight from the shoulder to chaps whose idea of fighting is to sneak up behind you and choke you to death, or to stick a knife into the small of your back, and had I been far less expert with my fists, I should still have had an incalculable moral advantage over such riffraff. Once the odds in the matter of numbers were even, the King and I had no further difficulty in handling the others. His Majesty's quarry got away by the simple act of taking to his heels, and mine, turning to do likewise, received a salute from my right toe which, if I am any judge, must have driven the upper end of his spine up through the top of his head. Left alone, his Majesty held out his hand and thanked me profusely from my timely aid, and asked my name. We thereupon bade each other good-night, and I went on to my lodging, little dreaming of the service I had rendered to the nation.

"The following day I was astonished to receive at the Legation a communication bearing the royal seal, commanding me to appear at the palace at once. The summons was obeyed, and, upon entering the palace, I was immediately ushered into the presence of the King. He received me most graciously, dismissing, however, all his attendants.

"'Colonel Cox,' he said, after the first formal greetings were over, 'you rendered me a great service last night.'

"'I, your majesty?' said I. 'In what way?'

"'By putting those ruffians to flight,' said he.

"'Ah!' said I. 'Then the gentleman attacked was one of your Majesty's friends?'

"'I would have it so appear,' said the King. 'For a great many reasons I should prefer that it were not known that it was I--'

"'You, your Majesty?' I cried, really astonished. 'I had no idea--"

"'You are discretion itself, Colonel Cox,' laughed the King, 'and to assure you of my appreciation of the fact, I beg that you will accept a small gift which you will some day shortly receive anonymously. It will not be at all commensurate to the service you have rendered me, nor to the discretion which you have already so kindly observed regarding the principals involved in last night's affair, but in the spirit of friendly interest and appreciation back of it, it will be of a value inestimable.'

"I began to try to tell his Majesty that my government did not permit me to accept gifts of any kind from persons royal or otherwise, but it was not possible to do so, and twenty minutes later my audience was over and I returned to the Legation with the uncomfortable sense of having placed myself in a position where I must either violate the King's confidence to acquire the permission of Congress to accept his gift, or break the laws by which all who are connected with the diplomatic service, directly or indirectly, are strictly governed. I assure you it was not in the least degree in the hope of personal profit that I chose the latter course. Ten days later a pair of massive golden pepper-pots came to me, and, as the King had intimated would be the case, there was nothing about them to show whence they had come. Taken altogether, they were the most exquisitely wrought specimens of the goldsmith's artistry that I had ever seen, and upon their under side was inscribed in a cipher which no one unfamiliar with the affair of that midnight fracas would even