Parnassus on Wheels - Christopher Morley (books you need to read TXT) 📗

together with a rope-end. He bounded out and made super-canine efforts to express his joy at seeing the Professor again. He paid very little attention to me.

“Well,” said Mifflin, after freeing the dog’s muzzle, and with difficulty restraining him from burying his teeth in the tramp’s shin, “what shall we do with this heroic specimen of manhood? Shall we cart him over to the jail in Port Vigor, or shall we let him go?”

The tramp burst into a whining appeal that was almost funny, it was so abject. The Professor cut it short.

“I ought to pack you into quod,” he said. “Are you the Phoebus Apollo I scuffled with down the lane last night? Was it you skulking around this wagon then?”

“No, boss, that was Splitlip Sam, honest to Gawd it was. He come back, boss; said he’d been fightin’ with a cat-o’-mountain! Say, boss, you sure hit him hard. One of his lamps is a pudding! Boss, I’ll swear I ain’t had nothin’ to do with it.”

“I don’t like your society,” said the Professor, “and I’m going to turn you loose. I’m going to count ten, and if you’re not out of this quarry by then, I’ll shoot. And if I see you again I’ll skin you alive. Now get out!”

He cut the knotted handkerchief in two. The hobo needed no urging. He spun on his heel and fled like a rabbit. The Professor watched him go, and as the fat, ungainly figure burst through a hedge and disappeared he fired the revolver into the air to frighten him still more. Then he tossed the weapon into the pool near by.

“Well, Miss McGill,” he said with a chuckle, “if you like to undertake breakfast, I’ll fix up Peg.” And he drew the horseshoe from his pocket once more.

A brief inspection of Parnassus satisfied me that the thieves had not had time to do any real damage. They had got out most of the eatables and spread them on a flat rock in preparation for a feast; and they had tracked a good deal of mud into the van; but otherwise I could see nothing amiss. So while Mifflin busied himself with Peg’s foot it was easy for me to get a meal under way. I found a gush of clean water trickling down the face of the rock. There were still some eggs and bread and cheese in the little cupboard, and an unopened tin of condensed milk. I gave Peg her nose bag of oats, and fed Bock, who was frisking about in high spirits. By that time the shoeing was done, and the Professor and I sat down to an improvised meal. I was beginning to feel as if this gypsy existence were the normal course of my life.

“Well, Professor,” I said, as I handed him a cup of coffee and a plate of scrambled eggs and cheese, “for a man who slept in a wet haystack, you acquit yourself with excellent valour.”

“Old Parnassus is quite a stormy petrel,” he said. “I used to think the chief difficulty in writing a book would be to invent things to happen, but if I were to sit down and write the adventures I’d had with her it would be a regular Odyssey.”

“How about Peg’s foot?” I asked. “Can she travel on it?”

“It’ll be all right if you go easy. I’ve scraped out the injured part and put the shoe back. I keep a little kit of tools under the van for emergencies of all sorts.”

It was chilly, and we didn’t dawdle over our meal. I only made a feint of eating, as I had had a little breakfast before, and also as the events of the last few hours had left me rather restless. I wanted to get Parnassus out on the highway again, to jog along in the sun and think things over. The quarry was a desolate, forbidding place anyway. But before we left we explored the cave where the tramps had been preparing to make themselves comfortable for the winter. It was not really a cave, but only a shaft into the granite cliff. A screen of evergreen boughs protected the opening against the weather, and inside were piles of sacking that had evidently been used as beds, and many old grocery boxes for tables and chairs. It amused me to notice a cracked fragment of mirror balanced on a corner of rock. Even these ragamuffins apparently were not totally unconscious of personal appearance. I seized the opportunity, while the Professor was giving Peg’s foot a final look, to rearrange my hair, which was emphatically a sight. I hardly think Andrew would have recognized me that morning.

We led Peg up the steep incline, back into the lane where I had strayed, and at length we reached the main road again. Here I began to lay down the law to Redbeard.

“Now look here, Professor,” I said, “I’m not going to have you tramp all the way back to Port Vigor. After the night you’ve had you need a rest. You just climb into that Parnassus and lie down for a good snooze. I’ll drive you into Woodbridge and you can take your train there. Now you get right into that bunk. I’ll sit out here and drive.”

He demurred, but without much emphasis. I think the little fool was just about fagged out, and no wonder. I was a trifle groggy myself. In the end he was quite docile. He climbed into the van, took off his boots, and lay down under a blanket. Bock followed him, and I think they both fell asleep on the instant. I got on the front seat and took the reins. I didn’t let Peg go more quickly than a walk as I wanted to spare her sore foot.

My, what a morning that was after the rain! The road ran pretty close to the shore, and every now and then I could catch a glimpse of the water. The air was keen⁠—not