Kitabı oku: «The Making of Bobby Burnit», sayfa 10
“You’ll hold the sponge and water-bottle for me, won’t you, Daly?” he asked, with an evident attempt at jovial conciliation.
Daly deliberately wiped the slender nose of his oil can and went on oiling.
“What’s the matter?” asked Ripley with a frown. “Got a grouch again?”
“Yes, I have,” admitted Daly without looking up, and shrugged his shoulders.
“Then cut it out,” said Ripley, “and look real unpeeved when somebody hands you tickets to the circus.”
From that moment Mr. Ripley seemed to take a keen delight in goading Mr. Bates. He took a sudden dash half-way down the length of the long room, as if going to the extreme other end of the plant, then suddenly whirled and retraced his steps to meet Biff coming after him; made an equally sudden dart for the mysterious switch-board, and seized a lever as if to throw it, but suddenly changed his mind, apparently, and went away, leaving Mr. Bates to infer that the throwing of that particular lever would leave them all in darkness; later, with Biff ready to spring upon him, he threw that switch to show that it had no important function to perform at all. To all these and many more ingenious tricks to humiliate him, Mr. Bates paid not the slightest attention, but, as calmly and as impassively as Fate, kept as nearly as he could to the four-foot distance he had promised.
It was about ten o’clock when Biff, interested for a moment in the switch-board, suddenly missed Ripley, and looking about him hastily he saw the fireman standing in the door of the boiler-room grinning at him, while the other workmen – all of whom were of the old regime – were also enjoying his discomfort; but Daly, catching his eye, nodded significantly toward the side-door which led upon the street. It was an almost imperceptible nod, but it was enough for Biff, and he dashed out of that door. Half a block ahead of him he saw Ripley hurrying, and took after him with that light, cat-like run which is the height of effortless and noiseless speed. Ripley, looking back hastily, hurried into a saloon, and he had scarcely closed the door when Biff entered after him, in time to see his man standing at the telephone, receiver in hand. It was the work of but an instant to grab Ripley by the arm and jerk him away from the ’phone. Quickly recovering his balance, with a lunge of his whole body Ripley shot a swift fist at the man who had interfered with him, but Biff, without shifting his position, jerked his head to one side and the fist shot harmlessly by. Before another blow could be struck, or parried, the bartender, a brawny giant, had rushed between them.
“Let us alone, Jeff,” panted Ripley. “I’ve got all I can stand for from this rat.”
“Outside!” said Jeff with cold finality. “You can beat him to a pulp in the street, Con, but there’ll be no scrimmage in this place without me having a hand in it.”
Ripley considered this ultimatum for a moment in silence, and then, to Biff’s surprise, suddenly ran out of the door. It was a tight race to the plant, and there, with Biff not more than two arms’ length behind him, Ripley jerked at a lever hitherto untouched, and instantly the place was plunged into complete darkness.
“There!” screamed Ripley.
A second later Biff had grappled him, and together they went to the floor. It was only a moment that the darkness lasted, however, for tall Tom Daly stood by the replaced switch, looking down at them in quiet joy. Immediately with the turning on of the light Biff scrambled to his feet like a cat and waited for Ripley to rise. It was Ripley who made the first lunge, which Biff dexterously ducked, and immediately after Biff’s right arm shot out, catching his antagonist a glancing blow upon the side of the cheek; a blow which drew blood. Infuriated, again Ripley rushed, but was blocked, and for nearly a minute there was a swift exchange of light blows which did little damage; then Biff found his opening, and, swinging about the axis of his own spine, threw the entire force of his body behind his right arm, and the fist of that arm caught Ripley below the ear and dropped him like a beef, just as Bobby came running back from, the office.
“What are you doing here, Biff? What’s the matter?” demanded Bobby, as Ripley, dazed, struggled to his feet, and, though weaving, drew himself together for another onslaught.
“Matter!” snarled Biff. “I landed on a frame-up, that’s all. This afternoon I saw Sharpe and this Ripley together in a bum wine-room on River Street, swapping so much of that earnest conversation that the partitions bulged, and I dropped to the double-cross that’s being handed out to you. I’ve been trying to telephone you ever since, but when I couldn’t find you I came right down to run the plant. That’s all.”
“You’re all right, Biff,” laughed Bobby, “but I guess we’ll call this a one-round affair, and I’ll take charge.”
“Don’t stop ’em!” cried Daly savagely, turning to Bobby. “Hand it to him, Biff. He’s a crook and an all-round sneak. He beat me out of this job by underhand means, and there ain’t a man in the place that ain’t tickled to death to see him get the beating that’s coming to him. Paste him, Biff!”
“Biff!” repeated Mr. Ripley, suddenly dropping his hands. “Biff who?”
“Mr. Biff Bates, the well-known and justly celebrated ex-champion middleweight,” announced Bobby with a grin. “Mr. Ripley – Mr. Bates.”
“Biff Bates!” repeated Con Ripley. “Why didn’t some of you guys tell me this was Biff Bates? Mr. Bates, I’m glad to meet you.” And with much respect he held forth his hand.
“Go chase yourself,” growled Mr. Bates, in infinite scorn.
Ripley replied with a sudden volley of abuse, couched in the vilest of language, but to this Biff made no reply. He dropped his hands in his coat pockets, and, considering his work done, walked over to the wall and leaned against it, awaiting further developments.
“Daly,” asked Bobby sharply, breaking in upon Ripley’s tirade, “are you competent to run this plant?”
“Certainly, sir,” replied Daly. “I should have had the job four years ago. I was promised it.”
“You may consider yourself in charge, then. Mr. Ripley, if you will walk up to the office I’ll pay you off.”
CHAPTER XVII
BOBBY’S MONEY IS ELECTROCUTED AND JOHN BURNIT’S SON WAKES UP
Bobby, jubilant, went to see Chalmers next day. The lawyer listened gravely, but shook his head.
“I’m bound to tell you, Mr. Burnit, that you have no case. You must have more proof than this to bring a charge of conspiracy. Ripley had a perfect right to talk with Sharpe or to telephone to some one, and mere hot-headedness could explain his shutting off the lights. Your over-enthusiastic friend Bates has ruined whatever prospect you might have had. Your suspicions once aroused, you should have let your man do as he liked, but should have watched him and caught him in a trap of some sort. Now it is too late. Moreover, I have bad news for you. Your contract for city lighting is ironclad, and can not be broken, but I saw to-day a paper signed by an overwhelming majority of your private consumers that the service is not even ‘reasonably satisfactory,’ and that they wish the field open to competition. With this paper to back them, Stone’s council granted the right to the Consolidated Company to erect poles, string wires and supply current. We can bring suit if you say so, but you will lose it.”
“Bring suit, then!” ordered Bobby vehemently. “Why, Chalmers, the contract for the city lighting alone would cost the Brightlight money every year. The profit has all been made from private consumers.”
“That’s why you’re losing it,” said Chalmers dryly. “The whole project is very plain to me now. The Consumers and the United Companies never cared to enter that field, because their controlling stock-holders were also the Brightlight controlling stock-holders, and they could get more money through the Brightlight than they could through the other companies; and so they led the public to believe that there was no breaking the monopoly the Brightlight held upon their service. Now, however, they want to gain another stock-jobbing advertisement by driving you out of the field. They planned from the first to wreck you for just that purpose – to make Consolidated stock seem more desirable when the stock sales began to dwindle – and they are perfectly willing to furnish the consumers in your twelve blocks with current at their present ridiculously low rate, because, with them, any possible profits to be derived from the business are insignificant compared to the profits to be derived from the sale of their watered stock. The price of illumination and power, later, will soar! Watch it. They’re a very bright crowd,” and Mr. Chalmers paused to admire them.
“In other words,” said Bobby glumly. “I am what Biff Bates told me I would be – the goat.”
“Precisely,” agreed Chalmers.
“Begin suit anyhow,” directed Bobby, “and we’ll see what comes of it.”
“By the way,” called Chalmers with a curious smile as Bobby opened the door; “I’ve just learned that one of the foremost enthusiasts in this whole manipulation has been quiet and conservative Silas Trimmer.”
Bobby did not swear. He simply slammed the door.
Two days later Bobby was surprised to see Sharpe drop in upon him.
“I understand you are bringing suit against the Consolidated for encroachment upon your territory, and against the city for abrogation of contract,” began Sharpe.
“Yes,” said Bobby.
“Don’t you think it rather a waste of money, Mr. Burnit? I can guarantee you positively that you will not win either suit.”
“I’m willing to wait to find that out.”
“No use,” said Sharpe impatiently. “I’ll tell you what we will do, Mr. Burnit. If you care to have us to do so, the Consolidated, a little later on, will absorb the Brightlight.”
“On what terms?” asked Bobby.
“It all depends. We might discuss that later. There’s another matter I’d like to speak with you about. Stone wants to see you, even yet. I want to tell you, Mr. Burnit, he can get along a great deal better without you than you can without him, as you are probably willing to admit by now. But he still wants you. Go and see Stone.”
“On – what – terms – will the Consolidated now absorb the Brightlight?” demanded Bobby sternly.
“Well,” drawled Sharpe, with a complete change of manner, “the property has deteriorated considerably within a remarkably short space of time, but I should say that we would buy the Brightlight for three hundred thousand dollars in stock of the Consolidated, half preferred and half common.”
“And this is your very best offer?”
“The very best,” replied Sharpe, making no attempt to conceal his exultant grin.
“Not on your life,” declared Bobby. “I’m going to hold the Brightlight intact. I’m going to fulfill the city contract at a loss, if it takes every cent I can scrape together, and then I’m going to enter politics myself. I’m going to drive Stone and his crowd out of this city, and we shall see if we can not make a readjustment of the illuminating business on my basis instead of his. Good day, Mr. Sharpe.”
“Good day, sir,” said Sharpe, and this time he laughed aloud.
At the door he turned.
“I’d like to call your attention, young man, to the fact that a great many very determined gentlemen have announced their intention of driving Mr. Stone and his associates out of this city. You might compare that with the fact that Mr. Stone and his friends are all here yet, and on top,” and with that he withdrew.
“If I may be so bold as to say so,” said Mr. Applerod, worried to paleness by this foolish defiance of so great and good a man, “you have made a very grave error, Mr. Burnit, very grave, indeed. It is suicidal to defy Mr. Sharpe, and through him Mr. Stone!”
“Will you shut up!” snarled Johnson to his ancient work-mate. “Mr. Burnit, I have no right to take the liberty, but I am going to congratulate you, sir. Whatever follies inexperience may have led you to commit, you are, at any rate, sir, a man, like your father was before you!” and by way of emphasis Johnson smacked his fist on his desk as he glared in Mr. Applerod’s direction.
“It’s all very well to show fight, Johnson,” said Bobby, a little wanly, “but just the same I have to acknowledge defeat. I am afraid I boasted too much. Chalmers, after considering the matter, positively refuses to bring suit. The whole game is over. I have the Brightlight Company on my hands at a net dead loss of every cent I have sunk into it, and it can not pay me a penny so long as these men remain in power. I am going to fight them with their own weapons, but that is a matter of years. In the meantime, my third business attempt is a hideous failure. Where’s the gray envelope, Johnson?”
“It is here,” admitted Johnson, and from his file took the missive in question.
As Bobby took the letter from Johnson Agnes came into the office and swept toward him with outstretched hand.
“It is perfectly shameful, Bobby! I just read about it!”
“So soon?” he wanted to know.
She carried a paper in her hand and spread it before him. In the very head-line his fate was pronounced. “Brightlight Electric Tottering to Its Fall,” was the cheerful line which confronted him, and beneath this was set forth the facts that every profitable contract heretofore held by the Brightlight Electric had been taken away from that unfortunate concern, in which the equipment was said to be so inefficient as to render decent service out of the question, and that, having remaining to it only a money-losing contract for city lighting, business men were freely predicting its very sudden dissolution. The item, wherein the head-line took up more space than the news, wound up with the climax statement that Brightlight stock was being freely offered at around forty, with no takers.
To her surprise, Bobby tossed the paper on Johnson’s desk and laughed.
“I have been so long prepared for this bit of ‘news’ that it does not shock me much,” he said; “moreover, the lower this stock goes the cheaper I can buy it!”
“Buy it!” she incredulously exclaimed.
“Exactly,” he stated calmly. “I presume that, as heretofore, I’ll be given another check, and I do not see any better place to put the money than right here. I am going to fight!”
“Beg your pardon, sir,” said Johnson. “Your last remark was spoken loud enough to be taken as general, and I am compelled to give you this envelope.”
Into his hands Johnson placed a mate to the missive which Bobby had not yet opened, and this one was inscribed:
To My Son Robert, Upon His Declaration that He Will Take Two Starts at the Same Business
Bobby looked at the two letters in frowning perplexity, and then silently walked into his own office, where Agnes followed him; and it was she who closed the door. He sat down at his desk and held that last letter of his father’s before him in dread. He had so airily built up his program; and apprehension told him what this letter might contain! Presently he was conscious that Agnes’ arm was slipped across his shoulder. She was sitting upon the arm of his chair, and had bent her cheek upon his head. So they read the curt message:
“To throw good money after bad is like sprinkling salt on a cut. It only intensifies the pain and doesn’t work much of a cure. In your case it is strictly forbidden. You must learn to cut your garment according to your cloth, to bite off only what you can chew, to lift no more than you can carry. Your next start must not be encumbered.”
“He’s wrong!” declared Bobby savagely.
“But if he is,” protested Agnes, “what can you do about it?”
“If his bequests are conditional I shall have to accept the conditions; but, nevertheless, I am going to fight; and I am going to keep the Brightlight Electric!”
Mechanically he opened the other letter now. The contents were to this effect:
To My Son Upon His Losing Money in a Public Service Corporation
“Every buzz-saw claims some fingers. Of course you had to be a victim, but now you know how to handle a buzz-saw. The first point about it is to treat it with respect. When you realize thoroughly that a buzz-saw is dangerous, half the danger is gone. So, when your wound is healed, you might go ahead and saw, just as a matter of accomplishment. Bobby, how I wish I could talk with you now, for just one little half hour.”
Convulsively Bobby crumpled the letter in his hand and the tears started to his eyes.
“Bully old dad!” he said brokenly, and opened his watch-case, where the grim but humor-loving face of old John Burnit looked up at his beloved children.
“And now what are you going to do?” Agnes asked him presently, when they were calmer.
“Fight!” he vehemently declared. “For the governor’s sake as well as my own.”
“I just found another letter for you, sir,” said Johnson, handing in the third of the missives to come in that day’s mail from beyond the Styx. It was inscribed:
To My Son Robert Upon the Occasion of His Declaring Fight Against the Politicians Who Robbed Him
“Nothing but public laziness allows dishonest men to control public affairs. Any time an honest man puts up a sincere fight against a crook there’s a new fat man in striped clothes. If you have a crawful and want to fight against dirty politics in earnest, jump in, and tell all my old friends to put a bet down on you for me. I’d as soon have you spend in that way the money I made as to buy yachts with it; and I can see where the game might be made as interesting as polo. Go in and win, boy.”
“And now what are you going to do?” Agnes asked him, laughing this time.
“Fight!” he declared exultantly. “I’m going to fight entirely outside of my father’s money. I’m going to fight with my own brawn and my own brain and my own resources and my own personal following! Why, Agnes, that is what the governor has been goading me to do. It is what all this is planned for, and the governor, after all, is right!”
CHAPTER XVIII
SOME EMINENT ARTISTS AMUSE MEESTER BURNIT WHILE HE WAITS
One might imagine, after Bobby’s heroic declarations, that, like young David of old, he would immediately proceed to stride forth and slay his giant. There stood his Goliath, full panoplied, sneering, waiting; but alas! Bobby had neither sling nor stone. It was all very well to announce in fine frenzy that he would smash the Consolidated, destroy the political ring, drive Sam Stone and his henchmen out of town and wrest all his goods and gear from Silas Trimmer; but until he could find a place to plant his foot, descry an opening in the armor and procure an adequate weapon, he might just as well bottle his fuming and wait; so Bobby waited. In the meantime he stuck very closely to the Brightlight office, finding there, in the practice of petty economics and the struggle with well-nigh impossible conditions, ample food for thought. In a separate bank reposed the new fund of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, which he kept religiously aside from the affairs of the Brightlight, and this fund also waited; for Bobby was not nearly so feverish to find instant employment for it as he had been with the previous ones – though he had endless chances. People with the most unheard of schemes seemed to have a peculiar scent for unsophisticated money, and not only local experts in the gentle art of separation flocked after him, but out of town specialists came to him in shoals. To these latter he took great satisfaction in displaying the gem of his collection of post-mortem letters from old John Burnit:
“You don’t need to go away from home to be skinned; moreover, it isn’t patriotic.”
That usually stopped them. He was growing quite sophisticated, was Bobby, quite able to discern the claws beneath the velvet paw, quite suspicious of all the ingenious gentlemen who wanted to make a fortune for him; and their frantic attempts to “get his goat,” as Biff Bates expressed it, had become as good as a play to this wise young person, as also to the wise young person’s trustee.
Agnes, who was helping Bobby wait, came occasionally to the office of the Brightlight on business, and nearly always Bobby had reduced to paper some gaudy new scheme that had been proposed to him, over which they both might laugh. In great hilarity one morning they were going over the prospectus of a plan to reclaim certain swamp lands in Florida, when the telephone bell rang, and from Bobby’s difficulty in understanding and his smile as he hung up the receiver, Agnes knew that something else amusing had turned up.
“It is from Schmirdonner,” he explained as he turned to her again. “He’s the conductor of the orchestra at the Orpheum, you know. I gather from what he says that there are some stranded musicians here who probably speak worse English than myself, and he’s sending them up to me to see about arranging a benefit for them. You’d better wait; it might be fun, or you might want to help arrange the benefit.”
“No,” disclaimed Agnes, laughing and drawing her impedimenta together for departure, “I’ll leave both the fun and the philanthropy to you. I know you’re quite able to take care of them. I’ll just wait long enough to hear how we’re to get rid of the water down in Florida. I suppose we bore holes in the ground and let it run out.”
“By no means,” laughed Bobby. “It’s no where near so absurdly simple as that,” and he turned once more to the prospectus which lay open on the desk before them.
Before they were through with it there suddenly erupted into the outer office, where Johnson and Applerod glared at each other day by day over their books, a pandemonium of gabbling. Agnes, with a little exclamation of dismay at the time she had wasted, rose in a hurry, and immediately after she passed through the door there bounded into the room a rotund little German with enormous and extremely thick glasses upon his knob of a nose, a grizzled mustache that poked straight up on both sides of that knob, and an absurd toupee that flared straight out all around on top of the bald spot to which it was pasted. Behind him trailed a pudgy man of so exactly the Herr Professor’s height and build that it seemed as if they were cast in the same spherical mold, but he was much younger and had jet black hair and a jet black mustache of such tiny proportions as to excite amazement and even awe. Still behind him was as unusually large young woman, fully a head taller than either of the two men, who had an abundance of jet black hair, and was dressed in a very rich robe and wrap, both of which were somewhat soiled and worn.
“Signor R-r-r-r-icardo, der grosse tenore – Mees-ter Burnit,” introduced the rotund little German, with a deep bow commensurate with the greatness of the great tenor. “Signorina Car-r-r-avaggio – Mees-ter Burnit. I, Mees-ter Burnit, Ich bin Brofessor Frühlingsvogel.”
Bobby, for the lack of any other handy greeting, merely bowed and smiled, whereupon Signorina Caravaggio, stepping into a breach which otherwise would certainly have been embarrassing, seated herself comfortably upon the edge of Bobby’s desk and swung one large but shapely foot while she explained matters.
“It’s like this, Mr. Burnit,” she confidently began: “when that dried-up little heathen, Matteo, who tried to run the Neapolitan Grand Opera Company with stage money, got us this far on a tour that is a disgrace to the profession, he had a sudden notion that he needed ocean air; so he took what few little dollars were in the treasury and hopped right on into New York.
“Here we are, then, at the place we were merely ‘to make connections,’ two hundred miles from our next booking and without enough money among us to buy a postage stamp. We haven’t seen a cent of salary for six weeks, and the only thing we can do is to seize the props and scenery and costumes, see if they can be sold, and disband, unless somebody gallops to the rescue in a hurry. Professor Frühlingsvogel happened to know another Dutchman here who conducts an orchestra at the Orpheum, and he sent us to you. He said you knew all the swell set and could start a benefit going if anybody in town could.”
“Yes,” said Bobby, smiling; “Schmirdonner telephoned me just a few minutes ago that the Herr Professor Frühlingsvogel would be up to see me, and asked me to do what I could. How many of you are there?”
“Seventy-three,” promptly returned Signorina Caravaggio, “and all hungry. Forty singers and an orchestra of thirty – seventy – besides props and the stage manager and Herr Frühlingsvogel, who is the musical director.”
“Where are you stopping?” asked Bobby, aghast at the size of the contract that was offered him.
“We’re not,” laughed the great Italian songstress. “We all went up and registered at a fourth-rate place they call the Hotel Larken, but that’s as far as we got, for we were told before the ink was dry that we’d have to come across before we got a single biscuit; so there they are, scattered about the S. R. O. parts of that little two-by-twice hotel, waiting for little me to trot out and find an angel. Are you it?”
“I can’t really promise what I can do,” hesitated Bobby, who had never been able to refuse assistance where it seemed to be needed; “but I’ll run down to the club and see some of the boys about getting up a subscription concert for you. How much help will you need?”
“Enough to land us on little old Manhattan Island.”
“And there are over seventy of you to feed and take care of for, say, three days, and then to pay railroad fares for,” mused Bobby, a little startled as the magnitude of the demand began to dawn upon him. “Then there’s the music-hall, advertising, printing and I suppose a score of other incidentals. You need quite a pile of money. However, I’ll go down to the club at lunch time and see what I can do for you.”
“I knew you would the minute I looked at you,” said the Signorina confidently, which was a compliment or not, the way one looked at it. “But, say; I’ve got a better scheme than that, one that will let you make a little money instead of contributing. I understand the Orpheum has next week dark, through yesterday’s failure of The Married Bachelor Comedy Company. Why don’t you get the Orpheum for us and back our show for the week? We have twelve operas in our repertoire. The scenery and props are very poor, the costumes are only half-way decent and the chorus is the rattiest-looking lot you ever saw in your life; but they can sing. They went into the discard on account of their faces, poor things. Suppose you come over and have a look. They’d melt you to tears.”
“That won’t be necessary,” hastily objected Bobby; “but I’ll meet a lot of the fellows at lunch, and afterward I’ll let you know.”
“After lunch!” exclaimed the Signorina with a most expressive placing of her hands over her belt, whereat the Herr Professor and Der Grosse Tenore both turned most wistfully to Bobby to see what effect this weighty plea might have upon him. “Lunch!” she repeated. “If you would carry a fork-full of steaming spaghetti into the Hotel Larken at this minute you’d start a riot. Why, Mr. Burnit, if you’re going to do anything for us you’ve got to get into action, because we’ve been up since seven and we still want our breakfasts.”
“Breakfast!” exclaimed Bobby, looking hastily at his watch. It was now eleven-thirty. “Come on; we’ll go right over to the Larken, wherever that may be,” and he exhibited as much sudden haste as if he had seen seventy people actually starving before his very eyes.
Just as the quartette stepped out of the office, Biff Bates, just coming in, bustled up to Bobby with:
“Can I see you just a minute, Bobby? Kid Mills is coming around to my place this afternoon.”
“Haven’t time just now, Biff,” said Bobby; “but jump into the machine with us and I’ll do the ‘chauffing.’ That will make room for all of us. We can talk on the way to the Hotel Larken. Do you know where it is?”
“Me?” scorned Biff. “If there is an inch of this old town I can’t put my finger on in the dark, blindfolded, I’ll have that inch dug out and thrown away.”
At the curb, with keen enjoyment of the joke of it all, Bobby gravely introduced Mr. Biff Bates, ex-champion middle-weight, to these imported artists, but, very much to his surprise, Signorina Caravaggio and Professor Bates struck up an instant and animated conversation anent Biff’s well-known and justly-famous victory over Slammer Young, and so interested did they become in this conversation that instead of Biff’s sitting up in the front seat, as Bobby had intended, the eminent instructor of athletics manœuvered the Herr Professor into that post of honor and climbed into the tonneau with Signor Ricardo and the Signorina, with the latter of whom he talked most volubly all the way over, to the evidently vast annoyance of Der Grosse Tenore.
The confusion of tongues must have been a very tame and quiet affair as compared to the polyglot chattering which burst upon Bobby’s ears when he entered the small lobby of the Hotel Larken. The male members of the Neapolitan Grand Opera Company, almost to a man, were smoking cigarettes. There were swarthy little men and swarthy big men, there seeming to be no medium sizes among them, while the women were the most wooden-featured lot that Bobby had ever encountered, and the entire crowd was swathed in gay but dingy clothing of the most nondescript nature. Really, had Bobby not been assured that they were grand opera singers he would have taken them for a lot of immigrants, for they had that same unhappy expression of worry. The principals could be told from the chorus and the members of the orchestra from the fact that they stood aloof from the rest and from one another, gloomily nursing their grievances that they, each one the most illustrious member of the company, should thus be put to inconvenience! It was a monstrous thing that they, the possessors of glorious voices which the entire world should at once fall down and worship, should be actually hungry and out of money! It was, oh, unbelievable, atrocious, barbarous, positively inhuman!
With the entrance of the Signorina Caravaggio, bearing triumphantly with her the neatly-dressed and altogether money-like Bobby Burnit, one hundred and forty wistful eyes, mostly black and dark brown, were immediately focused in eager interest upon the possible savior. Behind the desk, perplexed and distracted but still grimly firm, stood frowzy Widow Larken herself, drawn and held to the post of duty by this vast and unusual emergency. Not one room had Madam Larken saved for all these alien warblers, not one morsel of food had she loosed from her capacious kitchen; and yet not one member of the company had she permitted to stray outside her doors while Signorina Caravaggio and Signor Ricardo and the Herr Professor Frühlingsvogel had gone out to secure an angel, two stout porters being kept at the front door to turn back the restless. If provision could be made to pay the bills of this caravan, the Widow Larken – who was shaped like a pillow with a string tied around it and wore a face like a huge, underdone apple dumpling – was too good a business woman to overlook that opportunity. Bobby took one sweeping glance at that advancing circle of one hundred and forty eyes and turned to Widow Larken.
