Chapter IV: All Van Winkles (1)

The fortnight between that fateful day on the links and the Wednesday aforesaid, was full of surprising complications for the Van Winkle and Barrows families.

The two girls went into fits of hysteria on receipt of a cablegram from their mother in Paris announcing her marriage to Mr. Courtney Van Winkle, of New York. They were still more prostrated on learning from their wide-eyed sweethearts that not only was Courtney their step-father but he was on the point of becoming their brother-in-law as well. A still greater shock came the day of their own double wedding which took place in the Barrows mansion on Ardmore Avenue in the presence of a small company of guests. It developed that the Mrs. Smith who nursed old Mr. Van Winkle and afterwards married him was their divorced sister, Mary, who had not only grown tired of a husband but of nursing other women's husbands as well. The situation was unique.

"Good heavens," said Rip, after the ceremony which linked the entire Barrows family to the Van Winkles, "what relation are we to each other?"

"Well," said his wife, "for one thing, you are my uncle by marriage."

"And I am my father's brother-in-law. By the same argument, the governor becomes his own son's son-in-law. Can you beat it?"

"Your brother becomes your father, and my mother is my sister. Now, let's see what else--"

"And your sister is now your mother-in-law. By the way, has she any children?"

"Two little girls," said Toots.

"That makes poor old Corky a grandfather," groaned Rip.

Pretty much the same conversation took place between Jeff and Beppy.

"Corky is my father-brother," said Jeff, summing it all up.

On the high seas, Mr. and Mrs. Courtney Van Winkle threshed out the amazing situation, and in the mists of the Maine coast, the flabbergasted father of the three young men who fared forth to make men of themselves agonised over the result of their efforts.

"When I am quite strong again, my dear," said he to the comely ex-nurse--who, by the way, had engaged a male attendant to take her place in looking after the convalescent gentleman, "we must have a family gathering in New York. What is your mother like?"

"She is like all women who marry at her age," said she without hesitation--and without rancour. "She's very silly. What sort of a person is your son?"

"I don't know," said Mr. Van Winkle with conviction.

We will permit three months to slip by. No honeymoon should be shorter than that. It is meet that we should grant our quiddlers three and their excellent parent the supreme felicity of enjoying the period without being spied upon by a mercenary story-teller. But all interests, as well as all roads, lead to a common centre. The centre in this case was New York City.

It goes without saying that the Barrows girls, Edith and Gwendolyn, preferred New York to W---- as a place of residence. They married New Yorkers and it was only right and proper that they should love New York. Possessing a full third of the enormous fortune left by their distilling father, they maintained that they could afford to live in New York, even though their husbands remained out of employment for the rest of their natural lives. We already know that Mrs. Corky Van Winkle longed for a seat among the lofty, and that Mrs. Bleecker Van Winkle had married at least two gentlemen of Gotham in the struggle to feel at home there. Therefore, we are permitted to announce that Jefferson and Ripley Van Winkle resigned their positions as golf-instructors the instant the wedding bells began to ring, and went upon the retired list with the record of an honourable, even distinguished career behind them. They said something about going into "the Street," and their amiable and beautiful wives exclaimed that it would be perfectly lovely of them. But, they added, there was really no excuse for hurrying.

We come now to the family gathering in the palatial home of Mr. Courtney Van Winkle, just off Fifth Avenue (on the near east side), and it is December. Corky's wife bought the place, furnished. He couldn't stop her. The only flaw in the whole arrangement, according to the ambitious Grand Duchess, was the deplorable accident that admitted a trained nurse into the family circle. It would be very hard to live down. She never could understand why Mr. Van Winkle did it!

The twins and their brides were occupying enormous suites at one of the big hotels, pending the completion of a new and exclusive apartment building in Fifth Avenue. They had been in town but a week when Courtney and the Grand Duchess returned from Virginia Hot Springs, where they had spent November. Old Mr. Van Winkle was just out of the hospital after a second operation: an adhesion. He was really unfit for the trip up town from the old Van Winkle mansion; nevertheless, he made it rather than disappoint his new--(I use the word provisionally)--daughter-in-law, who had set her heart upon having the family see what she had bought. I am not quite certain that she didn't include Corky in the exhibit.

There were introductions all around. Mr. Van Winkle, senior, was presented to his mother-in-law and to his sisters, and, somewhat facetiously, to his father-in-law, his brothers, his sons and his daughters. Corky had the pleasure of meeting his three sons-in-law, his three daughters-in-law, his two sisters, his brothers, his father and his granddaughters-in-law. The twins--but why continue? Puzzles of this character provide pleasure for those who choose to work them out for themselves, and no doubt many who have followed the course of this narrative are to be classed among them.

Of course, in his own home Corky sat at the head of the table, but it is not to be assumed that he was the undisputed head of the family, although he may have advanced claims to the distinction because of his position as father-in-law to every one else of the name. Mr. Van Winkle, pere, jocosely offered to relinquish the honour to his son, and the twins vociferously shouted their approval.

"You are the oldest member of the family by marriage, Corky," said Jeff, and was rewarded by a venomous stare from his joint mother-and-sister-in-law.

"How you talk!" said the Grand Duchess, suddenly remembering her lorgnette. The stare became intensified. "Isn't the house attractive, Mr. Van Winkle?" she asked, turning to the old gentleman, with a mirthless smile.

"Are you addressing me, my dear, as your son-in-law or as your father-in-law?" enquired Mr. Van Winkle.

"Why do you ask?" she demanded.

"Because if you are speaking to me as your son, I prefer to be called Bleecker."

"Stuff and nonsense, Mr. Van Winkle! Why, I scarcely know you."

"Won't you tell me your Christian name? I can't very well go about calling my daughter MISSIS Van Winkle."

"Minervy--I mean Minerva. Of course, I shall expect you to call me Minerva. I--I suppose it is only right that I should call you Bleecker. Isn't it an odd situation?"

"I should say so," put in Rip. "I'll have to give up calling you father, Bleecker. You are my brother now."

"I don't think we should carry a joke too far," said his father severely.

"It's no joke," said Kip. "Is it, Father Corky?"

"See here, confound you, don't get funny," snapped Corky from the head of the table. "You forget the servants."

"I'm not ashamed to have them hear me call you father, Corky," protested Rip. "I'll shout it from the house top if you think there's any doubt about my sincerity."

"Don't tease, Ripley," said Toots. "Your poor brother is dreadfully embarrassed."

"You must go with me to the dressmaker's tomorrow, girls," said the Grand Duchess, effectually putting a stop to the discussion. "I shall be there all day trying on gowns, and I want your opinions."

"Didn't you have anything made in Paris, Mother?" cried Toots and Beppy in unison.

"She did," said Corky emphatically. "We paid duty on seventy-three gowns, to say nothing of other things."

"But they are all out of fashion by this time," said Mrs. Corky, joyously. "They are at least three months old. I'm getting everything new. The season promises to be an unusually brilliant one, doesn't it, dear?"

Every one waited for Gorky's reply. He appeared to have swallowed something the wrong way. It was just like them to wait, CONFOUND them, thought he resentfully.

"Yes," said he, so succinctly that the four ladies were bitterly disappointed. For them, the topic called for the most elaborate treatment. "I shall give a big ball right after the holidays," said the Grand Duchess, determined to keep the subject going. "Corky and I have been going over the list of invitations this week. We mean to make it very select. On a rough estimate, we figure that the affair won't cost a cent less than fifty thousand--"

"My dear!" cried Corky, rapping violently on the table with his fork in his agitation.

"That's a pearl-handled fork," his wife reminded him, going very red under her rouge.

At this juncture Jefferson arose and, clearing his throat, began a toast to the brides.

"On your feet, gentlemen! Here's to the four Mrs. Van Winkles, the fourest of the fair--I mean the fairest of the four--ouch!--the fairest--of--the--fair. May they never know an hour of remorse! May their hearts always beat time to the tune of love we shall sing into their lovely ears, and may they be kind enough to forgive us our transgressions while they listen to our eternal and everlasting song! Drink, gentlemen!"

As the four gentlemen drained their glasses, the four ladies applauded the eloquent Jeff.

"You must write that out for Corky, Jefferson," cried his mother-in-law. "He may have an opportunity to spring it--"

"Ahem!" barked Corky, quite viciously.

"I am sure we shall all love one another and be happy to the end of our days," cried Mrs. Bleecker Van Winkle, an extremely handsome woman of thirty-three.

"Good for you, Mother!" shouted Rip, with enthusiasm and every one laughed, Corky the loudest of all.

Beppy rose half way out of her seat and peered down the table in the direction of her sister Mary.

"Stop holding hands, you silly things!" she cried, shaking her finger at Bleecker Van Winkle and his wife.

"I'm not holding hands," cried Mary.

"She was feeling my pulse," explained the old gentleman hastily.

As a matter of fact, when Mary undertook to bestow upon her husband the caress known as "holding hands" she invariably took his wrist between her thumb and forefinger and absent-mindedly counted ten or twelve before realising her mistake.

The father of the three young men took this particular moment to revoke, in a very diplomatic way, the sentence he had declared a few months earlier in the year. Without saying it in so many words, he gave them to understand that he considered their fortunes made and warmly congratulated them upon the successful issue of their endeavours. He made so bold as to state that he took upon his own shoulders all of the trivial mistakes they may have made during years of adolescence, and gave to them the glory of achieving success when failure might have been their lot because of the foolish adoration of a doting parent. It was a very pretty speech, but the boys noticed that he carefully refrained from acknowledging that they had made men of themselves.

"And now," said he, in conclusion, "permit me to paraphrase the toast of that amiable ancestor whom fiction has given to us, the ancient Rip whose days will be longer than ours, whose life will run smoothly through centuries to come: 'May we all live long--and prosper'!"

They drank it standing.

The Grand Duchess beamed. "So that dear old gentleman WAS your ancestor after all. How glad I am to know it!"

"Yes, my dear daughter," said her venerable son-in-law, running his fingers through his niveous thatch, "he was the first of the time-wasting Van Winkles."

THE LATE MR. TAYLOR

Hawkins was not a drinking man. To be sure, he took a glass of something occasionally, but he thoroughly understood himself at the time. He took it to be companionable, that was all. Therefore, in view of what happened to him on one unforgetable night, it is well to know that Hawkins bore an impeccable reputation for sobriety. Likewise, his veracity never had been seriously questioned.

The night was bitterly cold--so cold, in fact, that Hawkins relished the prospect of remaining in-doors. There was a blizzard blowing fifty knots an hour. Hawkins rarely used the word "mile," it may be said; he was of a decidedly nautical turn ever since the memorable trip to Europe and back. He was middle-aged and a bachelor. This explains the fact that he was a man of habits if not of parts. For years he had lived in cosy apartments on the fifth floor, surrounded by unmistakable signs of connubial joy, but utterly oblivious to these pertinent manifestations. Away back--I should say abaft--in the dim past he had given some little thought to matrimony but she was now almost beyond memory.

Each day after Hawkins had balanced the books at the bank--and they always balanced, so methodical was Hawkins--he went for his stroll in the park. Then came dinner, then a half hour or so of conversation with the other boarders, and then the club or the theatre. Usually he went home early in the night as he always went to town early in the morning. The occasions were not infrequent when he could smile grimly and pityingly upon one or more of his companions of the night before as they passed him on their belated way home long after dawn. It was then that Hawkins drew himself a trifle more erect, added a bit of elasticity to his notably springy stride, and congratulated himself warmly on being what he was.

Soon after eight o'clock on the night of the great blizzard, Hawkins forsook the companionship of the disgruntled coterie downstairs and retired to his library on the fifth floor. His suite consisted of three rooms--and a bath, as they say when they talk of letting them to you. There was a library, a bed chamber and a parlour with broad couches against two of the walls. Sometimes Hawkins had friends to stay all night with him. They slept on the couches because it did not make any difference to them and because Hawkins was of a philanthropic turn of mind when occasion demanded.

He got into his dressing gown and slippers, pulled the big leather chair up to the blazing grate, and prepared for a long and enjoyable visit with one Charles Dickens. A young woman of charm and persistence had induced him, only the week before to purchase a full set of Dickens with original Cruikshank engravings--although Hawkins secretly confessed that he was sceptical--and it was not like him to spend money without getting its full value in return. It was with some show of gratitude then that he looked upon the blizzard which kept him indoors for the night. Years ago he had read "Oliver Twist" and "David Copperfield," but that was the extent of his acquaintance with Dickens. Now that he had the full set on his shelves, it behooved him to read the great Englishman from beginning to end.

"This is a terrible night," he mused, as he ran his eye along the row of green and gilt books, and "Bleak House" seems especially fit for the hour. "We'll begin with that."

Outside the wind howled like mad, shrieking around the corners as if bent on destroying every bit of harmony in the world. It whistled and screamed and gnashed its way through the helpless night, the biting sleet so small that it could penetrate the very marrow of man. Hawkins serenely tucked his heels into the cushions of the footstool and laughed at the storm.

"I sha'n't be disturbed tonight, that's sure," he thought, complacently. "No one but a drivelling idiot would venture out in such a blizzard as this unless absolutely driven to it. 'Gad, that wind is something awful! I haven't heard anything like it since last February and that was when we had the coldest night in forty years, if one can believe the weather bureau." Here Hawkins allowed "Bleak House" to drop listlessly into his lap while he indulged in a moment or two of retrospection. "Let's see; that was said to have been the deadliest cold snap Chicago has ever known. Scores of people were frozen to death on the streets and many of them in their homes. I hope there is no one so luckless as to be homeless tonight. The hardiest man would be helpless. Think of the poor cab-drivers and--oh, well, it doesn't help matters to speculate on what may be happening outside. I shudder to think, though, of what the papers will tell in the morning."

The midnight hour was close at hand before Hawkins reluctantly and tenderly laid "Bleak House" on the library table, stretched himself and prepared for bed. The blizzard had not lost any of its fury. Indeed, it seemed to have grown more vicious, more merciless. Hawkins, in his pajamas, lifted the curtain and sought a glimpse of the night and its terrors. The window panes were white with frost. He scraped away the thick layer and peered forth into the swirling storm.

"Worse than ever," he thought, a troubled look in his eyes. "Poor devils, who ever you are, I feel for you if you're out in all this."

He turned off the lights, banked the fire on the grate and was soon shivering between the icy sheets of his bed. It seemed to him they never would get warm and cosy, as he had so confidently expected. Hawkins, being a bank clerk, was a patient and enduring man. Years of training had made him tolerant even to placidity. As he cuddled in the bed, his head almost buried in the covers, he resignedly convinced himself that warmth would come sooner or later and even as the chills ran up and down his back he was philosophic. So much for system and a clear conscience.

Gradually the chill wore away and Hawkins slumbered, warm and serene despite the wrath of the winds which battered against the walls of his habitation. At just what minute sleep came he did not know. He heard the clock striking the hour of twelve. Of that he was sure, because he counted the strokes up to nine before they ran into a confused jangle. He remembered wondering dimly if any one had been able to distinguish the precise instant when sleep succeeds wakefulness. At any rate, he slept.

The same little clock struck twice a few minutes after a sudden chill aroused him to consciousness. For a moment or two he lay there wondering how he came to be out-of-doors. He was so cold and damp that some minutes of wakefulness were required to establish the fact that he was still in his own room and bed. It struck Hawkins as strange that the bedclothes, tucked about his head, seemed wet and heavy and mouldy. He pulled them tightly about his shivering body, curled his legs up until the knees almost touched the chin and--yes, Hawkins said damn twice or thrice. It was not long until he was sufficiently awake to realise that he was very much out of patience.

Presently he found himself sniffing the air, his nostrils dilating with amazement. There was a distinct odour of earth, such as one scents only in caverns or in mossy places where the sun is forever a stranger. It was sickening, overpowering. Hawkins began to feel that the chill did not come from the wintry winds outside but from some cool, aguish influence in the room itself. Half asleep, he impatiently strove to banish the cold, damp smell by pulling the coverlet over his head. His feet felt moist and his knees were icy cold. The thick blanket seemed plastered to his black, wet and rank with the smell of stagnant water.

"What in thunder is the matter with me?" growled he, to himself. "I never felt this way before. It's like sleeping in a fog or worse. A big slug of whiskey is what I need, but it's too infernal cold to get out of bed after it. How the dickens is it that typhoid fever starts in on a fellow? Chilly back and all that, I believe,--but I can't recall anything clammy about it."

The more he thought of it the more worried he became; more earnest became his efforts to shut out the chilly dampness. It occurred to him that it would be wise to crawl out and poke up the fire in the next room. Then he remembered that there was a gas grate in his bedroom, behind the bureau. Of course, it would be quite a task to move the bureau and even then he might find that the gas pipe was not connected with the burner. The most sensible proceeding, he finally resolved, would be to get up and rebuild the fire and afterward add an overcoat and the cherished steamer rug to the bed coverings. Damper and damper grew the atmosphere in the room. Everything seemed to reek with the odour of rotting wood and mouldy earth; his nostrils drank the smell of decaying vegetation and there seemed to be no diminution. Instead, the horrible condition appeared to grow with each succeeding breath of wakefulness.

The palms of his hands were wet, his face was saturated. Hawkins was conscious of a dreadful fear that he was covered with mildew. Once, when he was a small boy, he had gone into a vault in the cemetery with some relatives. Somehow, the same sensations he felt on that far-off day were now creeping over him. The room seemed stifled with the smell of dead air, cold and gruesome. He tried to convince himself that he was dreaming, but it was too easy to believe the other way. Suddenly his heart stopped beating and his blood turned to ice, for there shot into his being the fear that some dreadful thing was about to clutch him from behind, with cold, slimy hands. In his terror he could almost feel the touch of ghastly fingers against his flesh.

With rigid, pulseless hands he threw the soggy covers from his face and looked forth with wide startled eyes. His face was to the wall, his back--(his cringing back)--to the open room. Hawkins was positive that he had heard the clock strike two and he knew that no hour of the winter's night was darker. And yet his eyes told him that his ears had lied to him.

It was not inky darkness that met his gaze. The room was draped in the grey of dawn, cold, harsh, lifeless. Every object on the wall was plainly visible in this drear light. The light green stripes in the wall paper were leaden in colour, the darker border above was almost blue in its greyness. For many minutes Hawkins remained motionless in his bed, seeking a solution of the mystery. Gradually the conviction grew upon him that he was not alone in the room. There was no sound, no visible proof that any one was present, but something supernatural told him that an object--human or otherwise--was not far from his side. The most horrible feeling came over him. He was ready to shriek with terror, so positive was his belief that the room was occupied by some dreadful thing.

Even as he prepared to turn his face toward the open room, there came to his ears the most terrifying sound. Distinctly, plainly he heard a chuckle, almost at the bedside. A chuckle, hollow, sepulchral, mirthless. The hair on Hawkins's head stood straight on end. The impulse to hide beneath the covers was conquered by the irresistible desire to know the worst.

He whirled in the bed, rising to his elbow, his eyes as big as dollars. Something indescribable had told him that the visitor was no robber midnight marauder. He did not fear physical injury, strange as it may seem.

There, in the awful grey light, sitting bolt upright in the Morris chair, was the most appalling visitor that man ever had. For what seemed hours to Hawkins, he gazed into the face of this ghastly being--the grey, livid, puffy face of a man who had been dead for weeks.

Fascination is a better word than fright in describing the emotion of the man who glared at this uncanny object. Unbelief was supreme in his mind for a short time only. After the first tremendous shock, his rigid figure relaxed and he trembled like a leaf. Horror seemed to be turning his blood to ice, his hair to the whiteness of snow. Slowly the natural curiosity of the human mind asserted itself. His eyes left the face of the dread figure in the chair and took brief excursions about the room in search of the person who had laughed an age before. Horror increased when he became thoroughly convinced that he was alone with the cadaver.

Whence came that chuckle?

Surely not from the lips of this pallid thing near the window. His brain reeled. His stiff lips parted as if to cry out but no sound issued forth.

In a jumbled, distorted way his reason began to question the reality of the vision, and then to speculate on how the object came to be in his room. To his certain knowledge, the doors and windows were locked. No one could have brought the ghastly thing to his room for the purpose of playing a joke on him. No, he almost shrieked in revulsion, no one could have handled the terrible thing, even had it been possible to place it there while he slept. And yet it had been brought to his bedroom; it could not have come by means of its own.

He tried to arise, but his muscles seemed bound in fetters of steel. In all his after life he was not to forget the picture of that hideous figure, sitting there in the tomb-like grey. The face was bloated and soft and flabby, beardless and putty-like; the lips thick and colourless; the eyes wide, sightless and glassy. The black hair was matted and plastered close to the skull, as if it had just come from the water. The clothes that covered the corpse were wet, slimy and reeking with the odour of stagnant water. Huge, stiff, puffy hands extended over the ends of the chair's arms, the fingers twice the natural size and absolutely shapeless. Truly, it was a most repulsive object. There was no relief in the thought that the man might have entered the room alive, in some mysterious manner, for every sign revealed the fact that he had been dead for a long time.

Hawkins, in his horror, found himself thinking that if he were to poke his finger suddenly into the cheek of the object, it would leave an impression that hours might not obliterate.

It was dead, horribly dead, and--the chuckle? His ears must have deceived him. No sound could have come from those pallid lips--

But the thing was speaking!

"It is so nice and warm here," came plainly and distinctly from the Morris chair, the voice harsh and grating. Something rattled in each tone. Hawkins felt his blood freeze within him and he knew his eyes were bulging with terror. They were glued upon the frightful thing across the room, but they saw no movement of the thick lips.

"Wha--What?" gasped Hawkins, involuntarily. His own voice sounded high and squeaky.

"I've been so cursed cold," responded the corpse, and there were indications of comfort in the weird tones. "Say, I've had a devil of a time. It's good to find a warm spot again. The Lord knows I've been looking for it long enough."

"Good Lord! Am I crazy? Is it actually talking?" murmured Hawkins, clutching the bedclothes frantically.

"Of course, I'm talking. Say, I'm sorry to have disturbed you at this time of night, but you wouldn't mind if you knew how much I've suffered from this terrible cold. Don't throw me out, for God's sake. Let me stay here till I thaw out, please do. You won't put me out, will you?" The appeal in those racking tones was too grotesque for description.

"I wouldn't--wouldn't touch you for a million dollars," gasped Hawkins. "Good Heavens, you're dead!"

"Certainly. Any fool could tell that," answered the dead man, scornfully.

"Then--then how do you come to be here?" cried the owner of the room. "How can you be dead and still able to talk? Who placed you in that chair?"

"You'll have to excuse me, but my brain is a trifle dull just now. It hasn't had time to thaw out, I fancy. In the first place, I think I came up the fire escape and into that window. Don't get up, please; I closed it after me. What was the next question? Oh, yes--I remember. It isn't an easy matter to talk, I'll confess. One's throat gets so cold and stiff, you know. I kept mine in pretty good condition by calling out for help all the time I was in the water."

"In the--water?"

"Yes. That's how I happen to be so wet and disagreeable. You see, I've been out there in the lake for almost a year!"

Hawkins fell back in the bed, speechless. He started with fresh terror when he passed his hand over his wet forehead. The hand was like ice.

"There's a lot of them out there, you may be sure. I stumbled over them two or three times a day. No matter where you walk or float, you're always seeing dead people out there. They're awful sights, too,--give one the shivers. The trouble with most people who go to the bottom is that they give up and are content to lie there forever, washed around in the mud and sand in a most disgusting way. I couldn't bear the thought of staying down there for ages, so I kept on trying to get out. Shows what perseverance will do, doesn't it?"

"You don't mean to say that--that--Good Lord, I must have brain fever!" cried poor Hawkins hoarsely.

"Do I annoy you? I'll be going presently, although I hate to leave this warm corner. But you can rest assured of one thing: I'll never go near that lake again. All the weight in the world couldn't drag me to the bottom after what I've gone through. It's not right, I know, to trespass like this. It's a rank shame. But don't be hard on me, Mr.--Mr.--?"

"I don't know it," groaned Hawkins, who could not have told his name if his life was at stake. He had forgotten everything except the terrible thing in the Morris chair.

"My name is--or was--Taylor, Alfred B. Taylor. I used to live in Lincoln Avenue, quite a distance out. Perhaps you have heard of me. Didn't the newspapers have an account of my disappearance last February? They always print such stuff, so I'm sure they had something about me. I broke through the ice off Lincoln Park one day while walking out toward the crib."

"I--I remember," Hawkins managed to whisper. "You were the Board of Trade man who--who--"

"Who took one chance too many," completed the dead man, grimly. "A Board of Trade man often gets on very thin ice, you know," the sepulchral laugh that oozed from those grey lips rang in the listener's ears till his dying day. "These clothes of mine were pretty good the day I went down, but the water and the fishes have played havoc with them, I'm afraid. It strikes me they won't hold together much longer."

"You--you don't look as though you'd hold together very long yourself," ventured Hawkins, picking up a little courage.

"Do I look that bad?" asked Mr. Taylor, quite ruefully. "Well, I daresay it's to be expected. I've been plodding around on the bottom of the lake for a year and the wear and tear is enormous. For months I was frozen stiff as a rail. Then summer came along and I was warmed up a bit. The terrible cold snap we're having just now almost caught me before I got out of the water. The trouble was, I lost my bearings and wandered miles and miles out into the lake. Then it was like hunting a needle in a haystack to find dry land. I'm sure I travelled a circle for hundreds of miles before I accidentally wandered upon the beach down there by the Fresh Air place. I really believe this is a colder night than the first one I spent in the lake, and that day was supposed to be a record breaker, I remember. Twenty-six below zero, if I'm not mistaken. By George, I'm warming up nicely in here. I feel like stretching a bit!"

"For God's sake, don't!" almost shrieked Hawkins, burying his head beneath the covers.

"Very well, since you object," came to his muffled ears. "You must be very warm in that bed. I'd give all I have in the world if I could get into a nice warm bed like that once more."

Hawkins peeped from beneath the cover in dire apprehension, but was intensely relieved to see that the terrible Mr. Taylor had not changed his attitude. The eyes of the watcher suddenly fixed themselves on the visitor's right hand. The member was slowly sliding off the arm of the chair. Fascinated, Hawkins continued to watch its progress. At last, it dropped heavily from its resting place. The position of the corpse changed instantly, the sudden jerk of the dead weight pulling the body forward and to one side. The head lolled to the right and the lower jaw dropped, leaving the mouth half open. One eyelid closed slowly, as if the cadaver was bestowing a friendly wink upon his host.

"Very awkward of me," apologised Mr. Taylor, his voice not so distinct, his words considerably jumbled on account of the unfortunate mishap to his mouth.

"Get out of here!" shrieked Hawkins, unable to endure the horror any longer. "Get out!"

"Oh, you don't mean that, do you?" pleaded the thing in the chair. "I'm just beginning to feel comfortable and--"

"Get out!" again cried Hawkins, frenzied.

"It's rotten mean of you, old man," said Mr. Taylor. "I wouldn't turn you out if our positions were reversed. Hang it, man, I'd be humane. I'd ask you to get into bed and warm up thoroughly. And I'd set out the whiskey, too."

But Hawkins was speechless.

"Confound your penurious soul," growled Mr. Taylor, after a long silence, "I've a notion to climb into that bed anyhow. If you want to throw me out, go ahead. I'm used to being knocked about and a little more of it won't hurt me, I guess. Move over there, old man. I'm going to get in."

With a scream of terror, Hawkins leaped up in the bed. The dead man was slowly rising from the chair, one eye fixed on the ceiling, the other directed toward the floor. Just as the awful body lurched forward, Hawkins sprang from the bed and struck out frantically with his clenched hand. The knuckles lodged against the bulging brow of the dead man and they seemed to go clear to the skull, burying themselves in the cushion-like flesh. As the horrid object crashed to the floor, Hawkins flew through the library and into the hall, crying like a madman.

Other occupants of the building, awakened by the frightful shrieks, found him crouching in a corner on one of the stair landings, his wide eyes staring up the steps down which he had just tumbled. It was an interminably long time before he could tell them what had happened and then they all assured him he had been dreaming. But Hawkins knew he had not been dreaming.

Three of the men who went to his bedroom came hurriedly down the stairs, white-faced and trembling. They had not seen the corpse but they had found plenty of evidence to prove that something terrible had been in Hawkins' bedroom.

The window was open and the chair which stood in front of it was overturned, as if some one had upset it in crawling out upon the fire escape platform. One of the men looked out into the night. He saw a man crossing the street in the very face of the gale, running as if pursued. It was too dark to see the man's face, but the observer was sure that he turned twice to look up at the open window. The figure turned into an alley, going toward the lake.

The Morris chair was wet and foul-smelling, and the floor was saturated in places. A piece of cloth, soaked with mud, was found beneath the window sill. Evidently it had been caught and torn away by the curtain hook on the window sash. Hawkins would not go near the room and it was weeks before he was able to resume work at the bank.

And, stranger than all else, the dead body of a man was found in the snow near the Fresh Air Sanitarium the next morning, but no one could identify the corpse. The man had been dead for months.

THE TEN DOLLAR BILL

A CHRISTMAS STORY

Mr. and Mrs. Digby Trotter had been married just five years. Five years before Digby had gone to his father to tell him that he intended to marry Kate Anderson. The old gentleman grew very red in the face and observed, more forcibly than considerately:

"You must be a dod-gasted idiot! You get married? And to that brainless little fool whose father exhorts or extorts religion for $600 a year at that miserable little church over there on Queen Street--is that the girl you mean?" And then Trotter, pere, ceased speaking to look searchingly into his son's face; an embarrassed smile brightened his grim old countenance and he went on, good humour growing stronger in each succeeding word: "You rascal! Why did you tell me that? Do you know, for a moment, I actually thought you were in earnest, and--well, demme! it did work me up a little. I ought to have known better, too--but, then, you did say it as if you meant it. Excuse me, boy; I guess I'm the fool, myself."

"That remains to be seen, sir," was the most polite thing that his son could say under the circumstances, taking his hands out of his pockets and putting them back again at once. "You see, it's this way, Father, you laughed too soon. It's not so devilish much of a joke as you think. I meant it."

Mr. Trotter's smile faded away as does the sunshine that hides itself in the dusk of eventide. Father and son grew warm in the discussion of this most amazing determination on the part of the latter and it all came to a sharp end when both lost temper. When Digby jammed his hat down over his eyes, buttoned close his overcoat and dashed out of the bank into the street, he might have been heard to say, as a parting shot:

"I'll marry her now if I starve for two thousand years!"

And marry her he did.

Trotter, senior, did not attend the wedding, did not send the young couple a present, nor a greeting; in fact, he did nothing but ignore them completely. He had told Digby that he would never forgive him and had gone so far as to call on poor little Dr. Anderson, the unfortunate possessor of a pretty daughter and a $600 charge, expressing himself as earnestly averse to the union of their children. When he had concluded his interview with the minister the latter was extremely pale and nervous, but he was master of the situation. He stood, holding open the door to his plain, pitiful old study and Mr. Trotter, very much injured and crestfallen, was passing out with these words stinging his ears:

"I am sorry, sir--just as sorry as you. I like Digby; he is a good, open-hearted boy, but I had hoped to see Kate better wedded!" Then he closed the door and seated himself in the old cushioned chair, staring at the grate until the glare seemed to hurt his eyes. At least, they grew very hot and dry, then streaming wet.

And so they were married five years ago. Since then their struggle had been a hard one; both ends would not meet, no matter how firmly Digby persevered in his efforts to bring about such a union. He would not, could not ask his father for assistance, nor would that patient, faithful little wife have permitted him to harbour such a design had he weakened in his avowed intention to "get along without a dollar from dad." Notwithstanding their feeble warfare against privation, in which defeat hovered constantly over fields where victory seemed assured, theirs had been a happy sort of misery. Digby loved Kate and Kate worshipped him; his pity for her was overwhelmed by the earnestness with which she pitied him. No struggle of his failed but that she shouldered and bore the failure with him, cheering him when he felt like lagging, smiling when he despaired the deepest. Between them a speck of joy grew larger, brighter each day despite the gloom that surrounded it. Their child was their one possession of worth, 4-year-old Helen--sunny-faced Helen--Helen who suffered none of the pangs because of the sacrifices made by those whose darkness she illumined.

Trotter had married Kate with a heart overrunning with the glorious ambition of untried youth, the happy confidence of strength, fully convinced that nothing was necessary toward securing success save the establishment of a purpose. And that is quite, quite the fact.

They began with a dollar and they had seen but few, since the beginning, that they could call their own. Too late did Digby learn that he knew but little and that the world was full of young men whose beginning in life had been so much worse than his that necessity had made them equal to the struggle for which he had been so illy prepared by an indulgent parent. Digby found the banks in which he had hoped to secure positions thronged with clerks and accountants who had worked slowly, painfully from the bottom upward. Grey-haired men, whose lives had been spent in the one great battle for gold, told him of their years in the patient ranks; thoughtful-faced young men told him how they had been office boys, messenger boys, even janitor boys, in the climb up the Matterhorn of success. Here he was a man of 25, strong, bright and the possessor of an unusual intelligence, a college man, a rich man's son, but poorer than the smallest clerk that had ever bent his throbbing, ambitious head over the desk in his father's bank, and who had often envied the life of his employer's son. Now that son was beneath them all because he did not know how to work!

Work--toil--slave! The definition of success.

At first the failures originating from inexperience had been of small consequence to Digby. His old-time independence resisted the harsh criticisms of his first employers and he had, on more than one occasion, thrown away fair positions because the spirit could not endure the thumb of mastery. For months he rebelled against the requirements of servitude, but gradually it dawned upon him that though the rich man was his father he was no longer the rich man's son.

So, when the first year of their wedded life had rolled by, Digby Trotter, still neat, still independent, yet not so defiant--wore a haggard look which could no longer be disguised. The once fashionable garments were beginning to look shabby; his recently purchased clothing had come from the bargain counters in cheap "ready-made" establishments; his once constantly used evening dress suit hung in a closet, lonely and forlorn, minus the trousers. He was keeping the books in a street car office and his salary was $40 a month.

When, at the close of their first happy, miserable year, her father died and their baby was born, many changes came. They were forced to take the house for themselves and had to be accountable for the rent. Dr. Anderson had given them the right to call his home their own so long as he should live and it was the earnings of two men that kept the little establishment crowded with happiness, if not comforts, during his lifetime. One day a blow came to them. The landlord ejected them. Kate wept as she passed out through the little front gate, leaving behind the dear old home with its rose bushes, its lilacs, its gravelled walks, perhaps forever. Digby buttoned his coat tightly about his thinning figure and scowled as he followed her through the gate. He scowled at that invisible fate which preceded them both. Now, at the end of five years, they were living in a tenement house, a crowded, filthy place, ruled by a miserly, relentless landlord, whose gold was his god.

The young husband had been employed by many men and in many occupations during these five years. Fate pursued him always, despite his dogged determination, his earnest efforts to surmount the obstacles which crowded his path to happiness and peace. If a reduction was necessary in a working force he was one of the first to go: if any one was to be superseded by a new and favoured applicant he was the one. On many occasions he had taken up his coat and hat, stepping to the pavement with the crushed heart of a despairing man, tears in his wistful eyes, his tired brain filling, almost bursting with the thoughts of the little woman whose brave eyes would grow large and bright when he told her of the end, and who would kiss him and bid him not to despair. He could almost hear her suppressed sob as he thought of her, her head upon his shoulder, her soft voice blaming herself for having dragged him down to this.

In this warfare of poverty they had seen many hungry days, many hardships, but neither had relinquished faith in Digby's ability to baffle adversity and stem the tide. Like tennis balls, they had been batted from one end of the year to the other, and now, at this time, Digby Trotter and wife had become members of New York's "floating population." Seldom did they live in one place more than three months, sometimes less than one. Frequently they moved because their surroundings were so distasteful to Kate, whose natural sense of refinement was averse, not to poverty and squalor, but to the vice with which it often is associated in districts where an ignorant and vicious element flocks as if drawn by the magnetism of sin.

A man of strong will was Digby, and a woman of wonderful strength of purpose was his wife, or he would have lost heart, and lost her in the end. Only once had he come home to her intoxicated, driven to it through despair and by what he thought to be approaching illness. On awakening from the drunken sleep shame made him fear to meet the eyes of her who suffered with him. But she had gently said:

"Don't be ashamed, Digby; poor, dear boy! You couldn't help it, I know. But, dear, do try to be strong, stronger than ever, for baby's sake if not for your own and mine. We shall all be happy yet, I'm sure we shall, if you--if you will but resist that one misfortune."

He never drank another drop of liquor.

Then, at last, the brave little woman took in plain sewing, greatly to Digby's anguish and mortification. Never had he felt so little like a man as when she showed so plainly that it was necessary for her to assist in the maintenance of the little household over which he presided. The few dollars that she could earn kept them supplied with food--at least part of the time. His odd jobs helped; the dollar that he earned once in a while was made to go a long way. Not once did she complain, not once did she cry out against the son who had taken his father's curse for her sake. There are but few women who would be so considerate.

When he came home at nights, climbing the wearisome steps that led to their miserable home near the roof of the vast building he knew that she would smile and kiss him, that the baby would laugh and climb gaily upon his knee, and he knew that he would not have to tell her that he had failed to find the coveted employment. His face would be the indicator, and, beneath her first smile of welcome, he could always distinguish the searching glance of anxiety; under her warm kiss he could feel the words:

"Poor boy! I am sorry; you have tried so hard!"

Their home was poor, poorer than Digby had thought any man's home could be, but there was no sign of the filth that characterised the condition of other homes in the house. Mrs. Trotter kept it clean, kept it neat, and kept it as bright as possible. While they were as poor, if not poorer than the other inhabitants of this roofed world, they were looked upon as and called "the aristocrats." No poverty could remove nor deface the indelible stamp of superiority which good blood and culture had given them as birthrights. Their apparel was cleaner than anything of its kind in the building, fairly immaculate when compared with the wretched garb of the beings who were looked upon as human but who were--well, they were unfortunate to have that distinction; something less would have been more fitting.

When occasion presented, Digby would bring home flowers, plucked from the gardens that he passed. Kate would bedeck the room with the blossoms, her eyes glistening as she thought of the lovely spot she had known five long years ago. Once in awhile the more beautiful of his tributes would adorn her coal black hair, lending wealth to what seemed so much like waste.

They had curtains for their windows, too--muslin, of course--and, although the windows were almost paneless, they presented quite a home-like appearance, especially from the street, eight floors below. Heavy wads of cloth served as glass in most of the vacant places, but they did not serve well as light filterers. Besides all these valuables they owned a bedstead, a stove, some chairs, a table, a sewing machine and a mirror. Not another family in the house owned a mirror.

But they were lovers ever--the same, sweet comrades in love. The baby was their Cupid at whose shrine they worshipped. She ruled their affections and there was no kingdom wider than her domain. Digby, covered with shame, despair and bitterness against the world, turned himself loose into the pasture of joy when she cooed her authority; romped like a boy whose heart had never felt as heavy as a chunk of lead; talked to her, sang to her with a voice that had never felt the quiver of dismay. Upon these sad pleasantries Mrs. Trotter smiled her worship. Better than all, Digby had never been compelled to walk with her for two or three hours in the middle of the night. It is said that she was the only child on earth that never had the colic.

On the 23d of December in the year of our story, Digby had gone, bright and early, to the big queensware store of Balling and Peet, word having reached him that they needed extra help during the holidays. When he neared his old haunts, the prominent downtown streets, instead of going boldly along the sidewalks as of yore, he slunk through alleys and across corners avoiding all possible chance of meeting the acquaintances of bygone days, the men about town, the women he had known, none of whom would know him now. It was not that he feared their recognition, but that they would refuse to look at him at all.

The morning was bright and crisp, cold and prophetic of still greater chill. Men in great overcoats passed him, muffled to the chin, their whiskers frosty with the whitened air of life that came from tingling noses; ruddy cheeks abounded on this typical winter day. Mr. Trotter possessed no overcoat, but presumably following the fashion set out by other wintry pedestrians, his thin sack coat was buttoned tightly and the collar turned up defiantly. His well-brushed though seedy Derby looked chilly as it topped off his shivering features. His face was blue, not ruddy. Here and there he passed companions in poverty, but their rags were worse than his, their faces more haggard. Never did he feel more like the gentleman than when he saw what he could be if he were not one.