Chapter II: Front Matter (2)

“Speaking of that—I’m going to-night.”

“Where?”

“To the next location—Wyoming.”

“Have a chair! I mean—have a care! Have a care!”

“Come along with me.”

VII

“I’m going to Wyoming, dearest Elizabeth.”

“Gone long, Dick?”

“Probably not until the last chapter, dearest. There are bound to be complications. You see, I’m going to find out who I am, if any. I must unravel the mystery of my adolescence. It is very annoying not to know whether or not you are whom. As it is now, I may be or I may not be.”

“Who? Whom? Whichever it is.”

“Jud Clark, the murderer of Beverly Carlysle’s husband,” said he.

“How interesting!” she murmured.

The midnight train to Wyoming carried all the principals—all except—those who remained at home.

VIII

Louis Bassett met Dick in the Norada Hotel. Bassett gave him a drink of good new post-war whisky and David immediately passed out.

They were nearly arrested by the prohibition agent, who had the exclusive boot-legging privilege for Norada and surrounding territory.

But Louis carried the unconscious man down the fire-escape, stole two horses and took him through a blinding blizzard to the well-known mountain-cabin, one of the most frequented points of interest in the State—rubber-neck wagons every two hours.

IX

To the seclusion of this mountain fastness, Bassett brought the unconscious Richard, laid him in a bunk (bunk! how appropriate!) surrounded him with a Gillette razor, an Ingersoll watch, an Arrow collar, a can of Campbell’s soup, and a Ford car. He watched narrowly.

The sleeping man awoke.

_His eyes fell upon the old familiar things._

He started—“I remember”—stopped.

Bassett cranked him again.

“What do you remember?”

“I remember, I remember the house where I was born, the little window where the sun came peeping in at morn.”

“What is your name?” said Louis quietly.

“My name is——”

(To be continued.)

X

“My name is Norval. On the Grampian Hills——”

He relapsed into coma.

“Some hooch!” exclaimed Bassett.

Two days later he again awoke. “Are you normal now? Or still Norval?” asked Bassett.

“I am Jud Clark,” he answered. “I shot Beverly Carlysle’s husband in the”—he stopped.

“In what?” asked Bassett, regarding him steadily.

“In the billiard room. He tore the cloth with his cue. It was justifiable homicide. There were no witnesses. I could not possibly be convicted. We must flee at once.”

“Do you remember anything else?”

“Yes. I am Dick Livingston. I can remember Papa and Mamma, Uncle David, Aunt Lucy, the cook, Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler, the postman and the spot on the parlor rug—everything—everyone, except—one. I cannot remember Elizabeth. I remember how she looked, her voice, her eyes, her hair—but not her name—Elizabeth—I cannot remember that.”

Bassett took Dick on his back and carried him for days and days, miles and miles, up and down the mountains, through the blinding blizzard, without food, drink or sleep.

When he deposited his burden on the station platform at Norada, his hands and feet were worn to ribbons.

He looked cautiously around. A man approached—blue uniform, brass buttons. They must not be taken alive!

He shouldered the conscious man again, drew his revolver, set his back against a door. It yielded. They fell headlong backwards——

(To be continued.)

XI

Into the waiting room. Bassett shoved the still conscious man under a bench and met the blue-coated officer nonchalantly.

“Looking for any one?”

“Why, yes.”

“Who—whom?”

“Oh, only Jud Clark. They say there’s a reward on his head.”

Just then the still conscious man rolled out from under the bench. The officer sprang forward and snatched the hat from his head.

“Nope!” he said, “not him—nothing there but hair.”

“Who are you?”

“The sheriff of this county.”

“Gosh! I am relieved! I thought you were the prohibition officer.”

Again he lifted the still conscious man on his shoulder.

“Where are we going now?” asked Dick.

“New York,” said Bassett.

XII

Three days later they reached New York—by train.

“We must find Fred Gregory,” said Bassett.

“I thought he told Uncle David he was going to Wyoming.”

“A bluff. He’ll be right out in front of the Martinique.”

But he was not. They found him in Beverly Carlysle’s house. They entered with drawn revolvers.

“Hands up!”

(To be continued.)

XIII

Up they went, Beverly’s and Gregory’s.

“You look natural, Jud,” said Beverly, “all dressed up with a gun.”

“Silence, woman!” said Bassett sternly. “I have brought a confession for you two to sign.”

“All right,” said Gregory. “Got a fountain pen?”

This was the confession:

“We, being of sound mind and in fear of death, do voluntarily make, sign, seal, publish and declare this our last confession:

Dick Livingston is not Jud Clark. He is Fred Gregory. Howard Lucas, Beverly Carlysle’s husband, was not killed by Jud Clark. She was not married to the man Jud Clark killed. It was Fred Gregory.

Howard Lucas did not gouge Jud Clark’s billiard table. It was a pool table. Fred Gregory gouged it, practicing putting.

Jud Clark was not killed by Howard Lucas. It was Fred Gregory. He was shot by Howard Lucas—or else Howard Clark was shot by Fred Lucas—one or the other.

Beverly Carlysle saw the man shot in the billiard room. She was in her own room when the trigger was pulled and hurried down in time to see the fatal bullet hit Fred Clark or Howard Gregory—whichever it was.

Fred Gregory’s real name is Fred Gregory. He was the son of Henry Livingston on his mother’s side. The children were twins. So was Howard Lucas.

There is something wrong somewhere. The whole thing was a mistake.

We do further confess that Dick Livingston is not the son of Elihu Clark but of Fred Gregory—unless he decides to claim the Clark millions—in which case, he is.

We do further confess that Fred Gregory gave the drink to Dick Livingston in Norada. It was not Louis Bassett, who violated the Volstead Act.

God have mercy on our souls!”

(Signed) Beverly Gregory
Fred Carlysle

XIV

Dick was back in Haverly. Aunt Lucy met him at the door.

“Elizabeth is engaged to Wallie Sayre,” she said.

“Who’s Elizabeth?” asked Dick.

Aunt Lucy remained unconscious for three days, but finally recovered.

It was weeks later when the door-bell rang and Minnie admitted Elizabeth to the doctor’s office.

“Name, please,” said Dick.

“Elizabeth Wheeler,” she replied.

“What can I do for you?” he asked.

“Marry me,” said Elizabeth.

“There now,” he said. “I knew I’d forgotten something. Please excuse me. I’ve been so busy.”

Louis Bassett, in the _Times Republican_ office, stared at the notice in the paper.

“Married—on the 17th at St. Barnabas’s Church, Elizabeth, daughter of
Mr. and Mrs. Walter Wheeler, to Dr. Richard Livingston.”

“Gosh!” he said. “I wonder who she married.”

BABBITT

_on_

SINCLAIR LEWIS

It was night in Zenith, the night of the grand testimonial banquet tendered to George F. Babbitt, by the Boosters Club, in honor of the publication of the well-known novel entitled “Babbitt.” Mr. Babbitt spoke on “American Literature,” in part as follows:

“Fellow Boosters: In rising to address you on this auspicious occasion, I want to say first and foremost that I am glad and proud that when it came to the turn of the City of Zenith and yours truly to of had their old, old story told, so to speak, it was by an up-to-date modern successful writer, who, I am told on good authority, sells his books by their thousands and their tens of thousands, amounting in all, I am led to believe, to somewhere in the neighborhood of upward of approximately about 400,000 volumes of a single book, an output, my friends, which compares favorably with the production of cans of condensed milk and pasteboard cartons produced in our great city, and puts literature firmly upon the basis of quantity production of a standardized output.

“I am glad and proud, I may say, that it was him, this modern, up-to-date literary writer, full of pep and punch, who sees things as they are and not as others see us, that it has fallen to his lot to depict this book.

“Now, my friends, let us come with me and cast a glance backward upon American literature in the old days of yore, as the poet says, and see how different it used to be, and I will not detain you long. Let us see how different was the lot of such writers as James J. Whittier and Edwin A. Poe and William Wordsworth Longfellow, when they were in their prime. Did they sell their books by their thousands and their tens of thousands and have a snug bank-account and a nice little bungalow, maybe, and a good little bus standing ready in his own garage, so he could climb in, step on the gas and shoot out into God’s good out-o’-doors for a little airing and exercise after the day’s work? No, sir, my friends, I say it without fear of contradiction; they did not.

“Literature in those bygone days of yore was something else again, as one of our greatest writers puts it in his well-known tales of Potash and Perlmutter, depicting the better side of our Hebrew friends, with all their love of home and family. They were lucky if they sold one of their poems or fiction-writings for a mere song to some publisher, who maybe paid them enough to eke out a miserable pittance in some garret or some place like that.

“And, why, my friends, was this the case? Simply and solely because, my friends, they didn’t write about the things that Zenith City wants to read. What do we want to read, if I may put the question? Why, we want to read about the things we know about and understand—about the things of home and business—about business, first and foremost.

“The kind of romance we want is not the romance of two knights in tin armor trying to punch holes in each other’s stomachs, if you will excuse the word, with spears or something or maybe making illicit love—I speak plainly for we must not blink these evils—to some countess, who was maybe already the wife of some lord or duke, as in the bygone days of chivalry, when knighthood was in flower, as the poet says.

“That’s not the kind of romance we want. Believe me or not, my friends, when two keen-witted American realtors, maybe, of my own profession, sit down to make a deal, maybe about a piece of real estate, matching our keen wits against each other in the struggles and triumphs of modern business—there, my friends, is the romance of to-day.

“Us real he-American men and our wives and kiddies want to read about our city, Zenith, God bless it! and our homes properly equipped with a bathroom with sanitary plumbing, which I say without disrespect and I challenge any man to deny it, is the hall mark of civilization in this twentieth century of ours, and not like the filthy habits and customs of the effete nations of Europe to whom the use of soap—God save the mark!—is practically unknown. We like to read about our autos, our hot-water heating and kitchen cabinets and vacuum-cleaners and those sort of things.

“It is facts we want and not imagination, and I am glad to say that the successful literary writers of to-day, with their ears to the ground, their eyes to the keyhole and their nose to the grindstone, are hearing the stern voice of the people—yea! and heeding it. Imagination has had its day, my friends. It was all very well in those bygone days of yore for an author to depend on his imagination, but it’s different now.

“Let us contrast for a moment and I will not detain you long, two well-known writers. Take Washington Irwin, for instance, what did he write about? Why it is well known of all men that he wrote about many things that never had actually happened in this broad land of ours nor anywhere else. Take Rip Van Winkle, for instance, all about a disgraceful old bum, who soused himself into such a state that he beat his wife—a thing, I am sure, with all due respect, no man here in this audience would be guilty of in public. Then he got chased by a headless horseman—a headless horseman, mind you, my friends, an utter impossibility—and then to crown the climax he slept for twenty or thirty years, a perfect absurdity and one which, I am sure, no citizen of Zenith would place in the hands of a growing boy as an example to imitate.

“Now take another writer of the same name—zippy, peppy, up-to-date—a man who can sell his stuff to the _Saturday Evening Post_, than which there is no higher standard in our day and generation. Why, gentlemen, if Washington Irwin should turn over in his grave, I say without fear of contradiction, he would be absolutely and teetotally unable to recognize his own son, Will.

“And, gentlemen, consider for a moment, where this here imagination leads. If you depend on it for your raw material, you can’t go in and out among the people, notebook in hand and jot down what you actually see with your own eyes. No, sir, you got to work your old imagination for what you write about, and what does this lead to? Why, gentlemen, you all know that Edwin A. Poe, for instance, when he wanted to write about some raven or a skeleton in armor or something had to drink himself into a state of insensibility or worse before he could put pen to paper. That’s what they had to do.

“Think of those debased minds like James J. Whittier or William Wordsworth Longfellow or George Cullen Bryant, maybe, hiding in their wretched garrets or some place, taking shot after shot of hop, smoking opium, maybe, or worse, to keep their imaginations going to supply even the feeble demand for their hand-made output.

“That was bad enough, my friends, but things got going from bad to worse before they got better, and who made them better? Why, you, my friends, and me, the American business man. It was this way. The wide-awake business man of America began to employ the best writers, to write his ads. These writers dealt with facts, gentleman, facts, in their own inimical style, if I may say so, and the advertising sections of our great American magazines shortly rivaled in interest the stories and other fictional matter, so that it was the common custom of our business men to tear out the advertising section and keep that to read and throw the rest away.

“The editors and publishers of our great magazines found themselves paying good money for stories and for good white paper to print them on and it being torn out and thrown away, which wasn’t good business. This, gentlemen, was the lowest depths to which literature at last got, the apothesis of our literature, if you will pardon the use of a high-brow term.

“Then a smart, keen-witted American business man who happened to be editor of one of the magazines saved the situation, so to speak. He saw that literature had got anæmic. It was short on red blood corpuscles. It needed a transfusion of blood.

“So he put the patient face to face and shoulder to shoulder with the real force in American life, the advertisements—made a page ad face a page of so-called literature—cut the stories into strips and put a column ad next to a column of fictional writing.

“The name of this literary genius, I am creditably informed, was Cyrus H. K. Bok, and, believe me, the greatest surgeon of modern times, who saved American literature from taking the count in a fight to a finish was this same old Doc Bok.

“The result was not only that you couldn’t tear out the stories and throw them away without simultaneously and at the same time destroying the thing you wanted to read, and after you had read all the ads two or three times you simply had to give the stories the once over.

“And, moreover and likewise, the fictitious writers couldn’t keep on writing their imaginative bunk and get away with it. They couldn’t stack up some guff about a raven or a skeleton in armor against the real thing, like the Ginko Cigar or the Jimmy Pipe. If they tried to pull any Rip Van Winkle stuff alongside a smart talk about Hartenheimer’s Morestyle Clothing, the picture of the clean-faced young man—bright-eyed, square-jawed and everything—simply made old Rip look like three mutilated dimes.

“So they got wise and changed their act and begun writing the kind of real stuff about which I’ve been talking to you about. It got to be so good, so full of real American life and everything, that some of it gets printed every week on the page facing the highest priced full page ad in the _Saturday Evening Post_, and that’s the proudest position in American literature to which any man can aspire to. It used to be that the preferred position, as the ad-men say, for an ad was next to reading-matter. Now look at the columns of the greatest American magazine with its millions of readers. Are the ads next to reading-matter? No, sir, not on your life. The reading-matter is next to the ads—and that’s saying something, believe you me.

“Now, gentlemen, let me say a few words about the book about which we are gathered here to-night, and I will not detain you long.

“It’s a good book, a great book, and yet, my friends, it has its faults, as whom of us has not?

“Friend author, for all he calls himself a realist and pretends he don’t shy at nothing in calling a spade a spade, don’t do it. No, sir, he don’t. Take that chapter in this book, now, about me getting up and getting dressed. What’s he say there? Why he talks about ‘the best of nationally advertised and quantitatively produced alarm clocks.’ Now, anybody here knows he means a Big Bob, and why not say it right out, just like that? Why, he just as well say ‘he removed the superfluous growth of hair from his countenance by means of an instrument designed for that purpose,’ when he means ’he shaved his face with a razor.’

“But these realistic fictitious writers will come to it, and just to help them I’ll tell you how that chapter ought to be wrote.

“The Big Bob alarm clock gave him a jolt that knocked all the sleep out of him. He drug his legs, in Matchless Pajamas, out from under the Downiwool Blanket and sat on the edge of the Ostermarsh Mattress, supported by the Neversag Spring. While he paddled around with his feet to find his Comfy Slippers, he looked out at his new Flimsibilt Sectional Garage, which looked good to him.

“Then he beat it to the good old warm bathroom, all tiled with Shiniwhite Glazed Tiles. The bathroom was fitted with a Staykleen Bath Tub, a Porcellow Washstand and other sanitary fixtures all complete, including a Nasco All-Steel Medicine Cabinet.

“He cleaned his teeth with a Rubwell toothbrush and a squeeze of Lillidol to get the fuzzy taste out of his mouth.

“Then he rubbed a gob of Whiskerine on his face to soften his beard and lathered her good with Shavo Cream on his Bristletite Shaving Brush. The good old Neverkeen Safety Razor did the rest.

“A D. V. undershirt and knee-length drawers started the job of dressing, followed by a Bronx Shirt, onto which he buttoned a Spear Collar with a Kalisch One-Piece Collar Button. Then he put on his Hartenheimer Suit and a pair of Walkstrate Shoes.

“Then he put in his pockets a Walgin Watch with a Wearever Gold Chain, a Leakwell Fountain Pen and a Neverpoint Pencil.

“For breakfast he had a Moonshine Orange, a plate of Mothers’ Wild Oats, a slice of Mawruss Ham and two ordinary unadvertised eggs, Digesto Bread, spread with Prunella Butter and a cup of Moko-Boko Coffee, and, when he had lighted a good old Ginko Cigar, George F. Babbitt was ready for the fray.

“There, my friends, I don’t pretend to be a literary gink, but you give me my good old fountain pen and the advertising pages of the _Saturday Evening Post_ and I’ll show you how to marry literature and life together. That’s what we want, gentlemen. That’s real, true blue United States one hundred per cent realism.”

JOSEPH AND THE BRIGHT SHAWL

He had never before heard of Cuba, but a chance mention of its name, Cuba, dominated Joseph completely. The Spaniards were shooting Cubans down there. Boys, younger than himself. And they were shot with muskets, guns. That was so much more horrible than if they were shot with candlesticks or white mice.

Instantly he knew that he must liberate Cuba. He must shoot the beastly Spanish Captain-General in his gold-laced abdomen, tummy; himself be shot in return or elsewhere, and die heroically, while a competent brass-band played “Annie Laurie.” So should Cuba be free.

He quickly settled every visible, every audible detail save one, his last dying words. “Don’t give up the ship!” seemed inappropriate. “I owe a cock to Æsculapius; see that it is paid,” was too long. “Kiss me, Hardy!” was short, but heaven knew what utter stranger might accept the invitation. At last he fixed upon “Sic semper tyrannis!” to be said as he fired, and “Et tu, brute!” as he was shot; “brute” with a small “b” seemed so nicely to combine defiance and grim humor.

⁂

Providing a costume for the event was a puzzling matter. It should be of the period, but what was the present year of grace? It was in the fall, exactly forty years before the return of the Americans from the Great War in 1919. Was this then 1879? Impossible, since Grant was President, and Fish, Secretary of State, and that would make it not later than 1876.

He gave it up, threw chronology to the winds, bought a plum-colored cape, vintage of the Regency, and a lot of very high stocks, period of Daniel Webster. Perhaps, in this he was misled by reading in a newspaper that stocks were very high.

His armament was one small pearl-handled derringer, date 1849. He wore it suspended by a string inside of one leg of a trouser, a pant, and could always verify its presence by sitting down. It had been given him by his father and was not really a dangerous weapon, since it was necessary to turn down all its grease-cups daily, else it would not go off, shoot.

⁂

On the deck of the _Morro Castle_, whence all but he had fled, stood a solitary figure, little Joe, the Boy Liberator. The tallest of stocks seemed to proclaim the Duke of Wellington; the plum-coloredest of capes, Beau Brummell. Like Napoleon, he depended greatly on his heavy artillery, which, in turn, depended inside a nicely-cut trouser.

⁂

Andrés Escobar called on him at the Hotel Inglaterra.

“Is this your first visit to Cuba?” he asked. “What do you think of our Cuban women?”

“It is. I do not,” laconic Joseph replied.

“I mean I don’t think about them at all,” he continued. “My mind has been singularly purified. I have a sensation of remoteness from my flesh.”

“Ah,” said Andrés, “I see. Something like _un esqueleto_, a skeleton. Very nice for the hot weather.”

“Not exactly,” said Joseph doubtfully. “Still, come to think of it, there is something in what you say. But lissen, friend, _amigo_! I came here to shoot, _tirar, el Capitan-General_ in his gold-laced tummy and to get shot in the fracas or somewhere else. Thus Cuba shall be freed.

“I have been here twenty-four hours. We are both still alive and Cuba is not yet free. My fiery nature will not brook such delays. Can you not lead me to _el Capitan-General_, so that I may fulfil muh destiny?”

Andrés clasped his hand. “_Maravilloso!_” he cried. “We Cubans are not so _precipitado_. We bide our _tiempo_. Let me tell you our watchword, college-yell, _secretissimo_! ‘Wait, wait for ’98!’ Ah, then, Cuba shall be _libre_. Meanwhile we conspire, oh! so discreetly.”

⁂

At Escobar’s house, the entire family sat in a silent circle, upon gilt chairs. A crystal chandelier cast upon them an icy flood of light, bathed them in a vitreous fluid, preserving them in a hard pallor _forever_—think of that! The Escobars had been much besought by ambitious undertakers desiring to use this really effective embalming process.

Andrés and Joseph came in. Andrés, silent, faultless, sat down immobile. But Joseph and Narcissa, the daughter, withdrew to the balcony.

It was night. Narcissa was decidedly fetching. But, fetch her darnedest, she could not fetch Joseph.

“I love you,” said she.

Joseph put his arm, one arm, around her shoulders, not her waist, and kissed her cheek, not her lips—_once_.

“Lissen,” said he, “love is not for me. You know my name. Have you grasped its significance? Read your bible! Moreover,” he continued, “I am devoted to one purpose. I must shoot _el Capitan-General_ in his gold-laced—well—that is—in his gold-laced uniform—yes. And get shot myself in—well—that is a detail, a mere detail. Anyhow, thus shall Cuba be _libre_.”

“Now lissen you to me,” said Narcissa. “I’m in trouble. I’m engaged to marry a fat planter of fifty. I loathe him. I shall kill him or myself. Get me out of this. Get me on a steamer, so I can go to my aunt in New York. Help me!”

“Oh, really, you know, I couldn’t,” replied dauntless Joseph. “I might get arrested or spanked or something—and sent home to mother before I get properly shot. Oh! it wouldn’t do at all.”

No, it wouldn’t do. It would free only a single Cuban, Narcissa. He must free the whole Cuban people, _caboodle_, and perish in the attempt.

⁂

He was at the theatre, _teatro_, when he first saw the Shawl—that orange, blue, emerald, scarlet, magenta, vermilion, crimson atrocity. Incidentally, there was a woman inside it, La Clavel, the dancer. Joseph thought it was the woman who thrilled him until he could support it no longer—it made him so ashamed of himself! But it wasn’t. It was the Shawl, for he was—Joseph.

He went to her room, sat there, day after day. They talked, conversed, interminably—and that was all. Once she kissed him and was severely frost-bitten. He was annoyed, seriously, and told her he didn’t know what she would think of him for letting her do a thing like that.

She gave him messages for his friends, the Fabians, cunctators, who conspired so sweetly to pass the time until 1898. Joseph felt that he was just the cutest little plotter in all Cuba. Oh! it was grand!

⁂

He was in her room when Santaclaus entered, Capitan Santaclaus, one of the rudest of the rude Spaniards.

“You are conspiring against the King, _el Rey_,” said Santaclaus. “You and your young devotee, little Josie here. You will both be killed. It will be very enjoyable.”

The time had come! Santaclaus, while not the _Capitan-General_, was notably well equipped for the proper reception of the sacred bullet. Joseph hoisted out the artillery, leveled it, pulled the trigger. Click! Nothing more. Joseph stared dully at the faithless weapon. “Oh, sugar! You’re a mean old thing!” was all he said.

“Ah! ha!” sneered Santaclaus. “You forgot to turn down the grease-cups this morning.”

It was sneerly his last sneer. Although he knew it not, he was sneering his end. La Clavel had not yet begun to fight. When she did there certainly was one turrible old battle. Joseph stood bravely by, a chair raised above his head, almost resolved to give Santaclaus a hard knock.

One round was all. Santaclaus, prostrate, prone, defunct, dead, took the count. Joseph carefully replaced the chair.

“Now look what you’ve done,” said he. “Now, remember, _you_ killed him. I didn’t do a thing to him. Don’t tell on me—please! I came down here to get killed, nice and clean, with _one_ bullet. I certainly don’t want to get all mussed up by a firing-squad. Mother wouldn’t like me to.”

La Clavel was arrested—tortured, shot, hung, drawn and quartered, for all Joseph knew. But she sent him the Shawl. So it was his lucky day, after all.

⁂

Pilar de Lima was a lovely little Chink. She tried it on with Joseph, but Joseph continued to be—Joseph. Andrés took her up.

“Lend me the Shawl, _viejo cimo_, old top!” said he. “Pilar wants it to wear at the _danzon_, dance.”

“No,” Joseph responded, answered.

“_Mio caro compañero_, my dear fellow,” protested Andrés, “please remember that The Bright Shawl is the principal character in this piece, the title rôle. It must have stage-center and the spotlight all the time. The whole show is built around it. And _this_ is to be the climax of the third act.”

“True,” said Joseph, “true. If it wasn’t for The Bright Shawl, where would all of us be?—Still in the inkwell.”

⁂

Pilar wore it at the _danzon_ in the _teatro_. Joseph sat in a box and Arco de Vaca told him that Andrés was about to be killed. He loved Andrés with his whole soul, such as it was, so he watched the last scene with interest from a safe place. To free Cuba and be shot while the band played was one thing. To mix up in the murder of his best friend and maybe get arrested—that was something else again.

But his iron nerve failed him. He took his hat and fled blindly—right into the midst of the fracas, where Pilar was stabbing Andrés and ink flowed like blood. Some kind friend batted Joseph over the head and he passed out. Curtain.

⁂

That was about all—except that the S. P. C. C. shipped the little dare-devil back to his mother, unpunctured.

He thought the matter over for forty years and was finally inclined to the belief that the blow on his head....

Well, maybe it did and maybe it didn’t. Who can tell?

THE JUDGE
_or_
TURNING THE TEA TABLES

_Illustrating the influence of Henry James upon an otherwise perfectly
good novelist_,

REBECCA WEST