Chapter II

The next morning the group of painters--all except Joplin, who was doing a head in "smears" behind the Groote Kerk a mile away--were at work in the old shipyard across the Maas at Papendrecht. Marny was painting a Dutch lugger with a brown-madder hull and an emerald-green stern, up on the ways for repairs. Pudfut had the children of the Captain posed against a broken windlass rotting in the tall grass near the dock, and Malone and Schonholz, pipe in mouth, were on their backs smoking. "It wasn't their kind of a mornin'," Malone had said.

Joplin's discourse the night before was evidently lingering in their minds, for Pudfut broke out with: "Got to sit on Joppy some way or we'll be talked to death," and he squeezed a tube of color on his palette. "Getting to be a bloody nuisance."

"Only one way to fix him," remarked Stebbins, picking up his mahlstick from the grass beside him.

"How?" came a chorus.

"Scare him to death."

The painters laid down their brushes. Stebbins rarely expressed an opinion; any utterance from him, therefore, carried weight.

"Go for him about his health, I tell you," continued Stebbins, dragging a brush from the sheaf in his hand.

"But there's nothing the matter with him," answered Marny. "He's as skinny as a coal-mine mule, but he's got plenty of kick in him yet."

"You're dead right, Marny," answered Stebbins, "but he doesn't think so. He's as big a fool over every little pain as he is over his theories."

"Niver cracked his jaw to me about it," sputtered Malone from between the puffs of his pipe.

"No, and he won't. I don't jump on him as you fellows do and so I get his confidence. He's in my room two or three times every night going over his symptoms. When his foot's asleep he thinks he's got creeping paralysis. Every time his breath comes short, his heart's giving out."

"That's hereditary!" said Marny; "he said so."

"Hereditary be hanged! Same with everything else. Last night he dug me out of bed and wanted me to count his pulse--thought it intermitted. He's hipped, I tell you, on his health!"

"That's because he lives on nothing," rejoined Marny. "Tine puts the toast in the oven over night so it will be dry enough for him in the morning--she told me so yesterday. Now he's running on sour milk and vinegar--'blood too alkaline,' he says--got a chalky taste in his mouth!"

"Well, whatever it is, he's a rum-nuisance," said Pudfut, "and he ought to be jumped on."

"Yes," retorted Stebbins, "but not about his food. Jump on him about his health, then he'll kick back and in pure obstinacy begin to think he's well--that's his nature."

"Don't you do anything of the kind," protested Marny. "Joppy's all right--best lad I know. Let him talk; doesn't hurt anybody and keeps everything alive. A little hot air now and then helps his epigastric."

Malone and Schonholz had raised themselves on their elbows, twisted their shoulders and had put their heads together--literally--without lifting their lazy bodies from the warm, dry grass--so close that one slouch hat instead of two might have covered their conspiring brains. From under the rims of these thatches came smothered laughs and such unintelligible mutterings as:

"Dot's de vay, by chimminy, 'Loney! And den I--"

"No, begorra! Let me have a crack at him fu'st!"

"No, I vill before go and you come--"

"Not a word to Marny, remimber; he'd give it away--"

"Yes, but we vill tell Poodfut und Sthebbins, eh?"

That afternoon the diabolical plot was put in motion. The men had finished for the day; had crossed the ferry and had found Joplin wandering around the dock looking for a new subject. The Groote Kerk "smear" was under his arm.

Pudfut, under pretence of inspecting the smear--a portrait of the old Sacristan on a bench in front of the main entrance--started back in surprise on seeing the Bostonian, and asked with an anxious tone in his voice:

"Aren't you well, old man? Look awfully yellow about the gills. Worked too hard, haven't you? No use overdoing it."

"Well? Of course I'm well! Sound as a nut. Little bilious, maybe, but that's nothing. Why?"

"Oh, nothing! Must say, though, you gave me a twist when I came on you suddenly. Maybe it's your epigastric nerve; maybe it's your liver and will pass off, but I'd knock off work for a day or two if I were you."

Malone now took a hand.

"Let me carry yer kit, Joppy, ye look done up. What's happened to ye, man, since mornin'?"

"Never felt better in my life," protested Joplin. "No, I'll carry it--not heavy--"

Then he quickened his pace--they were all on their way back to the inn--and overtook Stebbins and Schonholz.

"Stebbins, old man--"

"Yes, Joppy."

"What I told you last night is turning out just as I expected. Heart's been acting queer all morning and my epigastric nerve is very sensitive. Puddy says I look awful. Do you see it?"

Stebbins looked into the Bostonian's face, hesitated, and said with an apologetic tone in his voice:

"Well, everybody looks better one time than another. You've been working too hard, maybe."

"But do I look yellow?"

"Well, to tell you the truth, Joppy, you do--yellow as a gourd--not always, just now and then when you walk fast or run upstairs."

"I've been afraid of that. Was my pulse all right when you counted it last night?"

"Yes, certainly--skipped a beat now and then, but that's nothing. I had an uncle once who had a pulse that wobbled like that. He, of course, went off suddenly; some said it was apoplexy; some said it was his heart--these doctors never agree. I wouldn't worry about it, old man. Hold on, Pudfut, don't walk so fast."

Pudfut held on, and so did Schonholz and Malone, and then the four slipped behind a pile of oil barrels and concentrated their slouch hats and Schonholz slapped his thigh and said with a smothered laugh that it was "sphlendeed!" and Malone and Pudfut agreed, and then the three locked arms and went singing up the street, their eyes on Joplin's pipe-stem legs as he trotted beside Marny on his way to the inn.

When the party reached the coffee-room Marny called Tine to his side, spread out the fingers and thumb of one hand, and that rosy-cheeked lass without the loss of a second, clattered over to the little shelf, gathered up five empty mugs and disappeared down the cellar steps. This done the coterie drew their chairs to one of Tine's hand-scrubbed tables and sat down, all but Joplin, who kept on his way to his room. There the Bostonian remained, gazing out of the window until Johann had banged twice on his door in announcement of dinner. Then he joined the others.

When all were seated Schonholz made a statement which was followed with results more astounding to the peace of the coterie than anything which had occurred since the men came together.

"I haf bad news, boys," he began, "offle bad news. Mine fader has wrote dat home I must. Nod anuder mark he say vill he gif me. Eef I could sell somedings--but dat ees very seldom. No, Marny, you don't can lend me noddings. What vill yourselluf do? Starve!"

"Where do you live, Schonholz?" asked Joplin.

"By Fizzenbad."

"What kind of a place is it--baths?"

"Yes."

"What are they good for?" continued Joplin in a subdued tone.

"Noddings, but blenty peoples go."

"I can tell you, Joppy," said Pudfut gravely, with a wink at Malone. "There are two spas, both highly celebrated. Lord Ellenboro spent a month there and came back looking like another man. One is for the liver and the other for something or other, I can't recollect what."

"Heart?" asked Joplin.

"I don't know."

He didn't,--had never heard the place mentioned until Schonholz had called its name a moment before.

Joplin played with his knife and made an attempt to nibble a slice of Tine's toast, but he made no reply. All the fight of every kind seemed to have been knocked out of him.

"Better take Fizzenbad in, Joppy," remarked Pudfut in an undertone. "May do you a lot of good."

"How far is it, Schonholz?" asked Joplin, ignoring the Englishman's suggestion.

"Oh, you leafe in de morgen and you come by Fizzenbad in a day more as do one you go oud mid."

"No--can't afford it."

Here Joplin pushed back his chair, and with the remark that he thought he would go downtown for some colors, left the room.

"It's working like a dose of salts," cried Pudfut when the Bostonian was out of hearing. "Hasn't said 'epigastric nerve,' 'gram' or 'proteids' once. Got real human in an hour. Stebbins, you're a wonder."

The next morning everybody was up bright and early to see Schonholz off. One of Fop Smit's packets was to leave for Rotterdam at seven and Schonholz was a passenger. He could go by rail, but the boat was cheaper. No deceptions had been practised and no illusions indulged in as to the cause of his departure. He had had his supplies cut off, was flat broke and as helpless as a plant without water. They had all, at one time or another, passed through a similar crisis and knew exactly what it meant. A purse, of course, could have been made up--Marny even insisted on sharing his last hundred francs with him--and Mynheer would have allowed the board-bill to run on indefinitely with or without an addition to his collection, but the lad was not built along those lines.

"No--I go home and help mine fader once a leetle, den maybe I come back, don't it?" was the way he put it.

The next morning, when the procession formed to escort him through the Old Gate, every man answered to his name except Joplin--he had either overslept himself or was taking an extra soak in his portable tub.

"Run, Tine, and call Mr. Joplin," cried Marny--"we'll go ahead. Tell him to come to the dock."

Away clattered the sabots up the steep stairs, and away they scurried down the bare corridor to Joplin's room. There Tine knocked. Hearing no response she pushed open the door and looked in. The room was empty! Then she noticed that the bed had not been slept in, nor had anything on the washstand been used. Stepping in softly for some explanation of the unusual occurrence--no such thing had ever happened in her experience, not unless she had been notified in advance--her eye rested on a letter addressed to Stebbins propped up in full view against a book on Joplin's table. Catching it up as offering the only explanation of his unaccountable disappearance, she raced downstairs and, crossing the cobbles on a run, laid the letter in Stebbins's hand.

"For me, Tine?"

The girl nodded, her eyes on the painter's.

The painter broke the seal and his face grew serious. Then he beckoned to Marny and read the contents aloud, the others crowding close:

Dear Stebbins:

Keep my things until I send for them. I take the night train for Rotterdam. Tell Schonholz I'll join him there and go on with him to Fizzenbad. Sorry to leave this way, but I could not bear to bid you all good-by. Joplin.