Chapter XXI

THE GREAT VITTOREO MATTEO, MASTER OF BLACK MUD, ARRIVES! BRAVA! HE DEPARTS! BRAVA!

One day a tall, slender, black-haired, black-mustached and black-eyed young man, in a severely ministerial black frock suit, dropped off the train and inquired in an undoubted foreign accent for the Atlas Hotel. Even the station loungers recognized him at once as the great and long-expected artist, Signor Vittoreo Matteo, who, save in the one respect of short hair, was thoroughly satisfying to the eye and imagination. Even before the spreading of his name upon the register of the Atlas Hotel, all Blakeville knew that he had arrived.

In the hotel office he met J. Rufus. Instantly he shrieked for joy, embraced Wallingford, kissed that discomfited gentleman upon both cheeks and fell upon his neck, jabbering in most broken English his joy at meeting his dear, dear friend once more. In the privacy of Wallingford's own room, Wallingford's dear Italian friend threw himself upon the bed and kicked up his heels like a boy, stuffing the corner of a pillow in his mouth to suppress his shrieks of laughter.

"Ain't I the regular buya-da-banan Dago for fair?" he demanded, without a trace of his choice Italian accent.

"Blackie," rejoiced Wallingford, wiping his eyes, "I never met your parents, but I've a bet down that they came from Naples as ballast in a cattle steamer. But I'm afraid you'll strain yourself on this. Don't make it too strong."

"I'll make Salvini's acting as tame as a jointed crockery doll," asserted Blackie. "This deal is nuts and raisins to me; and say, J. Rufus, your sending for me was just in the nick of time. Just got a tip from a post-office friend that the federal officers were going to investigate my plant, so I'm glad to have a vacation. What's this new stunt of yours, anyhow?"

"It's a cinch," declared Wallingford, "but I don't want to scramble your mind with anything but the story of your own life."

To his own romantic, personal history, as Vittoreo Matteo, and to the interesting fabrications about the world-famous Etruscan pottery, in the village of Etrusca, near Milan, Italy, Blackie listened most attentively.

"All right," said he at the finish; "I get you. Now lead me forth to the merry, merry villagers."

Behind the spanking bays which had made Fannie Bubble the envied of every girl in Blakeville, Wallingford drove Blackie forth. Already many of the faithful had gathered at the site of the Blakeville Etruscan Studios in anticipation of the great Matteo's coming, and when the tall, black-eyed Italian jumped out of the buggy they fairly quivered with gratified curiosity. How well he looked the part! If only he had had long hair! The eyes of the world-famous Italian ceramic expert, however, were not for the assembled denizens of Blakeville; they were only for that long and eagerly desired deposit of Etruscan soil. He leaped from the buggy; he dashed through the gap in the fence; he rushed to the side of that black swamp, the edges of which had evaporated now until they were but a sticky mass, and said:

"Oh, da g-r-r-a-a-n-da mod!"

Forthwith, disregarding his cuffs, disregarding his rings, disregarding everything, he plunged both his white hands into that sticky mass and brought them up dripping-full of that precious material--the genuine, no, better than genuine, Etruscan black mud!

A cheer broke out from assembled Blakeville. This surely was artistic frenzy! This surely was the emotional temperament! This surely was the manner in which the great Italian black-pottery expert _should_ act in the first sight of his beloved black mud!

"Da gr-r-r-r-r-a-a-n-da mod!" he repeated over and over, and drew it close to his face that he might inspect it with a near and loving eye.

One might almost have thought that he was about to kiss it, to bury his nose in it; one almost expected him to jump into that pond and wallow in it, his joy at seeing it was so complete.

It was J. Rufus Wallingford himself who, catching the contagion of this superb fervor, ran to the pail of drinking-water kept for the foundation workmen, and brought it to the great artist. J. Rufus himself poured water upon the great artist's hands until those hands were free of their Etruscan coating, and with his own immaculate handkerchief he dried those deft and skilful fingers, while the great Italian potter looked up into the face of his business manager with almost tears in his eyes!

It was a wonderful scene, one never to be forgotten, and in the enthusiasm of that psychological moment Mrs. Moozer rushed forward. Mrs. Moozer, acting president of the Women's Culture Club in the absence of Miss Forsythe, saw here a glorious opportunity; here was where she could "put one over" upon that all-absorptive young lady.

"My dear Mr. Wallingford, you must introduce me at once!" she exclaimed. "I can not any longer restrain my impatience."

His own voice quavering emotions of several sorts, Wallingford introduced them, and Mrs. Moozer shook ecstatically the hand which had just caressed the dear swamp.

"And so this is the great Matteo!" she exclaimed. "Signor, as acting president of the Women's Culture Club, I claim you for an address upon your sublime art next Saturday afternoon. Let business claim you afterward."

"I hav'a--not da gooda Englis," said Blackie Daw, with an indescribable gesture of the shoulders and right arm, "but whata leetle I cana say, I s'alla be amost aglad to tella da ladees."

Never did man enjoy himself more than did Blackie Daw. Blakeville went wild over this gifted, warmly temperamental foreigner. They dined him and they listened to his soul-satisfying, broken English with vast respect, even with veneration; the women because he was an artist, and the men because he represented vast money-earning capacity. Even the far-away president of the Women's Culture Club heard of his advent from a faithful adherent, an anti-Moozer and pro-Forsythe member, and on Saturday morning J. Rufus Wallingford received a gushing letter from that enterprising lady.

MY DEAR MR. WALLINGFORD:

I have been informed that the great event has happened, and
that the superb artist has at last arrived in Blakeville;
moreover, that he is to favor the Women's Culture Club, of
which I have the honor to be president, with a talk upon
his delightful art. I simply can not resist presiding at
that meeting, and I hope it is not uncharitable toward Mrs.
Moozer that I feel it my duty to do so; consequently I
shall arrive in time, I trust, to introduce him; moreover,
to talk with him in his own, limpid, liquid language. I
have been, for the past month, taking phonograph lessons in
Italian for this moment, and I trust that it will be a
pleasant surprise to him to be addressed in his native
tongue.

Wallingford rushed up-stairs to where Blackie was leisurely getting ready for breakfast.

"Old scout," he gasped, "your poor old mother in Italy is at the point of death, so be grief-stricken and hustle! Get ready for the next train out of town, you hear? Look at this!" and he thrust in front of Blackie's eyes the fatal letter.

Blackie looked at it and comprehended its significance.

"What time does the first train leave?" he asked.

"I don't know, but whatever time it is I'll get you down to it," said Wallingford. "This is warning enough for me. It's time to close up and take my profits."

The next east-bound train found Blackie Daw and Wallingford at the station, and just as it slowed down, Blackie, with Wallingford helping him carry his grips, was at the steps of the parlor car. He stood aside for the stream of descending passengers to step down, and had turned to address some remark to Wallingford, when he saw that gentleman's face blanch and his jaw drop. A second later a gauzy female had descended from the car and seized upon J. Rufus. Even as she turned upon him, Blackie felt the sinking certainty that this was Miss Forsythe.

"And this is Signor Matteo, I am sure," she gushed. "You're _not_ going away!"

"Yes," interposed Wallingford, "his grandmother--I mean his mother--in Genoa is at the point of death, and he must make a hasty trip. He will return again in a month."

"Oh, it is too bad, too bad indeed!" she exclaimed. "I sympathize with you, _so_ deeply, Signor Matteo. Signor,..."

The dreaded moment had come, and Wallingford braced himself as Miss Forsythe, cocking her head upon one side archly, like a dear little bird, gurgled out one of her very choicest bits of phonograph Italian!

Blackie Daw never batted an eyelash. He beamed upon Miss Forsythe, he displayed his dazzling white teeth in a smile of intense gratification, he grasped Miss Forsythe's two hands in the fervor of his enthusiasm--and, with every appearance of lively intelligence beaming from his eyes, he fired at Miss Forsythe a tumultuous stream of utterly unintelligible gibberish!

As his flow continued, to the rhythm of an occasional, warm, double handshake, Miss Forsythe's face turned pink and then red, and when at last, upon the conductor's signal, Blackie hastily tore himself away and clambered on board, waving his hand to the last and erupting strange syllables which had no kith or kin, Miss Forsythe turned to Wallingford, nearly crying.

"It is humiliating; it is _so_ humiliating," she admitted, trapped into confession by the suddenness of it all; "but, after all my weeks of preparation, I wasn't able to understand one word of that beautiful, limpid Italian!"