Nothing But the Truth

“Of course.” Firmly, but with faint surprise. “You didn’t think I rejoiced at your misfortune, did you?”

“I didn’t know. I thought it possible.”

The hammer-thrower’s heavy brows drew together. “You seem to have a little misconception of my character,” he observed with a trace of formality. “You were incarcerated, apparently, pro bono publico. I had no hand in it. If I had been consulted, I should have hesitated some time before expressing an opinion.”

“Thanks,” said Bob curtly. Such generous reserve was rather galling, coming from this quarter.

“I’m afraid you don’t mean that,” replied the other. “And it’s a bad habit to say what you don’t mean. However, we are drifting from the subject. You will pardon me for not swallowing, a capite ad calcem, that little Münchhausen explanation of yours.”

“I don’t care whether you swallow it head, neck and breeches, or not,” returned Bob. The other had taken a classical course at college, and Bob conceived he was ponderously trying to show off, just to be annoying. He was adopting a doubly irritating and classical manner of calling Bob a liar. And that young man was not accustomed to being called that – at least, of yore! Maybe he would have to stand it now. It seemed so. “You’re like a good many other people I’ve met lately,” said Bob, not without a touch of weariness as well as bitterness. “You don’t know the truth when you hear it.”

The hammer-thrower drew up his heavy shoulders. “No use abusing me, old chap,” he said in even well-poised tones. “Am I at fault for your unpopularity? Indeed” – as if arguing with himself in his slow heavy fashion – “I fail to understand why you have made yourself unpopular. You seem to have proceeded with deliberate intention. However, that is irrelevant. You say there was some one in your room, or rather the room you were supposed to have vacated; but to which you have unaccountably returned – not, I imagine, by way of the front door.” Severely. “And after entering in burglarious fashion you pursued a phantom. The phantom vanished, leaving you in a compromising position. You expect people to believe that?” Shaking his head.

“I should be surprised if they did,” answered Bob gloomily. “I suppose you’ll tell everybody to-morrow.”

“That’s the question,” said the other seriously. “What is my duty in the matter? I don’t want to do you an irreparable injury, yet appearances certainly seem to indicate that you – ” He hesitated.

“Never mind the Latin for it,” said Bob. “Plain Anglo-Saxon will do. Call me a thief.”

“It’s an ugly word,” said the other reluctantly, “and – well, I don’t wish to be hasty. My father always told me to help a man whenever I could; not to shove him down. And maybe – ” He paused. There was really a nice expression on his strong face.

“Oh, you think I may be only a young offender – a juvenile in crime?” exclaimed Bob bitterly.

“The words are your own,” observed the other. “To tell you the truth,” seriously, “I hardly know what to think. It is all too extraordinary – too unexpected. I’ll have to ponder on it. The profs, at college always said I had the champion slow brain. The peculiar part to me is,” that puzzled look returning to his heavy features, “I can’t understand why you’re making people think what they do of you? Frankly, I don’t believe you’re ‘dippy.’ You were always rather – just what is the word? – ‘mercurial’ – yes; that will do. But your head looks right enough to me.”

“What’s the Latin for ‘Thank you’?” said Bob.

“Do you really think this is a trivial matter?” asked the other, bending a stronger glance upon his visitor. “I believe you are somewhat obligated to me. Please bear that in mind.” With quiet dignity. “As I was saying, your conduct since coming here, seems to baffle explanation – that is, the right one. I wonder what is your ‘lay,’ anyhow? What’s the idea? I like to be able to grasp people.” Forcefully. “And you escape me. I can’t get at the tangible in you. Nor” – with a sudden quick glance – “can Miss Gerald – ”

“Suppose we leave her name out,” said Bob sharply. “You’ve done me a favor which I ought not to have accepted. And I tell you frankly I’d rather have accepted it from any one else in the world.”

“I think I understand,” replied the other quietly, with no show of resentment on his heavy features. “Have a cigar?” Indicating a box on the table.

“I’d rather not.”

“Very well!”

For some moments Bob sat in moody silence. Then suddenly he got up.

“Am I to be permitted to return to my room?” he asked.

“I believe I told you I would consider your case,” said the hammer-thrower.

And Bob passed out. He regained his room without mishap, which rather surprised him. He almost expected to be intercepted by the monocle-man but nothing of the kind happened.

CHAPTER XVI – PLAYING WITH BOB

It took a great deal of courage for Bob to go down to breakfast the next morning. In fact, he had never done anything before in his life that demanded so much courage. He pictured his entrance, anticipating what would happen; he didn’t try to deceive himself. The monocle-man would tap him on the shoulder. “You are my prisoner,” he would say. And then it would be “exit” for Bob amid the exclamations and in the face of the accumulated staring of the company.

Bob wasn’t going to play the craven now, though, so he marched down-stairs and into the breakfast-room, his head well up. With that smile on his lips and the frosty light in his blue eyes, he looked not unlike a young Viking fearlessly presenting a bold brow to the enemy while his ship is sinking beneath him. He acted just as if he hadn’t been away and as if nothing had happened.

“Good-morning, people,” he said in his cheeriest.

For a moment there was a tombstone silence while Bob, not seeming to notice it, dropped down in a convenient place at the table. His vis-a-vis, as luck, or ill-luck would have it, was the monocle-man. Bob felt the shivers stealing over him. But the monocle-man, too, acted as if nothing had happened. He didn’t get up and tap Bob on the shoulder. Perhaps he wished to finish his breakfast first.

“Aw! – Have some toast,” he observed to Bob. “Mrs. Ralston’s toast is really delicious.”

“No,” said Bob airily. “I don’t like that English kind of toast. Makes me think of rusk! No taste to it! Give me good old American toast with plenty of butter on it.”

“Aw!” said the monocle-man.

Bob didn’t stop there. He appealed to the bishop and carried the discussion on to the doctor. He even went so far, a daredevil look in his sanguine blue eyes now, as to ask Miss Gerald’s opinion. Miss Gerald, however, pretended not to hear. Her devoted admirer was close at hand and Bob saw the hammer-thrower’s brows knit at sight of him. Bob in his new mood didn’t care a straw now and looked straight back at the hammer-thrower, as if daring him to do his worst. For an instant he thought the hammer-thrower was going to say something, but he didn’t. Perhaps second thought told him it would be better taste to wait, for he lifted his heavy shoulders with rather a contemptuous or pitying shrug and paid no further attention to luckless Bob.

The latter kept up a gay conversation between bites, professing to be quite unaware of a certain extraordinary reticence with which his light persiflage was received. He looked around to see if Gee-gee and Gid-up were anywhere visible and saw that they were not. This did not surprise him, as theatrical ladies are usually late risers and like to breakfast in their rooms; nor would they be apt to mingle promiscuously with the other guests. Mrs. Ralston, Mrs. Dan and Mrs. Clarence were also not about. Bob was thankful Mrs. Ralston needed most of the morning by herself, or with sundry experts, to beautify; he didn’t care to see his hostess just yet. It was hard enough to meet her fair niece, Miss Gerald, under the circumstances.

“I understand we have two new arrivals in the professional entertaining line,” said Bob to the monocle-man.

“Aw! – how interesting!” replied the other. Bob couldn’t get much of a “rise” out of him, though unvaryingly affable in his manner toward the young man. “Try some of this marmalade – do – it’s Scotch, you know. All marmalade ought to be Scotch. Dislike intensely the English make!”

“How unpatriotic!” said Bob cynically. Really, the monocle-man did it very well. He was a fine imitation.

“Aw!” he said once more.

And then Bob began to play with him. Dear old dad who was somewhat of a bibliomaniac had, on one or two of Bob’s vacation trips to London, introduced the lad to many quaint, out-of-the-way nooks and corners. Now Bob drew on the source of information thus gleaned and angled with his one-eye-glassed neighbor. But the monocle-man fenced beautifully; he knew more than Bob. And when the latter had exhausted himself, the monocle-man, with a few twinkles behind his staring window-pane, played with Bob. He showed him as a mere child for ignorance of the subject, and drawled so brilliantly that some of the others became interested, though professing not to see that Bob was there. When the monocle-man had finished, Bob felt abashed. He gazed upon the other with new and wondrous respect. He had attempted the infantile and amateurish game of unmasking the other – of exhibiting his crass ignorance and letting the others draw their own conclusions – and he had been literally overwhelmed in his efforts.

Having shown Bob the futility of trying to play with him, the monocle-man again offered Bob the marmalade. His manner of doing it made Bob think of a jailer who believed in the humane treatment of prisoners and who liked to see them well-fed. Bob for the second time refused the marmalade and did it most emphatically. Whereupon the monocle-man smiled.

At that moment Bob met the gaze of the temperamental young thing. There were dark rings under her eyes and she looked paler than he had ever seen her. Also, there was a certain fascinated wonder, not unmixed with some deeper feeling, in her expression. She was, no doubt, absolutely astounded to see Bob there, and talking with the monocle-man. Bob surmised she would be waiting for him somewhere later to express herself, and he was not mistaken. Bob got up. As he did so, he glanced at the monocle-man. Would he be permitted to go, or would the denouement now happen? Would the other, alas, arise?

He did nothing of the kind. He let Bob have a little more line. He even suffered him to walk away, at the same time smiling once more at vacancy or the rack of toast. Of course the temperamental young thing hailed Bob shortly after he was out of the room. He expected that. She came hurrying up to him, excitement and terror in her eyes.

“Flee!” she whispered.

“I won’t do it,” answered Bob sturdily.

“Why did you come back?” Agitatedly, “What a rash thing to do! Like walking into the lions’ den.”

“Well, the principal lion was nice and polite, anyhow.”

“Could you not see he was only just” – she sought for a word – “dallying with you?”

“He made me see that,” Bob confessed rather gloomily. “He made me feel like thirty cents. I guess he’s got my goat. And to think I thought him a blamed fool. I tell you I’m learning something these days; I’m taking a course they don’t have in college, all right.”

“Why do you waste time talking?” said the girl. “Every moment is precious. Go, or you are lost.”

“That sounds like the stage,” replied Bob.

She came closer, her temperamental gaze burning. “Will this make you serious?” she asked almost fiercely. “I told.”