A Top-Floor Idyl. Van Schaick George

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СКАЧАТЬ hair needs cutting. Put on a clean collar. After I get that woman, we'll stop at the flat; the milk will be there and I'll give you some breakfast. Come along!"

      Frieda is a woman of the compelling kind, but it's a joy to obey her. After I had adjusted my collar and tie we started, but when we reached the door opposite she opened it, very quietly, while I waited, and tiptoed in.

      "She's awake," she said, again opening the door. "She says she would like to thank you for your kindness. She knows she would have died, if you had not sought help for her."

      "Stuff and nonsense," I said, quite low. "You don't expect me to go in there, do you?"

      "I certainly do, because she wishes it. Don't be stupid!"

      So I entered, rather embarrassed, thinking to see the face of a woman crucified. But her smile was the sweetest thing I had ever beheld, I'm very sure. I could hardly recognize her after that memory of haggard and tortured features. She put out her hand to me, weakly.

      "I – I want to thank you – ever so much," she said. "It was so awfully kind of you, and – and you sent me an angel."

      "Oh, yes," said Frieda, grinning. "I see myself with wings sprouting from my shoulder-blades. Good-by for a short time, my dear. You'll only be alone for a few minutes. Yes, the baby will be all right; don't you worry. No, he won't be hungry for a long time, the doctor said, and you are to let him sleep and do the same yourself. Now come along, David."

      I was delighted to have Frieda's escort, as I scented danger below. Her support gave me boundless joy when, at the foot of the stairs, I saw Mrs. Milliken, returned on some frightfully early ferryboat. She looked at us with amazement and suspicion.

      "My dear Mrs. Milliken," I began, in my most ingratiating tones, "a new boarder has arrived during the night. I can assure you the young man would not have intruded had he possessed greater experience of life. We will have to forgive him on account of his tender youth."

      "They must be packed off at once," cried the woman. "How could you?"

      "I beg to observe that it was not my tender heart but yours that gave her shelter," I said. "My own responsibility is extremely limited, and my part in the affair a most subsidiary one."

      "And besides, Mrs. Milliken," put in Frieda, "no one but David Cole lives on that floor. If he makes no complaint, no others are very likely to, and then it would be inhuman to put the poor thing out now. In a few days she will be able to move. I am going to send a woman immediately, and you won't have the slightest trouble."

      "For any little matter of extra expense, Mrs. Milliken, I will see that you are properly compensated," I added.

      Had I been alone, Mrs. Milliken would probably have argued the matter for an hour, at the end of which I should have retired in defeat. But I think Frieda's size overawed her. She only stammered rather weakly that she knew it would all end badly.

      "Don't mind her, David," said my friend, as we went out. "You can't expect the keeper of a cheap boarding-house to be an optimist. Her prediction may or not come true, but no one thinks that the bit of humanity upstairs can turn the world topsy-turvy for some time."

      I felt greatly relieved and followed her towards the river, where, just west of Ninth Avenue, we found a tenement on the fourth floor of which there was a sort of rabbit-hutch where dwelt two women and a bevy of infants. I remained on the landing, while Frieda went in. Some of the children came out and contemplated me, all with fingers in their mouths. Remembering that I had changed a nickel on the previous evening, while waiting for Gordon, in order to obtain a cent's worth of assorted misinformation from my favorite paper, I pulled out the four remaining pennies and distributed them. By the infants my action was accepted as gentlemanly and urbane, I think, for they no longer considered me as a suspicious character and the gravity of their expressions changed into a look of unstinted approval.

      "It's all right," said Frieda, coming out in a cloud of soapy steam. "She'll go at once. Putting her hat on now. Come along. I'm hungry as a hyena."

      So I breakfasted with her at her flat. She had certainly worked much harder than I, during the night, and taken a great deal more out of herself, but she insisted on my sitting down while she juggled with a gas-stove and bacon and eggs and a pot of jam. Her coffee, I thought, was better than mine. At eight o'clock we parted at the corner of the street.

      "I must hurry along," she said. "I have an appointment with a man who can pose as Orion."

      I had time but for a few words of heartfelt thanks before she was in the middle of the avenue, waving a hand to the motorman of her car. She scrambled aboard, smiling at me cheerfully from the step, and I was alone, wondering at the luck of a chap who could pose as Orion for Frieda. I would rather have her think well of me than any one I know of, I am very sure, and I regretted that my lank form and ill-thatched head were so unsuited to the make-up of a Greek demigod. Never mind, I know that when my next book comes out she will send for me, hurriedly, and make me feel for some minutes as if I were really worthy of tying her big, ugly, sensible shoes. She has read every one of my stories and possesses all the books I ever perpetrated, bless her soul! It is good indeed for a man to be able to look up to a woman, to know in his heart of hearts that she deserves it, and that she doesn't want to marry him, and he doesn't want to marry her. It is fine to think they are a pair of great friends just because they're capable of friendship, a much rarer accomplishment than most people are aware of.

      So I returned to the scene of the night's invasion and climbed up the stairs, rather wearily. I had the morning paper, three circulars and a fresh box of cigarettes. Upon my landing I met a large female with a moustache and decided it must be the washerwoman's sister. She smiled pleasantly at me and I returned the courtesy.

      In such words as I remembered from my erstwhile residence in Paris I asked how the mother and child were doing.

      The lady, she informed me, was doing ever so well. As for the infant, it had beautiful eyes and was a cherished little cabbage.

      Wondering upon the philosophy of endearments as attained by foreign nations I entered my room, closing the door carefully, and looked over those pages about the virtuous dog. They were promising, I thought. After putting them down, I took up my razor, for I hate a barber's scraping, and indulged in the luxury of a shave.

      The instrument, I thought, possessed a splendid edge. Who knows, some day I might bequeath it to a cherished cabbage.

      CHAPTER III

      I WATCH AN INFANT

      It was all very well for Frieda to tell Mrs. Milliken that, if I had no objection to that baby, no one else could resent its presence. She assumes too much. If I had really belonged to the order of vertebrates I should have objected most strenuously, for its presence is disturbing. It diverts my attention from literary effort. But of course, since I am as spineless as a mollusk, I sought to accept this heaven-sent visitation with due resignation. My endeavor to continue that story was a most pitiful farce. Four times, in reading over a single page, I found the word baby inserted where I had meant to write dog or one of the few available synonyms. I wondered whether it was owing to lack of sleep that my efforts failed and threw myself upon the bed, but my seeking for balmy slumber was more ghastly than my attempt at literature. Never in all my life had I been more arrantly wakeful. A desperate resolve came to me and I flipped a quarter. Heads and I would sit down and play solitaire; tails and I would take a boat to Coney Island, a place I abhor. The coin rolled under the bed, and I was hunting clumsily for it with a stick when a tremendous knock came at the door, followed by the immediate entrance of the washerwoman's sister, whom I afterwards knew as Eulalie Carpaux.

      I explained СКАЧАТЬ