Perkins, the Fakeer. Edward Sims van Zile

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СКАЧАТЬ cracked ice with you. Ask Jones for it. Tell him I have a headache, if he glares at you."

      As I mounted the stairs slowly, wondering how women manage to hold their skirts so that their limbs move freely, a feeling of relief came over me. It was pleasant to get away from the floor over which Jones, the phlegmatic and tyrannical, presided. I had lost all fear of Suzanne, but the butler chilled my blood. If Caroline and I failed to obtain a psychical exchange to-night Jones must leave the house to-morrow. Suddenly, I stood motionless in the upper hallway and laughed aloud, nervously. What would Jones think could he learn that he had become unwittingly a horror in livery to a lost soul? The absurdity of the reflection brought a ray of sunshine to my darkened spirit, and I entered Caroline's morning-room in a cheerful mood.

      "Pardon me, Mrs. Stevens, but I was told to wait for you here."

      A pretty girl confronted me, standing guard over a large pasteboard box that she had placed upon a chair.

      "You–ah–have something for me?" I asked, coldly. I was beginning to wonder where Caroline's leisure came in.

      "Your new ball-dress, Mrs. Stevens. You promised to try it on this morning, you remember."

      "Very well! Leave it, then. I'll get into it later on. I've no doubt it'll fit me like a glove."

      The girl stared at me for a moment, then recovered herself and said:

      "Madame Bonari will be displeased with me, Mrs. Stevens, if I do not return to her with the report that you find the dress satisfactory. I may await your pleasure, may I not? Madame Bonari would discharge me if I went back to her now."

      "Let me see the dress, girl," I muttered, reluctantly. To don a ball-dress in full daylight to save a poor maiden from losing her situation was for me to make a greater sacrifice than this dressmaker's apprentice could realize.

      The girl opened the box, and I gazed, awestruck, at a garment that filled me with a strange kind of terror. There was not a great deal of it. It was not its size that frightened me; it was the shape of the thing that was startling.

      "That'll do, girl," I exclaimed, somewhat hysterically. "Tell–ah–Madame Bonari that this–ah–polonaise is a howling success. I can see at a glance that it was made for me," and added, under my breath, "to pay for."

      The girl stood rooted to the spot, gazing at me in mingled sorrow and amazement.

      "But oh, Mrs. Stevens," she cried, the tears coming into her eyes, "you will not dismiss me this way? I will lose my place if you do!"

      I sank into a chair, torn by conflicting emotions, as a novelist would say of his distraught heroine.

      "Do you want me to climb into that thing, here and now?" I gasped.

      "If madame will be so kind," murmured the girl, imploringly.

      With joy, I now heard the tinkling of cracked ice against cut-glass. Suzanne, to my great relief, entered the room.

      "Suzanne," I said, courageously, "I will trouble you to tog me out in this–ah–silk remnant. Have you got a kodak, girl?" I asked, playfully, turning toward the astonished young dressmaker. "You're not a yellow reporter?"

      "Oh, Mrs. Stevens!" cried the girl, deprecatingly, glancing interrogatively at Suzanne. Perhaps the cracked ice and my eccentric manner had aroused suspicions in her mind.

      A moment later, I found myself in Caroline's dressing-room alone with Suzanne, who had recovered her spirits in the delight that her present task engendered.

      "Madame's neck and arms are so beautiful!" she murmured in French, pulling the skirt of the ball-dress, a dainty affair made of mauve silk, with a darker shade of velvet for trimmings, into position. "Ah, such a wonderful hang! It is worthy of Paris, madame."

      "Don't stop to talk, Suzanne," I grumbled. "This is indecent exposure of mistaken identity, and I can't stand much of it; so keep moving, will you?"

      "The corsage is a marvel, madame!" exclaimed Suzanne, ecstatically.

      "It is, girl," I muttered, glancing at myself in a mirror. "It feels like a cross between a modern life-preserver and a mediæval breast-plate. Don't lace the thing so tight, Suzanne. I've got to talk now and then!"

      Suzanne was too busy to listen to my somewhat delirious comments.

      "It is a miracle!" she cried in French. "Madame is a purple dream, is she not?"

      "Madame will be a black-and-blue what-is-it before you know it," I moaned. "Does that girl outside there expect to have a look at–ah–this ridiculous costume?" I asked, testily.

      "Madame is so strange to-day," murmured Suzanne, wearily. "You are free to go now, madame."

      "I clutched at the train that anchored me to my place of torture, and moved clumsily toward the room in which the young dressmaker awaited me.

      "Ah!" cried the girl, as I broke upon her vision, a creature of beauty, but very far from graceful. "Madame Bonari will be overjoyed. The dress is perfection, is it not, Mrs. Stevens? I've never seen such a fit."

      "It feels like a fit," I remarked, pantingly. "Suzanne," I called out, desperately, "slip a few cogs in front here, will you? This is only a rehearsal, you know. If I must suffocate at the ball I'll school myself for the occasion. But I refuse to be a pressed flower this morning. Thanks, that's better. It's like a quick recovery from pneumonia. You may go, girl. Give my compliments to Madame–ah–Bonari, and tell her I'm on the road to recovery. Good morning!"

      Suzanne and I were alone.

      "A cocktail, girl. Quick, now! Do you think I wanted that ice as a musical instrument? If I ever needed a stimulant, Suzanne, I need one now. Make the dose stiff, Suzanne, for I'm not as young as I was. Do you hear me? Hurry!"

      A rap at the door checked Suzanne in full career. We heard the strident voice of Buttons in the hallway.

      "Open the door, Suzanne," I cried, nervously, bracing myself for another buffet from fate.

      "Mr. Stevens is asking for Mrs. Stevens on the 'phone," I heard Buttons say to Suzanne. "He seems to be in a hurry, too."

      Suzanne hastened back to me.

      "I know the worst, girl! Say nothing!" I exclaimed, petulantly. "I must go down-stairs in this infernal ball-dress," and the ordeal before me filled me with consternation. If Jones should find me skulking around his domain in a décolleté dress at this time of day the glance of his arrogant eyes would terrify me. But there wasn't time for reflection, nor, alas! for a cocktail. Caroline was calling vainly to me with my voice through an unresponsive telephone. I must go to her at once. Doubtless, she craved immediate advice regarding the manipulation of my margins. Why, oh! why, had I jeopardized my fortune for the sake of quick returns, when my legitimate business was sufficient for my needs?

      "I fly, Suzanne!" I cried, as I stumbled toward the hall. "If anybody calls to ask if I'm engaged for the next dance, tell 'em my card is full." Suzanne smiled. "And I wish I was!" I muttered to myself, desperately, as I looked down the staircase and wondered if it would be well to use my mauve train as a toboggan.

      How I managed to reach the telephone, I cannot say. In the lower hall, I caught a glimpse of Jones's self-made face, and just saved myself from coming a cropper. To acquire a firm seat in a ball-dress requires practice.

      "Hello!" I shouted, desperately, through the СКАЧАТЬ