The Man With Two Left Feet

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The friend looked at me and said, 'What an ugly mongrel! Why on earth
do you have him about? I thought you were so particular about your
dogs?'

And the boss replied, 'He may be a mongrel, but he can have anything he
wants in this house. Didn't you hear how he saved Peter from being
kidnapped?'

And out it all came about the brigands.

'The kid called them brigands,' said the boss. 'I suppose that's how it
would strike a child of that age. But he kept mentioning the name Dick,
and that put the police on the scent. It seems there's a kidnapper well
known to the police all over the country as Dick the Snatcher. It was
almost certainly that scoundrel and his gang. How they spirited the
child away, goodness knows, but they managed it, and the dog tracked
them and scared them off. We found him and Peter together in the woods.
It was a narrow escape, and we have to thank this animal here for it.'

What could I say? It was no more use trying to put them right than it
had been when I mistook Toto for a rat. Peter had gone to sleep that
night pretending about the brigands to pass the time, and when he awoke
he still believed in them. He was that sort of child. There was nothing
that I could do about it.

Round the corner, as the boss was speaking, I saw the kennel-man coming
with a plate in his hand. It smelt fine, and he was headed straight for
me.

He put the plate down before me. It was liver, which I love.

'Yes,' went on the boss, 'if it hadn't been for him, Peter would have
been kidnapped and scared half to death, and I should be poorer, I
suppose, by whatever the scoundrels had chosen to hold me up for.'

I am an honest dog, and hate to obtain credit under false pretences,
but--liver is liver. I let it go at that.

CROWNED HEADS

Katie had never been more surprised in her life than when the serious
young man with the brown eyes and the Charles Dana Gibson profile
spirited her away from his friend and Genevieve. Till that moment she
had looked on herself as playing a sort of 'villager and retainer' part
to the brown-eyed young man's hero and Genevieve's heroine. She knew
she was not pretty, though somebody (unidentified) had once said that
she had nice eyes; whereas Genevieve was notoriously a beauty,
incessantly pestered, so report had it, by musical comedy managers to
go on the stage.

Genevieve was tall and blonde, a destroyer of masculine peace of mind.
She said 'harf' and 'rahther', and might easily have been taken for an
English duchess instead of a cloak-model at Macey's. You would have
said, in short, that, in the matter of personable young men, Genevieve
would have swept the board. Yet, here was this one deliberately
selecting her, Katie, for his companion. It was almost a miracle.

He had managed it with the utmost dexterity at the merry-go-round. With
winning politeness he had assisted Genevieve on her wooden steed, and
then, as the machinery began to work, had grasped Katie's arm and led
her at a rapid walk out into the sunlight. Katie's last glimpse of
Genevieve had been the sight of her amazed and offended face as it
whizzed round the corner, while the steam melodeon drowned protests
with a spirited plunge into 'Alexander's Ragtime Band'.

Katie felt shy. This young man was a perfect stranger. It was true she
had had a formal introduction to him, but only from Genevieve, who had
scraped acquaintance with him exactly two minutes previously. It had
happened on the ferry-boat on the way to Palisades Park. Genevieve's
bright eye, roving among the throng on the lower deck, had singled out
this young man and his companion as suitable cavaliers for the
expedition. The young man pleased her, and his friend, with the broken
nose and the face like a good-natured bulldog, was obviously suitable
for Katie.

Etiquette is not rigid on New York ferry-boats. Without fuss or delay
she proceeded to make their acquaintance--to Katie's concern, for she
could never get used to Genevieve's short way with strangers. The quiet
life she had led had made her almost prudish, and there were times when
Genevieve's conduct shocked her. Of course, she knew there was no harm
in Genevieve. As the latter herself had once put it, 'The feller that
tries to get gay with me is going to get a call-down that'll make him
holler for his winter overcoat.' But all the same she could not
approve. And the net result of her disapproval was to make her shy and
silent as she walked by this young man's side.

The young man seemed to divine her thoughts.

'Say, I'm on the level,' he observed. 'You want to get that. Right on
the square. See?'

'Oh, yes,' said Katie, relieved but yet embarrassed. It was awkward to
have one's thoughts read like this.

'You ain't like your friend. Don't think I don't see that.'

'Genevieve's a sweet girl,' said Katie, loyally.

'A darned sight too sweet. Somebody ought to tell her mother.'

'Why did you speak to her if you did not like her?'

'Wanted to get to know you,' said the young man simply.

They walked on in silence. Katie's heart was beating with a rapidity
that forbade speech. Nothing like this very direct young man had ever
happened to her before. She had grown so accustomed to regarding
herself as something too insignificant and unattractive for the notice
of the lordly male that she was overwhelmed. She had a vague feeling
that there was a mistake somewhere. It surely could not be she who was
proving so alluring to this fairy prince. The novelty of the situation
frightened her.

'Come here often?' asked her companion.

'I've never been here before.'

'Often go to Coney?'

'I've never been.'

He regarded her with astonishment.

'You've never been to Coney Island! Why, you don't know what this sort
of thing is till you've taken in Coney. This place isn't on the map
with Coney. Do you mean to say you've never seen Luna Park, or
Dreamland, or Steeplechase, or the diving ducks? Haven't you had a look
at the Mardi Gras stunts? Why, Coney during Mardi Gras is the greatest
thing on earth. It's a knockout. Just about a million boys and girls
having the best time that ever was. Say, I guess you don't go out much,
do you?'

'Not much.'

'If it's not a rude question, what do you do? I been trying to place you
all along. Now I reckon your friend works in a store, don't she?'

'Yes. She's a cloak-model. She has a lovely figure, hasn't she?'

'Didn't notice it. I guess so, if she's what you say. It's what they
pay her for, ain't it? Do you work in a store, too?'

'Not exactly. I keep a little shop.'

'All by yourself?'

'I do all the work now. It was my father's shop, but he's dead. It
began by being my grandfather's. He started it. But he's so old now
that, of course, he can't work any longer, so I look after things.'

'Say, you're a wonder! What sort of a shop?'

'It's only a little second-hand bookshop. There really isn't much to
do.'

'Where is it?'

'Sixth Avenue. Near Washington Square.'

'What name?'

'Bennett.'

'That's your name, then?'

'Yes.'

'Anything besides Bennett?'

'My name's Kate.'

The young man nodded.

'I'd make a pretty good district attorney,' he said, disarming possible
resentment at this cross-examination. 'I guess you're wondering if I'm
ever going to stop asking you questions. Well, what would you like to
do?'

'Don't you think we ought to go back and find your friend and
Genevieve? They will be wondering where we are.'

'Let 'em,' said the young man briefly. 'I've had all I want of Jenny.'

'I can't understand why you don't like her.'

'I like you. Shall we have some ice-cream, or would you rather go on
the Scenic Railway?'

Katie decided on the more peaceful pleasure. They resumed their walk,
socially licking two cones. Out of the corner of her eyes Katie cast
swift glances at her friend's face. He was a very grave young man.
There was something important as well as handsome about him. Once, as
they made their way through the crowds, she saw a couple of boys look
almost reverently at him. She wondered who he could be, but was too shy
to inquire. She had got over her nervousness to a great extent, but
there were still limits to what she felt herself equal to saying. It
did not strike her that it was only fair that she should ask a few
questions in return for those which he had put. She had always
repressed herself, and she did so now. She was content to be with him
without finding out his name and history.

He supplied the former just before he finally consented to let her go.

They were standing looking over the river. The sun had spent its force,
and it was cool and pleasant in the breeze which was coming up the
Hudson. Katie was conscious of a vague feeling that was almost
melancholy. It had been a lovely afternoon, and she was sorry that it
was over.

The young man shuffled his feet on the loose stones.

'I'm mighty glad I met you,' he said. 'Say, I'm coming to see you. On
Sixth Avenue. Don't mind, do you?'

He did not wait for a reply.

'Brady's my name. Ted Brady, Glencoe Athletic Club,' he paused. 'I'm on
the level,' he added, and paused again. 'I like you a whole lot. There's
your friend, Genevieve. Better go after her, hadn't you? Good-bye.' And
he was gone, walking swiftly through the crowd about the bandstand.

Katie went back to Genevieve, and Genevieve was simply horrid. Cold and
haughty, a beautiful iceberg of dudgeon, she refused to speak a single
word during the whole long journey back to Sixth Avenue. And Katie,
whose tender heart would at other times have been tortured by this
hostility, leant back in her seat, and was happy. Her mind was far away
from Genevieve's frozen gloom, living over again the wonderful
happenings of the afternoon.

Yes, it had been a wonderful afternoon, but trouble was waiting for her
in Sixth Avenue. Trouble was never absent for very long from Katie's
unselfish life. Arriving at the little bookshop, she found Mr Murdoch,
the glazier, preparing for departure. Mr Murdoch came in on Mondays,
Wednesdays, and Fridays to play draughts with her grandfather, who was
paralysed from the waist, and unable to leave the house except when
Katie took him for his outing in Washington Square each morning in his
bath-chair.

Mr Murdoch welcomed Katie with joy.

'I was wondering whenever you would come back, Katie. I'm afraid the
old man's a little upset.'

'Not ill?'

'Not ill. Upset. And it was my fault, too. Thinking he'd be interested,
I read him a piece from the paper where I seen about these English
Suffragettes, and he just went up in the air. I guess he'll be all
right now you've come back. I was a fool to read it, I reckon. I kind
of forgot for the moment.'

'Please don't worry yourself about it, Mr Murdoch. He'll be all right
soon. I'll go to him.'

In the inner room the old man was sitting. His face was flushed, and he
gesticulated from time to time.

'I won't have it,' he cried as Katie entered. 'I tell you I won't have
it. If Parliament can't do anything, I'll send Parliament about its
business.'

'Here I am, grandpapa,' said Katie quickly. 'I've had the greatest
time. It was lovely up there. I--'

'I tell you it's got to stop. I've spoken about it before. I won't have
it.'

'I expect they're doing their best. It's your being so far away that
makes it hard for them. But I do think you might write them a very
sharp letter.'

'I will. I will. Get out the paper. Are you ready?' He stopped, and
looked piteously at Katie. 'I don't know what to say. I don't know how
to begin.'

Katie scribbled a few lines.

'How would this do? "His Majesty informs his Government that he is
greatly surprised and indignant that no notice has been taken of his
previous communications. If this goes on, he will be reluctantly
compelled to put the matter in other hands."'

She read it glibly as she had written it. The formula had been a
favourite one of her late father, when roused to fall upon offending
patrons of the bookshop.

The old man beamed. His resentment was gone. He was soothed and happy.

'That'll wake 'em up,' he said. 'I won't have these goings on while I'm
king, and if they don't like it, they know what to do. You're a good
girl, Katie.'

He chuckled.

'I beat Lord Murdoch five games to nothing,' he said.

It was now nearly two years since the morning when old Matthew Bennett
had announced to an audience consisting of Katie and a smoky blue cat,
which had wandered in from Washington Square to take pot-luck, that he
was the King of England.

This was a long time for any one delusion of the old man's to last.
Usually they came and went with a rapidity which made it hard for
Katie, for all her tact, to keep abreast of them. She was not likely to
forget the time when he went to bed President Roosevelt and woke up the
Prophet Elijah. It was the only occasion in all the years they had
passed together when she had felt like giving way and indulging in the
fit of hysterics which most girls of her age would have had as a matter
of course.

She had handled that crisis, and she handled the present one with equal
smoothness. When her grandfather made his announcement, which he did
rather as one stating a generally recognized fact than as if the
information were in any way sensational, she neither screamed nor
swooned, nor did she rush to the neighbours for advice. She merely gave
the old man his breakfast, not forgetting to set aside a suitable
portion for the smoky cat, and then went round to notify Mr Murdoch of
what had happened.

Mr Murdoch, excellent man, received the news without any fuss or
excitement at all, and promised to look in on Schwartz, the stout
saloon-keeper, who was Mr Bennett's companion and antagonist at
draughts on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, and, as he expressed
it, put him wise.

Life ran comfortably in the new groove. Old Mr Bennett continued to
play draughts and pore over his second-hand classics. Every morning he
took his outing in Washington Square where, from his invalid's chair,
he surveyed somnolent Italians and roller-skating children with his old
air of kindly approval. Katie, whom circumstances had taught to be
thankful for small mercies, was perfectly happy in the shadow of the
throne. She liked her work; she liked looking after her grandfather;
and now that Ted Brady had come into her life, she really began to look
on herself as an exceptionally lucky girl, a spoilt favourite of
Fortune.

For Ted Brady had called, as he said he would, and from the very first
he had made plain in his grave, direct way the objects of his visits.
There was no subtlety about Ted, no finesse. He was as frank as a
music-hall love song.

On his first visit, having handed Katie a large bunch of roses with the
stolidity of a messenger boy handing over a parcel, he had proceeded,
by way of establishing his _bona fides_, to tell her all about
himself. He supplied the facts in no settled order, just as they
happened to occur to him in the long silences with which his speech was
punctuated. Small facts jostled large facts. He spoke of his morals and
his fox-terrier in the same breath.

'I'm on the level. Ask anyone who knows me. They'll tell you that. Say,
I got the cutest little dog you ever seen. Do you like dogs? I've never
been a fellow that's got himself mixed up with girls. I don't like 'em
as a general thing. A fellow's got too much to do keeping himself in
training, if his club expects him to do things. I belong to the Glencoe
Athletic. I ran the hundred yards dash in evens last sports there was.
They expect me to do it at the Glencoe, so I've never got myself mixed
up with girls. Till I seen you that afternoon I reckon I'd hardly
looked at a girl, honest. They didn't seem to kind of make any hit with
me. And then I seen you, and I says to myself, "That's the one." It
sort of came over me in a flash. I fell for you directly I seen you.
And I'm on the level. Don't forget that.'

And more in the same strain, leaning on the counter and looking into
Katie's eyes with a devotion that added emphasis to his measured
speech.

Next day he came again, and kissed her respectfully but firmly, making
a sort of shuffling dive across the counter. Breaking away, he fumbled
in his pocket and produced a ring, which he proceeded to place on her
finger with the serious air which accompanied all his actions.

'That looks pretty good to me,' he said, as he stepped back and eyed
it.

It struck Katie, when he had gone, how differently different men did
things. Genevieve had often related stories of men who had proposed to
her, and according to Genevieve, they always got excited and emotional,
and sometimes cried. Ted Brady had fitted her with the ring more like a
glover's assistant than anything else, and he had hardly spoken a word
from beginning to end. He had seemed to take her acquiescence for
granted. And yet there had been nothing flat or disappointing about the
proceedings. She had been thrilled throughout. It is to be supposed
that Mr Brady had the force of character which does not require the aid
of speech.

It was not till she took the news of her engagement to old Mr Bennett
that it was borne in upon Katie that Fate did not intend to be so
wholly benevolent to her as she supposed.

That her grandfather could offer any opposition had not occurred to her
as a possibility. She took his approval for granted. Never, as long as
she could remember, had he been anything but kind to her. And the only
possible objections to marriage from a grandfather's point of
view--badness of character, insufficient means, or inferiority of
social position--were in this case gloriously absent.

She could not see how anyone, however hypercritical, could find a flaw
in Ted. His character was spotless. He was comfortably off. And so far
from being in any way inferior socially, it was he who condescended.
For Ted, she had discovered from conversation with Mr Murdoch, the
glazier, was no ordinary young man. He was a celebrity. So much so that
for a moment, when told the news of the engagement, Mr Murdoch,
startled out of his usual tact, had exhibited frank surprise that the
great Ted Brady should not have aimed higher.

'You're sure you've got the name right, Katie?' he had said. 'It's
really Ted Brady? No mistake about the first name? Well-built,
good-looking young chap with brown eyes? Well, this beats me. Not,' he
went on hurriedly, 'that any young fellow mightn't think himself lucky
to get a wife like you, Katie, but Ted Brady! Why, there isn't a girl
in this part of the town, or in Harlem or the Bronx, for that matter,
who wouldn't give her eyes to be in your place. Why, Ted Brady is the
big noise. He's the star of the Glencoe.'

'He told me he belonged to the Glencoe Athletic.'

'Don't you believe it. It belongs to him. Why, the way that boy runs
and jumps is the real limit. There's only Billy Burton, of the
Irish-American, that can touch him. You've certainly got the pick of
the bunch, Katie.'

He stared at her admiringly, as if for the first time realizing her
true worth. For Mr Murdoch was a great patron of sport.

With these facts in her possession Katie had approached the interview
with her grandfather with a good deal of confidence.

The old man listened to her recital of Mr Brady's qualities in silence.
Then he shook his head.

'It can't be, Katie. I couldn't have it.'

'Grandpapa!'

'You're forgetting, my dear.'

'Forgetting?'

'Who ever heard of such a thing? The grand-daughter of the King of
England marrying a commoner! It wouldn't do at all.'

Consternation, surprise, and misery kept Katie dumb. She had learned in
a hard school to be prepared for sudden blows from the hand of fate,
but this one was so entirely unforeseen that it found her unprepared,
and she was crushed by it. She knew her grandfather's obstinacy too
well to argue against the decision.

'Oh, no, not at all,' he repeated. 'Oh, no, it wouldn't do.'

Katie said nothing; she was beyond speech. She stood there wide-eyed
and silent among the ruins of her little air-castle. The old man patted
her hand affectionately. He was pleased at her docility. It was the
right attitude, becoming in one of her high rank.

'I am very sorry, my dear, but--oh, no! oh, no! oh, no--' His voice
trailed away into an unintelligible mutter. He was a very old man, and
he was not always able to concentrate his thoughts on a subject for any
length of time.

So little did Ted Brady realize at first the true complexity of the
situation that he was inclined, when he heard of the news, to treat the
crisis in the jaunty, dashing, love-laughs-at-locksmith fashion so
popular with young men of spirit when thwarted in their loves by the
interference of parents and guardians.

It took Katie some time to convince him that, just because he had the
licence in his pocket, he could not snatch her up on his saddle-bow and
carry her off to the nearest clergyman after the manner of young
Lochinvar.

In the first flush of his resentment at restraint he saw no reason why
he should differentiate between old Mr Bennett and the conventional
banns-forbidding father of the novelettes with which he was accustomed
to sweeten his hours of idleness. To him, till Katie explained the
intricacies of the position, Mr Bennett was simply the proud
millionaire who would not hear of his daughter marrying the artist.

'But, Ted, dear, you don't understand,' Katie said. 'We simply couldn't
do that. There's no one but me to look after him, poor old man. How
could I run away like that and get married? What would become of him?'

'You wouldn't be away long,' urged Mr Brady, a man of many parts, but
not a rapid thinker. 'The minister would have us fixed up inside of
half an hour. Then we'd look in at Mouquin's for a steak and fried,
just to make a sort of wedding breakfast. And then back we'd come,
hand-in-hand, and say, "Well, here we are. Now what?"'

'He would never forgive me.'

'That,' said Ted judicially, 'would be up to him.'

'It would kill him. Don't you see, we know that it's all nonsense, this
idea of his; but he really thinks he is the king, and he's so old that
the shock of my disobeying him would be too much. Honest, Ted, dear, I
couldn't.'

Gloom unutterable darkened Ted Brady's always serious countenance. The
difficulties of the situation were beginning to come home to him.

'Maybe if I went and saw him--' he suggested at last.

'You _could_,' said Katie doubtfully.

Ted tightened his belt with an air of determination, and bit resolutely
on the chewing-gum which was his inseparable companion.

'I will,' he said.

'You'll be nice to him, Ted?'

He nodded. He was the man of action, not words.

It was perhaps ten minutes before he came out of the inner room in
which Mr Bennett passed his days. When he did, there was no light of
jubilation on his face. His brow was darker than ever.

Katie looked at him anxiously. He returned the look with a sombre shake
of the head.

'Nothing doing,' he said shortly. He paused. 'Unless,' he added, 'you
count it anything that he's made me an earl.'

In the next two weeks several brains busied themselves with the
situation. Genevieve, reconciled to Katie after a decent interval of
wounded dignity, said she supposed there was a way out, if one could
only think of it, but it certainly got past her. The only approach to a
plan of action was suggested by the broken-nosed individual who had
been Ted's companion that day at Palisades Park, a gentleman of some
eminence in the boxing world, who rejoiced in the name of the Tennessee
Bear-Cat.

What they ought to do, in the Bear-Cat's opinion, was to get the old
man out into Washington Square one morning. He of Tennessee would then
sasshay up in a flip manner and make a break. Ted, waiting close by,
would resent his insolence. There would be words, followed by blows.

'See what I mean?' pursued the Bear-Cat. 'There's you and me mixing it.
I'll square the cop on the beat to leave us be; he's a friend of mine.
Pretty soon you land me one on the plexus, and I take th' count. Then
there's you hauling me up by th' collar to the old gentleman, and me
saying I quits and apologizing. See what I mean?'

The whole, presumably, to conclude with warm expressions of gratitude
and esteem from Mr Bennett, and an instant withdrawal of the veto.

Ted himself approved of the scheme. He said it was a cracker-jaw, and
he wondered how one so notoriously ivory-skulled as the other could
have had such an idea. The Bear-Cat said modestly that he had 'em
sometimes. And it is probable that all would have been well, had it not
been necessary to tell the plan to Katie, who was horrified at the very
idea, spoke warmly of the danger to her grandfather's nervous system,
and said she did not think the Bear-Cat could be a nice friend for Ted.
And matters relapsed into their old state of hopelessness.

And then, one day, Katie forced herself to tell Ted that she thought it
would be better if they did not see each other for a time. She said
that these meetings were only a source of pain to both of them. It
would really be better if he did not come round for--well, quite some
time.

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