The Girl on the Boat

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"Oh, I say!" ejaculated Bream, abruptly sobered.

"Mortimer!" bawled Mr. Bennett, once more arresting the other as he was
about to mount the stairs. "Do you or do you not intend to destroy that
dog?"

"I do not."

"I insist on your doing so. He is a menace."

"He is nothing of the kind. On your own showing he didn't even bite you
once. And every dog is allowed one bite by law. The case of Wilberforce
_v._ Bayliss covers that point thoroughly."

"I don't care about the case of Wilberforce and Bayliss...."

"You will find that you have to. It is a legal precedent."

There is something about a legal precedent which gives pause to the
angriest man. Mr. Bennett felt, as every layman feels when arguing with
a lawyer, as if he were in the coils of a python.

"Say, Mr. Bennett...." began Bream at his elbow.

"Get out!" snarled Mr. Bennett.

"Yes, but, say...!"

The green baize door at the end of the hall opened, and Webster
appeared.

"I beg your pardon, sir," said Webster, "but luncheon will be served
within the next few minutes. Possibly you may wish to make some change
of costume."

"Bring me my lunch on a tray in my room," said Mr. Bennett. "I am going
to bed."

"Very good, sir."

"But, say, Mr. Bennett...." resumed Bream.

"Grrh!" replied his ex-prospective-father-in-law, and bounded up the
stairs like a portion of the sunset which had become detached from the
main body.

Sec. 4

Even into the blackest days there generally creeps an occasional ray of
sunshine, and there are few crises of human gloom which are not
lightened by a bit of luck. It was so with Mr. Bennett in his hour of
travail. There were lobsters for lunch, and his passion for lobsters had
made him the talk of three New York clubs. He was feeling a little
happier when Billie came in to see how he was getting on.

"Hullo, father. Had a nice lunch?"

"Yes," said Mr. Bennett, cheering up a little at the recollection.
"There was nothing wrong with the lunch."

How little we fallible mortals know! Even as he spoke, a tiny fragment
of lobster shell, which had been working its way silently into the tip
of his tongue, was settling down under the skin and getting ready to
cause him the most acute mental distress which he had ever known.

"The lunch," said Mr. Bennett, "was excellent. Lobsters!" He licked his
lips appreciatively.

"And, talking of lobsters," he went on, "I suppose that boy Bream has
told you that I have broken off your engagement?"

"Yes."

"You don't seem very upset," said Mr. Bennett, who was in the mood for a
dramatic scene and felt a little disappointed.

"Oh, I've become a fatalist on the subject of my engagements."

"I don't understand you."

"Well, I mean, they never seem to come to anything." Billie gazed
wistfully at the counterpane. "Do you know, father, I'm beginning to
think that I'm rather impulsive. I wish I didn't do silly things in such
a hurry."

"I don't see where the hurry comes in as regards that Mortimer boy. You
took ten years to make up your mind."

"I was not thinking of Bream. Another man."

"Great Heavens! Are you still imagining yourself in love with young
Hignett?"

"Oh, no! I can see now that I was never in love with poor Eustace. I was
thinking of a man I got engaged to on the boat!"

Mr. Bennett sat bolt upright in bed, and stared incredulously at his
surprising daughter. His head was beginning to swim.

"Of course I've misunderstood you," he said. "There's a catch somewhere
and I haven't seen it. But for a moment you gave me the impression that
you had promised to marry some man on the boat!"

"I did!"

"But...!" Mr. Bennett was doing sums on his fingers. "Do you mean to
tell me," he demanded, having brought out the answer to his
satisfaction, "do you mean to tell me that you have been engaged to
three men in three weeks?"

"Yes," said Billie in a small voice.

"Great Godfrey! Er----?"

"No, only three."

Mr. Bennett sank back on to his pillow with a snort.

"The trouble is," continued Billie, "one does things and doesn't know
how one is going to feel about it afterwards. You can do an awful lot of
thinking afterwards, father."

"I'm doing a lot of thinking now," said Mr. Bennett with austerity. "You
oughtn't to be allowed to go around loose!"

"Well, it doesn't matter. I shall never get engaged again. I shall never
love anyone again."

"Don't tell me you are still in love with this boat man?"

Billie nodded miserably. "I didn't realise it till we came down here.
But, as I sat and watched the rain, it suddenly came over me that I had
thrown away my life's happiness. It was as if I had been offered a
wonderful jewel and had refused it. I seemed to hear a voice reproaching
me and saying, 'You have had your chance. It will never come again!'"

"Don't talk nonsense!" said Mr. Bennett.

Billie stiffened. She had thought she had been talking rather well.

Mr. Bennett was silent for a moment. Then he started up with an
exclamation. The mention of Eustace Hignett had stirred his memory.
"What's young Hignett got wrong with him?" he asked.

"Mumps."

"Mumps! Good God! Not mumps!" Mr. Bennett quailed. "I've never had
mumps! One of the most infectious ... this is awful!... Oh, heavens! Why
did I ever come to this lazar-house!" cried Mr. Bennett, shaken to his
depths.

"There isn't the slightest danger, father, dear. Don't be silly. If I
were you, I should try to get a good sleep. You must be tired after this
morning."

"Sleep! If I only could!" said Mr. Bennett, and did so five minutes
after the door had closed.

He awoke half an hour later with a confused sense that something was
wrong. He had been dreaming that he was walking down Fifth Avenue at the
head of a military brass band, clad only in a bathing suit. As he sat up
in bed, blinking in the dazed fashion of the half-awakened, the band
seemed to be playing still. There was undeniably music in the air. The
room was full of it. It seemed to be coming up through the floor and
rolling about in chunks all round his bed.

Mr. Bennett blinked the last fragments of sleep out of his system, and
became filled with a restless irritability. There was only one
instrument in the house which could create this infernal din--the
orchestrion in the drawing-room, immediately above which, he recalled,
his room was situated.

He rang the bell for Webster.

"Is Mr. Mortimer playing that--that damned gas-engine in the
drawing-room?"

"Yes, sir. Tosti's 'Good-bye.' A charming air, sir."

"Go and tell him to stop it!"

"Very good, sir."

Mr. Bennett lay in bed and fumed. Presently the valet returned. The
music still continued to roll about the room.

"I am sorry to have to inform you, sir," said Webster, "that Mr.
Mortimer declines to accede to your request."

"Oh, he said that, did he?"

"That is the gist of his remarks, sir."

"Very good! Then give me my dressing-gown!"

Webster swathed his employer in the garment indicated, and returned to
the kitchen, where he informed the cook that, in his opinion, the
guv'nor was not a force, and that, if he were a betting man, he would
put his money in the forthcoming struggle on Consul, the
Almost-Human--by which affectionate nickname Mr. Mortimer senior was
generally alluded to in the servants' hall.

Mr. Bennett, meanwhile, had reached the drawing-room, and found his
former friend lying at full length on a sofa, smoking a cigar, a full
dozen feet away from the orchestrion, which continued to thunder out its
dirge on the passing of Summer.

"Will you turn that infernal thing off!" said Mr. Bennett.

"No!" said Mr. Mortimer.

"Now, now, now!" said a voice.

Jane Hubbard was standing in the doorway with a look of calm reproof on
her face.

"We can't have this, you know!" said Jane Hubbard. "You're disturbing my
patient."

She strode without hesitation to the instrument, explored its ribs with
a firm finger, pushed something, and the orchestrion broke off in the
middle of a bar. Then, walking serenely to the door, she passed out and
closed it behind her.

The baser side of his nature urged Mr. Bennett to triumph over the
vanquished.

"Now, what about it!" he said, ungenerously.

"Interfering girl!" mumbled Mr. Mortimer, chafing beneath defeat. "I've
a good mind to start it again."

"I dare you!" whooped Mr. Bennett, reverting to the phraseology of his
vanished childhood. "Go on! I dare you!"

"I've a perfect legal right.... Oh well," he said, "there are lots of
other things I can do!"

"What do you mean?" exclaimed Mr. Bennett, alarmed.

"Never mind!" said Mr. Mortimer, taking up a book.

Mr. Bennett went back to bed in an uneasy frame of mind.

He brooded for half an hour, and, at the expiration of that period, rang
for Webster and requested that Billie should be sent to him.

"I want you to go to London," he said, when she appeared. "I must have
legal advice. I want you to go and see Sir Mallaby Marlowe. Tell him
that Henry Mortimer is annoying me in every possible way and sheltering
himself behind his knowledge of the law, so that I can't get at him. Ask
Sir Mallaby to come down here. And, if he can't come himself, tell him
to send someone who can advise me. His son would do, if he knows
anything about the business."

"Oh, I'm sure he does!"

"Eh? How do you know?"

"Well, I mean, he looks as if he does!" said Billie hastily. "He looks
so clever!"

"I didn't notice it myself. Well, he'll do, if Sir Mallaby's too busy to
come himself. I want you to go up to-night, so that you can see him
first thing to-morrow morning. You can stop the night at the Savoy. I've
sent Webster to look out a train."

"There's a splendid train in about an hour. I'll take that."

"It's giving you a lot of trouble," said Mr. Bennett, with belated
consideration.

"Oh, _no_!" said Billie. "I'm only too glad to be able to do this for
you, father dear!"

CHAPTER XI

MR. BENNETT HAS A BAD NIGHT

The fragment of a lobster-shell which had entered Mr. Bennett's tongue
at twenty minutes to two in the afternoon was still in occupation at
half-past eleven that night, when that persecuted gentleman blew out his
candle and endeavoured to compose himself for a night's slumber. Its
unconscious host had not yet been made aware of its presence. He had a
vague feeling that the tip of his tongue felt a little sore, but his
mind was too engrossed with the task of keeping a look-out for the
preliminary symptoms of mumps to have leisure to bestow much attention
on this phenomenon. The discomfort it caused was not sufficient to keep
him awake, and presently he turned on his side and began to fill the
room with a rhythmical snoring.

How pleasant if one could leave him so--the good man taking his rest.
Facts, however, are facts; and, having crept softly from Mr. Bennett's
side with the feeling that at last everything is all right with him, we
are compelled to return three hours later to discover that everything is
all wrong. It is so dark in the room that our eyes can at first discern
nothing; then, as we grow accustomed to the blackness, we perceive him
sitting bolt upright in bed, staring glassily before him, while with the
first finger of his right hand he touches apprehensively the tip of his
protruding tongue.

At this point Mr. Bennett lights his candle--one of the charms of
Windles was the old-world simplicity of its lighting system--and we are
enabled to get a better view of him.

Mr. Bennett sat in the candlelight with his tongue out and the first
beads of a chilly perspiration bedewing his forehead. It was impossible
for a man of his complexion to turn pale, but he had turned as pale as
he could. Panic gripped him. A man whose favourite reading was medical
encyclopaedias, he needed no doctor to tell him that this was the end.
Fate had dealt him a knockout blow; his number was up; and in a very
short while now people would be speaking of him in the past tense and
saying what a pity it all was.

A man in Mr. Bennett's position experiences strange emotions, and many
of them. In fact, there are scores of writers, who, reckless of the cost
of white paper, would devote two chapters at this point to an analysis
of the unfortunate man's reflections and be glad of the chance. It is
sufficient, however, merely to set on record that there was no stint.
Whatever are the emotions of a man in such a position, Mr. Bennett had
them. He had them all, one after another, some of them twice. He went
right through the list from soup to nuts, until finally he reached
remorse. And, having reached remorse, he allowed that to monopolise him.

In his early days, when he was building up his fortune, Mr. Bennett had
frequently done things to his competitors in Wall Street which would not
have been tolerated in the purer atmosphere of a lumber-camp, and, if he
was going to be remorseful about anything, he might well have started by
being remorseful about that. But it was on his most immediate past that
his wistful mind lingered. He had quarrelled with his lifelong friend,
Henry Mortimer. He had broken off his daughter's engagement with a
deserving young man. He had spoken harsh words to his faithful valet.
The more Mr. Bennett examined his conduct, the deeper the iron entered
into his soul.

Fortunately, none of his acts were irreparable. He could undo them. He
could make amends. The small hours of the morning are not perhaps the
most suitable time for making amends, but Mr. Bennett was too remorseful
to think of that. Do It Now had ever been his motto, so he started by
ringing the bell for Webster.

The same writers who would have screamed with joy at the chance of
dilating on Mr. Bennett's emotions would find a congenial task in
describing the valet's thought-processes when the bell roused him from
a refreshing sleep at a few minutes after three a.m. However, by the
time he entered his employer's room he was his own calm self again.

"Good morning, sir," he remarked equably. "I fear that it will be the
matter of a few minutes to prepare your shaving water. I was not aware,"
said Webster in manly apology for having been found wanting, "that you
intended rising so early."

"Webster," said Mr. Bennett, "I'm a dying man!"

"Indeed, sir?"

"A dying man!" repeated Mr. Bennett.

"Very good, sir. Which of your suits would you wish me to lay out?"

Mr. Bennett had the feeling that something was going wrong with the
scene.

"Webster," he said, "this morning we had an unfortunate
misunderstanding. I'm sorry."

"Pray don't mention it, sir."

"I was to blame. Webster, you have been a faithful servant! You have
stuck to me, Webster, through thick and thin!" said Mr. Bennett, who had
half persuaded himself by this time that the other had been in the
family for years instead of having been engaged at a registry-office a
little less than a month ago. "Through thick and thin!" repeated Mr.
Bennett.

"I have endeavoured to give satisfaction, sir."

"I want to reward you, Webster."

"Thank you very much, sir."

"Take my trousers!"

Webster raised a deprecating hand.

"No, no, sir, thanking you exceedingly, I couldn't really! You will need
them, sir, and I assure you I have an ample supply."

"Take my trousers," repeated Mr. Bennett, "and feel in the right-hand
pocket. There is some money there."

"I'm sure I'm very much obliged, sir," said Webster, beginning for the
first time to feel that there was a bright side. He embarked upon the
treasure-hunt. "The sum is sixteen pounds eleven shillings and
threepence, sir."

"Keep it!"

"Thank you very much, sir. Would there be anything further, sir?"

"Why, no," said Mr. Bennett, feeling dissatisfied nevertheless. There
had been a lack of the deepest kind of emotion in the interview, and his
yearning soul resented it. "Why, no."

"Good-night, sir."

"Stop a moment. Which is Mr. Mortimer's room?"

"Mr. Mortimer, senior, sir? It is at the further end of this passage, on
the left facing the main staircase. Good-night, sir. I am extremely
obliged. I will bring you your shaving-water when you ring."

Mr. Bennett, left alone, mused for awhile, then, rising from his bed,
put on his dressing-gown, took his candle, and went down the passage.

In a less softened mood, the first thing Mr. Bennett would have done on
crossing the threshold of the door facing the staircase would have been
to notice resentfully that Mr. Mortimer, with his usual astuteness, had
collared the best bedroom in the house. The soft carpet gave out no
sound as Mr. Bennett approached the wide and luxurious bed. The light of
the candle fell on the back of a semi-bald head. Mr. Mortimer was
sleeping with his face buried in the pillow. It cannot have been good
for him, but that was what he was doing. From the portion of the pillow
in which his face was buried strange gurgles proceeded, like the distant
rumble of an approaching train on the Underground.

"Mortimer," said Mr. Bennett.

The train stopped at a station to pick up passengers, and rumbled on
again.

"Henry!" said Mr. Bennett, and nudged his sleeping friend in the small
of the back.

"Leave it on the mat," mumbled Mr. Mortimer, stirring slightly and
uncovering one corner of his mouth.

Mr. Bennett began to forget his remorse in a sense of injury. He felt
like a man with a good story to tell who can get nobody to listen to
him. He nudged the other again, more vehemently this time. Mr. Mortimer
made a noise like a gramophone when the needle slips, moved restlessly
for a moment, then sat up, staring at the candle.

"Rabbits! Rabbits! Rabbits!" said Mr. Mortimer, and sank back again. He
had begun to rumble before he touched the pillow.

"What do you mean, rabbits?" said Mr. Bennett sharply.

The not unreasonable query fell on deaf ears. Mr. Mortimer was already
entering a tunnel.

"Much too pink!" he murmured as the pillow engulfed him.

What steps Mr. Bennett would have taken at this juncture, one cannot
say. Probably he would have given the thing up in despair and retired,
for it is weary work forgiving a sleeping man. But, as he bent above his
slumbering friend, a drop of warm grease detached itself from the candle
and fell into Mr. Mortimer's exposed ear. The sleeper wakened.

"What? What? What?" he exclaimed, bounding up. "Who's that?"

"It's me--Rufus," said Mr. Bennett. "Henry, I'm dying!"

"Drying?"

"Dying!"

Mr. Mortimer yawned cavernously. The mists of sleep were engulfing him
again.

"Eight rabbits sitting on the lawn," he muttered. "But too pink! Much
too pink!"

And, as if considering he had borne his full share in the conversation
and that no more could be expected of him, he snuggled down into the
pillow again.

Mr. Bennett's sense of injury became more acute. For a moment he was
strongly tempted to try the restorative effects of candle-grease once
more, but, just as he was on the point of succumbing, a shooting pain,
as if somebody had run a red-hot needle into his tongue, reminded him
of his situation. A dying man cannot pass his last hours dropping
candle-grease into people's ears. After all, it was perhaps a little
late, and there would be plenty of time to become reconciled to Mr.
Mortimer to-morrow. His task now was to seek out Bream and bring him the
glad news of his renewed engagement.

He closed the door quietly, and proceeded upstairs. Bream's bedroom, he
knew, was the one just off the next landing. He turned the handle
quietly, and went in. Having done this, he coughed.

"Drop that pistol!" said the voice of Jane Hubbard immediately, with
quiet severity. "I've got you covered!"

Mr. Bennett had no pistol, but he dropped the candle. It would have been
a nice point to say whether he was more perturbed by the discovery that
he had got into the wrong room, and that room a lady's, or by the fact
that the lady whose wrong room it was had pointed what appeared to be a
small cannon at him over the foot of the bed. It was not, as a matter of
fact, a cannon but the elephant gun, which Miss Hubbard carried with her
everywhere--a girl's best friend.

"My dear young lady!" he gasped.

On the five occasions during recent years on which men had entered her
tent with the object of murdering her, Jane Hubbard had shot without
making inquiries. What strange feminine weakness it was that had caused
her to utter a challenge on this occasion, she could not have said.
Probably it was due to the enervating effects of civilisation. She was
glad now that she had done so, for, being awake and in full possession
of her faculties, she perceived that the intruder, whoever he was, had
no evil intentions.

"Who is it?" she asked.

"I don't know how to apologise!"

"That's all right! Let's have a light." A match flared in the darkness.
Miss Hubbard lit her candle, and gazed at Mr. Bennett with quiet
curiosity. "Walking in your sleep?" she inquired.

"No, no!"

"Not so loud! You'll wake Mr. Hignett. He's next door. That's why I took
this room, in case he was restless in the night."

"I want to see Bream Mortimer," said Mr. Bennett.

"He's in my old room, two doors along the passage. What do you want to
see him about?"

"I wish to inform him that he may still consider himself engaged to my
daughter."

"Oh, well, I don't suppose he'll mind being woken up to hear that. But
what's the idea?"

"It's a long story."

"That's all right. Let's make a night of it."

"I am a dying man. I awoke an hour ago with a feeling of acute pain...."

Miss Hubbard listened to the story of his symptoms with interest but
without excitement.

"What nonsense!" she said at the conclusion.

"I assure you...."

"I'd like to bet it's nothing serious at all."

"My dear young lady," said Mr. Bennett, piqued. "I have devoted a
considerable part of my life to medical study...."

"I know. That's the trouble. People oughtn't to be allowed to read
medical books."

"Well, we need not discuss it," said Mr. Bennett stiffly. He resented
being dragged out of the valley of the shadow of death by the scruff of
his neck like this. A dying man has his dignity to think of. "I will
leave you now, and go and see young Mortimer." He clung to a hope that
Bream Mortimer at least would receive him fittingly. "Good-night!"

"But wait a moment!"

Mr. Bennett left the room, unheeding. He was glad to go. Jane Hubbard
irritated him.

His expectation of getting more satisfactory results from Bream was
fulfilled. It took some time to rouse that young man from a slumber
almost as deep as his father's; but, once roused, he showed a gratifying
appreciation of the gravity of affairs. Joy at one half of his visitor's
news competed with consternation and sympathy at the other half. He
thanked Mr. Bennett profusely, showed a fitting concern on learning of
his terrible situation, and evinced a practical desire to help by
offering him a bottle of liniment which he had found useful for
gnat-stings. Declining this, though not ungratefully, Mr. Bennett
withdrew and made his way down the passage again with something
approaching a glow in his heart. The glow lasted till he had almost
reached the landing, when it was dissipated by a soft but compelling
voice from the doorway of Miss Hubbard's room.

"Come here!" said Miss Hubbard. She had put on a blue bath-robe, and
looked like a pugilist about to enter the ring.

"Well?" said Mr. Bennett coldly, coming nevertheless.

"I'm going to have a look at that tongue of yours," said Jane firmly.
"It's my opinion that you're making a lot of fuss over nothing."

Mr. Bennett drew himself up as haughtily as a fat man in a dressing-gown
can, but the effect was wasted on his companion, who had turned and gone
into her room.

"Come in here," she said.

Tougher men than Mr. Bennett had found it impossible to resist the note
of calm command in that voice, but for all that he reproached himself
for his weakness in obeying.

"Sit down!" said Jane Hubbard.

She indicated a low stool beside the dressing-table.

"Put your tongue out!" she said, as Mr. Bennett, still under her strange
influence, lowered himself on to the stool. "Further out! That's right.
Keep it like that!"

"Ouch!" exclaimed Mr. Bennett, bounding up.

"Don't make such a noise! You'll wake Mr. Hignett. Sit down again!"

"I...."

"Sit down!"

Mr. Bennett sat down. Miss Hubbard extended once more the hand holding
the needle which had caused his outcry. He winced away from it
desperately.

"Baby!" said Miss Hubbard reprovingly. "Why, I once sewed eighteen
stitches in a native bearer's head, and he didn't make half the fuss
you're making. Now, keep quite still."

Mr. Bennett did--for perhaps the space of two seconds. Then he leaped
from his seat once more. It was a tribute to the forceful personality of
the fair surgeon, if one were needed, that the squeal he uttered was a
subdued one. He was just about to speak--he had framed the opening words
of a strong protest--when suddenly he became aware of something in his
mouth, something small and hard. He removed it and examined it as it lay
on his finger. It was a minute fragment of lobster-shell. And at the
same time he became conscious of a marked improvement in the state of
his tongue. The swelling had gone.

"I told you so!" said Jane Hubbard placidly. "What is it?"

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