ALMOST A GENTLEMAN

By Edward Hope

EDWARD HOPE

Edward Hope is Edward Hope Coffey, Jr., of New York. I forget his age, but he is about thirty. He was graduated from Princeton and has varied newspaper work with employment in a great advertising agency. He has begun to write for the theater and was the author of one of the most amusing sketches in the Garrick Follies for 1926, produced by the Theatre Guild School.

As a newspaperman he first found his niche pinch-hitting for Don Marquis, then a columnist on the Sun, New York. Don tells me that having occasion to look up his column a year later at about the time Hope had filled it for him, he found himself quite unable to tell which was his stuff and which was Hope's. Hope now writes the column in the New York Herald Tribune which Marquis used to do daily.

If I am not mistaken, "Almost a Gentleman" was Hope's second real attempt at a short story—and he sold his first at first try. He is not invariably a humorist, but sometimes follows it as the line of least resistance. He is probably almost the least known of the authors represented in this book—due to his youth as a writer—but every collection like this should produce one "unknown" and he will serve very well. And, anyway, "Almost a Gentleman"—first published in the Saturday Evening Post for February 25, 1925—deserves to be here.

ALMOST A GENTLEMAN[1]

[1] Copyright, 1925, by Edward Hope.

The Sunday morning after the game there were many students and graduates of the Yale persuasion who claimed that young Mr. Gildersleeve of Princeton was a lucky stiff. In New York, New Haven, and I doubt not, Hartford, they called upon Heaven to punish him and to lay a curse on the unkind fate which had guided a Yale forward pass into his arms during the last quarter, with the score Yale 3, Princeton 0. It was not, however, until the event had been almost forgotten in undergraduate circles that George Banks began to harbor a grudge against young Mr. Gildersleeve for his glorious run. For Gildersleeve had inadvertently brought a great deal of sorrow upon George Banks's head, although George was a recent Princeton graduate and should normally have benefited, both financially and spiritually, by the victory.

This is how it was:

When George asked Mildred Trudeau to go to the game with him—and in fact right up to the moment when Gildersleeve's cleats tore a chunk out of the Yale goal line—she seemed to him to be quite an ordinary sort of last year's débutante.

Pretty, of course, or she never would have been honored with the invitation. But otherwise a little blah. Good mouth, a mouth a fellow might kiss with a certain amount of satisfaction, but not a mouth from which wisdom could reasonably be expected. Pretty eyes, but no suggestion of anything behind them except a blue back drop. Nice, even features, but too even for much character.

That was, as I have said, George Banks's estimate of Mildred Trudeau until close to the end of the fourth quarter, up to which point he was what you might call a rational young man.

But Gildersleeve's run did something to George Banks's entire being. At its conclusion he pounded the back of the ponderous, middle-aged gentleman in front of him. He emitted a yell which would have set a high standard of audibility for a locomotive whistle. He flung both arms around Mildred Trudeau and hugged her as, I hope, she had never been hugged before.

He tore off his rather modish gray felt hat and scaled it toward the field. He drank at some length from a frankly illegal square bottle and whooped again louder than before.

As they changed Princeton's 6 on the scoreboard to a 7, George Banks augmented the loss of his hat with the loss of its erstwhile contents. During the minute that remained of the game he babbled and gurgled and laughed into the ear of Mildred Trudeau like one bereft of his senses. Again and again he besought her to tell him if she had ever seen anything like that before. And she showed her teeth, which had been well spoken of, and tried to be as excited as he was, which was absurd.

Even after the game his exaltation held. Outwardly he became a little calmer, but his heart thumped with the fullness of his emotion. He found himself overwhelmed with a love of the world he lived in, of the human race in general, and of Mildred Trudeau, with whom he had shared this transfiguration, in particular. Walking with her, he squeezed her fur-coated arm until her shoulder was in grave danger of dislocation.

Presently, when they were buttoned into George's roadster, protected from the cold November wind, his love of things in general focused itself more and more on his companion. The girl at his side was warmish and smallish and very much his.

Before they got to New Brunswick he told her intimate details about himself and the peculiarities of his mind.

Just past the Raritan bridge he slipped one of his hands into both of hers.

Right in the middle of Metuchen he put his arm around her.

A couple of miles farther on he kissed her tentatively.

A minute or two beyond Rahway he asked her to marry him.

He alleged—in a voice that carried surprising conviction—that he had loved her passionately ever since he had first met her, though that would have taken him back through the Dorothy Husted era into the time of Louise Vanderlin, as he might have remembered. He told her that he had loved her always, for that matter, for she was the ideal for whom he had sought.

To give her a chance to answer, he stopped the roadster with a suddenness which nearly caused horrible carnage in the line of cars behind.

When she raised her eyes to his and said that she would marry him if her mother would let her, you might have expected him to realize the enormity of the thing he had done.

He did not. Rather, he bent his head a little and drew her face close to his, murmuring "My dear, my dear" in a whisper he could not help admiring, if he did it himself, who shouldn't have. He found his exaltation increased by this new entanglement. The jeers of home-going football fans seeped through the side curtains, but he heeded them not. He kissed her rather thoroughly.

The rest of the journey was joy unstinted.

She told him things about his charms that even he had never suspected. He answered with gallantries he would have labeled the grossest sort of exaggeration a few hours before. They planned how they would tell her mother, and his father and mother and kid sister. They speculated joyously about how astonished Marian would be and what Paul would say. Stalled in the line of cars on the hill leading to the ferry, they petted shamelessly.

That is a brief explanation of the resentment toward Gildersleeve of Princeton which grew and grew in the heart of George Banks toward the last of the year; a resentment which became stronger as the New Year came in and January and February passed, and Mildred Trudeau was in fact the fiancée of George Banks, and was turning out to be, as he had suspected, pretty, but otherwise blah; quite hopelessly blah.

They went to deb parties at the Ritz and Sherry's and Pierre's. They saw musical comedies and farces and plain comedies and melodramas together. They became recognized and were bowed to in most of the fashionable night clubs. They motored hither and yon in the environs of New York. They were lavishly entertained at teas and dinners and luncheons. By all ordinary standards they should have had a most enjoyable winter.

Probably Mildred was having just that. Her picture appeared in the papers with reasonable regularity. She was on whatever committees it was right to be on. She was engaged to George Banks, who was no mean catch socially, financially, and personally.

Through the eyes of the desirable young man, however, things were not so satisfactory. This girl who seemed destined to be attached to him for life fell several running broad jumps short of his ideal of womanhood. She had looks and poise and serenity—and not another visible gift. He knew by heart her answers to everything he might conceivably say to her, which discouraged him from saying anything. He knew even what she would do in any given set of circumstances, which took most of the interest out of creating sets of circumstances. She repeated herself with perfect regularity.

He knew her seven facial expressions as well as if he had had a photograph of each with a descriptive caption: Disappointment, Pleasure, Love, Annoyance, Surprise, Interest, Boredom—every one of them mild.

She danced average well, but with an indefinable sense of heaviness. She played bridge passably, but with too frequent recourse to the wide-eyed look which is supposed to excuse misplay. Her conversation was fair until you got onto her system, or until the talk slipped off the field which is covered by the society columns. Her intellectual interests were limited to an attempt to classify everything she came in contact with as either nice or vulgar.

For some men, no doubt, she would have been an ideal mate. George credited her with this possibility. The elder Bankses seemed to approve her as prospective daughter-in-law. Young men who knew her slightly congratulated George on her charms with unlimited fervor.

He was even willing to admit that the whole trouble might be the result of something wrong with his own make-up; but the main point was that there was something awfully wrong with some one. That he knew.

II

Perhaps it would be just as well for the story to skip lightly over the late winter and early spring and bring the reader snappily to the weekend in May when Mildred Trudeau and George Banks went to Barbara Kittridge's house party. It was there that things started to happen.

As a matter of fact, the exact time when things started to happen was 12:17 A.M. on Saturday, May eighteenth. It was at that particular moment that George Banks and Barbara Kittridge stopped dancing and stepped through a French window of the living room to the terrace. It was at that particular moment that Barbara Kittridge turned her head upward so that she could catch George Banks with the corners of her eyes, and said, "What you need, Mr. Banks, is to sit down quietly in the moonlight and talk about yourself."

Her voice was pleasant to the ear. She was soothing. Had it been May of last year, with the moon just exactly the way it was, George Banks would have proceeded to flirt outrageously with her. But it was May of this year.

"Oh no," he said self-consciously. And again, "No."

He lighted a cigarette, and they walked out to the edge of the terrace.

"But you're depressed," she said. "If I ever saw a depressed man—and I have seen depressed men—you are gruesomely depressed."

"Oh no, I'm not." He spoke without conviction, listlessly.

"You are! Listen to yourself! You sound like a funeral oration that has been badly received. Come along. I am going to take the liberty of leading you to a place where you can sit down quietly in the moonlight. You can decide then whether to talk about yourself."

They went down the steps to the bottom of the terrace and down a path thickly bordered with shrubs which cut off the moonlight. He was moodily silent while they walked twenty steps. Suddenly she laughed softly.

"Which is the leper?" she said. "You or I?"

"Leper? I don't think——"

"I have had men tell me they were afraid of me, but they have always been chronic bachelors and they have suspected me of wanting to marry them. Now you are Trudy's fiancé and Trudy's a friend of mine. You ought to know I don't mean you any harm."

"My dear Miss Kittridge, I really haven't been thinking of you at all. I——"

"If I believed you, I should think you very rude. But I don't believe you. I know perfectly well that you have been thinking of me and that you're afraid of me. That is why you have kept this careful yard of space between us."

George Banks laughed uneasily.

"No," he said. "Oh no—didn't notice it."

He stepped closer to her, miscalculated the distance and rubbed her soft, cool forearm with the back of his hand. He snatched the hand back as though it had touched hot iron. She laughed again.

"You see? You are afraid."

The path widened and they came into a tiny plaza in the middle of which there was an inactive fountain. To right and left, back against the shrubbery, were low stone benches, one moon-lit, the other in darkness. Barbara Kittridge led him to the dark one. She seated herself, leaning back against the curved stone arm at one end, and placed her feet on the middle of the seat.

"Now," she said, "let me explain. Sit down over there."

She paused while he produced a cigarette and lighted it.

"Now here is the idea: I don't want you to flirt with me. I don't want you to try to kiss me. I don't want you to do anything that bothers your conscience in the least. I have no designs whatever upon you.

"But I like Trudy. I've known her around school and at parties for three or four years, and I like her. When I heard about her engagement to you I asked you both down here so that I could see the happy couple. And what do I feast my eyes on?

"Trudy about as usual, and—you! A dignified young pallbearer. It looks bad. Something is wrong. It hurts me to see the course of true love so bumpy. Therefore I have enticed you out here among the moon and the shrubs and the nasty cold stone benches to find out what is wrong."

George Banks lighted another cigarette and withdrew to his corner of the bench.

"It's very—nice of you," he said at length, and lapsed into silence.

"Come now, tell me about yourself. What sort of person are you? What did you do at Princeton?"

"Played baseball a couple of years."

"No poetry? Never contributed to the Lit? Are you sure?"

"Absolutely."

"Were you notoriously gloomy or silent?"

"No."

"What was your nickname? That will tell something."

"Phooey."

"What?"

"Phooey."

"Where did you get a nickname like that? It doesn't fit you now."

"That's kind of a long story. It had something to do with drinking applejack sophomore year. I don't believe you'd care to hear it."

"Then you drink applejack?"

"Well, I have."

"Phooey, do you know what I've got?"

"No. At least I don't know everything you've got. I have some idea of your talents."

For a moment the old George Banks threatened to show himself. There was life in his voice.

"I've got about ten bottles of applejack in the cellar."

"You're lucky."

"So are you."

"I?"

"My applejack is your applejack."

"Oh, that's very good of you; but—— Well, you see, Trudy doesn't like my drinking much and I'm pretty careful. Cocktails and punch, but that's about enough." He rose and walked to the inactive fountain, balanced himself upon its stone rim. "It's mighty good of you," he said again.

"Not at all. Trudy ought to know better than to cut a strong young man off from his applejack! That may be just what you need to make you cheer up."

"No, that isn't what's the matter. It's——"

He broke off suddenly. He went back and sat at his end of the bench, lighted another cigarette.

"Then you know what is the matter?"

"Miss Kittridge, really——"

"Please don't call me Miss Kittridge and please don't say really to me in that particular way again. You're the most unpardonable sort of man. I don't see how you ever persuaded Trudy to think of marrying you. I give up. Let's go back."

She stood up and started up the path toward the house.

"But, Miss Kittridge—er—B a r b a r a—er——"

"Kitt."

"Kitt."

"You were going to say?"

She had turned. She stood in the moonlight facing him, slim and tall, shimmering in a white evening dress. Her dark hair contrasted with the moonlit whiteness of her neck and shoulders. A little cold shiver made its way up George Banks's back.

"Oh, nothing," he said. "Let's go back."

And they went back to the house. He left her and walked alone among the shrubs. It had been a stupid conversation. It had been an embarrassing conversation. But—this Barbara Kittridge—Kitt—thrilling—exciting—to look at, to talk to, to keep from involving oneself with. Lively girl. Snappy dark eyes. Nice hands. Well built. Slim ankles. Quick, elusive, jumping around behind a conversation, with a funny mouth that did queer little things with its corners.

Face that laughed at you, without laughing at all so you could trace it. And always one jump ahead of what you were thinking. Footwork with her head. Now that kind of a girl——

He danced with his betrothed.

"What do you think of Kitt?" she asked from his shoulder.

He executed an intricate step and stalled for time.

"What did you say, dear?"

"What do you think of Kitt?"

"Oh, very nice. Clever, I should think. Talks well."

"Do you think so?"

"Well, we didn't talk much. She seemed quick."

"She says whatever comes into her head. I've heard her say the worst things—to men—trying to be original."

The music stopped and George and Mildred Trudeau seated themselves side by side. His eyes followed Barbara Kittridge as she went, laughing, through the French windows with a man.

"Her reputation," said Trudy guardedly into his ear, "is not too good lately. She went to Europe all alone last summer. Katherine Milton met her in Brussels and she was traveling all over with two Oxford students. Perfectly respectable, of course. But a girl can't tell what people are going to think and say. It isn't a very nice thing to do."

"But if she was all alone in Europe——"

"There were plenty of girls she knew, without her picking out perfectly strange young Englishmen and traveling all over with them. I'll bet she had a fine gay time. A couple of weeks ago I heard about a party at a bachelor apartment in town that Kitt went to. I don't believe that was too nice. She drinks a little too much, anyway."

The music started and they danced again.

Just before three the party broke up for the evening. George Banks took Trudy to the top of the stairs and kissed her good night. Then he remembered that he had no cigarettes and went down again to find some.

So far as is known, it was entirely by accident that he found Barbara Kittridge alone in the library. She was curled up at the end of the big leather sofa.

George Banks sighted her and jumped like a startled criminal. He took a step backward and smiled foolishly. Kitt laughed.

"Why, Phooey! I thought I'd packed you off to bed. What are you doing prowling around downstairs again? You don't go in for nocturnal melancholia, do you? I hope it isn't so bad as that."

He fidgeted.

"No. Cigarettes. Found I didn't have any in my pocket. None upstairs. Thought I'd come down and find some."

"Lots in that box on the table beside you. Help yourself."

He did, and dropped six or eight into his pocket.

"Well——" he said, fidgeting toward the door.

"Breakfast at eleven thirty," said his hostess, and just then something strange happened in George Banks.

"What the dickens are you going to do for the rest of the night?" he asked. "Are you given to communing with nature yourself?" Again she laughed.

"Brave boy!" she said. "Sit down."

This time they were not on a cold stone bench in the darkness. This time her feet were not so placed as to keep him at a distance.

He seated himself a couple of inches from her, his arm on the back of the sofa behind her head. He took one of the cigarettes from his pocket and placed it between his lips. For the first time his manner of looking at her was leisurely. He filled his lungs with smoke before he opened the conversation.

"And now," he said, "tell me what this is all about. Where do you get the privilege of laughing at me? Who told you I was a funny old man to be kidded unmercifully at every opportunity? What have you done to deserve the right to embarrass me?"

She laughed.

"Why, Phooey! I haven't done anything to embarrass you. If you've felt uncomfortable it's been your own fault. I have laughed at you, but that was because you were funny. I reserve the right to laugh at anything that's funny."

"That isn't entirely wise. You'll find there are a lot of things that are funny that you aren't supposed to laugh at. You'll get in trouble laughing indiscriminately."

"In trouble with you?"

"Among others—yes."

"Ah, then it bites?"

"Not necessarily. But a healthy man can't stand being laughed at. You'll find that out."

"Are you a healthy man? You don't seem healthy. You goof too much. You stare into corners and study rug patterns and look as though you were going to scream with some secret sorrow gnawing at your entrails. Do you really think you're healthy?"

"I really know I'm healthy."

She made an incredulous noise and the corners of her mouth did things. He leaned closer to her.

"Further," he said, picking up one of her hands, "I can prove I'm healthy. I have a healthy normal desire to kiss you."

"To kiss me?" Her mouth was still insulting him. "You look more as though you wanted to choke me."

She executed some sort of distracting movement of her knees. Her eyes were larger than he had thought. Her hand was cool and smooth in his. His arm slipped slowly down from the back of the sofa behind her. His fingers touched her bare shoulder on the side away from him. He thought profane things about himself and removed her hand from a position where it might interfere with possible progress. Slowly, eye to eye with her, he drew her close to him and placed his lips on hers—left them there for throbbing seconds. The end of her nose was cool against his cheek. Her lips were soft. Her body in the crook of his arm was pliant and small. His mind traveled out of the library, upstairs to Mildred Trudeau.

He took his mouth away, replaced his arm on the back of the sofa. He still looked into her eyes.

"Was that what you wanted me to do?" he asked.

"No; though you do do it rather well. I am quite glad you did. It was very pleasant. Thank you."

"I'm afraid you're not welcome. That one kiss is going to make me feel like a burglar for weeks. You have no idea the mental anguish I'll go through."

"And end up by telling Trudy I made you do it?"

"No, I don't think that. But I'm not proud of myself. I might have a little more self-control." He stood up before her, feet slightly apart, right hand gripping left elbow. "Well——" he said. Then, after a pause, "I hope you'll understand this whole performance. I hope you won't think I go around kissing other girls while I'm engaged to Trudy."

He saw a flicker at the corners of her mouth. He fled. Over his shoulder he heard her words:

"It must be funny to have a conscience." Then a laugh. "Breakfast at eleven thirty."

III

It wasn't funny to have a conscience. It was bad for George Banks's trousers, which he tossed over the back of a chair and left there to wrinkle. It was bad for his disposition, especially as he found that the cigarettes he had put in his pocket were crushed beyond the possibility of use. It was bad for his sleep, for he lay flat on his back for a long time thinking things over, and all he could think of was the way Barbara Kittridge's lips felt and the way her mouth laughed at him.

The next day he avoided his hostess. In the evening particularly he made sure not to be left alone with her. And on Sunday, when he said his good-by and drove off with Trudy at his side, he vowed he would never see Barbara Kittridge again.

If he was going to marry Trudy—and that seemed entirely probable, for she seemed perfectly willing and he certainly couldn't do anything about it—well, the thing to do was to keep out of the way of temptation. After all, Kitt was the first girl who had interested him since he had asked Mildred to marry him. If he should strike only one exciting girl every six or eight months, it ought to be fairly easy to keep out of their way.

I record his line of reasoning. It becomes my painful duty to record his actions during the three months that followed. But I will do it quickly for you, so that you will not feel so badly about it as I do.

A week after the Kittridge house party Mrs. Trudeau decided to take Mildred abroad. Two weeks after that they sailed. Both of them were properly kissed good-by by George Banks. They found their stateroom filled to the point of discomfort with flowers and baskets of fruit and cakes and books, and cards from George Banks saying bon voyage and other stimulating sentiments.

From the pier George made his way to a certain club and partook of certain stimulants in tall cold glasses. He stayed in the club for dinner, which consisted of several repetitions of the same stimulants, and for the night, which was interspersed with more of the same. By Monday he was ready to return to his regular round of duties in his father's bond house and to look at things calmly.

Thereafter for two weeks he lived a life of quiet and sobriety, at home for dinner every night and in bed early. He wrote to Mildred, care of this and that in Paris and London and Berne and elsewhere, and told her that life was dull without her, as it was. He did not mention that this particular sort of dullness was relief from the other kind of dullness that had been his lot before she left.

Then he got a note from Barbara Kittridge, which said that she was having a lot of people out for a week-end and that she would be delighted to have him among them. This he carried in his pocket for two days and finally answered by a letter which alleged a business trip out of town. The next day he called Kitt on the phone and told her that he found he didn't have to go away after all.

For a great part of Friday evening he talked with Kitt. Saturday morning they swam together—with several other people, which was just as well. Sunday they played tennis and talked about books. Monday he came home again with a heavy heart. He had not kissed Kitt, nor had he come close to it. But he had recognized in her a person worthy of himself—more than worthy of himself—far above him.

She worried him. She made him wish he were less than a gentleman and could drop his fiancée quietly off a pier in a burlap bag. She caused him to spend another afternoon and evening with the tall cool glasses.

For the rest of the summer, let us say merely that George Banks was seen more or less frequently at the Kittridge summer home and that he dined with Kitt in town on several occasions. Let us say that he remembered throughout that he was engaged to be married and that he maintained a high standard of personal behavior.

Let us skip to the not particularly joyous day on which he received a letter from Mildred Trudeau, saying that she would land in New York from the Majestic on September fifth, barring icebergs and other acts of God. At which time, she said, they would announce that their wedding would take place in October.

With the aid of another evening at the club, George bore up. After all, Mildred was a very fine type of young woman. High social endowments. Mighty respectable and dependable. He wouldn't jilt her. Hell, let her marry him!

Still, when his father called him in next morning and asked him to go to Chicago on business that would keep him away from New York on the day of his fiancée's arrival, he welcomed the opportunity. He wired to Bill Lincoln, who had been his roommate for two years, and told him to have the Field Museum and the stockyards ready. With some abandon he packed two bottles of Scotch in his suit case for the trip.

IV

On the evening of September third George Banks was told by the doorman of the Sportsmen's Club in Chicago that Mr. Lincoln was awaiting him in the bar. Going through the main lounge and taking the first turn to the left, he found that the doorman had spoken at least part of the truth.

Mr. Lincoln was awaiting him. So was the bartender of the Sportsmen's Club. So were a great many Sportsmen's Specials, which were made of gin and lime juice and dashes of things from several bottles, the whole being shaken until it became greenish and frothy. The mixture was efficacious. After the fifth, or possibly the sixth, Mr. Lincoln and his guest, Mr. Banks, might fairly have been said to have reached the ole-fella state. After the eighth, or possibly the twelfth, they felt themselves sufficiently fortified for dinner, and left the bar with promises of a speedy return.

In the dining room, when the waiter, wrinkling his brow over his orders, was fairly started toward the kitchen, Bill Lincoln came to the point.

"Phooey," he said, "whus this I hear 'bout you being engaged?"

He leaned across the table slightly, looking out of the tops of his eyes. His guest drank water.

"Yes," said George Banks.

"Yes, what? Yes, you're engaged? I shu'say you pro'bly are engaged. Seems's though I haven't read anything else in months but George Banks engaged. What I mean's, who's the girl? Whus she like? Is she downhearted or does she keep the spirit of conviv'al'ty in the home? Tell me about her."

"Oh, she's all right."

"Well, tha's a big send-off you give her. 'She's all right,' he says. I didn't ask you if she's sick. I ask you whus she like? Is she a good egg? Tha's what I mean. Is she a good egg?" He stared across the table at George. "Phooey," he said after a moment, "y'understand I didn't mean any harm. I hope I didn't offend you or anything. 'S jus' friendlies' kin' of interes'. 'F course a fella gets a drink or two, he doesn't talk so nice as he might. But Lord! I didn't mean any harm!" His voice trailed off and he stared.

"It isn't that, Bill. You didn't say anything wrong. 'S jus' th' I wan'ed to keep on pleasant topics. I don't want to talk about whus she like. Le's talk about you."

George Banks reached for the water again.

"Wait!" said Bill Lincoln. "Wait! Don' touch that stuff. Good Scotch in my pocket."

He called a captain and ordered sparkling water, glasses and ice. When these necessities arrived he made two drinks and pushed one across the table.

"Now," he said, "what's all this talk about pleasant topics?" The oysters arrived and interrupted him, but he waited. "Tell me," he said as a father commands his erring son.

And so it was that George Banks divulged, for the first time, his inmost thoughts about marriage and women and Mildred Trudeau. With eloquence that waned and waxed as food sobered him and Scotch buoyed him up, he told the whole story of nearly a year of engagement. He told of the enthusiasm that had robbed him of discretion, of the dreadful months of engagement to beauty unmarred by brains. He explained the conventions that the fact of being a gentleman forces upon one engaged by mistake, and how he was just gentleman enough to go through with the thing. He omitted entirely any reference to Barbara Kittridge, and, at that, his story was not finished until they were ready to return to the bar—which they did.

At eleven, when the bar closed, they went, supplied with water and ice, to a corner of the lounge and talked further. All I can say of their conversation is that it was earnest. To reproduce it would be to endanger the world's supply of apostrophes and possibly to make this story unfit for publication.

Eliminating nonessentials, the thing simmered down to an argument as to whether a gentleman must necessarily be a damn fool. Mr. Lincoln saw no sense in Mr. Banks's theories of social ethics, and Mr. Banks had no defense except a series of dogmas about what a gentleman might not do. Therefore Mr. Lincoln won the debate and Mr. Banks agreed that, gentleman or no gentleman, it was up to him, for the good of all concerned, especially old Bill Lincoln, to break his engagement into a thousand pieces.

So firm was his conviction that it held him after he had safely attained his room. He found writing materials in the desk and proceeded not to put off till tomorrow what he had the nerve to do tonight. For nearly an hour he sat and wrote and tore up paper and chewed the penholder and smoked cigarettes. And finally he was satisfied. He folded the paper and put it into an envelope. He picked his way carefully down the hall and rang for the elevator. When it came he handed his letter and fifty cents to the astonished elevator boy, with strict orders that this letter must be posted at once. The boy bowed and agreed that it should be so. George Banks found his room and went to bed. Let us read the letter into the evidence:

MY DEAR MILDRED: I sent a letter to you at the Ritz yesterday to explain how I happened to be in Chicago when you got home. In that letter I said a lot of things I did not honestly mean. The things I mean I did not mean were the things I said about—erasure—loving you. I know that a gentleman does not ever jilt a lady and I hope you will accept my apologies and I hope you will forgive me and I hope that you will understand that I am not jilting you exactly, but only telling you the truth for your good and my good both. You see, it would be a hell of a mess if we got married and we would both be unhappy and so I do not see any sense in being a gentleman about it. It would be pretty hard to be a gentleman and be married to you, anyway, as a friend of mine was saying to me only this evening.

You see, when I asked you to marry me I did not know you very well and I thought you were different from the way you are. I do not mean to say that you are not great the way you are, and everybody seems to think you are great, and my family likes you; but what I mean is I think you would probably be a wonderful wife for somebody that thinks woman's place is in the home, or probably almost anybody but me. But, you see, I cannot talk to you, because I never think you understand what I say and I do not believe you do now. Anyway, I do not think that would be a very good way to commence being married, not understanding each other when we talk and not talking very much.

So what I want to suggest if you do not mind too much is that we do not announce that we will get married in October or any time at all, but just quietly forget it and let bygones be bygones and you speak to me when you see me around even if you know I am not a gentleman, because this is the only time I have not been a gentleman with you or anybody else. And you will know that I am sorry, because I have been thinking of what a mess we would make of it for months; and I have not said anything about it before, because I did not want to be not a gentleman. And I want to impress on you that I am perfectly stone cold sober when I am writing this and that I would never write it at all if it wasn't for the best of both of us.

Hoping to see you soon.

Sincerely yours, GEORGE BANKS.

V

At eleven the next morning George Banks awoke in his room in the Sportsmen's Club. He found his eyes burning and his vision blurred. He found his head throbbing with an ache which radiated from one particular spot inside of his forehead. He found his lips and tongue parched as though he had slept all day in the middle of a desert with his mouth wide open to the blistering sun. An experiment in rising showed conclusively that his knees were weak and that his equilibrial nerves were functioning badly, if at all.

But worse than all this physical disability was a sickening sense of unpleasantness to be faced, which was firmly fixed in the back of his mind. He tried to think, but memories slipped away from him and disappeared like so many slippery pieces of soap under a bathtub. Presently he gave up and lay face downward on the bed, partly conscious, knowing only that his head was throbbing, throbbing, throbbing.

Half an hour later he mustered his courage again and sat up. The room whirled dangerously and he grasped the side of the bed. The edges of his vision were a little clearer. He looked about him. On the desk he saw salvation—a half-full bottle of Scotch. Shakily, supporting himself by whatever came to hand, he made his way to the desk. He carried the bottle to the bathroom and poured a drink of heroic proportions. He drank.

For a minute he sputtered. His eyes blurred again worse than before. He was not entirely sure that he had not wasted the whisky. Then he became stronger, blinked a few times, placed one foot timidly before the other and walked.

Just as he got back to the bed and sat down, he remembered. He had written a letter to Mildred. He had told her what he thought—of her and of his engagement to her and everything. He had asked her to call it all off. Of that much he was sure. And past that his memory would not carry him. Had he told her she was the world's dumbest woman? Had he told her that he had much rather marry a book of etiquette because that, at least, could be left home? Probably. He didn't know, and it didn't make much difference. The import of the letter, however he had worded it, was enough.

He rolled across the bed to the telephone and got Bill Lincoln on the wire.

What George Banks said to Bill Lincoln is neither printable nor essential. It is enough that Bill rushed to the Sportsmen's Club to confer with his ex-roommate, and that the result of the hasty conference was that George Banks found himself, in almost no time, on a train which was due at Grand Central Station at 9 A.M., September fifth.

For it had been decided that he must beat his fiancée to his letter or be forever damned, socially and as a gentleman, and this was the only way the thing could be done. His father's business was unfinished, but that could be explained somehow. The point now was to save Mildred Trudeau's feelings and George Banks's soul. To that end all else must be sacrificed.

George Banks slept soundly in the club car while the train bore him many miles from Chicago. It was close to dinner time when he snorted, gulped five times in rapid succession, and awoke feeling clearer in the head, but clearer, too, in the realization of what he had to face. It was then that he remembered a bottle which had never been taken from his suit case, and bethought himself, in this connection, of an old proverb having to do with the hair of the dog that bites one. A few minutes later the club-car porter was pouring bubbly water into a glass the lower half of which was filled with ice and an amber colored fluid.

After the first, George Banks felt stronger. As the treatment progressed he began to become friendlier toward his fellow wanderers through this vale of tears. When it was time for the fourth, he felt moved to alleviate the sufferings of a young man who sat at his left, separated from him by only one vacant chair. The young man accepted. On investigation he proved to be none other than Harry Powers, who had graduated from Princeton only three years before George. So there they were. They found reminiscences enough to last nearly through dinner; and by the time these began to pall on them they were ready to philosophize on whatever subjects presented themselves, which offered a wide range indeed.

The upshot was that they spent the evening together over George's bottle. Nor did they consider the evening at an end until the bottle had been emptied beyond the possibility of miscalculation. Even then the club-car porter had to plead with them to let him close up for the night.

By showing his Pullman check to the various porters he encountered, George found his way to his own berth. He flung himself in headlong. He undressed lying on his stomach, and wriggling out of his clothes, after what must be the manner of Houdini in a strait-jacket at the bottom of a river. By a miracle he found his pajamas and got himself into them.

For some time he had not thought of what awaited him in the morning. Suddenly the realization came back to him with a vividness that shook him. He would have to kiss the bearded cheek of Mrs. Trudeau. He would have to stare hungrily for hours and hours at her inane daughter—his fiancée. And—good Lord!—first he would have to dash to the Ritz and get that letter before she did. Suppose the ship should dock at daybreak. He had heard they did sometimes. He would have to be early all right.

His reasoning led him to the conclusion that the porter must be admonished to call him early—if the porter was waking. If you're waking, call me early, call me early, mother dear. Oh yes, by all means. The porter must be waking, and if he was waking, he must call George early.

With the refrain of Tennyson's worst poem running through his head, George Banks, neatly clad in blue silk pajamas, rolled from his berth into the dimly lighted aisle. If you're waking, call me early, call me early, porter dear. He stumbled over the prominently displayed shoes of the snoring gentleman in the next section. If you're waking, call me early.... He arrived at the men's wash room and pushed the curtain aside. The porter was not there.

George Banks rang a bell and waited a moment, but no one appeared. Porter probably gone to sleep in the caboose or whatever arrangement they have for porters to sleep in. Better find the conductor, anyway. More dependable fellows, these conductors.... If you're waking, call me early, call me early, conductor dear. Not so good. Meter all wrong. But a wise hunch to tell the conductor.

If you're waking, call me early.... George Banks found his way through the next car to the confusion of the shoes parked neatly along the aisle. No porter there, either. He went on. Another car yielded neither porter nor conductor, and George was sick of this business. Chances were some one would call him too early, anyway. They always did.

He gave up the expedition and started back. Through one car—two, three. And then he began to have misgivings. What was the name of his car? Santa Clara? Middleditch? Marianola? Spencersfield? None of them sounded familiar. For that matter, what was the number of his berth? Lower—Lower Five? Seven? Twelve? Ten? That bit of information, too, escaped him. He went through another car to see if any of the green curtains looked familiar. Then he went back through three or four cars. The cars were all alike. The curtains were all alike. The numbers meant nothing.

The train threw itself round a curve just as George Banks came opposite the curtained entrance to the men's room of the good car Gwendoline. George's feet forsook him. He was catapulted through the curtain and saved himself from destruction only by a lucky grab at a passing wash basin. He pulled himself upright. The shock was great. He eased himself to a position of comfort on the long leather seat. It had been a long walk through all those cars, back and forth.

In fact he was remarkably sleepy. A tiring journey it had been.... Oh, well, the train was going to New York. Some porter could be persuaded to find him his berth in the morning. He drew his feet up and stretched out as far as possible on the seat. Presently he slept.

VI

The porter who came upon George Banks in the morning was a fat jolly person who had made many a friend and many a tip by his big-hearted way. He placed hand on the shoulder of the Banks blue silk pajamas. He shook ever so gently. He knew that you never know what will happen when you wake the gentlemen up.

"Cap'n, sir," he said in his easiest voice, "better wake up, sir. We in." There was a faint, almost indefinable sign of life from the gentleman in the blue pajamas. The porter allowed his pudgy hand to shake again. "Time you was up, sir," he said more than civilly. "Gettin'-up time."

He was rewarded with greater activity. The blue-pajamaed body uncurled itself in the manner of a boa constrictor.

"Wump!" said George Banks.

The hand on his shoulder continued to move gently back and forth.

"Yes, sir. Gettin'-up time. We in a station right this minute."

George Banks turned his head slightly, opened one eye and fixed it on the porter. He thought deeply for an instant.

"Wump?" he inquired.

"We right at a platform right this minute," the porter repeated. "This yere's Boston." George Banks sat up straight with both eyes wide.

"This yere's what?"

"Boston."

"Boston?"

"Boston, I says, Cap'n. Boston's right."

"Boston?"

"You said it."

George Banks sprang to his feet, disregarding the state of his equilibrial nerves. He took the porter by both shoulders and held him firmly.

"Now," he said sternly, "you think very carefully and tell me where we are. One false move may cost you your life. Tell me the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Where are we?"

"Boston, Mass-a-chusitts, Cap'n, sir. I said it and I sticks to it. Boston, like a little brown bulldog."

The porter of the car Gwendoline was wondering what sort of case he had to deal with. He saw insanity in the reddish eyes of his man in blue pajamas.

"Look here," said George Banks, "I got on a train in Chicago yesterday and that train was going to New York. How can you tell me I'm waking up in Boston?"

"I ain't told you no lie, Cap'n, sir. I tells you we in Boston be-cause in Boston we is. 'Is yere car, she come from Chicago last night and you come with her. 'At's all I know."

"But I had a New York ticket and the conductor took it. I couldn't have been on the wrong train."

"Wrong train—no, sir. This car, she switch offn that train at Albany. This yere's the Boston car."

The truth poured into George Banks's tired brain. His clothes, his money—everything he had had with him was in New York. He released the porter. His limp arms flopped to his sides. He looked out the window at the wooden platform.

Suddenly he was galvanized into action. He sprang, knocking the porter to one side, swished through the curtained door and out to the station platform. Far away he saw the station. Pausing not, he took that direction as fast as his slippered feet would carry him, which was pretty fast, all things considered.

Through the glass swing doors he went across No Man's Land between station and trains, into the station, down the marble steps. Civilians and railroad employees stared at him. Women probably screamed. Children pointed. George Banks rushed on.

Before him was the street. In the street was an empty taxi. That was all the sprinting young man saw. Beyond that taxi he had no plans. All he knew was that there might be nameless delays in the station and in the taxi he was free. He splashed through the muddy street and jumped on the running board of the taxicab. The driver turned to him.

"Harvard Square, Cambridge!" shouted George Banks.

He opened the door and got inside. The taxi moved onward with a jerk that threw him into the seat.

"Them college boys!" sighed the driver to himself. "It's a wonder to me the things they do. Runnin' through the streets in pejammers!"

Within, George Banks huddled into a corner of the cab and thought hard. Whom did he know in Boston? There was his father's branch office, of course; but that would never do. There was old Miss Cable, his mother's second cousin; but she would serve even worse.... Wait—Jimmy Sayre! Jimmy Sayre, of course! Somewhere in Cambridge—James M. Sayre, 79—75—

He opened the door and yelled an address into the driver's ear.

The taxi man had to go up to the house and explain things a bit. He cleared the way and at a signal George Banks ran up the walk at top speed, causing, even so, considerable amazement among the breakfasting residents of Cambridge. Jimmy paid the taxi driver and gave George a bathrobe to cover his blueness.

"Better have a wash and some breakfast," said Jimmy. "Lil'll be down in a minute. Let me take you upstairs."

But the distracted look was still in George's eyes.

"Telephone," he said briefly.

"Sure, right in here," Jimmy led the way.

"I want to get the manager of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in New York," George Banks told the operator. There was fuss and waiting; interminable waiting, during which George Banks paced the rug and smoked Jimmy Sayre's cigarettes, Egyptian though they were. His host asked questions, but George was unable to give coherent answers. After a while the connection with New York was ready.

"Is this the manager? ... Well, I want to speak to somebody who has charge of the guests' mail.... Yeah.... All right, listen! I mailed a letter from Chicago night before last. Addressed to Miss Mildred Trudeau and marked Hold for Arrival.... Miss Mildred Trudeau. Mildred.... Yeah, Trudeau. That's right.... Now, I want that letter destroyed—destroyed, torn up, thrown away.... Yeah....

"What? Oh, don't be dumb. I wrote the letter, I tell you! It isn't the guests' mail unless the guests get it.... Yeah, but I wrote it; can't I have you destroy it if I want to? ... How do you know? How do you know anything? Do you know anything? Of course I wrote it. How'd I know you had it if I didn't write it? ... Don't be dumb. Why can't you——"

The conversation continued a minute or two and came to a snappy conclusion when George Banks gave the Ritz gentleman certain specific directions as to where to go.

George jiggled the receiver hook and got the long-distance operator on the line again. He told her to get him the office of the White Star Line. Again there was a pause of minutes and again the telephone was ready with New York.

"Hello! White Star Line? Is the Majestic docking this morning? ... She has, you say? What time? ... What time is it now? Do you suppose most of the passengers are still on the pier? ... Don't be fresh! I'm asking you for information. Is there any possibility of reaching one of the passengers by telephone? ... By telephone.... Yeah, I might better run down to the pier myself—in pajamas, from Boston. Sure, that's a good idea, too! I'm asking you if there's any chance of reaching one of the passengers by telephone. Is there? ... You're sure? ... No way at all, eh? All right. Thanks."

With a gesture of finality, George Banks put the receiver on the hook.

"Well, Jimmy, I've done all I could, haven't I?"

Jimmy Sayre, who had not the faintest idea of what it was all about, thought it was best to agree.

"It looks as though you had, Phooey."

"Thank you," said George Banks.

Again he placed the receiver at his ear and asked for long-distance. There was the shadow of a smile on his face.

"Long-distance, old dear. I'm awfully sorry to break in on your morning like this," he said. "I hope it isn't too much trouble....

"Will you please get me Great Neck, Long Island, one-one-six-one? ... Yep.... And ask for Miss Barbara Kittridge."