The subdued clatter of knives and forks had ceased. The diners, unused to this sort of thing at the Cosmopolis, were trying to adjust their faculties to cope with the outburst. Waiters stood transfixed, frozen, in attitudes of service. In the momentary lull between verse and refrain Archie could hear the deep breathing of Mr. Brewster. Involuntarily he turned to gaze at him once more, as refugees from Pompeii may have turned to gaze upon Vesuvius; and, as he did so, he caught sight of Mr. Connolly, and paused in astonishment.
Mr. Connolly was an altered man. His whole personality had undergone a subtle change. His face still looked as though hewn from the living rock, but into his eyes had crept an expression which in another man might almost have been called sentimental. Incredible as it seemed to Archie, Mr. Connolly’s eyes were dreamy. There was even in them a suggestion of unshed tears. And when with a vast culmination of sound Miss Huskisson reached the high note at the end of the refrain and, after holding it as some storming-party, spent but victorious, holds the summit of a hard-won redoubt, broke off suddenly, in the stillness which followed there proceeded from Mr. Connolly a deep sigh.
Miss Huskisson began the second verse. And Mr. Brewster, seeming to recover from some kind of a trance, leaped to his feet.
“Great Godfrey!”
“Sit down!” said Mr. Connolly, in a broken voice. “Sit down, Dan!”
“He went back to his mother on the train that very day: He knew there was no other who could make him bright and gay: He kissed her on the forehead and he whispered, ‘I’ve come home!’ He told her he was never going any more to roam. And onward through the happy years, till he grew old and grey, He never once regretted those brave words he once did say: It’s a long way back to mother’s knee–”
The last high note screeched across the room like a shell, and the applause that followed was like a shell’s bursting. One could hardly have recognised the refined interior of the Cosmopolis dining-room. Fair women were waving napkins; brave men were hammering on the tables with the butt-end of knives, for all the world as if they imagined themselves to be in one of those distressing midnight-revue places. Miss Huskisson bowed, retired, returned, bowed, and retired again, the tears streaming down her ample face. Over in a corner Archie could see his brother-in-law clapping strenuously. A waiter, with a display of manly emotion that did him credit, dropped an order of new peas.
“Thirty years ago last October,” said Mr. Connolly, in a shaking voice, “I–”
Mr. Brewster interrupted him violently.
“I’ll fire that orchestra-leader! He goes to-morrow! I’ll fire–” He turned on Archie. “What the devil do you mean by it, you–you–”
“Thirty years ago,” said Mr. Connolly, wiping away a tear with his napkin, “I left me dear old home in the old country–”
“MY hotel a bear-garden!”
“Frightfully sorry and all that, old companion–”
“Thirty years ago last October! ‘Twas a fine autumn evening the finest ye’d ever wish to see. Me old mother, she came to the station to see me off.”
Mr. Brewster, who was not deeply interested in Mr. Connolly’s old mother, continued to splutter inarticulately, like a firework trying to go off.
“‘Ye’ll always be a good boy, Aloysius?’ she said to me,” said Mr. Connolly, proceeding with, his autobiography. “And I said: ‘Yes, Mother, I will!'” Mr. Connolly sighed and applied the napkin again. “‘Twas a liar I was!” he observed, remorsefully. “Many’s the dirty I’ve played since then. ‘It’s a long way back to Mother’s knee.’ ‘Tis a true word!” He turned impulsively to Mr. Brewster. “Dan, there’s a deal of trouble in this world without me going out of me way to make more. The strike is over! I’ll send the men back tomorrow! There’s me hand on it!”
Mr. Brewster, who had just managed to co-ordinate his views on the situation and was about to express them with the generous strength which was ever his custom when dealing with his son-in-law, checked himself abruptly. He stared at his old friend and business enemy, wondering if he could have heard aright. Hope began to creep back into Mr. Brewster’s heart, like a shamefaced dog that has been away from home hunting for a day or two.