stopped. While they gazed, young Brady arrived, panting, and put into
Tracy’s hand,–sure enough–an envelope. Tracy fastened a bland
victorious eye upon the gazers, and kept it there till one by one they
dropped their eyes, vanquished and embarrassed. Then he tore open the
telegram and glanced at its message. The yellow paper fell from his
fingers and fluttered to the floor, and his face turned white. There was
nothing there but one word–
“Thanks.”
The humorist of the house, the tall, raw-boned Billy Nash, caulker from
the navy yard, was standing in the rear of the crowd. In the midst of
the pathetic silence that was now brooding over the place and moving some
few hearts there toward compassion, he began to whimper, then he put his
handkerchief to his eyes and buried his face in the neck of the,
bashfulest young fellow in the company, a navy-yard blacksmith, shrieked
“Oh, pappy, how could you!” and began to bawl like a teething baby, if
one may imagine a baby with the energy and the devastating voice of a
jackass.
So perfect was that imitation of a child’s cry, and so vast the scale of
it and so ridiculous the aspect of the performer, that all gravity was
swept from the place as if by a hurricane, and almost everybody there
joined in the crash of laughter provoked by the exhibition. Then the
small mob began to take its revenge–revenge for the discomfort and
apprehension it had brought upon itself by its own too rash freshness of
a little while before. It guyed its poor victim, baited him, worried
him, as dogs do with a cornered cat. The victim answered back with
defiances and challenges which included everybody, and which only gave
the sport new spirit and variety; but when he changed his tactics and
began to single out individuals and invite them by name, the fun lost its
funniness and the interest of the show died out, along with the noise.
Finally Marsh was about to take an innings, but Barrow said:
“Never mind, now–leave him alone. You’ve no account with him but a
money account. I’ll take care of that myself.”
The distressed and worried landlady gave Barrow a fervently grateful look
for his championship of the abused stranger; and the pet of the house, a
very prism in her cheap but ravishing Sunday rig, blew him a kiss from
the tips of her fingers and said, with the darlingest smile and a sweet
little toss of her head:
“You’re the only man here, and I’m going to set my cap for you, you dear
old thing!”
“For shame, Puss! How you talk! I never saw such a child!”
It took a good deal of argument and persuasion–that is to say, petting,
under these disguises–to get Tracy to entertain the idea of breakfast.
He at first said he would never eat again in that house; and added that
he had enough firmness of character, he trusted, to enable him to starve
like a man when the alternative was to eat insult with his bread.
When he had finished his breakfast, Barrow took him to his room,
furnished him a pipe, and said cheerily:
“Now, old fellow, take in your battle-flag out of the wet, you’re not in
the hostile camp any more. You’re a little upset by your troubles,
and that’s natural enough, but don’t let your mind run on them anymore
than you can help; drag your thoughts away from your troubles by the
ears, by the heels, or any other way, so you manage it; it’s the
healthiest thing a body can do; dwelling on troubles is deadly, just
deadly–and that’s the softest name there is for it. You must keep your
mind amused–you must, indeed.”
“Oh, miserable me!”
“Don’t! There’s just pure heart-break in that tone. It’s just as I say;
you’ve got to get right down to it and amuse your mind, as if it was
salvation.”
“They’re easy words to say, Barrow, but how am I going to amuse,
entertain, divert a mind that finds itself suddenly assaulted and
overwhelmed by disasters of a sort not dreamed of and not provided for?
No-no, the bare idea of amusement is repulsive to my feelings: Let us