THE GROWING BOY
The of the Cosmopolis Hotel was a stamping-ground of Mr. Daniel Brewster, its proprietor. He liked to about there, a on things, in the manner of the Jolly Innkeeper (hereinafter to be to as Mine Host) of the old-fashioned novel. Customers who, in to dinner, over Mr. Brewster, were to mistake him for the hotel detective—for his was and his a austere—but, nevertheless, he was being as an as he how. His presence in the a personal touch to the Cosmopolis which other New York lacked, and it the girl at the book-stall to her clients, which was all to the good.
Most of the time Mr. Brewster in one spot and just looked thoughtful; but now and again he would to the marble which he the desk-clerk and his over the register, to see who had rooms—like a child the on Christmas to what Santa Claus had him.
As a rule, Mr. Brewster this performance by the book across the marble and his meditations. But one night a week or two after the Sausage Chappie’s to the normal, he this by starting violently, purple, and an which was an of chagrin. He and into Archie, who, in company with Lucille, to be the at the moment on his way to in their suite.
Mr. Brewster gruffly; then, his victim, to having done so.
“Oh, it’s you! Why can’t you look where you’re going?” he demanded. He had much from his son-in-law.
“Frightfully sorry,” said Archie, amiably. “Never you were going to fox-trot all over the fairway.”
“You mustn’t Archie,” said Lucille, severely, attaching herself to her father’s and it a punitive tug, “because he’s an angel, and I love him, and you must learn to love him, too.”
“Give you lessons at a rate,” Archie.
Mr. Brewster his relative with a eye.
“What’s the matter, father darling?” asked Lucille. “You upset.”
“I am upset!” Mr. Brewster snorted. “Some people have got a nerve!” He at an man in a light overcoat who had just entered, and the man, though his was clear and Mr. Brewster an entire to him, stopped dead, blushed, and out again—to elsewhere. “Some people have got the nerve of an army mule!”
“Why, what’s happened?”
“Those McCalls have registered here!”
“No!”
“Bit me, this,” said Archie, himself into the conversation. “Deep and what not! Who are the McCalls?”
“Some people father dislikes,” said Lucille. “And they’ve his hotel to stop at. But, father dear, you mustn’t mind. It’s a compliment. They’ve come they know it’s the best hotel in New York.”
“Absolutely!” said Archie. “Good for man and beast! All the of home! Look on the side, old bean. No good the wind up. Cherrio, old companion!”
“Don’t call me old companion!”
“Eh, what? Oh, right-o!”
Lucille her husband out of the zone, and they entered the lift.
“Poor father!” she said, as they to their suite, “it’s a shame. They must have done it to him. This man McCall has a place next to some property father in Westchester, and he’s a law-suit against father about a of land which he to him. He might have had the to go to another hotel. But, after all, I don’t it was the little fellow’s fault. He his wife tells him to.”
“We all do that,” said Archie the married man.
Lucille him fondly.
“Isn’t it a shame, precious, that all husbands haven’t like me?”
“When I think of you, by Jove,” said Archie, fervently, “I want to babble, babble!”
“Oh, I was telling you about the McCalls. Mr. McCall is one of those little, men, and his wife’s one of those big, women. It was she who started all the trouble with father. Father and Mr. McCall were very of each other till she him the suit. I sure she him come to this hotel just to father. Still, they’ve taken the most in the place, which is something.”
Archie was at the telephone. His mood was now one of peace. Of all the which to make up in New York, he liked best the tête-à-tête dinners with Lucille in their suite, which, to their engagements—for Lucille was a popular girl, with many friends—occurred all too seldom.
“Touching now the question of and sluicing,” he said. “I’ll be them to send along a waiter.”
“Oh, good gracious!”
“What’s the matter?”
“I’ve just remembered. I promised I would go and see Jane Murchison to-day. And I clean forgot. I must rush.”
“But light of my soul, we are about to eat. Pop around and see her after dinner.”
“I can’t. She’s going to a theatre to-night.”
“Give her the old miss-in-baulk, then, for the nonce, and to-morrow.”
“She’s for England to-morrow morning, early. No, I must go and see her now. What a shame! She’s sure to make me stop to dinner, I tell you what. Order something for me, and, if I’m not in an hour, start.”
“Jane Murchison,” said Archie, “is a nuisance.”
“Yes. But I’ve her since she was eight.”
“If her had had any proper feeling,” said Archie, “they would have her long that.”
He the receiver, and asked to be with Room Service. He of the Jane, he as a tall female with teeth. He of going to the grill-room on the of a friend there, but the waiter was on his way to the room. He that he might as well where he was.
The waiter arrived, the order, and departed. Archie had just his after a shower-bath when a without the of the meal. He opened the door. The waiter was there with a table with under covers, from which a and odour. In of his depression, Archie’s up a trifle.
Suddenly he aware that he was not the only person present who was from the of the meal. Standing the waiter and at the was a long, thin boy of about sixteen. He was one of those boys who all and knuckles. He had red hair, eyelashes, and a long neck; and his eyes, as he them from the-table and them to Archie’s, had a look. He Archie of a half-grown, half-starved hound.
“That good!” said the long boy. He deeply. “Yes, sir,” he continued, as one mind is definitely up, “that good!”
Before Archie reply, the telephone rang. It was Lucille, her that the Jane would on her to dine.
“Jane,” said Archie, into the telephone, “is a pot of poison. The waiter is here now, setting out a rich banquet, and I shall have to eat two of by myself.”
He up the receiver, and, turning, met the of the long boy, who had himself up in the doorway.
“Were you somebody to dinner?” asked the boy.
“Why, yes, old friend, I was.”
“I wish—”
“Yes?”
“Oh, nothing.”
The waiter left. The long boy his more against the doorpost, and returned to his original theme.
“That surely good!” He a moment in the aroma. “Yes, sir! I’ll tell the world it does!”
Archie was not an thinker, but he at this point to a that this lad, if invited, would the and to join his meal. Indeed, the idea Archie got was that, if he were not soon, he would himself.
“Yes,” he agreed. “It doesn’t bad, what!”
“It good!” said the boy. “Oh, doesn’t it! Wake me up in the night and ask me if it doesn’t!”
“Poulet en casserole,” said Archie.
“Golly!” said the boy, reverently.
There was a pause. The to to Archie a difficult. He wanted to start his meal, but it to appear that he must either do so under the of his new friend or else the forcibly. The boy no of wanting to the doorway.
“You’ve dined, I suppose, what?” said Archie.
“I dine.”
“What!”
“Not dine, I mean. I only vegetables and nuts and things.”
“Dieting?”
“Mother is.”
“I don’t catch the drift, old bean,” said Archie. The boy with half-closed as a of perfume from the poulet en past him. He to be to as much of it as possible it got through the door.
“Mother’s a food-reformer,” he vouchsafed. “She on it. She makes Pop and me live on vegetables and nuts and things.”
Archie was shocked. It was like to a from the abyss.
“My dear old chap, you must agonies—absolute pains!” He had no now. Common pointed out his course. “Would you to join me in a bite now?”
“Would I!” The boy a smile. “Would I! Just stop me on the and ask me!”
“Come on in, then,” said Archie, taking this phrase for a acceptance. “And close the door. The is cold.”
Archie was not a man with a wide visiting-list among people with families, and it was so long since he had a boy in action at the table that he had what sixteen is of doing with a knife and fork, when it its elbows, takes a breath, and going. The which he was at a little unnerving. The long boy’s idea of with a appeared to be to it whole and out for more. He ate like a Eskimo. Archie, in the time he had in the making the world safe for the working-man to in, had occasionally been peckish, but he sat this hunger. This was eating.
There was little conversation. The boy did not in table-talk when he use his mouth for more practical purposes. It was not until the final roll had been to its last that the guest to address his host. Then he with a sigh.
“Mother,” said the python, “says you ought to every thirty-three times....”
“Yes, sir! Thirty-three times!” He again, “I haven’t had a like that.”
“All right, was it, what?”
“Was it! Was it! Call me up on the ’phone and ask me!-Yes, sir!-Mother’s off these waiters not to me anything but vegetables and nuts and things, it!”
“The to have ideas about the good old feed-bag, what!”
“I’ll say she has! Pop it as much as me, but he’s to kick. Mother says vegetables all the proteins you want. Mother says, if you eat meat, your blood-pressure goes all blooey. Do you think it does?”
“Mine well in the pink.”
“She’s great on talking,” the boy. “She’s out to-night somewhere, a lecture on Rational Eating to some ginks. I’ll have to be up to our she back.” He rose, sluggishly. “That isn’t a of roll under that napkin, is it?” he asked, anxiously.
Archie the napkin.
“No. Nothing of that species.”
“Oh, well!” said the boy, resignedly. “Then I I’ll be going. Thanks very much for the dinner.”
“Not a bit, old top. Come again if you’re in this direction.”
The long boy himself slowly, to leave. At the door he an at the table.
“Some meal!” he said, devoutly. “Considerable meal!”
Archie a cigarette. He like a Boy Scout who has done his day’s Act of Kindness.
On the it that Archie needed a fresh supply of tobacco. It was his custom, when this happened, to repair to a small shop on Sixth Avenue which he had in the of his about the great city. His relations with Jno. Blake, the proprietor, were and intimate. The that Mr. Blake was English and had, indeed, until a years an only a dozen doors or so from Archie’s London club, had as a bond.
To-day he Mr. Blake in a mood. The was a hearty, red-faced man, who looked like an English publican—the of man who a fawn-coloured top-coat and to the Derby in a dog-cart; and there to be nothing on his mind the of the weather, which he was a great conversationalist. But now had him for its own. After a and “Good morning,” he to the of out the tobacco in silence.
Archie’s nature was perturbed.—“What’s the matter, laddie?” he enquired. “You would to be a of an this morning, what, yes, no? I can see it with the eye.”
Mr. Blake sorrowfully.
“I’ve had a knock, Mr. Moffam.”
“Tell me all, friend of my youth.”
Mr. Blake, with a of his thumb, a which on the the counter. Archie had noticed it as he came in, for it was designed to the eye. It was printed in black on a yellow ground, and ran as follows:
CLOVER-LEAF SOCIAL AND OUTING CLUB
GRAND CONTEST
PIE-EATING CHAMPIONSHIP OF THE WEST SIDE
SPIKE O’DOWD
(Champion)
v.
BLAKE’S UNKNOWN
FOR A PURSE OF $50 AND SIDE-BET
Archie this document gravely. It nothing to him except—what he had long suspected—that his sporting-looking friend had blood as well as that of exterior. He a that the other’s Unknown would home the bacon.
Mr. Blake laughed one of those hollow, laughs.
“There ain’t any Unknown,” he said, bitterly. This man had suffered. “Yesterday, yes, but not now.”
Archie sighed.
“In the of life—Dead?” he enquired, delicately.
“As good as,” the tobacconist. He his and voluble. Archie was one of those in their most troubles. He was to those in of very much what is to a cat. “It’s ’ard, sir, it’s ’ard! I’d got the event all up in a parcel, and now this feller-me-lad ’as to give me the knock. This of mine—sort of ’e is; comes from London, like you and me—’as always ’ad, since he in this country, a most of away grub. ’E’d been a these last two or three years over in the old country, what with food restrictions and all, and ’e took to the food over ’ere amazing. I’d ’ave ’im against a orstridge! Orstridge! I’d ’ave ’im against ’arff a dozen orstridges—take ’em on one after the other in the same ring on the same evening—and ’em a handicap, too! ’E was a jewel, that boy. I’ve him off four of and potatoes and then look of wolfish, as much as to ask when dinner was going to begin! That’s the of a ’e was till this very morning. ’E would have out-swallowed this ’ere O’Dowd without a hair, as a ’is tea! I’d got a of ’undred on ’im, and myself lucky to the odds. And now—”
Mr. Blake into a silence.
“But what’s the with the blighter? Why can’t he go over the top? Has he got indigestion?”
“Indigestion?” Mr. Blaife laughed another of his laughs. “You couldn’t give that boy if you ’im in on safety-razor blades. Religion’s more like what ’e’s got.”
“Religion?”
“Well, you can call it that. Seems last night, of goin’ and ’is mind at a picture-palace like I told him to, ’e off to some of a lecture on Eighth Avenue. ’E said ’e’d a piece about it in the papers, and it was about Rational Eating, and that of ’im. ’E of ’e might up a hints, like. ’E didn’t know what was, but it to ’im as if it must be something to do with food, and ’e didn’t want to miss it. ’E came in here just now,” said Mr. Blake, dully, “and ’e was a lad! Scared to death ’e was! Said the way ’e’d been goin’ on in the past, it was a wonder ’e’d got any left! It was a lady that give the lecture, and this boy said it was what she told ’em about blood-pressure and ’e didn’t know ’e ’ad. She ’em pictures, pictures, of what ’appens the eater’s who doesn’t his food, and it was like a battlefield! ’E said ’e would no more think of eatin’ a of than ’e would of shootin’ ’imself, and would be a death. I with ’im, Mr. Moffam, with in my eyes. I asked ’im was he goin’ to away and just a woman who didn’t know what she was talking about had him a of pictures. But there wasn’t any doin’ anything with him. ’E give me the and ’opped it the to nuts.” Mr. Blake moaned. “Two ’undred and more gone pop, not to talk of the fifty ’e would have and me to twenty-five of!”
Archie took his tobacco and walked to the hotel. He was of Jno. Blake, and for the trouble that had come upon him. It was odd, he felt, how to link themselves up together. The woman who had delivered the lecture to not be other than the mother of his guest of last night. An woman! Not with her own family—Archie stopped in his tracks. A pedestrian, walking him, into his back, but Archie paid no attention. He had had one of those sudden, ideas, which help a man who not do much as a to his average. He there for a moment, almost at the of his thoughts; then on. Napoleon, he as he walked, must have like this after up a one to on the enemy.
As if Destiny were her plans to his, one of the he saw as he entered the of the Cosmopolis was the long boy. He was at the bookstall, reading as much of a paper as be read free under the of the girl. Both he and she were the which these affairs—to wit, that you may read without as much as can be read without the paper. If you touch the paper, you lose, and have to buy.
“Well, well, well!” said Archie. “Here we are again, what!” He the boy in the ribs. “You’re just the I was looking for. Got anything on for the time being?”
The boy said he had no engagements.
“Then I want you to with me to a I know on Sixth Avenue. It’s only a of away. I think I can do you a of good. Put you on to something ripe, if you know what I mean. Trickle along, laddie. You don’t need a hat.”
They Mr. Blake over his in an empty shop.
“Cheer up, old thing!” said Archie. “The has arrived.” He his companion’s to the poster. “Cast your over that. How that you?”
The long boy the poster. A appeared in his eye.
“Well?”
“Some people have all the luck!” said the long boy, feelingly.
“Would you like to compete, what?”
The boy a sad smile.
“Would I! Would I! Say!...”
“I know,” Archie. “Wake you up in the night and ask you! I I on you, old thing.” He to Mr. Blake. “Here’s the you’ve been wanting to meet. The left-and-right-hand east of the Rockies! He’ll the good for you.”
Mr. Blake’s English had not been overcome by in New York. He still a for the of class.
“But this gentleman’s a gentleman,” he urged, doubtfully, yet with in his eye. “He wouldn’t do it.”
“Of course, he would. Don’t be ridic, old thing.”
“Wouldn’t do what?” asked the boy.
“Why save the old by taking on the champion. Dashed sad case, ourselves! This egg’s has him the at the hour, and only you can save him. And you it to him to do something you know, it was your old mater’s lecture last night that the quit. You must in and take his place. Sort of justice, don’t you know, and what not!” He to Mr. Blake. “When is the to start? Two-thirty? You haven’t any for two-thirty, have you?”
“No. Mother’s at some ladies’ club, and a lecture afterwards. I can away.”
Archie his head.
“Then leg it where you, old bean!”
The long boy was at the poster. It to him.
“Pie!” he said in a voice.
The word was like a battle-cry.
