★ 2 ★::A Gentleman of Leisure
The New Pyramus and Thisbe
The two men up the street. They walked in silence. Arthur Mifflin was going over in his mind such events of the as he remembered—the nervousness, the of that he was his audience, the that he had good—while Jimmy to be his own private thoughts. They had gone some either spoke.
“Who is she, Jimmy?” asked Mifflin.
Jimmy came out of his with a start.
“What’s that?”
“Who is she?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Yes, you do! The sea air. Who is she?”
“I don’t know,” said Jimmy simply.
“You don’t know? Well, what’s her name?”
“I don’t know.”
“Doesn’t the Mauretania still print a list?”
“She does.”
“And you couldn’t out her name in five days?”
“No.”
“And that’s the man who thinks he can a house!” said Mifflin despairingly.
They had now at the on the second of which was Jimmy’s flat.
“Coming in?” said Jimmy.
“Well, I was of pushing on as as the park. I tell you, I all on wires.”
“Come in and a cigar. You’ve got all night you if you want to do Marathons. I haven’t you for a of months. I want you to tell me all the news.”
“There isn’t any. Nothing in New York. The papers say do, but they don’t. However, I’ll come in. It to me that you’re the man with the news.”
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Jimmy with his latch-key.
“You’re a of burglar,” said Mifflin disparagingly. “Why don’t you use your blow-pipe? Do you realise, my boy, that you’ve let in for a dinner for twelve men next week? In the cold light of the morning, when Reason returns to her throne, that’ll come home to you.”
“I haven’t done anything of the sort,” said Jimmy, the door.
“Don’t tell me you to try it.”
“What else did you think I was going to do?”
“But you can’t. You would for a certainty. And what are you going to do then? Say it was all a joke? Suppose they you full of bullet-holes? Nice of you’ll look to some householder’s of humour, while he you full of lead with a Colt!”
“These are the of the profession. You ought to know that, Arthur. Think what you through to-night.”
Arthur Mifflin looked at his friend with some uneasiness. He how he be when he had set his mind on anything. Jimmy, under the of a challenge, to be a being, to argument. And in the present case he that Willett’s had the challenge home. Jimmy was not the man to still under the of being a “fakir,” no his had been or drunk.
Jimmy, meanwhile, had produced and cigars, and was on his on the lounge, at the ceiling.
“Well?” said Arthur Mifflin at length.
“Well? What?”
“What I meant was, is this to be permanent, or are you going to to amuse, elevate, and instruct? Something’s to you, Jimmy. There was a time when you were a little chap, a of jest, of most excellent fancy. Where be your now, your gambols, your songs, your of that were to set the table in a when you were paying for the dinner? You me more of a deaf-mute the Fourth of July with noiseless than anything else on earth. Wake up, or I shall go. Jimmy, we were boys together. Tell me about this girl—the girl you loved and were to lose.”
Jimmy a breath.
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“Very well,” said Mifflin complacently; “sigh if you like—it’s than nothing.”
Jimmy sat up.
“Yes, of times,” said Mifflin.
“What do you mean?”
“You were just going to ask me if I had been in love, weren’t you?”
“I wasn’t, I know you haven’t. You have no soul. You don’t know what love is.”
“Have it your own way,” said Mifflin resignedly.
Jimmy on to the sofa.
“I don’t either,” he said. “That’s the trouble.”
Mifflin looked interested.
“I know,” he said. “You’ve got that fluttering, when the to you like some bird its song, when——”
“Oh, up!”
“When you ask timidly, ‘Is it? Can it be?’ and answer shyly, ‘No. Yes. I it is.’ I’ve been through it of times. It is a early symptom. Unless are taken it will into something acute. In these on your Uncle Arthur. He knows.”
“You make me tired,” said Jimmy briefly.
“You have our ear,” said Mifflin kindly. “Tell me all.”
“There’s nothing to tell.”
“Don’t lie, James.”
“Well, nothing.”
“That’s better.”
“It was like this.”
“Good!”
Jimmy himself into a more position and took a from his glass.
“I didn’t see her till the second day out.”
“I know that second day out. Well?”
“We didn’t meet at all.”
“Just to be going to the same spot, eh?”
“As a of fact, it was like this. Like a fool, I’d a second-class ticket.”
“What? Our Rockerbilt Astergould, the boy millionaire, second-class! Why?”
“I had an idea it would be fun. Everybody’s so much 18more in the second cabin. You to know people so much quicker. Nine out of ten I’d much go second.”
“And this was the tenth?”
“She was in the cabin,” said Jimmy.
Mifflin his forehead.
“Wait!” he cried. “This me of something—something in Shakespeare. Romeo and Juliet? No. I’ve got it!—Pyramus and Thisbe.”
“I don’t see the resemblance.”
“Read your Midsummer Night’s Dream. ‘Pyramus and Thisbe,’ says the story, ‘did talk through the of a wall,’” Mifflin.
“We didn’t.”
“Don’t be so literal. You talked across a railing.”
“We didn’t.”
“Do you to say you didn’t talk at all?”
“We didn’t say a single word.”
Mifflin his sadly.
“I give you up,” he said. “I you were a man of enterprise. What did you do?”
Jimmy softly.
“I used to and against the opposite the barber’s shop, and she used to walk the deck.”
“And you used to at her?”
“I would look in her direction sometimes,” Jimmy, with dignity.
“Don’t quibble! You at her. You like a common rubber-neck, and you know it. I am no prude, James, but I to say that I your that of a libertine. Used she to walk alone?”
“Generally.”
“And now you love her, eh? You on that ship happy, careless, heart-free. You came off it and saddened. Thenceforth for you the world but one woman, and her you had lost.”
He in a and manner, and took a from his to him up.
Jimmy moved on the sofa.
“Do you in love at sight?” he asked fatuously. He was in the mood when a man says the memory of which makes him wake up all over for nights to come.
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“I don’t see what sight’s got to do with it,” said Mifflin. “According to your own statement, you and at the girl for five days without stopping for a moment. I can that you might into love with anyone by the end of that time.”
“I can’t see myself settling down,” said Jimmy thoughtfully. “And until you that you want to settle down, I you can’t be in love.”
“I was saying that about you at the just you came in. My was that you were one of the of the world.”
“By George, you’re right!”
“I always am.”
“I it’s having nothing to do. When I was on the News I was like this.”
“You weren’t on the News long to of it.”
“I now I can’t in a place more than a week. It’s having this money that it, I suppose.”
“New York,” said Mifflin, “is full of who will be to you of the incubus. Well, James, I shall you. I more like now. By the way, I you of this girl when you landed?”
“Yes.”
“Well, there aren’t so many girls in the United States. Only twenty million. Or is it million? Something small. All you’ve got to do is to search about a bit. Good night.”
“Good night.”
Mr. Mifflin the stairs. A minute later the of his name being called from the Jimmy to the window. Mifflin was on the below, looking up.
“Jimmy?”
“What’s the now?”
“I to ask. Was she a blonde?”
“What?”
“Was she a blonde?” Mifflin.
“No,” Jimmy.
“Dark, eh?” Mifflin, making night hideous.
“Yes,” said Jimmy, the window.
“Jimmy! I say, Jimmy!”
The window up again.
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“Well?”
“I myself.”
“Go to bed!”
“Very well. Good night.”
“Good night.”
Jimmy his head, and sat on the chair Mifflin had vacated. A moment later he rose and off the light. It was to and think in the dark. His off in many channels, but always came to the girl on the Mauretania. It was absurd, of course. He didn’t wonder that Arthur Mifflin had the thing as a joke. Good old Arthur! Glad he had a success. But was it a joke? Who was it said that the point of a joke was like the point of a needle—so small that it is to when at oneself? If else had told him such a he would have laughed himself. Only when you are the centre of a romance, limping, you see it from a different angle. Of course, told baldly, it was absurd. He see that. But something right at the of his mind told him that it was not absurd. And yet—— Love didn’t come like that—in a flash. You might just as well a house to into being in a moment. Or a ship. Or an automobile. Or a table. Or a—— He sat up with a jerk. In another he would have been asleep.
He of bed, but a long way off—the of a way. Acres of to be over, and then the of a climb at the end of it. Besides undressing. Nuisance—undressing. That was a dress that girl had on the fourth day out. Tailor-made. He liked tailor-mades. He liked all her dresses. He liked her. Had she liked him? So hard to tell if you don’t a of speaking. She was dark. Arthur liked blondes. Arthur was a fool! Good old Arthur! Glad he had a success! Now he if he liked. If he wasn’t so restless. If he didn’t that he couldn’t stop more than a day in any place. But would the girl have him? If they had spoken it it so hard to——
At this point he asleep.
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