Perceval Gibbon - The Second Class Passenger

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"I wasted till his note was changed. 'Now, my friend,' I said. 'The
hour is come.'"

"He looked at me attentively; he is very naive, in reality. Then,
very slowly, he put one hand in his pocket and drew out the whole
bundle of money. It looked opulent, it looked fulsome.

"'Savinien,' he said. 'I will do even more than you ask. Two-fifty,
is it not? See, now, here is five hundred, and I will toss you
whether I pay you five hundred or nothing.'"

"He balanced a coin on his thumb-nail, and smiled at me sidelong. I
drew myself up with dignity to repudiate his proposal, but at that
instant there came to me--who can say what it was?--a whim, a nudge
from the thumb of Providence, a momentary lunacy! I relaxed my
attitude."

"'Very well,' I replied. 'But first permit me to examine the coin.'"

"With Rigobert, that is not an insult. He handed me the coin without
a word--an honest cart-wheel, a five-franc piece."

"'Toss, then,' I said, returning it to him. 'Face!' I called, as he
spun it up. It twinkled in the air like a humming-bird, a score of
francs to each flick of its wings, and his palm intercepted it as it
fell. I leaned across to see; behind Rigobert's shoulder the waiter
leaned likewise. The poor fellow had really no chance to practice
those little tricks in which he is eminent. I had won. I drew the
money across to me."

"'Peste!' remarked Rigobert, in a tone of dejection, and looked with
an appearance of horror at what remained to him of his thousand
francs. The waiter beamed at me and rubbed his hands. I ordered him
in a strong voice to bring two more consommations."

"'Look here,' said Rigobert. 'Lend me that five hundred, will you?
Or, at any rate----'"

"He paused, and his eye lit again with hope."

"'Tell you what,' he said. 'I'll toss you once more--five hundred
against five hundred. This'--he laid his hand on his remaining money
--'is no use to me. I simply can't do with less than a thousand. Is
it agreed?"

"I desired to refuse; I am not a gambler; I come of prudent people.
But again it came, that inspired impulse, that courageous folly."

"'It is agreed,' I replied."

"He meant to win, that time. He sat back to it, he concentrated
himself. He cast a look at me, the glance of a brigand. I was
imperturbable. Again the waiter hurried to see the venture. Rigobert
frowned."

"'You call "face," eh?' he asked, balancing the coin."

"'I call when the coin is in the air,' I replied."

"He grunted, and spun it up. 'Pile!' I called this time. Down it came
to his hand. Once more the eyes of the waiter and myself rushed to
it; the result was capable of no adjustment. I felt my heart bump
painfully. The broad coin lay on his hand, pile uppermost. I drew the
rest of the money to me."

"'A thousand thanks,' I croaked from a throat constricted with
surprise. Rigobert swore."

Cobb laughed. "Is that all that is troubling you?" he asked.

"All!" Savinien shrugged his immense shoulders desolately. "All! That
was merely the commencement," he said. "And even that did not finish
there."

"I hope Rigobert didn't get any of it back," said Cobb.

"He did his best," replied Savinien. "In a minute or two he collected
his wits and addressed himself to the situation. It was worth seeing.
He shook his depression from him like a dog shaking water from its
coat, and sat up. Enterprise, determination, ruthlessness were
eloquent in his countenance; I felt like a child before such a
combination of qualities. Then he began to talk. He has an air, that
brigand; he can cock his head so as to deceive a bailiff; he can wear
a certain nobility of countenance; and with it all he can importune
like a beggar. He has a horrid and plausible fluency; he is deaf to
denials; he drugs you with words and robs you before you recover
consciousness. He had got the length of quoting my own verses to me,
and I felt myself going, when deliverance arrived. A stout man paused
on the pavement, surveying us both, then came towards us.

"'Monsieur Rigobert,' he said, with that fashion of politeness which
one dreads, 'I am on my way to your address.'"

"'Do not let me detain you,' replied Rigobert unpleasantly.

"'But,' said the other, 'this was the day you appointed, M'sieur. You
said, 'Bring your bill to me on the 13th, and I will pay it.' Here is
the bill.'"

"He plunged his hand into his breast pocket and fumbled with papers.
Rigobert examined me rapidly. But the spell was broken, and I was
myself again master of my emotions, and of the thousand francs. He
saw that it was hopeless--and rose.

"'Monsieur,' he said to the tradesman, 'this is not a time to talk to
me of business. I have just suffered a painful bereavement.'"

"He made a gesture with his hand, mournful and resigned, and walked
away, while the tradesman gazed after him. And there was I--rich and
safe! I felt a warmth that pervaded me. I settled my hat on my head
and reached for my cane. It was then that the truly significant thing
occurred--the clue, as it were. My hand, as I took my cane, brushed
against my liqueur glass upon the table; it fell, rolled to the edge,
and disappeared. The waiter dived for it, while I waited to pay for
the breakage. His foolish German face came up over the edge of the
table, crumpled in a smile.

"'It is all right,' he said. 'The glass is not broken.'"

"It was then, my friend, that I began to perceive how things were
with me. Dimly at first, but, as the day proceeded, with growing
clearness. I became aware that I stood in the shadow of some strange
fate. Small ills, chances of trifling misfortune, stood aloof, and
let me pass unharmed; I was destined to be the prey of a mightier
evil. When I light my cigarette, do my matches blow out in the wind?
No, they burn with the constancy of an altar candle. If I leave my
gloves in a cab, as happened yesterday, do I lose them? No, the
cabman comes roaring down the street at my back to catch me and
restore them. A thousand such providences make up my day. This
morning, just before I encountered you, the chief and most signal of
them all occurred."

"Go on," said Cobb.

"It was, in fact, impressive," said Savinien. "There is, not far from
here, a shop where I am accustomed to buy my cigarettes. A small
place, you know, a hole in the wall, with a young ugly woman behind
the counter. One enters, one murmurs 'Maryland,' one receives one's
yellow packet, one pays, one salutes, one departs. There is nothing
in the place to invite one to linger; never in my life have I said
more than those two words--'Maryland' on entering and 'Madame' on
leaving--to the good creature of the shop. I do not know her name,
nor she mine. Ordinarily she is reading when I enter; she puts down
her book to serve me as one might put down a knife and fork; it must
often happen that she interrupts herself in the middle of a word. She
gets as far as:

"'Jean ki----' then I enter. 'Maryland,' I murmur, receive my packet,
and pay. 'Madame!' I raise my hat and depart. Not till then does she
know the continuation:--'ssed Marie,' or 'cked the Vicomte,'
whichever it may be. Not a luxurious reader, that one, you see.

"Well, this morning I enter as usual. There she sits, book in hand.
'Maryland' I murmur. For the first time in my experience of her she
does not at once lay the book, face downwards, on the counter, and
turn to the shelf behind her to reach me my cigarettes. No, the good
creature is absorbed. 'Pardon,' I say, rather louder. She looks up,
and it is clear she is impatient at being disturbed. 'Maryland,' I
request. She puts down the book and fumbles for a packet. But I am
curious to know what book it is that holds her so strongly, what
genius of a romancer has aimed so surely at her intelligence. I turn
the book round with a finger. The shop, the shelves, the horse's face
of Madame the proprietress swim before me. I could dance; I could
weep; I could embrace the lady in the pure joy of an artist
appreciated and requited. For of all the books ever printed upon
paper, that book is mine. My verses! My songs of little lives, they
grasp at her and will not let go, like importunate children; she is
not easily nor willingly free of them when affairs claim her. Nunc
dimittis!"

"What did you do?" inquired Cobb. "Give her a watch, or what?"

"My friend," said Savinien, "I was careful. To do a foolish or a
graceless thing would have been to dethrone for her a poet. There was
need of a spacious and becoming gesture. I opened her book at the
fly-leaf, and reached across to the comptoir for a pen. She turned at
that and stared, possibly fearful, poor creature, that it was the
till that attracted me. I took the pen and splashed down on the fly-
leaf of the book my name in full--a striking signature! Then without
a further word that might make an anti-climax, I took my cigarettes
and departed. I was so thrilled, so exalted, that it was five minutes
before I remembered to be afraid."

"For my fortune was becoming bizarre, you know. It was making me
ridiculous even to myself. I have told you but the salient incidents
of it; I do not desire to weary you with the facts of the broken
braces, the spurious two-franc piece, or the lost door-key. But it is
becoming sinister; it needed a counter-poise before it became so
pronounced that nothing but sudden death would suffice. The thief
steals my watch and I am relieved; he is departing with my best
wishes for his success; all promises well, till you arrive at the
charge, with your comb erect, and seize him. It is all of a piece.
Yes, I know it is funny, but it alarms me. I offer it, therefore, my
watch--a sacrifice. Perhaps it likes watches. If so, I have got off
cheaply, for, to tell the truth, it was not much of a watch."

He raised the minute glass and drank, setting it down again with a
flourish.

"And now I must be going," he said. "It is a strange story--not? But
I don't like it; I don't like it at all."

"Adieu," said Cobb, rising also. "I don't think I'd worry, if I were
you. And I won't interfere again."

"On no account," said Savinien, seriously.

Cobb watched him move away, plodding along the pavement heavily, huge
and portentous. The back of his head bulged above the collar, with no
show of neck between. He was comical and pathetic; he seemed too vast
in mere flesh to be the sport of a thing so freakish as luck. To
think that such a bulk had a weak heart in it--and that deeper still
in its recesses there moved and suffered the soul of a poet!

"Queer yarn," mused Cobb.

It was on the following morning, while Cobb was dressing, that the
messenger arrived--a little man in black, with a foot-rule sticking
out of his coat-pocket. He looked like an elderly man-servant who had
descended to trade. He had a letter for Cobb, addressed in Savinien's
pyrotechnic hand, and handed it to him without speaking.

"My dear friend," it said, "I fear the worst. On my return to my
rooms here, the first thing I saw was my watch, reposing on my
bedside table. It appears that when I made my toilet in the morning I
forgot to put it in my pocket. The thief, after all, got nothing. I
am lost. In despair, Your Cesar Savinien."

"Yes?" said Cobb. "You want an answer?" For the little artisan in
black was waiting.

"An answer!" The other stared. "But----then monsieur does not know?"

"What?"

"He must have been going down to post that note when he had written
it," said the little man. "We found it in his hand."

"Eh?" Cobb almost recoiled in the shock of his surprise and horror.
"D'you mean to tell me that after all, he--he is----"

The little man in black uttered a professional sigh. "The concierge
found him in the morning," he replied. "It is said that he suffered
from his heart, that poor Monsieur."

"Good Lord!" said Cobb.

VI

BETWEEN THE LIGHTS

There was but the one hotel in that somber town of East Africa, and
Miss Gregory, fronting the proprietor of it squarely, noted that he
looked at her with something like amusement. She was a short woman
of fifty, grey-haired and composed, and her pleasant face had a quiet
and almost masculine strength and assurance. In her grey flannel
jacket and short skirt and felt hat, with a sun-umbrella carried like
a walking-stick, she looked adequate and worthy. Hers was a presence
that earned respect and deference in the highways of travel; she had
the air of a veteran voyager.

"I have managed to lose the boat," she said evenly; "and my luggage,
of course, has been carried on to Zanzibar."

The hotel proprietor had not risen from his chair. He shrugged and
smiled as he looked up at her.

"Vat you vant?" he asked.

Miss Gregory frowned. "I want a room for the night," she answered. "A
room and dinner, please."

The man smiled again and bit his nails. He was a lean creature,
unshaven and sidelong, and he had the furtive and self-conscious air
of one who perpetrates a practical joke. Miss Gregory watched him
with some impatience; she had yet to learn that a Portugee of the
Coast will even lose money to inconvenience an English man or woman.

"You got money?" he asked.

Miss Gregory squared her shoulders. "I shall pay in the morning," she
said. "You need have no fear; the Consul will be back to-morrow; I
inquired at the Consulate." She paused; he wore still his narrow grin
of malice. "Man!" she said contemptuously; "do you keep an hotel and
not know a lady when you see one?"

"No money?" he suggested insinuatingly.

Miss Gregory sank a hand in her big pocket and brought forth her
purse. There was a slight flush on her healthy broad face, but she
governed her voice admirably.

"Here are three English shillings," she said, tilting them into her
hand. "You can take these as a--as a deposit; and the rest will be
paid in the morning. Now show me to my room."

The landlord uncoiled himself and rose from his chair to look at the
money. He peered at it in her hand, then straightened up and faced
her. Suddenly he had become hostile, lividly vicious; he laughed a
shrill cackle in her face, his nose wrinkled like a dog's.

"No good to me," he said. "T'ree shillin'--poof! For free shillin'
here you buy-a free drink. For room--an' dinner--you pay-a one pound.
Take-a your t'ree shillin' away; I don't vant-a you an' your free
shillin'. You get out--go walk-a in da street."

His eyes traveled swiftly about the place, as though to make sure
that no one overheard; then he spat a foul epithet at her. His lean,
unbuttoned body writhed as he babbled; his hands whirled in gestures;
he seemed to be seeking courage to be violent. Miss Gregory, with a
little frown of consideration, watched him. She buttoned the flannel
jacket across her breast and restored her three shillings to her
pocket. It was all done very deliberately, and through it all her
formidable gaze held the Portugee at arm's length, till his gabbled
insults died out and left him armed only with scowls. Miss Gregory
waited, but he had no more to say.

"I will call on you to-morrow, my man," she said significantly, and
walked at a leisurely rate through the door to the grave street
without, where the quick evening was already giving place to night.

The sky overhead was deep blue and clear, powdered with a multitude
of stars, and over the sea to the east a crescent of moon floated
low. The night was fresh, but not cold. Miss Gregory, pacing
tranquilly along the cobbled street, found it agreeable after the
sterile heat of the afternoon. A faint breeze stirred the acacias
which were planted along the middle of the way, and they murmured
secretly. The prospect of a night without shelter did not greatly
disturb her; she was already conscious that when she came to look
back on it, it would take a high rank among her experiences.

A turning brought her to the Praca, the little square of the town,
its heart and centre. Here there were lights, the signal that the
place had waked up for the evening. Two or three low-browed cafes
abutted on the pavement, each lively with folk who drank and talked;
the open doors of a church showed an interior faintly luminous with
candles; and men and a few women stood about in groups or moved here
and there at their ease. With her deliberate step, Miss Gregory
passed among them, looking about her with the ready interest of the
old traveler who sees without criticizing. There was a flavor in the
place and its people that struck her like something pungent; they had
individuality; they belonged to each other. There was a sinister
character in the faces and bearing of the men, a formidable
directness in the women; not one but had the air of carrying a hidden
weapon. It was the commonplace evening population of an East African
town which has never lived down the traditions of its pirate-
founders, and Miss Gregory marked its fine picturesqueness with
appreciation. Every one turned to look at her as she passed; she,
clean, sane, assured, with her little air of good-breeding, was no
less novel to them than they to her. A thin dark woman, with arms and
breasts bare, took a quick step forward to look into her face; Miss
Gregory paused in her walk to return the scrutiny. The woman's wide
lips curled in a sudden laughter; Miss Gregory smiled patronizingly,
nodded to her and passed on.

She made a tour of the square, and even explored the mouth of a dark
lane that led out of it. But it seemed to lead nowhere; it was a mere
burrow between high silent houses, twisting abruptly among them with
no purpose of direction, and she turned back to the lights. She was
conscious by now that she had been on her feet since early in the
afternoon, and she crossed to one of the cafes, where a tinkling band
added its allurements to the yellow lights, and sat down at a small
table. With one accord the customers at the place turned to look at
her. A barefoot waiter received her order for coffee; she found
herself a cigarette, lit it and looked about her. The cafe was a low
whitewashed room, open to the pavement at one side; it was crowded
with little tables, and at one end an orchestra of four sallow girls
smoked and fiddled and strummed. All about her were the hard, keen
men and women she had seen in the square, more men than women. They
talked to each other earnestly, in guarded voices, with eyes alert
for eavesdroppers; nearly every one had an air of secrecy and
caution. They were of all the racial types she had ever seen. Teuton,
Latin and Slav, and variants and mixtures of these, murmured and
whispered among themselves; only one of them was unmistakably
English.

Miss Gregory had noticed him as soon as she entered, and her table
was next to the one at which he sat with three others, who watched
him while he talked, and said little. He was a fair youth, with a
bland, rather vacant face, and a weak, slack mouth. Miss Gregory knew
such faces among footmen and hairdressers, creatures fitted by their
deficiencies to serve their betters. He had evidently been drinking a
good deal; the table before him was sloppy and foul, and there was
the glaze of intoxication in his eyes. But what arrested her was a
touch of exaltation in him, a manner as of triumph. For some reason
or other he seemed radiant and glad. The cause soon became apparent,
for he fixed his unsure gaze on her, smiled ingenuously and attempted
a bow.

"Pardon me," he said, leaning carefully towards her. "Pardon me, but
the sight of an English lady----"

Miss Gregory nodded. "All right," she said.

He hitched his chair closer to her; his three companions exchanged
glances, and one of them made as though to nudge him, but hesitated
and finally forbore.

"In. a general way," said the youth confidentially, "I wouldn't
venture to speak to you. But "--and he broke into smiles--"I'm on me
way home myself."

"I see," answered Miss Gregory.

He beamed at her, fatuous and full of pride. "On me way home," he
repeated. "For good. No more Africa for me. I've 'ad just upon eight
years of it--eight years of sun an' bugs an' fever, and now I'm going
home." He paused and looked at her impressively. "I've made my
pile," he said.

"That's good," said Miss Gregory. She saw the three others exchange
another glance.

The English youth was rapt; for some moments his eyes were unseeing,
and his lips moved without sound. It was not difficult to see what
home meant for him, a goal achieved at hazard, something familiar and
sympathetic, worth all the rest of the world. He came back to his
surroundings with a long sigh.

"You don't happen to know Clapham Junction, ma'am?" he suggested.
"Not the station, I don't mean, but the place? No? Well, that's where
I'm off to. I 'aven't seen a tramcar for eight years; it'll be queer
at first, I expect." He looked round him slowly at the low bare room
and the men in white clothes and the whispering night without. "My
mother takes lodgers," he added inconsequently.

"She will be glad to see you," said Miss Gregory.

"She will that," he agreed. He dropped his voice to the tones of
confidence. "I got an idea," he said. "Give her a surprise. I'll go
along to the house just about dark and say I'm lookin' for a room.
Eh? And she'll begin about terms. Then I'll begin. 'Never you mind
about terms,' I'll say. ''Ere's the price of eight years sweatin',
and God bless you, old lady!'" He blinked rapidly, for his eyes were
wet. "What do you think of that for a surprise?"

"Capital!" agreed Miss Gregory. "Are you going down the Coast by the
boat to-morrow?"

"That's it," he cried. "I'm going second-class, like a gentleman.
Home, by gosh!"

"Then," suggested Miss Gregory, eyeing his sullen companions, "don't
you think it would be best if you went and got some sleep now? You
wouldn't care to miss the boat, I suppose?"

He stared at her. "No," he said, as if the contingency had just
occurred to him. He sat back; his mild, insignificant face wore a
look of alarm. "No, I shouldn't. It wouldn't do." His voice dropped
again. "It wouldn't do," he repeated. "I've got it on me, an' this
ain't what you call a moral place."

Miss Gregory nodded comprehendingly. "I know," she said. "So wouldn't
it be as well on all accounts to get to bed behind a locked door?"

"You've hit it," he said. "That's what I got to do--and lock the
door. That's common sense, that is." He stared at her for an instant,
then rose with care and deliberation to his feet. He had altogether
forgotten his companions; he did not even see them.

"That is, if it'll lock," he added, and held out his hand to Miss
Gregory.

"Good-bye," she said, taking it heartily. "I'm glad to hear of your
good fortune."

He gulped and left her, walking forth through the little tables with
the uncanny straightness of the man "in liquor." Miss Gregory drank
up her coffee and sat where she was.

She could see the men at the next table out of the corner of her eye;
their heads were together, and they were whispering excitedly. The
whole affair was plain enough to a veteran of the world's byways like
Miss Gregory; the plan had been to make the youth drunk, help him
forth, and rob him easily in some convenient corner. He was the kind
of man who lends himself to being robbed; the real wonder was that it
had not been done already. But, mingled with her contempt for his
helplessness, Miss Gregory felt a certain softening. His homing
instinct, as blind as that of a domestic animal, his rejoicing in his
return, his childish plan for taking his mother by surprise, even his
loyalty to the tramcars and all the busy littleness of Clapham
Junction--these touched something in her akin to the goodness of
motherhood. It occurred to her that perhaps he had been better off
under the lights of the cafe than alone on his way to his bed; and at
that moment the three men at the next table, their conference over,
rose and went out. She sat still till they were clear; then, on an
impulse of officiousness, got up and went out after them.

Their white clothes shone in the darkness to guide her; they cut
across the square and vanished in one of those dark alleys she had
already remarked. Miss Gregory straightened her felt hat, took a
fresh grip of the stout umbrella, and followed determinedly. The
corner of the alley shut out the lights behind her; tall walls with
scarce windows fast shuttered hemmed her in; the vast night of the
tropics drooped its shadow over her. Through it all she plodded at
the gait familiar to many varieties of men from Poughkeepsie to
Pekin, a squat, resolute figure, reckless alike of risk and ridicule,
an unheroic heroine. There reached her from time to time the noises
that prevail in those places--noises filtering thinly through
shutters, the pad of footsteps, and once--it seemed to come from some
roof invisible above her--the sound of sobbing, abandoned, strangled,
heart-shaking sobs. She frowned and went on.

A spot where the way forked made her hesitate; the men she was
following were no longer in sight. But as she pondered there came to
guide her a sudden cry, clear and poignant, the shout of a startled
man. It was from the right-hand path, and promptly, as though on a
summons, she bent her grey head and broke into a run in the direction
of it. As she ran, pounding valiantly, she groped in her pocket for a
dog-whistle she had with her; she took it in her lips, and, never
ceasing to run, blew shrill call upon call. Her umbrella was poised
for war, but, rounding a corner, she saw that her whistling had done
its work; three white jackets were making off at top-speed. It takes
little to alarm a thief; Miss Gregory had counted on that.

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