Puslapio vaizdai
PDF
„ePub“

been a dog instead of a man, he would have looked like-Joshua. Don't you see a resemblance?"

Kelly doubled up over his wheel, and William unbent enought to smile sheepishly. I felt like a fool, and I knew I had been "had," as Angus would have said. His mother was right; there was mischief in him. He looked at me with a half-apologetic grin.

"I'm just rotting you. I hope you don't mind," he said. "You see, when Joshua was a little pup he was a frightful coward. Mother was terribly worried about us both. Dad had just been killed in the Somme show, and I had had pneumonia and could n't seem to buck up after it. When I kept on having chills and fever, mother gave me the pup, and told us we'd have to set each other an example. He was such a coward and I was so ratty, don't you see? Mother said I had the MacLeod name to grow up to, and I must give the pup a name that would make him ambitious. Poor little Josh has had a task to grow up to deserve the name of a great warrior."

The very

At Twenty-third Street Kelly shot past an outraged traffic-policeman and scudded ahead of the mid-afternoon jam of vehicles up Fifth Avenue. devil seemed to possess Kelly. Martha Ferguson and I sat on the edge of the seat holding our breath all the way up to Fifty-ninth Street, while we had one hairbreadth escape after another from collisions and arrests. William may find that sort of thing "relaxing" after a hard day in his office, and "exhilarating at the beginning of one, but it exhausted us.

At Fifty-ninth Street the inevitable happened. Kelly ignored the stop signal, and the huge officer in charge of traffic stepped squarely into our path. We screamed, and clutched Betty, who sat between us. Kelly nearly threw us all out of the car by the violence with which he put on the brakes.

[ocr errors][merged small]

yourself, making me slide the wheel on a thousand dollar's worth of tires!" Kelly replied, equally angry.

"I'll give you a black eye and a summons, both with the same lick, if you talk back to me," the officer threatened furiously.

"Is it so?" said Kelly, rising up in his seat. "You strike me, and I 'll find you after hours and open your fat skull long enough to let some sense in."

"You 're pinched," said the officer, decisively.

"One moment, please," said Angus, laying a restraining hand upon Kelly's shoulder. "I don't think you two fellows could hurt one another." He smiled at them.

"What is it?" "What do you say?" they inquired together.

"Do you box, old chaps?" asked.

Angus

They looked at each other and then at Angus.

"Sure I do," said the officer. "If you mean me," said Kelly, "I do indeed."

"Cousin William," said Angus, "may I arrange a bout?"

"Go to it, kid," said William.

"Give me your card," said Angus, and William hastily fished a card from his wallet. "Now, then," Angus continued, holding out the card to the perspiring officer, "come out the first bank holiday to Mr. Ferguson's country place at that address, and we 'll stage a bout between you. How would ten rounds do? That is, if you're not afraid of each other?"

"Give me your address, Captain," said William Ferguson, pencil in hand, "and remember there's a five hundreddollar purse for the winner, and two hundred dollars for the loser."

[ocr errors]

"I promised my old woman- the officer began, scratching his head in a doubtful way.

"Fetch her along," said Angus. "Fetch your family and friends and have a fine day with us in the country."

"Thank you, sir, I'll think it over. There's an ordinance against prizefighting."

"We'll stop another time and ask you again," said Angus.

"All right, sir. As for you," he added

[graphic]

"'Come out the first bank holiday to Mr. Ferguson's country place. we 'll stage a bout between you'"

[merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

and

would be hardly any left in three weeks."

We rode on uneventfully for the next half-hour or so, while Angus questioned Kelly as to how many "stone" he weighed and if he were in training and what weight of gloves he used, and a lot of other things I could n't hear for the rush of air. Kelly will not drive slower than forty miles an hour. At length we pulled up to the curb.

"We're in the country now," said Kelly, with a wave at the gorgeous autumnal foliage all about us. "Do you want the young gentleman to take the wheel?"

"Come on, diplomat, let's see how you can drive," said William. He got out and came around to take Angus's place, while Angus scrambled over behind the wheel, and peered down at the confusion of gages and things on the dash-board. Our car had a wonderful collection of dash-board fixtures. gus was fingering these things and mumbling something to Kelly.

An

somebody something in that utterly unobjectionable manner of his. He taught Kelly to repair the car. He taught the gardener how to make his own compost for the rose-bushes. He taught Bob to box, and, what was harder, he explained to Bob why it was necessary to keep one's temper while boxing. He discovered Betty's penchant for queer language, and taught her Britishisms and certain Gaelic expressions that sounded for all the world like swearing. Those two children would giggle over them, and Angus would explain elaborately, with a twinkle that showed he was "rot

"I never touched it, sir," said Kelly. 'ting" us. "I don't know what it 's for."

Angus went on fingering these things and mumbling, and Kelly repeated after a moment: "I swear to you, sir, on my bended knee, I never used it. There's a terrible lot about this car that I don't understand at all."

"Let me explain it to you," said Angus, and got out, followed by our former "expert." "Just open the hood, will you?" Angus went on. William got out, too, and Angus, noticing him, turned to us all.

"I say," he said, "please don't think me a meddlesome blighter for messing with your motor." Then to Kelly he added, "And please don't think I'm swanking or trying to make a bally ass of you."

"Certainly not, sir," said Kelly.

[merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

He actually had the temerity to teach William Ferguson golf, our own William, who has been a champion golfer for years. It was bad for William's temper until he discovered how good it was for his game, and thereafter he simply monopolized his Scotch "pedagogue."

After a week in the best of our New Rochelle schools, Angus informed us that he was "fed up with that case of mummies." The people in charge were "simply childish." The poor dears

did n't even speak grammatically. So William took him downtown every morning for a couple of weeks, and let him explore the intricacies of the stockbroker's business. That was new to him, and he picked up a wonderful lot of Wall Street jargon. William could have made a broker of him, he declared, but the boy decided he ought to broaden his field, and William finally entered him for a lot of lecture courses at Columbia University. He and William motored to town every morning. Angus dropped off at 116th Street, and William returned at three o'clock to pick him up for the regular afternoon golf.

One evening Angus came down from his room brandishing a book in one hand and shouting that at last Professor Somebody had told the truth. We were all in the library, and he took the center of the fireplace to address us.

"Here's an American scholar," he declared with enthusiasm, patting the little book, "who has examined all the books on history that are used in your schools, and who proves that all of them deliberately lie about England, espe

cially about the silly little war we had over a century ago."

"Are you sure he's not a British propagandist?" William asked, with a grin.

"Yes," said Angus, "I have a confidential list of them up-stairs, and he 's not on it. He's merely a scholar interested in showing how the anti-British attitude was produced in this country.

"Thomas Jefferson went through your Revolutionary War," said Angus, "and he said that England was the best friend the United States had or could win for herself. Those are not his words, but that was his idea. Cousin William, I wish it were possible"-Angus was tremendously in earnest "to force every history teacher in the United States to tell the whole truth about the revolt of the American colonies."

"What do you mean by the truth?" William asked, puffing away at his cigar as he always does when he is very much interested.

Angus drew himself up, and his eyes flashed.

"A certain

66

German king named George III," he declared, a man who spoke English with a marked Hanoverian accent and who was a madman and had to be confined not long after, seized by corruption the government of my country. He it as who attempted to oppress the American colonists. They revolted, like the true Britishers they were. The war over here was hopelessly mismanaged, and after a time the colonists succeeded in obtaining complete separation from the mother country, just as the great bulk of Englishmen wanted them to."

He

"Bravo!" said William, applauding. Angus maintained his gravity. was really very impressive.

"The true Briton," said he, "is as proud of America's independence as he is of the British Empire. We AngloSaxons cannot be robbed of our liberties by any German that ever lived or that ever shall live."

"Hail to the new British ambassador!" William shouted, laughing, and the children cheered with him. Then William declared, "Long may the British lion and the American eagle hunt

together cheek by jowl!" and they cheered again.

Early in December William made his annual announcement.

"Well, kids, the day has come to begin your letters to Santa Claus."

Instantly Bob and Betty broke forth into joyous hubbub. When they had left the table to go to school, Angus said:

"I say, you American parents do spoil your children, don't you?"

"Angus," said Martha Ferguson, "you must write a letter, too."

"Dear Cousin Martha," he stammered, "I really can't, you know. II'm most awfully sorry."

She was deeply hurt. "Why, Angus, why should n't you?" Angus was shifting most uncomfortably in his chair.

"I-I don't believe in the Santa Claus thing, don't you know, and-" She smiled at him, relieved. "I sometimes wonder if Bob does, either. Betty is hardly old enough to question Santa Claus's reality yet; but I'm afraid Bob has his doubts. That does n't matter at all, Angus."

"But you see, dear lady,”—Angus was evidently distressed,-"in my case it does matter. I'm most awfully sorry."

I thought I knew what the trouble

was.

"Do you hate being given presents, Angus?" I asked.

He was amazed at the question.
"No, no; rather not."

"Would n't you prefer to receive the things you want instead of a lot of things you don't want?" Mrs. Ferguson asked.

"Oh, I am so sorry!" Angus was quite miserable. "I'm so sorry, but, you see -oh, dash it all, I'll have to tell you what I think of the whole Christmas racket. You Americans have been doing this Christmas thing so long you've forgotten where you got the idea. It's a dirty Hun trick."

Martha Ferguson stared at him in open-mouthed horror.

"Why, what a dreadful thing to say!" she cried indignantly.

"Now you've put your foot in it," William growled. "When you get

[graphic]

"WILL YOU PLEASE LET ME BE SANTA CLAUS?" " From a painting made for THE CENTURY by Arthur G. Dove

(Illustrating "The Enemy of Santa Claus")

« AnkstesnisTęsti »