Read Ebook: Tales from Bohemia by Stephens Robert Neilson

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Ebook has 1455 lines and 54596 words, and 30 pages

TALES FROM BOHEMIA

When Jack Morrow returned from the World's Fair, he found Philadelphia thermometers registering 95. The next afternoon he boarded a Chestnut Street car, got out at Front Street, hurried to the ferry station, and caught a just departing boat for Camden, and on arriving at the other side of the Delaware, made haste to find a seat in the well-filled express train bound for Atlantic City.

While he was being whirled across the level surface of New Jersey, past the cornfields and short stretches of green trees and restful cottage towns, he thought of the pleasure in store for him--the meeting with the young person whom he had gradually come to consider the loveliest girl in the world. Having neglected to read the list of "arrivals" in the newspapers, he knew not at what hotel she and her aunt were staying. But he would soon make the rounds of the large beach hotels, at one of which she was likely to be found.

She did not expect to see him. Therefore her first expression on beholding him would betray her feelings toward him, whatever they were. Should the indication be favourable, he would propose to her at the first opportunity, on beach, boardwalk, hotel piazza, pavilion, yacht or in the surf. Such were the meditations of Jack Morrow while the train roared across New Jersey to the sea.

The first sign of the flat green meadows, the smooth waters of the thoroughfare, the sails afar at the inlet and the long side of the sea-city stretching out against the sky at the very end of the earth is refreshing and exhilarating to any one. It gave a doubly keen enjoyment to Jack Morrow.

"Within an hour, perhaps," he mused, as the reviving odour of the salt water touched his nostrils, "I shall see Edith."

When with the crowd he had made his way out of the train, and traversed the long platform at the Atlantic City station, ignoring the stentorian solicitations of the 'bus drivers, he started walking toward the ocean promenade, invited by the glimpse of sea at the far end of the avenue. Thus he crossed that wide thoroughfare--Atlantic Avenue--with its shops and trolley-cars; passed picturesque hotels and cottages; crossed Pacific Avenue where carriages and dog-carts were being driven rapidly between the rows of pretty summer edifices, and traversed the famously long block that ends at the boardwalk and the strand.

He succeeded in getting a third-floor room on the ocean side of the first hotel where he applied. He learned from the clerk that Edith was not at this house. Sea air having revived his appetite, he decided to dine before setting out in search of her.

When, after his meal, he reached the boardwalk, the electric lights had already been turned on and the regular evening crowd of promenaders was beginning to form. He strolled along now looking at the beach and the sea, now at the boardwalk crowd where he might perhaps at any moment behold the face of "the loveliest girl in the world." He beheld instead, as he approached the Tennessee pier, the face of his friend George Haddon.

"Hello, old boy!" exclaimed Morrow, grasping his friend's hand. "What are you doing here? I thought your affairs would keep you in New York all summer."

"So they would," replied Haddon, in a tone and with a look whose distress he made little effort to conceal. "But something happened."

"Why, what on earth's the matter? You seem horribly downcast."

Haddon was silent for a moment; then he said suddenly:

"I'll tell you all about it. I have to tell somebody or it will split my head. But come out on the pier, away from the noise of that merry-go-round organ."

Neither spoke as the two young men passed through the concert pavilion and dancing hall out to a quieter part of the long pier. They sat near the railing and looked out over the sea, on which, as evening fell, the rippling band of moonlight grew more and more luminous. They could see, at the right, the long line of brilliant lights on the boardwalk, and the increasing army of promenaders. Detached from the furthest end of the line of boardwalk lights, shone those of distant Longport. Above these, the sky had turned from heliotrope to hues dark and indefinable, but indescribably beautiful. Down on the beach were only a few people, strolling near the tide line, a carriage, a man on horseback, and three frolicking dogs.

"It's simply this," abruptly began Haddon. "Six weeks ago I was married to--"

"Why, I never heard of it. Let me congrat--"

"No, don't, I was married to a comic opera singer, named Lulu Ray. I don't suppose you've ever heard of her, for she was only recently promoted from the chorus to fill small parts. We took a flat, and lived happily on the whole, for a month, although with such small quarrels as might be expected. Two weeks ago she went out and didn't come back. Since then I haven't been able to find her in New York or at any of the resorts along the Jersey coast. I suppose she was offended at something I said during a quarrel that grew out of my insisting on our staying in New York all summer. Knowing her liking for Atlantic City--she was a Philadelphia girl before she went on the stage--I came here at once to hunt her up and apologize and agree to her terms."

"Well?"

"Well, I haven't found her. She's not at any hotel in Atlantic City. I'm going back to New York to-morrow to get some clue as to where she is."

"I suppose you're very fond of her still?"

"Yes; that's the trouble. And then, of course, a man doesn't like to have a woman who bears his name going around the country alone, her whereabouts unknown."

Morrow was on the point of saying: "Or perhaps with some other man," but he checked himself. He was sufficiently mundane to refrain from attempting to reason Haddon out of his affection for the fugitive, or to advise him as to what to do. He knew that in merely letting Haddon unburden on him the cause of anxiety, he had done all that Haddon would expect from any friend.

He limited himself, therefore, to reminding Haddon that all men have their annoyances in this life; to treating the woman's offence as light and commonplace, and to cheering him up by making him join in seeing the sights of the boardwalk.

They looked on at the pier hop, while Professor Willard's musicians played popular tunes; returned to the boardwalk and watched the pretty girls leaning against the wooden beasts on the merry-go-round while the organ screamed forth, "Daddy Wouldn't Buy Me a Bow Wow;" experienced that not very illusive illusion known as "The Trip to Chicago;" were borne aloft on an observation wheel; made the rapid transit of the toboggan slide, visited the phonographs and heard a shrill reproduction of "Molly and I and the Baby;" tried the slow and monotonous ride on the "Figure Eight," and the swift and varied one on the switchback. They bought saltwater taffy and ate it as they passed down the boardwalk and looked at the moonlight. Down on the Bowery-like part of the boardwalk they devoured hot sausages, and in a long pavilion drank passable beer and saw a fair variety show. Thence they left the boardwalk, walked to Atlantic Avenue and mounted a car that bore them to Shauffler's, where among light-hearted beer drinkers they heard the band play "Sousa's Cadet March" and "After the Ball," and so they arrived at midnight.

All this was beneficial to Haddon and pleasant enough in itself, but it prevented Morrow that night from prosecuting his search for the loveliest girl in the world. He postponed the search to the next day. And when that time came, after Haddon had started for New York, occurred an event that caused Morrow to postpone the search still further.

He had decided to go up the boardwalk on the chance of seeing Edith in a pavilion or on the beach. If he should reach the vicinity of the lighthouse without finding her, he would turn back and inquire at every hotel near the beach until he should obtain news of her.

He had reached Pennsylvania Avenue when he was attracted by the white tents that here dotted the wide beach. He went down the high flight of steps from the boardwalk to rest awhile in the shade of one of the tents.

Although it was not yet 11 o'clock, several people in bathing suits were making for the sea. A little goat wagon with children aboard was passing the tents, and after it came the cart of the "hokey-pokey" peddler, drawn by a donkey that wore without complaint a decorated straw bathing hat. Morrow, looking at the feet of the donkey, saw in the sand something that shone in the sunlight. He picked it up and found that it was a gold bracelet studded with diamonds.

He questioned every near-by person without finding the owner. He therefore put the bracelet in his pocket, intending to advertise it. Then he resumed his stroll up the boardwalk. He went past the lighthouse and turned back.

He had reached the Tennessee Avenue pier without having found the loveliest girl in the world. His eye caught a small card that had just been tacked up at the pier entrance. Approaching it he read:

The hotel named was the one at which Morrow was staying. He hurried thither.

"Who lost the diamond bracelet?" he asked the clerk.

"That young lady standing near the elevator. Miss Hunt, I think her name is," said the clerk consulting the register. "Yes, that's it, she only arrived last night."

Morrow saw standing near the elevator door, a lithe, well-rounded girl with brown hair and great gray eyes that were fixed on him. She was in the regulation summer-girl attire--blue Eton suit, pink shirtwaist, sailor hat, and russet shoes. He hastened to her.

"Miss Hunt, I have the honour to return your bracelet."

She opened her lips and eyes with pleasurable surprise and reached somewhat eagerly for the piece of jewelry.

"Thank you ever so much. I took a walk on the beach just after breakfast and dropped it somewhere. It's too large."

"I picked it up near Pennsylvania Avenue. It's a curious coincidence that it should be found by some one stopping at the same hotel. But, pardon me, you're going away without mentioning the reward."

She looked at him with some surprise, until she discovered that he was jesting. Then she smiled a smile that gave Morrow quite a pleasant thrill, and said, with some tenderness of tone:

"Let the reward be what you please."

"And that will be to do what you shall please to have me do."

"Ah, that's nice. Then I accept your services at once. I am quite alone here; haven't any acquaintances in the hotel. I want to go bathing and I'm rather timid about going alone, although I'd made up my mind to do so and was just going up after my bathing suit."

"Then I am to have the happiness of escorting you into the surf."

They went bathing together not far from where he had found the bracelet. He discovered that she could swim as well as he; also that in her dark blue bathing costume, with sailor collar and narrow white braid, she was a most shapely person.

She laughed frequently while they were breasting the breakers; and afterwards, as in their street attire they were returning on the boardwalk, she chatted brightly with him, revealing a certain cleverness in off-hand persiflage.

He took her into the tent behind the observation wheel to see the Egyptian exhibition, and she was good enough to laugh at his jokes about the mummies, although the mummies did not seem to interest her. Further down the boardwalk they stopped at the Japanese exhibition, and on the way out he caught himself saying that if it were possible, he would take great pleasure in hauling her in a jinrikisha.

"I'll remember that promise and make you push me in a wheel-chair," she answered.

When they were back at the hotel, she turned suddenly and said:

He told her, and while she went up the elevator with her bathing suit, he arranged with the head waiter to have himself seated at her table.

He learned from the clerk that she had arrived alone with a letter of introduction from a former guest of the house, and intended to stay at least a fortnight.

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