The Lure of the Mask by Harold MacGrath (good books to read for 12 year olds TXT) 📖

that was a trifling matter.

"Tom!" warned Smith.

"You let me alone," replied O'Mally. "A quart of Asti won't hurt anybody."

So the thin sweet wine of Asti was served, and La Signorina toasted them all gratefully.

Early the next morning she and Kitty departed for Monte Carlo in quest of fortune. Fortune was there, waiting, but in a guise wholly unexpected.


CHAPTER XII

A BOX OF CIGARS


On the way up to Rome Hillard and his pupil had a second-class compartment all to themselves. The train was a fast one; for the day of slow travel has passed in Italy and the cry of speed is heard over the land. The train stopped often and rolled about a good deal; but the cushions were soft, and there was real comfort in being able to stretch out full length. Hillard, having made this trip many times, took the forward seat and fell into a doze.

Merrihew was like a city boy taking his first trip into the country. He hung out of the window, and smoked and smoked. Whenever the train swept round a curve he could look into the rear carriages; and the heads sticking out of the thirds reminded him of chicken-crates. Never had he seen such green gardens, such orange and lemon groves, such forests of olives. Save that it was barren rock, not a space as broad as a man's hand was left uncultivated; and not a farm which was not in good repair. One saw no broken fences, no slovenly out-houses, no glaring advertisements afield: nobody was asked impertinently if Soandso's soap had been used that morning, nor did the bambini cry for soothing-syrups. Everything was of stone (for wood is precious in Italy), generally whitewashed, and presenting the smiling countenance of comfort and cleanliness. The Italian in the city is seldom clean; there, it is so easy to lie in the gutters under the sun. Reared and bred in laziness for centuries, dirt has no terrors, but water has. With his brother in the country it is different. Labor makes him self-respecting. Merrihew had seen so many dirty Sicilians and Neapolitans working on American railways that he had come to the conclusion that Italy was the most poverty-stricken country in the world. He was now forming new opinions at the rate of one every hour.

How pretty were the peasants in the fields with their bright bits of color, a scarlet shawl, a skirt of faded blue, a yellow kerchief round the head! And the great white oxen at the plows! Sometimes he saw a strange, phantom-like, walled town hanging to some cliffs far away. It disappeared and reappeared and disappeared again. Never a chimney with the curling black smoke of the factory did he see above any of these clustered cities. When he recalled to mind the pall of soft-coal smoke which hangs over the average American city, he knew that while Italy might be cursed with poverty she had her blessing in fine clear skies. And always, swinging down the great roads, he saw in fancy the ghosts of armies, crusaders, mercenaries, feudal companies, crossbowmen, and knights in mail.

It amused him to see the buxom women flagging the train at crossings. And the little stations, where everybody rushed out to buy a drink of bottled water! Suddenly the station-master struck a bell, the conductor tooted a horn, and the engine's shrill whistle shrieked; and off they flew again. No newsboy to bother one with stale gum, rank cigars, ancient caramels and soiled novels; nothing but solid comfort. And oh! the flashing streams which rushed under bridges or plunged alongside. Merrihew's hand ached to hold a rod and whip the green pools where the fallen olive leaves floated and swam like silver minnows. Half a dozen times he woke Hillard to draw his attention to these streams. But Hillard disillusioned him. Rarely were there any fish, nor were these waters drinkable, passing as they did over immense beds of lime.

There was a change of cars at Rome and a wait of two hours. Hillard led the way to a popular café in the Piazza delle Terme, near the station. Here they lunched substantially. In that hour or so Merrihew saw more varied uniforms than he had seen in all his past life; perambulating parrakeets which glittered, smoked cigarettes or black cigars with straws in them, and drank coffee out of tumblers. He readily imagined that he was surrounded by enough dukes and princes and counts to run a dozen kingdoms, with a few left over for the benefit of the American market. He was making no mistakes now; he could distinguish a general from a hotel concierge without the least difficulty.

And still Americans, everywhere Americans; rich and poor Americans, loud and quiet Americans; Americans who had taste and education, and some who had neither; well-dressed and over-dressed, obtrusive and unobtrusive, parvenu and aristocrat. Once Merrihew saw a fine old gentleman wearing the Honor Legion ribbon in his buttonhole, and his heart grew warm and proud. Here was an order which was not to be purchased like the Order of Leopold and the French Legion of Honor. To win this simple order a man must prove his courage under fire, must be the author of an heroic exploit on the battle-field. And besides, there was this advantage: to servants in Europe a button or a slip of ribbon in the lapel signifies an order, a nobility of one sort or another, and as a consequence they treat the wearer with studied civility.

"I wish I had remembered," sighed Merrihew, after gazing at the old gentleman.

"Remembered what?"

"Why, I've got a whole raft of medals I won at college. I could wear them quite handily over here."

"Buy an order. Any pawnshop will have a few for sale. You could wear it in Switzerland or France, and nobody would be any the wiser."

"But I'm serious."

"So am I."

Merrihew brightened, reached into a vest pocket, and to Hillard's horror produced a monocle, which he gravely screwed in his eye.

"Where the-"

"Sh! If you make me laugh I'll drop it."

Merrihew stared about calmly and coldly, as he had seen some Englishmen do. A waiter, seeing the sun flash on the circle of crystal, hurried over, firmly believing he had been heliographed.

"Niente," said Merrihew, waving him aside. "You see?" he whispered to Hillard, who was rather amused at this tomfoolery. "Brings 'em without a word. Hanged if I don't wear it the rest of the trip. There's a certain-whatdyecallit?-eclaw about the demmed thing."

"Wear it, by all means. You'll be as amusing as a comic weekly. But if you ever drop it, I'll step on it accidentally."

"I can keep it in my eye all right," said Merrihew, "so long as I don't laugh. Now, while there's time, let us see some of the sights; the Golden House of Nero, for instance, and the Forum, the Colosseum, St. Peter's and the Vatican; just a passing glance at a few things, as it were." Merrihew as he spoke kept a sober countenance.

It deceived Hillard, who eyed him with unfeigned wonder, marveling that any rational mind should even think of such a thing, much less propose it.

"Why not run up to Venice and back?" he inquired sarcastically.

"Is it as far as that?" innocently. "Well, we'll make it just St. Peter's and the Vatican."

"Impossible! In the hour we have left we can see nothing, positively nothing. And even now we had better start for the station to get a compartment before the rush. St. Peter's and the Vatican! You talk like the Englishman who wanted to run over to San Francisco and back to Philadelphia in the morning."

A grin now spread over Merrihew's face. Hillard scratched his chin reflectively.

"I'll pay for the luncheon myself," he said.

"You had better. It was great sport to watch your face. I'll be in a happy frame of mind all day now."

After luncheon Merrihew secretly bought two boxes of cigars to carry along. They were good cigars and cost him fifteen dollars. He covered them with some newspapers, and at the station succeeded by some legerdemain in slipping them into one of his cases. Hillard would have lectured him on his extravagance, and this was a good way to avoid it. But some hours later he was going to be very sorry that he had not made a confidant of his guide. Merrihew had never heard of the town of Ventimiglia, which straddles the frontiers of France and Italy. As they were boarding the train they noticed two gentlemen getting into the forward compartment of the carriage.

"Humph! Our friend with the scar," said Hillard. "We do not seem able to shake him."

"I'd like to shake him. He goes against the grain, somehow." Merrihew swung into the compartment. "I wonder why the Sandfords dropped him?"

"For some good reason. They are a liberal pair, and if our friend forward offended them, it must have been something deliberate and outside the pale of forgiveness. But I should like to know where old Giovanni is. I miss him."

"Poor devil!" said Merrihew with careless sympathy. It is easy to be sympathetic with persons whose troubles are remote from our own.

The train started, and again they had the compartment.

"Monte Carlo! Gold, gold, little round pieces of gold!" Merrihew rubbed his hands like the miser in The Chimes of Normandy.

"Hard to get and heavy to hold!" quoted Hillard. "I suppose that you have a system already worked out."

"Of course. I shall win if I stick to it."

"Or if the money lasts. Bury your system, my boy. It will do you no good. Trust to luck only. Monte Carlo is the graveyard of systems."

"But maybe my system is the one. You can't tell till I have tried it."

Merrihew lighted a cigar, and Hillard smiled secretly. After some time the conductor came in to examine the tickets. When the examination was over he paused in front of Merrihew, who puffed complacently.

"Signore," the conductor said politely, "e vietato fumare."

Merrihew replied with an uncomprehending stare.

"Non fumer!" said the conductor, with his hand at the side of his mouth, as one does to a person who is suddenly discovered to be hard of hearing.

Merrihew smiled weakly and signified that he did not understand.

"Nicht rauchen!" cried the official in desperation.

Merrihew extended his hands hopelessly. He had nothing belonging to the conductor. Hillard had the tickets.

"Niet rooken! Niet rooken!"

"I say, Jack, what the deuce does he want, anyhow?"

"Cigare, cigare!" The conductor gesticulated toward the window.

"Oh!" Merrihew took the cigar from his teeth and went through the pantomime of tossing it out of the window.

"Si, si!" assented the conductor, delighted that he was finally understood.

"You might have given me the tip," Merrihew grumbled across to Hillard. He viewed the halfburnt perfecto ruefully and filliped it through the window. "How should I know smoking was prohibited?"

"You had your joke; this is mine. Besides, I remained silent to the advantage of your future education. The conductor has spoken to you in four languages-Italian, French, German and Dutch." Hillard then spoke to the conductor. "May not my friend smoke so long as ladies do not enter?"

"Certainly, since it does not annoy you." Then the conductor bowed and disappeared into the next compartment.

Merrihew inscribed on the back of an envelope, for future reference, the four phrases, and in ten minutes had,