A Splendid Hazard by Harold MacGrath (important books to read txt) 📖

the future.

Thump-thump, thump-thump! To Fitzgerald's fogged hearing, it was like the pulse beating in the bowels of a ship, only that it stopped and began at odd intervals, intermittently. At the fourth recurrence, he sat up, to find that it was early morning, and that the sea lay; gray and leaden, under the pearly haze of dawn. Thump-thump! He rubbed his eyes, and laughed. It could be no less a person than the old sailor in the summer-yachting toggery. Drat 'em! These sailors were always trying to beat sun-up. At length, the peg left the room above, and banged along the hall and bumped down the stairs. Then all became still once more, and the listener snuggled under the covers again, and slept soundly till eight. Outside, the day was full, clear, and windy.

On the way to the dining-room, he met the man. The scars were a little deeper in color and the face was thinner, but there was no shadow of doubt in Fitzgerald's mind.

"Breitmann?" he said, with a friendly hand.

The other stood still. There was no recognition in his eyes; at least, Fitzgerald saw none.

"Breitmann is my name, sir," he replied courteously.

"I am Fitzgerald; don't you remember me? We dined in Paris last year, after we had spent the afternoon with the Napoleonic relics. You haven't forgotten Macedonia?"

Breitmann took the speaker by the arm, and turned him round. Fitzgerald had been standing with his back to the light. The scrutiny was short. The eyes of the Bavarian softened, though the quizzical wrinkles at the corners remained unchanged. All at once his whole expression warmed.

"It is you? And what do you here?" extending both hands.

Some doubt lingered in Fitzgerald's mind; yet the welcome was perfect, from whichever point he chose to look. "Come in to breakfast," he said, "and I'll tell you."

"My table is here; sit by the window. Who was it said that the world is small? Do you know, that dinner in Paris was the first decent meal I had had in a week? And I didn't recognize you at once! Herr Gott!" with sudden weariness. "Perhaps I have had reason to forget many things. But you?"

Fitzgerald spread his napkin over his knees. There was only one other man breakfasting. He was a small, wiry person, white of hair, and spectacled, and was at that moment curiously employed. He had pinned to the table a small butterfly, yellow, with tiny dots on the wings. He was critically inspecting his find through a jeweler's glass.

"I am visiting friends here," began Fitzgerald. "Rear Admiral Killigrew was an old friend of my father's. I did not expect to remain, but the admiral and his daughter insisted; so I am sending to New York for my luggage, and will go up this morning." He saw no reason for giving fuller details.

"So it must have been you who brought the admiral's note. It is fate. Thanks. Some day that casual dinner may give you good interest"

The little man with the butterfly bent lower over his prize.

"Do you believe in curses?" asked Breitmann.

"Ordinary, every-day curses, yes; but not in Roman anathemas."

"Neither of those. I mean the curse that sometimes dogs a man, day and night; the curse of misfortune. I was hungry that night in Paris; I have been hungry many times since, I have held honorable places; to-day, I become a servant at seventy-five dollars a month and my bread and butter. A private secretary."

"But why aren't you with some newspaper?" asked Fitzgerald, breaking his eggs.

Breitmann drew up his shoulders. "For the same reason that I am renting my brains as a private secretary. It was the last thing I could find, and still retain a little self-respect. My heart was dead when the admiral told me he had already engaged a secretary. But your note brought me the position."

"But the newspapers?"

"None of them will employ me."

"In New York, with your credentials?"

"Even so."

"I don't quite understand."

"It would take too long to explain."

"I can give you some letters."

"Thank you. It would be useless. Secretly and subterraneously, I have had the bottom knocked out from under my feet. Why, God knows! But no more of that. Some day I will give you my version."

The little man smiled over his butterfly, took out a wallet, something on the pattern of a fisherman's, and put the new-found specimen into one of the mica compartments, in which other dead butterflies of variant beauty reposed.

"So I become a private secretary, till the time offers something better." Breitmann stared at the sea.

"I am sorry. I wish I could help you. Better let me try." Fitzgerald stirred his coffee. "You are convinced that there is some cabal working against you in the newspaper business? That seems strange. Some of them must have heard of your work-London, Paris, Berlin. Have you tried them all?"

"Yes. Nothing for me, but promises as thick as yonder sands."

The little man rose, and walked out of the room, smiling.

"Splendid!" he murmured. "What a specimen to add to my collection!"

"Do you know what your duties will be?" Fitzgerald inquired.

"They will consist of replying to begging letters from the needy and deserving, from crazy inventors, and ministers. In the meantime, I am to do translating, together with indexing a vast library devoted to pirates. Droll, isn't it?" Breitmann laughed, but this time without bitterness.

"It is a harmless hobby," rather resenting Breitmann's tone.

"More than that," quickly; "it is philanthropic, since it will employ me for some length of time."

"When do they expect you?"

"At half-after ten."

"We'll go up together, then. Did you see the admiral's daughter?"

"A daughter? Has he one?" Breitmann accepted this news with an expression of disfavor.

"Yes; and charming, I can tell you. It's all very odd. In Paris that night, they both sat at the next table."

"Why did you not speak to them?"

"Didn't know who they were. The admiral was one of my father's boyhood friends, and I did not meet them till very recently;" which was all true enough. For some unaccountable reason, Fitzgerald found that he was on guard. "I have ordered an open carriage. If you have any trunks, I can take them up for you."

"It will be good of you."

They proceeded to finish the repast, and then sought the office, for their reckoning. Later, they strolled toward the water front. Fitzgerald, during moments when the talk lagged, thought over the meeting. There was a false ring to it somewhere. If Breitmann had been turned down in all the offices in New York, there must have been some good cause. Newspapers were not passing over men of this fellow's experience, unless he had been proved untrustworthy. Breitmann had not told him everything; he had even told him too little. Still, he would withhold his judgment till he heard from New York on the subject. Cathewe hadn't been enthusiastic over the name; but Cathewe was never inclined to enthusiasms.

Passing the angle of the freight depot brought the little harbor into full view. A fine white yacht lay tugging at her cables.

"There's a beauty," said Fitzgerald admiringly.

"She looks as if she could take care of herself. How fresh the green water-line looks! She'll be fast in moderate weather; a fair thousand tons, perhaps."

"A close guess."

"I understand she belongs to my employer. I hope he takes the sea soon. I suppose you know that I have knocked about some as a sailor."

"That will help you into the good graces of the admiral."

"How dull and uninteresting the coast-lines are here! No gardens, no palms, nothing of beauty."

"You must remember the immensity of this coast and that our summers are really less than three months. Here comes one who can tell us about the yacht," cried Fitzgerald, espying the peg-legged sailor. "I say!" he hailed, as the old sailor drew nigh; "you are on the Laura, are you not?"

"Yessir. An' I've bin on her since she wus commissioned as a pleasure yacht, sir. Capt'n."

"Ah!"

"Fought under th' commodore in th' war, sir; an' he knows me, an' I knows him; an' when Flanagan is on th' bridge, he doesn't signal no pilots between Key West an' St. Johns."

"I am visiting the admiral," said Fitzgerald, amused.

"Oh!" Captain Flanagan ducked, with his hand to his cap. On land, he was likely to imitate landsmen in manners and politeness; but on board he tipped his hat to nobody; leastwise, to nobody but Miss Laura, bless her heart! "I reckon one o' you is th' new sec'rety."

"Yes, I am the new secretary," replied Breitmann, unsmiling.

"Furrin parts?"

"Yes."

"Well, well!" as if, while he couldn't help the fact, it was none the less to be pitied. "You'll be comin' aboard soon, then. Off for th' Banks. Take my word for it, you'll find her as stiddy as one o' your floatin' hotels, sir, where you don't see no sailor but a deck hand as swabs th' scuppers when a beam sea's on. Good mornin'!" And Captain Flanagan stumped off toward the village.

Breitmann shrugged contemptuously.

"He may not be in European yachting form," admitted Fitzgerald, "but he's the kind of man who makes a navy a good fighting machine."

"But we usually pick out gentlemen to captain our private yachts."

"Oh, this Flanagan is an exception. There is probably a fighting bond between him and the admiral; that makes some difference. You observed, he called the owner by the title of commodore, as he did thirty-five years ago. Ten o'clock; we should be going up."

The carriage was at the hotel when they returned. They bundled in their traps, and drove away.

The little man now dropped into the railway station, and stuck his head into the ticket aperture. The agent, who was seated before the telegraph keys, looked up.

"No tickets before half-past ten, sir."

"I am not wanting a ticket. I wish to know if I can send a cable from here."

"A cable? Sure. Where to?"

"Paris."

"Yes, sir. I telegraph it to the cable office in New York, and they do the rest. Here are some blanks."

The other wrote some hieroglyphics, which made the address impossible to decipher, save that it was directed mainly to Paris. The body of the cablegram contained a single word. The writer paid the toll, and went away.

"Now, what would you think of that?" murmured the operator, scratching his head in perplexity. "Well, the company gets the money, so it's all the same to me. Butterflies; and all the rest in French. Next time it'll be bugs. All right; here goes!"


CHAPTER VII

A BIT OF ROMANTIC HISTORY