第26章 CHAPTER V A BABY AND A ROBBERY(4)

"'Oh!' says he. 'Is that so? I've heard father speak of you, Mr. Wingate. He is Solomon Bearse, of West Ostable. I think you know him slightly.'

"Know him? Everybody on the Cape knows Sol Bearse; by reputation, anyhow. He's the richest, meanest old cranberry grower and coastin'-fleet owner in these parts.

"'Is Sol Bearse your dad?' I asks, astonished. 'Why, then, you must be Gus?'

"'No,' he says. 'I'm the other one--Fred.'

"'Oh, the college one. The one who's goin' to be a lawyer.'

"'Well, yes--and no,' says he. 'I WAS the college one, as you call it, but I'm not goin' to be a lawyer. Father and I have had some talk on that subject, and I think we've settled it. I--well, just at present, I'm not sure what I'm goin' to be. That's what I've come to you for. I saw your ad in the Item, and--I want a job.'

"I was set all aback, and left with my canvas flappin', as you might say. Sol Bearse's boy huntin' a job in a hotel kitchen!

Soon's I could fetch a whole breath, I wanted partic'lars. He give 'em to me.

"Seems he'd been sent out to one of the colleges in the Middle West by his dad, who was dead set on havin' a lawyer in the family. But the more he studied, the less he hankered for law. What he wanted to be was a literature--a book-agent or a poet, or some such foolishness. Old Sol, havin' no more use for a poet than he had for a poor relation, was red hot in a minute. Was this what he'd been droppin' good money in the education collection box for? Was this--etcetery and so on. He'd be--what the church folks say he will be--if Fred don't go in for law. Fred, he comes back that he'll be the same if he does. So they disowned each other by mutual consent, as the Irishman said, and the boy marches out of the front door, bag and baggage. And, as the poetry market seemed to be sort of overly supplied at the present time, he decided he must do somethin' to earn a dollar, and, seein' our ad, he comes to Wellmouth Port and the Old Home.

"'But look here,' says I, 'we ain't got no job for a literary. We need fellers to pass pie and wash dishes. And THAT ain't no poem.'

"Well, he thought perhaps he could help make up advertisin'.

"'You can't,' I told him. 'One time, when Peter T. Brown was away, me and Cap'n Jonadab cal'lated that a poetry advertisement would be a good idee and we managed to shake out ten lines or so. It begun:

"When you're feelin' tired and pale To the Old Home House you ought to come without fail."

"'We thought 'twas pretty slick, but we never got but one answer, and that was a circular from one of them correspondence schools of authors, sayin' they'd let us in on a course at cut rates. And the next thing we knew we see that poem in the joke page of a Boston paper. I never--'

"He laughed, quiet and sorrowful. He had the quietest way of speakin', anyhow, and his voice was a lovely tenor. To hear it purrin' out of his big, tall body was as unexpected as a hymn tune in a cent-in-the-slot talkin' machine.

"'Too bad,' he says. 'As a waiter, I'm afraid--'

"Just then the door of one of the Annex houses opened sudden, and there stood Grace Robinson. The light behind her showed her up plain as could be. I heard Fred Bearse make a kind of gaspin' noise in his throat.

"'What a lovely night!' she says, half to herself. Then she calls:

'Papa, dear, you really ought to see the stars.'

"Old man Robinson, who I judged was in the settin' room, snarled out somethin' which wa'n't no compliment to the stars. Then he ordered her to come in afore she catched cold. She sighed and obeyed orders, shuttin' the door astern of her. Next thing I knew that literary tenor grabbed my arm--'twa'n't no canary-bird grip, neither.

"'Who was that?' he whispers, eager.

"I told him. 'That's the name they give,' says I, 'but we have doubts about its bein' the real one. You see, there's some mystery about them Robinsons, and--'

"'I'll take that waiter's place,' he says, quick. 'Shall I go right in and begin now? Don't stop to argue, man; I say I'll take it.'

"And he did take it by main strength, pretty nigh. Every time I'd open my mouth he'd shut it up, and at last I give in, and showed him where he could sleep.

"'You turn out at five sharp,' I told him. 'And you needn't bother to write no poems while you're dressin', neither.'

"'Good night,' he answers, brisk. 'Go, will you, please? I want to think.'

"I went. 'Tain't until an hour later that I remembered he hadn't asked one word concernin' the wages. And next mornin' he comes to me and suggests that perhaps 'twould be as well if I didn't tell his real name. He was pretty sure he'd been away schoolin' so long that he wouldn't be recognized. 'And incognitos seem to be fashionable here,' he purrs, soft and gentle.

"I wouldn't know an incognito if I stepped on one, but the tenor voice of him kind of made me sick.

"'All right,' I snaps, sarcastic. 'Suppose I call you "Willie."

How'll that do?'

"'Do as well as anything, I guess,' he says. Didn't make no odds to him. If I'd have called him 'Maud,' he'd have been satisfied.

"He waited in Annex Number Two, which was skippered by Cap'n Jonadab. And, for a poet, he done pretty well, so the Cap'n said.

"'But say, Barzilla,' asks Jonadab, 'does that Willie thing know the Robinsons?'

"'Guess not,' I says. But, thinkin' of the way he'd acted when the girl come to the door: 'Why?'

"'Oh, nothin' much. Only when he come in with the doughnuts the fust mornin' at breakfast, I thought Grace sort of jumped and looked funny. Anyhow, she didn't eat nothin' after that. P'r'aps that was on account of her bein' out sailin' the day afore, though.'

"I said I cal'lated that was it, but all the same I was interested.

And when, a day or so later, I see Grace and Willie talkin' together earnest, out back of the kitchen, I was more so. But I never said nothin'. I've been seafarin' long enough to know when to keep my main hatch closed.