Books: The Man on the Box
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Harold MacGrath >> The Man on the Box
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15 Produced by Duncan Harold, Charles Franks
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
[Illustration: Henry E. Dixey in "The Man on the Box."]
THE MAN ON THE BOX
by
HAROLD MACGRATH
Author of
The Grey Cloak, The Puppet Crown
Illustrated by scenes from Walter N. Lawrence's beautiful production
of the play as seen for 123 nights at the Madison Square Theatre, New
York
To Miss Louise Everts
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I Introduces My Hero
II Introduces My Heroine
III The Adventure Begins
IV A Family Reunion
V The Plot Thickens
VI The Man on the Box
VII A Police Affair
VIII Another Salad Idea
IX The Heroine Hires a Groom
X Pirate
XI The First Ride
XII A Ticklish Business
XIII A Runaway
XIV An Ordeal or Two
XV Retrospective
XVI The Previous Affair
XVII Dinner is Served
XVIII Caught!
XIX "Oh, Mister Butler"
XX The Episode of the Stove Pipe
XXI The Rose
XXII The Drama Unrolls
XXIII Something About Heroes
XXIV A Fine Lover
XXV A Fine Heroine, Too
XXVI The Castle of Romance
_He either fears his fate too much,
Or his deserts are small,
Who dares not put it to the touch
To win or lose it all._
_Dramatis Personae_
_Colonel George Annesley_ A retired Army Officer
_Miss Betty Annesley_ His daughter
_Lieutenant Robert Warburton_ Lately resigned
_Mr. John Warburton_ His elder brother, of the War
Department
_Mrs. John Warburton_ The elder brother's wife
_Miss Nancy Warburton_ The lieutenant's sister
_Mr. Charles Henderson_ Her fiance
_Count Karloff_ An unattached diplomat
_Colonel Frank Raleigh_ The Lieutenant's Regimental
Colonel
_Mrs. Chadwick_ A product of Washington life
_Monsieur Pierre_ A chef
_Mademoiselle Celeste_ A lady's maid
_Jane_ Mrs. Warburton's maid
_The Hopeful_ A baby
_William_ A stable-boy
_Fashionable People_ Necessary for a dinner party
_Celebrities_ Also necessary for a dinner party
_Unfashionables_ Police, cabbies, grooms, clerks,
etc.
TIME--Within the past ten years.
SCENE--Washington, D.C., and its environs.
I
INTRODUCES MY HERO
If you will carefully observe any map of the world that is divided
into inches at so many miles to the inch, you will be surprised as
you calculate the distance between that enchanting Paris of France
and the third-precinct police-station of Washington, D. C, which is
not enchanting. It is several thousand miles. Again, if you will take
the pains to run your glance, no doubt discerning, over the police-
blotter at the court (and frankly, I refuse to tell you the exact
date of this whimsical adventure), you will note with even greater
surprise that all this hubbub was caused by no crime against the
commonwealth of the Republic or against the person of any of its
conglomerate people. The blotter reads, in heavy simple fist,
"disorderly conduct," a phrase which is almost as embracing as the
word diplomacy, or society, or respectability.
So far as my knowledge goes, there is no such a person as James
Osborne. If, by any unhappy chance, he _does_ exist, I trust
that he will pardon the civil law of Washington, my own measure of
familiarity, and the questionable taste on the part of my hero--hero,
because, from the rise to the fall of the curtain, he occupies the
center of the stage in this little comedy-drama, and because authors
have yet to find a happy synonym for the word. The name James Osborne
was given for the simple reason that it was the first that occurred
to the culprit's mind, so desperate an effort did he make to hide his
identity. Supposing, for the sake of an argument in his favor,
supposing he had said John Smith or William Jones or John Brown? To
this very day he would have been hiring lawyers to extricate him from
libel and false-representation suits. Besides, had he given any of
these names, would not that hound-like scent of the ever suspicious
police have been aroused?
To move round and round in the circle of commonplace, and then to pop
out of it like a tailed comet! Such is the history of many a man's
life. I have a near friend who went away from town one fall, happy
and contented with his lot. And what do you suppose he found when he
returned home? He had been nominated for alderman. It is too early to
predict the fate of this unhappy man. And what tools Fate uses with
which to carve out her devious peculiar patterns! An Apache Indian,
besmeared with brilliant greases and smelling of the water that never
freezes, an understudy to Cupid? Fudge! you will say, or Pshaw! or
whatever slang phrase is handy and, prevalent at the moment you read
and run.
I personally warn you that this is a really-truly story, though I do
not undertake to force you to believe it; neither do I purvey many
grains of salt. If Truth went about her affairs laughing, how many
more persons would turn and listen! For my part, I believe it all
nonsense the way artists have pictured Truth. The idea is pretty
enough, but so far as hitting things, it recalls the woman, the
stone, and the hen. I am convinced that Truth goes about dressed in
the dowdiest of clothes, with black-lisle gloves worn at the fingers,
and shoes run down in the heels, an exact portrait of one of Phil
May's lydies. Thus it is that we pass her by, for the artistic sense
in every being is repelled at the sight of a dowdy with weeping eyes
and a nose that has been rubbed till it is as red as a winter apple.
Anyhow, if she _does_ go about in beautiful nudity, she ought at
least to clothe herself with smiles and laughter. There are sorry
enough things in the world as it is, without a lachrymal,
hypochondriacal Truth poking her face in everywhere.
Not many months ago, while seated on the stone veranda in the rear of
the Metropolitan Club in Washington (I believe we were discussing the
merits of some very old product), I recounted some of the lighter
chapters of this adventure.
_"Eempossible!"_ murmured the Russian attache, just as if the
matter had not come under his notice semi-officially.
I presume that this exclamation disclosed another side to diplomacy,
which, stripped of its fine clothes, means dexterity in hiding
secrets and in negotiating lies. When one diplomat believes what
another says, it is time for the former's government to send him
packing. However, the Englishman at my right gazed smiling into his
partly emptied glass and gently stirred the ice. I admire the English
diplomat; he never wastes a lie. He is frugal and saving.
"But the newspapers!" cried the journalist. "They never ran a line;
and an exploit like this would scarce have escaped them."
"If I remember rightly, it was reported in the regular police items
of the day," said I.
"Strange that the boys didn't look behind the scenes."
"Oh, I don't know," remarked the congressman; "lots of things happen
of which you are all ignorant. The public mustn't know everything."
"But what's the hero's name?" asked the journalist.
"That's a secret," I answered. "Besides, when it comes to the bottom
of the matter, I had something to do with the suppressing of the
police news. In a case like this, suppression becomes a law not
excelled by that which governs self-preservation. My friend has a
brother in the War Department; and together we worked wonders."
"It's a jolly droll story, however you look at it," the Englishman
admitted.
"Nevertheless, it had its tragic side; but that is even more than
ever a secret."
The Englishman looked at me sharply, even gravely; but the veranda is
only dimly illuminated at night, and his scrutiny went unrewarded.
"Eh, well!" said the Russian; "your philosopher has observed that all
mankind loves a lover."
"As all womankind loves a love-story," the Englishman added. "You
ought to be very successful with the ladies,"--turning to me.
"Not inordinately; but I shall not fail to repeat your epigram,"--and
I rose.
My watch told me that it was half after eight; and one does not
receive every day an invitation to a dinner-dance at the Chevy Chase
Club.
I dislike exceedingly to intrude my own personality into this
narrative, but as I was passively concerned, I do not see how I can
avoid it. Besides, being a public man, I am not wholly averse to
publicity; first person, singular, perpendicular, as Thackeray had
it, in type looks rather agreeable to the eye. And I rather believe
that I have a moral to point out and a parable to expound.
My appointment in Washington at that time was extraordinary; that is
to say, I was a member of one of those committees that are born
frequently and suddenly in Washington, and which almost immediately
after registration in the vital statistics of national politics. I
had been sent to Congress, a dazzling halo over my head, the pride
and hope of my little country town; I had been defeated for second
term; had been recommended to serve on the committee aforesaid;
served with honor, got my name in the great newspapers, and was sent
back to Congress, where I am still to-day, waiting patiently for a
discerning president and a vacancy in the legal department of the
cabinet. That's about all I am willing to say about myself.
As for this hero of mine, he was the handsomest, liveliest rascal you
would expect to meet in a day's ride. By handsome I do not mean
perfect features, red cheeks, Byronic eyes, and so forth. That style
of beauty belongs to the department of lady novelists. I mean that
peculiar manly beauty which attracts men almost as powerfully as it
does women. For the sake of a name I shall call him Warburton. His
given name in actual life is Robert. But I am afraid that nobody but
his mother and one other woman ever called him Robert. The world at
large dubbed him Bob, and such he will remain up to that day (and may
it be many years hence!) when recourse will be had to Robert, because
"Bob" would certainly look very silly on a marble shaft.
What a friendly sign is a nickname! It is always a good fellow who is
called Bob or Bill, Jack or Jim, Tom, Dick or Harry. Even out of
Theodore there comes a Teddy. I know in my own case the boys used to
call me Chuck, simply because I was named Charles. (I haven't the
slightest doubt that I was named Charles because my good mother
thought I looked something like Vandyke's _Charles I_, though at
the time of my baptism I wore no beard whatever.) And how I hated a
boy with a high-sounding, unnicknamable given name!--with his round
white collar and his long glossy curls! I dare say he hated the name,
the collar, and the curls even more than I did. Whenever you run
across a name carded in this stilted fashion, "A. Thingumy Soandso",
you may make up your mind at once that the owner is ashamed of his
first name and is trying manfully to live it down and eventually
forgive his parents.
Warburton was graduated from West Point, ticketed to a desolate
frontier post, and would have worn out his existence there but for
his guiding star, which was always making frantic efforts to bolt its
established orbit. One day he was doing scout duty, perhaps half a
mile in advance of the pay-train, as they called the picturesque
caravan which, consisting of a canopied wagon and a small troop of
cavalry in dingy blue, made progress across the desert-like plains of
Arizona. The troop was some ten miles from the post, and as there had
been no sign of Red Eagle all that day, they concluded that the rumor
of his being on a drunken rampage with half a dozen braves was only a
rumor. Warburton had just passed over a roll of earth, and for a
moment the pay-train had dropped out of sight. It was twilight;
opalescent waves of heat rolled above the blistered sands. A pale
yellow sky, like an inverted bowl rimmed with delicate blue and
crimson hues, encompassed the world. The bliss of solitude fell on
him, and, being something of a poet, he rose to the stars. The smoke
of his corncob pipe trailed lazily behind him. The horse under him
was loping along easily. Suddenly the animal lifted his head, and his
brown ears went forward.
At Warburton's left, some hundred yards distant, was a clump of osage
brush. Even as he looked, there came a puff of smoke, followed by the
evil song of a bullet. My hero's hat was carried away. He wheeled,
dug his heels into his horse, and cut back over the trail. There came
a second flash, a shock, and then a terrible pain in the calf of his
left leg. He fell over the neck of his horse to escape the third
bullet. He could see the Apache as he stood out from behind the bush.
Warburton yanked out his Colt and let fly. He heard a yell. It was
very comforting. That was all he remembered of the skirmish.
For five weeks he languished in the hospital. During that time he
came to the conclusion that he had had enough of military life in the
West. He applied for his discharge, as the compulsory term of service
was at an end. When his papers came he was able to get about with the
aid of a crutch. One morning his colonel entered his subaltern's
bachelor quarters.
"Wouldn't you rather have a year's leave of absence, than quit
altogether, Warburton?"
"A year's leave of absence?" cried the
invalid, "I am likely to get that, I am."
"If you held a responsible position I dare say it would be difficult.
As it is, I may say that I can obtain it for you. It will be months
before you can ride a horse with that leg."
"I thank you, Colonel Raleigh, but I think I'll resign. In fact, I
have resigned."
"We can withdraw that, if you but say the word. I don't want to lose
you, lad. You're the only man around here who likes a joke as well as
I do. And you will have a company if you'll only stick to it a little
longer."
"I have decided, Colonel. I'm sorry you feel like this about it. You
see, I have something like twenty-five thousand laid away. I want to
see at least five thousand dollars' worth of new scenery before I
shuffle off this mortal coil. The scenery around here palls on me. My
throat and eyes are always full of sand. I am off to Europe. Some
day, perhaps, the bee will buzz again; and when it does, I'll have
you go personally to the president."
"As you please, Warburton."
"Besides, Colonel, I have been reading Treasure Island again, and
I've got the fever in my veins to hunt for adventure, even a
treasure. It's in my blood to wander and do strange things, and here
I've been hampered all these years with routine. I shouldn't care if
we had a good fight once in a while. My poor old dad traveled around
the world three times, and I haven't seen anything of it but the
maps."
"Go ahead, then. Only, talking about Treasure Island, don't you and
your twenty-five thousand run into some old Long John Silver."
"I'll take care."
And Mr. Robert packed up his kit and sailed away. Not many months
passed ere he met his colonel again, and under rather embarrassing
circumstances.
II
INTRODUCES MY HEROINE
Let me begin at the beginning. The boat had been two days out of
Southampton before the fog cleared away. On the afternoon of the
third day, Warburton curled up in his steamer-chair and lazily viewed
the blue October seas as they met and merged with the blue October
skies. I do not recollect the popular novel of that summer, but at
any rate it lay flapping at the side of his chair, forgotten. It
never entered my hero's mind that some poor devil of an author had
sweated and labored with infinite pains over every line, and
paragraph, and page-labored with all the care and love his heart and
mind were capable of, to produce this finished child of fancy; or
that this same author, even at this very moment, might be seated on
the veranda of his beautiful summer villa, figuring out royalties on
the backs of stray envelopes. No, he never thought of these things.
What with the wind and the soft, ceaseless jar of the throbbing
engines, half a dream hovered above his head, and touched him with a
gentle, insistent caress. If you had passed by him this afternoon,
and had been anything of a mathematician who could straighten out
geometrical angles, you would have come close to his height had you
stopped at five feet nine. Indeed, had you clipped off the heels of
his low shoes, you would have been exact. But all your nice
calculations would not have solved his weight. He was slender, but he
was hard and compact. These hard, slender fellows sometimes weigh
more than your men of greater bulk. He tipped the scales at one
hundred sixty-two, and he looked twenty pounds less. He was twenty-
eight; a casual glance at him, and you would have been willing to
wager that the joy of casting his first vote was yet to be his.
The princess commands that I describe in detail the charms of this
Army Adonis. Far be it that I should disobey so august a command,
being, as I am, the prime minister in this her principality of
Domestic Felicity. Her brother has never ceased to be among the first
in her dear regard. He possessed the merriest black eyes: his
mother's eyes, as I, a boy, remember them. No matter how immobile his
features might be, these eyes of his were ever ready for laughter.
His nose was clean-cut and shapely. A phrenologist would have said
that his head did not lack the bump of caution; but I know better. At
present he wore a beard; so this is as large an inventory of his
personal attractions as I am able to give. When he shaves off his
beard, I shall be pleased to add further particulars. I often marvel
that the women did not turn his head. They were always sending him
notes and invitations and cutting dances for him. Perhaps his devil-
may-care air had something to do with the enchantment. I have yet to
see his equal as a horseman. He would have made it interesting for
that pair of milk-whites which our old friend, Ulysses (or was it
Diomedes?) had such ado about.
Every man has some vice or other, even if it is only being good.
Warburton had perhaps two: poker and tobacco. He would get out of bed
at any hour if some congenial spirit knocked at the door and
whispered that a little game was in progress, and that his money was
needed to keep it going. I dare say that you know all about these
little games. But what would you? What is a man to do in a country
where you may buy a whole village for ten dollars? Warburton seldom
drank, and, like the author of this precious volume, only special
vintages.
At this particular moment this hero of mine was going over the
monotony of the old days in Arizona, the sand-deserts, the unlovely
landscapes, the dull routine, the indifferent skirmishes with cattle-
men and Indians; the pagan bullet which had plowed through his leg.
And now it was all over; he had surrendered his straps; he was a
private citizen, with an income sufficient for his needs. It will go
a long way, forty-five hundred a year, if one does not attempt to
cover the distance in a five-thousand motor-car; and he hated all
locomotion that was not horse-flesh.
For nine months he had been wandering over Europe, if not happy, at
least in a satisfied frame of mind. Four of these months had been
delightfully passed in Paris; and, as his nomad excursions had
invariably terminated in that queen of cities, I make Paris the
starting point of his somewhat remarkable adventures. Besides, it was
in Paris that he first saw Her. And now, here he was at last,
homeward-bound. That phrase had a mighty pleasant sound; it was to
the ear what honey is to the tongue. Still, he might yet have been in
Paris but for one thing: She was on board this very boat.
Suddenly his eyes opened full wide, bright with eagerness.
"It is She!" he murmured. He closed his eyes again, the hypocrite!
Permit me to introduce you to my heroine. Mind you, she is not
_my_ creation; only Heaven may produce her like, and but once.
She is well worth turning around to gaze at. Indeed I know more than
one fine gentleman who forgot the time of day, the important
engagement, or the trend of his thought, when she passed by.
She was coming forward, leaning against the wind and inclining to the
uncertain roll of the ship. A gray raincoat fitted snugly the
youthful rounded figure. Her hands were plunged into the pockets. You
may be sure that Mr. Robert noted through his half-closed eyelids
these inconsequent details. A tourist hat sat jauntily on the fine
light brown hair, that color which has no appropriate metaphor. (At
least, I have never found one, and I am _not_ in love with her
and _never_ was.) Warburton has described to me her eyes, so I
am positive that they were as heavenly blue as a rajah's sapphire.
Her height is of no moment. What man ever troubled himself about the
height of a woman, so long as he wasn't undersized himself? What
pleased Warburton was the exquisite skin. He was always happy with
his comparisons, and particularly when he likened her skin to the
bloomy olive pallor of a young peach. The independent stride was
distinguishingly American. Ah, the charm of these women who are my
countrywomen! They come, they go, alone, unattended, courageous
without being bold, self-reliant without being rude; inimitable. In
what an amiable frame of mind Nature must have been on the day she
cast these molds! But I proceed. The young woman's chin was tilted,
and Warburton could tell by the dilated nostrils that she was
breathing in the gale with all the joy of living, filling her healthy
lungs with it as that rare daughter of the Cyprian Isle might have
done as she sprang that morn from the jeweled Mediterranean spray,
that beggar's brooch of Neptune's.
Warburton's heart hadn't thrilled so since the day when he first
donned cadet gray. There was scarce any room for her to pass between
his chair and the rail; and this knowledge filled the rascal with
exultation. Nearer and nearer she came. He drew in his breath sharply
as the corner of his foot-rest (aided by the sly wind) caught her
raincoat.
"I beg your pardon!" he said, sitting up.
She quickly released her coat, smiled faintly, and passed on.
Sometimes the most lasting impressions are those which are printed
most lightly on the memory. Mr. Robert says that he never will forget
that first smile. And he didn't even know her name then.
I was about to engage your attention with a description of the
villain, but on second thought I have decided that it would be rather
unfair. For at that moment he was at a disadvantage. Nature was
punishing him for a few shortcomings. The steward that night informed
Warburton, in answer to his inquiries, that he, the villain, was
dreadfully seasick, and was begging him, the steward, to scuttle the
ship and have done with it. I have my doubts regarding this. Mr.
Robert is inclined to flippancy at times. It wasn't seasickness; and
after all is said and done, it is putting it harshly to call this man
a villain. I recant. True villainy is always based upon selfishness.
Remember this, my wise ones.
Warburton was somewhat subdued when he learned that the suffering
gentleman was _her_ father.
"What did you say the name was?" he asked innocently. Until now he
hadn't had the courage to put the question to any one, or to prowl
around the purser's books.
"Annesley; Colonel Annesley and daughter," answered the unsuspecting
steward.
Warburton knew nothing then of the mental tragedy going on behind the
colonel's state-room door. How should he have known? On the contrary,
he believed that the father of such a girl must be a most knightly
and courtly gentleman. He _was_, in all outward appearance.
There had been a time, not long since, when he had been knightly and
courtly in all things.
Surrounding every upright man there is a mire, and if he step not
wisely, he is lost. There is no coming back; step by step he must go
on and on, till he vanishes and a bubble rises over where he but
lately stood. That he misstepped innocently does not matter; mire and
evil have neither pity nor reason. To spend what is not ours and then
to try to recover it, to hide the guilty step: this is futility. From
the alpha men have made this step; to the omega they will make it,
with the same unchanging futility. After all, it _is_ money.
Money _is_ the root of all evil; let him laugh who will, in his
heart of hearts he knows it.
Money! Have you never heard that siren call to you, call seductively
from her ragged isle, where lurk the reefs of greed and selfishness?
Money! What has this siren not to offer? Power, ease, glory, luxury;
aye, I had almost said love! But, no; love is the gift of God, money
is the invention of man: all the good, all the evil, in the heart of
this great humanity.
III
THE ADVENTURE BEGINS
It was only when the ship was less than a day's journey off Sandy
Hook that the colonel came on deck, once more to resume his interest
in human affairs. How the girl hovered about him! She tucked the
shawl more snugly around his feet; she arranged and rearranged the
pillows back of his head; she fed him from a bowl of soup; she read
from some favorite book; she smoothed the furrowed brow; she stilled
the long, white, nervous fingers with her own small, firm, brown
ones; she was mother and daughter in one. Wherever she moved, the
parent eye followed her, and there lay in its deeps a strange mixture
of fear, and trouble, and questioning love. All the while he drummed
ceaselessly on the arms of his chair.
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