Adventure Tales #4. Seabury Quinn
He enthused over vagabondage; he painted it in glowing colors; he indulged in remarkable superlatives; and when at last he had finished he was amazed at his power of imagination.
So amazed, indeed, that he failed to notice that his listener was staring at him rather curiously, as though puzzled about something.
“Your story,” he said, resting his elbow on the table and turning his cigar thoughtfully between his fingers, “is pretty interesting—in a way. But don’t you think it sounds a little fishy? Your language, now—it’s just a little too funny to be natural.”
He leaned suddenly across the table and looked his guest squarely in the eye.
“How long have you been a ’bo?” he asked sharply. “Who are you, anyhow?”
Young Allison turned pale beneath his ragged beard. It was a critical moment. Happily, the waiter saved it by arriving with the dinner-check. The bill amounted to nine dollars and forty cents. As the host handed the servitor a crumpled ten-dollar bill and waved him away, the guest rose hurriedly and put on his hat.
“Well, good-by, cap’n,” he stammered nervously. “I enjoyed de big dine immense. Good-by, good-by!”
He backed away a few steps, then turned and hurried swiftly out of the restaurant.
When he reached the street he stopped and rubbed his cheek thoughtfully.
“Now, who is that chap, I wonder?” he asked himself. “He certainly talked and acted queer. Not been used to money long, that’s plain. I wonder who he is.”
He gave it up, and turned aimlessly into Randolph Street. A light snow was beginning to fall. The theater crowds were arriving. He stopped before one of the playhouses and mingled in the crush around the foyer. Life, color, gaiety, were all round him. But he was an outcast.
An automobile rolled up to the curb, and a man and a woman whom he knew alighted. As they crossed the street he stepped deliberately in front of them. But neither noticed him. He was an outcast.
He walked on down to the corner. A troubled expression clouded his face. Automatically he felt in his coat-pocket for his cigar-case. Then, remembering, laughed shortly and buttoned up his ragged coat.
The snow was growing heavier. Some of it seeped under his collar and trickled down his back. The wind tore at his thin garments angrily. He shivered. The troubled expression deepened. Carriages and autos were now congesting the street. The theater rush was at its height.
Suddenly a change seemed to come over him. He straightened up.
“I guess Bobby’s right,” he muttered aloud. “Yep.” He nodded his head; and, with final conviction: “Yep, he’s right. I’m a coward. I can’t do it.”
He cut across the street to a cab-stand.
The jehu regarded his prospective fare sapiently from his throne.
“Well, not tonight, old skeezicks,” he said good-naturedly. “I’m not running a Hinky Dink charity, line this year. But here’s a dime for you, anyway.”
Young Allison pocketed the dime without smiling. Then he reached inside his waistcoat, ripped out a canvas wallet sewed therein, and took from it a thick sheaf of currency. He gave a five-dollar bill and an address to the cabby, who recovered from his astonishment only enough to drive his strange fare to the north side.
*****
Outside the restaurant, Sammy paused. It was snowing heavily.
The gorgeous door-flunkey approved him with an envious eye; a waiting taxi chauffeur watched him hopefully; an earnest mendicant approached with his plea; and an ambitious policeman, anxious to curry favor, bustled up importantly when Sammy, mindful of his empty pockets, growled a curt refusal.
He watched the beggar slink away before the cop’s threatening baton. Then he, looked down and scratched the back of his neck as though somewhat perplexed.
“Now, I wonder who that guy was,” he murmured. “Not a moodier, and that’s certain. Gee, he was a funny gink!”
Round the corner he reached up, ripped off the high collar which had been torturing him all evening, flung it from him, peeled off his gloves, and cast them after the collar.
A few minutes later the bewhiskered proprietor of one of those wretched, filthy, second-hand clothing shops which infest lower Clark Street was moved to much friction-making with his palms by a fastidious-looking young man who entered the hovel and offered to trade the clothes he wore for some cheap cast-off garments and a cash consideration.
As the odd patron removed his coat and cuff-links and pushed back the sleeves of his shirt, a deep “V”-shaped scar on his right forearm glowed bright red in the light of the sputtering gas-jet.
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