Sonnie-Boy's People. James B. Connolly
Key West. Hernando Cabada. When I told him I was going to see you, he sat down and rolled out that boxful, which took him three hours, and gave them to me for you. 'For my friend, Mis-ter Wel-keey-ay,' he said."
"Good old Hernando!" Welkie opened the box. Balfe took one, Welkie took one; they lit up.
"Ah-h—" Welkie woofed a great gob of smoke toward the veranda roof. "Andie, you won't have to make any chemical analysis of the ashes of these cigars to prove they're good. There is an artist—Hernando—and more! I used to drop in to see him after a hot day. He would let me roll out a cigar for myself in one of his precious moulds, and we'd sit and talk of a heap of things. 'Some day, Hernando,' I'd say, 'along will come some people and offer you such a price for your name that I reckon you won't be able to resist.' 'No, no, my friend,' he would say. 'For my nam' there shall be only my cigar. I shall mak' the good, fine cigar—until I shall die. And for the sam'—one pr-r-ice.' How'd you come to run into him, Andie?"
"I'd heard about him and you. I suspected, too, that he could verify a few things about the Construction Company."
"And did he?"
"He did. And so they have been after you again?"
Welkie nodded.
"And offering more money than ever?"
Welkie nodded.
They smoked on. Again Balfe half turned in his chair. "I haven't seen you, Greg, since the President sent for you from Washington that time. How did you find him?"
"Fine. And I tell you, Andie, it heartened me to think that a man with all he's got to tend to would stop to spend an hour with an obscure engineer."
"You're not too obscure, Greg. What did he have to say?"
"Oh-h—said he wanted me to do a piece of special work, and he wanted me because several people, in whose judgment he had confidence, said I was the man for the job. You were one of 'em, Andie, he told me, and I'm thanking you for it."
"I'm not sure that you ought to thank me, Greg. With that big company you would be wealthy in a few years, but the trouble is, Greg, when I'm on the job I'm as bad as you, only in a different and more selfish way. I know only one road then, and once I set out I'd brush aside anything for the one thing, Greg."
"Of course, when it's for the flag."
"Would you?"
"Could I do anything else?"
"The boy, too?"
"Where would he come into it, Andie?"
"You don't think that your feeling for the lad and your work could ever clash?"
"How could they ever clash, Andie?"
"I don't know, Greg. I hope not." He relit his neglected cigar. "But what else did the President have to say?"
"He said it was a bit of emergency work he wanted me for, that only the remnant of a small appropriation was available for it, and that if I took it I would be pitiably paid; but that he wished me to do it, because some day, and that not too far away, it might have to stand the test not of friends, but of enemies. Also he said—let me see——"
"That for foreign policy's sake it would have to be done quietly, without advertising, as a bit of departmental work?"
"That's it."
"And that you would get no great reputation out of it, that your very report would remain a supplementary paper buried in departmental files?"
"That was it."
"Did it strike you that the conditions were hard, Greg?"
"Not after he explained things. And so when the Construction people said to me later: 'You're crazy, man! Look the two propositions in the eye!' I said: 'I've looked one of 'em at least in the eye and I'm passing the other up—and the other is yours.'"
"Lord, Greg! whether you're the best or the worst concrete man in the world is a small matter—you're a great man. And if some day—" Balfe let his front chair-legs come down bang and bounded to his feet.
"Greg"—it was Marie who had returned—"I don't know how I ever forgot, but I never thought till a moment ago—there was a Mr. Necker here to see you this evening."
"Well, you don't often forget, Marie. Must be the sight of those battle-ships. Necker? I don't know any Necker. You know him, Andie?"
"I was trying to guess coming over on the boat. I was still guessing when he got off. I could guess, Greg, who he is, but it would be only a guess."
"He didn't leave any message, Marie?"
"None, except to say that he would call again at eight. He seemed to know something of you and to be friendly."
"He must be a friendly soul to come to this place to see anybody. Well, when he comes we'll know. How'd you leave Sonnie-Boy?"
"He's waiting for you to say good night."
"I'll go up to him." He went inside.
Marie picked up her ensign. Balfe placed a chair for her at the little work-table, and himself took the chair on the other side of the table.
"A great joy for you, also—young Greg, Marie?"
"If you could hold him and feel his little heart against yours when he's saying 'Good night, auntie,' after he's said his prayers! His prayers and the 'Star-Spangled Banner' are his great set pieces."
"And between you and Greg it's safe to say he's got both letter-perfect."
"And spirit-perfect, we're hoping. But I must get on with this ensign for him."
"Pretty good size, isn't it, for a toy ship?"
"But it's a battle-flag. He'll have none but battle-flags. There, I'm up to the stars."
"You're never far from them. Let me make a stretching-frame of my fingers and square this end."
"Do. Not quite so tight. And now—those new States come in so fast!—how many now?"
"Forty-six."
"M-m—four eights and two sevens?"
"Four eights and two sevens."
She sewed rapidly, and without looking up, until she had completed the first row. "There—there's one of the eights. Now you can breathe again, Andie."
Balfe sat back. "What did you make of Mr. Necker, Marie?"
She, too, sat back. "I wonder what I did make of him. He was very curious about you."
"That's interesting."
"Yes. He asked questions and I couldn't quite fib to him, and yet I couldn't see why he should expect me to tell him all about you. And so"—she paused and the little half-smile was hovering around again.
"And so?"
"And so I did not attempt to check his imagination." She repeated the conversation of the afternoon. "I meant to speak of it at dinner, Andie, to you and Greg, but I forgot."
"Here's a far traveller—" He paused. She looked up, and quickly looked down.
"—who gives thanks that you forgot, Marie, in that first glad hour, Mr. Necker and his—well, his possible mission."
"You know something of him, then, Andie?"
"I'm still guessing. But I'm wondering now if you said to yourself when he had gone: 'After all, what will Greg get out of this government work? Is it fair to himself to refuse those great offers and stick down here? And what will it mean to young Greg?'"
Marie Welkie let the ensign drop onto the table. "My very thoughts in words, Andie. And while we're speaking of it, will Greg ever get the recognition due him, Andie?"
"Surely—some day."
"Dear