A New Sensation. Albert Ross
you were last winter."
I assured him that there was no danger; that I had learned my lesson well; and that I would make a sensible use of my liberty. Then, when he had added that I need carry very little medicine—and that only for emergencies—and made me promise to write him once in a month or so, in a friendly way, I grasped his hand warmly and took my leave.
If he had been a woman I would certainly have kissed him. He will never know, unless he happens to read these lines, how near my eyes came to filling with grateful tears.
The next thing was a visit to my Uncle, Dugald Camran, that staid old bachelor, who still possesses the virtues of our Scotch ancestry, that I have put so often to shame. He has charge of my father's estate, which he manages with the same acumen that he handles his own, and which is as safe in his hands as in that of the Bank of England. Between my Uncle and me there has been much good will, but very little confidence. Our relations have been little more than business ones. He has no curiosity apparently as to my personal conduct, and I would be the last to wish him to know what it has been in some respects.
He attributed my late illness, as did most of my other acquaintances, to over-study, and I had no intention of undeceiving him. There was no attempt on his part to influence me in any way, when I gave up my course at Yale without graduating. He only said that I was the best judge.
He could see well enough that I was not cut from the same piece as the rest of the Camrans, staid, methodical getters together of money as they are. Probably, bad as things went, he would have made them no better had he interfered. His is not a nature that could understand mine. When I became twenty-one years of age he handed over without demur the ten thousand dollars that my father's testament said was to be given me on that date, and although he knew well that I had not a penny of it left at the end of a twelve-month he never uttered a word against my folly. He was, as far as appeared, an automatic machine to obey the provisions of the will.
For nine years to come there was the five thousand a year for me, either in lump annual sums or monthly, as I might prefer. With the knowledge that I could not retain my hold on anything in the shape of money I decided to take it in the safer way. My illness had enabled me, in spite of the special expense to which it subjected my purse, to get a couple of thousand ahead, which I was foolish enough to think did me credit. As a matter of fact, I was never extravagant in the necessaries of life, and might have gained a reputation as a very careful fellow had I not fallen into habits that sent my change flying like geese feathers in a storm.
Uncle Dugald listened without approval or disapproval to my statement that I was going on a sea voyage, which I took pains to say was advised by Dr. Chambers. In spite of our relation he evidently regarded me much as the cashier of my bank did when I presented a check—if there was a balance to my credit, all right; if there was none I should meet with a polite refusal.
It was not necessary for this canny Scot to turn to his books to see how my balance stood. His head was full of figures and if a fire had destroyed every account he had, I believe he could have restored his ledgers accurately from memory alone.
"I shall want a letter of credit," I said, "and I shall be obliged if you will attend to the matter for me. I suppose it is necessary to deposit the amount with the firm on which the letter is drawn."
"That is the customary way," he answered, "but I can arrange it a little better to your advantage, by guaranteeing payment through my banker. That will save interest on the money. What size shall the letter be?"
My Uncle had no idea of being responsible for a penny beyond the amount in his hands, out of my annual allowance. Ah, well, that would be more than enough, probably. At the worst, my income was accumulating, and at the end of a few months I could send to him for another letter, if I remained away so long. So I told him to get a credit for $2000 and send it to my lodgings at his convenience. Then having asked after the health of my two maiden aunts, with whom he lived—as if I cared whether they were sick or well; they never had bothered about me when I was at the worst of my long illness!—I took my departure.
That evening I studied the advertisements of the steamship lines, both in the Herald and in the Commercial Advertiser. There were excursions going to the Mediterranean, which presented most attractive prospectuses, but they did not convince me that they were what I wanted. I never liked travelling by route, preferring to leave everything open for any change of mind. There were the usual lines to England, France and Germany, but I had seen those countries several years earlier, just before entering college, and according to my recollection they were anything but restful. The particular temptations I was to avoid were rather too plenty on the other side of the Atlantic to trust myself there. I was more inclined toward some of the South American countries, till I happened to read in a despatch that yellow fever had broken out there, and I knew that those quarantines were something to be avoided at all hazards.
Thinking of quarantines suddenly brought back the memory of a trip I had taken three years earlier to the Windward and Leeward Islands, where I had been detained in the most comfortable quarantine station in the world—the one at St. Thomas.
I smiled to recall the discouraged feeling with which I and my travelling acquaintances heard, at the little town of Ponce, in Porto Rico, that we would have to be detained under guard fifteen days when we reached St. Thomas; how we had the blues for twenty hours; how the indigo darkened, when we were taken from our steamer and landed from a row boat, bag and baggage, at the foot of a long path that led up to the Station.
And then the revulsion of feeling when we found the cosiest of homes awaiting us! The hearty welcome of Eggert, the quarantine master and lighthouse keeper; the motherly smile of his wife; the cheery welcome of his daughter, Thyra; the bright little faces of Thorwald, his son, and of the baby, Ingeborg; even the rough growl of "Laps," the Danish hound, had no surliness about it.
Then the comfortable beds in the little rooms, curtained from all obnoxious insects; the five o'clock sea baths in the morning, inside the high station fence that we must not pass; the meals an epicure need not have scoffed at; our first acquaintance with a dozen varieties of the luscious fish that abound in that part of the Caribbean.
I remembered them all, as if it were yesterday, and at this juncture that meant but one thing: I must see St. Thomas again, if only to determine whether that fortnight was a dream or a reality.
The craze which this decision inspired brought to my mind the fact that I was still liable to excitements from which I must free myself. The great desideratum for which I must strive above all things was repose. It was mere suicide to go wild over everything that happened to please me for the moment. The chance was more than even that if my feelings ran away with me over the delights of the Antilles I would awake the next morning with an aversion to that part of the world. It was one of the penalties of my illness that the pendulum of a wish could not swing violently in one direction without swinging just as far in the other. I was afraid this would be the result in the present instance; and I sent for a ticket to Koster & Bial's, while I went to take my dinner at the Club, in order to get a diversion that would be effective.
Among the entertainments presented at the great Vaudeville house that evening was the startling sensation known as "Charmion," and I was not sorry to see it, even though I had to hold my breath during part of the exhibition. At the risk of relating what a large number of readers must already know, I will describe briefly the act given by the young woman appearing under that title.
When the curtain rose nothing was visible except a trapeze about twenty feet above the stage, and a rope hanging loosely beside it. Presently there entered a woman in full street costume, who inserted one hand nonchalantly in a ring at the end of the rope and was drawn lightly to the trapeze. Here she sat comfortably for an instant; and then, as if by accident, fell backward and hung head down by one leg, bent at the knee.
Her gown and skirts naturally dropped in a mass over her head, leaving the hosiery and minor lingerie in full exposure, with a liberal supply of what was undoubtedly silken tights, but was meant to simulate the flesh of her lower limbs, in full view. For a second she remained in this posture, and then regained her seat on the trapeze, smoothing her skirts into place, with a pretended air of chagrin at what was