Miss Almira Johnson was a virtuous
spinster, aged thirty-nine, who
lived in a highly respectable boarding-house
on the north side. Her
days she spent in keeping the books of a
large leather firm, in an office which she shared
with two male clerks who were married, and a
red-headed boy of sixteen, who was small for
his age.
On the evening when my tale begins, Miss
Almira, tastefully attired for her night’s rest
in a white nightgown trimmed with blue lace,
was peeping under the bed for the ever-possible
man, the nightly rite preliminary to her
prayers. She fell back gasping in a vain
attempt to scream, but not a sound could she
give vent to. The precaution of years had
been justified. There lay a man! He was
habited in a very genteel frock-suit, patent-leather
shoes, and although it must have
caused him some inconvenience in his recumbent
position, upon his head was a correct plug
hat. The elegance and respectability of his
garb somewhat reassured Miss Almira, who
was unable to believe that one so apparelled
could have secreted himself under her bed for
an evil purpose, when a new fear seized her,
for arguing from this assumption, she concluded
he must have been placed there by
others and was, in short, dead. Whereupon,
having to some degree recovered possession of
herself, she was opening her mouth to scream
at this new terror, when the man spoke.
“Listen before you scream, I pray thee,
beauteous lady, darling of my life, pearl of my
desires, star of my hopes.”
The strangeness of the address and the unaccustomed
epithets caused Miss Almira to forbear,
for she could not hear what he had to
say and scream at the same time, and, moreover,
she remembered how twenty years before,
Jake Long had fled, never to return to her
side, when after telling her she was the sweetest
thing in the world, she had screamed as
his arms clasped about her in a bearish hug.
“Fair lady, ornament of your sex, hear the
words of your ardent admirer before you blast
his hopes.”
As he uttered these words, the stranger extricated
himself from his undignified position
and sat down in a rocking chair before the
bureau. Miss Almira was more than ever
prepossessed as she saw he wore white kid
gloves and that in his shirt front gleamed a
large diamond. He removed his hat, disclosing
a heavy crop of black hair. He had blue
eyes and a strong, clean-shaven face.
“For some time I have observed you and
wondered how I was to realize my fondest
hopes and make your acquaintance. All day
you are in the office, where the two married
men and the red-headed boy are always de
trop. My employment is of a nature that
takes me out nights. In fact, I teach a night
school for Italians. To-day being an Italian
holiday and so no school, and as there is a possibility
I shall soon leave the city for an extended
season, I have been unable to devise
any other means of declaring myself before the
time for my departure. Pray pardon me for
the abruptness and importunity of my declaration,
pray forgive me for the unusual way
which I have taken to secure an interview
alone with you. But if you only knew the
ardor of my love, my impatience—oh, would
that our union could be effected this very
night!”
Ravished by the elegance of the stranger
both in his outward seeming and his converse,
melted by the warmth of a romantic devotion
almost unknown in these degenerate days,
though common enough of yore, Miss Almira
paused a moment in the proud compliance of
one about to gladly bestow an inestimable, but
hardly hoped-for gift, and crying, “It can be
done, it shall be done,” threw herself into the
cavalier’s arms.
“How so?” asked the stranger, after Miss
Almira had disengaged herself at the elapse of
a proper interval.
“Why, the Rev. Eusebius Williams has the
next room. We will call him.”
“But,” said the stranger, “I thought the
occupant of the next room was Mr. Algernon
Tibbs, a gentleman from the country, who has
recently sold a large number of hogs here in
the city and has been ill in his room for a
space by reason of a contusion on the head
from a gold brick, which was, so to speak,
twice thrown at his head, once figuratively as
a ridiculously fine bargain which he refused to
take, and again when the owner, angered,
struck him with the rejected gold.”
“I see,” said Miss Almira archly, “that in
planning for this, you have tried to study the
lay of the land; but be gratified, sir, for the
lucky chance which prevented a sad mistake.
Mr. Tibbs and I do occupy adjoining rooms.
But the one Mr. Tibbs occupies is really mine.
To-day we exchanged and I will remain here
for the four or five days Mr. Tibbs is to be in
the city. He has a large sum of money in his
possession, so we all infer. At any rate, he
was afraid to sleep in this room, where there is
a fire escape at the window, and took mine,
where an unscalable wall prevents access.
Suppose the Italian holiday had been last
night and you had come then. He would then
have taken you for a robber, notwithstanding
that anybody could see you are a gentleman.”
For the first time did Miss Almira become
conscious she was not robed as one should be
while receiving callers, and blushing violently,
she leaped into bed, whence she bid the
stranger retire for a bit until she could dress,
when they would invoke the kindly offices of
the Rev. Eusebius Williams.
“Your name,” she called, as the stranger
was about to retire.
“My name,” said he impressively, “which
will soon be yours, is Breckenridge Endicott.”
“Mulvane,” said Mr. Breckenridge Endicott
to himself, noiselessly descending the stairs,
“what if she had screamed before you had
pulled yourself together and thought of that
stunt? You didn’t get old Tibb’s money, but
you did get—away.”
Mr. Endicott tried the front door. To his
apparent annoyance, there was no bolt, no
knob to unlock it, and key there was none.
In the parlors, he could hear the voices of
boarders.
“No way there, Mulvane,” said Mr. Endicott.
“I’ll go into the kitchen and walk out
the back door. If there’s anybody there,
they’ll think me a new boarder.”
But he started violently and stood for some
moments trembling for no assignable reason, as
he saw in front of the range a fat German
hired girl sitting in the lap of a fat Irish
policeman.
“No go through Almira’s room to the fire
escape. But perhaps I can get out on the roof
and get away somehow. She can’t have
dressed so soon,” and he ascended the stairs to
run plump into Miss Almira, who popped out of
her room, resplendent in a rustling black silk.
“Oh, you impatient thing,” said Miss Almira,
shaking a reproving finger. “I put this on,
and then I thought I ought to wear something
white, and so came out to tell you not to get
impatient waiting, and why I kept you so
long,” and back she popped.
“You are up against it, Mulvane,” said Mr.
Breckenridge Endicott, sitting disconsolately
down upon the stairs. “Hold on, just the
thing. Why, as her husband, you’ll live here
unsuspected and get in with old Tibbs. Why,
the job will be pie. It won’t be mean to her,
either. When you just vanish, she’ll have
‘Mrs.’ tacked to her name, and that’ll help
her. It will be lots of satisfaction. They
can’t call her an old maid. ‘Better ’tis to have
loved and lost than never to have loved at all.’
I’ll give her some of the boodle. She isn’t bad
looking. Wonder why nobody ever grabbed
on to her. If I had enough to live well, I’d
marry her myself and settle down.”
The Rev. Eusebius Williams, with ten dollars
fee in his right pantaloons pocket, and the
radiant Almira, did not look happier during
the wedding ceremony than did Mr. Breckenridge
Endicott.
It was seldom that Mr. Endicott was absent
from the side of his wife during the next few
days. Occasionally pleading urgent business,
he left her to go down town with Mr.
Tibbs, whom he was seeking to interest in a
plan to extract gold from sea water, a plan
upon which Mr. Tibbs looked with some favor,
for as presented by Mr. Endicott, it was one
of great feasibility and promised enormous
profits. In the setting forth of the method of
extraction, Mr. Endicott was much aided by
his wife, who overhearing him in earnest consultation
with Mr. Tibbs bounded in and demanded
to know what it was all about. Mr.
Endicott demurred, saying it was an abstruse
matter which should not burden so poetical a
mind as hers. But Mr. Tibbs set it forth to
her briefly. Having in her youth made much
of the sciences of chemistry and physics, to
the great amaze and admiration of Mr. Endicott,
she launched into a most lucid explication
of the practicability of the plan, leaving
Mr. Tibbs more than ever inclined to venture
his thousands.
“By Jove, she’ll do, Mulvane. Why cut and
run? Take her along. She is a splendid
grafter,” said Mr. Endicott to himself, as he
and his wife withdrew from the presence of
Mr. Tibbs. “My dear,” he continued aloud,
“I was overcome by respect for the way you
aided me. You are indeed a jewel. I had
never suspected you understood me, knew
what I was, until you came in and explained that
sucker trap. You are a most unexpected ally.
You perceive clearly how the thing works?”
“Why, of course, Breckenridge. I have not
studied science in vain, though I do not recall
what part of the machine you call ‘sucker trap’.
Doubtless the contrivance marked ‘converter,’
in the drawings. Of course I understood you,
right from the first, a noble, noble man, and so
romantic. But Brecky, dear, why let other
people share in this invention? Why not make
all the money ourselves and become million,
millionaires? I shall build churches and
libraries and support missionaries. Why let
Mr. Tibbs, who is a somewhat gross person,
enjoy any of the fruits of your genius?”
Whereupon Mr. Endicott’s face took on an
expression of deep disappointment, disillusionment,
and sorrow, until seeing his own sorrow
mingled with alarm reflected on his wife’s
face, he presently announced that they would
depart on their wedding journey by boat for
Mackinac three days hence.
“I shall stop fiddle-faddling and settle the
business which delays me here, at one stroke.
The old simple methods are the best.”
As Mr. and Mrs. Breckenridge Endicott
were entering their cab to drive to the wharf,
Mrs. Maxon, the landlady, came hurriedly
with the scandal that Mr. Algernon Tibbs had
been found in his room in the stupor of intoxication.
“Why, he might have been robbed while in
that condition,” said Mrs. Maxon.
“He will not be robbed while under your
roof,” said Mr. Endicott gallantly. “He is
safe from robbing now. He will not, he cannot,
I may say, be robbed now.”
The sun was touching the western horizon as
the steamer glided out of the river’s mouth.
The wind lay dead upon the water, and for a
space the pair sat in the tender light of declining
day indulging in the pleasures of conversation,
but at length Mr. Endicott led his wife to
their stateroom.
“On this auspicious day, I wish to make you
a gift,” and he handed her a thousand dollars
in bills. “My presence is now required on the
lower deck for a time. Be patient during my
absence,” whereupon he embraced her with an
ardor he had never shown before and there
was in his voice a strange ring of regret and
longing such as Almira had never listened to.
It thrilled her very soul and bestowing upon
him a shower of passionate kisses and an embrace
of the utmost affection, their parting took
on almost the agony of a parting for years.
“Where the devil is that coal passer Mullanphy,
I gave a job to?” said the engineer on the
lower deck. “Is he aboard?”
“His dunnage is in his bunk, but nobody
ain’t seen him,” replied one of the crew.
“Who the devil is that geezer in a Prince
Albert and a plug hat that just went in back
there, and what the devil is he up to?” said
the engineer again, as a black-clothed figure
passed toward the stern.
A few moments later, a sturdy man in a
jumper and overalls, his face smeared with
grime, peered cautiously around a bulkhead,
and seeing nobody, stepped quickly to the
side of the vessel, bearing a limp and spineless
figure in a black frock and silk hat. With a
dextrous movement, he cast the thing forth,
and as it went flopping through the air and
slapped the water, from somewhere arose the
voice of Mr. Breckenridge Endicott crying,
“Help! help! help!”
Mrs. Endicott, full of dole at the absence of
her spouse and oppressed with a nameless disquiet,
had paced the upper deck impatiently,
and at this moment stood just above where her
beloved went leaping to his doom. With one
wild scream, she jumped, she scrambled, she
fell to the lower deck, colliding with a man
leaning out looking at the sinking figure.
Down, with a vain and frantic clutching at the
side that only served to stay his fall so that he
slipped silently into the water under the vessel’s
counter, went the unfortunate man.
Plump, into the yawl with the rescue crew,
went Mrs. Endicott. Far astern through the
dusk could be seen a black silk hat on the still
water. Astern could be heard the voice of
Mr. Breckenridge Endicott crying, “Quick,
quick! I can swim a little, but I am almost
gone!”
“Turn to the left, to the left,” cried Mrs.
Endicott.
“But the cries come from the right,” said
the coxswain.
“That’s his hat to the left. I know his hat.
I saw him fall. I know his voice. It’s his hat
and his voice.”
The crew could have sworn that the cries
came from the right, but to the hat they
steered and the cries ceased before their
arrival. They lifted the hat. Nothing beneath
but eighty fathoms of water.
It was some time thereafter that a fisherman
came upon a corpse floating inshore. Its face
was bloated to such an extent as to prevent
recognition. Its clothes were those of a steamboat
roustabout. In the breastpocket was a
large pocketbook bearing in gilt letters the
legend, “Mr. Breckenridge Endicott.”
“The present I gave him on the morning of
our departure!” exclaimed Miss Almira, “now
so strangely found on the dead body of the
man who robbed him and probably murdered
him.”
Although soaked, the bills were redeemable.
The fisherman was a fisherman who owned a
town house on Prairie Avenue and a country
house at Oconomowoc and he would take no
reward. The bills amounted to nine thousand
dollars. Taking her fortune, Almira retired
to her former home in Ogle county, Illinois,
where once more meeting Mr. Jake Long,
lately made a widower, after a decent period
of waiting, they became man and wife. So it
ended happily for all except the person who
called himself Mr. Breckenridge Endicott—though
I suspect that was not his name—and
for Mr. Algernon Tibbs. Lest you waste pity
on Mr. Algernon Tibbs, let me say that in his
youth, he was accustomed to kill little girl’s
cats, and that his fortune was entirely one he
beat out of his brother-in-law, James Wilkinson.
