From a Bench in Our Square | Page 7

the head-waiter to help him carry out a joke, and that functionary, developing a sense of humor under the stimulus of a twenty-dollar bill, procured him on the spot an ill-fitting coat and a black string tie, and gave him certain simple directions. When the patroness of Art next observed the object of her patronage, he was performing the humble but useful duties of an omnibus.
Miss Holland suddenly lost a perfectly good and hitherto reliable appetite.
Nor was she the only member of the supper party to develop symptoms of shock. The gilded and stalwart youth on her left, following her glance, stared at the amateur servitor with protruding eyes, ceased to eat or drink, and fell into a state of semi-coma, muttering at intervals an expressive monosyllable.
"Why not swear out loud, Caspar?" asked Bobbie presently. "It'll do you less harm."
"D'you see that chap over yonder? The big, fine-looking one fixing the forks?"
"Yes," said Bobbie faintly.
"Well, that's--No, by thunder, it can't be!--Yes, by the red-hot hinges, it is!"
"Do you think you know him?"
"Know him! I know him? He bunked in with me for two weeks at Grandpr��. He was captain of a machine-gun outfit sent down to help us clean out that little wasp's nest. His name's Tenney, and if ever there was a hellion in a fight! And see--what he's come to! My God!"
"Well, don't cry about it," advised the girl, serenely, though it was hard for her to keep her voice steady. "There's nothing to do about it, is there?"
"Isn't there!" retorted the youth, rising purposefully. "I'm going to get him and find him a job that's fit for him if I have to take him into partnership. Of all the dash-blanked-dod-blizzened--"
"Caspar! What are you going to do? Don't. You'll embarrass him frightfully."
But he was already heading off his prey at the exit. Bobbie saw her painter's face flame into welcome, then stiffen into dismay. The pair vanished beyond the watcher's ken. On his return the gilded youth behaved strangely. From time to time he shook his head. From time to time he chuckled. And, while Bobbie was talking to her other neighbor, he shot curious and amused glances at her. He told her nothing. But his interest in his supper returned. Bobbie's didn't.
To discuss the social aspects of menial service with a practitioner of it who has been admitted to a certain implicit equality is a difficult and delicate matter for a girl brought up in Roberta Holland's school. Several times after the restaurant encounter she essayed it; trying both the indirect approach and the method of extreme frankness. Neither answered. Julien responded to her advances by alternate moods of extreme gloom and slyly inexplicable amusement. Bobbie gave it up, concluding that he was in a very queer mood, anyway. She was right. He was.
The next episode of their progress took the form of a veritable unmasking which, perversely enough, only fixed the mask tighter upon Julien Tenney. By way of loosening up his wrist for the open season, Peter Quick Banta had taken advantage of an amiable day to sketch out a composite floral and faunal scheme on the flagging in front of Thornsen's ��lite Restaurant, when Miss Holland, in passing, paused to observe and wonder. At the same moment, Julien hurrying around the corner, all but ran her down. She nodded toward the decorator of sidewalks.
"Isn't he the funny man that you were with the first time I saw you?"
"The very same," responded Julien with twinkling eyes.
"What is he doing?"
"He's one of the few remaining examples of the sidewalk or public-view school of art."
"Yes, but what does he do it for?"
"His living."
"Do people give him money for it? Do you think I might give him something?" she asked, looking uncertainly at the artist, who, on hands and knees and with tongue protruding, was putting a green head on a red bird, too absorbed even to notice the onlookers.
"I think he'd be tickled pink."
She took a quarter from her purse, hesitated, then slipped it into her companion's hand.
"You give it to him. I think he'd like it better."
"Oh, no; I don't think he'd like it at all. In fact, I doubt if he'd take it from me."
"Why not?"
"Well, you see," explained Julien blandly, "we're rather intimately connected." He raised his voice. "Hello, Dad!"
The decorator furled his tongue, lifted his head, changed his crayon, replied, "Hello, Lad," and continued his work. "What d' you think of that?" he added, after a moment, triumphantly pointing a yellow crayon at the green-headed red-bird.
"Some parrot!" enthused Julien.
"'T ain't a parrot. It's a nightingale," retorted the artist indignantly. "You black-and-white fellows never do understand color."
"It's a corker, anyway," said Julien. "Dad here's a--an art patron who wants to contribute to the cause."
The girl, whose face had become flushed and almost frightened, held