Galusha the Magnificent | Page 9

later he never knew exactly, Mr. Bangs awoke
from his faint or collapse or doze, whichever it may have been, to hear
some one calling his name.
"Loosh! Loosh! Loosh!"
This was odd, very odd. "Loosh" was what he had been called at
college. That is, some of the fellows had called him that, those he liked

best. The others had even more offensive nicknames. He disliked
"Loosh" very much, but he answered to it--then.
"Loosh! Loosh! Loosh, where are you?"
Queer that any one should be calling him "Loosh"--any one down here
in . . . Eh? Where was he? He couldn't remember much except that he
was very tired--except--
"Loosh! Looshy! Come Looshy!"
He staggered to his feet and, leaving the suitcase where it was,
stumbled away in the direction of the voice. The rain, pouring down
upon him, served to bring him back a little nearer to reality. Wasn't that
a light over there, that bright yellow spot in the fog?
It was a light, a lighted doorway, with a human figure standing in it.
The figure of a woman, a woman in a dark dress and a white apron. It
must be she who was calling him. Yes, she was calling him again.
"Loosh! Loosh! Looshy! Oh, my sakes alive! Why don't you come?"
Mr. Bangs bumped into something. It was a gate in a picket fence and
the gate swung open. He staggered up the path on the other side of that
gate, the path which led to the doorway where the woman was
standing.
"Yes, madam," said Galusha, politely but shakily lifting the brown
derby, "here I am."
The woman started violently, but she did not run nor scream.
"My heavens and earth!" she exclaimed. Then, peering forward, she
stared at the dripping apparition which had appeared to her from the
fog and rain.
"Here I am, madam," repeated Mr. Bangs.
The woman nodded. She was middle-aged, with a pleasant face and a

figure of the sort which used to be called "comfortable." Her manner of
looking and speaking were quick and businesslike.
"Yes," she said, promptly, "I can see you are there, so you needn't tell
me again. WHY are you there and who are you?"
Galusha's head was spinning dizzily, but he tried to make matters clear.
"My name is--is-- Dear me, how extraordinary! I seem to have
forgotten it. Oh, yes, it is Bangs--that is it, Bangs. I heard you calling
me, so--"
"Heard ME calling YOU?"
"Yes. I--I came down to the hotel--the rest--Rest--that hotel over there.
It was closed. I sat down upon the porch, for I have been ill recently
and I--ah--tire easily. So, as I say--"
The woman interrupted him. She had been looking keenly at his face as
he spoke.
"Come in. Come into the house," she commanded, briskly.
Mr. Bangs took a step toward her. Then he hesitated.
"I--I am very wet, I'm afraid," he said. "Really, I am not sure that--"
"Rubbish! It's because you are wet--wet as a drowned rat--that I'm
askin' you to come in. Come now--quick."
Her tone was not unkind, but it was arbitrary.
Galusha made no further protest. She held the door open and he
preceded her into a room, then into another, this last evidently a sitting
room. He was to know it well later; just now he was conscious of little
except that it was a room--and light--and warm-- and dry.
"Sit down!" ordered his hostess.

Galusha found himself standing beside a couch, an old-fashioned sofa.
It tempted him--oh, how it tempted him!--but he remembered the
condition of his garments.
"I am very wet indeed," he faltered. "I'm afraid I may spoil your-- your
couch."
"Sit DOWN!"
Galusha sat. The room was doing a whirling dervish dance about him,
but he still felt it his duty to explain.
"I fear you must think this--ah--very queer," he stammered. "I realize
that I must seem--ah--perhaps insane, to you. But I have, as I say, been
ill and I have walked several miles, owing to--ah-- mistakes in locality,
and not having eaten for some time, since breakfast, in fact, I--"
"Not since BREAKFAST? Didn't you have any dinner, for mercy
sakes?"
"No, madam. Nor luncheon. Oh, it is quite all right, no one's fault but
my own. Then, when I found the--the hotel closed, I--I sat down to rest
and--and when I heard you call my name--"
"Wait a minute. What IS your name?"
"My name is Bangs, Galusha Bangs. It seems ridiculous now, as I tell it,
but I certainly thought I heard you or some one call me by the name my
relatives and friends used to use. Of course--"
"Wait. What was that name?"
Even now, dizzy and faint as he was, Mr. Bangs squirmed upon the
sofa.
"It was--well,