The Intrusion of Jimmy | Page 9

in
the mood when a man says things, the memory of which makes him
wake up hot all over for nights to come.
"I don't see what first sight's got to do with it," said Mifflin. "According
to your own statement, you stood and glared at the girl for five days
without letting up for a moment. I can quite imagine that you might
glare yourself into love with anyone by the end of that time."
"I can't see myself settling down," said Jimmy, thoughtfully. "And,
until you feel that you want to settle down, I suppose you can't be really
in love."
"I was saying practically that about you at the club just before you
came in. My somewhat neat expression was that you were one of the
gypsies of the world."

"By George, you're quite right!"
"I always am."
"I suppose it's having nothing to do. When I was on the News, I was
never like this."
"You weren't on the News long enough to get tired of it."
"I feel now I can't stay in a place more than a week. It's having this
money that does it, I suppose."
"New York," said Mifflin, "is full of obliging persons who will be
delighted to relieve you of the incubus. Well, James, I shall leave you. I
feel more like bed now. By the way, I suppose you lost sight of this girl
when you landed?"
"Yes."
"Well, there aren't so many girls in the United States--only twenty
million. Or is it forty million? Something small. All you've got to do is
to search around a bit. Good-night."
"Good-night."
Mr. Mifflin clattered down the stairs. A minute later, the sound of his
name being called loudly from the street brought Jimmy to the window.
Mifflin was standing on the pavement below, looking up.
"Jimmy."
"What's the matter now?"
"I forgot to ask. Was she a blonde?"
"What?"
"Was she a blonde?" yelled Mifflin.

"No," snapped Jimmy.
"Dark, eh?" bawled Mifflin, making night hideous.
"Yes," said Jimmy, shutting the window.
"Jimmy!"
The window went up again.
"Well?"
"Me for blondes!"
"Go to bed!"
"Very well. Good-night."
"Good-night."
Jimmy withdrew his head, and sat down in the chair Mifflin had
vacated. A moment later, he rose, and switched off the light. It was
pleasanter to sit and think in the dark. His thoughts wandered off in
many channels, but always came back to the girl on the Lusitania. It
was absurd, of course. He didn't wonder that Arthur Mifflin had treated
the thing as a joke. Good old Arthur! Glad he had made a success! But
was it a joke? Who was it that said, the point of a joke is like the point
of a needle, so small that it is apt to disappear entirely when directed
straight at oneself? If anybody else had told him such a limping
romance, he would have laughed himself. Only, when you are the
center of a romance, however limping, you see it from a different angle.
Of course, told badly, it was absurd. He could see that. But something
away at the back of his mind told him that it was not altogether absurd.
And yet--love didn't come like that, in a flash. You might just as well
expect a house to spring into being in a moment, or a ship, or an
automobile, or a table, or a--He sat up with a jerk. In another instant, he
would have been asleep.
He thought of bed, but bed seemed a long way off--the deuce of a way.

Acres of carpet to be crawled over, and then the dickens of a climb at
the end of it. Besides, undressing! Nuisance--undressing. That was a
nice dress the girl had worn on the fourth day out. Tailor-made. He
liked tailor-mades. He liked all her dresses. He liked her. Had she liked
him? So hard to tell if you don't get a chance of speaking! She was dark.
Arthur liked blondes, Arthur was a fool! Good old Arthur! Glad he had
made a success! Now, he could marry if he liked! If he wasn't so
restless, if he didn't feel that he couldn't stop more than a day in any
place! But would the girl have him? If they had never spoken, it made
it so hard to--
At this point, Jimmy went to sleep.
CHAPTER III
MR. McEACHERN
At about the time when Jimmy's meditations finally merged themselves
in dreams, a certain Mr. John McEachern, Captain of Police, was seated
in the parlor of his up-town villa, reading. He was a man built on a
large scale. Everything about him was large--his hands, his feet, his
shoulders, his chest, and particularly his jaw, which even in his
moments of calm was aggressive, and which stood out, when anything