The Man on the Box | Page 9

he gave to the cabby. He did not realize
it, but this was the only piece of American money he had on his person.
Nor did he wait for the change. Mr. Robert was exceedingly careless
with his money at this stage of his infatuation; being a soldier, he never

knew the real value of legal tender. I know that I should never have
been guilty of such liberality, not even if Mister Cabby had bowled me
from Harlem to Brooklyn. And you may take my word for it, the
gentleman in the ancient plug-hat did not wait to see if his fare had
made a mistake, but trotted away good and hearty. The cab system is
one of the most pleasing and amiable phases of metropolitan life.
Warburton rushed into the noisy, gorgeous lobby, and wandered about
till he espied the desk. Here he turned over his luggage checks to the
clerk and said that these accessories of travel must be in his room
before eight o'clock that night, or there would be trouble. It was now
half after five. The clerk eagerly scanned the register. Warburton,
Robert Warburton; it was not a name with which he was familiar. A
thin film of icy hauteur spread over his face.
"Very well, sir. Do you wish a bath with your room?"
"Certainly." Warburton glanced at his watch again.
"The price--"
"Hang the price! A room, a room with a bath--that's what I want. Have
you got it?" This was said with a deal of real impatience and a hauteur
that overtopped the clerk's.
The film of ice melted into a gracious smile. Some new millionaire
from Pittsburg, thought the clerk. He swung the book around.
"You have forgotten your place of residence, sir," he said.
"Place of residence!"
Warburton looked at the clerk in blank astonishment. Place of residence?
Why, heaven help him, he had none, none! For the first time since he
left the Army the knowledge came home to him, and it struck rather
deep. He caught up the pen, poised it an indecisive moment, then
hastily scribbled Paris: as well Paris as anywhere. Then he took out his
wallet, comfortably packed with English and French bank-notes, and a

second wave of astonishment rolled over him. Altogether, it was a rare
good chance that he ever came to the surface again. No plan, no place
of residence, no American money!
"Good Lord! I forgot all about exchanging it on shipboard!" he
exclaimed.
"Don't let that trouble you, sir," said the clerk, with real affability. "Our
own bank will exchange your money in the morning."
"But I haven't a penny of American money on my person!"
"How much will you need for the evening, sir?"
"Not more than fifty."
The clerk brought forth a slip of paper, wrote something on it, and
handed it to Warburton.
"Sign here," he said, indicating a blank space.
And presently Mr. Robert, having deposited his foreign money in the
safe, pocketed the receipt for its deposit along with five crisp American
notes. There is nothing lacking in these modern hostelries, excepting it
be a church.
Our homeless young gentleman lighted a cigar and went out under the
portico. An early darkness had settled over the city, and a heavy steady
rain was falling. The asphalt pavements glistened and twinkled as far as
the eye's range could reach. A thousand lights gleamed down on him,
and he seemed to be standing in a canon dappled with fireflies. Place of
residence! Neither the fig-tree nor the vine! Did he lose his money
to-morrow, the source of his small income, he would be without a roof
over his head. True, his brother's roof would always welcome him: but
a roof-tree of his own! And he could lay claim to no city, either, having
had the good fortune to be born in a healthy country town. Place of
residence! Truly he had none; a melancholy fact which he had not
appreciated till now. And all this had slipped his mind because of a pair

of eyes as heavenly blue as a rajah's sapphire!
Hang it, what should he do, now that he was no longer traveling, now
that his time was no longer Uncle Sam's? He had never till now known
idleness, and the thought of it did not run smoothly with the grain. He
was essentially a man of action. There might be some good sport for a
soldier in Venezuela, but that was far away and uncertain. It was quite
possible Jack, his brother, might find him a post as military attache,
perhaps in France, perhaps in Belgium, perhaps in Vienna. That was
the goal of more than one subaltern. The English novelist is to be
blamed for this ambition. But Warburton could speak French with a
certain