The Stolen Singer | Page 7

work to
do in Boston, so that he could go out to Lynn and look up Jimmy's case.
He even devised a cure by creating, in his mind, an office in the
biological world which was to be offered to James on the ground that
science needed just his abilities and training. But when Aleck arrived in
Lynn he found that Jim, in some fashion or other, had found a cure for
himself. He was deeper than ever in the business, and yet, in some
spiritual sense, he had found himself. He had captured his ideal again
and yoked it to duty--which is a great feat.
After twelve years of ferocious labor, with no vacations to speak of,
James's mind took a turn for the worse. Physically he was as sound as a
bell, though of a lath-like thinness; but an effervescing in his blood
lured his mind away from the study of lasts and accounts and Parisian
models and sent it careering, like Satan, up and down the earth.
Romance, which had been drugged during the transition from youth to
manhood, awoke and coaxed for its rights, and whispered temptingly in
an ear not yet dulled to its voice. Freedom, open spaces, laughter, the
fresh sweep of the wind, the high bucaneering piracy of life and
joy--these things beglamoured his senses.
So one day he locked his desk with a final click. The business was in
good shape. It is but justice to say that if it had not been, Romance had
dangled her luring wisp o' light in vain. Several of his new schemes had
worked out well, his subordinates were of one mind with him, trade
was flourishing. He felt he could afford a little spin.

Jimsy's radiating fancies focussed themselves, at last, on the vision of a
trig little sail-boat, "a jug of wine, a loaf of bread" in the cabin, with
possibly the book of verses underneath the bow, or more suitably, in
the shadow of the sail; and Aleck Van Camp and himself astir in the
rigging or plunging together from the gunwale for an early swim. "And
before I get off, I'll hear a singer that can sing," he declared.
He telegraphed Aleck, who was by this time running down the eyelid
of the squid, to meet him at his club in New York. Then he made short
work with the family. Experience had taught him that an attack from
ambush was most successful.
"Look here, Edith,"--this was at the breakfast-table the very morning of
his departure. Edith was sixteen, the tallest girl in the academy, almost
ready for college and reckoned quite a queen in her world--"You be
good and do my chores for me while I'm away, and I'll bring you home
a duke. Take care of mother's bronchitis, and keep the house straight.
I'm going on a cruise."
"All right, Jim"--Edith could always be counted on to catch the
ball--"go ahead and have a bully time and don't drown yourself. I'll
drive the team straight to water, mother and dad and the whole outfit,
trust me!"
Considering the occasion and the correctness of the sentiments, Jim
forbore, for once, from making the daily suggestion that she chasten her
language. By the time the family appeared, Jim had laid out a rigid
course of action for Miss Edith, who rose to the occasion like a soldier.
"Mother'll miss you, of course, but Jack and Harold"--two of Edith's
admirers--"Jack and Harold can come around every day--stout arm to
lean upon, that sort of thing. You know mother can't be a bit jolly
without plenty of men about, and since Sue became engaged she really
doesn't count. The boys will think they are running things, of course,
but they'll see my iron hand in the velvet glove--you can throw a blue
chip on that, Jimsy. And don't kiss me, Jim, for Dorothy Snell and I
vowed, when we wished each other's rings on--Oh, well, brothers don't
count."

And so, amid the farewells of a tender, protesting family, he got off,
leaving Edith in the midst of one of her monologues.
There was a telegram in New York saying that Aleck Van Camp would
join him in three days, at the latest. Hambleton disliked the club and
left it, although his first intention had been to put up there. He picked
out a modest, up-town hotel, new to him, for no other reason than that
it had a pretty name, The Larue. Then he began to consider details.
The day after his arrival was occupied in making arrangements for his
boat. He put into this matter the same painstaking buoyancy that he had
put into a dull business for twelve years. He changed his plans half a
dozen times, and exceeded them wholly in the size