V. V.s Eyes | Page 7

beggar, hey?"
"No--no ... Oh, no!" said the doctor, hastily. "Just a--ah--sort of a
fellow wanted to see me ..."
He halted in the middle of the room; stood absently pushing back his
hair; and his gaze, turned toward the window, became introspective, a
little dreamy....

"What we were speaking of, Sam.... Just to show you I'm not so
opinionated--so eccentric--as you seem to think. I read a great little
thing the other day.... In a magazine article, it was, describing one of
those so-called public balls--in Chicago, this one was. You know the
sort of thing--an orgy: rounders and roues, young cheap sports, old
rakes, all the demi-monde, rivers of alcohol.... Drunken women kicking
men's hats off and lying where they fell.... Regular bacchanalia. Well,
about one o'clock two men in evening clothes came into the gallery and
stood looking down into that--maelstrom of infamous faces.... Then one
of them said: '_John the Baptist would have 'em all grovelling in three
minutes_' ..."
He had told his story with a certain youthful expectancy, the air of one
who confides, counting upon a delicate understanding. But Sam O'Neill,
though perfectly willing to be delicate, could only say, after an
anti-climacteric pause: "Is that right? Well, that bunch needed to grovel
all right"--which was a little vague, say what you would of it, chilling
somewhat....
"Well, what's your coryphees' ball but life?" muttered Vivian, knocking
the ashes from the dead pipe he had been holding....
And then, turning away with the fire gone out of him, he added:
"All I say about these people is they'd be so much happier with their
shells hammered off. What's getting rich but building a wall between
yourself and the great common?... Seems to me God meant us all to be
citizens of the world ..."
"That's right," said Sam, reassuringly. And then, as the two men walked
toward the door: "Oh, I don't say that letter there'll do any harm, V.V.
Maybe a little stirring 'em up's just as well ..."
At the door, O'Neill recollected, and spoke again: "Oh, say, V.V.! Saw
your gay young friend Dalhousie just now. Had a pretty nice little load
of bananas too ..."
V.V. halted dead, his look changing abruptly. Trouble gathered on his
brow.
"Where?"
"Driving down Centre Street in a hack, looking sober as a judge, but--"
"What sort of hack?" demanded Vivian, as if a good deal might depend
on that.
"Reg'lar sea-going," answered the Commissioner, confirming the worst.

"Kind with the fold-back top, like you see principally at nigger funerals
and aldermen's parades...."
But it was evidently no merry matter to V.V.
"Then he's off," said he, slowly, and glanced at his watch.... "He
seemed all right when I saw him last night. Only you never can tell,
with him.... I wonder if I could catch him...."
The Commissioner thought not. "He was headed straight for Centre
Street Station, and that was a half-hour ago. Had a bag out front in the
sea-going, too. Oh, thunder, he's all right. Little trip'll do him good...."
Left alone in his office, V. Vivian stood still, staring intently into space.
New-returned to his old home town, this young man was deep in love
with twenty gallant schemes, from the general reform of the world, by
his own system, to the repairment of the stomachic equipment of Tubby
Miggs, aged six. But O'Neill's tidings of the vehicular lad knocked
them all from his mind. He forgot the Huns; forgot John the Baptist;
forgot even his sick, till one of the weller of them (as we may assume)
knocked memorially upon his door....
What trouble was brewing for his frail friend Dal?
* * * * *
Upon this matter, now and henceforward, the other House was to have
information first. Dusk of that day had fallen before the word came to
the deserted hotel. But when it did come, the lame doctor broke his
evening office-hour without notice, and caught a train by thirty
seconds.

II
Two Persons of More Importance, and why they went to the Beach in
October; Miss Carlisle Heth, and how she met an unwelcome swain at
Sea; how this Swain could swim enough for one.
Mr. Heth perused the Severe Arraignment of himself about nine o'clock,
over his second cup of coffee. He perused with indignation; but, being
long since trained to keep a neat partition between downtown and
uptown, he did not divulge his sentiments to the breakfast-table, and
even carried the paper off with him to the office. By such demeanor, he
abdicates our present notice. Mrs. Heth, hours later, bought a copy of
the "Post" from a uniformed newsboy, to see what they had to say of
the Associated Charities meeting on the evening preceding, and of her

remarks in accepting