A Good Samaritan

"I'm simply—simply—broken up, Miss Margery," and the girl's eyes looked at him with a sweet wideness that made it harder. "I don't know how to tell you, and I don't know how to resign myself to it either, but I—I can't take you to the theater. I—I've got to—got to—well, you see, I've got to be with Billy."

She spoke quickly at that. "Mr. Fairfax, is Billy really ill—is there something more than I understand? Why didn't you tell me? Has their been an accident, perhaps? Why, I must go to him too—come—hurry—I'll go with you, of course."

Rex stumbled again in his effort to quiet her alarm, to prevent this scheme of seeking Billy on his couch of pain. "Oh no, indeed you mustn't do that," he objected strenuously. "I couldn't let you, you know. I don't want you to be bothered. Billy isn't ill at all—there hasn't been any accident, I give you my word. He's all right—Billy's all right." He had quite lost his prospective by now, and did not see the rocks upon which he rushed.

"If Billy's all right, why isn't he here?" demanded Billy's cousin severely.

Rex saw now. "He isn't exactly—that is to say—all right, you know. You see how it is," and he gazed involuntarily at the sleeping giant huddled on the truck.

"I do not see." The brown eyes had never looked at him so coldly before, and their expression cut him.

"I'm glad you don't," he cried, and realized that the words had taken him a step deeper into trouble. "It's just this way, Miss Margery—Billy isn't hurt or ill, but he isn't—isn't feeling quite himself, and—and I've got to—I've got to be with him." His voice sounded as if he were going to cry, but it moved the girl to no pity.

"Oh!" she said, and her bewildered tone was a whole world removed from the bright comradeship with which she had met him. "I see—you and Billy have something else planned." Her face flushed suddenly. "I'm sorry I misunderstood about—about the theater. I wouldn't for worlds have—have seemed to force you to—" She stopped, embarrassed, hurt, but yet with her graceful dignity untouched.

"Oh," the wretched Rex exclaimed impetuously, "if I could only take you to the theater, I'd rather than—" but the girl stopped him.

"Never mind about that, please," she said, with gentle decision. "I must go home—when is the next boat? One is going now—good-night, Mr. Fairfax—no, don't come with me—I don't need you," and she was gone.

Two minutes later Strong's innocent slumbers were dispersed by a vicious shake. "Wake up! wake up!" ordered Fairfax, restraining himself with difficulty from mangling the cause of his sufferings. "I've had enough, and we're going home, straight."

Rex was mistaken about that, but Billy was cordial in agreeing with him. "Good idea, Recky! Howd'y' ever come to think of it? Le's go home straight; tha's a bully good thing to do. Le's do it. Big head on you, ol' boy," and yawning still, but with unperturbed good nature, Strong marched, a bit crookedly, arm in arm with his friend to the street.

Rex's memory of the trip uptown on the Elevated was like an evil dream. Strong, after his nap, was as a giant refreshed, and his play of wit knew no contracting limits. There were, luckily, not many passengers going up at this hour, but the dozen or so on the car were regaled. Billy selected a seat on the floor with his broad back planted against the door, and at every station the conductor and Rex had to reason with him at length before the door could be opened. The official threatened as well as he could for laughing to put him off, but he threatened less strenuously for the sight of six feet two of muscle in magnificently fit condition. This lasted for half a dozen stations and then the patient began to play like a mountainous kitten. He took a strap on either side of the car and turned somersaults; he did traveling ring work with them; he gave a standing broad jump that would have been creditable on an athletic field; he had his audience screaming with laughter at an imitation of water polo over the back of a seat. Then, just as the fun was at an almost impossible point, and the conductor, highly entertained but worried, was considering how to get this chap arrested, Billy walked up to him with charming friendliness and shook hands.

"One th' besh track meets I've ever had pleasure attendin', sir," he said genially, and sat down and relapsed into grave dignity.

So he remained for five minutes, to the trembling joy of his exhausted guardian, but it was too good to be true. Suddenly, at Fifty-third Street, he spied a young woman at the other end of the car. There were not more than nine passengers, so that each person might have had a matter of half a dozen seats a piece, but Strong suddenly felt a demand on his politeness, and reason was nothing to him. He rose and marched the forty feet or so between himself and the woman, and, standing in front of her, lifted, with some difficulty, his hat.

"Won't you take my seat, madam?" he inquired, with a smile of perfect courtesy.

The young person was a young person of common-sense and she caught the situation. She flashed a reassuring glance at Rex, hovering distressed in the background, and shook her head at Strong politely. "No—no, thank you," she said; "I think I can find a seat at this end that will do nicely."

"Madam, I insist," Strong addressed her again earnestly.

"No, really," The young woman was embarrassed, for the eyes of the car were on her. "Thank you so much," she said finally; "I think I'd better stay here."

Strong bent over and put a great hand lightly on her arm. "Madam, as gen'leman I cannot, cannot allow it. Madam, you mush take my seat. Pleash, madam, do not make scene. 'S pleasure to me, 'sure you—greates' pleasure," and beneath this courtly urgency the flushed girl walked shamefacedly the length of the almost empty car, and sat down in Strong's seat, while that soul of chivalry put his hand through a strap and so stood till his ministering angel extracted him from the train at Seventy-second Street.

With a sigh of heartfelt relief, Rex put his arm in the big fellow's at the foot of the steps. Freedom must now be at hand, for Billy's home was in a great apartment building not ten minutes' walk away. The culprit himself seemed to realize that his fling was over.

"Raished Cain t'night, didn' we, ol' pal?" he inquired, and squeezed Rex's guiding arm with affection. "I'll shay this for you, Rex—you may be soft-hearted ol' slob, you may be half-witted donkey—I'm not denyin' all that 'n more, but I'll shay thish—you're the bes' man to go on a drunk with in—in—in The'logican Sem'nary. I'm not 'xceptin' th'–"

"Shut up, Billy," remarked Rex, not for the first time that night. "I'd get myself pulled together a bit if I were you," he advised. "You're going to see your family in a minute."

"M' poor fam'ly!" mourned Strong, shaking his head. "M' poor fam'ly! Thish'll be awful blow to m' fam'ly, Recky. They all like so mush to see me sober—always—'s their fad, Recky. Don't blame 'em, Recky, 's natural to 'em. Some peop' born that way. M' poor fam'ly."

They stood in front of the broad driveway which swept under lofty arches into the huge apartment house. Strong stopped and gazed upwards mournfully. "Right up there," he murmured, pointing skywards—"M' fam'ly." The tears were streaming down his face frankly now. "I can't face 'em Recky, 'n this condition you've got me in," he said more in sorrow than in anger. At that second the last inspiration of the evening caught him. Across the street arose the mighty pile of an enormous uptown hotel. Strong jerked his thumb over his shoulder. "Go'n' break it to m' fam'ly by telegraph' 'em," he stated, and bitterly Rex repented of that thoughtless mention of the Strongs to their son and heir.

Good-naturedly as he had done everything, but relentlessly, he dragged his victim over the way, and direct to the Western Union office of the hotel—"Webster's Union" he preferred to call it. His first telegram read:

"Rex Fairfax got me drunk. Don't blame him. It's natural to him."

That one was confiscated, Strong complaining gently that his friend was all "fads."

The second message was this:

"Dear Mama: Billy's intoxicated. Awfully sorry. Couldn't be helped. Home soon."

That one went in spite of Fairfax's efforts, with two cents extra to pay, which item was the first event of the evening to ruffle Strong's temper.

"Shame, shame on rich cap'talists like Webster's Union to wring two cents from poor drunk chap, for lil' word like 'soon'," he growled, and appealed to the operator. "Couldn't you let me off that two cents?" he asked winningly. "You're good fellow—good lookin' fellow too"—which was the truth. "Well, then, can I get 'em cheaper 'f I sen 'em by quantity? I'll do that—how many for dollar, hey?"

"Five," said the grinning operator, troubled by the irregularity, but taken by this highly entertaining scheme of telegraphing across the street. And Rex, his arts exhausted in vain, watched hopelessly while, one after another, five telegrams were sent to The Montana, a hundred feet away. The first being short two of the regulation ten words. Strong finished with a cabalistic phrase: "Rectangular parallelopipedon."

"That'll get even Webster's Union for chargin' me two cents for 'soon'," he chuckled. "Don't y' wish y' hadn' charged me that two cents, hey?" he demanded of the operator, laughing joyfully and cocking his hat over one ear, and the operator and two or three men who stood near could do no otherwise than laugh joyfully too. Strong straightened his face into a semblance of deep gravity. "Thish next one's important," he announced, and put the end of the pencil in his mouth and meditated, while his fascinated audience watched him. He was lost in thought for perhaps two minutes, and then scribbled madly, and as he ended the little bunch of men crowded frankly to look at what he had written. He pushed it toward them with charming unreserve, and the bewilderment with which it was read seemed to please him.

"Dear Papa": it ran. "I'm Calymene Blumembachii, a trilobite, one of the crustaceans related to the emtomostracans, but looking more like a tetradecapod, but always your affectionate—Billy."

He pushed it to the operator. "Split that in three," he ordered. "Don't want ruin the wires I'm careful 'bout wires. Big fall snow wouldn't do more damage 'n heavy words like that," he explained to the listening circle. "Think I look like tetradecapod?" he asked of them as one who makes conversation. "Had that in geology lesson when I was fifteen," he went on. "Got lodged in crack in brain and there tish t' thish day! Every now'n then I go 'flip,'"—he appeared to pull a light lever situated in his head—"'n fire it off. See? Always hit something."

It was ten o'clock when, the job lot of telegrams despatched, Fairfax led his volcano from the hotel and headed for the apartment house. He expected another balk at the entrance, for his round of gaiety had come now to seem to him eternal—he could hardly imagine a life in which he was not conducting a tipsy man through a maze of experiences. So that it was one of the surprises of the evening when Strong entered quietly and with perfect deportment took his place in the elevator and got out again, eight floors up, with the mildness of a dove. At the door of the apartment came the last brief but sharp action of the campaign.

"Recky," he said, taking Fairfax's shoulders in his great grasp, "no mother could be t' me what you've been."

"I hope not," Rex responded promptly, but Strong was not to be side-tracked.

"No mother 'n the world—not one—no sir!" he went on. His voice broke with feeling. "I'll nev' forget it—nev'—don't ask me to," he insisted. "Dear Recky—blessed old tomfool—I'm go'n kiss you good-night."

"You bet you're not," said Fairfax with emphasis. "Let go of me, you idiot," and he tried to loosen the hands on his shoulders.

But one of the most powerful men in New York had him in his grip, and Rex found himself suddenly folded in Billy's arms, while a chaste salute was planted full on his mouth. As he emerged a second later, disgusted and furious, from this tender embrace, the clang of the elevator twenty feet away caught his ear and, turning, his eyes met the astonished gaze of two young girls and their scornful, frowning father. At that moment the door of the Strongs' apartment opened, there was a vision of the elder Mr. Strong's distracted face, the yellow gleam of the last telegram in his hands, and Rex fled.

Two weeks later, a May breeze rustling through the greenness of the quadrangle, brushed softly the ivy-clad brick walls, and stole, like a runaway child to its playmate, through an open window of the Theological Seminary building at Chelsea Square. Entering so, it flapped suddenly at the white curtains as if astonished. What was this? Two muscular black clad arms were stretched across a table, and between them lay a brown head, inert, hopeless. It seemed strange that on such a May day, with such a May breeze, life could look dark to anything young, yet Reginald Fairfax, at the head of the graduating class, easily first in more than one way—in scholarship, in athletics, in versatility, and, more than all, like George Washington, "first in the hearts of his countrymen," the most popular man of the Seminary—this successful and well beloved young person sat wretched and restless in his room and let the breeze blow over his prostrate head and his idle, nerveless hands. Since the night of the rescue of Billy Strong he had felt himself another and a worse man. He sent a note to his cousin the next day.

"Dear Carty," it read, "For mercy sake let me alone. I know I've lost my chance at St. Eric's and I know you'll say it was my own fault. I don't want to hear either statement, so don't come near me till I hunt you up, which I will do when I'm fit to talk to a white man. I'm grateful, though you may not believe it. Yours—Rex."

But the lost chance at St. Eric's, although it was coming to weigh heavily on his buoyant spirit, was not the worst of his troubles. The girl from Orange—there lay the sting. He had sent her a note as well, but there was little he was free to say without betraying Billy, the note was mostly vague expressions of regret, and Rex knew her clearheaded directness too well to hope that it would count for much. No answer had come, and, day by day, he had grown more dejected, hoping against hope for one.

A knock—the postman's knock—and Rex started and sprang to the door. One letter, but he could hardly believe his glad eyes when he saw the address on it, for it was the handwriting which he had come to know well, had known well, seeing it once—her handwriting. In a moment the jagged-edged envelope, torn in a desperate hurry to get what it held, lay one side, and he was reading.

"Dear Mr. Fairfax": the letter ran; "For two weeks I have been very unjust to you and I want to beg your pardon. Billy was here three days ago, and what I didn't know and what he didn't know we patched together, and the consequence is I want to apologize and to make up to you, if I can, for being so disagreeable. Billy's recollections of that night were disjointed, but he remembered a lot in spots, and I know now just what a friend you were to him and how you saved him. I think he was horrid, but I think you were fine—simply fine. I can't half say it in writing so will you please come out for over Sunday—mother says—and I'll try to show you how splendid I think you were. Will you? Yours sincerely"—and her name.

Would he? Such a radiant smile shone through the little bare room that the May breeze, catching its light at the window, clapped gay applause against the flapping curtain. This was as it should be.

But the breeze and the postman were not to be the only messengers of happiness. Steps sounded down the long, empty hall, stopped at his door, and Rex, a new joy of living pulsing through him, sprang again, almost before the knock sounded, to meet gladly what might be coming. His face looked out of the wide-open doorway with so bright a welcome to the world, that the two men who stood across the threshold smiled an involuntary answer.

"Carty! I'm awfully glad"—and Rex stopped to put his hand out graciously, deferentially, to the gray-haired and distinguished man who stood with Carter Reed.

"Judge Rush, this is my cousin, Mr. Fairfax," Reed presented him, and in a moment Rex's friend, the breeze, was helping hospitality on with gay little refreshing dashes at a warm, silvered head, as Judge Rush sat in the biggest chair at the big open window. He beamed upon the young man with interested, friendly eyes.

"That's all very well about the quadrangle, Mr. Reed. It certainly is beautiful and like the English Universities," he broke into a sentence genially. "But I wish to talk to Mr. Fairfax. I've come to bring you the first news, Mr. Fairfax, of what you will hear officially within a day or two—that the vestry of St. Eric's hope you will consider a call to be our assistant rector." Rex's heart almost stopped beating, and his smile faded as he stared breathless at this portly and beneficent Mercury. Mercury went on "A vestry meeting was held last night in which this was decided upon. Your brilliant record in this seminary and other qualifications which have been mentioned to us by high authorities, were the reasons for this action which appeared upon the surface, but I want you to know the inner workings—I asked your cousin to bring me here that I might have the pleasure of telling you."

It was rather warm, and the old gentleman had climbed stairs, and his conversation had been weighty and steady. He arrested its flow for a moment and took a long breath. "Don't stop," said Rex earnestly, and the others broke into sudden laughter.

"I like that," Judge Rush sputtered, chuckling. "You're ready to let me kill myself, if needs be, to get the facts. All right, young man—I like impetuosity—it means energy. I'll go on. The facts not known to the public, which I wish to tell you, are as follows. After your failure to keep your appointment on the evening of the 7th, I was about through with you. I considered you careless both of your own interests and ours, and we began to look for another assistant. A man who fitted the place as you did seemed hard to find and the case was in statu quo when, two nights ago, my son brought home young William Strong to dinner. Our families are old friends and Billy's father and I were chums in college, so the boy is at home in our house. As you probably know, he has the gift of telling a good story, so when he began on the events of an evening which you will remember–"

Rex's deep laughter broke into the dignified sentences at this point.

"I see you remember." Judge Rush smiled benignly. "Well, Mr. Fairfax, Billy made an amusing story of that evening. Only the family were at the table and he spared himself not at all. He had been in Orange the day before, and the young lady in the case had told him how you had protected him at your own expense—he made that funny too, but I thought it very fine behavior—very fine, indeed, sir." Rex's face flushed under this. "And as I thought the whole affair over afterwards, I not only understood why you had failed me, but I honored you for attempting no explanation, and I made up my mind that you were the man we wanted. Yes, sir, the man we want. A man who knows how to deal with the situations of to-day, with the vices of a great city, that is what we want. I consider tact, and broad-mindedness and self-sacrifice no small qualities for a minister of the gospel; and a combination of those qualities, as in you, I consider exceptional. So I went to this vestry meeting primed, and I told them we had got to have you, sir—and we've got to. You'll come?"

The question was much like an order, but Rex did not mind. "Indeed, I'll come, Judge Rush," he said, and his manner of saying it won the last doubtful bit of the Judge's heart.

The Sunday morning when the new assistant preached his first sermon in St. Eric's, there sat well back in the congregation a dark-eyed girl, and with her a tall and powerful young man, whose deep shoulders and movements, as of a well fitted machine, advertised an athlete in perfect form. The girl's face was rapt as she followed, her soul in her eyes, the clean-cut, short sermon, and when the congregation filtered slowly down the aisles she said not a word. But as the two turned into the street she spoke at last.

"He is a saint, isn't he, Billy?" she asked, and drew a long breath of contentment.

And from six-feet-two in mid-air came Billy Strong's dictum. "Margery," he said, impressively, "Rex may be a parson and all that, but, to my mind, that's not against him; to my mind that suits his style of handling the gloves. There was a chap in the Bible"—Billy swallowed as if embarrassed—"who—who was the spit 'n' image of Rex—the good Samaritan chap, you know. He found a seedy one falling over himself by the wayside, and he called him a beast and set him up, and took him to a hotel or something and told the innkeeper to charge it to him, and—I forget the exact words, but he saw him through, don't you know? And he did it all in a sporty sort of way and there wasn't a word of whining or fussing at him because he was loaded—that was awfully white of the chap. Rex did more than that for me and not a syllable has he peeped since. And, you know, the consequence of that masterly silence is that I've gone on the water-wagon—yes, sir—for a year. And I'm hanged if I'm not going to church every Sunday. He may be a saint as you say, and I suppose there's no doubt but he's horrid intellectual—every man must have his weaknesses. But the man that's a good Samaritan and a good sport all in one, he's my sort, I'm for him," said Billy Strong.