 | Tales of the jazz age |  |
VI
John stood facing Mr. Braddock Washington in the
full sunlight. The elder man was about forty with a
proud, vacuous face, intelligent eyes, and a robust figure.
In the mornings he smelt of horses—the best horses. He
carried a plain walking-stick of gray birch with a single
large opal for a grip. He and Percy were showing John
around.
"The slaves' quarters are there." His walking-stick
indicated a cloister of marble on their left that ran in
graceful Gothic along the side of the mountain. "In
my youth I was distracted for a while from the business
of life by a period of absurd idealism. During that
every one of their rooms with a tile bath."
"I suppose," ventured John, with an ingratiating
laugh, "that they used the bathtubs to keep coal in.
Mr. Schnlitzer-Murphy told me that once he—"
"The opinions of Mr. Schnlitzer-Murphy are of little
importance, I should imagine," interrupted Braddock
Washington, coldly. "My slaves did not keep coal in
their bathtubs. They had orders to bathe every day,
and they did. If they hadn't I might have ordered a
sulphuric acid shampoo. I discontinued the baths for
quite another reason. Several of them caught cold and
died. Water is not good for certain races—except as a
beverage."
John laughed, and then decided to nod his head in
sober agreement. Braddock Washington made him
uncomfortable.
"All these negroes are descendants of the ones my
father brought North with him. There are about two
hundred and fifty now. You notice that they've lived
so long apart from the world that their original dialect
has become an almost indistinguishable patois. We
bring a few of them up to speak English—my secretary
and two or three of the house servants.
"This is the golf course," he continued, as they strolled
along the velvet winter grass. "It's all a green, you see
—no fairway, no rough, no hazards."
He smiled pleasantly at John.
"Many men in the cage, father?" asked Percy suddenly.
Braddock Washington stumbled, and let forth an involuntary
curse.
"One less than there should be," he ejaculated darkly
—and then added after a moment, "We've had difficulties."
"Mother was telling me," exclaimed Percy, "that
Italian teacher—"
"A ghastly error," said Braddock Washington angrily.
"But of course there's a good chance that we may have
got him. Perhaps he fell somewhere in the woods or
stumbled over a cliff. And then there's always the probability
that if he did get away his story wouldn't be
believed. Nevertheless, I've had two dozen men looking
for him in different towns around here."
"And no luck?"
"Some. Fourteen of them reported to my agent
that they'd each killed a man answering to that description,
but of course it was probably only the reward
they were after—"
He broke off. They had come to a large cavity in
the earth about the circumference of a merry-go-round
and covered by a strong iron grating. Braddock Washington
beckoned to John, and pointed his cane down
through the grating. John stepped to the edge and
gazed. Immediately his ears were assailed by a wild
clamor from below.
"Come on down to Hell!"
"Hello, kiddo, how's the air up there?"
"Hey! Throw us a rope!"
"Got an old doughnut, Buddy, or a couple of secondhand
sandwiches?"
"Say, fella, if you'll push down that guy you're
with, we'll show you a quick disappearance scene."
"Paste him one for me, will you?"
It was too dark to see clearly into the pit below, but
John could tell from the coarse optimism and rugged
vitality of the remarks and voices that they proceeded
from middle-class Americans of the more spirited type.
Then Mr. Washington put out his cane and touched a
button in the grass, and the scene below sprang into light.
"These are some adventurous mariners who had the
misfortune to discover El Dorado," he remarked.
Below them there had appeared a large hollow in the
earth shaped like the interior of a bowl. The sides were
steep and apparently of polished glass, and on its slightly
concave surface stood about two dozen men clad in
the half costume, half uniform, of aviators. Their upturned
faces, lit with wrath, with malice, with despair,
with cynical humor, were covered by long growths of
beard, but with the exception of a few who had pined
perceptibly away, they seemed to be a well-fed, healthy
lot.
Braddock Washington drew a garden chair to the
edge of the pit and sat down.
"Well, how are you, boys?" he inquired genially.
A chorus of execration in which all joined except a
few too dispirited to cry out, rose up into the sunny
air, but Braddock Washington heard it with unruffled
composure. When its last echo had died away he spoke
again.
"Have you thought up a way out of your difficulty?"
From here and there among them a remark floated up.
"We decided to stay here for love!"
"Bring us up there and we'll find us a way!"
Braddock Washington waited until they were again
quiet. Then he said:
"I've told you the situation. I don't want you here.
I wish to heaven I'd never seen you. Your own curiosity
got you here, and any time that you can think
of a way out which protects me and my interests I'll
be glad to consider it. But so long as you confine your
efforts to digging tunnels—yes, I know about the new
one you've started—you won't get very far. This
isn't as hard on you as you make it out, with all your
howling for the loved ones at home. If you were the
you'd never have taken up aviation."
A tall man moved apart from the others, and held up
his hand to call his captor's attention to what he was
about to say.
"Let me ask you a few questions!" he cried. "You
pretend to be a fair-minded man."
"How absurd. How could a man of my position be
fair-minded toward you? You might as well speak of a
Spaniard being fair-minded toward a piece of steak."
At this harsh observation the faces of the two dozen
steaks fell, but the tall man continued:
"All right!" he cried. "We've argued this out before.
You're not a humanitarian and you're not fair-minded,
but you're human—at least you say you are—
and you ought to be able to put yourself in our place
for long enough to think how—how—how—
"How what?" demanded Washington, coldly.
"—how unnecessary—"
"Not to me."
"Well,—how cruel—"
"We've covered that. Cruelty doesn't exist where
self-preservation is involved. You've been soldiers; you
know that. Try another."
"Well, then, how stupid."
"There," admitted Washington, "I grant you that.
But try to think of an alternative. I've offered to have
all or any of you painlessly executed if you wish. I've
offered to have your wives, sweethearts, children, and
mothers kidnapped and brought out here. I'll enlarge
your place down there and feed and clothe you the rest
of your lives. If there was some method of producing
permanent amnesia I'd have all of you operated on and
released immediately, somewhere outside of my preserves.
But that's as far as my ideas go."
"How about trusting us not to peach on you?" cried
some one.
"You don't proffer that suggestion seriously," said
Washington, with an expression of scorn. "I did take
out one man to teach my daughter Italian. Last week
he got away."
A wild yell of jubilation went up suddenly from two
dozen throats and a pandemonium of joy ensued. The
prisoners clog-danced and cheered and yodled and
wrestled with one another in a sudden uprush of animal
spirits. They even ran up the glass sides of the bowl as
far as they could, and slid back to the bottom upon the
natural cushions of their bodies. The tall man started
a song in which they all joined—
On a sour apple tree—"
Braddock Washington sat in inscrutable silence until
the song was over.
"You see," he remarked, when he could gain a modicum
of attention. "I bear you no ill-will. I like to
see you enjoying yourselves. That's why I didn't
tell you the whole story at once. The man—what was
his name? Critchtichiello?—was shot by some of my
agents in fourteen different places."
Not guessing that the places referred to were cities,
the tumult of rejoicing subsided immediately.
"Nevertheless," cried Washington with a touch of
anger, "he tried to run away. Do you expect me to
take chances with any of you after an experience like
that?"
Again a series of ejaculations went up.
"Sure!"
"Would your daughter like to learn Chinese?"
"Hey, I can speak Italian! My mother was a wop."
"Maybe she'd like t'learna speak N'Yawk!"
"If she's the little one with the big blue eyes I can
teach her a lot of things better than Italian."
"I know some Irish songs—and I could hammer
brass once't."
Mr. Washington reached forward suddenly with his
cane and pushed the button in the grass so that the picture
below went out instantly, and there remained only
that great dark mouth covered dismally with the black
teeth of the grating.
"Hey!" called a single voice from below, "you ain't
goin' away without givin' us your blessing?"
But Mr. Washington, followed by the two boys, was
already strolling on toward the ninth hole of the golf
course, as though the pit and its contents were no more
than a hazard over which his facile iron had triumphed
with ease.
| Tales of the jazz age | |