Playing the mischief :: :: University of Virginia Library

Mr. Hollowbread was alarmed, also, about
the horses, and about things in general. It
was dreadful to get out in that deluge without
an umbrella; but to that pass, it seemed
to him, he must come, or perish. Out he
clambered, very hot with confinement and
wrath, but cooling with disgusting rapidity,
for his feet alighted in a rivulet ankledeep,
and the driving rain fairly spanked
through his clothing. What was worse, if
worse could be, a flash of lightning revealed
to him the awful fact that there was no one
on the box.

Where was Jehu? Had the infamous
scoundrel run away? Or was the poor devil
lying about somewhere dead? And what
was the honorable, and corpulent, and rather
delicate Mr. Hollowbread to do under
such circumstances? At first he did nothing
but bellow and bawl toward all the
points of the compass, “Jehu! Jehu! Je-hu!
Jehu!” Then he put his dripping beaver,
running a stream like a church-roof, inside
the hack, and said, hoarsely: “You had better
get out.”

“Get out!” gasped Josephine. “Why,
I shall be wet through.”

“No; you had better stay in!” groaned
Mr. Hollowbread. “That rascal has gone;
but don't be alarmed. I'll—I'll try to get
up there,” he puffed, “and drive the scoundrelly
horses myself. Only, the Lord knows
where I shall drive them to!”

“Oh, dear!” murmured Josephine, guessing
that he was not used to driving, nor
otherwise well adapted to it, and fearing
lest his passenger should meet with accidents.

Then followed a considerable period of
silence, during which she at first imagined
Mr. Hollowbread struggling up to the box,
and afterward began to wonder if he had
fallen off it, and broken his fat neck. Even
in this situation she had intelligence and
humor enough to say to herself:

“What if all the men in the world should
drop down dead? What would become of
the women?”

Meantime Hollowbread had not got on
the box at all, but had been vainly searching
for the supposed steps which led up to
it, and cursing the stupidity of the coach-maker
in making no steps, or in putting
them where a gentleman could not find
them. Having completely circumnavigated
the vehicle by feeling his way gingerly
around the horses' noses, then more confidently
along the traces, wheels, and rack,
and having thus got back to his starting-point
without discovering any means of ascent,
he fell into a state of complete despair,
and raised a fresh yell of “Jehu!”

“Yere me,” answered a voice close by
him; and Jehu re-appeared, demoniacally,
in a flash of lightning, the wettest goblin
that ever was seen since the flood.

“Yere you!” broke out the drenched Hollowbread,
in such a state of indignation that
he nearly had a fit on the spot. “You black
fool! wher've you been to?”

“I done loss the coach,” explained Jehu.
“Golly! Thought I never should get back
to't.”

“What did you leave it for? Are you
drunk?” roared Hollowbread, to whom the

wild idea came that Jehu might have got
down to obtain a glass of whisky.

“Jes' stepped off a minute to look for de
road, sah,” confessed this wonderful coachman.

“To look for the road! Oh, you blundering,
lying rascal! Well, where are we?”

“Fo' God, I dunno sah. They was a
name on the cawnah, but I couldn' read
'um.”

“Oh, get on!” groaned Mr. Hollowbread,
who was struggling into the hack—“get on,
and drive somewhere. Drive till morning,
and be hanged to you! I will keep as far
as possible from you,” he added, to Josephine,
taking the front seat. “I am wetter
than all the Egyptians in the Red Sea. I
would have gone on the box if I could have
found it.”

“Oh, I am so sorry for this!” she answered;
“and it has all been on my account!”

She was not thinking just then of her
claim, nor planning to make him friendly to
it. She was occupied with her present situation,
and wanted to be on good terms with
the only male person within reach, and had
quite forgotten her vexation at him for
laughing at her.

Nevertheless, he did not believe that she
was sorry enough for his soaking, or indeed
that any human being could be sorry
enough. He picked at his clinging trowsers
in the darkness, and wished himself at home
very frequently, and said very little.

Meanwhile the hack wandered and wabbled
about the slippery streets of the invisible
city. Sometimes the horses started on
a trot, and the passengers had high hopes;
then the gait subsided to a walk, and they
understood that Jehu was in a quandary.

At last our legislator a-soak could stand
it no longer. He attacked the rickety front
window so fiercely that he actually forced
it to shove up; next he howled through the
writhing, hissing, venomous rain:

“Where are we?”

“I'm gwine to git down again,” responded
Jehu, coming to a halt. “Gwine to look
around fur de name.”

“And you wouldn't know it if you should
see it!” absolutely shrieked Hollowbread.
“Good Lord, I wish the niggers were all in
slavery again!” he added, as if that would
make them read better. “You ought to be
horsewhipped, you stupid rascal! Don't you
get down! Those horses will run away. I
shall have to get out myself.”

And get out he did, cursing all things
compendiously as he emerged into the pitiless
storm, without caring whether Josephine
heard him or not.

She, by-the-way, only smiled at his profanity
and at the causes of it. She was accustomed
to have men serve her, and to see
them suffer considerably in serving her; and
she usually gave them small meed of grati
tude for it, though she could utter thanks
abundantly.

The fact that her present victim was elderly,
and inconveniently pudgy and audibly
short-winded, only made his martyrdom
on her behalf the less estimable and the
more amusing. We must try to pardon her;
she had the ordinary ignorance of youth
with regard to the pathos of age and infirmity;
and Mr. Hollowbread was but reaping
the usual reward of old beaus who will
wait on young ladies.

He had a fearful time outside among the
forces of nature. There were faint street-lamps
in the distance, but they cast no
more effective light than so many decayed
mackerel, and he staggered gaiter-deep in
streams and gutters which he could not see.
By moments he wondered that he still lived,
and whether he should be alive that time
to-morrow.

At last he was run against by a building
—one of those isolated buildings which are
so frequent amidst the magnificent distances
of Washington — a building which seemed
to be out alone and lost, like himself.

After search enough to discover the true
site of the ruins of Troy, he found a door-bell,
and rang it incessantly for the next
minute.

Presently the door was opened by some
one holding a candle, but the candle was
blown out instantly by the furious wind, and
Mr. Hollowbread never saw the person.

“Has every body gone to bed in this city?”
he shouted, with that unreasonable indignation
which leads aggrieved people to feel
that they have a right to call the first individual
they meet to an account.

“I d — d — d — dunno, sah,” responded a
voice, which seemed to be that of an elderly
negro man.

“Is this Izzard Street?” continued Hollowbread,
not wishing to lose time in unnecessary
conversation with a stutterer.

“Y—y—yes, sah.”

“What number is it?”

For a mercy the invisible one knew what
his number was, and had the power given
him at last to state that it was 90.

“And No. 200 is off this way, is it?” continued
Hollowbread, slapping the right-hand
beam of the door-frame.

“Y—y—yes, sah.”

“Thank you,” said our traveler, summoning
up all his remaining grace to utter that
courtesy.

Then, after exchanging some vocal signals
with Jehu, he got himself back into the
hack in such a state of moisture that it
seemed as if he should never be dry again
in this world.

And here a fresh vexation filled up the
measure of his sorrow, and caused him to
slop over in loud profanity. As he climbed,
dripping, yea, streaming, into the ill-starred

vehicle, a flash of lightning revealed
Josephine's face to him, and showed that
she was laughing.

Of course he could not swear at a lady, and
so he swore at the coachman. On his knees,
and with his bare head stuck out of the
door-window, he cursed Jehu until he made
himself dizzy. If Jehu had been sent where
Mr. Hollowbread wished him, his wet raiment
would have been dried to a cinder in
no time.

“Yes, sah,” was the meek response of that
humbled charioteer. “But whar has we to
go, sah?”

“I'll have you arrested, you rascal!” continued
the aggrieved honorable. “I'll have
your license taken away from you. Drive
straight on. You ought to be put in jail,
you ignoramus! You are a hundred and
ten doors from the place. I'll see whether
this sort of thing is to be tolerated in the
capital of the country. You are a mile
from the place. Hang your stupid, black,
woolly head! Keep to the right, if you
know it. Beast! lunkhead! blunderhead!
Drive ON!”

“Oh, isn't it outrageous!” softly ejaculated
Josephine, beginning to pity him a
little, and yet hardly able to suppress a
giggle.

Mr. Hollowbread was out of breath. Moreover,
if he had had ever so much wind left,
he was too angry to answer her. Not only
had she cruelly laughed at his sorrows, but
the mere contrast between her condition and
his was most irritating, and enough to make
him almost want to pitch her out of the
hack. There she was, as dry as a bone, and
as warm as toast, all curled and tucked up
on her seat to keep out of his runlets and
puddles. He, meantime, was so wet that
he slopped and squelched, and was, moreover,
pretty sure of a siege of rheumatism.
Under the circumstances, he could not speak
to her, either genially or otherwise, for a full
minute. He wished that he had never seen
her; wished that he had called in Bradford
and Drummond to take charge of her; wished
that he were at home and abed and fast
asleep. Women certainly wrought vast trouble
in the world, and had made him in especial
an immense amount of bother, and did
not by any means pay their way, confound
them!

Time passed, however, and the dialogue
revived. With it, also, revived the beau in
Hollowbread's nature, that fervent old fire
which had made him a luminary in female
society, and which could still enable him to
shine through dampness, like a fire-fly in a
swamp. He listened to Josephine's fresh
young voice, and he liked the sound of it.
Moreover, he saw, by a flash of lightning,
how prettily she was bundled together on
that back seat, and how carelessly her garments
were gathered about her, just expos
ing her little bootees. They were very little,
he judged; and certainly she was exceedingly
attractive to the eye; her figure
seemed to be as perfect as her face. Well,
he must forgive her for laughing. If a
woman would only be handsome, he must
forgive her any amount of heartlessness.
That was what he always had done, and
still must do.

“I am so dreadfully sorry that you have
suffered so much on my account!” apologized
Josephine, who naturally guessed that he was
in a temper, and who did not want him angry
at herself, lest he might oppose her claim.

“You are not in the least to blame, of
course,” he responded, doing his soaked best
to be gracious.

“It is a terribly unfortunate introduction
to you,” she continued. “I had hoped that
our acquaintance was begun agreeably.”

“It has,” he asserted, beginning to think
once more that she liked him, and that he
should yet have a good time in flirting with
her—so easy is it for an ancient Lothario to
cajole himself. “I admit that it is not pleasant
to be humbugged and dragged about in
the wet by a miserable ignoramus of a black
negro,” he pursued, warming up considerably
as he recited his wrongs. “But, nevertheless,
I shall always retain delightful recollections
of your part of this evening's adventure.”

“You are the best of men to say so,” replied
Josephine, tucking her skirts still farther
out of the way of his drainings. “I
hope to hear from you very soon that you
haven't suffered by the exposure.”

“Thank you,” said Mr. Hollowbread, and
was about to add that he would venture to
call without further introduction, when the
hack stopped.

“Hi! Guess we's thar,” Jehu was heard
to bawl through the rain. “Shall I git
down, sar, or will you?”

“Confound the idiot!” howled Mr. Hollowbread,
in suddenly renewed fury. “Get
down yourself!” he thundered, opening the
door with unchristian violence. “No! hold
on. The horses might go off. I'll get down.
You wouldn't know the number if it should
be burned and branded into your stupid carcass.
I'll get down,” he concluded with a
moan.

“So sorry! so very sorry!” murmured
Josephine, ready to shriek, however, with
laughter.

“Oh, don't blame yourself,” answered
Hollowbread, and went off through the complicated
showers, muttering to himself, “Of
course she isn't in fault. Pretty girl.—Hang
that gutter!—I don't believe she was really
laughing at me.—By George, how it drives,
and how slippery it is!—And I don't blame
her much, if she did laugh at me, such a sight
as I must be. This must be the house, hang
it!” he continued.

Yes, it was No. 200, and the horrid pilgrimage
was over. Mr. Hollowbread's tiger-like
ring at the bell soon brought a mulatto
maiden to the door, who said, “Law sakes!”
at the sight of his dripping caparisons, and
who promptly produced an umbrella.

“Tell them Miss Murray has come!” he
gasped, and hastened back to the carriage,
shining in the hall-light as if he were varnished.

“Don't go through the rain again,” begged
Josephine, which was a kind of mockery, seeing
that he could not possibly get wetter
than he was. “Let me take the umbrella
and skip in alone. Good-night, Mr. Hollowbread.
To meet again!”

She pressed his hand; yes, she really, unquestionably
squeezed it twice; then she
was flying up the steps. Under the porch
which shielded the door a gray-haired, clerical-looking
gentleman and a wrinkled little
lady whose hair was almost white stood
to receive her. Kisses and words of greeting
were interchanged in the sight of Mr.
Hollowbread, who felt as if the bussings fairly
belonged to himself, and would have liked
one amazingly. Then, still staring through
the rain-fall of his hat-brim, he saw Josephine
burst into a spasm of laughter. Was
she recounting his ridiculous misfortunes,
and making mock of them? Well as he
thought he knew women, he did not fully
know how spasmodical they are at times,
even the strongest of them and the cleverest.
The truth is, the evening's adventure had
made our heroine nervous, so that she could
not help saluting its close with a burst of
slightly hysterical merriment. But Mr. Hollowbread,
irritable with fatigue, wettings,
and a general sense of ill-treatment, guessed
that she was holding him up to scorn; and,
forgetting that farewell pressure of the hand,
he threw himself back behind his leather
curtain, as full of humiliation and wrath as
of rain-water.

“Is this to be a specimen of my acquaintance
with that little flirt?” he said to himself,
as he rambled homeward, dripping and
drizzling like a street-sprinkler. “If so—
and I really think it will be so—the sooner
I end it the better. And yet,” he added, after
a time, “she is most astonishingly pretty—yes,
and delightful.”

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4. CHAPTER IV. A SOAKING FLIRTATION.

4. CHAPTER IV.
A SOAKING FLIRTATION.