Playing the mischief :: :: University of Virginia Library

“You simply want to get back to that
Mrs. Murray without my knowing,” gasped
Miss Appleyard, her face turning from pallid
to crimson with the effort of utterance, for
she had been scared out of her breath by the
gentleman's grim approach.

“I'll keep faith with you for this once,”
grinned Drummond, as insolently as a gorilla
might grin. “I will call at your office to-morrow—say
at five in the afternoon—if
you will leave here at once. Good Lord!
what are you standing in that style for?”
he added, impatiently. “Take your hands
out of your breeches-pockets, and try to look
like a gentleman or a lady, one or the other.”

“You are always quarreling with me,” responded
the Squire, in a whimpering voice,
which she tried in vain to steady. “I don't
see why you need quarrel with me so incessantly.”

It was clear that the poor young woman,
notwithstanding her virile broadcloth and
boots, was tenderly love-lorn and wretchedly
jealous; and that, like most persons in
such a state of mind, she longed to have her
love-quarrel out and bring it to a reconciliation
without further anguish of delay.

“There, there!” said Drummond, dreading
a judgment in the way of a flood of tears.
“Don't cry before this crowd. If you do, I
sha'n't. To-morrow at five, then. Good-evening.”

So saying, he turned and left her, striding
through the swarming promenaders with a

truculent look, as if he might knock down
the first man who laughed. And the next
day he kept his appointment, dropping in
about dusk upon the enamored jurist.

Squire Appleyard's office was a little room
in the basement of a commonplace dwelling-house,
situated on one of the meanest side
streets which abut on Pennsylvania Avenue.
She would have liked a finer nest in a more
public position, but the means were lacking
to pay the rent thereof. Clients she had
none, a misfortune which she attributed to
the unjust fact that she had not been admitted
to the bar, surely a sufficient reason. A
few elderly dames, who petted her for the
sake of countenancing the Cause of Woman
and of showing their hostility to Horrid Man,
were about the only persons who ever visited
her sanctum. They were not capitalists,
moreover, and never had any business in
courts of law, and could not have given it to
her if they had, because of her disbarred condition.

Thus Miss Appleyard found her income insufficient
even for the modest style which
she kept up. Her rent was sometimes behindhand;
her tailor made her clothes on
credit, and for the sake of the advertisement;
and in her promenades she avoided
passing the door of her unpaid boot-maker.
Once or twice it had been necessary for the
revered dames aforesaid to take up a subscription
for Squire Nancy and the Cause.
And things had gone on in this way for many
months, until they had become quite discouraging.
Appleyard talked of relinquishing
her inhospitable profession, and was secretly
cramming for a clerkship in the Treasury.
Indeed, it is reported that she once applied to
a certain Secretary for an appointment without
examination, and on being refused burst
manfully into tears in his horrid presence,
and that the Secretary wept with her. But
this tale, after careful dissection of its structural
probabilities, we feel free to question,
at least so far as concerns the sniveling of
the Secretary.

Well, Squire Appleyard's office was as dim
and narrow as her business prospects. There
was a bare floor, an open coal-stove, two pitilessly
hard chairs, and a plain pine writing-table.
Miss Nancy met her visitor at the
door with a promptness and a blush which
showed that she had impatiently awaited
his coming, and was only too zealous to welcome
him. Drummond felt that his hand
was pressed, but he took no kindly note of
it. He tramped solidly forward, seated himself
squarely in front of the stove, leaned
back on two legs of his chair, stared at Miss
Appleyard with a defiant grin, and said loudly,
“Well, sir, here I am—haw, haw!”

Had the room been lighter he would have
discovered a tear in her eye, and then he
might have spoken more gently. Still, he
could see plainly enough that she was a
woman, and rather a pretty one than otherwise,
though so oddly accoutred. There,
visible enough were the sloping shoulders,
and the rounded, pulpy outlines, all signatures
of a sex which is clearly doomed to
rely for power upon its sweetness, rather
than upon its strength.

But Squire Nancy did not make much use
of her saccharine qualities; and of strength,
whether physical or mental, she undoubtedly
had no great store. She had placed herself
at a disadvantage with men in assuming
their costume; and Drummond was not a
person to imagine her at her best, or to show
her any pity in her eclipse.

“I am very much obliged to you for coming,”
she said, in her clear, contralto voice,
and with a propitiatory accent. “I didn't
use to have to say that,” she added, the voice
quivering somewhat. “Only a few weeks
ago you could come without asking.”

Drummond nestled uneasily in his seat,
and maltreated the fire with the poker.
Hard and coarse as he was, he felt that he
had behaved shabbily to this young woman
in pretending to court her, and especially in
counterfeiting a desire to marry her.

“See here,” he broke out, “we had better
have a prompt and plain understanding as
to what has been, and what is to be. Do
you want to have me state the facts?”

“Go on, Sykes,” answered Miss Nancy,
seating herself in the vacant chair, and looking
at him kindly, almost happily, so pleased
was she only to have him there.

“Don't call me Sykes!” he exclaimed.
“It is the name of Dickens's murderer. It is
a beastly name.”

It was quite a sweet name to the love-lorn
attorney, but she dropped it at command,
and murmured, “Mr. Drummond.”

“Well, you think that I have paid you
serious attentions,” continued the honorable
gentleman. “That is what you think, isn't
it?”

Squire Appleyard could not at once answer.
She started from her chair, walked
once or twice across the room, and, finally, in
her nervous absent-mindedness, seated herself
upon her table, swinging her patent-leather
boots smartly.

“You certainly did and said things,” she
at last stammered, “which would have made
any lady think that a man liked her.”

It was true enough. Drummond had
whispered soft speeches to this light-headed,
whimsical, vain creature. From that he
had gone on to press her hand, and, alas!
alas! to kiss her. Finally, he had talked
downright love, and had hinted at marriage
under certain conditions. But all this he
had done out of curiosity, out of a liking for
coarse practical jokes, out of what people
call deviltry. He wanted to see if there was
any core of womanly tenderness and susceptibility
inside of that masculine costume.

He relished the rude fun of whispering romantic
nonsense into ears which were shadowed
by a virile beaver. He desired to
plague and humble a silly daw which had
garnished itself in the plumes of the raven.

“Like her?” he retorted. “Like means
love, I take it. How do you suppose I can
love you, with you sitting on a table, and
swinging your boots like a man?”

Dropping two unseen tears, Squire Appleyard
descended from her elevation, drew the
empty chair to a distance from Drummond,
and sat quietly and meekly down in it, wishing,
in spite of herself, that she had a silk
dress on. Indeed, one can not be quite sure
that she did not make a nervous gesture as
if to draw some imaginary skirt over those
denounced patent-leathers.

“And how could I suppose that you would
take me in earnest?” continued the Congressman.
“You laughed at love. You
sneered at the susceptibility of your sex.
You said that no true woman stood in need
of the protection of marriage, and that you
were no such slave at heart as to desire it.
I had a right to believe that you were sincere,
and that you would stick to your principles,
hadn't I? Grant that I tried you a
little with spoony nonsense, and went so far
as to take a kiss. Weren't you a fair subject
for philosophic investigation? You are
a phenomenon, remember. You are the only
woman I ever saw in coat, vest, trowsers, and
boots. It is enough—such a dress on such
a figure—to rouse the scientific world to inquiry.
I don't believe Darwin or Herbert
Spencer could see you without wanting to
take notes of you. Well, I took notes, and
you let me. But when I found that you
were really a woman in your tastes and inclinations,
I prudently, and, as I claim, kindly,
put an end to my studies. I was satisfied,
but you were not. Since then you have
been following me up, pursuing me from one
public place to another, watching my smiles
and tears—haw, haw!—and claiming ownership.
I don't admit the claim, and I demand
an end to the oversight. That is what
I came here for—to say just that, and nothing
more.”

Lawyer Nancy Appleyard had spoken very
little hitherto. Before the meeting she had
had a great many ideas in her head, and
had expected that she would give utterance
to them with freedom and eloquence. But
under Drummond's hard treatment her emotions
had been too much for her, confusing
her intellect and stifling her voice. Now,
however, desperation and anger gave her
strength to talk once more, and to talk to
the purpose.

“You did speak the word `marriage,”' she
said, forgetting how often she had herself
uttered that noble dissyllable in derision.
“It is a word which no man who calls himself
a gentleman ought to breathe to a wom
an unless he means it. Yes, sir, you promised—you
solemnly promised—to marry me.”

“Solemnly!—haw, haw!” laughed Drummond.
“Well, I did talk of it, after a fashion.
But the wedding was to be on the condition
that you should dress decently.”

“I am dressed decently,” affirmed Squire
Nancy, turning hysterical, and whimpering
outright.

Drummond surveyed her from head to foot
with a grin of distaste and of mockery. But
Miss Appleyard did not notice the grin; she
was meditating a tremendous coup de toilette.
It was a step the mere thought of which filled
her with shame, as being a degradation
to herself, and an apostasy from a sublime
cause. She had adopted the costume of
man partly out of vanity, admiration of her
own outlines, and a longing for notoriety,
but also partly out of a belief that her apotheosis
in it would help on the cause of
woman with a big W. This cause, whatever
it might be or might tend to, she earnestly
though vaguely believed in, and fervently
loved. Her small head was full of
wild notions about the early coming and the
great glory of the millennium of female suffrage.
When ladies should vote, go to Congress,
sit on the bench of the Supreme Court,
conduct banking, sail ships, and command
armies, then politics would be pure, law infallible,
business honest, war humane, and
the world holy and happy. Of course, this
result was desirable, as the meanest intellect
could discover; and, of course, whatever
would hasten its advent was the right
and beautiful thing to do.

Now, if one woman with a big W should
set the example of seizing what masculine
privileges could be seized, and if every
woman with a little w should promptly follow
the lead of this Messianic spirit, then
the whole blessed business would be accomplished
in the twinkling of an I—that I being
the ego of Miss Nancy. A change of
clothes was all that was necessary to renovate
society; and surely nothing could
come more naturally to the feminine nature.
A change of clothes, and, lo! Tyrant
Man would be dethroned. Woman would
mount beside him or above him, and last,
but not least, Squire Appleyard would be
the greatest of her sex. The greatest and
one of the revealed handsomest, for there
was her figure in plain discovery, and she
saw it to be a lovely one.

But, meanwhile, with the reformation
only just budding, she had fallen desperately
in love; and here she was crying at a
man because he would not marry her, and
would scoff at her Messianic costume.
Moreover, she was on the point of telling a
downright womanish fib, which we can only
pardon because of the gentle motive which
engendered it.

“I never said I wouldn't change my

dress,” she muttered, by way of introducing
an offer to make that alteration.

“My memory is a pretty good one,” replied
Drummond, who, indeed, rarely forgot
any thing, and was, therefore, a formidable
debater.

“If I did say so, it was only in an argument,”
she declared, meanwhile rolling her
eyes at him in a tender fashion, which contrasted
whimsically with frock-coat and
trowsers.

“Oh! that is the way you women argue:
say one thing and mean another — haw,
haw, haw!”

Miss Appleyard had hoped—so blinded
can even a reformer be by love and longing
—that if she offered to give up her reformatory
and platformatory raiment, this man
would then appreciate the greatness of the
sacrifice, and would clasp her to his overcoat.
She now feared that she had been
mistaken, and she became smartly indignant.

“You have broken your solemn promise,
Mr. Drummond,” she broke out — “your
solemn promise.”

“Nonsense! What is the use of exaggerating
in that style. You knew perfectly
well that I was joking.”

“I did not know it, and you were not joking.
You were perfectly in earnest when
you said it. You have changed lately, but
it's all because of that little Mrs. Murray—
little brown wizened creature!”

“She isn't wizened at all,” declared that
infuriating Drummond, laughing at this outburst
of jealousy. “Her arm is as large as
yours, and she is as real as can be.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Squire Nancy, in a jealous
rage, and almost at the point of hysterics.

She picked up her beaver and dashed it
on her head, as if she were about to fly out
of the office; then she tore it off, threw it
on the floor, thrust her hands into her pockets,
and paced the room with grinding boot-heels.
At last she did what would have
been more touching in silk than it was in
broadcloth: she covered her face with her
trembling fingers, and burst into a hearty fit
of sobbing and crying.

Drummond, hard-hearted as he was, looked
a little ashamed of himself, and was
ashamed. Nevertheless, he watched her
coolly, and studied her intently, for he was
an intelligent, educated, philosophic blackguard,
taking a deep interest in singular
manifestations of human nature, and capable
of investigating them under trying circumstances.

“Will you keep your faith as a gentleman?”
the young woman presently asked,
struck by his silence and attention, and
drawing hope therefrom.

“No, no,” he said, speaking more gravely
and pityingly, yet also more decisively, than
he had yet spoken. “This is sad nonsense,
and we must have done with it. I took you
to be a stronger head and a rougher heart
than you are, and I treated you accordingly.
It is necessary now to speak plainly,
and once for all. Mrs. Murray has nothing
to do with what you call my change. I
never meant to pay serious court to you,
much less to marry you. I never once
thought of it, and you must stop talking
about it. Moreover, you must stop following
me, stop watching me. It will do no
good, and will make you ridiculous. There,
I have said what I came to say, and I hope
you understand me. This is the last time,
as I desire and trust, that we shall meet.
Good-bye.”

“Good-bye,” answered Squire Nancy, in
a broken voice, looking at him with tender
anguish, while he marched firmly by her
and out of the office.

Up to the last second she hoped that he
would turn and speak some word of love;
but he uttered nothing of the sort, and did
not even give her a farewell glance; he simply
slammed the door behind him, and went
his way.

Then her disappointment and indignation
broke out violently. She dashed at the
door, tore it open with much noise, thrust
out her flushed and wet face, glared fiercely
at his disappearing figure, and called, in a
loud scream,

“You are a villain!”

“That is my business,” returned Drummond,
grinning back at her as he turned
the next corner. Then he drew out his kid
gloves, put them on with as much care as
he ever bestowed on his apparel, and went
off to call on Mrs. Josephine Murray.