Playing the mischief :: :: University of Virginia Library

Although in later days Squire Nancy
narrated her assault upon Josie with great
glee, and misrepresented it very much to her
own glory, she was by no means hilarious
and triumphant when she quitted the scene
of battle.

Her idea then was about this: that she
had made a very proper attempt to recover
her man, her own plighted lover, from an unscrupulous
flirt; and that in this attempt
she had been foiled, defied, brow-beaten, and
insulted. It seemed as if Woman with a big
W were no match for woman with a little w,
and never could learn how to be so.

For some days she remained in a tearful,
fretful, gloomy frame, railing to herself at
the meanness of her own sex and the meanness
of the other, denouncing the wicked coquetry
of Mrs. Murray, and the wicked faithfulness
of Mr. Drummond. Of course she eagerly
hoped that her own Sykes would return
to her; and of course the real Sykes—
Sykes's own Sykes—had not the frailest
purpose of so doing.

At last she caught sight of him on the avenue,
but only to behold him mount into the
Murray carriage by the side of “that creature,”
and drive away with her toward unknown
resorts. Then Squire Nancy wrote
to him; she asked him “firmly, finally, and
once for all,” whether he would fulfill his
promise; also she inquired whether he would
or would not, “stop keeping company with
Mrs. M—.”

Drummond, a good deal irritated by this
note, and likewise much cumbered at the
time with public business, sent a Spartan reply,
consisting of the one word, “No,” signed,
“S. D.”

Thereupon the Squire became miserably
furious, and resolved to do something desperate
and conclusive. She thought of suicide,
and mixed up no end of alternate bread
and arsenic pills, occasionally tossing up a
cent to decide which she should take, and,
if it came up tails, tossing again. After a
few experiments of this sort, followed by a
due amount of doleful meditation, she concluded
that it was all nonsense. Suicide
would be quite proper, if the right person
would commit it; but the only right person
in the present case was that Mrs. Murray;
not by any manner of means the injured, the
sinless, Miss Nancy. And, oh dear! if Sykes
Drummond only would come back, there
would be no positive need of any body's taking
poison.

But he did not come; a week passed, and
still he did not appear in the Appleyard office;
and at last the Squire's wrath waxed
exceedingly hot against him. She settled
upon punishing him; upon castigating him
violently and memorably; yea, upon cutting
short his wicked life. She thought over all
the cases of women who had slain such men
as had trifled with their tender hearts, and
who had been pronounced guiltless by justice
and the world.

There was Mary Harris; she had shot the
mysteriously sinful Burroughs, no one ever
knew what for; and the jury had found her
as pure as an angel, and her lawyer had bedewed
her with tears of joy. There were
many other cheering examples also, mostly
in New York city or in California. It seemed
as if any woman could kill any man, and,
merely by saying that she did it for love of
him, secure the approbation of society and
become agreeably famous.

Now these were very alluring reminiscences
to a young lady of small brains, who
was as conceited as a peacock, and had a
consuming passion for notoriety. The immediate
horrid result of them was that Miss
Nancy bought a pink cowhide, and borrowed
an ivory-handled revolver.

With these instruments of justice in the
drawer of her table, crowded among sewing
materials, legal blanks, sheets of note-paper
and law-manuals, she lay in wait for the slayer
of her peace. Her office, by-the-way, commanded
a small triangular square abutting
on Pennsylvania Avenue, so that, without
coming out of her ambush, she could survey
a considerable space of that untraveled wilderness
of a thoroughfare. If Drummond
should pass in the direction of the Treasurey,
she could overtake him before he reached
Willard's Hotel; if he should pass in the direction
of the Capitol, she could skip around
a block and confront him opposite the market.
In either case she could, of course, flog
or shoot him with delightful ease; that is,
if she only made her assault unobserved,
like Mary Harris and other heroines. And
even if she did not kill him (which, it must
be confessed, she did not quite mean to do),
she would raise a swarm of scandals about
the ears of that detestable Mrs. Murray, and
perhaps worry her into flying from Washington.

Well, one day the noble deed was dared.

Josie had not seen Squire Appleyard for
nearly a fortnight, and had recovered from
whatever dread she may have had of her.
She no longer confined herself to going out
in the Murray carriage, very much to the relief
of its philanthropic and fastidious proprietor,
who hated to see his horses and
coachman exercised regularly. She walked
daily, and let us add willingly, for not only
was she a healthy little body whose vigorous
organization required movement, but she had
an unusually pretty pair of Boston bootees
to exhibit. It was also characteristic of this
audacious young woman that she had the
heroic taste to gather up her dress and
“switch along,” when every other queen of
fashion felt obliged to “draggle.”

Well, she was trotting up the avenue in
this brave style, the wonder and admiration,
as usual, of many masculine eyes, when she
encountered Mr. Drummond.

“Ah! you are magnificent this morning,
Mrs. Murray,” said that gentleman, who had
just stepped out of a wine-merchant's sample-room,
and was in high spirits. “I will
walk with you.”

“And if I wasn't magnificent you would
walk with some one else, I suppose,” smiled
Josie. “Are you going to the Capitol?
What is happening there to-day?”

By-the-way, Josie had not yet got bewitched
about the debates and become a
regular attendant upon them, as happens to
many ladies who reside long in Washington,
and especially to many lady claimants.

“Oh, a tiresome deal,” laughed Drummoud.
“Our friend Hollowbread is to make
a speech.”

“Not about my claim?”

“Not yet; he will reach that in the year
1900—haw, haw! It's about his greenback
bill.”

“He told me of it, and I was so mean as
to forget it. You mustn't expose me. I ought
to go and hear him. Who couldn't be interested
in greenbacks? I never see them
but what I think of shopping. And then,
seriously, quite seriously now, Mr. Hollowbread
is an able man.”

“He has every characteristic of an able
man except ability—haw, haw, haw!”

“Oh, there you are too hard on him,” declared
Josie, although she also laughed. “I
should say that he had every characteristic
of an able man except industry.”

Drummond fairly turned short and stared
at her in obvious surprise and admiration.

“You are exactly right,” he said. “That
covers Hollowbread's whole ground. In spite
of some absurdities (and all the great fellows
whom I know have their absurdities),
he would be an able man, if he could only
work. He is well booked; he has solid sense
enough; he has keenness and wit enough;
but he can't work. And that puts him into
the second, or third, or fourth class—I don't
know exactly where, and it doesn't matter.”

“You can work, Mr. Drummond.”

“How about the rest of my character,
Mrs. Murray?”

“I will tell you when my claim has been
passed.”

“Haw, haw!” roared Sykes, delighted
with this pert sparkle of selfishness. “Of
course. We must get that little hundred
thousand dollar affair all right before we
can have any compliments.”

“I have a great compliment for you, Mr.
Drummond.”

“May I ask what it is?”

Josie hesitated, smiled archly, watched
him a moment inquiringly, and finally whispered,

“A lady is desperately in love with you.”

“What lady?” returned Drummond, with
the simple frankness of a flattered man, half
hoping—the partially bewitched creature!
—that the enamored person might be Mrs.
Murray herself, and that her eccentric audacity
would lead her to make some further
confession.

Meantime Josie actually exulted, as might
be seen in the sparkling of her wonderful
eyes, and might be heard in the agitated
rustle of her silks.

It was a great thing to have kept the tale
of her interview with Miss Appleyard from
this domineering Congressman for a whole
fortnight. It would also be a great thing
to relate it to him now, and see him cringe
under the ridiculous revelation.

Little did she guess how near the heroine
of that adventure was to her at that moment.
Revolver in pocket, and cowhide hidden
under her caped surtout, Squire Nancy
was just then hurrying through a back street
toward the avenue, with the intent of facing
this guilty couple at the end of the block.

“And she has made a confidante of me,”
continued Mrs. Murray, nearly laughing outright,
as she remembered how the confidence
had been vouchsafed.

“Of you!” stared Drummond, completely
puzzled, and more serious than it was quite
clever to be.

“With tears in her eyes, and frenzy in
her voice. You would have been proud if
you could have heard her.”

She was a little afraid that he would be
offended with her when the truth should
come out; and yet she so loved fun and mischief
that she could not help playing with
the risky subject; besides, she might yet decide
not to tell him any thing definite.

“Nonsense!” said Drummond. “One of
your charming freaks of fancy, Mrs. Murray.
I never made a woman cry in my life.”

“She cried all over her frock-coat,” giggled,
or, rather, shrieked Josie, unable to
keep back the joke any longer, and unable
to disclose it without laughter.

“What—”

And with that unfinished query Drummond
paused, asking no more until he should
catch his breath. He understood at once
that this meant Nancy Appleyard. He was
confounded, humiliated, angry, yes, fairly
tremulous with rage; but he was a tough,
much-enduring man, and able to accept a
blow in silence.

“Oh, do forgive me!” begged Josie, seeing
instantly how keenly annoyed he was, and
fearing evil results to her claim. “It must
be a more or less disagreeable subject, I
know; but I have had something to bear
also—something to bear on your account.”

“Ah! indeed!” said Drummond. A moment
before he had been ready to turn his
back on Mrs. Murray, and nearly capable of
throwing a paving-stone at Miss Appleyard,
had she been within bowling distance; but
this new view of the matter, this suggestion
that the lovely widow had suffered for his
sake, this hint that their fates were more or
less entangled, was a lip-slave to his chapped
feelings. “Has—” he began, and stopped;
but he might as well out with it, and
so he proceeded: “Has that fool written to
you?”

“Came to see me,” murmured Josie, plaintively;
“and behaved—oh, so absurdly! so
outrageously!”

“By Jove! I wish I could meet her!” exclaimed
Drummond, in great wrath.

In that moment, in that most inauspicious
conjuncture for carrying out her adventure
pleasantly to herself, Squire Nancy stepped
from behind the corner of the block, and confronted
the pair.

She could hardly be called a terrible apparition,
but in the way of novelty and
whimsicality she could not be matched, at
least, off the boards of a theatre.

Her face was ashy pale; her eyes were dilated,
and her mouth stood wide open, disclosing
her teeth; one hand grasped her
concealed revolver, and the other held aloft
her cowhide. Moreover, she was screaming
loudly, as, I believe, women generally do
when they rush to battle, such is the hysterical
nature of their pugnacity.

“I've got you!—I've got you!” she shrieked,
and made a feeble, awkward, overhand
cut with her whip, after which she screamed
again, in piercing fashion, as if she had
hit herself. Actually she had struck nothing
but the air, and in the very next instant
she had no cowhide.

Drummond was an uncommonly cool,
quick-witted, courageous, and athletic man.
It would have bothered a catamount to
surprise him, and he had borne musketry
and cannonade without flinching, while in
strength he was a match for any ordinary
porter or boxer.

He caught Squire Appleyard's instrument
of flagellation with beautiful alertness,
twisted it out of her hand instantaneously,
and jerked it over his head across the street.

Once more she screamed, and simultaneously
with this noise out came her revolver,
exploding the moment it left her breast-pocket,
and sending a ball through the ragged
hat of a negro urchin, who stood with
open mouth contemplating the tourney.
Then the revolver was gone also, for Drummond
clutched and crushed her hand, took
the weapon from her, and put it in his own
pocket.

“There! now go home, you simpleton!” he
said, sternly, giving her shoulder an angry
push—such a push as a big boy bestows on
a little one.

Squire Nancy uttered a last screech, signifying
that the battle was over on her part,
tottered a few steps in a soft, collapsing,
nerveless manner, much like a decadent
bolster, dropped in a sitting posture on the
pavement, and burst into a flood of tears.
Without saying another word, Drummond
turned his back on her, ran to a street-car
which was passing at the moment, leaped
into it, and went on to the Capitol.

Squire Nancy, faint, sobbing violently, and
disagreeably soiled, was picked up by a
couple of spectators, led or carried into a
neighboring druggist's shop, and left in
charge of the spectacled proprietor. The
great, manly, heroic adventure which she
had brooded over for days was ended; and
she was in gurgling, gasping hysterics, having
her head bathed, and hartshorn held to
her nose.

Moreover, she had failed, not only ridiculously,
but utterly. Not a whack of the
cowskin had alighted on that scoundrelly
Drummond, and not a pistol-shot had lacerated
so much as the skirt of his overcoat.
Mrs. Murray, too, that other and even wickeder
enemy, had marvelously escaped all
evil treatment, and even all exposure to public
scorn.

Yes, Josie had got out of the mess with an
adroitness and a celerity which were quite
in keeping with her character and her history.
In the very beginning of the contest,
before the first aimless blow of the cowhide
had been delivered, she saw, with a single
glance, what was about to happen, and executed
a skillful change of base. It took
her scarcely a second to step into a shop
which stood on the corner; then, without
stopping to see what would befall, as a duller
woman might have done, she hurried to
a side-door which opened upon the cross-street;
a minute later she was around the
block, and had secured a hack to take her
home. Her little heart was thumping pretty
smartly; but she had by no means lost self-control
and an intelligent sense of matters,
both past and present; and, once safe in her
vehicle, she looked at her skirts to see if
they were muddy, glanced out of the window

to see if she was pursued, and then lay back,
in a burst of laughter.

“I do wonder what happened,” was one
of her thoughts. “Well, I am safe out of
it, thank goodness! And I don't believe any
body noticed me.”

Meantime Mr. Drummond, journeying
glumly toward the Capitol, had once more
“soured” considerably upon the pretty widow,
saying to himself that she hardly paid
for the trouble she made. Of course he felt
that he had been showing off to ridiculous
disadvantage, and he more than suspected
that Mrs. Murray was quite sharp enough
to perceive and enjoy it. So, being an egotistic,
as well as a truculent and vindictive,
person, he was resolving that he would expend
no more courtship upon her for a season,
but would prove to her his value and
desirability by absence.