University of Virginia Library

50. CHAPTER L.
MR. HOLLOWBREAD IN THE BOSPHORUS.

On the closing night of the session, on
that carnival night of confused, headlong,
blinded, bedlamite legislation, which costs
the tax-payer so dear, Mr. Hollowbread went
to bed from his protracted vigils and labors
with aching loins and a dizzy sconce.

Next morning he was absolutely driven to
get himself together with a cocktail before
he could rouse appetite enough to so much
as nibble at a belated breakfast.

But love is the greatest of stimulants; it
beats hate, it beats avarice, it beats whisky;
it can make the sexagenarian arise and walk.
Long before noon, our mature and indeed
overripe Congressman was tripping into the
apartments of his betrothed. We say apartments,
and we mean the plural word in all
its sumptuousness.

Josie had lost no time in forestalling her
money, and had enlarged her boundaries
that very morning. It was into a handsome
private parlor that Mr. Hollowbread was
ushered.

He came in all the splendor which modern
fashion concedes to a gentleman—even to a
youthful one. The modeling of sartorial art
and the coloring of tonsorial art had done
their daintiest by him. Positively he did
not appear to be corpulent, although he was
normally five feet around his equator.

Josie, after an approving glance at his
mustache and hair, was upon the point of
saying, “How young you look!” but it occurred
to her that when a man dyed as nicely
as that, it was ungracious to call attention
to it; and so what compliments she
tendered him were wrapped up in a smile,
like bonbons in silver tissue.

There was a kiss, too; but it was not of
her devising or doing, nor did it fall on the
spot which he had picked out for it. He
aimed it at her precious, precious lips, and
she caught it on her noble, noble forehead.
Mr. Hollowbread did not find that forepiece
hard, nor did he think in a ghastly way of
the skull within, as a less love-lorn man
might have done. But it did seem to him
that when he returned from political wars a
victor, after long and laborious, not to say
dirty, campaigning on her account, he ought
to have had a tenderer salute. It was no
comfort to say, the nearer the bone the sweeter
the meat; and indeed he did not so much
as think of the vulgar, carnal phrase. He
had been received coolly, and he knew it,
and was alarmed.

“You are satisfied and happy, I hope?” he
said, with an humble smile, which in a man
of his age was painfully pathetic.

“I am in the seventh heaven. I can scarcely
believe it. I am trying to realize it. I am
trying to keep my senses,” she rattled on,
with an exhilaration natural enough in a
gay and extravagant young woman suddenly
made rich. “You must dance with me,”
she added, seizing him by the arms, whirling
him around the room as fast as one could
whirl a man of his tonnage, and humming a
waltz over his shoulder. “There, sit down
and catch your breath,” she laughed, plumping
him upon a sofa and slipping away from
his claspings. “You want to kiss, kiss, kiss,
all the while. You mustn't do it, with a
stitch in your side. Do you think that I
have gone wild? You never tried getting
rich in a single night. My hundred thousand
dollars have flown to my head. I am
effervescing with plans. I can understand
the Bacchantes. I should like to swing a
bunch of grapes, and caper with the Dancing
Faun. What do you think of this for
a Grande Duchesse?”

Here she threw herself into one of the
wildest attitudes of Tostée, looking for a
moment superlatively wicked, as well as bewitching.

“Superb!” gasped Mr. Hollowbread from
his sofa, though he was not less frightened
than breathless.

He seemed to himself to see her dancing
away from him, never more to return.

“Who wouldn't frolic in my place?” she
babbled on. “Oh, the pleasure of being rid
of all anxieties! Oh, the pleasure of jumping
out of dependence! If I want any
thing,” throwing out her arms superbly, “I
can buy it. If I want services and reverences
and obediences, I can hire them. A
woman who has all the money she needs is
somebody, and, more than that, she is something.
It is all very well to be handsome
and clever; but if you are rich in addition,
ah! the rest doubles. I can imagine people
looking at me from a more respectful distance
than formerly; standing aside to let
me pass, as if I were a duchess instead of
only a pretty woman; pointing me out from
a distance, as if I were a procession or a ceremony.
If you are rich, you are more than
a single individual. You stand for all the
people that you can hire. You represent a
multitude. It is like being President. You
can comprehend that, can't you? Oh, it is
such a victory and such an inauguration to
be rich!”

“Yes,” Mr. Hollowbread absolutely sighed,
for he did not like this complete content,
this bound-breaking excitement. “But the
feeling will soon pass away. Then you will
want some deeper and more lasting sentiment

to make life continuously happy. I
have held wealth long enough to know that
wealth alone is emptiness. Moreover, dollars
have wings, especially when they are in
the form of irredeemable paper,” added this
public advocate of “more greenbacks,” and
private believer in minted bullion. “By-the-way,
we must see to it that your fortune
is invested safely.”

“Mr. Allchin has spoken to me a dozen
times about that,” replied Josie, dropping
back to earth from her mad paradise.

“Mr. Allchin? I'll poison him!” broke
out Hollowbread. “Don't have any thing
to do with that — that footpad. He is a
risky, dangerous speculator; or, rather, he is
a sly, conscienceless scoundrel. He respects
nobody, not even his personal friends—not
even his patrons. He would put off his rotten
stocks upon his own sister, or upon the
President. He would cheat a country clergyman
or a wooden-legged pensioner. Let
me tell you a story about Allchin. Our
friend Drummond, who is a practical joker
of a painfully practical sort,” he parenthesized
disparagingly — “was served in some
matter by a good Quaker, who afterward
asked him for employment. Drummond, in
mere jest, recommended the man to Allchin,
who replied, `Certainly; send him along—
give him an agency.' But when the applicant
put in an appearance, and Allchin saw
that he was an honest Quaker, he nearly
laughed in his face. `Ah! we are full now,'
he smiled, in his greasy way. `We really
couldn't employ a person of your—your calibre.'
Of course, he could not. No use for
Quakers or scrupulous men in general. How
could such fellows hawk his rotten eggs
about? If the apostles had applied to him
for work, he wouldn't have accepted them,
unless it might be Judas. No, no, my dear
child; for pity's sake, don't trust Allchin!”

“He promises twenty per cent.,” replied
Josie, meditatively.

“That means that he will take eighty and
leave you twenty. There is no safety outside
of legal interest, and not much inside of it,
in these days of watered currency and watered
every thing.”

“But I want twenty thousand a year.”

“My dear, between us both you will have
more than that!”

Josie looked at him sidelong out of a corner
of her dark, lustrous eye; and a very
beautiful glance it was, though just a little
snaky and minatory.

“I am under obligations to various people
for pushing my claim, and I have got to pay
them,” she said.

“What does it mean?” exclaimed Hollowbread.
“What did it mean? The thing
was taken out of my hands at the last minute,
and without my knowledge. It was not
necessary; I had every thing safe. I could
have pushed the bill through without the
cost of a dollar — to you,” he added, remembering
that it had cost him something.
“There was, I assure you, no need of going
to others for help. Don't understand me as
complaining of it, my dear child. I have
no fault to find if you wished matters thus;
but I do beg that you will not hold me responsible
for failing to carry you to the end
when I was all prepared to do it, and could
have done it with certainty.”

“The thing was taken out of the Judiciary
Bill, and you did not know it till every
body knew it,” said Josie, pensively, for she
was gravely pondering her next step.

“I had Bangs's solemn promise that it
should go into the Judiciary,” declared Mr.
Hollowbread, loudly, for he was furious with
the general at that moment. “I had his
solemn promise. My dear child, may I ask
you one question? Who did this?”

“Mr. Jacob Pike,” replied Josie. “I
thought it best to go to him. Every body
goes to those people.”

“Ah!—well!” sighed Hollowbread, somewhat
relieved, for he had suspected the interference
of Drummond. “At least, it has
turned out luckily,” he added, lugubriously.
“And no one could be better content than
I. I trust that you are at least satisfied
with my efforts, my desires, to be of service.”

A long pause followed—a pause bodeful
of tragedies. Josie had not been in the least
moved by these eager pleadings, and this
piteous humility of a fairly able and widely
respected old gentleman. It seemed to her
that the proper time had come to put him in
a sack and drop him into her Bosphorus.

“I am partly satisfied,” she said, stammering
just a little—“I am satisfied with the
past, but not with the future.”

There was another long silence, which
told of a soul in terror, too smothered to
speak. It was such a stillness as befalls in
the chamber of torture when the inquisitor
lays his instrument on a tooth, and says,
“That must come out.”

For a moment our heroine trembled. It
was her womanish way when undertaking a
cruel deed to falter at the threshold; but,
after the first step, and especially if there
were no resistance, she always gathered
boldness, ruthlessness, and, perhaps one may
say, ferocity.

“I think we have made one great mistake,”
she pursued, with her eyes on the carpet,
for she could not yet face her victim.

Mr. Hollowbread, fearing lest she meant
the engagement, and vainly striving to hope
that she did not mean it, was in too deep
waters for instant utterance.

“We ought to have remained friends,”
continued Josie. “Simply and honestly
friends,” she pieced on, after another pause.
“We should never have gone further.”

Mr. Hollowbread saw his fate arise before

him, and struggled with the feeble strength
of nightmare to escape it.

“I can not think it, Mrs. Murray,” he answered,
in a feeble, gasping voice, such a
voice as the Arabian fisherman must have
had when he sought to persuade the Afrit
not to eat him up. “No, no—so help me
Heaven!—I never can think that.”

“But I must think it, Mr. Hollowbread.
Oh yes! indeed, I must, and do! We made
a great, a fatal mistake in becoming engaged.
I must beg your pardon for having led you
on to such an error.”

He made a feeble gesture of dissent, a gesture
which was pitifully deprecating, but
which did not touch her.

“We respected and admired and liked
each other, and so far all was well,” persisted
Josie. “But when we went further—
when we ventured a betrothal — the cord
snapped. We thought there was love between
us, and now I find that there was only
friendship.”

“Not with me,” protested Mr. Hollowbread,
beginning to recover the use of his organs.
“It was more than friendship with me—incomparably
more—infinitely more. It is so
still. I love you with all my heart and soul
and mind and strength. I shall love you all
my life.”

“It is a great compliment,” returned Josie,
who by this time had stilled her heart-beating
and got her intellect under command.
“I shall never cease to thank you
for it. But if you really love me, you will
wish me to be happy; you will be willing to
sacrifice yourself just a little for me; you
will not force upon me a discontent which
might—I can not say how, but surely somehow
— might drive me desperate — might
drive me to ruin.”

“Oh, Mrs. Murray! Are you not overstating
this matter? How can it ruin you to be
the wife of a man who adores you, who will
never trammel your liberty, who only asks
to be endured, who will live altogether for
you?”

Even Josie was a little shaken by this
plea, and remained silent for a few seconds.

“I shall not live long,” added Mr. Hollowbread,
with entire seriousness, and with a
truly touching pathos.

“Perhaps I shall not, either,” was the only
answer she could devise at the moment.

“But you promised,” urged the trembling
old man, for he was really old just then,
though only sixty. “You pledged yourself,
Mrs. Murray.”

Josie was meditating, but solely as to how
she could shake him off, and at the same time
not anger him. She wanted to get rid of
him as a husband, and yet keep him as a
friend and ally. Not merely her good-nature,
but also her ambition and selfishness, inclined
her toward this purpose. She had
great schemes in her excited imagination:
vague plans for bringing forward her claim
once more and demanding a thoroughly satisfactory
settlement: wild hopes of drawing
vast sums, possibly millions, from the public
treasury. With these ideas in her head she
once more faced her captive Tartar, and tried
to coax him to let her go.

“But, oh dear! Mr. Hollowbread, you
surely can't want a silly young wife, so
completely unworthy of you,” she pleaded.
“How can you care for me? I don't want
to get rid of you altogether. I want to keep
you — as a dear friend — my dearest friend.
It is only the thought of marriage that I
fear. It is only that which can separate us
in heart. Now, do be nice,” she begged, putting
both her hands on his shoulder. “Do
relieve me from an unwise promise! Take
a kiss—a dozen, fifty kisses—and let us be
friends hereafter, but only friends. Now, my
good, kind darling, don't be hard with me.”

“I can not—I can not let it go so,” he sobbed,
kissing her hand over and over. “No,
my dear child, I could not say it.”

“But do listen to reason, Mr. Hollowbread,”
she insisted, losing her patience a
little. “Do consider just this one thing. I
am not the same woman with the woman
who accepted you. That poor little woman
had no money and needed a support,” she
explained, with a bright, placating smile,
which seemed to take all the wickedness out
of this frank confession of egotism. “Now
I am rich. Now I can take care of myself.
Don't you see that it makes a difference? I
have now the one necessary of life which before
I had not, and which I was obliged to
look to you for.”

“I was only too glad to offer it,” sighed
Mr. Hollowbread.

“And I am sincerely obliged to you,” answered
Josie, perfectly unembarrassed. “It
was very kind and good of you, and shows
how noble your heart is. But now, when I no
longer require your fortune, are you not asking
too much to insist upon marriage? You
are demanding every thing, and offering me
what I don't need. Do reflect, Mr. Hollowbread,
and see whether you think it is fair.”

“It is not,” he groaned. “But I ask truth
and honor. It is life and death with me. I
must ask them!”

“Mis-ter — Hol-low-bread — I — ca-n't,”
slowly responded Josie, her very hesitation
and her very drawl adding strength to her
words, and giving her decision an air of irrevocable
finality. That dragging utterance,
the grave consideration which it revealed,
the audible desire to please, ending in recoil,
it was an unalterable sentence.

“Oh, my God! — my God! My heart is
broken!” exclaimed the poor man, staggering
to his feet. “Mrs. Murray, you have
ended one old man's life in sorrow. Yes, I
am an old man,” he whimpered, his voice
breaking at last. “I admit it.”

“Mr. Hollowbread, I am sorry,” said Josie,
cringing at the sight of this great distress.
“I hope you are not angry with me.”

“Angry with you!” he sobbed, turning
upon her two dim and bloodshot eyes, blinded
with tears. “I—don't—know. I don't
know what I am,” he repeated, wiping his
wet face with his glove. “I don't know
much about it. I am stunned.”

“I hope you are not very angry,” she persisted,
following him to the door. “I have
done what I am sure is for the best. If you
will only think of it calmly, I am sure you
will agree with me. I don't want you angry
with me. I want to keep you as a friend.”

“I must go,” muttered Mr. Hollowbread.
He seemed to be tottering in mind as well
as in body. Then, as if recollecting where
he was and what was becoming, he halted,
turned, took her hand, and said, “God bless
you! Good-bye!”

She gazed after him with a variety of
thoughts as he passed out of the door. She
was really sorry for him in that moment, and
wished that he were twenty years younger.
She wondered if he would look back at her,
and hoped that he would not, being desirous
not to see those woeful eyes again. The door
closed softly, and she was alone.

“Ah!” said Josie to herself, drawing a long
breath. “What a pull it was! Well, that
thing is off my mind.”

The trial over, for she regarded it mainly
as a trial to herself, she dropped upon a sofa
to rest. She was just thinking that she
would soon have finer sofas than that hideous
old speckled damask, when the door
suddenly re-opened, and her rejected lover
re-entered.

“Have you forgotten any thing, Mr. Hollowbread?”
she inquired, with perfect good-nature
and friendliness, jumping up to meet
him, and glancing to see if he had left his
hat.

Walking straight up to her, with an air
of excitement which alarmed her, he said:

“Mrs. Murray, I ask you once more, solemnly
and finally, to be my wife.”

“Mr. Hollowbread, that is all nonsense,”
answered Josie, perhaps rather more petulantly
than became a lady, even a pestered
one. “Do stop talking about it. It is settled.”

“I have a claim on your gratitude,” he persisted,
quite loudly. “I have served you—
served you hard and faithfully—given you
my services.”

His face was excessively flushed, and he
stammered strangely in his speech, as if
threatened with paralysis. But Josie merely
thought that he was threatening her, and
merely desired to get rid of him.

“I know it,” she said. “But others have
served me, too, and I have got to pay them
for it.”

“You will pay them,” he replied, confus
edly. “You have paid me. You paid Mrs.
Warden.”

“I have nothing to do with Mrs. Warden,”
asserted our heroine, becoming angry at last.
“She died because she had a heart-disease.
I wish you would go away and let me alone.”

Without another word he went out, and
then she hastily locked the door.

Hardly, however, had she taken a seat and
caught her breath afresh ere she heard some
one fumbling at the knob.

“There he is again, I guess,” she said to
herself, quite composedly. “I wonder if he
has come back after his seven wits.”

After trying in vain to see through the
key-hole, she called:

“Who is it? Is it you, Mr. Hollowbread?”

“Madam, I must speak to you,” responded
the dolorous voice of that surely enchanted
and bedeviled gentleman.

“Go away!” screamed Josie, in high excitement.
“I won't let you in. I tell you,
go away!”

And this time the poor, rejected, bewitched
sexagenarian did take his love-cracked
noddle and tottering person off the premises.

A minute later, Josie smiled, and murmured
to herself: “I do wonder what he wanted
to tell me. I wish I made him say it
through the key-hole. It would have been
so funny!”

She was, in the main, uncommonly clever,
and still she had the thoughtless whims of a
child.