University of Virginia Library

29. CHAPTER XXIX.
MISTRESS KITTY FAGAN CALLS ON MASTER BYLES GRIDLEY.

“I 'D like to go down to the store this mornin', Miss
Withers, plase. Sure I 've niver a shoe to my fut,
only jist these two that I 've got on, an' one other pair, and
thim is so full of holes that whin I 'm standin' in 'em I 'm
outside of 'em intirely.”

“You can go, Kitty,” Miss Silence answered, funereally.

Thereupon Kitty Fagan proceeded to array herself in
her most tidy apparel, including a pair of shoes not exactly
answering to her description, and set out straight for the
house of the Widow Hopkins. Arrived at that respectable
mansion, she inquired for Mr. Gridley, and was informed
that he was at home. Had a message for him, —
could she see him in his study? She could if she would
wait a little while. Mr. Gridley was busy just at this
minute. Sit down, Kitty, and warm yourself at the cooking-stove.

Mistress Kitty accepted Mrs. Hopkins's hospitable offer,
and presently began orienting herself, and getting ready
to make herself agreeable. The kind-hearted Mrs. Hopkins
had gathered about her several other pensioners besides
the twins. These two little people, it may be here
mentioned, were just taking a morning airing in charge of
Susan Posey, who strolled along in company with Gifted
Hopkins on his way to “the store.”

Mistress Kitty soon began the conversational blandishments

so natural to her good-humored race. “It 's a little
blarney that 'll jist suit th' old lady,” she said to herself,
as she made her first conciliatory advance.

“An' sure an' it 's a beautiful kitten you 've got there,
Mrs. Hopkins. An' it 's a splindid mouser she is, I 'll be
bound. Does n't she look as if she 'd clane the house out
o' them little bastes, — bad luck to 'em!”

Mrs. Hopkins looked benignantly upon the more than
middle-aged tabby, slumbering as if she had never known
an enemy, and turned smiling to Mistress Kitty. “Why,
bless your heart, Kitty, our old puss would n't know a
mouse by sight, if you showed her one. If I was a mouse,
I 'd as lieves have a nest in one of that old cat's ears as
anywhere else. You could n't find a safer place for one.”

“Indade, an' to be sure she 's too big an' too handsome
a pussy to be after wastin' her time on them little bastes.
It 's that little tarrier dog of yours, Mrs. Hopkins, that
will be after worryin' the mice an' the rats, an' the thaves
too, I 'll warrant. Is n't he a fust-rate-lookin' watch-dog,
an' a rig'ler rat-hound?”

Mrs. Hopkins looked at the little short-legged and shortwinded
animal of miscellaneous extraction with an expression
of contempt and affection, mingled about half and
half. “Worry 'em! If they wanted to sleep, I rather guess
he would worry 'em! If barkin' would do their job for
'em, nary a mouse nor rat would board free gratis in my
house as they do now. Noisy little good-for-nothing tike,
— ain't you, Fret?”

Mistress Kitty was put back a little by two such signal
failures. There was another chance, however, to make
her point, which she presently availed herself of, — feeling
pretty sure this time that she should effect a lodgement.

Mrs. Hopkins's parrot had been observing Kitty, first with
one eye and then with the other, evidently preparing to
make a remark, but awkward with a stranger. “That 's
a beautiful par't y 've got there,” Kitty said, buoyant with
the certainty that she was on safe ground this time; “and
tahks like a book, I 'll be bound. Poll! Poll! Poor
Poll!”

She put forth her hand to caress the intelligent and
affable bird, which, instead of responding as expected,
“squawked,” as our phonetic language has it, and, opening
a beak imitated from a tooth-drawing instrument of the
good old days, made a shrewd nip at Kitty's forefinger.
She drew it back with a jerk.

“An' is that the way your par't tahks, Mrs. Hopkins?”

“Talks, bless you, Kitty! why, that parrot has n't said
a word this ten year. He used to say Poor Poll! when
we first had him, but he found it was easier to squawk, and
that 's all he ever does now-a-days, — except bite once in
a while.”

“Well, an' to be sure,” Kitty answered, radiant as she
rose from her defeats, “if you 'll kape a cat that does n't
know a mouse when she sees it, an' a dog that only barks
for his livin', and a par't that only squawks an' bites an'
niver spakes a word, ye must be the best-hearted woman
that 's alive, an' bliss ye, if ye was only a good Catholic,
the Holy Father 'd make a saint of ye in less than no
time!”

So Mistress Kitty Fagan got in her bit of Celtic flattery,
in spite of her three successive discomfitures.

“You may come up now, Kitty,” said Mr. Gridley over
the stairs. He had just finished and sealed a letter.

“Well, Kitty, how are things going on up at The Poplars?

And how does our young lady seem to be of
late?”

“Whisht! whisht! your honor.”

Mr. Bradshaw's lessons had not been thrown away on
his attentive listener. She opened every door in the room,
“by your lave,” as she said. She looked all over the walls
to see if there was any old stove-pipe hole or other avenue
to eye or ear. Then she went, in her excess of caution, to
the window. She saw nothing noteworthy except Mr.
Gifted Hopkins and the charge he convoyed, large and
small, in the distance. The whole living fleet was stationary
for the moment, he leaning on the fence with his cheek
on his hand, in one of the attitudes of the late Lord Byron;
she, very near him, listening, apparently, in the pose of
Mignon aspirant au ciel, as rendered by Carlo Dolce
Scheffer.

Kitty came back, apparently satisfied, and stood close to
Mr. Gridley, who told her to sit down, which she did, first
making a catch at her apron to dust the chair with, and
then remembering that she had left that part of her costume
at home. — Automatic movements, curious.

Mistress Kitty began telling in an undertone of the
meeting between Mr. Bradshaw and Miss Badlam, and of
the arrangements she made for herself as the reporter of
the occasion. She then repeated to him, in her own way,
that part of the conversation which has been already laid
before the reader. There is no need of going over the
whole of this again in Kitty's version, but we may fit what
followed into the joints of what has been already told.

“He cahled her Cynthy, d' ye see, Mr. Gridley, an'
tahked to her jist as asy as if they was two rogues, and she
knowed it as well as he did. An' so, says he, I 'm goin'

away, says he, an' I 'm goin' to be gahn siveral days,
or perhaps longer, says he, an' you 'd better kape it,
says he.”

“Keep what, Kitty? What was it he wanted her to
keep?” said Mr. Gridley, who no longer doubted that he
was on the trail of a plot, and meant to follow it. He was
getting impatient with the “says he's” with which Kitty
double-leaded her discourse.

“An' to be sure ain't I tellin' you, Mr. Gridley, jist as
fast as my breath will let me? An' so, says he, you 'd better
kape it, says he, mixed up with your other paäpers,
says he,” (Mr. Gridley started,) “an' thin we can find it in
the garret, says he, whinever we want it, says he. An' if
it ahl goes right out there, says he, it won't be lahng before
we shall want to find it, says he. And I can dipind on
you, says he, for we 're both in the same boat, says he, an'
you knows what I knows, says he, an' I knows what you
knows, says he. And thin he taks a stack o' papers out
of his pocket, an' he pulls out one of 'em, an' he says to
her, says he, that 's the paper, says he, an' if you die, says
he, niver lose sight of that day or night, says he, for it 's life
an' dith to both of us, says he. An' thin he asks her if
she has n't got one o' them paäpers — what is 't they cahls
'em? — divilops, or some sich kind of a name — that they
wraps up their letters in; an' she says no, she has n't got
none that 's big enough to hold it. So he says, give me a
shate o' paäper, says he. An' thin he takes the paäper
that she give him, an' he folds it up like one o' them — divilops,
if that 's the name of 'em; and thin he pulls a stick
o' salin'-wax out of his pocket, an' a stamp, an' he takes the
paäper an' puts it into th' other paäper, along with the
rest of the paäpers, an' thin he folds th' other paäper over

the paäpers, and thin he lights a candle, an' he milts the
salin'-wax, and he sales up the paäper that was outside th'
other paäpers, an' he writes on the back of the paäper, an'
thin he hands it to Miss Badlam.”

“Did you see the paper that he showed her before he
fastened it up with the others, Kitty?”

“I did see it, indade, Mr. Gridley, and it 's the truth
I 'm tellin' ye.”

“Did you happen to notice anything about it, Kitty.”

“I did, indade, Mr. Gridley. It was a longish kind of
a paäper, and there was some blotches of ink on the back
of it, — an' they looked like a face without any mouth, for,
says I, there 's two spots for the eyes, says I, and there 's
a spot for the nose, says I, and there 's niver a spot for the
mouth, says I.”

This was the substance of what Master Byles Gridley
got out of Kitty Fagan. It was enough, — yes, it was too
much. There was some deep-laid plot between Murray
Bradshaw and Cynthia Badlam, involving the interests of
some of the persons connected with the late Malachi Withers;
for that the paper described by Kitty was the same
that he had seen the young man conceal in the Corpus
Juris Civilis, it was impossible to doubt. If it had been a
single spot on the back of it, or two, he might have doubted.
But three large spots — “blotches” she had called them,
disposed thus ∵ — would not have happened to be on two
different papers, in all human probability.

After grave consultation of all his mental faculties in
committee of the whole, he arrived at the following conclusion,
— that Miss Cynthia Badlam was the depositary of a
secret involving interests which he felt it his business to
defend, and of a document which was fraudulently withheld

and meant to be used for some unfair purpose. And
most assuredly, Master Gridley said to himself, he held a
master-key, which, just so certainly as he could make up
his mind to use it, would open any secret in the keeping
of Miss Cynthia Badlam.

He proceeded, therefore, without delay, to get ready for
a visit to that lady, at The Poplars. He meant to go
thoroughly armed, for he was a very provident old gentleman.
His weapons were not exactly of the kind which a
housebreaker would provide himself with, but of a somewhat
peculiar nature.

Weapon number one was a slip of paper with a date and
a few words written upon it. “I think this will fetch the
document,” he said to himself, “if it comes to the worst.
Not if I can help it, — not if I can help it. But if I cannot
get at the heart of this thing otherwise, why, I must
come to this. Poor woman! — Poor woman!”

Weapon number two was a small phial containing spirits
of hartshorn, sal volatile, very strong, that would stab
through the nostrils, like a stiletto, deep into the gray kernels
that lie in the core of the brain. Excellent in cases
of sudden syncope or fainting, such as sometimes require
the opening of windows, the dashing on of cold water, the
cutting of stays, perhaps, with a scene of more or less tumultuous
perturbation and afflux of clamorous womanhood.

So armed, Byles Gridley, A. M., champion of unprotected
innocence, grasped his ivory-handled cane and sallied
forth on his way to The Poplars.