the niagara was running into halifax.
it was early of a bright summer morning, and all the passengers came on deck, joyous with hopes of terra firma. there was our hero, mr. ira waddy; there were two shipboard friends of his, harry dunston and gilbert paulding; there was the budlong family, to wit: old de flournoy budlong; mrs. de flournoy budlong, his second wife, luxuriantly handsome, and greatly his junior; tim de flournoy budlong, and arabella de flournoy budlong; and accompanying them was m. auguste henri miromenil de châteaunéant.
they all looked fresh and well-dressed in shore toggery. the budlongs, particularly, were in full bloom. they were always now in full bloom, and meant the world should fully know they were returning from europe with fashion and the fashions, with a gallery of pictures and a parisian pronunciation. old budlong had once been a brisk young clerk, lively and lucky. he was called flirney then. he had traded in most things and all had yielded[14] him pelf. he was now a capitalist, fat and uneasy, with a natural jollity which he thought unbecoming his position and endeavoured to suppress. budlong in full bloom was as formal as a ball bouquet.
it was under the régime of the second wife that the budlongs had blossomed. after one season of gorgeous grandeur, but doubtful triumph, at home, they, or rather the master-she of their social life, determined to be stamped into undoubted currency by the cachet of europe and paris. they went, were parisinés, and were now returning, wiser and worse. they were now the de flournoy b.’s, and brought with them de châteaunéant, as attaché of mother and step-daughter, either or both. old bud, on marital and paternal grounds, disliked the gaul.
halifax is dull and provincial, but any land ho! is charming after a voyage. old budlong knew all about mr. waddy’s wealth and position. he had lavished much of his style of civility, with much sincere good will, upon him on board ship and now was urgent that he should join the ladies and himself in their promenade ashore.
“thank you,” said waddy, “but i have promised to take a tramp with your boy and these gentlemen,” and he indicated dunstan and paulding.
so de châteaunéant carried the day. old budlong walked in advance, inquiring the way, while his wife and daughter followed, making a cheerful glare of ankles through the muddy streets.
[15]“isn’t it delightful to be ashore?” remarked miss arabella to auguste henri.
“yese, mees. i am mose pleese to be out of ze ice-bugs. ah, mademoiselle,”—as arabella made a lofty lift over a puddle,—“vous avez le pied d’une sylphide.”
mr. waddy and his companions soon exhausted the town. they lunched substantially on land fare, and having still time, went to drive, dunstan and paulding in one drag, mr. waddy and tim in another. the first signal-gun recalled them. the two friends, whose steed was a comparative bucephalus to the others’ rosinante, drew rapidly out of sight. the rear coachman was flogging his beast into a clumsy canter, when just as they passed a little jetty near some fishing-huts, they saw a child fall from the end into deep water.
“we can’t let the child drown,” said mr. waddy, stopping the coachman.
“he’s none of ours. we must catch the ship. perhaps he can swim,” rejoined timothy.
but it was evident he couldn’t; there was no other help in sight. in an instant, mr. waddy was on the jetty, coat, waistcoat, and hat off; in another, he was fighting the tide for the drowning life.
tim was no more selfish a fellow than is the rule with the sons of such merchants, and especially such step-mothers. he would, perhaps, have stayed by mr. waddy had that gentleman been in positive[16] danger, but seeing that he was not only not drowning, but had the child safe by the hair, tim whipped up and got on board just in time.
cunarders do not wait for passengers who choose to go a-ducking after top-heavy children. tim told his story. mrs. budlong and most of the commercial gentry rather laughed at mr. waddy. dunstan and paulding said nothing to them. they, however, seemed to have an opinion on the subject which prevented them from any further interchange of cigars with master timothy. dunstan looked up chin chin, mr. waddy’s chinese servant, and by dint of pulling his ears and cue and saying hi yah! a great many times, made him understand that his master was left, and he, chin chin, must pack up the traps, and for the present obey the cue-puller.
it was a very tender and beautiful thing to see how mr. waddy raised the insensible boy up from the boat below to the jetty. he wrapped the dripping object without scruple in his own very neat and knowing travelling jacket and carried him toward the mother, who had seen the accident from a distance and was running wildly toward them. she clasped the child to her breast, and, at the beating of her heart, life seemed suddenly to thrill through the saved one. he opened his eyes and smiled through his gasping agony.
then the mother turned, seized mr. waddy in an all-round embrace, and gave him a stout fisherwoman’s[17] smack. it was a first-class salute for the returning hero.
he disentangled himself from this codfishy network; then, looking up, he suddenly fell to swearing violently in a variety of oriental languages. the niagara was just off under full headway. two men, probably dunstan and paulding, were waving their handkerchiefs from the quarter-deck.
mr. waddy stopped swearing as suddenly as he had begun and burst into a roar of laughter; then he looked ruefully at his shirt.
the fisherwoman was occupied in punching the child’s ribs and standing it on its head. it was spouting water like the fountain of trevi, and gurgling out lusty screams that proved the efficacy of the treatment.
“mrs. hawkins,” said waddy, becoming conscious that he had observed her name over her door in his momentary coup d’œil before he sprang into the water; “mrs. hawkins, i am wet; you will have to dry me.”
“why, so you are,” said the lady, “wet as a swab. sammy, you jest git up an’ go in the shop, an’ don’t you be fallin’ overboard ag’in an’ botherin’ the gentleman.”
she accompanied this advice with a box on the ear of the sobbing sammy, which started trevi again.
without much ceremony or disappearance into a[18] tiring-room, mr. waddy doffed his wet clothes and donned the toggery of the widow’s eldest son. his cigar-case, well filled with cheroots, had fortunately escaped with his coat. he lighted his first, and sat waiting patiently while mrs. hawkins displayed his wet raiment before her cooking stove and turned the articles judiciously to toast on either side. let us observe him as he sits.
he is rather young for a nabob. many of the nabobs are lymphatic and wheezy, as well as old, and that without reference to the place of their nabobery, whether canton, threadneedle, or wall street. mr. waddy was none of these—he was alert, athletic, and thirty-seven. it is a grand thing to have had one’s full experience and having chased all flying destinies through the bush, to have caught one and hold it safely in the hand, while the catcher is still young and strong enough to handle and tame the captive. mr. waddy looked strong and active enough to catch and tame anything. but some things are tamed only with delicacy and tenderness. was he destitute of these? at this moment, there was no exhibition of any trait beyond nonchalant patience, such as men who have had to deal with asiatics or spanish americans, necessarily acquire. as the last film of his smoke-puff exhales from his lips, they close under the yellow-brown moustache into an expression of firmness, and perhaps of pride. it was easy to see that firm might become stern, and[19] pride might harshen bitterly, if treachery should betray generosity and repel candour.
tossing his cheroot-end into the stove, he allows an interregnum for reverie. he leans his head upon his hand; his thick brown hair half hides the keen sparkle of his grey eyes; the lines of his mouth soften. he is thinking probably of welcomes from old friends, of pilgrimages to old shrines. suddenly he throws down his hand; the proud expression closes again about his lips, his face hardens, hardens——
“brown man, what makes you look so ugly and black?” says sammy, loquitur. “ma, i know he wants to kill me for wettin’ his clothes,” and sammy wept boo! hoo!
“don’t cry, my boy,” said mr. waddy, and putting his hand into a pocket he thought his own, he drew out not the expected purse containing the presentable shilling, but a strip of pigtail tobacco. “am i brown? i am the ancient mariner. i have been where the sun bakes men as brown as that loaf of gingerbread. here are two shillings out of my vest pocket. keep one yourself and buy that loaf from your mother with the other. my mother used to bake gingerbread and my father sold it, years ago, when i was white, not ginger-coloured.”
so ira and sammy came to terms of peace and good will and munched together.
“i kind er guess your things is dry now, capting,”[20] said mrs. hawkins. “i’ll jest put the flatiron to that air shirt and make it as slick as a slide. salt water don’t take sterch or them collars would stan’ right up.”
while mr. waddy was recovering his habiliments, isaiah hawkins, the widow’s eldest son, came in. he owned a small coaster and was to sail that afternoon for portland. he came to get his traps.
“can you take a passenger?” inquired mr. waddy, after the usual preliminary greetings.
“wal, capting,” replied hawkins, with much deliberation, “i dunno as i could, an’ i dunno as i couldn’t. what kind a feller is this ere passenger? kin he eat pork an’ fish?”
“i’m the man,” explained mr. waddy. “i should think i could eat pork and fish. i’ve lived in boston.”
“wal, capting, come along if yer like,” said hawkins heartily, “an’ it shan’t cost yer a durned cent. ’tain’t every feller i’d take, but i feel kinder ’bleeged to yer fer pickin’ up sam.”
mr. waddy would not consent to be a dead-head, but took pay passage at once, to start at two. meanwhile he strolled about the town, and climbing the steep glacis, admired the glorious bay and the impregnable fort. he was entering when his way was stopped by the sentinel.
“no one admitted without special order,” announced that functionary.
[21]“my old friend mr. waddy has special entrée everywhere!” cried a passing officer, laying his hand on ira’s shoulder. “my dear fellow, you wouldn’t let me thank you at inkerman for dropping that cossack. now i intend to pepper you with gratitude.”
“oh, no! we never mention it, granby,” retorted ira, warmly grasping the extended hand, “unless you need reminding how you dropped the rhinoceros who wouldn’t drop me. by the way, i’ve had a match-box made of his horn.”
he pulled out his cigar-case and the match-box. they each took a cigar and walked off together to major granby’s quarters, as coolly as if the reciprocal life-saving they had recalled was an everyday business.
“how in the name of mercury came you here?” asked the major, after they were seated.
“ginger beer—gingerbread, beer,” murmured waddy abstractedly. “bass’ pale ale. yes—ah, well!”
“what, ho! patrick!” called the major. “here’s mr. waddy come back and wants his ale!”
while patrick grinned a cheerful recognition and drew the cork, mr. waddy explained his position and the gingerbread allusion.
“i sail at two for portland in the billy blue nose,” he concluded. “why won’t you come and see me in the states?”
[22]“why not? i’ll join you when you please,” assented granby instantly. “i already have a furlough. i wish i could start to-day.”
“come by the next steamer, to-day fortnight,” suggested ira, “and meet me in boston at the tremont house. i’m really as much a stranger as you; but they all know me. we’ll see the lions together.”
“you’ll have to be a ladies’ man, for my sake,” said the major. “i’ve heard the american women are the loveliest of the world, and i’ve determined to see for myself. i thought, before i saw you, of dropping in at newport this summer. that’s the mart, i hear.”
“certainly, we’ll go there and everywhere,” agreed ira. “what do you say to a partnership for matrimonial speculation? you put in good looks, good name, and glory. i contribute money—the prize, of course, to be mine.”
“you say nothing about wit,” the major pointed out. “modest! as to good looks, these are perhaps degenerate days, but you’ll do very well for an antinous with whiskers, and i used constantly in rome to be mistaken for the apollo, in costume of the period.”
“well, apollo, i leave you to study attitudes,” said waddy, rising. “i must be off. good-bye! to-day three weeks.”
“so long! here, pat! pack up a carpet-bag for[23] mr. waddy and put in some of those short shirts. my six-feet-one beats you by three inches.”
the billy blue nose was quite ready. mr. waddy was also ready and just stepping into the boat when he heard sammy’s voice:
“say, mister! gimme another shilling to buy gingerbread!”
we leave the reader to judge whether the prayer went unanswered.
