“how long have you been here?” asked the man with the black mustache; “i never noticed you before.”
“just a week to-day,” said the manicure, as she soused one of his fat, pudgy paws in the scented water. she didn’t even take the trouble to look up at him as she talked, but applied herself at once to the almost impossible task of making his nails even presentable. it’s a hard job, you know, trying to improve on one of nature’s bum pieces of work.
the man leaned back in his chair contentedly, and with that air of assurance which money begets, and he looked her over as he would have looked over a new style of shirt in a haberdasher’s window. he noted that her hair was dark chestnut in color and luxuriant, also that it was undoubtedly all her own. the contour of her face was such as would have attracted any man with red blood in his veins and a heart to pump it. she had, besides, nice hands that were well kept, and a dainty manner that was rather charming.
“don’t you ever get tired of doing this kind of work?” he asked, when he had finished his inspection and had sized her up to his apparent satisfaction.
“i am always tired of it,” she answered, briefly.
“how would you like to travel?” was his next question.
“i wasn’t arrested, but i was put out as if i were a common swindler”
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then she paused a moment and glanced up. she was smiling, and the two dimples that came in her cheeks rather enhanced her beauty.
then he saw that she also had teeth that were white and regular, that her lips were red and her eyelashes long.
you know a bargaining man takes in all these things, just the same as a buyer of beef on the hoof feels and prods the cattle in the search for blemishes.
“there is nothing in the world i would like better than to travel.”
she looked him squarely in the eyes, and her smile was accentuated. then she resumed her work. as for him he leaned still farther back in the comfortable chair and sucked complacently on his big havana.
“i knew you was a nice little girl as soon as i saw you.”
“did you?”
the rapid, supple fingers never paused for a moment in their work, and were trimming, rubbing and polishing those awful nails into some kind of decent shape. the thick, heavy, hairy hand, with its spatulate extremities, showed physical strength and nothing else. it was made for work, and it had worked, too, in its day. it had been used to the most ordinary and menial kind of labor, as the hands of its ancestors had. it had lifted beams and handled picks and shovels. it had pulled at ropes and tugged at heavy burdens. it had had little to do with the gentler side of life, and even the big diamond ring on the fourth finger could not hide its early career.
but an accident happened—a money-making accident which some might call opportunity—and the
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hands had been withdrawn from their labors, and the callous spots had a chance to disappear—gradually, but none the less surely. the movement of the slim white fingers caused him to look down, and he was conscious of the fact that his heart was beating a bit faster than usual. the blue smoke from his cigar curled up through his mustache, it crept into his eyes and made them sting. through the haze he noticed that the girl had a bow of black ribbon fastened to her hair.
“i’ll bet you’d be a good sport if you had the chance.”
“that depends upon what you mean by the chance,” she said.
he couldn’t quite analyze that, and so he blurted out:
“go down the line with me and i’ll show you.”
she paid no attention to that.
“how about it?” he persisted.
“how about what?”
“i’d just like to take you out to a little lunch for two. what time do you break away from here? what time do you knock off?”
“to-night, do you mean?”
“sure, yes, to-night.”
“just time enough to go home, and i never go out at night.”
“tush, tush, now. be a good fellow, and if i like you i’ll take you on a long trip. you know you said you liked to travel, didn’t you? well, i’m going to give you a chance, if you behave yourself and stick to me. i’ve been looking for a girl like you for a long while, and you just hit me right, so you’re on the job.
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i can make good, all right, you needn’t be afraid of that, for i’ve got all kinds of money, and when i meet anybody i like i spend it like a drunken sailor, see?”
“yes, i see; i knew you had money all the time.”
“you did, did you; well, how?”
“because it is only men with plenty of money who would talk to a girl the way you have been talking to me. it is only the men with money who think they can buy everything in sight, especially if that which they think they fancy happens to be the wearer of a skirt, and it’s the men with money who think their money is better than anybody else’s money, and their dollars are of more value than the dollars owned or controlled by some one who has less than they have. are you married?”
“no,” he answered. he would have said more if he had known what to say.
“then why don’t you go and pick out some woman whom you like and who likes you, and marry her and have it over with. your time for being a gay sport has passed; leave that to the young fellows.”
daintily she reddened his nails with rouge, doing them as carefully as if they were works of art, and tapping each one gently in order to get just the right amount of color.
“i don’t think,” she went on, “that you quite know what you’ve been up against. you may have heard the old saying, ‘a burnt child dreads the fire;’ well, i’m the child in this case, although i’m no child in years. as i told you before, i’ve been here a week, and it’s a great relief to me to be working, for i’ve been on one of those little trips you were just talking about, and
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there is nothing to it. you see,” then she glanced up quickly, “perhaps you don’t want to hear this.”
“that’s all right; go ahead, you can’t hurt my feelings.”
“i was told that i was a good fellow and a nice girl, and i was led to believe that i could have anything in the world that i wanted, and i want to tell you right here that it is a beautiful thing to believe and have faith in anyone. some of the stories that men tell to women would make great reading if it was only written right, but they would be all fiction, because i don’t believe a man ever told a woman the truth in his life. i’m talking from personal experience, of course. this one man, who was really old enough to be my father, talked to me about my future, and said, among other things, he would always look after me, and i was serious enough about it to believe that he would, too. then one day he asked me if i wanted to take a little trip, and his words were so much like yours when you spoke that you startled me. isn’t it strange that the nails of your left hand take on so much higher polish than those of the right hand? i wonder why it is? there, i’m through now. fifty cents, please.”
“but how about the finish of that story? did you take the trip?”
“of course i took it.”
“make the job a dollar and tell me the rest.”
“i never would have believed that i would be sitting here telling that story to a man whom i had only met once. you’re not offended at the way i criticised you, are you?”
“not at all,” he answered, “go ahead and criticise
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me all you like. i rather like it, it’s so seldom that i am criticised.”
“you mean nowadays?” she asked, noting his hands.
“yes, since i got money. go on with the story.”
“the trip was to be to europe—first london, then paris, and after that berlin. he was a banker and so prominent that you would know his name at once if i were to mention it, but there is where i draw the line. i’ll save him that much, anyhow. when we left he had a large bag in which he seemed to take an especial interest, for he would allow no one to touch it but himself, and it wasn’t until we were half way across that i found out that it was all full of money.”
“money?” queried the man with the black mustache, sitting bolt upright in his chair.
“yes, money. that’s what i said, wasn’t it?” she asked, petulantly. “brand new greenbacks, pound notes, hundred and thousand-franc notes. oh, they were beautiful to look at, and i counted over the packages because they were so pretty. you see, he said he was going over to put through a big banking deal, and he cautioned me to say nothing about all the money he had with him, for fear he would be robbed. when we arrived in london we went direct to the cecil, where he registered under an assumed name, but i was down on the book as his wife, just the same, and he told me to go out and get some clothes and anything i wanted. he said he wanted to have some of the big bills changed and that was the easiest way in the world to have it done, but he asked me to bring all the change to him, and to pay for every separate article with one of the new bills. i thought it was rather queer at the time, but i did as he told me and i never in my life had
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such a good time buying things. i brought back to the hotel a dreadful amount of change, so much that it was a nuisance.
“every day it was the same thing over again until i honestly grew tired of spending money. think of that—tired spending. before we left for paris he put over $15,000 of the change in a safe deposit vault that only he and i knew about, because something had happened and he had to get to paris quickly. when we got there we went to the grand hotel, where he registered under still another name. again i went shopping, and the only hard part of it was that i had a new bill to change every time i bought anything, think of that, even if it was a little lunch in a cafe, and many a time i have had to wait while they sent out for the change of a thousand-franc note. we were there just four days when one afternoon two men came to our rooms with the proprietor or manager of the hotel, and the first thing i knew he was arrested on the charge of making or having counterfeit money or something like that. before they got him out of the room he whispered to me that he had put $15,000 more in a safe deposit vault in paris, and he told me the name of the place. he said it was in my name, too.
“i wasn’t arrested, but i was put out of the hotel as if i had been a swindler. i had enough money to get home, and so i came. i don’t want any more excitement in mine, and i’m content to get along the best way i can, without any fireworks or trips of any kind, unless, of course, i’m sure that everything is absolutely correct and all right. suppose i had been broke, what would i have done alone in paris?”
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“what happened to the man?” he asked, ignoring her question.
“he was tried and sentenced to twenty years’ imprisonment, and if he had only married me, and i had my marriage certificate, i could go over there and get $30,000 as easy as nothing. i don’t care so very much for it, but still it would come in very handy and i wouldn’t mind dividing it up with anyone who could help me out.”
the man fidgeted in his chair, glanced out of the window, and then took a long pull at his cigar.
“bored you, didn’t it?” asked the girl. “i knew it would, but you insisted on my telling it, and you’re the only one that knows it. i’m really getting garrulous.”
“do you think $5,000 would be enough to get the papers fixed up?”
“oh, yes, that would be quite enough, for i inquired about it. it would take me there and back again and pay all expenses.”
“and you’d give me half?”
“why, of course i would. who wouldn’t?”
you know the old saying about a sucker being born every minute. i could go on and make the usual hot finish to this story, but what’s the use when two lines will suffice. she got the money, of course, and he got what is known in the language of the line as the lemon. very sour it was for this hard, wise fellow, and they say that now every time he passes a manicure parlor he turns his head the other way and says things which wouldn’t look well in print.
