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Page 32
"You were the wise lady to send for me, Lizzie. You'd have killed him
off right here. As it is, he'll come back. He's a clerk somewhere,
drawing twenty-five a week or so. He ought to give up at least five of
it every week; cigarette money, anyway. Anything loose in the house?"
"They's a couple bottles beer in the icebox. Gee! ain't he good, though!
If he only had the roll some has!"
* * * * *
In his little room far up under the hunched shoulders of the house,
Bunker Bean sat reviewing his Karmic past. Over parts of it he
shuddered. That crafty Venetian plotting to kill, trifling wickedly with
the inlaid dagger; the brutal Roman, ruling by fear, cutting off heads!
And the blind poet! He would rather be Napoleon than a blind poet, if
you came down to that. But the king, wise, humane, handsome, masterly,
with a princess of rare beauty from Mesopotamia to be the mother of his
three lovely children. That was a dazzling vision to behold, a life sane
and proper, abounding in majesty both moral and material.
He sought to live over his long and peaceful but brilliant reign. Then
he dwelt on his death and burial. They had made a mummy of him, of
course. Somewhere that very night, at that very instant, his lifeless
form reposed beneath the desert sands. Perhaps the face had changed but
little during the centuries. He, Bunker Bean, lay there in royal robes,
hands folded upon his breast, as lamenting subjects had left him.
And what did it mean to him now? He thought he saw. As King Ram-tah he
had been _too_ peaceful. For all his stern and kingly bearing might he
not have been a little timid--afraid of people now and then? And the
Karmic law had swept him on and on into lives that demanded violence,
the Roman warrior, the Venetian plotter, the Corsican usurper!
He saw that he must have completed one of those vast Karmic cycles. What
he had supposed to be timidity was a natural reaction from Napoleonic
bravado. Now he had finished the circle and was ready to become again
his kingly self, his Ram-tah self--able, reliant, fearless.
He expanded his chest, erected his shoulders and studied himself in the
glass: there was undoubted majesty in the glance. He vibrated with some
fresh, strange power.
Yes; but what about to-morrow--out in the world? in daylight, passing
the policeman on the corner, down at the office? Would he remain a king
in the presence of Breede, even in the lesser presence of Bulger, or of
old Metzeger from whom he purposed to borrow seventeen dollars and
seventy-nine cents? All right about being a king, but how were other
people to know it? Well, he would have to make them feel it. He must
know it himself, first; then impress it upon them.
But a sense of unreality was creeping back. It was almost better to
remember the Napoleon past. There were books about that. He pictured
again the dead Ram-tah in trappings of royalty. If he could only _see_
himself, and be sure. But that was out of the question. It was no good
wishing. After all, he was Bunker Bean, a poor thing who had to fly when
Breede growled "Wantcha." He sat at his table, staring moodily into
vacancy. He idly speculated about Breede's ragged moustache; he thought
it had been blasted and killed by the words Breede spoke. A moment later
he was conscious that he stared at an unopened letter on the table
before him.
He took it up without interest, perceiving that it came from his Aunt
Clara in Chicago. She would ask if he had yet joined the Y.M.C.A., and
warn him to be careful about changing his flannels.
"Dear Bunker" [it began], "my own dear husband passed to his final rest
last Thursday at 5 p.m. He was cheerful to the last and did not seem to
suffer much. The funeral was on Saturday and was very beautiful and
impressive. I did not notify you at the time as I was afraid the shock
would affect you injuriously and that you might be tempted to make the
long trip here to be with me. Now that you know it is all over, you can
take it peacefully, as I am already doing. The life-insurance people
were very nice about it and paid the claim promptly. I enclose the money
which wipes out all but--"
He opened the double sheet. There were many more of the closely written
lines, but he read no farther, for a check was folded there. His
trembling fingers pulled the ends apart and his astounded eyes rested on
its ornate face.
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