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Page 37
At seven promptly Thomas called at the club and asked for Mr.
Killigrew. He was shown into the grill, where he was pleasantly
greeted by his host and Crawford and introduced to a young man about
his own age, a Mr. Forbes. Thomas, dressed in his new stag-coat, felt
that he was getting along famously. He had some doubt in regard to his
straw hat, however, till, after dinner, he saw that his companions were
wearing their Panamas.
Forbes, the artist, had reached that blas� period when, only upon rare
occasions, did he feel disposed to enlarge his acquaintance. But this
fresh-skinned young Britisher went to his heart at once, a kindred
soul, and he adopted him forthwith. He and Thomas paired off and
talked "fight" all the way to the boxing club.
There was a great crowd pressing about the entrance. There were eddies
of turbulent spirits. A crowd in America is unlike any other. It is
full of meanness, rowdyism, petty malice. A big fellow, smelling of
bad whisky, shouldered Killigrew aside, roughly. Killigrew's Irish
blood flamed.
"Here! Look where you're going!" he cried.
The man reached back and jammed Killigrew's hat down over his eyes.
Killigrew stumbled and fell, and Crawford and Forbes surged to his
rescue from the trampling feet. Thomas, however, caught the ruffian's
right wrist, jammed it scientifically against the man's chest, took him
by the throat and bore him back, savagely and relentlessly. The crowd,
packed as it was, gave ground. With an oath the man struck. Thomas
struck back, accurately. Instantly the circle widened. A fight
outside was always more interesting than one inside the ropes. A blow
ripped open Thomas' shirt. It became a slam-bang affair. Thomas
knocked his man down just as a burly policeman arrived. Naturally, he
caught hold of Thomas and called for assistance. The wrong man first
is the invariable rule of the New York police.
"Milligan!" shouted Killigrew, as he sighted one of the club's
promoters.
Milligan recognized his millionaire patron and pushed to his side.
After due explanations, Thomas was liberated and the real culprit was
forced swearing through the press toward the patrol-wagon, always near
on such nights. Eventually the four gained Crawford's box. Aside from
a cut lip and a torn shirt, Thomas was uninjured. If his
fairy-godmother had prearranged this fisticuff, she could not have done
anything better so far as Killigrew was concerned.
"Thomas," he said, as the main bout was being staged, the chairs and
water-pails and paraphernalia changed to fresh corners, "I'll remember
that turn. If you're not Irish, it's no fault of yours. I wish you
knew something about coffee."
"I enjoy drinking it," Thomas replied, smiling humorously.
Ever after the merchant-prince treated Thomas like a son; the kind of a
boy he had always wanted and could not have. And only once again did
he doubt; and he longed to throttle the man who brought into light what
appeared to be the most damnable evidence of Thomas' perfidy.
CHAPTER XV
We chaps who write have magic carpets.
Whiz!
A marble balcony, overlooking the sea, which shimmered under the light
of the summer moon. Lord Henry Monckton and Kitty leaned over the
baluster and silently watched the rush of the rollers landward and the
slink of them back to the sea.
For three days Kitty had wondered whether she liked or disliked Lord
Monckton. The fact that he was the man who had bumped into Thomas that
night at the theater may have had something to do with her doddering.
He might at least have helped Thomas in recovering his hat. Dark,
full-bearded, slender, with hands like a woman's, quiet of manner yet
affable, he was the most picturesque person at the cottage. But there
was always something smoldering in those sleepy eyes of his that
suggested to Kitty a mockery. It was not that recognizable mockery of
all those visiting Englishmen who held themselves complacently superior
to their generous American hosts. It was as though he were silently
laughing at all he saw, at all which happened about him, as if he stood
in the midst of some huge joke which he alone was capable of
understanding: so Kitty weighed him.
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