Keggs uttered a senile chuckle and drank more beer.
"They're rum uns,"
he went on. "I've been in some queer places, but this beats 'em all."
"What do you mean?" inquired Steve, as a second chuckle escaped his
companion.
"Why, it's come to an 'ead, things has, Mr. Dingle. That's what I mean.
You won't have forgotten all about the pampering of that child what I
told you of quite recent. Well, it's been and come to an 'ead."
"Yes? Continue, colonel. This listens good."
"You ain't 'eard?"
"Not a word."
Keggs smiled a happy smile and sipped his beer. It did the old man
good, finding an entirely new audience like this.
"Why, Mr. Winfield 'as packed up and left."
Steve gasped.
"Left!" he cried. "Not quit? Not gone for good?"
"For his own good, I should say. Finds himself better off away from it
all, if you ask me. But 'adn't you reelly heard, Mr. Dingle? God bless
my soul! I thought it was public property by now, that little bit of
noos. Why, Mr. Winfield 'asn't been living with us for the matter of a
week or more."
"For the love of Mike!"
"I'm telling you the honest truth, Mr. Dingle. Two weeks ago come next
Saturday Mr. Winfield meets me in the 'all looking wild and 'arassed, it
was the same day there was that big thunder-storm, and he looks at me,
glassy like, and says to me: 'Keggs, 'ave my bag packed and my boxes,
too; I'm going away for a time. I'll send a messenger for 'em.' And
out he goes into the rain, which begins to come down cats and dogs the
moment he was in the street.
"I start to go out after him with his rain-coat, thinking he'd get wet
before he could find a cab, they being so scarce in this city, not like
London, where you simply 'ave to raise your 'and to 'ave a dozen
flocking round you, but he don't stop; he just goes walking off through
the rain and all, and I gets back into the house, not wishing to be
wetted myself on account of my rheumatism, which is always troublesome
in the damp weather. And I says to myself: ''Ullo, 'ullo, 'ullo, what's
all this?'
"See what I mean? I could tell as plain as if I'd been in the room with
them that they had been having words. And since that day 'e ain't been
near the 'ouse, and where he is now is more than I can tell you, Mr.
Dingle."
"Why, he's at the studio."
"At the studio, is he? Well, I shouldn't wonder if he wasn't better
off. 'E didn't strike me as a man what was used to the ways of society.
He's happier where he is, I expect."
And, having summed matters up in this philosophical manner, Keggs
drained his glass and cocked an expectant eye at Steve.
Steve obeyed the signal and ordered a further supply of the beer for
which Mr. Keggs had a plebian and unbutlerlike fondness. His companion
turned the conversation to the prospects of one of that group of
inefficient middleweights whom Steve so heartily despised, between whom
and another of the same degraded band a ten-round contest had been
arranged and would shortly take place.
Ordinarily this would have been a subject on which Steve would have
found plenty to say, but his mind was occupied with what he had just
heard, and he sat silent while the silver-haired patron of sport
opposite prattled on respecting current form.
Steve felt stunned. It was unthinkable that this thing had really
occurred.
Mr. Keggs, sipping beer, discussed the coming fight. He weighed the
alleged left hook of one principal against the much-advertised right
swing of the other. He spoke with apprehension of a yellow streak which
certain purists claimed to have discovered in the gladiator on whose
chances he proposed to invest his cash.
Steve was not listening to him. A sudden thought had come to him,
filling his mind to the exclusion of all else.
The recollection of his talk with Kirk at the studio had come back to
him. He had advised Kirk, as a solution of his difficulties, to kidnap
the child and take him to Connecticut. Well, Kirk was out of the
running now, but he, Steve, was still in it.
He would do it himself.
The idea thrilled him. It was so in keeping with his theory of the
virtue of the swift and immediate punch, administered with the minimum
of preliminary sparring. There was a risk attached to the scheme which
appealed to him. Above all, he honestly believed that it would achieve
its object, the straightening out of the tangle which Ruth and Kirk had
made of their lives.
When once an idea had entered Steve's head he was tenacious of it. He
had come to the decision that Ruth needed what he called a jolt to
bring her to herself, much as a sleep-walker is aroused by the touch of
a hand, and he clung to it.
He interrupted Mr. Keggs in the middle of a speech touching on his
man's alleged yellow streak.
"Will you be at home to-night, colonel?" he asked.
"I certainly will, Mr. Dingle."
"Mind if I look in?"
"I shall be delighted. I can offer you a cigar that I think you'll
appreciate, and we can continue this little chat at our leisure. Mrs.
Winfield's dining out, and that there Porter, thank Gawd, 'as gone to
Boston."
Chapter IX At One in the Morning
William Bannister Winfield slept the peaceful sleep of childhood in his
sterilized cot. The light gleamed faintly on the white tiles. It lit up
the brass knobs on the walls, the spotless curtains, the large
thermometer.
An intruder, interested in these things, would have seen by a glance at
this last that the temperature of the room was exactly that recommended
by doctors as the correct temperature for the nursery of a sleeping
child; no higher, no lower. The transom over the door was closed, but
the window was open at the top to precisely the extent advocated by the
authorities, due consideration having been taken for the time of year
and the condition of the outer atmosphere.
The hour was one in the morning.
Childhood is a readily adaptable time of life, and William Bannister,
after a few days of blank astonishment, varied by open mutiny, had
accepted the change in his surroundings and daily existence with
admirable philosophy. His memory was not far-reaching, and, as time
went on and he began to accommodate himself to the new situation, he
had gradually forgotten the days at the studio, as, it is to be
supposed, he had forgotten the clouds of glory which he had trailed on
his entry into this world. If memories of past bear-hunts among the
canvases on the dusty floor ever came to him now, he never mentioned
it.
A child can weave romance into any condition of life in which fate
places him; and William Bannister had managed to interest himself in
his present existence with a considerable gusto. Scraps of conversation
between Mrs. Porter and Mamie, overheard and digested, had given him a
good working knowledge of the system of hygiene of which he was the
centre. He was vague as to details, but not vaguer than most people.
He knew that something called "sterilizing" was the beginning and end
of life, and that things known as germs were the Great Peril. He had
expended much thought on the subject of germs. Mamie, questioned, could
give him no more definite information than that they were "things which
got at you and hurt you," and his awe of Mrs. Porter had kept him from
going to the fountainhead of knowledge for further data.
Building on the information to hand, he had formed in his mind an odd
kind of anthropomorphic image of the germ. He pictured it as a squat,