Public-domain ebook
by Arlo Bates
Language: en254 downloads on Project Gutenberg
Subjects
Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #41125.
The opening · free to read
I was at tiffin. A man sat opposite whose servant brought him water in a large goblet cut from a single emerald. I observed him closely. A water-drinker is always a phenomenon to me; but a water-drinker who did the thing so artistically, and could swallow the fluid without wincing, was such a manifestation as I had never seen.
I contrasted him with our neighbors at the lunch-counter, who seemed to be vying, like the captives of Circe, to ascertain by trial who could swallow the most free lunch, and pay for the fewest "pegs,"--those vile concoctions of spirits, ice, and soda-water, which have destroyed so many splendid resolutions on the part of the Temperance Alliance,--and an impression came over me that he must be the most innocent man on the road.
Before I go farther let me try and describe him. His peculiarity was that, instead of eyes, he had jewels composed of six precious stones. There was a depth of life and vital light in them that told of the pent-up force of a hundred, or, at least, of ninety-nine generations of Persian magi. They blazed with the splendor of a god-like nature, needing neither tiffin nor brandy and soda to feed their power.
My mind was made up. I addressed him in Gaelic. To my surprise, and somewhat to my confusion, he answered in two words of modern Hebrew. We fell into a polyglot but refined conversation.
"Come and smoke," he said, at length.
Slipping into the office of the hotel, and ascertaining that there was no danger, I followed to his room.
"I am known as Mr. Jacobs," he said. "My lawful name is Abdallah Hafiz-ben-butler-Jacobi."
The apartment, I soon saw, was small,--for India at least,--and every available space, nook, and cranny, were filled with innumerable show-cases of Attleboro' jewelry.
"Pretty showy?" he remarked familiarly. "I am a drummer."
"My name is Peter Briggs," I replied. "I am a correspondent of the Calcutta Jackal."
"My star!" he said. "That is the dog-star. A sudden thought strikes me," he added. "Let us swear an eternal friendship."
He thereupon told me his entire history, from childhood up. It was interesting to the last degree, as I had thought often before, when I read it in various dime novels.
He ceased speaking, and the waning moon rose pathetically, with a curiously doleful look, expressive of quiet, but deep contempt.
I speculated in regard to Mr. Jacobs. A long and eventful experience with three-card monte men had made me extremely shy of persons who begin an acquaintance by making confidences; and I wondered why he had taken the trouble to make up the story of his life, to relate to an entire stranger. Still, there was something about the man that seemed to promise an item for the Calcutta Jackal, and therefore, when Jacobs appeared, looking like the sunflower, for all his wild dress and his knee-breeches, I felt the "little thrill of pleasure," so aptly compared by Swinburne to the clutch of a hand in the hair.
"Are you married?" queried Mr. Jacobs.
"Thank heavens, no!" I replied, convulsively. "Are you?"
"Some," returned he, gloomily. "I have three. They do not agree. Do you think a fourth wife would calm them?"
"A man," I observed, sententiously, "is better off with no wife at all than with three."
His subtle mind caught the flaw instantly.
"Negative happiness," he murmured; "very negative. Oh, I would I could marry all the sweet creatures!"
Having our tiffins saddled, we rode off at a breakneck pace, and cleverly managed to ride down the uncle of the heroine.
"Dear uncle," casually remarked that young lady, riding up, "I hope you are not hurt."
"What an original remark!" exclaimed Jacobs, with rapture. "Miss Eastinhoe is beautiful and sensible. I like her. What do you suppose she is worth?"
"My father," said Mr. Jacobs, "had but one wife; I have already raised him two, as I told you, and mean to go him one better."
I smoked in silence.
"A hint for the Calcutta Jackal," I thought, with satisfaction. "Bigamy raised to the third power."
"You are right," he said, slowly, his half-closed eyes fixed on his feet; "yes, you are right. But why not?"
I shook myself, drank some sherbert, and kicked off one shoe impatiently. This reading of a gentleman's private thoughts seemed to me an unwarrantable impertinence; but a sudden light flashed over my obscured intellect, and, observing that he was in a trance, I felt it would be indelicate to argue the matter. I fired my shoe at him, to assure myself of his condition, and then held a free pass towards him. He instantly recovered, and stretched out his hand to take it.
"I must have been dreaming," he said, a look of annoyance shading his features as I drew the pass away. "But I am in love."
It was near midnight, and the ever-decreasing moon was dragging herself up, as if ashamed of her waning beauty and tearful look.
We called upon Miss Eastinhoe the following day. She was playing with a half-tamed young tiffin, a charming little beast, with long gray fur and bright twinkling eye, mischievous and merry as a gnome's. He was a gift of Mr. Jacobs to the lady. He cost nothing.
"Are you spoken for?" Miss Eastinhoe asked, her eyes opening a moment and meeting his, but falling again instantly with a change of color.[2]
[Footnote 2: The editor had his doubts about this; but as it so stands in the original MS. (p. 69), concludes that in low latitudes, eyes do change color on slight provocation.]
"Miss Eastinhoe," he said, quietly, "you know I am a man of muscle, and that I have three wives."
"Oh, I had forgotten!" she said; "I forgot about your wives."
"Among primitive people, and persons in pinafores," I interposed, "marriage is a social law."
"You surprise me, Mr. Briggs," she said, with an air of childlike simplicity.
I felt that I had put a plug into my end of the conversation.
"We will play polo next week," said Mr. Jacobs. "Meanwhile, let us visit a Certain Mighty Personage."
"We will go at four," said Jacobs, coming into my room after tiffin. "I said three this morning, but it is not a bad plan to keep natives waiting."
The book keeps going
Reading is free forever. Sign up and watch scenes appear while you read.
Scenes Storieta drew for other classics.
New illustrated classics
Once or twice a month: the latest books to get full character casts, scene art, and free comic editions. No account needed.
