The Unspeakable Perk

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Raimonda, with a courteous bow to his companions, followed him.

Wearily the goggled one sank back in his seat. Cluff moved across,
planting himself exactly where Carroll had stood.

"Perkins!"

"Eh?" responded the sitter absently.

"What would you do if I should bat you one in the eye?"

"Eh, what?"

"What would you do to me?"

"You, too?" cried the bewildered Perkins. "Why on earth--"

"You'd dive into my knees, wouldn't you, and tip me over
backward?"

"Oh, that!" A slow grin overspread the space beneath the glasses.
"That was the idea."

"I know the trick. It's a good one--except for the guy that gets
it."

"It wouldn't have hurt him. He'd have landed in the fountain."

"So he would. What then?"

"Oh, I'd have held him there till he got cooled off, and then made
a run for it. A wet man can't catch a dry man."

"Say, son, YOU'RE a dry one, all right."

"Eh?"

"Wake up! I'm saying you're all right."

"Much obliged."

"You certainly took enough off him to rile a sheep. Why didn't you
do it?"

"Do what?"

"Tip him in."

Perkins glanced upward at the balcony where the vines had closed
upon a face that smiled.

"Oh," he said mildly, "he's a friend of a friend of mine."

IV

TWO ON A MOUNTAIN-SIDE

ORCHIDS do not, by preference, grow upon a cactus plant. Little
though she recked of botany, Miss Brewster was aware of this
fundamental truth. Neither do they, without extraneous impulsion,
go hurtling through the air along deserted mountain-sides, to find
a resting-place far below; another natural-history fact which the
young lady appreciated without being obliged to consult the
literature of the subject. Therefore, when, from the top of the
appointed rock, she observed a carefully composed bunch of mauve
Cattleyas describe a parabola and finally join two previous
clusters upon the spines of a prickly-pear patch, she divined some
energizing force back of the phenomenon. That energizing force she
surmised was temper.

"Fie!" said she severely. "Beetle gentlemen should control their
little feelings. Naughty, naughty!"

From below rose a fervid and startled exclamation.

"Naughtier, naughtier!" deprecated the visitor. "Are these the
cold and measured terms of science?"

"You haven't lived up to your bet," complained the censured one.

"Indeed I have! I always play fair, and pay fair. Here I am, as
per contract."

"Nearly half an hour late."

"Not at all. Four-thirty was the time."

"And now it is three minutes to five."

"Making twenty-seven minutes that I've been sitting here waiting
for a welcome."

"Waiting? Oh, Miss Brewster--"

"I'm not Miss Brewster. I'm a voice in the wilderness."

"Then, Voice, you haven't been there more than one minute. A voice
isn't a voice until it makes a noise like a voice. Q.E.D."

"There is something in that argument," she admitted. "But why
didn't you come up and look for me?"

"Does one look for a sound?"

"Please don't be so logical. It tires my poor little brain. You
might at least have called."

"That would have been like holding you up for payment of the bet,
wouldn't it? I was waiting for you to speak."

"Not good form in Caracuna. The senor should always speak first."

"You began the other time," he pointed out.

"So I did, but that was under a misapprehension. I hadn't learned
the customs of the country then. By the way, is it a local custom
for hermits of science to climb breakneck precipices for golden-
hearted orchids to send to casual acquaintances?"

"Is that what you are?" he queried in a slightly depressed tone.

"What on earth else could I be?" she returned, amused.

"Of course. But we all like to pretend that our fairy tales are
permanent, don't we?"

"I can readily picture you chasing beetles, but I can't see you
chasing fairies at all," she asserted positively.

"Nor can I. If you chase them, they vanish. Every one knows that."

"Anyway, your orchids were fit for a fairy queen. I haven't
thanked you for them yet."

"Indeed you have. Much more than they deserve. By coming here to-
day."

"Oh, that was a point of honor. Are you going to let those lovely
purple ones wither on that prickly plant down there? Think how
much better they'd look pinned on me--if there were any one here
to see and appreciate."

If this were a hint, it failed of its aim, for, as the hermit
scuttled out from his shelter, looking not unlike some bulky
protrusive-eyed insect, secured the orchids, and returned, he
never once glanced up. Safe again in his rock-bound retreat, he
spoke:--

"'Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair.'"

"So you do know something of fairies and fairy lore!" she cried.

"Oh, it wasn't much more than a hundred years ago that I read my
Grimm. In the story, only one call was necessary."

"Well, I can't spare any more of my silken tresses. I brought a
string this time. Where's the other hair line?"

"I've used it to tether a fairy thought so that it can't fly away
from me. Draw up slowly."

"Thank you so much, and I'm so glad that you are feeling better."

"Better?"

"Yes. Better than the day before yesterday."

"Day before yesterday?"

"Bless the poor man! Much anxious waiting hath bemused his wits.
He thinks he's an echo."

"But I was all right the day before yesterday."

"You weren't. You were a prey to the most thrilling terrors. You
were a moving picture of tender masculinity in distress. You let
bashfulness like a worm i' th' bud prey upon your damask cheek.
Have you a damask cheek? Stand out! I wish to consider you
impartially. YOU needn't look at ME, you know."

"I'm not going to," he assured her, stepping forth obediently.

"Basilisk that I am!" she laughed. "How brown you are! How long
did you say you'd been here? A year?"

"Fourteen weary Voiceless months. Not on this island, you know,
but around the tropics."

"Yet you look vigorous and alert; not like the men I've seen come
back from the hot countries, all languid and worn out. And you do
look clean."

"Why shouldn't I be clean?"

"Of course you should. But people get slack, don't they, when they
live off all alone by themselves? Still, I suppose you spruced up
a little for me?"

"Nothing of the sort," he denied, with heat.

"No? Oh, my poor little vanity! He wouldn't dress up for us,
Vanity, though we did dress up for him, and we're looking awfully
nice--for a voice, that is. Do you always keep so soft and pink
and smooth, Mr. Beetle Man?"

"I own a razor, if that's what you mean. You're making fun of me.
Well, _I_ don't mind." He lifted his voice and chanted:--

"Although beyond the pale of law,
He always kept a polished jaw;
For he was one of those who saw
A saving hope
In shaving soap."

"Oh, lovely! What a noble finish. What is it?"

"Extract from 'Biographical Blurbings.'"

"Autobiographical?"

"Yes. By Me."

"And are you beyond the pale of law?"

"Poetical license," he explained airily. "Hold on, though." He
fell silent a moment, and out of that silence came a short laugh.
"I suppose I AM beyond the pale of law, now that I come to think
of it. But you needn't be alarmed, I'm not a really dangerous
criminal."

Later she was to recall that confession with sore misgivings. Now
she only inquired lightly:

"Is that why you ran away from the tram car yesterday?" "Ran away?
I didn't run away," he said, with dignity. "It just happened that
there came into my mind an important engagement that I'd
forgotten. My memory isn't what it should be. So I just turned
over the matter in hand to an acquaintance of mine."

"The matter in hand being me."

"Why, yes; and the acquaintance being Mr. Cluff. I saw him throw
four men out of a hotel once for insulting a girl, so I knew that
he was much better at that sort of thing than I. May I go back now
and sit down?" "Of course. I don't know whether I ought to thank
you about yesterday or be very angry. It was such an extraordinary
performance on your part--"

"Nothing extraordinary about it." His voice came up out of the
shadow, full of judicial confidence. "Merely sound common sense."

"To leave a woman who has been insulted--"

"In more competent hands than one's own."

"Oh, I give it up!" she cried. "I don't understand you at all.
Fitzhugh is right; you haven't a tradition to your name."

"Tradition," he repeated thoughtfully. "Why, I don't know. They're
pretty rigid things, traditions. Rusty in the joints and all that
sort of thing. Life isn't a process of machinery, exactly. One has
to meet it with something more supple and adjustable than
traditions."

"Is that your philosophy? Suppose a man struck you. Wouldn't you
hit him back?"

"Perhaps. It would depend."

"Or insulted your country? Don't you believe that men should be
ready to die, if necessary, in such a cause?"

"Some men. Soldiers, for instance. They're paid to."

"Good Heavens! Is it all a question of pay in your mind? Wouldn't
YOU, unless you were paid for it?"

"How can I tell until the occasion arises?"

"Are you afraid?"

"I suppose I might be."

"Hasn't the man any blood in his veins?" cried his inquisitor,
exasperated. "Haven't you ever been angry clear through?"

"Oh, of course; and sorry for it afterward. One is likely to lose
one's temper any time. It might easily happen to me and drive me
to make a fool of myself, like--like--" His voice trailed off into
a silence of embarrassment.

"Like Fitzhugh Carroll. Why not say it? Well, I much prefer him
and his hot-headedness to you and your careful wisdom."

"Of course," he acquiesced patiently. "Any girl would. It's the
romantic temperament."

"And yours is the scientific, I suppose. That doesn't take into
account little things like patriotism and heroism, does it? Tell
me, have you actually ever admired--really got a thrill out of--
any deed of heroism?"

"Oh, yes," he replied tranquilly. "I've done my bit of hero
worship in my time. In fact, I've never quite recovered from it."

"No! Really? Do go on. You're growing more human every minute."

"Do you happen to know anything about the Havana campaign?"

"Not much. It never seemed to me anything to brag of. Dad says the
Spanish-American War grew a crop of newspaper-made heroes,
manufactured by reporters who really took more risks and showed
more nerve than the men they glorified."

"Spanish-American War? That isn't what I'm talking about. I'm
speaking of Walter Reed and his fellow scientists, who went down
there and fought the mosquitoes."

The girl's lip curled.

"So that's your idea of heroism! Scrubby peckers into the lives of
helpless bugs!"

"Have you the faintest idea what you are talking about?"

His voice had abruptly hardened. There was an edge to it; such an
edge as she had faintly heard on the previous night, when Carroll
had pressed him too hard. She was startled.

"Perhaps I haven't," she admitted.

"Then it's time you learned. Three American doctors went down into
that pesthole of a Cuban city to offer their lives for a theory.
Not for a tangible fact like the flag, or for glory and fame as in
battle, but for a theory that might or might not be true. There
wasn't a day or a night that their lives weren't at stake. Carroll
let himself be bitten by infected mosquitoes on a final test, and
grazed death by a hair's breadth. Lazear was bitten at his work,
and died in the agony of yellow-fever convulsions, a martyr and a
hero if ever there was one. Because of them, Havana is safe and
livable now. We were able to build the Panama Canal because of
their work, their--what did you call it?--scrubby peeking into the
lives of--"

"Don't!" cried the girl. "I--I'm ashamed. I didn't know."

"How should you?" he said, in a changed tone. "We Americans set up
monuments to our destroyers, not to our preservers, of life.
Nobody knows about Walter Reed and James Carroll and Jesse Lazear
--not even the American Government, which they officially served--
except a few doctors and dried-up entomologists like myself.
Forgive me. I didn't mean to deliver a lecture."

There was a long pause, which she broke with an effort.

"Mr. Beetle Man?"

"Yes, Voice?"

"I--I'm beginning to think you rather more man than beetle at
times."

"Well, you see, you touched me on a point of fanaticism," he
apologized.

"Do you mind standing up again for examination? No," she decided,
as he stepped out and stood with his eyes lowered obstinately.
"You don't seem changed to outward view. You still remind me,"
with a ripple of irrepressible laughter, "of a near-sighted frog.
It's those ridiculous glasses. Why do you wear them?"

"To keep the sun out of my eyes."

"And the moon at night, I suppose. They're not for purposes of
disguise?"

"Disguise! What makes you say that?" he asked quickly.

"Don't bark. They'd be most effective. And they certainly give
your face a truly weird expression, in addition to its other
detriments."

"If you don't like my face, consider my figure," he suggested
optimistically. "What's the matter with that?"

"Stumpy," she pronounced. "You're all in a chunk. It does look
like a practical sort of a chunk, though."

"Don't you like it?" he asked anxiously.

"Oh, well enough of its kind." She lifted her voice and chanted:--

"He was stubby and square,
But SHE didn't much care.

"There's a verse in return for yours. Mine's adapted, though.
Examination's over. Wait. Don't sit down. Now, tell me your
opinion of me."

"Very musical."

"I'm not musical at all."

"Oh, I'm considering you as a VOICE."

"I'm tired of being just a voice. Look up here. Do," she pleaded.
"Turn upon me those lucent goggles."

When orbs like thine the soul disclose,
Tee-deedle-deedle-dee.

Don't be afraid. One brief fleeting glance ere we part."

"No," he returned positively. "Once is enough."

"On behalf of my poor traduced features, I thank you humbly. Did
they prove as bad as you feared?"

"Worse. I've hardly forgotten yet what you look like. Your kind of
face is bad for business."

"What is business?"

"Haven't I told you? I'm a scientist."

"Well, I'm a specimen. No beetle that crawls or creeps or hobbles,
or does whatever beetles are supposed to do, shows any greater
variation from type--I heard a man say that in a lecture once--
than I do. Can't I interest you in my case, O learned one? The
proper study of mankind is--"

"Woman. Yes, I know all about that. But I'm a groundling."

"Mr. Beetle Man," she said, in a tremulous voice, "the rock is
moving."

"I don't feel it. Though it might be a touch of earthquake. We
have 'em often."

"Not your rock. The tarantula rock, I mean."

"Nonsense! A hundred tarantulas couldn't stir it."

"Well, it seems to be moving, and that's just as bad. I'm tired
and I'm lonely. Oh, please, Professor Scarab, have I got to fall
on your neck again to introduce a little human companionship into
this conversation?"

"Caesar! No! My shoulder's still lame. What do you want, anyway?"

"I want to know about you and your work. ALL about you."

"Humph! Well, at present I'm making some microscopical studies of
insects. That's the reason for these glasses. The light is so
harsh in these latitudes that it affects the vision a trifle, and
every trifle counts in microscopy."

"Does the microscope add charm to the beetle?"

"Some day I'll show you, if you like. Just now it's the flea, the
national bird of Caracuna."

"The wicked flea?"

"Nobody knows how wicked until he has studied him on his native
heath."

"Doesn't the flea have something to do with plague? They say
there's plague in the city now. You knew all about the Dutch. Do
you know anything about the plague?"

"You've been listening to bolas."

"What's a bola?"

"A bola is information that somebody who is totally ignorant of
the facts whispers confidentially in your ear with the assurance
that he knows it to be authentic--in other words, a lie."

"Then there isn't any plague down under those quaint, old, red-
tiled roofs?"

"Who ever knows what's going on under those quaint, old, red-tiled
roofs? No foreigner, certainly."

"Even I can feel the mystery, little as I've seen of the place,"
said the girl.

"Oh, that's the Indian of it. The tiled roofs are Spanish; the
speech is Spanish; but just beneath roof and speech, the life and
thought are profoundly and unfathomably Indian."

"Not with all the Caracunans, surely. Take Mr. Raimonda, for
instance."

"Ah, that's different. Twenty families of the city, perhaps, are
pure-bloods. There are no finer, cleaner fellows anywhere than the
well-bred Caracunans. They are men of the world, European
educated, good sportsmen, straight, honorable gentlemen.
Unfortunately not they, but a gang of mongrel grafters control the
politics of the country."

"For a hermit of science, you seem to know a good deal of what
goes on. By the way, Mr. Raimonda called on me--on us last
evening."

"So he mentioned. Rather serious, that, you know."

"Far from it. He was very amusing."

"Doubtless," commented the other dryly. "But it isn't fair to play
the game with one who doesn't know the rules. Besides, what will
Mr. Preston Fairfax--"

"For a professedly shy person, you certainly take a rather
intimate tone."

"Oh, I'm shy only under the baleful influence of the feminine eye.
Besides, you set the note of intimacy when you analyzed my
personal appearance. And finally, I have a warm regard for young
Raimonda."

"So have I," she returned maliciously. "Aren't you jealous?"

He laughed.

"Please be a little bit jealous. It would be so flattering."

"Jealousy is another tradition in which I don't believe."

"Then I can't flirt with you at all?" she sighed. "After taking
all this long hot walk to see you!"

PLOP! The sound punctured the silence sharply, though not loudly.
Some large fruit pod bursting on a distant tree might have made
such a report.

"What was that?" asked the girl curiously.

"That? Oh, that was a revolver shot," he remarked.

"Aren't you casual! Do revolver shots mean nothing to you?"

"That one shakes my soul's foundations." His tone by no means
indicated an inner cataclysm. "It may mean that I must excuse
myself and leave. Just a moment, please."

Passing across the line of her vision, he disappeared to the left.
When she next heard his voice, it was almost directly above her.

"No," it said. "There's no hurry. The flag's not up."

"What flag?"

"The flag in my compound."

"Can you see your home from here?"

"Yes; there's a ledge on the cliff that gives a direct view."

"I want to come up and see it."

"You can't. It's much too hard a climb. Besides, there are rock
devilkins on the way."

"And when you hear a shot, you go up there for messages?"

"Yes; it's my telephone system."

"Who's at the other end?"

"The peon who pretends to look after the quinta for me."

"A man! No man can keep a house fit to live in," she said
scornfully.

"I know it; but he's all I've got in the servant line."

"How far is the house from here?"

"A mile, by air. Seven by trail from town."

"Isn't it lonely?"

"Yes."

Suddenly she felt very sorry for him. There was such a quiet,
conclusive acceptance of cheerlessness in the monosyllable.

"How soon must you go back?"

"Oh, not for an hour, at least."

"If it's a call, it must be an important one, so far from
civilization."

"Not necessarily. Don't you ever have calls that are not
important?"

No answer came.

"Miss Brewster!" he called. "Oh, Voice! You haven't gone?"

Still no response.

"That isn't fair," he complained, making his way swiftly down, and
satisfying himself by a peep about the angle commanding her point
of the rock that she had, indeed, vanished. Sadly he descended to
his own nook--and jumped back with a half-suppressed yell.

"You needn't jump out of your skin on my account," said Miss Polly
Brewster, with a gracious smile. "I'm not a devilkin."

"You are! That is--I mean--I--I--beg your pardon. I--I--"

"The poor man's having another bashful fit," she observed, with
malicious glee. "Did the bold, bad, forward American minx scare it
almost out of its poor shy wits?"

"You--you startled me."

"No!" she exclaimed, in wide-eyed mock surprise. "Who would have
supposed it? You didn't expect me down here, did you?"

Thereupon she got a return shock.

"Yes, I did," he said; "sooner or later."

"Don't fib. Don't pretend that you knew I was here."

"W-w-well, no. Not just now. B-b-but I knew you'd come if--if--if
I pretended I didn't want you to long enough."

"Young and budding scientist," said she severely, "you're a gay
deceiver. Is it because you have known me in some former existence
that you are able thus accurately to read my character?"

"Well, I knew you wouldn't stay up there much longer."

"I'm angry at you; very angry at you. That is, I would be if it
weren't that you really didn't mean it when you said that you
really didn't want to see my face again."

"Did any one ever see your face once without wanting to see it
again?"

"Ah, bravo!" She clapped her hands gayly. "Marvelous improvement
under my tutelage! Where, oh, where is your timidity now?"

"I--I--I forgot," he stammered, "As long as I don't think, I'm all
right. Now, you--you--you've gone and spoiled me."

"Oh, the pity of it! Let's find some mild, impersonal topic, then,
that won't embarrass you. What do you do under the shadow of this
rock, in a parched land?"

"Work. Besides, it isn't a parched land. Look on this side."

Half a dozen steps brought her around the farther angle, where,
hidden in a growth of shrubbery, lay a little pool of fairy
loveliness,

"That's my outdoor laboratory."

"A dreamery, I'd call it. May I sit down? Are there devilkins
here? There's an elfkin, anyway," she added, as a silvered dragon-
fly hovered above her head inquisitively before darting away on
his own concerns.

"One of my friends and specimens. I'm studying his methods of
aviation with a view to making some practical use of what I learn,
eventually."

"Really? Are you an inventor, too? I'm crazy about aviation."

"Ah, then you'll be interested in this," he said, now quite at his
ease. "You know that the mosquito is the curse of the tropics."

"Of other places, as well."

"But in the tropics it means yellow fever, Chagres fever, and
other epidemic illness. Now, the mosquito, as you doubtless
realize, is a monoplane."

"A monoplane?" repeated the girl, in some puzzlement. "How a
monoplane?"

"I thought you claimed some knowledge of aviation. Its wings are
all on one plane. The great natural enemy of the mosquito is the
dragon-fly, one of which just paid you a visit. Now, modern
warfare has taught us that the most effective assailant of the
monoplane is a biplane. You know that."

"Y-y-yes," said the girl doubtfully.

"Therefore, if we can breed a biplane dragonfly in sufficient
numbers, we might solve the mosquito problem at small expense."

"I don't know much about science," she began, "but I should hardly
have supposed--"

"It's curious how nature varies the type of aviation," he
continued dreamily. "Now, the pigeon is, of course, a Zeppelin;
whereas the sea urchin is obviously a balloon; and the thistledown
an undirigible--"

"You're making fun of me!" she accused, with sharp enlightenment.

"What else have you done to me ever since we met?" he inquired
mildly.

"Now I AM angry! I shall go home at once."

A second far-away PLOP! set a period to her decision.

"So shall I," said he briskly.

"Does that signal mean hurry up?" she asked curiously.

"Well, it means that I'm wanted. You go first. When will you come
again?"

"Not at all."

"Do you mean that?"

"Of course. I'm angry. Didn't I tell you that? I don't permit
people to make fun of me. Besides, you must come and see me next.
You owe me two calls. Will you?"

"I--I--don't know."

"Afraid?"

"Rather."

"Then you must surely come and conquer this cowardice. Will you
come to-morrow?"

"No; I don't think so."

Miss Brewster opened wide her eyes upon him. She was little
accustomed to have her invitations, which she issued rather in the
manner of royal commands, thus casually received. Had the offender
been any other of her acquaintance, she would have dropped the
matter and the man then and there. But this was a different
species. Graceful and tactful he might not be, but he was honest.

"Why?" she said.

"I've got something more important to do."

"You're reverting to type sadly. What is it that's so important?"

"Work."

"You can work any time."

"No. Unfortunately I have to eat and sleep sometimes."

The implication she accepted quite seriously.

"Are you really as busy as all that? I'm quite conscience-stricken
over the time I've wasted for you."

"Not wasted at all. You've cheered me up."

"That's something. But you won't come to the city to be cheered
up?"

"Yes, I will. When I get time."

"Perhaps you won't find me at home."

"Then I'll wait."

"Good-bye, then," she laughed, "until your leisure day arrives."

She climbed the rock, stepping as strongly and surely as a lithe
animal. At the top, the spirit of roguery, ever on her lips and
eyes, struck in and possessed her soul.

"O disciple of science!" she called.

"Well?"

"Can you see me?"

"Not from here."

"Good! I'm a Voice again. So don't be timid. Will you answer a
question?"

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