Chapter 23

PERCEVAL UNASHAMED

Toward ten of that same Sunday morning a touring car of majestic mien drew up in front of a boarding-house in Thirty-eighth Street West.

From this alighted a little man of somewhat bedraggled appearance, wearing a somewhat weather-beaten but heartfelt grin.

Ostentatiously (or so it seemed to one solitary and sour-mouthed spectator, disturbed in his perusal of a comic supplement on the brownstone stoop of the boarding-house) he shook hands with the chauffeur, and, speaking guardedly, confirmed some private understanding with him.

Then the car rolled off, and P. Sybarite shuffled meekly in through the gate, crossed the dooryard, and met the outraged glare of George Bross with an apologetic smile and the request:

"If you've got a pack of Sweets about you, George, I can use one in my business."

Without abating his manifestation of entire disapproval, George produced a box of cigarettes, permitted P. Sybarite to select one, and helped himself.

They shared a match, even as brothers might, before honest indignation escaped the grim portals of the shipping clerk's mouth.

"Sa-ay!" he exploded--"looky here: where've you been all night?"

"Ah-h!" P. Sybarite sighed provokingly: "that's a long and tiresome story, George."

With much the air of a transient, he sat him down by George's side.

"A very long and very weary story, George. I don't like to tell it to you, really. We'd be sure to quarrel."

"Why?" George demanded aggressively.

"Because you wouldn't believe me. I don't quite believe it myself, now that all's over, barring a page or two. Your great trouble, George, is that you have no imagination."

"The devil I ain't!"

"Perfectly right: you haven't. If you point with pride to that wild flight of fancy which identified 'Molly Lessing' with Marian Blessington, George, your position is (as you yourself would say) untenable. It wasn't imagination: it was fact."

"No!" George ejaculated. "Is that right? What'd I tell you?"

"Word of honour! But it's a secret, as yet--from everybody except you and Violet; and even you we wouldn't tell had you not earned the right to know by guessing and making me semi-credulous--enough to start something--several somethings, in fact."

"G'wan!" George coaxed. "Feed it to me: I'll eat it right outa your hand. Whatcha been doin' with yourself all night, P.S.?"

"I've been Day of Days-ing myself, George."

"Ah, can the kiddin', P.S. Come through! Whadja do?"

"Broke every Commandment in the Decalogue, George, barring one or two of the more indelicate ones; kicked the laws of chance and probability into a cocked hat; fractured most of the Municipal Ordinances--and--let me see--oh, yes!--dislocated the Long Arm of Coincidence so badly that all of its subsequent performances are going to seem stiff and lacking in that air of spontaneity without which--"

"My Gawd!" George despaired--"he's off again on that hardy annual talkalogue of his!... Lis'n, P.S.--"

"Call me Perceval," P. Sybarite suggested pleasantly.

"Wh-at!"

"Let it be Perceval hereafter, George--always. I grant you free permission."

"But I thought you said--"

"So I did--a few hours ago. Now I--well, I rather like it. It makes all the difference who calls you that sort of name first, and what her voice is like."

"One of us," George protested with profound conviction, "is plumb loony in the head!"

"It's me," said P. Sybarite humbly: "I admit it.... And the worst of it is--I like it! So would you if you'd been through a Day of Days."

George let that pass; for the moment he was otherwise engaged in vain speculation as to the appearance of a phenomenon rather rare in the calendar of that West Thirty-eighth Street boarding-house.

A Western Union boy, weary with the weariness of not less than forty summers, was shuffling in at the gate.

"Sa-ay!" he called with the asperity of ingrained ennui--"either of youse guys know a guy named Perceval Sybarite 't lives here?"

Silently P. Sybarite held out his hand, took the greasy little book in its black oil-cloth binding, scrawled his signature in the proper blank, and received the message in its sealed yellow envelope.

"Wait," he commanded calmly, eyeing Western Union with suspicion.

"W'at's eatin' you? Is they an answer?"

"They ain't no answer," P. Sybarite admitted.

"Well, whatcha want? I got no time to stick round here kiddin'."

"One moment of your valuable time. I believe you delivered a message at the Monastery Apartments in Forty-third Street this morning."

"Well, an' what 'f I did?"

"Only this."

P. Sybarite extracted an immense roll of bills from his pocket; transferred it to his other hand; delved deeper; eventually produced a single twenty-dollar gold-piece.

"Take this," he said, tossing it to the boy with princely nonchalance. "It's the last of a lot, but--it's yours."

"What for?" Western Union demanded in amaze; while, as for George Bross, he developed plain symptoms of apoplexy.

"You'll never know," said P. Sybarite. "Now run along before I come to."

In the shadow of this threat, Western Union fled precipitately....

P. Sybarite rose; yawned; smiled benignantly upon George Bross.

"I'm off to bed--was only waiting for this message," he announced; "but before I go--tell me; how much money does Violet think you ought to be earning before you're eligible for the Matrimonial Stakes?"

"She said somethin' oncet about fifty per," George remembered gloomily.

"It's yours--doubled," P. Sybarite told him. "To-morrow you will resign from the employ of Whigham & Wimper and go to Blessington's to enter their shipping department at a hundred a week; and if you don't earn it, may God have mercy on your wretched soul!"

George got up very suddenly.

"I'll go send for the doctor," he announced.

"One moment more." P. Sybarite dropped a detaining hand upon his arm. "You and Violet are invited to dinner to-night--at the Hotel Plaza. Don't be alarmed; you needn't dress; we'll dine privately in Marian's apartment."

"Marian!"

"Miss Blessington--Molly Lessing that was."

"Honest!" said George sincerely. "I don't know whether to think you've gone bughouse or not. You've always been a bit queer and foolish in the bean, but never since I've known you--"

"And after dinner," P. Sybarite pursued evenly, "you're going to attend a very quiet little wedding party."

"Whose, for God's sake?"

"Marian's and mine; and the only reason why you can't be best man is that the best man will be my cousin, Peter Kenny."

"Is that straight?"

"On the level."

George concluded that there was sanity in P. Sybarite's eyes.

"Well, I certainly got to slip you the congrats!" he protested. "And say--you goin' to bounce Whigham and Wimper, too?"

"Yes."

"And whatcha goin' do then?"

"I? To tell you the truth, I'm considering joining the Union and agitating for an eight-hour Day of Days. This one of mine has been eighteen hours long, more or less--since I got those theatre tickets, you know--and I'm too dog-tired to keep my eyes open another minute. After I've had a nap, I'll tell you all about everything." ...

But he wasn't too tired to read his telegram, when he found himself again, and for the last time, in his hall bedroom.

It said simply: "I love you.--Marian."

From this P. Sybarite looked up to his reflection in the glass. And presently he smiled sheepishly, and blinked.

"Perceval...!" murmured the little man fondly.

THE END.

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