CHAPTER IX.

OAKHURST.

On a Sat.u.r.day morning in early June, about five months after Duncan's visit to Chicago, Rennsler Van Vort, attired in tweeds and carrying a bag in one hand and a bundle of coats and sticks in the other, pushed rapidly past the ticket collector of a Jersey City ferry. He was on his way to spend Sunday with the Osgoods at their place near Morristown, and his haste was inspired by the knowledge that if he missed the next boat he would be left to wander about the most unattractive portion of New York for at least another half-hour. He managed, however, to reach the ferry-boat just before she started, and was congratulating himself on his good fortune, when he observed a man with a bag in each hand, running in hot haste down the incline leading to the boat. The iron gates were closed; the windla.s.ses were clicking rapidly as the mooring hawsers were being wound around, and the great paddle wheels had begun to stir the waters of the slip to seething foam. The man at the windla.s.s tried to restrain the tardy pa.s.senger's efforts to reach the boat, but he brushed past him and leapt onto her deck, just as she had begun to move out from the slip.

"Great Scot! Duncan, did you drop from the clouds?" said Van Vort, as the breathless runner, aided by a deck hand, clambered over the iron gate.

"No, I beat the gate-keeper," replied Duncan, as he came to a stop beside Rennsler and deposited his bags on the deck. "He was just shutting the stile, and called to me to stop, but I didn't care to bask on the docks for an hour, so I gave him the slip and here I am."

"That explains your flying leap on the boat, but did you jump across the pond also?" asked Van Vort. "The last time I saw you, you were going to Chicago; then I heard you were in London, and now you make an amazing appearance on a Jersey ferry. You must have taken up jugglery, old chap."

"An old loafer like you doesn't know anything about business; if you did you might appreciate my flights."

"Never mind if I don't," answered Van Vort, resting his arm on the rail and gazing into the water as it surged under the paddle wheels. "Tell me what took you to London and what brought you back."

"Well, I went to Chicago, as you know," answered Duncan, "to look after an elevator syndicate. I was there a week, got things straightened up, took the 'Limited' on Thursday, reached New York Friday night, spent Sat.u.r.day morning at the office, and sailed that afternoon, on the Umbria, to look after the London end of the scheme."

"That was last January. How have you been eluding your friends ever since?"

"I was in London until two weeks ago. I came in on the Etruria this morning; we should have landed Sunday, but we broke our shaft and had to be towed in."

"Well, Duncan, I am glad to see you back; but you must give an account of yourself. What did you do in London besides business?"

"During February and March I was groping about in the fog after Britons to invest in Chicago elevators, or following the hounds in the Shires.

London in winter is the beastliest place in Christendom, and when I could get away I was in the country."

"Yes; I know London in the winter," put in Van Vort. "Fogs and suffocation, rain and muddy boots, slush and colds, sleet and influenza, all combine to make a dreary mackintosh and umbrella existence, which you can vary in-doors by shivering before fires that won't burn."

"I see you've been there," answered Duncan; "but you want to add something about empty theatres and clubs, and say it is a city deserted by every person who can buy, borrow, or steal a railway ticket to the country. But for one guardian angel, I should not be here to tell this tale."

"I can name that angel," said Van Vort; "it is Scotch whiskey."

"Right!" answered Duncan.

"I thought so. All sufferers seek the same cure; but April and May were better, weren't they?"

"I should think so."

"Did you meet many people?"

"Plenty. I fell in with Lady Brock on the steamer, and she came in handy. I knew some people when I was there before, and took out some good letters; and then there is the American colony."

"Yes, the American colony," said Van Vort; "who are they?"

"Some of them are people one doesn't know at home, but the English don't mind that, so why should we? You remember Mrs. Raynor, that pretty woman who used to be about New York, and afterward so scandalized the prudes by an affair with a Russian Grand Duke that no one received her when she came home?"

"Of course; did you run across her?"

"Yes; she is in London now, the smartest of the smart; the friend of the prince and the envy of American turf hunters. They wouldn't have her in New York, but now they flock to her house because she is in the London smart set, and she is clever enough to receive them and forget the malarious past."

"I suppose you went there; the malarious past didn't frighten you away."

"Of course not. I was her right-hand man, and used to help entertain the people at her Wednesday afternoons. Not only that, but I was hand-in-glove with Mrs. Smallpage."

"What! the wife of the late furniture dealer on Fifth Avenue?"

"Yes; I didn't know her in New York, but she has a house in Mayfair and hobn.o.bs with half the peerage. Good looks and money, that's all the Londoners care for. I heard a countess say that all Americans are alike.

We have no aristocracy, therefore our social distinctions are absurd.

The reception of an American in London depends on whether he is rich enough to entertain, good looking enough to be attractive, or queer enough to be amusing."

"I say, Duncan, we are just getting into the slip," said Van Vort, looking forward, "and you haven't told me yet where you are going, and what brought you aboard this ferry."

"Why, I met Harry Osgood this morning, just after I landed, and he asked me out to his place for Sunday. I hate New York on the blessed Sabbath, so here I am."

"I am bound for the Osgoods, too," answered Van Vort. "I am in luck to find some one going out. But come on, we must hurry or we sha'n't get seats in the train."

The ferry-boat brushed violently against the side of the slip, and most of the pa.s.sengers, losing their balance, were compelled to grasp each other unconventionally for support. The engine-room bell clanged furiously; there were more jars and creakings as the boat sc.r.a.ped past the great piles and reached her moorings; then the restless van horses stamped, the chains rattled over the windla.s.ses, and the pa.s.sengers crowded forward to the bows. The iron gates were opened, and the living sea of people flowed rapidly up the incline toward the railway station.

It was the mighty ebbing of the human tide which daily floods the great city across the river. Could one stand there, watching the weary throng come forth, and, like the Spanish student of old, find a willing Asmodaeus at one's elbow, what stories of hopes and disappointments, what tales of trouble and misery could he not unfold for inspection. Pallid shop-girls and weary seamstresses were there; grimy laborers with their tools, tired clerks, toiling mothers with their babes, and pale, careworn children, early driven to the wheel, with here and there a face on whom prosperity had set her seal, and perhaps a few, like Duncan, whose lives are pa.s.sed in that dazzling upper world, so hopelessly closed to the toiling ma.s.ses. All these, and more, streamed off the ponderous ferry, hurrying to their homes. But Duncan and Van Vort had no time to moralize, and being anxious to get seats in the smoking car they pushed rapidly to the front of the moving ma.s.s of people, showed their tickets to the inspector, and pa.s.sed through the station door to the platform.

The Morristown train was drawn up on the right-hand track. They found it already well filled with people brought over by the first boat; and after wandering the entire length of the smoking car they were about despairing of finding seats when they were hailed by a familiar voice: "h.e.l.lo, fellows, where are you going?" Looking around they saw Howard-Jones, with a yellow-covered novel under his arm and a freshly lighted cigar between his lips, standing on the station platform and looking the picture of masculine content.

"We are trying to find a seat, but the place is full," said Duncan.

"Are you going on this train?"

"Yes; going out to Osgood's."

"So are we," put in Van Vort, "but we don't want to stand up all the way. You look as unconcerned as though you were sporting a private car."

"So I am," replied Howard-Jones carelessly. "Just go into the car ahead and find Waterman; mention the fact that you are friends of mine, and perhaps he will give you a seat, but be sure you speak politely.

Waterman won't stand impertinence."

"Well, if you and he have seats in there, and there are no more to be had," said Duncan, "you might as well make up your mind to stand up.

Come on, Rennsler, let's see if Howard-Jones is trying to do us." Saying this, Duncan started into the next car and was closely followed by Van Vort. This car had been kept till the last moment, so they found it just filling up, and at the farther end they discovered Waterman, trying to stretch himself over four seats and convince the numerous comers that they were engaged.

"I beg pardon, but can a lady have this seat?" said Duncan, coming up behind Waterman.

"I am sorry, but it's engaged," grunted the latter without looking up.

"This is a smoker anyway."

"Well, this lady is going to sit on your lap, you old brute."

"h.e.l.lo, Duncan," said Waterman, looking up somewhat startled. "Osgood told me you were back; I am deuced glad to see you."

"Pull down those feet and give us some room, and then I'll talk,"

answered Duncan.