CALDERWELL DOES SOME QUESTIONING
On the day after his dinner with Mr. and Mrs.
Bertram Henshaw, Hugh Calderwell left Boston and did not return until more than a month had passed. One of his first acts, when he did come, was to look up Mr. M. J. Arkwright at the address which Billy had given him.
Calderwell had not seen Arkwright since they parted in Paris some two years before, after a six-months tramp through Europe together. Calderwell liked Arkwright then, greatly, and he lost no time now in renewing the acquaintance.
The address, as given by Billy, proved to be an attractive but modest apartment hotel near the Conservatory of Music; and Calderwell was delighted to find Arkwright at home in his comfortable little bachelor suite.
Arkwright greeted him most cordially.
``Well, well,'' he cried, ``if it isn't Calderwell!
And how's Mont Blanc? Or is it the Killarney Lakes this time, or maybe the Sphinx that Ishould inquire for, eh?''
``Guess again,'' laughed Calderwell, throwing off his heavy coat and settling himself comfortably in the inviting-looking morris chair his friend pulled forward.
``Sha'n't do it,'' retorted Arkwright, with a smile. ``I never gamble on palpable uncertainties, except for a chance throw or two, as I gave a minute ago. Your movements are altogether too erratic, and too far-reaching, for ordinary mortals to keep track of.''
``Well, maybe you're right,'' grinned Calderwell, appreciatively. ``Anyhow, you would have lost this time, sure thing, for I've been working.''
``Seen the doctor yet?'' queried Arkwright, coolly, pushing the cigars across the table.
``Thanks--for both,'' sniffed Calderwell, with a reproachful glance, helping himself. ``Your good judgment in some matters is still unimpaired, I see,'' he observed, tapping the little gilded band which had told him the cigar was an old favorite.
``As to other matters, however,--you're wrong again, my friend, in your surmise. I am not sick, and I have been working.''
``So? Well, I'm told they have very good specialists here. Some one of them ought to hit your case. Still--how long has it been running?'' Arkwright's face showed only grave concern.
``Oh, come, let up, Arkwright,'' snapped Calderwell, striking his match alight with a vigorous jerk. ``I'll admit I haven't ever given any _special_indication of an absorbing passion for work. But what can you expect of a fellow born with a whole dozen silver spoons in his mouth? And that's what I was, according to Bertram Henshaw.
According to him again, it's a wonder I
ever tried to feed myself; and perhaps he's right --with my mouth already so full.''
``I should say so,'' laughed Arkwright.
``Well, be that as it may. I'm going to feed myself, and I'm going to earn my feed, too. Ihaven't climbed a mountain or paddled a canoe, for a year. I've been in Chicago cultivating the acquaintance of John Doe and Richard Roe.''
``You mean--law?''
``Sure. I studied it here for a while, before that bout of ours a couple of years ago. Billy drove me away, then.''
``Billy!--er--Mrs. Henshaw?''
``Yes. I thought I told you. She turned down my tenth-dozen proposal so emphatically that Ilost all interest in Boston and took to the tall timber again. But I've come back. A friend of my father's wrote me to come on and consider a good opening there was in his law office. I came on a month ago, and considered. Then I went back to pack up. Now I've come for good, and here I am. You have my history to date. Now tell me of yourself. You're looking as fit as a penny from the mint, even though you have discarded that `lovely' brown beard. Was that a concession to--er--_Mary Jane_?''
Arkwright lifted a quick hand of protest.
`` `Michael Jeremiah,' please. There is no `Mary Jane,' now,'' he said a bit stiffly.
The other stared a little. Then he gave a low chuckle.
`` `Michael Jeremiah,' '' he repeated musingly, eyeing the glowing tip of his cigar. ``And to think how that mysterious `M. J.' used to tantalize me! Do you mean,'' he added, turning slowly, ``that no one calls you `Mary Jane'
now?''
``Not if they know what is best for them.''
``Oh!'' Calderwell noted the smouldering fire in the other's eyes a little curiously. ``Very well. I'll take the hint--Michael Jeremiah.''
``Thanks.'' Arkwright relaxed a little. ``To tell the truth, I've had quite enough now--of Mary Jane.''
``Very good. So be it,'' nodded the other, still regarding his friend thoughtfully. ``But tell me --what of yourself?''
Arkwright shrugged his shoulders.
``There's nothing to tell. You've seen. I'm here.''
``Humph! Very pretty,'' scoffed Calderwell.
``Then if _you_ won't tell, I _will_. I saw Billy a month ago, you see. It seems you've hit the trail for Grand Opera, as you threatened to that night in Paris; but you _haven't_ brought up in vaudeville, as you prophesied you would do--though, for that matter, judging from the plums some of the stars are picking on the vaudeville stage, nowadays, that isn't to be sneezed at. But Billy says you've made two or three appearances already on the sacred boards themselves--one of them a subscription performance--and that you created no end of a sensation.''
``Nonsense! I'm merely a student at the Opera School here,'' scowled Arkwright.
``Oh, yes, Billy said you were that, but she also said you wouldn't be, long. That you'd already had one good offer--I'm not speaking of marriage--and that you were going abroad next summer, and that they were all insufferably proud of you.''
``Nonsense!'' scowled Arkwright, again, coloring like a girl. ``That is only some of--of Mrs.
Henshaw's kind flattery.''
Calderwell jerked the cigar from between his lips, and sat suddenly forward in his chair.
``Arkwright, tell me about them. How are they making it go?''
Arkwright frowned.
``Who? Make what go?'' he asked.
``The Henshaws. Is she happy? Is he--on the square?''
Arkwright's face darkened.
``Well, really,'' he began; but Calderwell interrupted.
