CHAPTER VIII AN UNEXPECTED MEETING

If Bar Vernon’s companion in the carriage during his ride up-town that morning had been Judge Danvers, instead of Dr. Manning, he would doubtless have been subjected to a sort of conversational “cross-examination.”

Indeed, he had half expected something of the sort, but the worthy doctor having fairly got rid of his pecuniary load and the troubles connected with it, had mentally gone back to his patients and was not a whit more talkative than his inborn politeness demanded of him.

Indeed, on arriving at the house, the doctor only waited to introduce Bar to Mrs. Manning, after a very brief talk with that lady in an inner room, and tell her to “send for Val,” and then he was off to the reception of his long-delayed “callers” and the performance of his daily routine of healing duty.

Bar’s previous experiences had led him into all[Pg 99] sorts of places, good and bad, but never before had he seen the interior of a home like that, so full of all the appliances which modern invention and the refinements of human art have provided for wealth and culture.

It was a sort of new world to him, and he found its unaccustomed atmosphere more than a little oppressive at first.

Even Mrs. Manning, with her gentle face, her beautiful gray hair and her kindly, easy, perfectly well-bred manners, seemed to him so like a being from another sphere, that her presence made him uneasy.

She understood him better than he imagined, however, and although she had plenty of questions in her mind, she considerately postponed them for a more convenient season.

“It’s very wonderful,” thought Bar. “To think of that pocketbook business bringing about all this! But I wonder who Val is?”

It was some little time before his curiosity was gratified, and then Mrs. Manning left him alone in the library, for a few minutes, to wonder at the multitude of elegant books, the folios of maps and engravings, and the rarely beautiful[Pg 100] pictures. When she returned she was accompanied by a young gentleman of about Bar’s age, though scarcely so strongly built, whom she introduced as:

“My son Valentine, Mr. Vernon. I shall have to put you in his care for the rest of the day. I hope, and so does Dr. Manning, that you will be very good friends.”

Valentine Manning was not only lighter built than Barnaby Vernon, he was a good deal lighter in the color of his hair, and the complexion of his face. His eyes were gray instead of the brownish-black of Bar’s, and he was in every respect a good deal more of a “boy,” at least to all outward appearances. He had never had the severe experiences which had so steadied and sobered his new acquaintance.

There was little danger that Bar would long feel as much shyness in his presence as in that of his mother, though he was a little awkward at first.

“Mother says you’re to visit with me,” said the doctor’s son, after they found themselves alone, “and that then you’re going out to Ogleport to school.”

[Pg 101]“Yes,” said Bar, reservedly.

“Ever been at the Academy before?” asked his new friend. “I never heard of you. What’s your first name?”

“Barnaby. Bar Vernon.”

“Bar? That’s a good handle. Mine’s Val. You can’t expect a fellow to be saying mister all the time. Did you say you’d been to Ogleport?”

“No,” said Bar, with an effort. “I was never at school in all my life.”

“Whew!” whistled Val. “What an ignoramus you must be! Did you ever study algebra?”

“Never.”

“Nor geometry?”

“I saw the word in a newspaper, once,” said Bar, “but I don’t know what it means.”

“Then won’t you have a high old time with Dr. Dryer, that’s all,” exclaimed Val. “Can’t you read?”

“Oh, yes,” said Bar, eager to come up in something; “I can read and write, and all that. Let me show you.”

Bar took up a pen, but, before he had written a half dozen lines, Val stopped him with:

[Pg 102]“There, now, that’ll do. You can beat me all hollow with a pen. Pity you don’t know French, or something.”

“Oh,” exclaimed Bar, “I can talk French, and German, too, and a little Spanish. It’s easy enough to pick up such things. What I don’t know is what you learn at school.”

“Well,” replied Val, “I wish I could pick up as much as that. Anyhow, I s’pose there’s lots of things I can teach you. Did you ever go fishing?”

“Never had a chance.”

“Nor hunting, nor skating?”

“Never,” said Bar, “but I can shoot. I had to learn that.”

“I’d like to know where you’ve lived all your life,” remarked Val.

“Maybe I’ll tell you some day,” said Bar, seriously, “but I’d rather not just now.”

Val Manning was a gentleman, boy as he was; and he colored to his ears as he replied:

“There, now, beg your pardon. Mother told me I mustn’t ask you any questions. Come on into the billiard-room and I’ll teach you how to play. Father never wants me to go to a public[Pg 103] billiard-hall, you know, so he has a tip-top table here at home. Plays himself sometimes, when the sick people give him a chance. Come on.”

Bar followed his young host into the neat and cozy apartment in the third story to which he led the way, and he felt a species of awe come over him as he passed one evidence after another of what plenty of money can do for the home of such a man as Dr. Manning.

Val picked up a cue and Bar listened in silence to the very clear and practical sort of lecture that followed on the rudiments of the game.

“Suppose we play one now,” said Bar, “and you can tell me more as we go along.”

Val assented, with hearty good-will, and he really showed a good deal of dexterity, for a boy of his age, in the noble art of knocking the ivory balls about.

He made a very good “run” before he missed, and then drew back with:

“There, Barnaby, the balls are in an awful bad position. I couldn’t make that carrom myself. Not many men could, but you’ll never learn if you don’t try. This is the shot. See?”

[Pg 104]Bar had been leisurely chalking his cue. Some things Val had said had unintentionally nettled him, and he had hardly been as frank as he should have been.

Now, however, he stepped quietly forward, made the impossible shot with an ease and quickness which altogether electrified Val, and followed it up with a dozen others of almost equal difficulty, ending by running the two red balls into a corner and scoring a clean fifty before he made a miss-cue and lost control of them.

Val had stood watching him in silence to the end, but when Bar turned to him with:

“Your turn again now!” he exclaimed.

“My turn? I should say so. Well, I’ll play the game out, but billiards isn’t one of the things that I have to teach you. You can give me lessons all the while.”

So it looked, indeed, but poor Bar had paid dearly enough for that useless bit of an accomplishment, and he would gladly have traded it with Val for a few of the things the latter probably valued very lightly.

After the billiards, Val suggested a visit to the gymnasium, not a great many blocks away, but[Pg 105] there he was even more astonished than he had been in the billiard-room.

“If you only knew a little algebra and geometry!” he exclaimed, enthusiastically, “you’d be a treasure to the Academy. Won’t we have fun!”

“How’s that?” asked Bar.

“Why, of course you don’t know,” said Val. “Wait till we get there, though. I just want some of those country fellows to try on their games again. I was almost alone last term, and they were too much for me. Got awfully thrashed twice, and I’m just dying to try ’em on again. Been training for it all vacation. But you’re worth three of me.”

“I’ll back you,” shouted Bar. “But then,” he added, “I thought we were going to the Academy to study?”

“So we are,” said Val, “and I wouldn’t disappoint my mother for anything, nor my father, either, but you can’t study all the while, and there’s any quantity of fun in the country.”

They were coming down the stairs from the gymnasium into the street, while they were talking, and just then, as they reached the sidewalk, Bar grasped his friend’s arm with:

[Pg 106]“Val—Val—let’s hurry. There’s a man I don’t want to have see me.”

Val moved quickly enough, but he should not have looked at the same time, for he thereby attracted the attention of a large, showily-dressed man, seemingly some sort of a gentleman whose eyes they might otherwise have avoided.

“Aha! my young fellow! Have I found you? What have you done with my valise? Come right along with me, now. I’ve been hunting you for a week. Come along, Mr. Jack Chills.”

Bar’s cheeks had turned a trifle pale at first, but they were blazing red now. It seemed to him as if all his “new time” were suddenly in peril, and he determined not to lose it without an effort.

“You are mistaken in the man,” he firmly replied. “My name is not Chills, but Vernon—Barnaby Vernon. If you annoy me I shall call the police at once. Take away your hand, sir.”

“Police, indeed? Do you mean to say I’m not your guardian, Major Montague? And do you mean to say you’re not my nephew, and that you did not run away with my valise and all my[Pg 107] valuable papers? Come right along. I shan’t give you up, now I’ve got you.”

“Police!” shouted Bar, stoutly, and:

“Police! police!” echoed Val, with a boyish resolve to stand by his friend.

It was not a quarter of the city in which the police are most plentiful, or it may be Major Montague would have hesitated, anxious as he was, for reasons of his own, to amend the errors of his fit of maudlin penitence, but, just for that once, the shout of the two boys fell on the right pair of ears, and the Major was actually brought face to face with a “very intelligent-looking cop,” as Val afterwards described him.

“Who are you?” was his first and somewhat rough question, addressed to the two boys.

“Who am I?” exclaimed Val, proudly. “I’m Valentine Manning, son of Dr. Randall Manning, and this is Mr. Barnaby Vernon, who is visiting with me.”

“And this,” added Bar, pointing at Major Montague, “is a very well-known bad character. I believe he is a professional pickpocket; but I[Pg 108] couldn’t make a charge against him, except for assault on me now.”

“I don’t know if I’d better take you in charge,” began the policeman; but just then the proprietor of the gymnasium came down the stairs.

“Anything the matter, Mr. Manning?” he said to Val. “I thought you and your friend were up in the room. Policeman, what is that fellow up to?”

“Some game or other, I don’t quite understand what. My man,” he added to the Major, “you’ve missed it this time. I’ll remember you, though. Move on, now, and don’t let me see you loafing on my beat. Move!”

Major Montague’s face was purple with wrath, but he saw very clearly that it was not his day. How on earth Bar should so soon have found friends, and strange ones, and become a recognized member of “society,” instead of a homeless and wandering vagabond, was a puzzle that surpassed his utmost guessing.

There was no doubt about it, however, for there stood the gymnasium proprietor, one of the best known men in the city, and there was the policeman.

[Pg 109]Dreadfully positive and practical looked the latter, to be sure; and the Major had no choice but to give the matter up for a bad job and “move on.”

He determined, however, to get at the bottom of the mystery some day, cost what it might.

Bar thanked the policeman very pleasantly, as he and Val turned away, but he felt as if there would be a load of fear on his heart until he could get off somewhere, away beyond the danger of any more such meetings.

Not but that he felt sure of protection from any real harm, but he wanted his deliverance from his “old time” to be absolute and complete, and it could hardly be so with Major Montague in the immediate neighborhood.

“I don’t want to ask any questions, Bar,” said Val, “but does my father know anything about that fellow?”

“You’ve a right to ask that,” said Bar. “Yes, he does, and so does Judge Danvers. I meant every word I said to him or about him. He’s a miserable fellow, and I don’t mean he shall bother me at all. Let’s go somewhere and get a lunch. I’ll stand treat.”

[Pg 110]“No, you can’t,” exclaimed Val. “You’re my guest, you know. Come on. I know where we can get a tip-top one.”

Of course he did, for he took Bar at once to a fashionable up-town restaurant of the very first class.

The way to it was in the opposite direction from the one Major Montague had taken, and Bar experienced a feeling of relief at finding himself at one of the little marble-topped tables, with so many well-appearing ladies and gentlemen around him. A moment later, however, Val asked him:

“What’s the matter, Bar, my boy? You look pale.”

“Nothing,” replied Bar; “only do you see that tall, French-looking party, three tables away down the aisle, there on the right?”

“I see him,” said Val. “You can never tell anything by the looks of those foreigners. I took one for a gambler a while ago, and he turned out to be a Count somebody. Maybe that’s a Count. Do you know him?”

“Wait and see if he stays to finish his dinner,” said Bar. “I don’t want him to speak to me.”

[Pg 111]The stranger, if his exterior had been re?rranged to suit, might have resembled a gentleman by the name of Prosper, but, just then and there, he was managing a very different character, for his former plans, as we have seen, had been badly broken up, and he was for the present, not only alone in the world, but anxious to remain so.

His position was “sidewise” to that of the two friends, and there was no one between them.

Suddenly it seemed to him as if a voice close to his ear exclaimed:

“Russia leather, eh?”

He cast a quick and startled glance around him, but failed to discover the source of the remark.

“It’s a bad fit,” said the voice again, but this time the stranger merely shrugged his shoulders.

“Nothing else in it,” was the next remark of his mysterious neighbor. A moment more and he heard:

“Then he made nothing by it?”

“No, the doctor got it back.”

“Do such fellows come here?”

[Pg 112]One after another the words, in varying tones and seemingly close beside him, added their harrowing suggestions, and the cold sweat was beginning to stand out on the forehead of the unfortunate “foreigner.”

He would not have looked around him for the world, but he stealthily reached out to the hat-rack for his hat and cane, and was swiftly gliding out of the front door, when a watchful waiter intercepted him with the polite suggestion that he had better pay for his dinner first.

He was glad enough to do that, nor did he once look back from the “pay-desk.” It was not likely he would soon again venture into that precise restaurant.

“Bar, my boy,” said Val, “who was it talking with that chap?”

“Anything more, sir?” suddenly inquired the voice of the waiter, who had attended them, just behind Val’s chair. “You mustn’t make a pig of yourself.”

Val wheeled angrily, to find that not a soul was standing near him.

“Bar!” he exclaimed, turning back, “did you hear that? Did he mean me?”

[Pg 113]“Oh, hush, and take a pill.”

It was the waiter’s voice again, closer than before, and Val sprang to his feet indignantly.

“Don’t step on me! Here I am, down here. Take your foot off. Oh, what a mouth!”

Val had lifted his feet quickly enough, but involuntarily, but now he gazed earnestly in the motionless face of his new friend.

“Bar Vernon, are you a ventriloquist!”

“Of course he is,” exclaimed the voice on the floor. “Don’t you see how long his ears are? Take your foot off. There, now I can die in peace. Good-bye!”

A long, choking sort of gurgle followed, but Val’s face was all one radiance of triumphant fun.

“Bar, is that so? Hurrah for that! Won’t we have larks up in Ogleport, and everywhere else? Let’s go home now. You’re just the sort of chum I’d have asked for. Why, we’ll have some fun at the house this very evening. Come on.”