Beanbag

“ Bean felt like an insect in such a labyrinth of a place. He forgot where he put things, and then, overcome by the vastness and number of rooms, forgot what he was looking for, losing himself in an abstracted and fruitless survey of the walls. He must buy things to hang on the walls, especially over certain stains on the wall of the parlour, or throne-room, to which in the heat of battle, doubtless, certain items of the late Dutch lunch had been misdirected. ”

“ He felt happy at recalling Markham's phrase.
"All right," said the expert resignedly. "We'll do what we can. May take three or four days."
Bean started for the door.
"Say," called the expert, as if on second thought, "you're up at Breede's office, ain't you—old J. B.'s?"
"Oh, I'm there for a few days yet," said Bean.
"Ah, ha!" said the expert. "Have a cigar!"
Bean aimlessly accepted the proffer.
"Sit down and gas a while," urged the expert genially. "Things looking up any over your way?"
"Oh, so-so, only," said Bean. "But I can't stop, thanks! Got to hurry back to see a man." ”

“ He picked a green apple from the low tree under which he stood, bit into it, chewed without enthusiasm, then hurled the remnant at an immature rabbit that he saw regarding him from the edge of the lilac clump. The missile went wild, but the rabbit fled and Bean pursued it. He was not afraid of a rabbit—not of a young rabbit. ”

“ The black, who had been driven nearly crazy by his blinkers, trusted to his weight and his temper; but Benami knew how to apply his weight and how to keep his temper. They met, and there was a cloud of dust. The black was lying on his side, all the breath knocked out of his body. The Rabbit was a hundred yards up the ground with the ball, and Benami was sitting down. He had slid nearly ten yards on his tail, but he had had his revenge, and sat cracking his nostrils till the black pony rose. ”

“ He was still puzzling over this when they turned through a gateway, imposing with its tangle of wrought iron and gilt, and at a decorously reduced speed crinkled up a wide drive to the vast pile of gray stone that housed the un-filial Breede.
"Daughter!" said Breede, with half a glance at the flapper.
A taller and, Bean thought, a prettier girl than the flapper stepped aside for them, looking at Bean as they passed. One could read her look as one could not read the flapper's. It was outrageously languishing.
"Flirts with every one, makes no difference who!" ”

“ At another time Bean might have quailed, at least momentarily; but he had now discovered that the advanced-dressing old gentleman used scent on his clothes. He was afraid of no man who could do that in the public nostrils. He surveyed the old gentleman with frank hostility, noting with approval, however, the dignified yet different pattern of his waistcoat. But he knew the other directors were looking hard at him.
"Shrimp! snake!" added the old gentleman, like a shocked naturalist encountering a loathsome hybrid.
"Been plowing with our heifer?" asked Breede incisively. ”

“ Besides being of too few inches for a man and unspeakably old, he was unsightly. Nothing of the Gordon Dane about Breede. The little hair left him was an atrocious foggy gray; never in order, never combed, Bean thought. The brows were heavy, and still curiously dark, which made them look threatening. The eyes were the coldest of gray, a match for the hair in colour, and set far back in caverns. The nose was blunt, the chin a mere knobby challenge, and between them was the unloveliest moustache Bean had ever been compelled to observe; short, ragged, faded in streaks. ”

“ He, too, after a last look at the car, seemed to be resolving on that long tramp to the station. He was a sightly young man, tall, heavily built, and dressed in garments that would on any human form have won Bean's instant respect. But on the form of the Greatest Pitcher the World Has Ever Seen——!!
His mind was at once vacant of all the past, of all the future. There was no more a Breede, male or female, no more directors or shares or jails. There was only a big golden Present, subduing, enthralling, limitless!
"Stop car!" hissed Bean. The car halted three feet from the young man on foot. ”

“ Looking over his shoulder with sickish envy after the invincible Bulger, Bean left the curb for a passing car and came to a jolting stop against the biggest policeman he had ever seen. He mumbled a horrified apology, but his victim did not even turn to look down upon him. He fled into the car and found a seat, still trembling from that collision. From across the aisle a pretty girl surveyed him with veiled insolence. He furtively felt of his neutral-tinted cravat and took his hat off to see if there could be a dent in it. ”

“ She adroitly revealed to Bean an unshakable conviction that he was desperately enamoured of her, and that it served him right for a presumptuous nobody. She talked to him, preened herself in his gaze, and maddened him with a manner of deadly roguishness. Then she flew to exert the same charm upon any one of the resplendent young men who were constantly riding over or tooting over in big black motor-cars. They were young men who apparently had nothing to do but "go in" for things—riding, tennis, polo, golf. ”

“ Bean glanced out in feigned dismay, as if at a desired cross-street he had carelessly passed, sprang toward the door of the car and caromed heavily against a tired workingman who still, however, was not too tired to put his sense of injury into quick, pithy words of the street. The pretty girl tittered horribly and the stout man, already in Bean's seat, rattled his papers impatiently, implying that people in that state ought to be kept off in the first place. ”

“ Being dissuaded from this and consenting to sleep, Bean sank into dreams of mastery beneath Ram-tah's lofty aspect.
He awoke with a giant's strength. He arrayed himself in the newest check suit, and an especially beautiful shirt with a lavender stripe that bore his embroidered initials on one sleeve. He thought he would like to face them in his shirtsleeves, and give Breede and the fussy old gentlemen a good look at that lettered arm. He was almost persuaded to don the entirely red cravat, let the consequences be what they might. His refreshed spirit was equal to this audacity—but the red car. ”

“ The waster disappeared. Bean heard the flapper's voice calling cheerily to him from above stairs. A footman disapprovingly ushered him to the midst of an immense drawing-room of most ponderous grandeur, and left him to perish.
He sat on the edge of a chair and tried to clear his mind about this enormity he was going to commit. False pretenses! Nothing less. He was not a king at all. He was Bunker Bean, a stenographer, whose father drove an express wagon, and whose grandmother had smoked a pipe. He had never been anything more, nor ever would be. And here he was ... pretending. ”

“ In all the world there could not be another so acceptable. He shivered with apprehension each day as he neared the place, lest some connoisseur had forestalled him. He quickened to a jealous distrust of any passerby who halted beside him to look into the window, and felt a great relief when these passed on.
Once he had feared the worst. A man beside him holding a candy-eating child by the hand had said, "Now, now, sir!" and, "Well, well, was he a nice old doggie!" Then they had gone into the store, very businesslike, and Bean had felt that he might be taking his last look at a loved one. ”

“ In actual person not superior to Bean, he had a temperament of daring. In every detail he was an advanced dresser, specializing in flamboyant cravats. He would have been Bean's model if Bean had been less a coward. Bulger was nearly all that Bean wished to be. He condescended to his tasks with an air of elegant and detached leisure that raised them to the dignity of sports. He had quite the air of a wealthy amateur with a passion for typewriting.
He had once done Breede's personal work, but had been banished to the outer office after Bean's first try-out. ”

“ Bean was relieved. He didn't want the name of a woman to be brought into the matter just then.
"'S all right for town work," he said. "Good enough for all I want of a car."
"'S awful!" said Breede, obviously forgetting the car for another subject.
"What can I do? She says she's got the right," suggested Bean.
"She'd take it anyway. I know her. Pack a suit-case. Had times with her already. Takes it from her mother."
"Can't be too rough at the start," declared Bean. "Manage 'em of course, but 'thout their finding it out—velvet glove." ”

“ In there where dynasties had fallen and a monarch lay prone, a spotted dog sporting with a papier-mâché something, came suddenly on a cold hand flung out on the rug. Nap instantly forsook the sham for the real, deserted the head of Ram-tah, and laved Bean's closed eyes with a lolloping pink tongue. ”

“ He stretched his forepaws to the top of the case and betrayed eagerness.
"Napoleon!" cried Bean sternly, putting the dog's complete name upon him for the first time. He was banished to his couch and made to know that leaving it would entail unpleasantness.
The thought of the Corsican came back with a new significance. In that embodiment he had felt, perhaps dimly recalled, his Egyptian life. Had he not been drawn irresistibly to Egypt? ”

“ The old gentleman sat back and exhaled a scented but vicious breath. There was silence. It seemed to have become evident that the unprincipled young scoundrel must be taken seriously.
Then spoke the largest director, removing from his lips a cigarette which his own bulk seemed to reduce to something for a microscope only. He had been silent up to this moment, and his words now caused Bean the first discomfort he had felt.
"You will come here to-morrow morning," he began, slanting his entire facial area toward Bean, "and you will make restitution for this betrayal of trust. ”

“ Bean gripped the arms of his chair. His tingling nerves were accurately defining his spine. He waited, breathless.
"I see it all," breathed the professor in low, solemn tones, his eyes fixed above Bean's head. "First the pomp and glitter of a throne. You wrench it from a people whose weakness you play upon with a devilish cunning, you ascend to it over the bodies of countless men slain in battle. Power through blood! You are cruel, insatiable, a predatory monster. But retribution comes. You are hurled from your throne. Again you ascend it, but only for a brief time. You fight your last battle ”

“ Certain things were expected of a man!
"Be here at four-thirty," he directed.
And Paul, his fellow, glancing up along the twenty-two stories of the office building, was impressed. He considered it probable that the bored young man owned this building. "The guys that have gits!" thought Paul.
Bean was preposterously working once more, playing the part of a cog on the wheel. Another day, it seemed, of that grotesque nonsense, even after the world's Greatest Pitcher had sat not twenty feet from him the night before, eating raspberry ice. But events could not long endure that strain. ”

“ Bean loathed golf and gathered the strange power to say so.
"Sooner be a mail-carrier than a golf-player," he answered stoutly. "Looks more fun, anyway."
"My word!" exclaimed the waster, "aren't you even keen on watching it?"
"Sooner watch a lot of Italians tearing up a street-car track," Bean persisted.
"Oh, come!" protested the waster.
"Like to have another fumed egg," said Bean.
"You've had one too many," declared the waster, knowing that no sober man could speak thus of the sport of kings.
Grandma, the Demon, entered and portentously shook hands with him. ”

“ An' you seen the slate was clean. Now concentrate; go into the Silence!"
Bean went into the Silence without suspicion, believing the Countess would fail. She couldn't know his question and no human power could write on the inside of that slate without detection. He waited with sympathy for the woman who had overestimated her gifts.
Then he was startled by the faintest sound of scratching, as of a pencil on a slate. It seemed to issue from beneath their hands at rest there in plain sight. The medium closed her eyes. Bean waited, his breath quickening. ”

“ Chap might cut her throat."
"U-u-u-mm!" said the Demon.
"Half pas' ten," reminded Breede. "Hurry!"
Bean had accosted the waster.
"Always take fumed eggs for breakfast," he cautioned. "Of course, little fruit an tea an things."
"Your father's had a sudden call to Paris. We're going with him," said the Demon, appearing bonneted.
"What boat?" demanded the flapper in quick alarm.
"Your's," said the Demon.
"Jolly party, all together," said Bean cordially. "He coming, too?" He pointed to the old gentle man, but this it seemed had not been thought of.
"He better come too," insisted Bean. ”

“ She grasped his arm and whirled him about to stand with his back to hers.
"There!" said the flapper tensely, her eyes staring ahead. "There!"
"You're scrooching!" accused the Demon.
"Not a bit!—and see how square his shoulders are!" She turned to point out this grace of the animal.
"Ever take any drugs? Ever get any habits like that?" queried the Demon. Plainly Bean's confession to an unusual virtue had aroused her suspicion. He might be a drug fiend!
He faltered wretchedly, wishing Breede would send for him. ”

“ And some defeated themselves by a display of over-enthusiasm that manifestly veiled indifference, or perhaps downright dislike.
But a janitor was finally encountered who met the test. In ten seconds Bean knew that Cassidy would be a friend to any dog. He did not fawn upon the animal nor explode with praise. He merely bestowed a glance or two upon the distinguished head, and later rubbed the head expertly just back of the erect ears; this, while he exposed to Bean the circumstances under which one steam-heated apartment, suitable for light housekeeping, chanced to be vacant. ”