This small bit of a lecture had had its effect on the man, to whom thenceforth nothing was impossible; indeed, upon this very occasion he demonstrated to his employer his sterling worth, for when, on looking over Van Squibber’s wardrobe, he discovered that his master had no Melton overcoat, he telegraphed to his tailor’s and had one made from his previous measure in time to have it with Van Squibber’s box at the Rahway station at the stipulated hour the following morning. Of course Van Squibber was not there. He had instructed his man as he had simply to test him, and, furthermore, the egg was boiled to perfection. The test cost Van Squibber about $150, but it was successful, and it was really worth the money to know that his man was all that he should be.
“He’s not half bad,” said Van Squibber, as he cracked the egg.
“It’s wintry,” said Van Squibber’s man on the morning of the 5th of October.
“Well,” Van Squibber said, sleepily, “what of that? You have your instructions as to the bodily temperature I desire to maintain. Select my clothing, as usual – and mark you, man, yesterday was springy, and you let me go to the club in summery attire. I was two and a half degrees too warm. You are getting careless. What are my engagements to-day?”
“University settlement at eleven, luncheon at the Actors’ at one, drive with the cynical Miss Netherwood at three, five-o’clock tea at four – ”
“What?” cried Van Squibber, sharply.
“At fuf – five, I should say, sir,” stammered the embarrassed man.
“Thought so,” said Van Squibber. “Proceed, and be more careful. The very idea of five-o’clock tea at four is shocking.”
“Dinner with the Austrian ambassador at eight, opera at eleven – ”
“In October? Opera?” cried Van Squibber.
“Comic,” said the man. “It is Flopper’s last night, sir, and you are to ring down the curtain.”
“True,” said Van Squibber, meditatively – “true; I’d forgotten. And then?”
“At midnight you are to meet Red Mike at Cherry Street and Broadway to accompany him to see how he robs national banks, for the Sunday Whirald.”
“What bank is it to be?”
“The Seventeenth National.”
“Gad!” cried Van Squibber, “that’s hard luck. It’s my bank. Wire Red Mike and ask him to make it the Sixteenth National, at once. Bring me my smoking-jacket and a boiled soda mint drop. I don’t care for any breakfast this morning. And, by-the-way, I feel a little chilly. Take a quinine pill for me.”
“Your egg is ready, sir,” said the man, tremulously.
“Eat it,” said Van Squibber, tersely, “and deduct the Café Savarin price of a boiled egg from your salary. How often must I tell you not to have my breakfast boiled until I am boil – I mean ready until I am ready for it?”
The man departed silently, and Van Squibber turned over and went to sleep.
An hour later, having waited for his soda mint drop as long as his dignity would permit, Van Squibber arose and dressed and went for a walk in Central Park. It was eccentric of him to do this, but he did it nevertheless.
“How Travers would laugh if he saw me walking in Central Park!” he thought. “He’d probably ask me when I’d come over from Germany,” he added. And then, looking ahead, a thing Van Squibber rarely did, by-the-way – for you can’t always tell by looking ahead what may happen to you – his eyes were confronted by a more or less familiar back.
“Dear me!” he said. “If that isn’t Eleanor Huyler’s back, whose back is it, by Jove?”
Insensibly Van Squibber quickened his pace. This was also a thing he rarely did. “Haste is bad form,” he had once said to Travers, who, on leaving Delmonico’s at 7.20, seemed anxious to catch the 7.10 train for Riverdale. Insensibly quickening his pace, he soon found himself beside the owner of the back, and, as his premonitions had told him, it was Eleanor Huyler.
“Good-morning,” he said.
“Why, Mr. Van Squibber!” she replied, with a terrified smile. “You here?”
“Well,” returned Van Squibber, not anxious to commit himself, “I think so, though I assure you, Miss Huyler, I am not at all certain. I seem to be here, but I must confess I am not quite myself this morning. My man – ”
“Yes – I know,” returned the girl, hastily. “I’ve heard of him. He is your alter ego.”
“I had not noticed it,” said Van Squibber, somewhat nonplussed. “I think he is English, though he may be Italian, as you suggest. But,” he added, to change the subject, “you seem disturbed. Your smile is a terrified smile, as has been already noted.”
“It is,” said Miss Huyler, looking anxiously about her.
“And may I ask why?” asked Van Squibber, politely – for to do things politely was Van Squibber’s ambition.
“I – I – well, really, Mr. Van Squibber,” the girl replied, “I am always anxious when you are about. The fact is, you know, the things that happen when you are around are always so very extraordinary. I came here for a quiet walk, but now that you have appeared I am quite certain that something dramatic is about to occur. You see – you – you have turned up so often at the – what I may properly call, I think, the nick of time, and so rarely at any other time, that I feel as though some disaster were impending which you alone can avert.”
“And what then?” said Van Squibber, proudly. “If I am here, what bodes disaster?”
“That is the question I am asking myself,” returned Miss Huyler, whose growing anxiety was more or less painful to witness. “Can your luck hold out? Will your ability as an averter of danger hold out? In short, Mr. Van Squibber, are you infallible?”
The question came to Van Squibber like a flash of lightning out of a clear sky. It was too pertinent. Had he not often wondered himself as to his infallibility? Had he not only the day before said to Travers, “You can’t always tell in advance just how a thing you are going into may turn out, even though you have been through that thing many times, and think you do.”
“I do lead a dramatic life,” he said, quietly, hoping by a show of serenity to reassure her. “But,” he added, proudly, “I am, after all, Van Squibber; I am here to do whatever is sent me to do. I am not a fatalist, but I regard myself as the chosen instrument of fate – or something. So far, I have not failed. On the basis of averages, I am not likely to fail now. Fate, or something, has chosen me to succeed.”
“That is true,” said Eleanor – “quite true; but there are exceptions to all rules, and I would rather you would fail to rescue some other girl from a position of peril than myself.”
That Miss Huyler’s words were prophetic, the unhappy Van Squibber was to realize, and that soon, for almost as they spoke the cheeks of both were blanched by a dreadful roar in the bushes beside the path upon which they walked.
“Shall I leave you?” asked Van Squibber, politely.
“Not now – oh, not now, I beg!” cried Miss Huyler. “It is too late. The catastrophe is imminent. You should have gone before the author brought it on. Finding me defenceless and you gone, he might have spared me. As it is, you are here, and must fulfil your destiny.”
“Very well,” returned Van Squibber. “That being so, I will see what this roaring is. If it is a child endeavoring to frighten you, I shall get his address and have my man chastise his father, for I could never strike a child; but if it is a lion, as I fear, I shall do what