Wardon Curtis: The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton

“It will be quite like a fairy tale when the good boatman comes in the morning and finds this large sum left him by those to whom his little craft has been of such inestimable service,” said William, and then for fear the boatman might not find the check and the order, in two other places he pinned up cards giving the whereabouts of the remuneration for the boat and some statement concerning the circumstances of its requisition. On the back of one of the cards had been penciled his name and city address, and though he had erased the black of this inscription, the impression yet remained distinctly legible. This erasure was not due to any desire to conceal his identity or lodgings, but because he had thought at first that he could not get all the information on one side of the card. Having seen his friends go slipping out on the deep, he turned pensively homeward, somewhat heavy of heart, for when one faces perils with another, fast friendships are quickly welded.

In the morning, young William was arrested and lodged in jail and a corrupt and venal judge laughed with contempt at his plea. After three long days in jail, came Mr. Hicks, senior, who compounded with the boat owner for two hundred and fifty dollars, the boat being, as the owner swore, of Spanish cedar with nickel-plated trimmings.

“That is always the way when a person of good heart befriends another,” said Mr. Middleton.

“Alas, too often,” said the emir of the tribe of Al-Yam. “But I am pleased to say that when once across the lake, the two-nosed gentleman married Miss Montmorency, who whatever she might be, did not lack certainly womanly qualities and had been the sport of an unkind world. Having something to live for, the two-nosed gentleman signed with a Detroit dime museum company at seventy-five dollars a week. His two noses were not the most remarkable thing about him, for in course of time hearing of young William’s misadventure, he sent him a sum equivalent to all the episode had cost him, together with a handsome diamond stud, which he had with great deftness and cleverness taken from the officious policeman, as he visited the dime museum with two ladies while spending his vacation in Detroit. And this beautiful ornament William delighted to wear, not merely because of its intrinsic worth, which was considerable, but through regard for its thoughtful and considerate donor.”

“The two-nosed man did truly show himself a man of gratitude, and I am glad to hear of such an instance. Yet from what you said of him in the beginning of the tale, I should not have expected it of him. How often is one deceived by appearances and how hard it is to trust to them.”

“Even the wisest is unable to distinguish an enemy wearing the guise of a friend, but we may bring to our assistance the aid of forces more powerful than our poor little human intelligence. Let me present you with a talisman which will ever warn you when any one plots against you.”

“How?”

“How? You must wait until some one plots against you and the talisman will answer that question. Its ways of warning will be as manifold as the plots villains may conceive. Here is the talisman, an Egyptian scarabæus of pure gold. So cunningly fashioned is it that not nature itself made ever a bug more perfect in the outward seeming.”

Putting the scarabæus in his left trousers pocket, Mr. Middleton departed, and as he went about his affairs during the next several days, he ceased to think of the talisman, but on the fourth day his attention was recalled to it in a way that indeed seemed to prove that it was a charm possessed of the powers the emir of the tribe of Al-Yam had attributed to it. He was faring northward in a street car at eleven of the morning, diverting himself with the study of the passengers sitting opposite, when he became aware that the scarabæus in his left trousers pocket was slowly traveling up his leg. Had the talisman been other than the heavy object it was, he would not have noticed it, but it was of too considerable weight to travel over his person without making its progress felt. Deterred by none of the superstitious tremors which the unaccountable peregrinations of the gold beetle would have excited in one less intrepid, he quickly thrust his hand into his pocket to close it over another hand already there, a hand which beyond a first little start to escape, lay passive and unresisting, a hand soft and delicate, yet well-muscled withal, long-fingered and finely formed. At the same time, a well-modulated voice at his side exclaimed:

“Why, I did not recognize you at first. I was not looking when you came and you evidently did not notice me.”

“No, I did not,” said Mr. Middleton, composedly, still retaining his grasp upon the hand in his pocket. “I cannot see that you have changed any,” he continued, scrutinizing the young woman at his side, for she was young and, moreover, of a very pleasing presence, and he did not altogether rebel against the circumstances that allowed him to fondle the hand of one so comely. The day, which had begun with a slight chill, had turned off warm and she had removed her cloak, which, lying across her own lap and partially across Mr. Middleton’s, had been the blind behind which she had introduced her hand into the pocket where reposed the fateful talisman.

The persons in the car seemed to take an interest in this sudden recognition on the part of a pair who had been riding side by side for so long, oblivious of each other’s identity. Moreover, the young woman was tastefully gowned and of a very smart appearance, while Mr. Middleton’s new suit became him and fitted him nicely and altogether they were a couple nearly any one would find pleasure in looking upon. A slight movement to withdraw the hand lying within his own, caused Mr. Middleton’s grasp to tighten and almost simultaneously, the young woman at his side leaned forward and with a look in which sorrow and pain were mingled, said in a lowered voice:

“Oh, I have such a dreadful thing to tell you about our friend Amy. I hate to tell you, but as I wish to bespeak your kind offices, I must do so. I am going to ask you to be the agent of a restitution. She has, oh, she has become a kleptomaniac. With every luxury, with her fine home on the Lake Shore Drive, with all her father’s wealth, with no want money can gratify, she takes things. In her circumstances it is out of the question to call it stealing. It is a mania, a form of insanity. When she is doing it, she seems to be in the grasp of some other mind, to be another person, and her actions are involuntary, unconscious. Then she seems to come to herself, when her agony is dreadful to behold.”

The young woman’s voice broke a little here, she paused a moment to resume control of herself, and perceiving her eyes swimming with tears and her lips quivering with unhappiness, Mr. Middleton was penetrated with pity and pressed most tenderly and sympathetically the delicate hand of which he was temporarily custodian.

“She took things in stores, trumpery, cheap things. She took magazines and penny papers from news stands. But oh, she descended to the dreadful depths of – oh, I can hardly tell it – she was detected in trying to pick a man’s pocket. It is here that I wish to employ you as an agent of restitution, or rather retribution, I should say. Will you please take this ring off my left hand and take it to the man she tried to rob? I cannot use the fingers of my right hand owing to temporary incapacitation,” and she held out to Mr. Middleton her left hand, upon the third finger of which gleamed a splendid ring of diamonds and emeralds. Mr. Middleton possessed himself of this second hand, but paused, and regarding the sweet face turned up to his so beseechingly, so piteously, said: