A WORD OF WELCOME:

To those of you who love an easy chair, a mug, a pipe, and a story; to whom a well-swept hearth is a delight and the cheery crackle of hickory logs a joy; the touch of whose elbows sends a thrill through responsive hearts and whose genial talk but knits the circle the closer,—as well as those gentler spirits who are content to listen—how rare they are!—do I repeat Sandy MacWhirter's hearty invitation: "Draw up, draw up! By the gods, but I'm glad to see you! Get a pipe. The tobacco is in the yellow jar."

ILLUSTRATIONS

From drawings in color by Alonzo Kimball

Mac had the floor this afternoon

MacWhirter

But the perfume of the violets and the way she looked at me

The men pressed closer to look. "Roses, on a man like him!"

Not a tramp; rather a good-looking, well-mannered man, who had evidently seen better days

Again his fingers tightened; my breath was going

"It's a better advertisement than two columns in a morning paper"

Pushed the Engineer into the salon

Around the embers of the dying fire

PART I

In which Certain Details regarding a Lost Opal are Set Forth.

Sandy MacWhirter would have an open fire. He had been brought up on blazing logs and warm hearths, and could not be happy without them. In his own boyhood's home the fireplace was the shrine, and half the orchard and two big elms had been offered up on its altar.

There was no chimney in No. 3 when he moved in—no place really to put one, unless he knocked a hole in the roof, started a fire on the bare floor, and sat around it wigwam fashion; nor was there any way of supporting the necessary brickwork, unless a start was made from the basement up through every room to No. 3 and so on to the roof. But trifling obstacles like these never daunted MacWhirter. Lonnegan, a Beaux Arts man, who built the big Opera House, and who also hungered for blazing logs, solved the difficulty. It was only a matter of fifteen feet from where Mac's easel stood to the roof of the building that sheltered him, and it was not many days before Lonnegan's foreman had a hole in the roof and a wide and spacious chimney breast rising from Mac's floor, which filled the opening in the ceiling and rose some ten feet above it, the whole resting on an iron plate bolted to four upright iron rods which were in turn bolted to two heavy timbers laid flat on the roof. Lonnegan's men did the work, and Lonnegan settled with the

landlord and forgot ever afterward to send Mac the bill, and hasn't to this day.

No one else inside the four walls of the Old Building had any such comfort. All the other denizens had heaters; or choked-up, shivering, contracted grates; or a half-strangled flue from the basement below. Poor Pitkin relied on a rubber tube fastened to his gas light, which was connected with a sort of Chinese tea-caddy of a stove propped up on four legs, and which was shifted about so as to thaw out the coldest spots in his studio.

It was a great day when Mac's fireplace was completed. Everybody crowded in to see it—not only the men from below and on the same floor, but half a dozen and more cronies from the outside. No one believed Lonnegan's yarn about the bolts, so natural and old-timey did the fireplace seem, until the great architect picked the plaster away with his knife and showed them the irons, and even then one doubting Thomas had to mount the scuttle stairs and peer out through the trap-door before he was convinced that modern science had lent a helping hand to recall a boyhood memory.

And the friends that this old fire had; and the way the men loved it despite the liberties they tried to take with it! And they did, at first, take liberties, and of the most exasperating kind to any well-intentioned, law-abiding, and knowledgeable wood fire. Boggs, the animal painter, whose studio lay immediately beneath MacWhirter's, was never, at first, satisfied until he had punched it black in the face; Wharton, who occupied No. 4, across the hall, would insist that each log should be stood on its head and the kindling grouped about it; while Pitkin, the sculptor, who occupied the basement because of his dirty clay and big chunks of marble, was miserable until he had jammed the back-log so tight against the besmoked chimney that not a breath of air could get between it and the blackened bricks.

But none of these well-meant but inexperienced attacks ever daunted the spirit of this fire. It would splutter a moment with ill-concealed indignation, threatening a dozen times to go out in smoke, and then all of a sudden a little bubble of laughing flame would break out under one end of a log, and then another, and away it would go roaring up the chimney in a very ecstasy of delight.

Now and then it would talk back; I have heard it many a time, when Mac and I would be sitting alone before it listening to its chatter.

"Take a seat," it would crackle; "right in front, where I can warm you. Sit, too, where you can look into my face and see how ruddy and joyous it is. I'll not bore you; I never bored anybody—never in all my life. I am an endless series of surprises, and I am never twice alike. I can sparkle with merriment, or glow with humor, or roar with laughter, dependent on your mood, or upon mine. Or I can smoulder away all by myself, crooning a low song of the woods—the song your mother loved, your cradle song—so full of content that it will soothe you into forgetfulness. When at last I creep under my gray blanket of ashes and shut my eyes, you, too, will want to sleep—you and I, old friends now with our thousand memories."

Only MacWhirter really understood its many moods—"Alexander MacWhirter, Room No. 3," the sign-board read in the hall below—and only MacWhirter could satisfy its wants; and so, after the first few months, no one dared touch it but our host, whose slightest nudge with the tongs was sufficient to kindle it into renewed activity.

It was not long after this that a certain sense of ownership permeated the coterie. They yielded the chimney and its mechanical contrivances to MacWhirter and Lonnegan, but the blaze and its generous warmth belonged to them as much as to Mac. Soon chairs were sent up from the several studios, each member of the half-circle furnishing his own—the most comfortable he owned. Then the mugs followed, and the pipe-racks, and soon Sandy MacWhirter's wood fire in No. 3 became the one spot in the building that we all loved and longed for.

And Mac was exactly fashioned for High Priest of just such a Temple of Jollity: Merry-eyed, round-faced, with one and a quarter, perhaps one and a half, of a chin tucked under his old one—a chin though that came from laughter, not from laziness; broad-shouldered, deep-chested, hearty in his voice and words, with the faintest trace—just a trace, it was so slight—of his mother-tongue in his speech; whole-souled, spontaneous, unselfish, ready to praise and never to criticise; brimming with anecdotes and adventures of forty years of experience—on the Riviera, in Sicily, Egypt, and the Far East, wherever his brush had carried him—he had all the warmth of his blazing logs in his grasp and all the snap of their coals in his eyes.

"By the Gods, but I'm glad to see you!" was his invariable greeting. "Draw up! draw up! Go get a pipe—the tobacco is in the yellow jar."

This was when Mac was alone or when no one had the floor, and the shuttlecock of general conversation was being battledored about.

If, however, Mac or any of his guests had the floor, and was giving his experience at home or abroad, or was reaching the climax of some tale, it made no difference who entered no one took any more notice of him than of a servant who had brought in an extra log, the lost art of listening still being in vogue in those days and much respected by the occupants of the chairs—by all except Boggs, who would always break into the conversation irrespective of restrictions or traditions.

Mac had the floor this afternoon.

MacWhirter.

I knew this from the sound of his voice through the half-closed door as I reached the top-floor landing.

"Refused, gentlemen, refused point blank," I heard Mac say. "He wouldn't let them search him; wouldn't empty his pockets as the others had done; it made a most disagreeable impression on every one at the table. Collins, his host, was amazed; so was Moulton."

My own head was now abreast of the old Chinese screen.

"What reason did he give?" Boggs asked.

"Didn't give any. Just hemmed and hawed, and blushed like a girl."

I was inside the cosy room now, its air etched with wavy lines of tobacco smoke, showing blue in the dim glare of the skylight overhead; had nodded to Boggs, whose face was just visible over the top of Mac's most comfortable chair—Boggs always hides his bulk in this particular chair, having furnished none of his own, a weakness or selfishness which we all recognize and permit—and was adding my snow-covered coat and hat to a collection, facing the blazing logs, and within reach of their genial warmth, when Mac's voice again dominated the hum of questioning raised by the half-circle of toasting shins.

"Collins, of course, never said a word—how could he? The old fellow had been his friend for years; went to school with him. Now, gentlemen, what would you have thought?"

It was easy to see that our host had full possession of the floor. His feet were firmly planted on the half-worn Daghestan, his square, erect back turned to the crackling blaze, his head raised, arms swinging, hands extended, accentuating every point that he made with that peculiar twist of the thumb common to all painters. I dropped quietly into a chair. Better keep still and smoke on with my ear-shutters fastened back and my eyes fixed on the speaker's face. The cue would come my way before Mac had got very far in his story.

Again Mac put the question, this time in a rising voice, demanding an answer.

"What would you have thought?"

"I give it up," said Pitkin. "I knew Peaslee. Life went against him, but that old fellow was as straight as a string. Why, he has been book-keeper for that bank for half a century, more or less; I used to keep an account there; queer-looking chap, all spectacles."

"Collins must have put the jewel in his pocket and had not been able to find it," remarked Ford, discussion now being in order; "like a man losing his railroad ticket and discovering it in his hat-band after he has searched every part of his clothes."

"Old fellow was short in his balance and wanted to make it up," growled Boggs. Boggs did not mean a word of it, but it was his turn and he must hazard an opinion of some kind.

Mac smiled and a laugh went round. Poor old Tim Peaslee stealing Sam Collins's or anybody else's opal to straighten out a deficiency in his account was about as absurd a deduction to those who remembered him, as Diogenes losing his lantern in the effort to scrape acquaintance with a thief.

Marny, his face blue-white with his tramp through the snow, and Jack Stirling, in a new English Macintosh, now entered, shook their wet garments, filled their pipes from the yellow jar, and dragged up chairs to join the half-circle, the puffs of their newly filled pipes adding innumerable wavy lines to the etched plate of the atmosphere.

"Mac has got the most extraordinary story, Marny, that you ever heard," cried Wharton. "What do you think of old Tim Peaslee helping himself to Sam Collins's jewelry?"

"Never heard of Peaslee or Collins in my life," answered Marny, dragging his chair closer and opening his chilled fingers to the blaze. "Jack may, he knows everybody—some he oughtn't to. Who are they, burglars or stockbrokers?"

"Why, Collins, who has that opal mine in Mexico. Old Tim was for years the book-keeper of the Exeter Bank. You must have known Peaslee," persisted Wharton.

Marny shook his head, and Wharton turned to Mac.

"Begin all over again, old man, and we'll take a vote. Marny's head is as thick as one of his backgrounds."

"At the beginning?" asked MacWhirter, between the puffs of his pipe, freshly lighted now that his story had been told.

"Yes, from the time Sam Collins came to New York—everything."

Mac laid his pipe once more on the mantel, threw an extra stick on the fire from the pile by the chimney, raked the ashes clear of the front log, and resumed his position on the rug. Now that the circle was larger and he had been challenged to give every detail he intended to make his second telling of the extraordinary story more interesting, if possible, than the first.

"I'll give it to you exactly as Collins gave it to me; and, Boggs, you will please keep still until I get through. Wharton, change your seat so you can clap your hand over Boggs's mouth when he breaks out. Thanks.

"About two years ago Sam Collins came back to New York, first time in nearly twenty years. He had been up in Peru living in the clouds, digging for copper and not finding any, he told me; then he kept on to Ceylon, wandered around there for a while, and finally landed at Vera Cruz and went up into Mexico, until he struck the town of Queretaro. You've been there, Wharton; I remember your sketch of the old Cathedral."

Wharton nodded, and settled himself deeper in his chair.

"Shot Maximilian there," whispered Boggs under his breath.

Mac glanced savagely at Boggs, but continued:

"On taking in the town Collins found that everybody, from the beggars in the Plaza to the bankers in the palaces, had their pockets full of opals, wads and wads of them, some big as duck-shot, some big as birds' eggs. Collins is an expert on anything that comes out of the ground, and the next morning he was astride of a burro and off to the mines, noting how the minerals lay and the dip of the land, and the next week he was away prospecting, and before the month was out he had bought a hill that was as bare as your hand of everything but bunch grass and sand fleas, and had ten half-breeds at work, and by the end of the year he had struck hard-pan, with enough opals lying around loose to make him rich. This was two years ago, remember. Pretty soon Sam discovered that he needed more money to develop his mine, and he started for New York to look up his old friends to help him raise it.

"When Collins arrived he found that a lot of things could happen in twenty years: half of his friends were dead; some were scattered over the world, wandering as he had been; and out of fifty or more old chums who had known him at college only a dozen or more were left. Tim Peaslee was one of them.

"Sam loved Tim; he always had. For years they had kept up their letters; then Tim lost track of Collins, and communication ceased. All the way to New York Collins was thinking of Tim. If he was rich, they'd go in together on the mine; and if he was poor, he'd share what he had with him. The Tim he loved was not the kind of man to shake hands with. His Tim was the sort of a fellow to hug and keep your hand on his knee while you talked to him.

"Sam found him in an old house in Bond Street—one of those high-stooped, passed-by wrecks that are being turned into Italian tenements, with wood and coal shops in the basement and sign painters in the garret. He was living with his old sister, Miss Peaslee—older than Tim. The two had a life interest in the property, and none of the heirs could take possession until these two were buried.

"It was dark when he reached Tim's and mounted the steps; too dark for him to notice the queer iron railings and newel posts red with rust, and the front door that hadn't had a coat of paint on it for years, nor the knob and knocker that were black with the weather. At his first ring no one answered; at the third, a woman with a basket opened the door. She was on her way out—that's why she opened it.

"'Yes, Mr. Peaslee and his folks lives on the top floor. He's our landlord. Walk right up. This door ain't locked till twelve o'clock, so ye can just shut it to behind ye. We have the first floor, and another family has the second, but they're moved out.'

"On the way upstairs, in the dim light of the single gas-jet, Sam made out the slender banisters and on each landing the solid mahogany doors that opened into the several rooms, showing him that it had once been a house of some pretensions.

"He knocked gently; there was a hurried scuffle inside, as if someone wanted to escape being seen, and Tim thrust out his head. He had on an old calico dressing-gown and was in his slippers, his glasses pushed back on his forehead.

"Sam told me he never had such a shock in his life as when he saw Tim. He had to look into his face twice and wait until he spoke before he was sure it was he. He had left his chum a springy, enthusiastic young fellow of twenty-five, full of go and life, and he found him a dried-up, wizen-faced, bald-pated old fellow near fifty, who looked a hundred. While he had been climbing mountains, sleeping in the open air, working with a pick or rounding up cattle, poor old Tim had been driving a quill behind a desk, getting drier and drier, like an old gourd hung in an attic—all the hope shrunk out of him, all his joyousness gone.

"Who wants me?'

"'Don't you know me, Tim? I'm Collins—Sam Collins,' and he caught hold of his limp hand.

"'Collins?' muttered Tim, drawing back. 'I don't know but one—' here the light in the hall fell on Sam's face—'Not Sam, are you?' He knew him now. 'Come inside!' and he dragged him past the door, his shrivelled hand on the miner's collar. 'Ann, here's Sam—old Sam Collins! Where have you been, you old rascal, all these years? My sister—you remember her, of course—we've been living here—Oh, Sam, but I'm glad to see you! What a great girth you've got on you, and so big in the shoulders! And what a queer hat! How did you find me?—Oh, you rascal!'

"This running fire of exclamations and questions was kept up until Sam had found a seat next the old sister, who was thinner even than Tim, and with a look in her eyes of a hungry child peering into a cake-shop. All this time Tim was holding on to Sam's big shoulders as if he was afraid he would escape.

"When Sam's gaze was free to wander about the room he found it choked full of old furniture of the oldest and most dilapidated kind—a mahogany sideboard with the knobs gone; sofas with the hair-cloth seats in holes, all good in their day, but all wanting the upholsterer and the cabinet-maker. Not a dollar had been spent upon them for years. The life interest, Sam found out afterward, went with the furniture as well as the house.

"One thing struck Sam more than anything else, and that was Tim's tenderness over Miss Ann. When she coughed—and she coughed most of the time—Tim would start as if it hurt him. Once he went into the next room and brought her a shawl, and just before Sam left Tim poured out a spoonful of medicine for her and made her take it right before Sam, adding:

"'It's only Sam; he's got a heart as big as an ox, and will understand. Won't you, Sam?'

"Next day Collins started in to raise the money for his mining. Tim introduced him to the cashier and the president of the Exeter, and they both looked Sam over and took in his wide sombrero and queer clothes, and examined his samples—one was a beauty, which Tiffany offered him a big sum for—and then they wrote him a letter—that is, the president did—on the bank's paper, saying that they appreciated greatly the opportunity, etc., but the charter of the bank prevented, etc., and they had no money of their own, etc.—same old kind of a lying letter these men write when they can't get one hundred per cent. on an investment.