“OH, I beg a thousand pardons! It is indeed stupid of me to come in unannounced, but ——”
We were sitting over our breakfast, when a short, hurried knock sounded at the door. I called out, “Come in!” and saw before me an entire stranger, who, with an embarrassed smile, said the words set down above.
I went to meet him, and said courteously, “Perhaps you are mistaken in the number, or do you really wish to see me?”
“I beg a thousand pardons!” he repeated, stepped back a little, and added, “The servant showed me in. I asked whether the master was at home, and she gave me to understand that I would find you in the drawing-room. But I know now how the mistake arose. You have only moved in here recently, have you not?”
“Only two weeks ago.”
“Aha, I thought so. You will permit me to explain myself. Before you, Mr. Zyrok, an intimate friend of mine, lived here; and so, whenever I passed through town, I was accustomed to call on him, and to walk straight in. I dare say you were surprised.”
“Well, yes, I was. But the mistake is a perfectly natural one. Your friend Zyrok has moved to the Heerengracht.”
“Ah, indeed? He told me nothing about it. But forgive me for having disturbed you. Heerengracht, you said?”
“Yes.”
197“I’ll go there at once. He probably expects me, because his Pontac must be nearly used up. ”
“I beg your pardon?” I thought I had not understood.
“His Pontac, I said — vintage of ’78. He can’t have much left. But, to be sure, I have forgotten to introduce myself. I am the representative of the wine-merchants, Kolik & Co., of the Hague. For years I have furnished my friend with the most excellent wines, and so you understand ——”
Oh, yes! I began to understand. Here was a sly fellow indeed, one who knew how to utilize every opportunity.
It occurred to me now that the very day before this I had had a large sign with my name on it fastened to my door. I approached the door, and said, somewhat curtly, “To err is human ——”
“To be sure, and therefore you will forgive me. But since chance has brought me into your house, you will permit me to recommend my firm to you. Perhaps you need some fine old Pontac or Larose ——”
“I am very sorry — I am supplied with everything.”
He did not permit me to finish, but went on with an engaging smile:
“I do not for a moment question the excellence of your cellar, but I should merely like to venture the remark that our Batailly Pontac is a very different thing from the Pontac ordinarily furnished by wine-merchants. The initiated can tell the difference!”
“Allow me to inform you that, on account of my health, I very seldom drink wine.”
“Indeed? That is very strange. To-day most physicians are of the opinion that a good glass of red wine is excellent — especially our Pontac — even surpassed, perhaps, by our 198 Pomys Agassæ, vintage of ’84. Such a bouquet! And it is recommended by all physicians ——”
“Possibly; but since I suffer from rheumatism, I drink ——”
“Little or no wine. And you make a mistake, a very great mistake. Rheumatism is a disease that originates in the blood, and nothing cleanses the blood so thoroughly as a glass of our old red wine. Forty-five bottles for forty-eight florins — delivered at your house. But if you were thinking of buying a cheap table wine, I could recommend our Baour Lénéjac with a good conscience; it is pure and strong, yet light. It is quite absurdly cheap — only thirty-seven florins a keg. My friend Zyrok is crazy over it, and I had to promise to keep a supply of it for him. But since you, on account of your health, are in absolute need of something pure and unadulterated, I would let you have a small keg — only as a sample, of course.”
“It is very good of you, but I really cannot make use of your offer.”
I approached the door in the hope of getting rid of the philanthropic gentleman. But my hope was short-lived.
“For your own sake I wish you had taken the Baour, but perhaps our Beaujolais would be more to your taste. Do you know Beaujolais?”
“No!”
I began to grow impatient. I put my hand on the knob of the door, and said, “My time is limited, and I must beg you ——”
“I understand thoroughly, nor do I wish to detain you. Only I wish to call your attention to the fact that we alone keep this Beaujolais. It has a bouquet, an aroma — you cannot imagine it. Something like Burgundy, but lighter. May 199 I send you a sample? I do not wish to persuade you to take a barrel. Heaven forbid! Our firm is far too famous to be obliged to praise its wares. But this Beaujolais is so excellent that I should like to have had your judgment on it. But let me send you a small assortment: one dozen bottles Baour, one dozen Pontac, one dozen Lénéjac, and one Pomys. Then you will see for yourself how excellent our wines are. The head of our firm has vineyards near Kreuznack, so if you need Rhine wine you may get it at its very source.”
“You are certainly invaluable!” I exclaimed.
“What do you mean?” he asked courteously.
“Invaluable to your firm. I have never seen such perseverance.”
“That is my trade,” he said dryly. “But how about port wine? We have a splendid brand — white port. No other firm in Holland has it.”
“Thank you, I don’t need any port.”
“Madeira, perhaps?”
“Nor that, either?”
“Sherry?”
“No.”
“Malaga?”
“Nothing!”
“Marsala des Princes? Or a magnificent Tokay?”
“Sir, I have no more time to waste with you!”
I glanced at the half-open door.
“Yes, you are right. It would be discourteous to keep you any longer, but it would be equally unpardonable if I failed to call your attention to our white Bordeaux: Graves, Haut Sauternes, Château Yquem, Muscatel ——”
I was growing more and more impatient. I would never 200 get rid of the man by normal methods. Then I had a sudden inspiration. Slowly I closed the door.
“Do you happen to know a Mr. Johannes Gram at the Hague?” I said.
“To be sure! How should I fail to know the author of so many excellent stories and sketches? By the way, he is a connoisseur. He knows a good glass of wine!”
“Is he a customer of yours?”
“Naturally.”
“I thought so.”
“Why?”
“I’ll tell you. Do you know Mr. Schootmanns?”
“Schootmans?”
“Yes, the well-known Schootmanns?”
“Oh, him? Of course. A capital fellow. I thought you said Schottmann. But the well-known Schootmanns — he drinks Burgundy — Graves. Would you like to try that?”
“Well — so I was right when I said that in his comedy The Well-Known Schootmans, Graves must have drawn his characters from real life.”
“What! a comedy?”
“Yes, and a charming piece. My not being able to get rid of you involuntarily made me think of the play; and since you assure me that Schootmanns really exists, it is quite clear that the author took you as his model for the character of the typically persistent commercial traveler.”
My visitor looked taken aback at last. He twirled his little mustache, and stammered:
“I’m really sorry, very sorry ——”
I opened the door. He was outside at last. The fresh air seemed to revive him and to give him back his power of 201 speech, for just as I was about to close the door he turned to me with a smile:
“Oh, yes, I forgot the champagne. We have an excellent brand, Marquis de ——”
I heard no more, for I slammed the door so hard that all the lamps and windows in the building rattled.
I never saw the representative of Kolik & Co. again.
“BUT, conductor, that is first class, for non-smokers.”
“Second class is all full.”
“Well, but my ticket is for the second class!”
“Please get in, my dear la—, woman,” said the conductor, to whom the passenger seemed too common-looking to be addressed as “lady.” “If you please, we are just going to start.”
“I hope I’ll see you again very soon, my dear,” said the woman, and nodded to a little girl who, laden with parcels and packagers, was standing on the platform. “Give my love to all at home — do you hear, child? And now hand me my hat-box, please, and the little basket and the large basket, will you?”
The first whistle for departure blew.
“Yes, yes! But, heavens, how high!” moaned the corpulent woman. With her left hand she grasped the door of the compartment and struggled violently to get in. Her right hand held an umbrella and a little traveling-bag, and under her left arm she crushed a pasteboard box.
“All in?” sounded the stentorian voice of the stationmaster. 202 The doors of the last compartments shut with a bang.
“Ready!”
“No, not yet. Oh, what am I to do?” groaned the stout old woman, caught half-way in the door.
“So — there you are!” the conductor laughed, as he pushed the rest of her in.
“Now my hat-box! Thank you, my dear. And now the large basket — don’t forget to give my love to all — and now the little basket. Is it shut tight? And, child, don’t forget to take care of the cat and feed the canary.”
“All in? Back there, if you please!”
“My child” — the head bobbed out of the window once more — “don’t forget to have the empty preserve-bottles returned.”
The second whistle blew, the train started, and the last words were lost in the rattle of wheels.
“Good heavens, what a rush!” sighed the woman, quite out of breath, sitting down next to the only other passenger, who was just preparing for a nap. “Oh, dear! Oh, dear!”
“For Heaven’s sake, what’s the matter?” growled the traveler, resenting this disturbance.
“Oh, you were going to sleep? Then you’ll be so good as to pardon me. In the noise and hurry I overlooked you. Don’t you think this train bumps dreadfully?”
“I? Yes — no — I don’t know.” And then the other passenger settled back in his corner and closed his eyes.
“This is a shame, though!” complained the woman, as she tried in vain to force all her various belongings into the rack over her head. “Oh, goodness gracious! I hope you don’t mind. It’s really not my fault. It’s only the chestnuts for my brother-in-law’s children. They dote on them so. I 203 hope you aren’t hurt! But it’s so hard to get the things up there.”
“Well, perhaps it would be better if you put that bag in the rack on the other side. It might fall again, you know.”
“You’re quite right, to be sure. You might have been badly hurt. It’s a good thing you got off so easily.”
The traveler pushed his cap back a little, stroked his back hair with his one hand, and looked half angrily, half sleepily at the stout woman, who, smiling at him with foolish good nature over her spectacles, said, “I suppose you’re tired of the journey?” then she went on in a loud voice, “But gracious me, now that I look at you more closely, why, I know you!”
“You? Me!” the traveler exclaimed.
“Yes; your name is Bolders, and you belong to the clothing-shop in the Hoogstraat.”
“Sorry, but I don’t happen to be that gentleman.”
“What a pity! You see, I could have sworn you were Bolders. But if you yourself say that you are not he, I suppose it’s all right. But is it possible? You have the same appearance exactly as Jan Bolders. And yet, when I look closely I see the difference. All the Bolders are red-haired, and you are quite fair.”
The traveler yawned, and glared at his neighbor.
“But the thick nose of the Bolders — you have that. What a strange coincidence!”
“My name is van Palen, and I am sleepy.” The voice was angry and curt. Once more he closed his eyes, and again settled himself comfortably to continue his nap.
The woman started up in astonishment. “Your name is van Palen! How strange! Then you are related to the van Palens of Rotterdam? Just think, I’ve known them for 204 years, and I was great friends with Cato van Palen — your aunt, probably — a good-natured person, but so troubled with nerves that finally we got angry at each other. Is she still alive?”
An inarticulate grunt silenced the old woman for a moment.
“No? Well, I’d be sorry in spite of it all. I suppose you mean the van Palens van de Wynhaven?”
The same grunt.
“But perhaps you are related to the van Palens van de Baan? I know them too. Charming people!”
“No; I have no relatives.”
“Not one?”
“No; I’m an orphan, and I’d like to sleep now.”
“An orphan? I suppose you were brought up in an asylum. How very sad! I have always pitied the poor little orphans so! Of course they’re well treated in the asylums, but they have to eat beans and peas so often. That isn’t particularly nourishing, and it makes one so stout. And, after all, it isn’t like home. Who’d ever believe that you were a little orphan boy once! You don’t look it at all — so stylish, and traveling first class. The Lord has been good to you. You see, I’m just a plain burgher’s wife, but I have all I want. Yet I always travel third class, but to-day everything was crowded. Goodness, how fast this train is going! There are only a few stops before Rotterdam, eh? One at Nieuwersluis ——”
“Quite right. Thank Heaven, we do stop at Nieuwersluis!” said the other traveler, quite nervous from the woman’s persistent chatter. He had yawned several times, and looked very sleepy, but now he sat up, measured his neighbor over from head to foot with an ironical smile, and began in a voice full of emotion:
205“I suppose you have a good heart. Once can see it in your pity for the sorrow of the wretched orphans. Is that not so?”
The woman nodded slowly and with dignity. “So you never knew either mother or father?”
“Never,” said the man with a suppressed sob. “My father died before my birth, and my good mother too!” He seemed deeply moved, and hid his face in his handkerchief.
“How sad! How very, very sad!” said the stout woman, and wiped away a tear.
“When I was three years old I went to sea.”
“To sea?”
“Yes, I had to.”
“Gracious!”
“I was stolen out of my cradle!”
“What?”
“Stolen!”
“Merciful heavens! and who did it?”
“A servant-girl who had a love-affair with a pirate.”
“Oh, dearie me! And why did the girl do it?”
“Because she had no child, and the pirate wanted one.”
“You don’t say so! Oh, the curious things that happen in this world!”
“But, you see, this pirate was very fond of children.”
“So it seems. But didn’t he rob and murder?”
“Certainly. Every one he captured he had hanged or shot, but he spared the innocent little ones. We had one pirate on board who had nothing to do but fill bottles with milk for the infants.”
“And what became of the mothers?”
206“If they were young and good-looking, the pirate put them into his harem. If they were plain and elderly, they were exposed on desert islands, or butchered on board.”
“Butchered? But this is awful! And you saw it all with your own eyes?”
“Yes, from my tenderest years I was a witness of human slaughter. When I was thirteen I stood the test by killing two missionaries.”
“Killing!” The fat old person got as far away from her neighbor as possible.
“Yes; and not with a dagger or pistol. I simply poured something into their coffee.”
“Oh!”
“Yes, it was easy. They noticed nothing, and ten minutes later they were in heaven.”
His corpulent traveling companion grew pale, wide-eyed, and open-mouthed. The man went on calmly:
“After a while I became a perfect monster. I have a thirst for blood. With this little instrument, you see” — he pulled out a small pocket-knife — “I have sent at least a hundred and fifty people to a better land. They used to call me the ‘Terror of the Sea.’ ”
“With that little knife?” She was almost choked with fright.
“Yes. One skilful cut — the vein is severed — and there you are — dead! But I was converted two years ago.”
“Oh! How?”
“By the Salvation Army in New York; and now remorse tortures me for all the blood I have spilled.”
The good-natured woman almost panted. She kept her eyes fixed on his hands. With trembling voice she asked:
“And now you have given up piracy altogether?”
207“Yes, and it’s a pity. My profession was a pleasant one — small expenses and large income.”
“Yes, and ——”
“I understand. You want to know what I do now. Well, I have a good deal to do with corpses now.””
This made the good woman feel more comfortable.
“I suppose you’re an undertaker.”
“A what? Oh, no; you are mightily mistaken. I procure corpses for the dissecting-rooms of the professors of medicine.”
A sudden trembling shook the great mass of flesh.
“And how do you procure them?”
“Oh, very simply; I buy them, dig them up, or make them.”
“God help me, but that’s horrible!” Heavy beads of perspiration rolled from her forehead.
The traveler went on in an icy tone:
“There are always people enough who are willing to sell some old uncle or aunt, if they get money enough; and I have no end of money.”
“But — but, then, why do you do it?”
“Mere sport, my dear woman — mere sport! I’m so accustomed to blood and corpses.”
“Wha-a-at?”
“Oh, yes. To-day, for instance, I’m going from Emmerich to Rotterdam to buy an old woman — unfortunately only one, and I need two for Professor Ralph in London. I have given my word of honor to get him two large females between fifty and sixty years of age.”
The uncanny individual let his hand glide into his pocket.
“Perhaps it’s sensible to take the first safe chance. Do you care very much about living longer?”
208The woman jumped up. Speechless, she stared at the man.
“Nieuwersluis!” The door flew open.
“Nieuwersluis!”
The woman in her terrible excitement had not noticed that the train was slowing up. Hardly was the door open, than she trundled out of it like a rubber ball, and screamed:
“Conductor! I want to get into a different compartment. Quick! take my hat-box! There’s a pirate in here — please get my traveling bag — a fellow who makes corpses! Heavens! My chestnuts — a hundred and fifty murders on his conscience! But no children. Oh, my umbrella! He wants stout corpses. Yes, yes, I’ll get into the luggage-van! I’m fainting! The monster!”
The traveler once more settled into his corner. “Conductor,” he said, “here’s something for yourself — and a cigar. Please see to it that I am not disturbed; I want to get some sleep.”