CHAPTER V.
Claudius' return to the Casa Pompeiana, with measured step and valedictorian air, might have dismayed a wife or a tax collector, but had no apparent effect of depression on Cocky, Pussy, Polly, Cholly, and the child dancer. These welcomed him with the joyous abandon peculiar to playthings.
Cocky, since the departure of Suzanne, had lost his self-conscious air, and stood squarely on his doggy legs, accepting the caresses felt to be his due without that constraint caused by the presence of an envious third person. Pussy worked the supple pelt over the arch of her back without the flat yellow glare always ready for her rival, inviting the caress of her master. Polly rapped his beak against the T-frame, sidled up to Claudius, threatening his fingers with instant amputation, chuckled indulgently, and mounted to his shoulder, where he pinched the lobe of his ear and whispered raucously:
“Oh, go to hell!” Cholly spun giddily through all the various architectural features of the Casa Pompeiana, finally pirouetting on the parquet to announce: “Dinne' leddy. Please all chow.”
And the child dancer? She came up to Claudius very timidly and said that she hoped he had managed.
“Managed!” Claudius groaned. “I should say I had! I've managed to compromise poor Suzanne so that the rascal she was engaged to has given her the double cross. He even had the cheek to tell me that he had reason to suppose she'd lost her taste for him in my favor. He implied that it was more on this account that he had turned her down than because of my having compromised her.”
“Did you hit him very hard?” asked the child dancer.
“I didn't hit him at all, though I must say I felt like it for a moment or two. But what's the use of punching a whale? You would need a harpoon to do him any good. Such a mess! That damn' Arthur trying to make me think the brute such a wonder! It spoiled my opinion of Sydney. Made me want to punch him.”
“It wouldn't have been a lick amiss,” said the child dancer.
“Oh, you couldn't think of hitting Sydney. Just imagine how it would jar his works! He might stop running.”
“Not until he got under the bed,” said Clarissa. “What are you going to do about the female of his species?”
“Nothing much,” he said. “Just offer to marry her—that's all.”
Clarissa straightened her eyebrows.
“In other words, ruin three lives in trying to make amends for a venal sin.”
Claudius gagged over the last lone oyster in his stew.
“How about me?” she asked, with the expression of a Boadecia about to endure the lictor's rods. “Do I count for nothing in your selfish scheme of life?”
Claudius buried his tormented face in the napkin.
“Of course you do,” he burbled. “I've decided to marry you to my prospective brother-in-l” He choked and could not go on.
The child dancer must have had some sense, because she sent for me.
There was no use in trying to do anything at all with Claudius. Nor did I feel that I could count on as much assistance as might have been expected from the inexperience of Clarissa. My active helper was Cholly.
“He mos' clazy,” said this intelligent ex-citizen of Hang Kow, referring to his master. “He likee li'l' gel whole heap, all samee she likee him. Why mally Mis' Bate? I no know. She no good. Bes' mally pletty gel. Have good time. Mis' Bate', she damn' ol'. Pletty soon no good.”
There seemed to be a great deal of truth in Cholly's commentary. Of course, many of us love the old things—but not to marry them. I determined, after talking to Cholly, to make Claudius marry a new thing if possible, and the way I went about it was this:
“Claudius, now that you've got through talking about how much you've compromised Mrs. Bates I beg your pardon. Thought you had made up your mind”
“What do you mean, Bill?” he asked.
“Well, to save time,' I answered, “what about Clarissa?”
“Well,” said he, “what about Clarissa?”
“You have compromised her,” I answered, and was going on to explain when Claudius struck me viciously.
“Bill,” said he, “if you repeat that word, I shall slay you and bury your carcass in the tide!” He leaned forward and looked at me appealingly. “Do you really think I have?” he asked.
“There's no question of that,” I answered, in a stern voice.
“But I love her and wish to marry her.”
There was no good in that cheap stuff, so presently I went away.