HE ramshackle little train of three cars was joggling slowly on as only a Southern railroad train can joggle, its whole frame shaking and jarring and rattling in an agony of exertion, utterly out of proportion to the progress it was making. It put me in mind, somehow, of the way a very aged negro saws wood when he sees charitable gentlefolk coming along the road.
In the seat beside me Mr. John McMarsters fidgeted—fidgeted for New York, for the New York papers, for news of the races, for somebody to talk horse with, for a game of cards, or pool, or billiards, or anything that could be called a game. These were the things that made life sweet to Handsome Jack, and these things being denied him for the time being, he fidgeted. He tugged at his great fair mustaches, shifted about his seat, twisted and untwisted his long legs; his face twitched and grimaced, and from time to time he swore under his breath in a futile and scattering way.
Then his light-blue boyish eyes began to wander over the car in a blank, searching stare, and I knew he was looking for "a real live sport." Yes, I knew he would gladly have exchanged my society for that of the humblest jockey from a Kentucky stable, and that our twenty years of friendship would count as naught in the balance. Yet I did not repine. It is the way of the world. I turned to my book and took a walk with Mr. John Evelyn to see King Charles go by.
Suddenly I felt Jack grasp my arm.
"Say!" he said, "look there! What kind of a boss parson do you call that?"
He pointed to a magnificent old man in the dress of the church, who sat facing us at the other end of the car.
"How's that?" said Jack, who had been graduated of the Bowery and dropped by Columbia College. "Get on to the physique! Why, that man has no business to be a dominie. He was built to fight. Say! he must have been right in his good time when Heenan and Morrissey were on deck. He must have been a beautiful man. How do you suppose they ever got him to take a religious job?"
"John," said I, laying down my book, "I know that your life is practically circumscribed by the race-track, and that you are a bigoted and intolerant sport. But will you tell me how an old New Yorker like you, and an old Ninth-Warder, can get to your age without knowing Bishop Waldegrave, by sight at least."
"Well," said Jack, flushing a little, "I suppose he keeps off my beat; and I don't worry his very much. But I'll tell you one thing, my friend. I don't know much about bishops, but I do know something about men, and I pick this man out of this car—see? And I'm going to make his acquaintance."
"What do you mean?" I cried, aghast.
"Mean?" repeated Jack. "I mean I'm going to introduce myself to him. He looks as if he'd like to have a little talk with a white man. Who's that fellow with him—that sour little prune?
"That's his nephew, Frederick Dillington," said I.
"Is it?" said Jack. "Well, I bet he's just waiting for the old man's wealth. I'll bet it on his face. Say! what wages does a bishop get? He's got big money, hasn't he? Thought so. Look at that English valet in the seat behind him. That's the correctest thing I ever saw, and the correct thing comes high. Too correct for me. I'm glad my man isn't like that. I wouldn't come home to that man at three o'clock in the morning for five hundred dollars. Why, it would be just an act of holy charity to go over and brighten that bishop up a bit. Come along!"
I talked my best to Jack. I tried my best to make him understand who and what Bishop Waldegrave was, or rather had been. I told him that the Bishop had been in his time the greatest man in his Church, and that he was famous the world over for his scholarship, his philanthropy, his vast abilities, and his splendid oratory, and his power over the hearts and minds of men. I told him that he had long ago retired from active life, and that it was more than suspected that his great mind was failing with his advancing years. I tried to explain to the honest soul that our company might not be acceptable to such a man. Then I made a hopeless blunder.
"Why, Jack," I said, "think of his age! That man may have baptized your father, and perhaps mine, for all I know."
"That does it," said Jack, rising promptly. "It's a long shot, but I take the chances. I'm going to ask him." And he sped down the aisle.