Page:Scribner's Monthly, Volume 12 (May–October 1876).djvu/207

Rh me to-morrow, sealed as before, I believe,sir, as a gentleman and a man of honor I violate no pledge."

"I see," said Mr. Dumphy, with a short laugh. "Excuse me, if I venture to require another condition, merely as a form among men of honor. Write as I dictate."

Mr. Dumphy took up a pen. Col. Starbottle placed one hand in his honorable breast and began slowly and meditatively to pace the length of the room with the air of a second measuring the distance for his principal. "Are you ready?" "Go on," said Dumphy, impatiently. "I hereby pledge myself—er—er—that in the event of any disclosure by me—er—of confidential communications from Col. Starbottle to me, I shall hold myself ready to afford him the usual honorable satisfaction—er—common among gentlemen, at such times or places and with such weapons as he may choose, without further formality of challenge, and that—er—er—failing in that I do thereby proclaim myself, without posting, a liar, poltroon and dastard." In the full preoccupation of his dignified composition, and possibly from an inability to look down over the increased exaggeration of his swelling breast, Col. Starbottle did not observe the contemptuous smile which curled the lip of his amanuensis. Howbeit, Mr. Dumphy signed the document and handed it to him. Colonel Starbottle put it in his pocket. Nevertheless, he lingered by Mr. Dumphy's side.

"The er—er—check," said the Colonel with a slight cough, "had better be to your order, indorsed by you, to spare any criticism, hereafter."

Mr. Dumphy hesitated a moment. He would have preferred as a matter of business to have first known the contents of the envelope, but with a slight smile he dashed off the check and handed it to the Colonel.

"If er—it would not be too much trouble," said the Colonel jauntily, "for the same reason just mentioned would you give that er—piece of paper to one of your clerks to draw the money for me?"

Mr. Dumphy impatiently, with his eyes on the envelope, rang his bell and handed the check to the clerk, while Colonel Starbottle, with an air of abstraction, walked discreetly to the window.

For the rest of Colonel Starbottle's life he never ceased to deplore this last act of caution, and to regret that he had not put the check in his pocket. For as he walked to the window the floor suddenly appeared to rise beneath his feet and as suddenly sink again, and he was thrown violently against the mantel-piece. He felt sick and giddy. With a terrible apprehension of apoplexy in his whirling brain, he turned toward his companion, who had risen from his seat and was supporting himself by his swinging desk with a panic-stricken face and a pallor equal to his own. In another moment a bookcase toppled with a crash to the floor, a loud outcry arose from the outer offices, and amidst the sounds of rushing feet, the breaking of glass, and the creaking of timber, the two men dashed with a common instinct to the door. It opened two inches and remained fixed. With the howl of a caged wild beast, Dumphy threw himself against the rattling glass of the window that opened on the level of the street. In another instant Colonel Starbottle was beside him on the side-walk, and the next they were separated, unconsciously, uncaringly, as if they had been the merest strangers in contact in a crowd. The business that had brought them together, the unfinished, incomplete, absorbing interests of a moment ago were forgotten were buried in the oblivion of another existence, which had no sympathy with this, whose only instinct was to fly where, they knew not!

The middle of the broad street was filled with a crowd of breathless, pallid, death-stricken men, who had lost all sense but the common instinct of animals. There were hysterical men, who laughed loudly without a cause, and talked incessantly of what they knew not. There were dumb, paralyzed men, who stood helplessly and hopelessly beneath cornices and chimneys that toppled over and crushed them. There were automatic men, who, flying, carried with them the work on which they were engaged one whose hands were full of bills and papers, another who held his ledger under his arm. There were men who had forgotten the ordinary instincts of decency some half dressed, one who had flown from a neighboring bath-room with only the towel in his hand that afterward hid his nakedness. There were men who rushed from the fear of death into his presence; two were picked up, one who had jumped through a skylight, another who had blindly leaped from a fourth-story window. There were brave men who trembled like children; there was one whose life had been spent in scenes of daring and danger, who cowered