Page:Scribner's Monthly, Volume 12 (May–October 1876).djvu/333

Rh part of a dialogue which took place between them at the Grand Conroy. Mrs. Markle (loftily, and regarding the ceiling with cold abstraction): "We can't gin ye here, Mister Conroy, the French style and attention ye're kinder habitooal to in yer own house on the Hill, bein' plain folks and mounting ways. But we know our place and don't reckon to promise the comforts of a home! Wot with lookin' arter forty reg'lar and twenty-five transient ef I don't happen to see ye much myself, Mr. Conroy, ye'll understand. Ef ye ring thet there bell one o' the help will be always on hand. Yer lookin' well, Mr. Conroy. And bizness, I reckon" (the reader will here observe a lady-like ignoring of Gabriel's special trouble), "ez about what it allers waz, though, judging from remarks of transients, it's dull!"

Gabriel (endeavoring to conceal a large satisfaction under the thin glossing of conventional sentiment): "Don't let me nor Olly put ye out a cent, Mrs. Markle—a change bein' ordered by Olly's physicians—and variety bein', so to speak, the spice o' life! And ye're lookin' well, Mrs. Markle; thet ez" (with a sudden alarm at the danger of compliment), "so to speak, ez peart and strong-handed ez ever! And how's thet little Manty o' yours gettin' on? Jist how it waz thet me and Olly didn't get to see ye before, ez mighty queer! Times and times agin" (with shameless mendacity) "hez me and thet child bin on the p'int o' coming, and suthin' hez jest chipped in and interfered!"

Mrs. Markle (with freezing politeness): "You do me proud! I jest dropped in ez a matter o' not bein' able allers to trust to help. Good-night, Mister Conroy. I hope I see you well! Ye kin jest" (retiring with matronly dignity), "ye kin jest touch onto that bell thar, if ye're wantin' anything, and help'll come to ye! Good-night!"

Olly (appearing a moment later at the door of Gabriel's room, truculent and suspicious): "Afore I'd stand thar—chirpin' with thet crockidill—and you in troubil, and not knowin' wot's gone o' July—I'd pizen myself!"

Gabriel (blushing to the roots of his hair, and conscience-stricken to his inmost soul): "It's jest passin' the time o' day, Olly, with old friends—kinder influencin' the public sentyment and the jury. Thet's all. It's the advice o' Lawyer Maxwell, ez ye didn't get to hear, I reckon, thet's all!"

But Gabriel's experience in the Grand Conroy Hotel was not, I fear, always as pleasant. A dark-faced, large-featured woman, manifestly in mourning, and as manifestly an avenging friend of the luckless deceased, in whose taking off Gabriel was supposed to be so largely instrumental, presently appeared at the Grand Conroy Hotel, waiting the action of the Grand Jury. She was accompanied by a dark-faced elderly gentleman, our old friend, Don Pedro—she being none other than the unstable-waisted Manuela of Pacific street—and was, I believe, in the opinion of One Horse Gulch, supposed to be charged with convincing and mysterious evidence against Gabriel Conroy. The sallow-faced pair had a way of meeting in the corridors of the hotel and conversing in mysterious whispers in a tongue foreign to One Horse Gulch, and to Olly, strongly suggestive of revenge and concealed stilettos that was darkly significant! Happily, how-ever, for Gabriel, he was presently relieved from their gloomy espionage by the interposition of a third party—Sal Clark! That individual, herself in the deepest mourning and representing the deceased in his holiest affections, it is scarcely necessary to say, at once resented the presence of the strangers! The two women glared at each other at the public table, and in a chance meeting in the corridor of fhe hotel.

"In the name of God, what have we here in this imbecile and forward creature, and why is this so, and after this fashion?" asked Manuela of Don Pedro.

"Of a verity, I know not!" replied Don Pedro; "it is most possibly a person visited of God!—a helpless being of no brains. Peradventure a person filled with aguardiente or the whisky of the Americans. Have a care, little one, thou smallest Manuela" (she weighed at least three hundred pounds), "that she does no harm!"

Meanwhile Miss Sarah Clark relieved herself to Mrs. Markle in quite as positive language:

"Ef that black mulattar and that dried up old furriner reckons they're going to monopolize public sentyment in this yer way they're mighty mistaken. Ef thar ever was a shameless piece et's thet old woman; and, goodness knows! the man's a poor critter enyway! Ef anybody's goin' to take the word of thet woman under oath, et's mor'n Sal Clark would do that's all! Who ez she, enyway? I never heard her name mentioned afore!"

And, ridiculous as it may seem to the unprejudiced reader, this positive