"Don't imagine I make a practice of tooling tandems down to my club,"
said Sullivan. "I don't. I brought the thing along to-day because I've
sold it complete to Lottie Cass. You know her, of course?"
"I don't."
"Well, anyhow," he went on after this check, "I've sold her the entire
bag of tricks. What do you think I'm going to buy?"
"What?"
"A motor-car, old man!"
In those days the person who bought a motor-car was deemed a fearless
adventurer of romantic tendencies. And Sullivan so deemed himself. The
very word "motor-car" then had a strange and thrilling romantic sound
with it.
"The deuce you are!" I exclaimed.
"I am," said he, happy in having impressed me. He took my arm as though
we had been intimate for a thousand years, and led me fearlessly past
the swelling menials within the gate to the club smoking-room, and put
me into a grandfather's chair of pale heliotrope plush in front of an
onyx table, and put himself into another grandfather's chair of
heliotrope plush. And in the cushioned quietude of the smoking-room,
where light-shod acolytes served gin-and-angostura as if serving
gin-and-angostura had been a religious rite, Sullivan went through an
extraordinary process of unchaining himself. His form seemed to be
crossed and re-crossed with chains--gold chains. At the end of one gold
chain was a gold cigarette-case, from which he produced gold-tipped
cigarettes. At the end of another was a gold matchbox. At the end of
another, which he may or may not have drawn out by mistake, were all
sorts of things--knives, keys, mirrors, and pencils. A singular
ceremony! But I was now in the world of gold.
And then smoke ascended from the gold-tipped cigarettes as incense from
censers, and Sullivan lifted his tinted glass of gin-and-angostura, and
I, perceiving that such actions were expected of one in a theatrical
club, responsively lifted mine, and the glasses collided, and Sullivan
said: "Here's to the end of the great family quarrel."
"I'm with you," said I.
And we sipped.
My father had quarrelled with his mother in an epoch when even musical
comedies were unknown, and the quarrel had spread, as family quarrels
do, like a fire or the measles. The punching of my head by Sullivan in
the extinct past had been one of its earliest consequences.
"May the earth lie lightly on them!" said Sullivan.
He was referring to the originators of the altercation. The tone in
which he uttered this wish pleased me--it was so gentle. It hinted
that there was more in Sullivan than met the eye, though a great deal
met the eye. I liked him. He awed me, and he also seemed to me
somewhat ridiculous in his excessive pomp. But I liked him.
The next instant we were talking about Sullivan Smith. How he
contrived to switch the conversation suddenly into that channel I
cannot imagine. Some people have a gift of conjuring with
conversations. They are almost always frankly and openly interested in
themselves, as Sullivan was interested in himself. You may seek to
foil them; you may even violently wrench the conversation into other
directions. But every effort will be useless. They will beat you. You
had much better lean back in your chair and enjoy their legerdemain.