The Man Without a Memory, Arthur W. Marchmont [best business books of all time .txt] 📗

to use; how to carry my market basket; a regular rehearsal of everything, and we're to have another this evening. Look at my hands;" and she held them out.

"I saw your nails when you put the tray on the table."

"Yes, but look how she's managed to make them coarse. We scrubbed them all over with bath brick and then rubbed in the dirt. They're smarting, as if they were chapped. And look at my hair, plastered right down on my head. Did you ever see such a fright as I am? And then this bunchy business on my hips;" and she laughed as she looked at herself in the glass.

"That all?"

"Not a bit of it. There was a regular lecture on the proper behaviour of working men's wives; sort of fetch and carry dogs with the tails always between their legs and never a wag except when the master condescends to give them a nod or so."

"Going to do it all?"

She was fingering her hair and started, glancing sharply at me in the glass. "Sisters don't, by any means. But I know that tone of yours. You mean something. What is it?"

"Mrs. Fischer told me she had been giving you some hints."

She paused and then turned and faced me, putting her hands behind her back with her head thrown well back—a pose I knew well. "I think I know what you mean and I'm not going to do it, Jack."

"Do what?"

"Innocent! But it's no use, Jack, I won't."

"Very well."

"You don't mean that a bit. I know. You mean just the opposite. It's about my getting over the frontier alone. Isn't that it?"

"She said something to me about it."

"Of course. She tried all she knew to persuade me and now she's been at you, of course. I'm ready to listen to you; but I warn you it won't make a pennorth of difference."

"Very well."

"Oh, don't 'very well' me in that tone. You don't expect me to desert you when you've done all this and got into this mess solely for me, do you?" she cried vehemently.

"We won't worry over it now; but there's just one point you might keep in mind. It may turn out to be necessary for my safety. What then?"

Her face clouded at that. "How could that be?" she asked.

"We can answer that better later on," I said with a shrug. "But if it should be?"

"Did Mrs. Fischer say anything about that to you?"

I nodded. "Said it might be easy enough for you to get over, but very risky for us both to try it together. Suggested that if you held out I had better get a berth at Ellendorf; but there's the question of my leave. It's nearly up, and either you or I must be able to wire explanations from Holland within the next day or two."

"I never thought of that. What would happen?"

"Possibly nothing; but it doesn't help a man to play the absentee. They've a nasty term for that in the army."

"You always mean such a lot when you speak in that casual tone of yours," she exclaimed. "Of course, if my stopping meant any sort of trouble to you, it would be different. Nothing else would make me go. And if you're only saying it to force me you're—well, it's cowardly and you ought to be ashamed to do it."

"Well, think it over, and we'll see how the cat jumps. I promise you this, faithfully, I won't ask you to do it if it isn't necessary."

She paused and then came and laid a hand on my shoulder. "You won't ask me to go unless it's necessary for your sake, will you, Jack? It would be awful for me to feel that you were left here in danger. I know you're thinking all about me and not about yourself, and—oh, Jack, I don't believe I could bear it."

"We won't worry any more about it till the time comes. I think it's splendid of you to want to stick it, but it's better to tell you;" and we let the matter drop.

But Nessa did worry about it exceedingly for the rest of the day. She spoke very little and appeared to have lost interest in things; and just before she was going to bed she came with a suggestion that we should make at least one attempt to cross the frontier together. I yielded very reluctantly, as it meant the hash of a great part of our plans. But she was so downcast, so troubled, and pleaded with such wistful earnestness, that I hadn't the heart to refuse.

Mrs. Fischer declared it was rank madness; that if we tried it, we mustn't go near her brother-in-law; and that we had better go straight to Ellendorf.

Nessa was in much better spirits early the next morning when we bade good-bye to our new friend.

"How are we to repay you for all this?" I asked.

"It isn't money you mean, is it?" she asked, almost indignantly, although she was so affected at parting from us that the tears were in her kind motherly eyes.

"No money could repay all your kindness and help."

"Then don't offer it to me. Sure, it's enough that we're all of the same blood, and all I'll want is to know that you get home safe and sound. I'd like to know that," she said wistfully. "Sure my heart's still over there. There, be off with you, or I'll be making a fool of myself."

"I'll write to you, Mrs. Fischer," said Nessa, kissing her.

"Not on your life, child. It's in gaol I'd be in no time, the divils that they all are!" she exclaimed, relapsing into English.

"We'll manage to let you know," I promised, shaking her hand warmly; and we were turning to leave the room when Nessa had a most happy thought.

"We'll send you a sprig of shamrock, dear."

The thought of it broke the dear soul up entirely. "Oh, the blessed darlin'!" she cried, seizing Nessa and kissing her again. "What my ould eyes would give for a sight of it!" and she burst into a passion of sobs. "Go now, go, the pair of ye, or I'll——" Sobs choked her utterance and she leant her head on the table, motioning us to go.

Nessa touched my arm and we stole out, both of us deeply moved by the emotion which Nessa's offer had stirred in the heart of the lonely Irish exile.

CHAPTER XXVI THE HUE AND CRY!

On the walk to Massen we concocted our story. I was to be Hans Bulich and Nessa my sister; we were alone in the world except for an aunt in Holland; Nessa had recently lost her lover on the Russian front, and her supposed grief at this was to account for her gloomy silence; I was likely to be called up, and as this would leave her without friends or money, she was anxious to get to the aunt in Holland.

They were parts easy to play, thanks to our warm-hearted Irish friend; we looked the characters quite well enough to pass muster. The absence of any luggage, my overalls and tools and a big German china pipe, and Nessa's market basket and knitting were shrewd little touches of realism which carried us through the preliminary difficulties without any trouble.

There were several people in the carriage with us, one of whom, an old man who sat next me, was going as far as Lingen. The men were soon talking and the one subject was the food supply, which was evidently becoming a serious matter. I didn't pay much attention until a question was asked about the frontier smuggling. The matter interested them all keenly, and I threw in a remark now and then to draw the rest.

The old fellow next me seemed to know a good deal about it, and when we three were left alone in the carriage he let drop a remark which showed he had noticed my interest in the subject, and then asked if I'd been at the front yet.

"They think I'm more use at my trade," I replied, making play with the spanner in my hand.

"Engineer's mechanic, may be?"

I nodded. "Motors and aeroplanes and so on."

"Going to Lingen, aren't you?"

"Yes. How far's Ellendorf from there?"

"A matter of a league or two. I hear they're making these new aeroplanes there. Got a job there?"

"Shan't know till I get to Lingen; have another little matter to see to first, anyway."

"A good few people have little matters to see to there, these days," he replied drily, with a suggestive glance out of the corner of his eye. "I live there, and you can take it from me that if you're any good at your job, there's plenty of work waiting for you."

"Government work?"

"If they weren't all blind, yes;" and he launched into a description of the extreme difficulty of getting repairs done. "Can't get so much as a screw driven in without one of their infernal permits. I've been to Osnabrück about it now trying to get a man. Might as well have asked for the moon!" he said disgustedly, and went on grumbling about it, at intervals, for the rest of the journey.

When we reached Lingen he said he'd like to have a chat with me and suggested we should go to his shop. "Won't do you any harm to be seen with me, either; I'm well known; and what with escaped prisoners and our skulkers trying to jump the frontier, the police are pretty curious about strangers of your age and build especially."

He was well known, as he had said. Several people nodded to him on the platform, and one man came after him. "Good-day, Father Fischer, can I have a word with you?" and they stopped to talk together.

"Hear that, Nessa?" I asked excitedly. "By Jove, we're in luck if it's our man!" and when he rejoined us I asked him if he was Adolf Fischer.

"I am. Every one in Lingen knows Adolf Fischer."

"Have you a brother out Massen way?"

"I had, but he drank himself to death five years or so back, poor fool. Why do you ask?"

"I've a letter for you;" and I gave it him.

He read it and pocketed it with a chuckle of pleasure. "Couldn't be better. Friends of Martha's are friends of mine. Come along."

We had not left the station before we had a proof of our good luck. We were in front of him as we went out and the police sergeant at the door stopped us and was beginning to question me, when he intervened.

"It's all right, Braun. They're friends of mine. A stroke of luck, too," he said with a wink, which suggested there was a mutually satisfactory understanding between them.

We were allowed to pass at once, and he stayed talking to the sergeant for a couple of minutes. "Lucky you gave me that letter when you did," he said when he caught us up. "They've been ordered to keep a special look-out for a couple such as you. But they won't worry you while you're with me."

Ominous news in view of what had occurred just before the train smash outside Osnabrück, and it made me more anxious than ever to get Nessa safely over the frontier.

"You'll bide with me, of course," he said when we reached his house, a flourishing grocer's store in the main street of the little town. "I don't have any one in the house nights. We'll have a bite of food and then talk things over."

He was silent and thoughtful during the meal, and the trend of his thoughts was shown in a question he put.

"There's nothing black against you, is there?"

"Nothing to make me afraid to face any man in the Empire," I replied positively. It was the truth, if not quite as I meant him to understand it.

"I only asked, because I have to be very careful," he said; and nothing more passed until we were smoking, while Nessa had resumed the knitting which she had kept up