CHAPTER XXXIV
It was in the Orpheum Theatre, of Oakland, California; and Harley
Kennan was in the act of reaching under his seat for his hat, when
his wife said:
"Why, this isn't the interval. There's one more turn yet."
"A dog turn," he answered, and thereby explained; for it was his
practice to leave a theatre during the period of the performance
of an animal-act.
Villa Kennan glanced hastily at the programme.
"Of course," she said, then added: "But it's a singing dog. A
dog Caruso. And it points out that there is no one on the stage
with the dog. Let us stay for once, and see how he compares with
Jerry."
"Some poor brute tormented into howling," Harley grumbled.
"But it has the stage to itself," Villa urged. "Besides, if it is
painful, then we can go out. I'll go out with you. But I just
would like to see how much better Jerry sings than does he. And
it says an Irish terrier, too."
So Harley Kennan remained. The two burnt-cork comedians finished
their turn and their three encores, and the curtain behind them
went up on a full set of an empty stage. A rough-coated Irish
terrier entered at a sedate walk, sedately walked forward to the
centre, nearly to the footlights, and faced the leader of the
orchestra. As the programme had stated, he had the stage to
himself
The orchestra played the opening strains of "Sweet Bye and Bye."
The dog yawned and sat down. But the orchestra was thoroughly
instructed to play the opening strains over and over, until the
dog responded, and then to follow on with him. By the third time,
the dog opened his mouth and began. It was not a mere howling.
For that matter, it was too mellow to be classified as a howl at
all. Nor was it merely rhythmic. The notes the dog sang were of
the air, and they were correct.
But Villa Kennan scarcely heard.
"He has Jerry beaten a mile," Harley muttered to her.
"Listen," she replied, in tense whispers. "Did you ever see that
dog before?"
Harley shook his head.
"You have seen him before," she insisted. "Look at that crinkled
ear. Think! Think back! Remember!"
Still her husband shook his head.
"Remember the Solomons," she pressed. "Remember the Ariel.
Remember when we came back from Malaita, where we picked Jerry up,
to Tulagi, that he had a brother there, a nigger-chaser on a
schooner."
"And his name was Michael--go on."
"And he had that self-same crinkled ear," she hurried. "And he
was rough-coated. And he was full brother to Jerry. And their
father and mother were Terrence and Biddy of Meringe. And Jerry
is our Sing Song Silly. And this dog sings. And he has a
crinkled ear. And his name is Michael."
"Impossible," said Harley.
"It is when the impossible comes true that life proves worth
while," she retorted. "And this is one of those worth-whiles of
impossibles. I know it."
Still the man of him said impossible, and still the woman of her
insisted that this was an impossible come true. By this time the
dog on the stage was singing "God Save the King."
"That shows I am right," Villa contended. "No American, in
America, would teach a dog 'God Save the King.' An Englishman
originally owned that dog and taught it. The Solomons are
British."
"That's a far cry," he smiled. "But what gets me is that ear. I
remember it now. I remember the day when we were on the beach at
Tulagi with Jerry, and when his brother came ashore from the
Eugenie in a whaleboat. And his brother had that self-same,
loppy, crinkled ear."
"And more," Villa argued. "How many singing dogs have we ever
known! Only one--Jerry. Evidently such a type occurs rarely.
The same family would more likely produce similar types than
different families. The family of Terrence and Biddy produced
Jerry. And this is Michael."
"He WAS rough-coated, along with a crinkly ear," Harley meditated
back. "I see him distinctly as he stood up in the bow of the
whaleboat and as he ran along the beach side by side with Jerry."
"If Jerry should to-morrow run side by side with him you would be
convinced?" she queried.
"It was their trick, and the trick of Terrence and Biddy before
them," he agreed. "But it's a far cry from the Solomons to the
United States."
"Jerry is such a far cry," she replied. "And if Jerry won from
the Solomons to California, then is there anything more remarkable
in Michael so winning?--Oh, listen!"
For the dog on the stage, now responding to its one encore, was
singing "Home, Sweet Home." This finished, Jacob Henderson, to
tumultuous applause., came on the stage from the wings and joined
the dog in bowing. Villa and Harley sat in silence for a moment.
Then Villa said, apropos of nothing:
"I have been sitting here and feeling very grateful for one
particular thing."
He waited.
"It is that we are so abominably wealthy," she concluded.
"Which means that you want the dog, must have him, and are going
to got him, just because I can afford to do it for you," he
teased.
"Because you can't afford not to," she answered. "You must know
he is Jerry's brother. At least, you must have a sneaking
suspicion . . . ?"
"I have," he nodded. "The thing that can't sometimes does, and
there is a chance that this may be one of those times. Of course,
it isn't Michael; but, on the other hand, what's to prevent it
from being Michael? Let us go behind and find out."
"More agents of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
Animals," was Jacob Henderson's thought, as the man and woman,
accompanied by the manager of the theatre, were shown into his
tiny dressing-room. Michael, on a chair and half asleep, took no
notice of them. While Harley talked with Henderson, Villa
investigated Michael; and Michael scarcely opened his eyes ere he
closed them again. Too sour on the human world, and too glum in
his own soured nature, he was anything save his old courtly self
to chance humans who broke in upon him to pat his head, and say
silly things, and go their way never to be seen by him again.
Villa Kennan, with a pang of disappointment at such rebuff,
forwent her overtures for the moment, and listened to what tale
Jacob Henderson could tell of his dog. Harry Del Mar, a trained-
animal man, had picked the dog up somewhere on the Pacific Coast,
most probably in San Francisco, she learned; but, having taken the
dog east with him, Harry Del Mar had died by accident in New York
before telling anybody anything about the animal. That was all,
except that Henderson had paid two thousand dollars to one Harris
Collins, and had found the investment the finest he had ever made.
Villa turned back to the dog.
"Michael," she called, caressingly, almost in a whisper.
And Michael's eyes partly opened, the base-muscles of his ears
stiffened, and his body quivered.
"Michael," she repeated.
This time raising his head, the eyes open and the ears stiffly
erect, Michael looked at her. Not since on the beach at Tulagi
had he heard that name uttered. Across the years and the seas the
word came to him out of the past. Its effect was electrical, for
on the instant all the connotations of "Michael" flooded his
consciousness. He saw again Captain Kellar, of the Eugenie, who
had last called him it, and MISTER Haggin, and Derby, and Bob of
Meringe Plantation, and Biddy and Terrence, and, not least among
these shades of the vanished past, his brother Jerry.
But was it the vanished past? The name which had ceased for
years, had come back. It had entered the room along with this man
and woman. All this he did not reason; but indubitably, as if he
had so reasoned, he acted upon it.
He jumped from the chair and ran to the woman. He smelled her
hand, and smelled her as she patted him. Then, as he recognized
her, he went wild. He sprang away, dashing around and around the
room, sniffing under the washstand and smelling out the corners.
As in a frenzy he was back to the woman, whimpering eagerly as she
strove to pet him. The next moment, stiff in a frenzy, he was
away again, scurrying about the room and still whimpering.
Jacob Henderson looked on with mild disapproval.
"He never cuts up that way," he said. "He is a very quiet dog.
Maybe it is a fit he is going to have, though he never has fits."
No one understood, not even Villa Kennan. But Michael understood.
He was looking for that vanished world which had rushed back upon
him at sound of his old-time name. If this name could come to him
out of the Nothingness, as this woman had whom once he had seen
treading the beach at Tulagi, then could all other things of
Tulagi and the Nothingness come to him. As she was there, before
him in the living flesh, uttering his name, so might Captain
Kellar, and MISTER Haggin, and Jerry be there, somewhere in the
very room or just outside the door.
He ran to the door, whimpering as he scratched at it.
"Maybe he thinks there is something outside," said Jacob
Henderson, opening the door for him.
And Michael did so think. As a matter of course, through that
open door, he was prepared to have the South-Pacific Ocean flow
in, bearing on its bosom schooners and ships, islands and reefs,
and all men and animals and things he once had known and still
remembered.
But no past flowed in through the door. Outside was the usual
present. He came back dejectedly to the woman, who still called
him Michael as she petted him. She, at any rate, was real. Next
he carefully smelled and identified the man with the beach of
Tulagi and the deck of the Ariel, and again his excitement began
to mount.
"Oh, Harley, I know it is he!" Villa cried. "Can't you test him?
Can't you prove him?"
"But how?" Harley pondered. "He seems to recognize his name. It
excites him. And though he never knew us very well, he seems to
remember us and to be excited by us, too. If only he could talk .
. . "
"Oh, talk! Talk!" Villa pleaded with Michael, catching both sides
of his head and jaws in her hands and swaying him back and forth.
"Be careful, madam," Jacob Henderson warned. "He is a very sour
dog; and he don't let people take such liberties."
"He does me," she laughed, half-hysterically. "Because he knows
me. . . . Harley!" She broke off as the great idea dawned on her.
"I have a test. Listen! Remember, Jerry was a nigger-chaser
before we got him. And Michael was a nigger-chaser. You talk in
beche-de-mer. Appear angry with some black boy, and see how it
will affect him."
"I'll have to remember hard to resurrect any beche-de-mer," Harley
said, nodding approval of the suggestion.
"At the same time I'll distract him," she rushed on.
Sitting down and bending forward to Michael so that his head was
buried in her arms and breast, she began swaying him and crooning
to him as was her wont with Jerry. Nor did he resent the liberty
she took, and, like Jerry, he yielded to her crooning and softly
began to croon with her. She signalled Harley with her eyes.
"My word!" he began in tones of wrath. "What name you fella boy
stop 'm along this fella place? You make 'm me cross along you
any amount!"
And at the words Michael bristled, dragged himself clear of the
woman's detaining hands, and, with a snarl, whirled about to get a
look at the black boy who must have just then entered the room and
aroused the white god's ire. But there was no black boy. He
looked on, still bristling, to the door. Harley transferred his
own gaze to the door, and Michael knew, beyond all doubt, that
outside the door was standing a Solomons nigger.
"Hey! Michael!" Harley shouted. "Chase 'm that black fella boy
overside!"
With a roaring snarl, Michael flung himself at the door. Such was
the fury and weight of his onslaught that the latch flew loose and
the door swung open. The emptiness of the space which he had
expected to see occupied, was appalling, and he shrank down, sick
and dizzy with the baffling apparitional past that thus vexed his
consciousness.
"And now," said Harley to Jacob Henderson, "we will talk business
. . . "
