Through stained glass Read online

  CHAPTER XV

  Four days later Lewis sat beside his bed, piled high with all theparaphernalia that go to make up a gentleman's wardrobe and toilet. Hewas very nervous--so nervous that he had passed an hour striding fromone side of the small bedroom to the other, making up his mind to try tocarry out his father's instructions, which were simply to go to his roomand dress. Lewis had never in his life put on a collar or knotted a tie.

  He answered a knock on the door with a cry of dismay. Leighton strodeinto the room.

  "Well, what's the matter?"

  Lewis looked ruefully from his father's face to the things on the bedand back again. He felt himself flushing painfully. He opened his mouthto speak and then closed it.

  Suddenly Leighton's face lit up. He laughed.

  "Well, well," he cried, "this is splendid! You've given me a newsensation." He yanked a bath-robe from the bed. "Here, you savage, shedthose leather togs, but don't lose them. You'll want to take them outand look at them some stuffy day. Now put this on and run to your bath."

  When Lewis came back to the room he found most of his things had beenpacked away in the big, new trunk. On the bed certain garments were laidout. They were laid out in correct order.

  Leighton stood beside the bed in a deferential attitude. His face was ablank. "Will you be wearing the white flannels to-night, sir, or thedinner-jacket? If you will allow me, I would suggest the flannels.Sultry evening, and Mr. Leighton will be dining on the terrace."

  "Yes, I'll wear the flannels," stammered Lewis.

  "Your singlet, sir," said Leighton, picking up the undershirt from thebed. Article after article he handed to his son in allotted order. Lewisput each thing on as fast as his nervous hands would let him. He triedto keep his eyes from wandering to the head of the line, where laycollar and tie. The collar had been buttoned to the back of the shirt,but when it came to fastening it in front, Lewis's fingers fumbledhopelessly.

  "Allow me, sir," said Leighton. He fastened the collar deftly. "I seeyou don't like that tie with the flannels, sir. My mistake."

  He threw open the trunk, and took out a brown cravat of soft silk. "Yourbrown scarf, sir. It goes well with the flannels. Will you watch in theglass, sir?" He placed the cravat, measured it carefully, knotted it,and drew it up.

  Lewis did not watch in the mirror. His eyes were fixed on his father'smask of a face. He knew that, inside, his father was bubbling with fun;but no ripple showed in his face, no disrespectful twinkle in his eye.Leighton was playing the game. Suddenly, for no reason that he couldname, Lewis began to adore his father.

  "Will that do, sir?"

  "Certainly," stammered Lewis. "Very nicely, thank you"

  "Thank _you_, sir," said Leighton. He handed Lewis the flannel trousersand then the coat.

  As Lewis finished putting them on, Leighton whirled on his heel.

  "Ready, my boy?" The mask was gone.

  Lewis laughed back into his father's twinkling eyes.

  "Yes, I'm ready," he said rather breathlessly. He followed his fatherout of the room. The new clothes gripped him in awkward places, but ashe glanced down at the well-pressed flannels, he felt glorified.

  That night, while strolling in a back street of the lower town, theydiscovered a tunnel running into the cliff. At its mouth was aturnstile.

  "Shades of Avernus! What's this?" asked Leighton.

  Lewis inquired of the gateman.

  "It's an elevator to the upper town," he said.

  They paid their fare and walked into the long tunnel. At its end theyfound a prehistoric elevator and a terrific stench. Leighton clapped hishandkerchief to his nose and dived into the waiting car. Lewis followedhim. An attendant started the car, and slowly they crept up and up, twohundred feet, to the crest of the cliff. As they emerged, Leighton letgo a mighty breath.

  "Holy mackerel!" he said, "and what was that? Ugh! it's here yet!"

  The attendant explained. At the bottom of the shaft was a pit into whichsank the great chains of the car. The pit was full of crude castor-oil,cheapest and best of lubricants.

  "My boy," said Leighton, as he led the way at a rapid stride toward thehotel, "never confuse the picturesque with the ugly. I can stand a bitof local color in the way of smells, but there's such a thing as goingtoo far, and that went it. We'll prepare at once to leave this town.Would you like to go north or south?"

  "I don't know, sir," said Lewis.

  "Well, we'll just climb on board that big double-funnel that came into-day and leave it to her. What do you say?"

  They went south. Four days later, in the early morning, Lewis waswakened by a bath-robe hurled at his head.

  "Put that on and come up on deck quick!" commanded his father.

  Lewis gasped when he reached the deck. They were just entering theharbor. On the left, so close that it seemed to threaten them, loomedthe Sugar-Loaf. On the right, the wash of the steamer creamed on therocks of Santa Cruz. Before them opened the mighty bay, dotted with ahundred islands, some crowned with foliage, others with gleaming, whitewalls, and one with an aspiring minaret. Between water and sky stretchedthe city. There was no horizon, for the jagged wall of the OrganMountains towered in a circle into the misty blue. Heaven and earth wereone.

  A white line of surf-foam ran along all the edge of the bay. LanguorousAphrodite of the cities of the world, Rio de Janeiro lay naked beyondthat line, and gloried. Like a dream of fair woman, her feet plunged infoam, her body reclining against the heights, her arms outstretched,green hills for her pillows, her diadem the shining mountain-peaks,queen of the cities of the earth by the gift of Almighty God, shegleamed beneath the kiss of dawn.

  Leighton drew a long, long breath.

  "It will take a lot of bad smells to blot the memory of _that_," hesaid.

  They came to the bad smells in about an hour and a quarter. An hourlater they left the custom-house. Then, each in a rocketing tilbury,driven by a yelling Jehu, they shot through the narrow and filthystreets of the Rio of that far day and drew up, still trembling withfright, at the doors of the Hotel dos Estrangeiros.

  "You got here, too!" cried Leighton as Lewis tumbled out of his cab. "Wehad both wheels on the ground at once three separate times. How aboutyou?"

  "I really don't know anything about what happened, sir," said Lewis,grinning. "I was holding on."

  "What were they yelling? Did you make anything out of that?" askedLeighton, when they had surveyed their rooms and were washing.

  "They were shouting at the people in the way," said Lewis. "My driveryelled only two things. When a colored person was in the way, it was,'Melt chocolate-drop!' and when he shouted at a white man, it was:'Clear the way to hell! a foreigner rides with me.'"

  "Boy," said Leighton, speaking through several folds of towel and theopen connecting-door, "if you ever find your brains running to seed, geta job as a cabman. There's something about a cab, the world over, thatbreeds wit."