CHAPTER IX

FLIGHT

The weeks passed swiftly. Days of pleasant labor behind Hesper's soda fountain, nights of practise with The Playboys. Rudy knew it to be the most profitable summer of his life, and he devoted himself to study with an increasing zeal.

He had been correct in assuming that his father would ask for no part of his small wages, and carefully saved, these now resulted in the arrival of a package for which he had hoped and of which he had dreamed since the night of his visit to The Magic Lantern. One afternoon the local expressman delivered to his home a long box bearing the conspicuous label _Ted Grant Saxophone Company, New York_.

Rudy ate no dinner that evening. His full hour off duty he devoted to a careful and most prayerful unpacking and inspection of the shining instrument. It was a beautiful saxophone, glittering with a virginal freshness, and he gazed upon it as upon a miracle.

The customers of Hesper's fountain received rather haphazard service when eventually he returned to duty. At occasional moments Rudy would run to the back of the shop and feast his eyes upon the lovely lines of the new sax, then hurry back to fill an impatient order. A real Ted Grant saxophone--his!

It sent him to the night's practise session on winged feet. He ran up the steps of Sport's home and entered the house with the air of one who has a stunning message to deliver. But the other members of the orchestra did not appear to share his excitement over the new possession. In fact, Al Monroe merely remarked that he was later than usual.

"I'd see that you were docked, if we were being paid salaries," he added.

"Yeah," said Sam, "_if_ we were being paid salaries!"

"But look, gang!" Rudy exclaimed. "It's a beautiful new De Luxe, Silver Plated, Super Toned, Ted Grant Saxophone. Listen to these low notes."

As he played a few notes, Swiftie Clarke commented: "Giving himself the bird."

"Good enough, Rudy," Al admitted. "But what's interesting us just now is bank notes. And those don't seen to be exactly plentiful around here. And when Sport shows up we're going to tell him so."

"Sure," said Sam. "What's the use of blowing our lungs out, and never get any jobs?"

"Leave it to Sport," Rudy assured him. "He'll get us a job. Why, we've only been going in a decent manner for about a week."

"Well, that's a week, ain't it? What's the sense of going over stuff that you're already good at?"

Any answer to his question was forestalled by the appearance of Sport himself. He looked unusually jaunty, and seated himself at the piano after a greeting in which laughter mingled with self-assurance. "Sorry to be late, boys. But you know how it is with us executives. Now let's run through 'Lovable and Sweet.'"

When the number had run its more or less tuneful way, Sport sat back from his keyboard, frowning. "That was terrible! Say, Sam, keep your mind on your work, will you?"

"Aw, what's the matter now?" Sam demanded truculently.

"Nothing much," Sport informed him. "Except that the entire band is out of tune, except you."

Sam scowled. "Yeah? What you always picking on me for, Sport? Especially when you know that I can outplay anyone in the band."

"That's just the trouble, you not only can--but you do. Come on, now," he added, rapping on the keys, "let's see if we can all start and finish together, just once."

"Aw, what's the use?" Swiftie Clarke demanded. "There's no use getting too good."

"There's not much danger of that with you guys," Sport said shortly.

Al Monroe looked at the huge and indolent clarinetist. "Say, that guy'd make Sitting Bull look like a man of action."

Swiftie protested sleepily: "Aw, I can play it in my sleep."

"Come on," Sport said impatiently, "let's go."

"Go where," Al asked. "Doesn't look to me like we're going any place. Here we've been practising like a lot of galley slaves--and all we've got is the chance to hear our own music. For a manager you seem to be a washout, Sport."

Sport looked at them coolly. "So you bozos are dissatisfied with me, is that it? Think I have been falling down getting us jobs?"

"Don't worry about that, Sport," Rudy interposed. "Rome wasn't built in a day, you know."

"Aw nuts, Rudy!" Sam exclaimed. "Can that patience noise. What we want is a job--and soon!"

Sport hesitated. "Well, I guess I might as well tell you," he said, as if speaking to himself. "We've got a chance to fill an engagement at the new Laconia Hotel in New Hampshire." As a cheer started to break from their suddenly delighted faces, he held up his hand, frowning.

"Wait a minute. Maybe you won't be so tickled when you've heard the details. It's only a fill-in engagement until their regular orchestra gets loose from a contract in New York. Two or three weeks at most--and not at much money. If you fellows with jobs can't get vacations, you'll have to quit them; and it's a pretty long way up there, and back. Now what do you say?"

But to the orchestra members, fretting over the wait for work, the name of the hotel was a talisman of good fortune. "It's a start," cried Bud Dwight, and the words of the usually silent trombone player were immediately taken up by the others.

"Sure it is," Swiftie cried. "We'll go up there and knock them cold, and somebody'll give us a permanent job. Maybe they'll tell that New York bunch to go hop in the river, after they hear us!"

"But the salary naturally starts up there," Sport said. "How about transportation?"

"I've got a car," Rudy said quickly. "And so has Harry Ables. We'll just--vagabond over."

"Swell!" Sam McMahon cried. "That's what we'll call ourselves, too. If they think it's funny we arrive in flivvers we can say that's simply part of our atmosphere--The Vagabonds!"

And so it was settled.

In the morning Sport wired the manager of the New Hampshire hotel that The Vagabonds would be pleased to accept the short-term engagement offered them; and by evening most of the members had shorn themselves of what they now considered wholly superfluous jobs. One or two of the more cautious ones, like Bud Dwight, asked for leaves of absence. But the majority were so certain of an impending success that they cut loose in a frank and abrupt manner which left several employers in a state poised between bewilderment and rage.

Such, strangely enough, was the attitude taken by old Hesper when Rudy informed him of his approaching trip. Prompted by much the same feeling as the others regarding a certain success, he had nevertheless no wish to offend the proprietor of the drug store. But to his request for a vacation, the old man answered testily.

"You only been working a few weeks," he stormed, "and here you are wanting to lay off already. No, sir! If you go you don't come back--and that's final!"

"All right," Rudy said. "Then you better be getting some one for my place."

Hesper looked at him in dismay. "Do you really mean it?" he gasped. "Are you going to give up a good job here just to go galivanting around with that--that----"

"Vagabond Orchestra," Rudy prompted him.

"Vagabond is right! And that's just what you'll end up--vagabonds! Tramps! Well, when you do, you needn't come to me for any sympathy. A good steady fellow like you," he added in a more kindly tone, "hasn't any right going around with a rapscallion like that Sport O'Malley. I hate to see him leading you, Rudy."

Rudy smiled. "I hate to see him leading me, too, Mr. Hesper--though probably in a different way than you. I hate to see anyone leading an orchestra that I'm in--except Rudy Bronson!"

"Get out!" said his erstwhile employer. "Get out and stay out!"

Walking thoughtfully in the direction of his home, Rudy mused: "Well, that settles that." Although he had some disagreement with old Hesper as to the "goodness" of the job he had quitted, it had been, after all, a job. Now he was just a vagabond musician.

"Nothing venture, nothing gain," he said aloud. "Why, at one time even Ted Grant himself was no better off than I am!"

Cheering as he found the thought, however, when two days later he trundled his little car out of the garage and parked it in the street until he had said good-by to his mother, some misgivings troubled him. If the Hotel Laconia job was a failure, it would be awful to come back and be forced to accept the jeers of townspeople minded like old Hesper!

For the most part, the citizenry of Waterville took pride in the venture. The Clarion had run a story captioned _Local Boys Make Good_, which had brought no little satisfaction to all concerned. But there was also the ever-present group of scoffers, and these would welcome the chance to exercise their alleged wit.

"Good-by, son," said Mrs. Bronson, "and good luck."

"Thanks, Mother," Rudy answered. "And tell Dad 'so long' for me again." He smiled. "Maybe I'll be back pretty quick, you can't tell."

"If you do," Mrs. Bronson said, "you'll always find your home here waiting for you."

Rudy went down the walk to his flivver with something close to tears in his eyes. With such sustaining love and faith it was up to him to do anything but fail--and fail he would not. He couldn't, now.

At Sport's home, he found the rest of the organization gathered. Their silence told him that they must suddenly have found this leave-taking as serious as had he. Looking at the two over-loaded cars, Rudy realized that they truthfully had been named The Vagabonds.

Sport quickly stowed luggage and passengers in the yawning tonneau, and climbed in beside Rudy.

"Fame, next stop," he grinned, "let's go."

Rudy meshed the gears, and they swept down the narrow, tree-shaded street to the brighter light of the broad highway. As they rode Sport continually re-read a much thumbed letter. Rudy suspected that it was from Molly Bland, but he did not inquire. He merely hoped that some day he would be receiving such notes from Jean Whitehall.

His ruminations were checked by Sport's voice.

"Did you see that piece in the paper about the Whitehalls?"

Rudy's heart leaped. "No, what?"

"They're going to spend the summer in New England," Sport answered calmly. "Maybe they'll show up at the Laconia. I understand most society people do, sooner or later. And if so, you'll have a chance to feast thine eyes upon the girl friend!"

Sport grabbed at the wheel, as under the influence of the news on the driver, the old car headed for the ditch at the roadside.

"Of course that's just a guess on my part," Sport said with telling sarcasm. "Don't kill yourself until you know it's a fact!"

Rudy did not attempt to answer with words. But his foot went down on the accelerator until it touched the floorboards.