CHAPTER IV

When Master Peter Bateman ran away after seeing his friend into the theatre and past the dragon he did not run far.

That curious, gigantic flower, with petals of fluttering palm leaves and pistil and stamens of pyramidal gas-jets, was still a-bloom in the darkness, and a friendly hail from beneath it arrested his steps.

"Hy're, Pete," sang out half a dozen boyish voices.

"Hev a smoke?" and a soggy stump of a cigar was extended with a grimy paw and a wide grin of invitation. This grin surrounded another stump of a cigar, which was all aglow and precariously held between the squirrel-teeth of a youngster of twelve.

"Sim Gray hes been round inquirin' after ye, Pete," added the boy. "He tole us if we seen ye ter tell ye ter wait fur him 'ere. He'll be 'long d'rec'ly."

This message obliterated for the moment Pete's recollection of his errand to the station.

"What's Sim Gray a-wantin' of me, I wonder?" he said, a trifle dubiously. For Pete, slippery and sly as he was, had often been a target for the practical jokes of a clique of bigger boys, of which Sim Gray was a prominent member. The simplicity incident to Pete's comparatively tender years was an odd contrast to the duplicity of his moral nature; and the tricky ignoramus, overreached and bamboozled, was a more amusing spectacle to these more knowing fellows than any honest "greeny" could furnish. But beyond making a fool of him they had done him no harm hitherto, and Pete was rather proud of being in request by a person of Sim Gray's inches and importance.

Pete sat down on the curbstone to wait, took the stump of cigar which had been gleaned from the dirty sidewalk, lighted it at the grinning monkey's beside him, and summoning all the strength of stomach for which boys are noted, tried hard to smoke it.

Sim Gray was one of those weak and wicked young fellows with a pocket full of money and a taste for low company, who are forever the prey of other young fellows not so weak, and yet more wicked. His father was very respectable, socially and financially, and more than once he had been obliged to strain this double respectability to the utmost to keep the name of this hopeful scion out of the police reports and the scion himself out of jail. The boy had reformed time and again. He had been sent away from home and kept under the strictest surveillance. Now, however, as he had been permitted to return, he was secretly associating with his former intimates, who sponged upon him and fleeced him as of yore, and stood ready to throw the blame upon him at the first approach of trouble. To him they seemed only lively, good-natured young fellows who knew the "ropes" and were "seeing life." The police understood them more accurately as young scamps, who had been often suspected of small crimes which generally could not be proved upon them; nevertheless more than one of the party had seen the inside of a jail. This fact reinforced Pete's hesitation to join them when Sim Gray and his friends came along, which they presently did.

Sim Gray was a spindling specimen of seventeen, with light, lank hair, big bloodshot light eyes, and a fawn-colored suit,--the coat much soiled with leaning against dirty bars.

He gave Pete a wink and a grimace as he passed, but he said nothing. It was one of the others who called out, "Come on, Pete,--we'll give ye a beer; Sim's goin' ter set 'em up."

Pete was still dubious, but flattered. He rose, flung away the cigar stump, and took account with his shaken stomach to ascertain if it could stand a beer at Sim Gray's expense.

They proceeded down several side streets to a low saloon. There were gaudy immoral pictures on the walls; the floor was filthy with "tobacco juice;" the glasses were sadly smeared when Sim Gray undertook to "set 'em up." Pete was most cordially entreated. He had not one beer only, but several. Sim Gray, aided and abetted by the others, hospitably insisted that Pete should "smile" again and yet once more. Pete grew immensely important and pleased. It never occurred to him that they were systematically fuddling him, so that they might enjoy the spectacle of his degradation. When his silly antics proclaimed him fairly on his first "drunk" a howl of delight went up from the young hoodlums; the older besotted habitués of the saloon chuckled over their glasses; even the saturnine bar-tender was in high glee, and offered another beer at the expense of the institution.

The hubbub at last attracted the attention of a policeman in the vicinity. It was well, perhaps, that it was he on this beat, for this man was a teetotaler and a member of a temperance society. The sound of "drunk and disorderly" was to him like the trumpet to the war-horse, and "running them in" he accounted the chief of his duties and his dearest pleasure. He appeared suddenly in the doorway with a countenance as stern and fixed as if it were carved in stone.

"Wh-wh-why--I wuz jes' goin' ter the station ter see you!" exclaimed Pete, springing up at the sight of the glitter of the buttons on the blue uniform, and with an abrupt realization of the purpose with which he had quitted the theatre.

A wild yell of coarse laughter from the crowd greeted Pete's announcement.

"You can't go none too soon," said the policeman, collaring Pete.

Then he looked about him severely. "I'd love to lock you all up," he exclaimed fervently.

Nobody laughed now. He was known to construe the law very strictly.

"When you teach a boy to drink you teach him to lie, to thieve, and worse, for here"--he struck the bar with his clenched fist--"is the place where a man puts the rope around his own neck."

So he went out and left silence behind him. Pete's drunken mood shifted to gravity as he was propelled along the street by the policeman's strong hand on his collar. Being now in trouble himself, he became all the more anxious to report Ned. He told his story, incoherently enough, however, hampered by the wanderings of his fevered brain, the tricks of his thickened tongue, and much interrupted by the sarcastic and incredulous comments of the policeman.

"He--he--he is a-stealin'! He--he's a-a-a-a-stealin' star's di'monds--right now--outer dressin'-room"--expounded Pete eagerly.

"Mighty likely," exclaimed the policeman in irony.

"Gorham's Theaytre,--got in by back window," spluttered Pete.

"I believe you!" The policeman gave a gruff laugh.

Pete soon ceased to care that his captor seemed to regard this but as a drunken vagary. Before they reached the lock-up he was growing very ill. He was barely conscious of being thrust into a tiny darkened room where there was a narrow bunk. He fell upon it, and there he lay sleeping the sleep of the very drunk until late the next day.

He woke with a splitting headache. For a time he was conscious of nothing but this fact. It was suddenly aggravated by a harsh, grating noise. The key was turning reluctantly in the lock. He frowned sullenly and looked over his shoulder. The policeman who had arrested him was standing in the doorway.

Then Pete realized where he was and recollected all that had happened. He had never imagined that he could be so disgraced. Everybody whom he knew would find it out, for his name would be printed in the police reports in the daily papers,--in Ned's paper too. Ned himself would read it. He remembered the threats he had made against Ned,--that he would give information against Ned to the police, forsooth,--that he would compass Ned's arrest! These threats were not fulfilled as he had promised himself. It would be but natural that Ned should gloat over his coarse, foolish degradation. Because he could not remain sober till he reached the station he must spend the night in the lock-up while Ned was enjoying the play. "An' the gump would never have drempt o' gittin' in the theaytre if it hadn't a-been fur me," he thought.

His mortification and self-reproach gave way at once to a surly jealousy and malignity, for it is more characteristic of such a boy as Pete Bateman, when forced by circumstances to recognize his faults, to seek to blame and injure others and find parallel misdeeds in their conduct, rather than to repent and amend.

"A cheatin' scamp,--I wisht I had Ned 'ere now," he thought virulently.

These feelings were in his heart when the policeman spoke.

"Boy," he said gravely, "now that ye're sorter sober I want ye ter tell that story again that ye told las' night about that burned theatre."

Pete started up in his bunk,--his headache forgotten. He had not before thought of this chance. Although Ned could not be caught in the active perpetration of the misdeed, he could still be accused of having climbed into the window of the theatre with nefarious designs.

"Maybe I'll make it lively fur him yet," Pete reflected with satisfaction.

Then he drawled with an affectation of indifference, "I never said nothin' 'bout no _burned_ theaytre sence I wuz born."

As he thus corrected the policeman his broad face was ornamented with an expression of importance and extreme rectitude. His narrow eyes were downcast as if in reflection, and his manner intimated that he was willing, but did not seek to impart information. He noticed, however, that a man in citizen's dress, a thin, genteel, unobtrusive person, had entered too, and closed the door, but he did not see that upon the mention of the burned theatre this man slyly touched with the toe of his boot the broad, burly foot of the tall policeman, as an admonition not to put that clumsy member into Pete's explanation.

"Well,--what _did_ you say, then?" the policeman asked.

"I said that a boy had clomb inter the back winder o' Gorham's Theaytre. An' I begged an' plead with him ter come out, 'cause I knowed he wuz goin' ter steal outer the star's dressin'-room."

"What was he going to steal?" demanded the man in citizen's dress.

Pete hesitated. He was not quite sure as to what kind of portable property was most likely to be found in the orbit of "stars."

"Di'monds wuz what he had set his head fur," he replied at last, quite recklessly.

He wanted to disgrace Ned by preferring a criminal charge against him. He did not suppose that it could be sustained, for he did not imagine that the star had lost anything. But it gave the minor fraud of surreptitiously entering at the back window a heinous aspect, which would insure to Ned some unpleasant experiences as a sequel for the pleasure which Pete's suggestion had given to him, and which Pete could not share. He was acute enough to realize that if he merely reported Ned's adventure and success in seeing the play without paying his way, the management could scarcely be expected to take the trouble necessary to punish this offense, already a matter of the past. That window sash would be securely closed hereafter, and a stricter watch maintained. He noticed with satisfaction, therefore, that at the mention of the word "diamonds" the big policeman opened his eyes very wide, and cast a significant glance at the man in citizen's dress, as who should say, "I told you so."

The other man seemed to refuse to respond to the policeman's openly expressed excitement.

"Did the boy have any accomplices?" he asked coolly. "Was he helping anybody,--or was anybody helping him?"

"Not as I knows on," replied Pete.

There was so deep a disappointment in the policeman's honest face that Pete was moved to detail the story all over again, not perceiving wherein was the lack so evidently regretted.

"Whether he actially stole anything or not I dunno," he remarked virtuously in conclusion; "I fairly wrastled in prayer with him ter git him ter come down outer that window."

"And how are we to know that you did not go in with him and help steal?" suddenly asked the man dressed in black.

Pete looked up with a galvanic start. He fairly gasped. Then his breath and logic returned together.

"Because," he cried with a voice singularly like the voice of innocence, "I guv the alarm ter the police straight off. I wuz locked up 'ere an' fas' asleep 'fore ten o'clock."

"Fur a fac'." The policeman nodded regretfully. "I never believed a word that he said, the kid was that drunk. Ye never seen a kid so drunk."

Somehow Pete began to feel a trifle proud of his achievement.

"Oh, I'm a gay bird when I git started," he said with a callow chirp that was meant for a laugh; but his voice was as weak as his stomach.

The man in citizen's dress was visibly impressed. He no longer strove to pretend indifference. He and the policeman consulted earnestly, but in a very low and guarded tone for a few moments. Then they both went out, locking the door, and leaving Pete lying on the bed and holding his splitting head in both his hands. His pride was no panacea for these pangs.

The policeman came back presently, hurried and peremptory. Pete was hustled up. Very dubious and slow was Pete. His reluctance was noticed by his captor.

"Shake it up, boy," he exclaimed impatiently. "Ye ain't goin' in fur a drunk an' disorderly _now_. Ye're jus' goin' before a magistrate for a private examination 'bout them di'monds an' that burned theatre."

"Is the theaytre burned?" faltered Pete, astounded. "Burned?--fur a fac'?"

"Ter the ground. But stir yer stumps, boy. I can't wait here all day."

It never occurred to Pete until he was in the presence of the magistrate and in the act of swearing to the statement which he had already made to the policeman that the affairs of this great world are not regulated after the haphazard fashion of boys and their puerile feuds and follies. Pete had involved himself in the tremendous machinery of the law, and in its inexorable course what might not befall such an atom! He dared not vary a word, for there beside him stood the policeman and the man in citizen's dress, whom he now understood to be a detective. They were both listening attentively. Any change, any faltering, might implicate him in he knew not what crimes perpetrated at the theatre last night, with which he was sure, too, Ned had naught to do.

Pete roused his memory to repeat the story exactly as he had told it at first. He had never before exerted so great a strain on his faculties. He tried to gauge the impression it produced, and he observed the gravity with which the subject was treated. This filled him with the wildest apprehensions. He had heretofore thought that Ned might be arrested and might have to appear in the police court, which would mortify him within an inch of his life, but he had anticipated nothing more serious. Now he understood that there was an investigation on foot, instituted by the manager-owner of the theatre, the manager and actors of the traveling company, the merchants who had had stocks of goods in the adjoining stores, and others who had sustained losses by the fire, all of whom would unite in the prosecution of the criminals when captured. There was no prophesying what might happen,--what Ned when arrested would say and perhaps swear to against him.

Pete was a moral quicksand. There was nothing stable in his character. Even his duplicity could not be counted on. Although quaking in the very clutches of the law, he was revolving in his mind such double-dealing as should protect him against the problematic lies which Ned might tell, when he in his turn should be arrested. For none is so quick to suspect others of falsehood as a liar. Pete made his scheme, and watched events, and waited.

The warrant for Ned's arrest was already issued. Pete thought the men were talking in a strangely unguarded manner, considering his presence. They had forgotten him, he concluded sagely. His sly eyes glittered through their narrow slits as he reflected how he could take advantage of their imprudence. Ned was not to be arrested immediately, he understood. The detective was to "shadow" him in the hope of seeing him communicate with some of the gang of thieves and incendiaries who had robbed and burned the theatre, for they naturally concluded that he was only an accomplice of others, as a boy alone could hardly have plotted and executed a crime of such magnitude.

"Shadder him as ye may, ye'll never arrest him. I'll tip him the wink ter skedaddle outer town," Pete thought triumphantly.

For he was ready to undo all he had done, since his malignity was likely to rebound upon himself. He did not doubt his ability to recall the irrevocable. Pete perhaps likened himself to that "man in our town--

Who was so wondrous wise, He jumped into a brier-bush And scratched out both his eyes. And when he found his eyes were out, With all his might and main He jumped into another bush, And _scratched them in_ again."

Now the law of the land is not that kind of a bush. Pete, metaphorically speaking, was still stone blind.

He had a vague realization of this fact when the policeman said agreeably, "Come, youngster, we've got to go back. Ye'll get some breakfast then--if ye're able ter eat it."

Pete was amazed and half frightened. Then he straightened himself up like a man.

"I've got a right ter my trial _now_,--like other drunk an' disorderlies," he protested. "I wanter go home."

"Cheese it!" the policeman succinctly admonished him. "Ye're ter be held fur a witness against they arrest that other boy."

"But they ain't got no right ter lock _me_ up--an' me jes' a witness," blustered Pete.

The policeman laughed lazily, languidly turning his quid of tobacco between his teeth. "A boy is never such a fool as when he undertakes ter know everything! I've seen a magistrate commit a slippery witness ter _jail_ in default o' bond fur safe-keeping against a trial. But it's just the lock-up ye're goin' ter,--you ain't had _your_ trial yet,--an' 't ain't fur long. Come on. Stir yer stumps."

So all the rest of that day Pete lay upon his narrow bunk, bemoaning his luck that he had ever seen Ned, groaning because of his aching head and flimsy stomach, wondering what had really happened at the theatre, what part Ned could have borne in it, what Ned would say when confronted with his false and perjured friend, and how the familiar building looked lying low and in ruins.

Dreary enough, to be sure,--with the charred heaps of timber and bricks, the smouldering embers and ashes, and the smoke still curling up into the May sunshine. The east wall, although tottering and with great blackened gaps, still stood. Against one of the frescoed panels and close to the ruins of a proscenium box was a gilded mask of Folly in alto-rilievo. The decorator had substituted for the more usual delineations of comedy and tragedy a jester's head and bauble and, on the opposite side of the proscenium, as the antithesis of frivolity, the type of heroism, a knight's helmet with closed visor and the point of a lance. This mask had fallen with the west wall, but the smirched face of Folly, surmounted by the smoke-grimed cap and bells, still leered fantastically down upon the ruins. It was not without sarcastic suggestions. Where so much of worth had perished Folly yet remained. It was a prominent object and attracted much attention. As Ned, who was out on an errand, paused among a knot of idlers and shading his eyes with his hand looked up, its grimace seemed to him less jocose than sinister. He thought of all that he and it had witnessed last night. This was a secret between them. He resolved that he would be as dumb as the dumb image. Neither had made a sign as yet--save--all at once a grotesque fancy crossed him! In the flicker of the sunshine and the shimmering undulations of the smoke the face looked at him--and winked!

He knew that this was only a fancy, but it frightened him. Was he going to be ill? he asked himself. Was he losing his self-control, his hold on his sharp wits? He turned away hastily. He felt that he could not maintain his self-possession in the presence of the crowd if Folly should again mysteriously, fraternally, sign to him.

He turned away so very hastily that he ran against a man--a thin, genteel, unobtrusive person--in citizen's dress, who was standing just behind him. As Ned made a rough boyish gesture of apology he lifted his pale agitated face. The man's keen gray eyes scanned it closely.