



Produced by Suzanne Shell, Walt Farrell and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)








  THE BANDBOX




  BY LOUIS JOSEPH VANCE

    The Bandbox
    Cynthia-of-the-Minute
    No Man's Land
    The Fortune Hunter
    The Pool of Flame
    The Bronze Bell
    The Black Bag
    The Brass Bowl
    The Private War
    Terence O'Rourke


[Illustration: "Now, sir!" she exclaimed, turning

                      FRONTISPIECE. _See Page 83_]




 The Bandbox

 BY LOUIS JOSEPH VANCE

 Author of "The Brass Bowl," "The Bronze Bell,"
 "Cynthia-of-the-Minute," etc.


 With Four Illustrations
 By ARTHUR I. KELLER


 A. L. BURT COMPANY
 Publishers      New York


 _Copyright, 1911, 1912,_
 By Louis Joseph Vance.

 _All rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign
 languages, including the Scandinavian_

 Published, April, 1912
 Reprinted, April, 1912 (three times)


 TO
 LEWIS BUDDY III




 CONTENTS


 CHAPTER                               PAGE

    I INTRODUCING MR. IFF                 1

   II THE BANDBOX                        14

  III TWINS                              26

   IV QUEENSTOWN                         43

    V ISMAY?                             65

   VI IFF?                               87

  VII STOLE AWAY!                       109

 VIII THE WRONG BOX                     128

   IX A LIKELY STORY                    158

    X DEAD O' NIGHT                     177

   XI THE COLD GREY DAWN                194

  XII WON'T YOU WALK INTO MY PARLOUR?   216

 XIII WRECK ISLAND                      233

  XIV THE STRONG-BOX                    254

   XV THE ENEMY'S HAND                  275

  XVI NINETY MINUTES                    295

 XVII HOLOCAUST                         312




THE BANDBOX

I

INTRODUCING MR. IFF


At half-past two of a sunny, sultry afternoon late in the month of
August, Mr. Benjamin Staff sat at table in the dining-room of the
Authors' Club, moodily munching a morsel of cheese and a segment of
cast-iron biscuit and wondering what he must do to be saved from the
death-in-life of sheer ennui.

A long, lank gentleman, surprisingly thin, of a slightly saturnine cast:
he was not only unhappy, he looked it. He was alone and he was lonely;
he was an American and a man of sentiment (though he didn't look _that_)
and he wanted to go home; to sum up, he found himself in love and in
London at one and the same time, and felt precisely as ill at ease in
the one as in the other of these, to him, exotic circumstances.

Inconceivable as it may seem that any rational man should yearn for New
York in August, that and nothing less was what Staff wanted with all his
heart. He wanted to go home and swelter and be swindled by taxicab
drivers and snubbed by imported head-waiters; he wanted to patronise the
subway at peril of asphyxiation and to walk down Fifth Avenue at that
witching hour when electric globes begin to dot the dusk of
evening--pale moons of a world of steel and stone; he wanted to ride in
elevators instead of lifts, in trolley-cars instead of trams; he wanted
to go to a ball-game at the Polo Grounds, to dine dressed as he pleased,
to insult his intelligence with a roof-garden show if he felt so
disposed, and to see for himself just how much of Town had been torn
down in the two months of his exile and what they were going to put up
in its place. He wanted, in short, his own people; more specifically he
wanted just one of them, meaning to marry her if she'd have him.

Now to be homesick and lovesick all at once is a tremendously disturbing
state of affairs. So influenced, the strongest men are prone to folly.
Staff, for instance, had excellent reason to doubt the advisability of
leaving London just then, with an unfinished play on his hands; but he
was really no more than a mere, normal human being, and he did want very
badly to go home. If it was a sharp struggle, it was a short one that
prefaced his decision.

Of a sudden he rose, called for his bill and paid it, called for his hat
and stick, got them, and resolutely--yet with a furtive air, as one who
would throw a dogging conscience off the scent--fled the premises of his
club, shaping a course through Whitehall and Charing Cross to Cockspur
Street, where, with the unerring instinct of a homing pigeon, he dodged
hastily into the booking-office of a steamship company.

Now Mystery is where one finds it, and Romantic Adventure is as a rule
to be come upon infesting the same identical premises. Mr. Staff was not
seeking mysteries and the last role in the world in which he could fancy
himself was that of Romantic Adventurer. But in retrospect he can see
quite clearly that it was there, in the humdrum and prosaic setting of a
steamship booking-office, that he first stumbled (all unwittingly) into
the toils of his Great Adventure.

When he entered, there was but one other person on the outer or public
side of the booking-counter; and he, sticking close in a far corner and
inaudibly conferring with a clerk, seemed so slight and unpretending a
body that Staff overlooked his existence altogether until circumstances
obliged him to recognise it.

The ignored person, on the other hand, showed an instant interest in the
appearance of Mr. Staff. You might have thought that he had been waiting
for the latter to come in--absurd as this might seem, in view of the
fact that Staff had made up his mind to book for home only within the
last quarter-hour. None the less, on sight of him this other patron of
the company, who had seemed till then to be of two minds as to what he
wanted, straightened up and bent a freshened interest on the cabin-plot
which the clerk had spread out upon the counter for his advisement. And
a moment after Staff had audibly stated his wishes, the other prodded a
certain spot of the chart with a thin and fragile forefinger.

"I'll take this one," he said quietly.

"Upper'r lower?" enquired his clerk.

"Lower."

"Then-Q," said the clerk....

Meanwhile Staff had caught the eye of an impregnable young Englishman
behind the counter; and, the latter coming forward, he opened
negotiations with a succinct statement:

"I want to book on the Autocratic, sailing tomorrow from Liverpool, if
I'm not mistaken."

"Quite so," said his clerk, not without condescension. "For yourself,
may I awsk?"

"For myself alone."

"Then-Q." The clerk fetched a cabin-plot.

"I'm afraid, sir," he said, removing a pencil from behind his ear the
better to make his meaning clear, "there's not much choice. It's quite
late to book, you know; and this is the rush season for westbound
traffic; everything's just about full up."

"I understand; but still you can make room for me somewhere, I hope."

"Oh, yes. Quite so, indeed. It's only a question of what you'd like. Now
we have a _cabine de luxe_--"

"Not for me," said Staff firmly.

"Then-Q.... The only other accommodation I can offer you is a two-berth
stateroom on the main-deck."

"An outside room?"

"Yes, sir. You can see for yourself. Here it is: berths 432 and 433.
You'll find it quite cosy, I'm sure."

Staff nodded, eyeing the cubicle indicated by the pencil-point.

"That'll do," said he. "I'll take it."

"Then-Q. Upper'r lower berth, sir?"

"Both," said Staff, trying not to look conscious--and succeeding.

"Both, sir?"--in tones of pained expostulation.

"Both!"--reiterated in a manner that challenged curiosity.

"Ah," said the clerk wearily, "but, you see, I thought I understood you
to say you were alone."

"I did; but I want privacy."

"I see. Then-Q."--as who should say: _Another mad Amayrican_.

With this the clerk took himself off to procure a blank ticket.

While he waited, Staff was entertained by snatches of a colloquy at the
far end of the counter, where the other patron was being catechised as
to his pedigree by the other booking-clerk. What he heard ran something
to the following effect:

"What did you say the name was, sir?"

"_The_ name?"

"If you please--"

"What name?"

"Your name, sir."

"I didn't say, did I?"

"No, sir."

"Ah! I thought not."

Pause; then the clerk, patiently: "Do you mind giving me your name, sir,
so that I may fill in your ticket?"

"I'd r'ally rather not; but seein' as it's you and you make a point of
it--Iff."

Pause.... "Beg pardon?"

"Iff."

"If what, sir?"

"I-double-F, Iff: a name, not a joke. I-F-F--William Howard Iff. W. H.
Iff, Whiff: joke."

"Ow-w?"

"But you needn't laugh."

With dignity: "I was not intending to laugh, sir."

Staff could hardly refrain from refreshing himself with a glance at the
individual so singularly labelled. Appraising him covertly, he saw a man
whose stature was quite as much shorter than the normal as his own was
longer, but hardly less thin. Indeed, Staff was in the habit of defining
his own style of architecture as Gothic, and with reasonable excuse; but
reviewing the physical geography of Mr. Iff, the word _emaciation_
bobbed to the surface of the literary mentality: Iff was really
astonishingly slight of build. Otherwise he was rather round-shouldered;
his head was small, bird-like, thinly thatched with hair of a faded tow
colour; his face was sensitively tinted with the faintest of flushes
beneath a skin of natural pallor, and wore an expression curiously naive
and yet shrewd--an effect manufactured by setting the eyes of a child,
round and dimly blue, in a mask of weathered maturity.

Now while Staff was receiving this impression, Mr. Iff looked sharply
round; their glances crossed. Primarily embarrassed to be caught rudely
staring, Staff was next and thoroughly shocked to detect a distinct if
momentary eclipse of one of Mr. Iff's pale blue eyes. Bluntly, openly,
deliberately, Mr. Iff winked at Mr. Staff, and then, having accomplished
his amazement and discomfiture, returned promptly, twinkling, to the
baiting of his clerk.

"Your age, sir?"

Mr. Iff enquired in simple surprise: "Do you really care to know?"

"It's required, sir, by the--"

"Oh, well--if I must! But, mind you, strictly as man to man: you may
write me down a freeborn American citizen, entitled to vote and more 'n
half white."

"_Beg_ pardon?"

"I say, I am an adult--"

"Oh!" The clerk wrote; then, bored, resumed: "Married or single,
please?"

"I'm a spinster--"

"O-w?"

"Honestly--neither married nor unmarried."

"Then-Q"--resignedly. "Your business--?"

But here Staff's clerk touched the exasperated catechist on the shoulder
and said something inaudible. The response, while equally inaudible,
seemed to convey a sense of profound personal shock. Staff was conscious
that Mr. Iff's clerk glanced reproachfully in his direction, as if to
suggest that he wouldn't have believed it of him.

Divining that he and Mr. Iff were bargaining for the same
accommodations, Staff endeavoured to assume an attitude of distinguished
obliviousness to the entire proceeding; and would have succeeded but for
the immediate and impatient action of Mr. Iff.

That latter, seizing the situation, glanced askance at dignified Mr.
Staff, then smiled a whimsical smile, cocked his small head to one side
and approached him with an open and ingenuous air.

"If it's only a question of which berth," said he, "I'm quite willing to
forfeit my option on the lower, Mr. Staff."

That gentleman started and stared.

"Oh, lord, man!" said Iff tolerantly--"as if your portrait hadn't been
published more times than you can remember!--as if all the world were
unaware of Benjamin Staff, novelist!"

There was subtle flattery in this; and flattery (we are told) will warm
the most austere of authors--which Staff was not. He said "Oh!" and
smiled his slow, wry smile; and Mr. Iff, remarking these symptoms of a
thaw with interest and encouragement, pressed his point.

"I don't mind an upper, really--only chose the lower because the choice
was mine, at the moment. If you prefer it--"

"The trouble is," Staff interrupted, "I want the whole room."

"Oh!... Friend with you?"

"No; but I had some notion of doing a little work on the way over."

"Writing? I see. But if that's all--!" Mr. Iff routed a negligible
quibble with an airy flirt of his delicate hand. "Trust me; you'll
hardly ever be reminded of my existence--I'm _that_ quiet. And besides,
I spend most of my time in the smoking-room. And I don't snore, and I'm
never seasick.... By the way," he added anxiously, "do or are you?"

"Never--"

"Then we'll get along famously. I'll cheerfully take the upper, and even
should I tumble out on top of you, you'd never know it: my weight is
nothing--hardly that. Now what d' you say? Is it a go?"

"But--I don't know you--"

"Business of making a noise like an Englishman!" commented Mr. Iff with
bitter scorn.

"--well enough to accept such a favour from you. I'll take second choice
myself--the upper, I mean."

"You won't; but we'll settle that on shipboard," said Mr. Iff promptly.
"As for knowing me--business of introducing myself. Mr. Staff, I want
you to shake hands with my friend, Mr. Iff. W. H. Iff, Whiff: sometimes
so-called: merry wheeze based on my typographical make-up; once a joke,
now so grey with age I generally pull it myself, thus saving new
acquaintances the mental strain. Practical philanthropy--what? Whim of
mine."

"Indeed?"

"Believe _me_. You've no notion how folks suffer in the first throes of
that giddy pun. And then when it falls flat--naturally _I_ can't laugh
like a fool at it any longer--_blooie!_" said Mr. Iff with
expression--"like that--_blooie!_--they _do_ feel so cheap. Wherefore I
maintain I do humanity a service when I beat it to that moth-eaten joke.
You follow me?"

Staff laughed.

"Then it's all settled. Good! We shan't be in one another's way. You'll
see."

"Unless you talk in your sleep, too."

Mr. Iff looked unspeakable reproach. "You'll soon get accustomed to me,"
he said, brightening--"won't mind my merry prattle any more 'n the song
of a giddy humming-bird."

He turned and saw their booking-clerks in patient waiting behind the
counter. "Ah, there you are, eh? Well, it's all settled...."

Thus was the thing accomplished.

And shortly thereafter these two paused in parting at the door.

"Going my way?" enquired Mr. Iff.

Staff named whatever destination he had in mind.

"Sorry. I go t'other way. Take care of yourself. See you tomorrow."

"Good-bye," said Staff, and took himself briskly off.

But Mr. Iff did not at once go in the opposite direction. In fact, he
moved no more than a door or two away, and then stopped, apparently
fascinated by an especially stupid shop-window show.

He had very quick eyes, had Mr. Iff, so alert and observant that they
had made him alive to a circumstance which had altogether escaped
Staff's notice--a trifling incident that took place just as they were on
the point of parting.

While still they were standing in the doorway, a motor-cab, plunging
down Haymarket, had swooped in a wide curve as if meaning to pull in at
the curb in front of the steamship company's office. The cab carried a
solitary passenger--a remarkably pretty young woman--and on its roof a
remarkably large and ornate bandbox.

It was, in fact, the bandbox which had first fixed the interest of Mr.
Iff. Only an introspective vision, indeed, such as that of the
imaginative and thoughtful Mr. Staff, could have overlooked the approach
of a bandbox so big and upstanding, so profusely beflowered and so
prominently displayed.

Now before the cab could stop, its fare, who had been bending forward
and peering out of the window as if anxious to recognise her
destination, started still farther forward, seized the speaking-tube and
spoke into its mouthpiece in a manner of sharp urgency. And promptly the
driver swerved out from the curb and swung his car away down Pall Mall.

If it was mere inquisitiveness that held Mr. Iff rooted to the spot,
gaping at that uninteresting window show, it served to discover him in
the guise of an admirably patient person. Fully fifteen minutes elapsed
before the return of the motor-cab was signalled unmistakably