Much Ado About Peter

Peter had raised the rifle to his shoulder; he lowered it again to stare.

"What are ye givin' us?" he demanded. "Ye think ye can shoot better'n me?"

Vittorio shrugged. He had no desire to hurt Peter's feelings, but at the same time he saw no occasion to lie.

"Course I shoot-a more good dat," he responded genially. "I shoot-a long time. You no learn how like-a me."

"Here," said Peter, stretching the rifle toward the man, "let me see ye do it, then! Either put up or shut up. I'll show ye that it ain't so easy as it looks."

Vittorio sprang to his feet with an air of surprised delight.

"You let-a me shoot? Sank you! Sank you ver' moch." He took the rifle in his hand and caressed the barrel with a touch almost loving. His eyes were eager as a child's.

"Here, you, Tony," Peter warned, "don't get funny with that gun! Point it at the target."

Vittorio raised the rifle and squinted along the barrel; then, as an idea occurred to him, he lowered it again and faced the three men with his always sunny smile. He had a sporting proposition to make.

"You shoot-a more good me, my name Tony. I shoot-a more good you, my name Vittorio Emanuele, same-a de king. You call me Vittorio, I understand, I come; you call me Tony, I no understand, no come."

Peter, whatever his prejudices, was true to his ideals.

"It's a bargain, Tony. Ye beat me shootin' and I'll call ye any bloomin' thing ye please—providin' I can twist me tongue to it."

Vittorio's eyes sought Patrick's. He removed the pipe from his mouth and grunted.

"All-a right!" said Vittorio. "We shoot-a free time. First me, den you, den you, den me again, like dat."

Without more ado he threw the gun to his shoulder, and, scarcely seeming to sight, fired, and snapped out the empty cartridge. As the smoke cleared the three strained forward in open-mouthed astonishment. He had hit the target squarely in the centre.

"By gum! he's done it!" Peter gasped; then, after an astonished silence, "Nothin' but luck—he can't do it again. Gi' me the gun."

Peter's surprise had not steadied his nerves; his shot went far astray, and he silently passed the rifle to Patrick. Patrick laid down his pipe, planted his feet firmly, and made the inner ring. He passed the rifle on to Vittorio, and resumed his pipe. Patrick was a phlegmatic soul; it took a decided shock to rouse him to words.

"Let's see ye do it again," said Peter.

Vittorio raised the rifle and did it again. His manner was entirely composed; he scored bull's-eyes as a matter of course.

Peter's feelings by now were too complicated for words. He studied the nonchalant Vittorio a moment in baffled bewilderment, then stepped forward without remark to take his turn. He sighted long and carefully, and scored the outer ring. He offered the rifle to Patrick, who waved it away.

"I'm out."

"Don't back down," said Peter. "Ye've got two more tries. If ye let him beat us he'll be so darned cocky there won't be no livin' with him."

Patrick copied the Italian's shrug and passed the rifle on. Vittorio advanced for his third turn under the keenly suspicious scrutiny of six eyes. They could not divine how such shooting could be accomplished by trickery, but, still more, they could not divine how it could be accomplished without. Vittorio sighted more carefully this time, but he made his bull's-eye with unabated precision.

"Dat make-a free time," he observed, relinquishing the rifle with a regretful sigh.

"Guess I've had enough," said Peter. "You're Vittorio Emanuele, same-a de king, all right. We don't appear to trot in your class. How'd ye learn?"

"All Italian mans know how shoot—learn in de army. I shoot-a long time. Shoot-a Afric'."

"Africa!" said Peter. "You been in Africa?"

"Two time," Vittorio nodded.

"What'd ye shoot there—lions?"

"No, no lion." Vittorio raised his shoulders with a deprecatory air. "Just man."

"Oh!" said Peter. His tone was noticeably subdued.

Mr. Harry Jasper, also attracted by the shooting, came strolling along the beach to see how the match was going, but arrived too late to witness Vittorio's spectacular exhibit. Mr. Harry considered himself a pretty good shot; he had often beaten Peter, and Peter entertained a slightly malicious desire to see him worsted once at his own game.

"Oh, Mr. Harry!" he called carelessly. "We've been tryin' our hands at yer target, like ye said we might, an' this here new gardener-man come along an' wanted to have a try. He's a surprisin' good shot for an Eye-talian. Ye wouldn't believe it, but he beat Pat an' he beat me. Would you mind shootin' with him once? I'd like to show him what Americans can do."

Peter's tone was a touch over-careless. Mr. Harry glanced at him suspiciously, and from him to Vittorio, who was looking on with amiable aloofness, quite unaware that he was the subject of discussion. Mr. Harry had not been entirely blind to the trials of David's peaceable successor, and he was glad to see that the man was coming to the top.

"So he's beaten you? How does that happen, Peter? I thought you prided yourself on your shooting."

"I'm a little out o' practice," said Peter.

Mr. Harry ran his eye over Vittorio's well-set-up figure.

"Served in the army, Vittorio?"

"Si, signore, five year."

"What corps—Bersaglieri?"

"Si, si!" Vittorio's face was alight. "I b'long Bersaglieri. How you know?"

"Thank you for your interest, Peter," Mr. Harry laughed. "I don't believe I'll shoot with him to-day. I'm a little out of practice myself."

Peter's face was mystified.

"The Bersaglieri," Mr. Harry explained, "are the sharpshooters of the Italian army, and a well-trained lot they are. You and I, Peter, are amateurs; we don't enter matches against them when we know what we're about."

"He didn't tell me nothin' about bein' a sharpshooter," said Peter, sulkily. "He said he learned in Africa."

"Africa?" Mr. Harry echoed. "Did you go through the campaign in Abyssinia, Vittorio?"

The man nodded.

"Surely not at Adowa?"

A quick shadow crossed his face.

"Si, signore," he said, simply; "I fight at Adowa."

"Good heavens!" Mr. Harry cried. "The fellow's fought against Menelik and the dervishes." He faced the other three, his hand on Vittorio's shoulder.

"You don't know what that means? You never heard of Adowa? It means that this chap here has been through the fiercest battle ever fought on African soil. He was beaten—the odds against him were too heavy—but it was one of the bravest defeats in history. The Italians for three days had been marching across burning deserts in a hostile country, on half rations, and with almost no water. At the end of that time they accomplished a forced march of twenty miles by night, across hills and ravines so rough that the cannon had frequently to be carried by hand. Then, as they were, worn out and hungry, hopeless as to the outcome, they were asked to face an enemy six times larger than themselves—not a civilized enemy, mind you, but howling dervishes—and they did it without flinching. There's not a man who went through Adowa but came out a hero."

Vittorio had watched his face; here and there he had caught a word. He suddenly threw out his arms in a spasm of excitement, his eyes blazing at the memory of the fight.

"Dat's right! Menelik bad king—bad war. No like-a dose peoples—me. I shoot-a fast like dis." He snatched up the rifle and crouched behind a rock; in pantomime he killed a dozen of the foe in as many seconds. He threw the rifle away and sprang to his feet. "Not enough cartridges! No can shoot-a more. Den I get-a wound; lie like-a dis." He dropped his arms and drooped his head. "How you say? Tired? Yes, ver' tired like-a baby. Santissima Virgine! No can move, I bleed so moch. Sun ver' hot—no water—ver' t'irsty. Den come-a dose peoples. Dey cut-a me up."

He tore open his shirt. A broad scar extended from his shoulder across his breast. He lifted his hair and showed a scar behind his ear, another on his forehead.

"Si, signore, all over my body dey cut-a me up!"

Mr. Harry frowned.

"Yes, yes, I know. It was terrible! You put up a great fight, Vittorio—sorry you didn't do for 'em. You are brave chaps, you Italians. It's a great thing to have gone through Adowa, something to be proud of all your life. I am glad to know you were there." He glanced at Peter sharply, then nodded and turned away.

Peter studied Vittorio, a new look in his eyes. The man's momentary excitement had vanished; he was his old, placid, sunny self again.

"I guess we made a mistake," said Peter, and he held out his hand.

Vittorio obligingly shook it, since that seemed to be expected, but he did it with smiling uncomprehension. He had never known that he had been insulted, and he did not realize that amends were necessary. A pause followed while the three men gazed at Vittorio, and Vittorio gazed at the sun, slanting toward the western horizon.

"Six 'clock!" he exclaimed, coming to a sudden realization that duty called. "I go water flower." He shouldered his hoe and turned away, but paused to add, his eyes wistfully on the rifle: "You let-a me shoot some ovver day? Sank you. Goo'-bye."

Peter looked after him and shook his head.

"An' to think he's a Dago! I s'pose if ye could understand what they was jabberin' about, half the time, ye'd find they was talkin' as sensible as anybody else. 'Tis funny," he mused, "how much people is alike, no matter what country they comes from." He picked up the rifle and stuffed the cartridges into his pocket. "Get a move on ye, Billy. 'Tis time we was feedin' them horses."

VI

HELD FOR RANSOM

Peter, from being a care-free, irresponsible young groom, suddenly found himself beset with many and multiform anxieties. It commenced with Joe's falling through the trap-door in the ice-house and breaking his leg. While he was in the hospital impatiently recovering, Peter was put in command of the stables. The accident happened only a short time after the burning of the waggon-shed, and Peter was determined to retrieve his good name in Mr. Carter's sight. The axle grease episode remained a black spot in his career. The three Brainard boys were still at Willowbrook, but their visit was to come to an end in a week, and in the meantime they, too, were in a chastened mood. Peter marked out a diamond in the lower meadow, and with infinite relief saw them devote themselves to the innocent pursuit of base-ball. If their enthusiasm could only be made to last out the week, he felt that the waggon-shed would be cheap at the price.

But though the boys were providentially quiescent, Peter's private affairs were not moving so smoothly. He had another reason besides mere ambition for wishing to prove himself capable of taking command in that uncertain future when Joe should resign. Heretofore, the prospect of being coachman, absolute ruler of three grooms and two stableboys, had been sufficient goal in itself; but of late, visions of the coachman's cottage, vine-covered, with a gay little garden in front, and Annie sewing on the porch, had supplanted the old picture of himself haughtily ordering about his five underlings. He had not, however, ventured to suggest this dream to Annie. His usual daring impudence, which had endeared him to her predecessors, seemed to have deserted him, and he became tongue-tied in her presence. Peter had been possessed before by many errant fancies, but never by an obsession such as this. He went about his work blind to everything but the memory of her face. When he peered into the oat-bin it was Annie that he saw; she smiled back at him from the polished sides of the mail phaeton and the bottom of every bucket of water. She made him happy and miserable, exultant and fearful, all at once. Poor badgered Peter knew now what it felt like to be a brook-trout when a skilful angler is managing the reel.

This alternate hope and fear was sufficiently upsetting for one whose whole mind should have been upon his duties, but it was nothing to the state that followed. Their quarrel fell from a clear sky. He had taken her, one Sunday afternoon, to a popular amusement resort, a trolley ride's distance from Willowbrook, and had suggested refreshments in a place he remembered from the year before. It was called the "Heart of Asia," and represented, so the man with the megaphone announced, the harem of a native prince. The room was hung with vivid draperies of gold and crimson, and dimly lighted by coloured lanterns suspended from the ceiling. The refreshments were served by maidens billed as "Circassian Beauties," but whose speech betrayed a Celtic origin.

Peter picked out a secluded table and ordered striped ice-cream. He had thought the place particularly conducive to romance, but Annie was too excited over her first introduction to the glamour of the East to give attention to anything but her surroundings.

"Ain't she wonderful?" Annie whispered, as a Circassian Beauty, in green and gold, trailed across her field of vision.

Peter shrugged in blasé, man-of-the-world fashion.

"'Tis the paint an' powder an' clothes an' lights," he said sceptically. "Out in the daylight, with her own clothes on, she wouldn't look so different from you."

This was not a strictly politic rejoinder, but he meant it well, and for the moment Annie was too dazzled to be in a carping mood. The gorgeous creature drew near, and set their ice-cream upon the table. She was turning away, after a casual glance to make sure that they had spoons and ice-water and paper napkins, when her eyes lighted upon Peter. Her second glance was not so casual; it lingered for a moment on his face. Peter had never visited the place but once in his life, and that the summer before, when he had spent an inconsequential half hour in chaffing the girl who served him. The incident had completely faded from his mind; but the girl had a diabolical memory and a love of mischief.

"Hello, Peter Malone!" she laughed. "You haven't been around much lately. I guess you don't care for me any more."

Peter's face—for no reason on earth but that he felt Annie's questioning eyes upon him—took on a lively red. Annie transferred her gaze and studied the Circassian Beauty at close range. After some further reminiscences, audaciously expansive on her part, gruffly monosyllabic on Peter's, the girl withdrew with a farewell laugh over her shoulder; and Annie's eyes returned to Peter, an ominous sparkle in their depths.

"I've had all I want o' this place," she observed, pushing away her dish of ice-cream.

Peter followed her outside, aware of a chilly change in the atmosphere. He anxiously ventured on an explanation, but the more he explained, the more undue prominence the incident acquired.

"Ye needn't be apologizin'," said Annie, in an entirely friendly tone. "Ye've got a perfect right to go anywhere ye please, an' know anyone ye please. It's none o' my business."

She bade him good-night with an air of cheerful aloofness, thanking him politely for an "interestin' afternoon." Her manner suggested that there was nothing to quarrel about; she had been mistaken in her estimate of Peter, but that was not his fault; in the future she would be more clear-seeing. This wholly reasonable attitude failed to put Peter at his ease. He passed a wakeful night, divided between profanity when he thought of the Circassian Beauty, and anxiety when he thought of Annie.

In the morning the plot thickened.

A fourth youngster was spending a few days at Willowbrook—another Brainard, cousin to the three who were already there; but, providentially, he was only thirteen months old, and had not learned to walk. Peter accepted the arrival without concern, never dreaming that this young gentleman's presence could in any degree affect his own peace of mind. The baby, however, had lost his nurse, and while they were searching a new one Annie volunteered to act as substitute. The morning after her visit to the Heart of Asia saw her ensconced on a rustic bench under an apple tree on the lawn, the perambulator at her side. The tree was secluded from the house by a mass of shrubbery, but was plainly visible from the stables. It was also closely adjacent to the grounds of Jasper Place, and this morning, by a fortuitous circumstance, Vittorio was clipping the hedge.

It had never entered Peter's mind to regard Vittorio as a possible rival; but now it suddenly occurred to him that the man was good looking—not according to his own ideals, but in a theatrical, exotic fashion, sure to catch a woman's eye. It also occurred to him that Vittorio's conversation was diverting—again from a woman's point of view. There was something piquant in the spectacle of a broad-shouldered, full-grown man conversing in the baby accents of a child of three. Peter went about his work that day, bitterly aware of the by-play going on under the apple tree. Annie had undertaken the task of teaching Vittorio English, and the lessons were punctuated by the clear ring of her merry laugh.

In the evening the man was enticed to the back veranda, where he sat on the top step singing serenades to his own accompaniment on the mandolin, while the maids listened in rapt delight. Even Miss Ethel added her applause; overhearing the music, she haled Vittorio and his mandolin and Italian love songs to the front veranda to entertain her guests. Peter, who had never been invited to entertain Miss Ethel's guests, swallowed this latest triumph with what grace he might. The irony of the matter was that it had been Peter himself who had first rescued Vittorio from social obscurity, and who had insisted to the other sceptical ones that the man was "all right," in spite of the misfortune of having been born in Italy instead of in Ireland. He had not hoped to be taken so completely at his word.

In this sympathetic atmosphere Vittorio expanded like a flower in the sunlight. He had suddenly become a social lion. His funny sayings were passed from mouth to mouth, and everybody on the place commenced conversing in Italian-English.

"Eh, Peta!" Billy hailed him one afternoon, "Mees Effel, she want-a go ride. She want-a you go too. I saddle dose horsa?"

"Aw, let up!" Peter growled. "We hears enough Dago talk without them as knows decent English havin' to make fools o' theirselves."

While Peter's private troubles were thus heavy upon him, his official responsibility increased. Mr. Carter was called away on business. On the morning of the departure, as they were starting for the station, Miss Ethel ran after them with a forgotten umbrella. "Take care of yourself, dad!" She kissed him good-bye, and stood on the veranda waving her handkerchief until the carriage was out of sight. Mr. Carter settled himself against the cushions with a sigh.

"What a world this would be without women!" he murmured.

"Yes, sir," Peter agreed gloomily, "an', beggin' yer pardon, what a hell of a world it is with 'em, sir."

The following few days strengthened this opinion. Vittorio's education progressed, while Annie still maintained her attitude of superior aloofness. Her manner was friendly—exactly as friendly to Peter as to any of the other men. The intangibility of the quarrel was what made it hardest to bear. Could he have punched some one it would have eased his mind, but in all fairness he was forced to acknowledge that the "Dago" was not to blame. The advances were blatantly from Annie's side.

In the meantime, however, a new complication had developed, which acted in a measure as a counter irritant. Mr. Carter's train was barely out of hearing, when the most extraordinary amount of petty thieving commenced. Nothing could be laid down anywhere about the place but that it immediately disappeared. There had been a number of Armenian women in the neighbourhood selling lace, and Peter would have suspected these had not the list of stolen articles been so unusual. It comprised the clothes-line, half a dozen sheets and the wash-boiler, six jars of jam from the cellar, and some bread and cake from the pantry window, a bundle of stakes for training the tomato plants, and Master Wallace's spelling book (he was having to study through vacation, and he bore the loss with composure), a Japanese umbrella-holder from the front veranda, a pair of lap-robes from the stable, and last, most uncanny touch of all, the family Bible! This had stood on the under shelf of the table in the library window, where it could be reached easily from the outside; but, as Peter dazedly inquired of the world in general, "Why the divvil should anyone be wantin' to take a Bible? It can't do him no good when it's stolen."

It was Annie who had discovered this last depredation in the course of her daily dusting. As yet the family had not noticed the loss of any of the articles, and Peter, fearing that the matter might reflect upon his own generalship, had hesitated about reporting it; none of the things were very valuable, and he had daily expected to find the thief. The boys knew, however, and took an open delight in the situation. Anything approaching a mystery was food and drink to them. They abandoned base-ball, and gave themselves over entirely to a consideration of the puzzle.

The day the lap-robes disappeared, they were gathered in a group outside the stable, Peter tipped back in an old armchair pulling furiously at his pipe, with a double frown the length of his brow, the four boys occupying the bench in an excited, chattering row.

"Perhaps the place is haunted!" Master Jerome put forth the suggestion with wide eyes.

"Haunted nothin'," Peter growled. "It was a pretty live ghost that got off with them lap-robes durin' the two minutes the stable was empty."

"They were the old ones," Bobby consoled him. "At least it was kind of him not to take the best ones when they were just as convenient."

"Do you fink it's gypsies?" Master Augustus asked the question with a fearful glance over his shoulder. He had been told that gypsies carried off bad little boys.

"I don't know what it is," Peter said sullenly, "but if I ever ketches anybody snooping about this place who has no business to snoop–" The sentence ended in a threatening silence.

The four boys looked at one another and shuddered delightedly.

"It's like a book," Master Wallace declared. "The miscreant has foiled us at every turn."

"Let's form a detective bureau!" Bobby rose to the occasion. "You can be chief of the local police, Peter. And since you find the mystery beyond your power to solve, you have called to your aid a private detective force—that's us. Jerome and Wallace and me can be detectives, and Augustus can be a policeman."

"I want to be a detective, too," objected Augustus.

"It's nice to be a policeman," soothed Bobby. "When we've tracked down the thief, we'll call to you and say, 'Officer, handcuff this man!' and you'll snap 'em on his wrist and lead him to jail."

"All right!" agreed Augustus. "Give 'em to me."

"Later, when we're on his track," said Bobby. "Now, Peter, you ought to plan a campaign. 'Course, you aren't expected to find out anything, the local police never do; but nominally we're under your orders, so you must tell us to shadow some one."

Peter had been staring into space only half at tending to their prattle. Bobby jogged his elbow.

"Pay attention, Peter! We're waiting for orders. You ought to detail two plain-clothes men to watch the gates, and I think it would be well to shadow Vittorio. He's a foreigner, you know; maybe he b'longs to the Black Hand. I shouldn't wonder if he was planning to blow up the stables. Only," he added, as an afterthought, "it's sort of hard shadowing a man who stands by the hedge all day talking to Annie."

Peter's frown darkened as his gaze sought the rustic bench under the apple tree. He had little spirit left for the boys' diversions, but he roused himself to say:

"I'll turn the details o' the case over to you, Master Bobby. Guard the gates, an' shadow anyone that seems suspicious. I'm drivin' Joe's wife to the hospital this afternoon; ye can report at six o'clock, when I gets back."

The four rose and saluted; they held a whispered consultation, and crept warily away in different directions. Peter watched them out of sight with a wan smile, then turned inside to hitch up. The ladies of the family were spending the day in the city on a midsummer shopping expedition, so he had no fear of any demands issuing from the house. He called the under-groom, gave him strict orders not to leave the stables alone a minute, and drove on to the cottage to pick up Joe's wife. She packed a basket for the invalid into the back of the cart, and climbed up beside Peter.