Barbran

Immediately upon hearing of my fell design MacLachan, the tailor, paid a visit of protest to my bench.

"Is it true fact that I hear, Dominie?"

"What do you hear, MacLachan?"

"That ye're to make one of yer silly histories about Barbran?"

"Perfectly true," said I, passing over the uncomplimentary adjective.

"'Tis a feckless waste of time."

"Very likely."

"'Twill encourage the pair, when a man of yer age and influence in Our Square should be dissuadin' them."

"Perhaps they need a friendly word."

MacLachan frowned. "Ye're determined?"

"Oh, quite!"

"Then I'll give ye a title for yer romance."

"That's very kind of you. Give it."

"The Story of Two Young Fools. By an Old One," said MacLachan witheringly, and turned to depart.

"Mac!"

"What?"

"Wait a moment."

I held him with my glittering eye. Also, in case that should be inadequate, with the crook of my cane firmly fixed upon his ankle.

"I'll waste na time from the tailorin'," began the Scot disdainfully, but paused as I pointed a loaded finger at his head. "Well?" he said, showing a guilty inclination to flinch.

"Mac, was I an original accomplice in this affair?"

"Will ye purtend to deny--"

"Did I scheme and plot with Cyrus the Gaunt and young Stacey?"

MacLachan mumbled something about undue influence.

"Did I get arrested?"

MacLachan grunted.

"In a cellar?"

MacLachan snorted.

"With my nose painted green?"

MacLachan groaned. "There was others," he pleaded.

"A man of your age and influence in Our Square," I interrupted sternly, "should have been dissuading them."

"Arr ye designin' to put all that in yer sil--in yer interestin' account?"

"Every detail."

MacLachan dislodged my crook from his leg, gave me such a look as mid-Victorian painters strove for in pictures of the Dying Stag, and retired to his Home of Fashion.

       * * * * *

That men of the sobriety and standing of Cyrus the Gaunt, MacLachan, Leon Coventry, the Little Red Doctor, and Boggs (I do not count young Phil Stacey, for he was insane at the time, and has been so, with modifications and glorifications, ever since) should paint their noses green and frequent dubious cellars, calls for explanation. The explanation is Barbran.

Barbran came to us from the immeasurable distances; to wit, Washington Square.

Let me confess at once that we are a bit supercilious in our attitude toward the sister Square far to our West, across the Alps of Broadway. Our Square was an established center of the social respectabilities when the foot of Fifth Avenue was still frequented by the occasional cow whose wanderings are responsible for the street-plan of Greenwich Village. Our Square remains true to the ancient and simple traditions, whereas Washington Square has grown long hair, smeared its fingers with paint and its lips with free verse, and gone into debt for its inconsiderable laundry bills. Washington Square we suspect of playing at life; Our Square has a sufficiently hard time living it. We have little in common.

Nevertheless, it must be admitted that there are veritable humans, not wholly submerged in the crowd of self-conscious mummers who crowd the Occidental park-space, and it was at the house of one of these, a woman architect with a golden dream of rebuilding Greenwich Village, street by street, into something simple and beautiful and, in the larger sense urban, that the Bonnie Lassie, whose artistic deviations often take her far afield, met Barbran.

They went for coffee to a queer little burrow decorated with improving sentiments from the immortal Lewis Carroll which, Barbran told the Bonnie Lassie, was making its blue-smocked, bobbed-haired, attractive and shrewd little proprietress quite rich. Barbran hinted that she was thinking of improving on the Mole's Hole idea if she could find a suitable location, not so much for the money, of course--her tone implied a lordly indifference to such considerations--as for the fun of the thing.

The Bonnie Lassie was amused but not impressed. What did impress her about Barbran was a certain gay yet restful charm; the sort of difficult thing that our indomitable sculptress loves to catch and fix in her wonderful little bronzes. She set about catching Barbran.

Now the way of a snake with a bird is as nothing for fascination compared to the way of the Bonnie Lassie with the doomed person whom she has marked down as a subject. Barbran hesitated, capitulated, came to the Bonnie Lassie's house, moused about Our Square in a rapt manner and stayed. She rented a room from the Angel of Death ("Boggs Kills Bugs" is the remainder of his sign, which is considered to lend tone and local interest to his whole side of the Square), just over Madame Tallafferr's apartments, and, in the course of time, stopped at my bench and looked at me contemplatively. She was a small person with shy, soft eyes.

"The Bonnie Lassie sent you," said I.

She nodded.

"You've come here to live--Heaven only knows why--but we're glad to see you. And you want to know about the people; so the Bonnie Lassie said, 'Ask the Dominie; he landed here from the ark.' Didn't she?"

Barbran sat down and smiled at me.

"Having sought information," I pursued, "on my own account, I learn that you are the only daughter of a Western millionaire ranch-owner. How does it feel to revel in millions?"

"Romantic," said she.

"Of course you have designs upon us."

"Yes."

"Humanitarian, artistic, or sociological?"

"Oh, nothing long and clever like that."

"You grow more interesting. Having designs upon us, you doubtless wish my advice."

"No," she answered softly: "I've done it already."

"Rash and precipitate adventuress! What have you done already?"

"Started my designs. I've rented the basement of Number 26."

"Are you a rag-picker in disguise?"

"I'm going to start a coffee cellar. I was thinking of calling it 'The Coffee Pot.' What do you think?"

"So you do wish my advice. I will give it to you. Do you see that plumber's shop next to the corner saloon?" I pointed to the Avenue whose ceaseless stream of humanity flows past Our Square without ever sweeping us into its current. "That was once a tea-shop. It was started by a dear little, prim little old maiden lady. The saloon was run by Tough Bill Manigan. The little old lady had a dainty sign painted and hung it up outside her place, 'The Teacup.' Tough Bill took a board and painted a sign and hung it up outside his place; 'The Hiccup.' The dear little, prim little old maiden lady took down her sign and went away. Yet there are those who say that competition is the life of trade."

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