Bunker Bean

s a friendly young face he saw there, but troubled. The hair was pale, the eyes were pale, the nose small. The mouth was rather fine, cleanly cut and a little feminine. The chin w

ooks about this possible former self of his. He had early become impatient of written history because when it says sixteen hundred and something it means the seventeenth ce

ol. Aforetime he had dreamed of a street encounter, with some blustering bully twice his size, from which, thanks to his skill, he would em

on. He could almost remember Marengo-or was it Austerlitz? There was a vague but not distres

He would enter that store boldly to-morrow, give its proprietor glare for glare, and deman

glowered above his spectacles. But this time he faced

it is true, before

price of that d

a hand through upstanding white hair,

ll, I tell. Fifdy doll

ted to hear a hundred at least. Still, fift

t's his

bol

uld not belie

I giddim. You bed your life I gif him n

elt as

s a fi

e been glose to him, unt a soljus rides oop unt says, 'Ve gamp right here, not?' unt Naboleon he shneer awful unt say, 'Gamp here vere dey go inter dem cellus from der ganal-side unt get unter us unt blow us high wit bowder-you sheep's head! No; we gamp back in der Malibaan vere is old linden drees hunderd years

e Bean forget the dog. Once he had made people afraid. The w

ly-then faltered-"but I haven't the mone

me, say that same ofer lasd mont'

asures. Bean pressed seven d

ars every wee

scratched the head of the parrot that was incisively remarkin

mebbe you lige him, hey! He

ole

he saw in his morning paper was, "Young N

was gettin

young face he saw

eon of

finance immediately. He had reached the office penniless. He fir

ejested it yesterday. But you know how it is when a man'

to borrow money of Breede, not even on the day of his coronation. Tully, the chief clerk, was equally impossible. Tully's thick glasses magnified his eyes so that they were terrible to look at. Tu

ut a flash of true Napoleonic genius now enabled him to see precisely why Bulger had not succeeded. Metzeger lived for numerals, for columned digits alone. He carried thousands of them in his head and apparently little else. He could tell to the fraction of a

rounded above one of the ledgers, a green shade pulled well over his eyes, perhaps to conceal the too-

rd the other and spoke

I want to borro

ibly stiffened and

even cents until Saturday a

rveying him keenly fro

w m

eighty

With his fine-pointed pen he affectionately wrote the figures on a pad: "$5.87-12:10." They were i

the change

aced three pennies in a pocket, and Bean moved off with the sum he h

couldn't have done

he biting cold, and shivered, though the day was warm. There were pleasanter prints inside. In one, Napoleon with sternly folded arms gazed down at a sleeping sentry. In another he reviewed troops at Fontainebleau, and again, from an eminence, he overlooked a spirited battle, directing it with a masterly wave of his sabre.

examined several volumes. One was full of dreadful caricatures that the English had delighted in. He found this most o

id the officious clerk, and Bean went cold. H

he protested, and refused

titled "The Hundred Days." The latter had illustrations of the tomb, which he noted was in Paris. Its architecture impressed him, and his hands trembled as he held the book open. He had been buried with pomp, even with flamboyance. Robber and killer he mig

his glory of sepulchre there must be somet

"get about." He sympathized with the poor boy driven from his Corsican home, with the charity student of Brienne, with the young artillery officer, dreaming impossible dreams. But as lover-he blushed for that ruth

a couple of swell dames not invincibly austere, lacking the touch-and-go gal

o sue him, the invader, to soften him with blandishments. He had kept her waiting like a lackey, then had sought cynically to discover how far her devotion to her country's safety would carry her. And when her pitiful little basket of tricks had been emptied, her little traps sprung, he had sent her back to her

been, the man had conquered more than mere force may ever conquer. The Polish woman had come to love him; the

ce. He thought she would have been less bold if she could have known the man she looked at. He placed "Napoleon, Man an

conquering, where he passed, by the sheer magnetism of his personality! His spirit bounded as he read of this and of the frightened exit of that puny usurper before the mere rumour of his approach. Then that

t checked on his lips, the blood that ran faster in his veins at the recital, went to nourish a body that contained the essential part of that hero-he was readi

ere not three B's in his own name? The shameful truth is that he had been christened "Bunker Bunker Bean." His fond and foolish mother had thus ingenuously sought to placate the two old Uncle Bunkers; unsuccessfully, be it added, for each had affected to believe that he to

g from France, during a Huguenot persecution, to Protestant England where the true name "de Boncoeur" had been corrupted to "Bunker." At the time of his earlie

er body, should have selected one of distinguished French ance

or disturbed he would resort to the shell-a thing he had clung tenaciously to through a

nsue. He was already bolder in the public eye. If people stared superciliously at him, he sometimes stared b

of room for the dog. And it seemed about the only field of adventure left for this peculiar genius. He began to think about making money. He knew vaguely how this was done: you bought stocks and then waited for the melon to be cut. You got on the inside of things. You were found to have bought up securities that tre

even cents. One less gifted as to human nature would have said, "Thank you!" and laid down five dollars and ninety cents. Bean fell into n

orld Had Ever Known. This figure had loomed in his mind that week bigger at times than all his past incarnations. He was going to forego a sight of his dog in order to be early on the gr

t was being adjusted when the door of th

a!" sai

the recipient of a second funeral in Paris. Keeping Bean from a ball game aroused that one-time self of his as perhaps nothing else would have done. But Br

er lu

d Bean, m

ome quick

st now. The aft

s a miniature explosion

on,

, now perceived for the first time. He grew careless of concealing his attitude. Once he stared at Breede's detached cuffs with a scorn so malevolent that Breede turned them about on the desk to examine them himself. Bean went wh

ified his notes with a swift summary of Breede's character which only the man's bitterest enemies would have approved. At what he thought was two o'clock he stripped him of the last shreds of moral decency. When three o'clock seemed to arrive he did not dare put down, even in secretive shorthand, what he felt could justly be said of Bre

four-thirty a spirited

" yelle

flapper. Bre

e 'trol of comp'ny by promise of creatin' stock script on div'd

wholly in earnest. Bean became aware of it at Breede's first pause. At any other time he would have lowered his eyes before an

ys looked first at a woman's shoes and lost interest in her if those were not acceptable-were of tan leather and low, with decently high heels. (He loathed common-sense shoes on women.) The hose were of tan silk. So far he approved. She wore a tailored suit of blue and had removed the jacket. The shi

ote yet not impersonal. He indignantly tried to out-stare her, but the thing was simply not to be done. Even looking down at her feet steadily didn't dash her brazennes

basis rather than th' spec'lative policy of larger an' fluc'c

dden noisy putting away of paper

im, in open-mouthed

ps!" said

at time's 'at

id Bean, st

oked at h

time to

desk. Bean arose.

ar," said Breede

from about his sudden

pointed to t

onday noon. C'mon

as incredible as th

ance at the flapper, and deeming that h

ean, dazedly. The flapper jer

hut him in. Once it lifted and he suffered a vision of himself in a swiftly propelled motor-car, beside an absorbed mechanician. He half turned in his seat and met the cool, stead

ask. The Greatest Pitcher the World Has Ever Known stood nonchalantly in the box, stooped for a handful of earth and with i

at on his left was a peculiar young woman. He promptly forgot their identitie

ternize across deeps that are commonly impassable, thrilling as one man to the genius of the double-play, or with one voice hurling merited insults at a remote and contemptuous umpire. It is only there, on e

with distended eyes and tense half-voices, besought some panting runner to "Come on! Come on, you! Oh, come on!" There were other moments of supreme joy when they were blown to their feet and backs were impartially pounded. More than once they

an then. It was one freed soul communicating with another. He none too gently put Breede right in the matter of Wagner's batting average for

aid he was too old-all of thi

with crisp sapience. "How about old Cy Young? How about old Callahan of the

at the man of mill

third and second, th

y, there?"

s up there hadn't gone foamy in the fighting-top and tried to hit that policeman over by the fence with the ball,

ectful, and the flapper

r, a none too certain single brought in the winning run. The clinging trio shrieked-then dazedly fell ap

he was trying to recall the fellow's face. One could f

uble nod. The motor chugged violently. Bean, moving on a few steps, turned. The flapper was looking back. She stared an instant

lden brown of the new dog. He recalled little details of her face, the short upper lip, the forward chin, the breadth of the brow. There was something disconcerting about that brow and the eyes like her father's-probably have her own way! Then he remembered that he must have noticed a badge pinned to the left lapel of a jacket that had been fashion

through the smile tha

on's grinding work, the grim old man at the

ood

Bean, as he c

other circumstance was an area of rich yellowish purple on the arm which Breede had madly gripped in moments of ec