A Darling Of Misfortune

A shabby but joyous citizen of the world at large was Mr. Phelan Harrihan, as, with a soul wholly in tune with the finite, he half sat and half reclined on a baggage-truck at Lebanon Junction. He wag relieving the tedium of his waiting moments by entertaining a critical if not fastidious audience of three.

Beside him, with head thrust under his ragged sleeve, sat a small and unlovely bull-terrier, who, at each fresh burst of laughter, lifted a pair of languishing eyes to the face of his master, and then manifested his surplus affection by ardently licking the buttons on the sleeve of the arm that encircled him.

It was a moot question whether Mr. Harrihan resembled his dog, or whether his dog resembled him. That there was a marked similarity admitted of no discussion. If Corp’s nose had been encouraged and his lower jaw suppressed, if his intensely emotional nature had been under better control, and his sentimentality tempered with humor, the analogy would have been more complete. In taste, they were one. By birth, predilection, and instinct both were philosophers of the open, preferring an untrammeled life in Vagabondia to the collars and conventions of society. Both delighted in exquisite leisure, and spent it in pleased acquiescence with things as they are.

Some twenty-five years before, Phelan had opened his eyes upon a half-circle of blue sky, seen through the end of a canvas-covered wagon on a Western prairie, and having first conceived life to be a free-and-easy affair on a long, open road, he thereafter declined to consider it in any other light.

The only break in his nomadic existence was when a benevolent old gentleman found him, a friendless lad in a Nashville hospital, cursed him through a fever, and elected to educate him. Those were years of black captivity for Phelan, and after being crammed and coached for what seemed an interminable time, he was proudly entered at the University, where he promptly failed in every subject and was dropped at the mid-year term.

The old gentleman, fortunately, was spared all disappointment in regard to his irresponsible protégé, for he died before the catastrophe, leaving Phelan Harrihan a legacy of fifteen dollars a month and the memory of a kind, but misguided, old man who was not quite right in his head.

Being thus provided with a sum more than adequate to meet all his earthly needs, Phelan joyously abandoned the straight and narrow path of learning, and once more betook himself to the open road.

The call of blue skies and green fields, the excitement of each day’s encounter, the dramatic possibilities of every passing incident, the opportunity for quick and intimate fellowship, and above all an inherited and chronic disinclination for work, made Phelan an easy victim to that malady called by the casual tourist “wanderlust,” but known in Hoboland as “railroad fever.”

Only once a year did he return to civilization, don a stiff collar, and recognize an institution. During his meteoric career at the University he had been made a member of the Alpha Delta fraternity, in recognition of his varied accomplishments. Not only could he sing and dance and tell a tale with the best, but he was also a mimic and a ventriloquist, gifts which had proven invaluable in crucial conflicts with the faculty, and had constituted him a hero in several escapades. Of such material is college history made, and the Alpha Delta, recognizing the distinction of possessing this unique member, refused to accept his resignation, but unanimously demanded his presence at each annual reunion.

On June second, for five consecutive years, the ends of the earth had yielded up Phelan Harrihan; by a miracle of grace he had arrived in Nashville, decently appareled, ready to respond to his toast, to bask for his brief hour in the full glare of the calcium, then to depart again into oblivion.

It was now the first day of June and as Phelan concluded his tale, which was in fact an undress rehearsal of what he intended to tell on the morrow, he looked forward with modest satisfaction to the triumph that was sure to be his. For the hundredth time he made certain that the small brown purse, so unused to its present obesity, was safe and sound in his inside pocket.

During the pause that followed his recital, his audience grew restive.

“Go on, do it again,” urged the ragged boy who sold the sandwiches, “show us how Forty Fathom Dan looked when he thought he was sinking.

“I don’t dare trifle with me features,” said Phelan solemnly. “How much are those sandwiches. One for five, is it? Two for fifteen, I suppose. Well, here’s one for me, and one for Corp, and keep the change, kid. Ain’t that the train coming?”

“It’s the up train,” said the station-master, rising reluctantly; “it meets yours here. I’ve got to be hustling.”

Phelan, left without an audience, strolled up and down the platform, closely followed by Corporal Harrihan.

As the train slowed up at the little Junction, there was manifestly some commotion on board. Standing in the doorway of the rear car a small, white-faced woman argued excitedly with the conductor.

“I didn’t have no ticket, I tell you!” she was saying as the train came to a stop. “I ‘lowed I’d pay my way, but I lost my pocket-book. I lost it somewheres on the train here, I don’t know where it is!”

“I’ve seen your kind before,” said the conductor wearily; “what did you get on for when you didn’t have anything to pay your fare with?”

“I tell you I lost my pocket-book after I got on!” she said doggedly; “I ain’t going to get off, you daren’t put me off!”

Phelan, who had sauntered up, grew sympathetic. He, too, had experienced the annoyance of being pressed for his fare when it was inconvenient to produce it.

“Go ahead,” demanded the conductor firmly, “I don’t want to push you off, but if you don’t step down and out right away, I’ll have it to do.”