How Mrs. Binnywig Checked the King [pp. 513-529]

How zMrs. Bziniiywig Checked the King.
Pawn, who was nothing if not a little
man, standing on the front platform,
and paying for himself "and that lady"
out of the store of nickels hoarded in
his small skirt pocket. He was a strange
boy, absurdly imitative within certain
lines, intensely independent in matters
where few would expect a small boy to
assert himself.
On reaching the terminus of the cable road in the center of town, Mrs.
Binnywig descended, and made her way
to an office building on Lasalle Street,
for the address of which she referred to
a card in her satchel. The firm she
visited were evidently engaged in some
important and large line of business,
and Mrs. Binnywig after sending in her
card was promptly shown into the private
office of the head partner, leaving the
Pawn in the outer office. He remained
quietly seated on the stool that had
been placed for him, until his attention
was engaged by the two clerks nearest
to him, who thought him the jolliest
specimen of embryo manhood that had
recently enlivened their dull routine of
business. They joked with and guyed
him, without being able to disturb his
serenity, and gave him nickels and
chewing-gum which he accepted with
dignity, and stowed away in the proper
receptacles. All this kept him from
fretting at his mother's prolonged absence, so that when, an hour later, she
emerged from the inner office accompanied by the manager, she was glad to
find him cheerfully engaged.
" I will consult with my cousin, then,
and let you know decidedly at the end
of the week," Mrs. Binnywig was saying
as she came out, obsequiously attended
by the grand mogul of the firm.
"Very good, Madam," assented that
potentate. "Then if you will let us know
by the I5th, at latest, we will accept the
contract for some date between the 25th
and 30th, and will notify you twentyfour hours previous to the exact hour
at which the men will be ready."
"And you'fully understand the con
ditions of secrecy?"
"Certainly; your wishes in that respect shall be carefully observed."
This concluded Mrs. Binnywig's business for the day, and she returned to
the bosom of her family.
1II.
MR. BINNYWIG'S term of detention at
the Inebriate Home was nearly over.
He had lived through the three days'
strict seclusion in "Bromide Hall " behind locked doors, exacted of all arrivals,
and had submitted with resignation
to the doses of bromide of potassium,
from which this section of the institution derives its name. They were
"mean, salty draughts," to swallow
three times a day; but he knew their
usefulness of old. He had dispatched
nine frugal meals of beef tea, flanked
by a not too generous piece of bread;
and with fruitless gluttony had never
failed each time to ask for more. But
the rules of Bromide Hall are very
strict. It was organized to encourage
low living and high thinking in new arrivals, whose stomachs are theoretically
"rotten" as a result of constant steeping in alcohol; so the beef tea and bread
was all he got. He had then signed the
usual papers, pledging himself to remain
in the Home for thirty days, or until
discharged by the board of management; after which he was permitted
the wild dissipation of freedom amongst
the other inmates in the body of the
institution.
There he had discovered two other
newspaper men, friends of his own, and
about eighty strangers, mostly in a condition of whisky-flavored repentance,
and animated, with few exceptions, by
an "ardent spirit" of intended reform.
For three weeks he had smoked the
pipe of peace and friendship among
them, and had attended the course of
some thirty lectures delivered by the
518
[Nov.